Master Copies and Emulations

If anyone's curious about my method of study, which no one has really inquired about yet, but I'm going to share anyway, is I find the "Master Copy" and "Emulation" one of the fastest and best means of learning art.

1. Copy a master. In this example I copied Dan Lee.

2. Emulate the style.

Both images done by me, the bottom is the copy, from Ratatouille.

A few more pages...

I liked these ones so I thought I'd share!

The Spanish Mermaid

I have some new work! To see my updated portfolio, visit my portfolio blog.

Interview with Armand Serrano

Hey all! I was honored with the privilege of interviewing Armand Serrano, one of the art directors at Sony Pictures Animation! We posted it as BYU Animation's first podcast! For BYU people out there, talk to Aaron Ludwig if you want to be a part of the podcasting team.

Armand's interview can be found at the BYU Animation Blog.

Diary of a Small Supermarket

The BYU Creamery on Ninth sells balloons, and I was there buying some when I noticed a peculiar notebook in the corner. It was a diary. Of the supermarket. Apparently the employees communicate problems from night crew to morning stockers via this little notebook, but it contained some golden entries.

Enjoy!









This Michael is actually a girl and she married, you guessed it--a Michael. He's a Jr.

The soulbone's connected to the good drawing bone

Bones are like souls--they only show through sometimes, but it's always at really important junctures.

The tany below is a marvelous work in real life--I spent a good 30 min studying it and whoever sculpted knew his anatomy...very, very well. He didn't have tension and relaxation down, but mass, volume, and twisting where all there. I was looking at a real dinosaur.

These were drawn sometime last summer...along with 3-4 (or more) other sketchbooks of this stuff.

If you're wondering eremotherium is Science for "giant sloth." I had a great joke about what it really means, but am exercising my right to discretion...*sigh* ...it was really funny, but alas, also terribly inappropriate...

Graphic Novels

So my friend Jake Wyatt lent me Blankets-- the first graphic novel I've read. I've never been too into comic books (a sin?), but I have a big story I think would work great for the medium. Seeing as it will take 5 years of my life you will definitely hear about it if it decide to do it.

Early Winter Sunset

Few things are as inspiring as a snowy mountain sunset.

A unique advantage of studying at BYU is having a giant white "Y" on our mountain as we have a perfect reference for what an absolute white looks like in the lighting scheme. Pretty cool.

Gestures

A few quick gestures. Much finished artwork to come soon.

Dream

Just woke up from a dream, started fiddling with my phone, and found
Autodesk Sketchbook. I am absolutely certain it stomps on other
sketching and painting programs for the iPhone. Very intuitive and
sleek. Thanks, Autodesk, for making the free version uber useful!

These are sequential images

Please leave the story in a comment if you can imagine a relationship between the two images. Yes I painted them one right after the other so your guess is as good as any. I don't know how they relate myself.

Where Clouds Play - Redone

I was not happy with the first draft so I went at it again. While I think there is a distinct improvement I'm not really sure how I feel about the piece. I can't decide whether it's over done or not...

New Avatar

In honor of nothing in particular I have changed my avatar from my famous mullet picture. I received many many requests from women to change the picture (it was too scary I think), and I did quite a while ago on Facebook, but I wanted something more artsy here. So I painted this.

30 minute value studies

Can't sleep.

The second one was hard.

Sketches from the weekend

Zion Design

Here's another Zion-inspired design. Yes I know they don't have oceans like this at Zion National Park. Thank you.

Jenna Kimble's Flying Monkey

I did a CD cover about a month ago that featured this flying monkey.

Fun with Skeletons @ Thanksgiving Point!

According to the freeway signs, I live next to the largest dinosaur museum on the planet...hmm...Somehow I find that a little improbable. At an rate, I figured if they could claim to be the biggest it was probably worth the $10 entrance fee, and it was! The top two images are from a Gastonia (a type of Anklyosaur). The bottom is a crocodile skull. Did you know crocodiles have been around since the time of dinosaurs? That was news to me! Anyway it is a lot of fun.