The Archive.

In The Works...January 27, 2009.

Something I put together towards the end of last week. A pic of Meryl Silverburgh, of Metal Gear fame.

In The Works...January 1, 2009.

Trying to get the New Year started of right with a new portrait.

In The Works...December 21, 2008.

Here's a portrait I drew up of my new niece, Marie.

In The Works...December 20, 2008.

I've been devoting my free drawing time to developing the art for a new iPhone game called "Forge of Evil." Developed by Boston-based PME Software, here's the game overview:

FoE is a turn-based tactical game for the iPhone. The battlefield is a MxN board with tiles depicting the type of terrain. Units occupy tiles on the board, 1 to a space. Each unit has certain attributes, such as range, line of sight (LOS), attack range, hit points, firepower, defense, and special abilities. The player will move and attack with his units, attempting to destroy his computer opponent on the battlefield. A simple economics model is in place, which determines how many resources the player has to create new units. The player increases his economic power by capturing and controlling castles. Also, the player can capture and control Wizard Towers, which increase the amount of mana the player has available. Mana can be used to cast powerful magic spells on the battlefield. These include fireballs, lightning bolts, earthquakes, healing and more. Random treasure chests can appear on the battlefield, granting the player who discovers them a free unit, resources, or mana. A battle is over when the player has destroyed his opponents units, captured the opponent's 'home castle', or completed the mission objective.

It's been a fun challenge so far, especially since this is my first exposure to pixel art and animation. I've made a logo and a launch icon, though both are awaiting approval. I'll also be handling the website, which will feature developer blogs, concept art, etc. Here's a few of the static characters that may or may not be featured in the game:

In The Works...October 31, 2008.

Happy Halloween! Drew up a new pic inspired by cool flicks like "The Kingdom" and "Body of Lies."

In The Works...October 29, 2008.

Scored a 95 on the concept works I posted and the thing that would've helped me score higher was to have made the light on night version of the character pic a lot warmer, better depicting torchlight. Good stuff. I just wrapped up the tiling textures portion of the class, and learned some amazing stuff I can't wait to try on a model I make in Maya. The plan is to take the Maya class after this class.

In The Works...October 20, 2008.

October's been very hectic! Went to Miami and then spent a weekend in Houston, so it was all fun. Wrapped up lesson 2 of my Photoshop for Game Artists class, where I was tasked with creating day and night versions of a character and of an environment. Here are my pics, I wanted to draw my own but for time's sake I used illustrations provided by Fabio Pagletti for the class.

• Character - Day
• Character - Night
• Environment - Day
• Environment - Night

In The Works...September 26, 2008.

New pic inspired by next week's release of Silent Hill 5. I enjoyed modeling the light, but I'm thinking of removing the kid.

Just got graded on my first sessions.edu assignment, which was to discuss perspective, values, etc with the goal of building the art vocabulary and to understand the elements that make a successful image. I scored a 92.

In The Works...September 21, 2008.

Just added a pic based on some very cool sculptures I saw while in Washington DC a couple months back. They were carved onto keystones atop every window's arch on some government building just outside of the subway, heading towards the Smithsonian. They were kinda high up and easy to miss, but very awesome.

In The Works...September 20, 2008.

I started an online course titled "Photoshop for Game Artists" at sessions.edu. Some of the lessons include understanding Photoshop's role in creating game art and texture maps, creating basic tiling textures for terrain and buildings using reference imagery and brushes, and developing an understanding of UV textures and how they map 2D textures to 3D objects. I can't wait to get my work critiqued by an professional with industry experience.

I drew up a portrait of my mom to add to the portraits gallery.

In The Works...September 14, 2008.

Used another of my photos from last week's field trip to downtown San Antonio to make this UFO pic, which was also inspired by some of the cool Resistance 2 concept art I've seen.

In The Works...September 10, 2008.

Took a field trip to downtown San Antonio and took some shots over the weekend, which I used as the subject for an urbanscape pic. I really enjoyed painting in the negative spaces, and was pleased with the results my newly designed brick and palm tree bark brushes yielded. I'd like to turn this into a series of drawings based on some other pics of downtown SA I took.

Just got back from this week's drawing session, check out the blurry result.

In The Works...September 3, 2008.

This week's drawing session result is in.

In The Works...August 31, 2008.

A couple more pics to add. A dude with an M-14, and the Incredible Hulk rampaging all over an aircraft carrier.

In The Works...August 30, 2008.

Started the long weekend off right with a Star Wars pic. The plan is to produce a few more pics this weekend, so stay tuned. Take a look at the results from Wednesday's figure drawing session. The model moved a bunch between breaks, which was the source of some frustration.

In The Works...August 26, 2008.

In college I did probably a thousand self-portraits. So many, that I could do them without using reference. I'll have to dig those up at my parents' house and post them here. Until then, here's a new self-portrait. In addition, things at work have calmed down substantially, so it looks like I'll be attending my first figure drawing session in about a month!

In The Works...August 24, 2008.

Drew up a Mass Effect pic for a club on DeviantArt. I definitely feel like I have improved in terms of speed, and being able to capture accurately the image I have painted in my head before beginning. In addition, I am starting to trust my strokes way more as well.

In The Works...August 18, 2008.

Took the day off to watch the Olympics, play Rainbow Six 2, and came up with a new pic. It was a good day.

In The Works...August 16, 2008.

Finished the urban warfare concept pic. I've gotten into the bad habit of just eyeballing my perspective lines, and I vow to set up a more rigid structure with my next pic.

In The Works...August 12, 2008.

Started a new urban warfare concept pic. Still in progress.

In The Works...August 9, 2008.

Here's a portrait one — two punch. Pretty productive day!

In The Works...July 31, 2008.

I have another portrait to add to the portraits gallery. Again, work was too crazy to attend the weekly figure drawing session.

In The Works...July 27, 2008.

Sadly, work was way too hectic for me to attend the weekly figure drawing session, but I drew up a portrait study of The Edge and of my dad.

In The Works...July 21, 2008.

I am continuing my self-education by this week by focusing on portraits. Achieving a likeness is obviously a goal, but more importantly I plan on using what I've learned so far from "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. I've only gotten past the first couple chapters but I've learned some incredible info, primarily teaching myself to view the subject as abstract shapes instead of as an eye, a lip, a forehead, etc, so that the right brain can execute on it's own. Brilliant!

In The Works...July 18, 2008.

Just finished watching the first half of Coro's Weapon Design video and decided to try my hand at sketching up some weapons. I also have my figure drawing from Wednesday's Coppini drawing session this past week.

In The Works...July 12, 2008.

New pic just posted, inspired by some cool WWII planes my dad and I saw circling over head on July 3.

In The Works...July 7, 2008.

I have established an art curriculum for myself to follow over the next few months, to sharpen my technical skills. For this week, I am focusing on hands, and will study the bone structure and produce hand-centric drawings every night for this week. Other upcoming topics will serve to address weak spots and to gain a better understanding of anatomy as a whole.

Developing the necessary skills to be a concept artist has been pretty much the only thing on mind. What also has helped are the Massive Black video downloads. Anyways, here's a practice pic I busted out last past week. Oh, and here's another one, too.

In The Works...June 30, 2008.

So in my attempt to dedicate myself 100% and learn and improve as much as humanly possible, I've been attending local life drawing sessions at Coppini Academy in San Antonio on Wednesdays. It's been great fun and I've met some great people, as well as had the chance to draw uninterrupted for a few hours in a row.

I have a couple pics; from the last session, and my first session. My goal while there is to be fearless and not shy away from any challenge and work with as few censors and extra thought that may make me otherwise tentative. I like the results so far!

In The Works...June 22, 2008.

Finished the Metal Gear pic which I started last week. It was a blast and a challenge to do. My goals were to focus again on composition and lighting, two big areas I need to constantly improve on.

In The Works...June 16, 2008.

Started a Metal Gear pic, inspired by the new PS3 game, which is incredible.

In The Works...June 13, 2008.

So I purchased ArtRage an impressive painting program with lots of creative tools and ideas that Photoshop and Painter don't have. I love the new rulers, rotate abilities, stencils and refernce pin—ups. I whipped up a quick sketch with it and think it'll come in very handy, especially in the early stages of an illustration.

In The Works...June 1, 2008.

New month, new pic! My goals were to really focus on composition, believable depth, and took some chances rendering out some semi—transparent cloth.

I watched The Fall, and it was brilliant. Tarsem is an exceptionally–visual director with an amazing eye for color. Aside from the wonderful and surreal imagery, the story was quite good. I recommend it!

In The Works...May 30, 2008.

I couldn't sleep this morning, so I started an Arabian Nights/Sinbad-themed bit of concept work. The color palette is inspired by the trailer for The Fall, which I think hits theaters today and I'm dying to check out. This pic should be done Saturday or Sunday.

In The Works...May 25, 2008.

A most productive weekend! Check out the untitled Loch Ness–themed concept. It's missing some sort of compositional elements to hold it together, as the negative space is too overwhelming. My goal with this one was to start introducing storytelling elements to my work, with the goal of engaging the viewer on more than just a visual level. I feel the viewer should wonder about the characters and let their imagination fill in the moments leading up to the instant that is presented in the illustration.

The other new pic seems to lack depth, like the jungle environment is just a curtain. I've identified this lack of believable depth as a weakness and will be working towards realizing better solutions.

In The Works...May 18, 2008.

Dino Art is finished! It proved to be a great learning experience as I created a bunch of specific brushes for the foliage, and made frequent use of flipping the canvas horizontally so the new perspective would help to highlight flaws in the base drawing. I also frequently dropped all the layers, forcing myself to be less precious with the piece as a whole. I enjoyed the process!

In The Works...May 17, 2008.

I'm currently working on a dinosaur—themed bit of concept art, and starting on Introducing Maya 8. Learning a new tool is always daunting, but I'm excited to see what I can produce with it. This will also give me an excuse to work on drawing up some textures, especially since my XBox 360 went down due to a case of the Red Rings of Death.