Assignment 15

2/23
This is a link to SideBar, a comics website that has a link at the bottom to an audio interview with Marko Djurdjevic, one of the founders of Massive Black and serious contender for one of the most talented artists alive. Completely worth your time and it’ll inspire anybody – the second link is a different text interview –

Audio Download
Text Interview

Assignment 14

2/18 Review your goals from the beginning of the quarter and evaluate your progress

At this point in the quarter things have been going good, I admittedly am a whole lot less jazzed about my Industrial Design project than I was at the beginning of the quarter, but that really isn’t anything new.

The work I’ve been able to do for my Independent Study and DesComm is really getting me the practice I need. It’s much nicer not having to break my concept art stride to sketch products that I’m not really interested in, and sketching characters is keeping me sane.

Assignment 13

2/16
Write about your individual strengths as a designer and how you focus on them

As a designer I am much better at sketching than 3D modeling and vector work. I prefer to put pencil to paper/stylus to cintiq than use a mouse in any way. I’m doing my best to enhance not only my visual palette but my mechanical skill and speed. When it comes to the type of art and design that I want to make a career of (toys/concept art), the theory that drives the design is just as important as the mechanical skill that it takes to accurately communicate it. I’m doing my best to spend as much time as possible developing this skillsets and tailoring my projects to them.

Assignment 12

Assignment 11

2/9
Write your definition for good design (concept art), showing three examples

A good piece of concept art in my opinion communicates an emotion and story, whether it’s a static posed character, an environment or a weapon. The artwork has to have a definite “feel” that isn’t up to many variations of interpretation. While some of the artwork may have its roots in abstracted form, the point of concept art is that it is meant to convey very specifically action, character emotion, story direction, whatever.

Its meaning or purpose that people interpret from just one look is meant to be similar to the next guy’s interpretation.

These are some of the best examples by current Massive Black, Inc. artists.

http://mandrykart.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/at_the_end_of_the_world.jpg

http://www.manwithoutfear.com/interviews/DD097.jpg

http://www.casbot.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/03_10_2008_0290509001223042162_jason_chan.jpg

Sidenote Post 2

This is a quick overview of El Coro’s (a Massive Black artists) process of making weaponry – it definitely has some application to product design because he incorporates 3D modeling to create multiple views as well as the extremely important “reverse” view.

Sidenote Post 1

Everyone look at Ryan Church’s site. His stuff is amazing, and there are links to his tutorial DVDs and gallery. I know no one has money laying around, but if you’re going to invest in anything art related, his Intro to Painter and Rendering Matte Vehicles DVDs are completely worth the time and money.

http://www.ryanchurch.com/index.htm

This is also some quick composition some dude has made of some keyframe art of Ryan Church back to back with the final frames of film.