Kit Forming

It is about time I updated here with my latest activities. The same ones that kept me busy hence the lack of posts. heh As if I didn't have enough assignments as it is, my teacher likes to make sure we are truly suffering by throwing in home work assignments here and there. But I'm not really complaining because these quick little "speed arts" that I call them are really great for keeping your mind sharp and thinking creatively.
Our only criteria for these assignments is a technique that I hold very high and is now a common tool I use regularly in my tool box: Kit Forming. After "seeing the light " of how poerful such a simple thing is, I often wonder why it has never been mentioned in art books or taught in other institutions, granted my teacher is the only one to really perfect it, he's been teaching it for years, and yet it has never caught on anywhere else.
To briefly explain what it is exactly is simply this:
And this applys to all mediums in the arts, or even to your daily life if you allow it.
So, just like any model kit you see in hobby stores, by simply breaking down what it is that you want to do in the most BASIC fundamental shapes (circle, square, triangle, oval), tasks or movements, you can make and do ANYTHING. And trust me when I say anything. Not only do you do it faster, you are more efficient and the quality is MUCH better. You can make yourself look like a pro if you take this seriously.
So how about a visual example? But of course! Here is the sketch, break down and final result of my my first assignment.

I call this piece "The Light keeper" (inspired by Cirque du Soleil and fairy tail illustrations, the creepy ones haha):


SketchBreakdown
ResultAs you can see it looks different from the sketch, and that's perfectly fine. Part of doing this too is to make you elaborate and expand your ideas. And more often then not your finished product will look a lot better then your original idea.

I have a second kit formed sculpture, but unfortunately I forgot to take a pic of it before I took it to school to turn in. I will get that taken on Monday and updated here as soon as I can, but for now I'll show you the idea I was working with, another piece I'm quite proud of. Apperently I'm on some kind of weird creature kick. haha I dunno, they are just so fun to create.

I call this "The Tyrant". The white King of chess:
Breakdown
The result pretty much looks pretty close to the sketch with some artistic liberties, but all in all it came out a lot better then I thought it would. I also hope to get some more "professional" shots taken of these after they have been fired and glazed. But those you'll have to be patient with for it usually takes till the end of the semester for that process to happen. But I will get as many preliminary shots in of them as I can as well of everything else I'm doing this semester. I will keep up to date with work in progress shots as time goes and at the end have the "professional" shots of them finished. You have lots to look forward too. I just hope I'm still alive at the send of all this. lol
But for now I'll leave you with a little sneak preview of what I'm working on right this min:

Hmm, what is this that I'm making here, a flux compacitor perhaps? Only time will tell. ;)

-Chris

The last picture looks like computer parts. I've dissected and constructed them so I'd hope I know what I'm talking about. But you're artsy so I'm guessing my hope of you ever having a proper computer is not the answer. If those are the parts from your crappy computer then I'll do a happy dance because that thing needs to die a horrible death... and put on display for all to see. What better way than a sculpture! Call it Failure. Of course I'm probably wrong since if you didn't have a computer you probably wouldn't be posting on the blog.... Unless you're inventive like me. I love visual basic it got me passed school security by making a browser ten... twelve years ago or something. You wouldn't believe how easy they are to make. It boggles my mind that people like AOL would totally fail at making browsers. Makes me wonder if they fail on purpose.

As for your creepy light dude... he looks pretty cool as a sculpture and less creepy if you overlook he has a clown suit. Clowns are creepy to me. I don't like clowns. No matter how cute you make the sketch or sculpture there is no bypassing me associating clowns as creepy. Obviously the only "circus" I'll watch is your inspiration. I lived in Vegas where they have shows all the time! I'm so mad I never got to see one. I saw the Blue Man Group and Tournament of Kings. I saw a Chevelle and Evanescence concert there (the only two bands worth mentioning at least.. there were two more but they didn't fit and sucked). But NOT Cirque du Soleil. There is something wrong with that. Mystere and Zumanity looks really interesting. I'll have to remedy this.

~Amy

Story Time

Ok, so I know I have a shit load of things I need to be working on right now. But just the other day I had this idea to start doing little exercises to help spark the creative juices in my brain. One such thing actually came to me in the place I least expected it, my tutor/English class. The teacher gave us a group assignment of 4 people each starting a story, then passing to the left and have the next person continuing where you left off. I think I've done this before but that was WAYYYY back in high school. lol (man I feel old..) This exerciseswas great, because oyu had 4 different stories being passed around ond ole a few mins to make your contribution to it. This forces you to flex that giant muscle up there for sure! What really made it interesting was that of the range of different styles, moods and perspectives in each story. That's what I found the most stimulating, you basically had to keep flipping your bipolar switch off and on just so you can stay with the flow. haha Anyways, what this whole post is about is the story I started and was finnished by my group members. When I got my paper back I was wholy suprised what they added; for clareification, I started off with a very angsty, moody piece mostly reflected from past issues I had with myself and the struggles of growing up. (I'm sure most people had the same issues lol) I think what really impressed me the most was the fact that my group all individually decided to stay with my original theme. Keep in mind, they could have turned down any road at will if they wanted to, making it silly or just not caring and adding random ramblings. This touched me and inspired me to keep this story and share it. I only wish I could colaborate like this more. If you can get some really cool people together, so many awesome things can be acconmplished. But will find a way to icorporate this idea into my daily activities so I can stay creative. Damn, I think I rambled on too long. lol I kinda want to do something with this story, but not sureon it, somehow elaborate on it, maybe make a light novel? Anyways, enjoy the short story. :)

The Complicated Business of Growing Up

Born in a little town, making long term goals can sometimes seem impossible. Pressure from family doesn't make it any easyer. "Easy for them to be critical, they all knew what they wanted to be from the very beginning!" Chris is a boy that always dreamed, but never of anything realistic. Head always in the clouds and feet rarely on the ground. His childhood was never bad, but what was expected of a kid? Things only started getting worse the older he got. And so did the pressure to find himself in life. "How am I suppose figure anything out, everyone keeps sufficating me."
"Hey Chris, snap out of it." Said Dee, his childhood friend since middle school. "You're doing it again."
"Doing what?" he said as he slowly started to come back to earth. Dee was a dreamer too. Probably the reason why they got along so well. But Dee was a different kind of dreamer, she dreamt of becomming a Pro Wrestler. "Ok! After class, twenty more laps. Maybe today I can beat my old record." Dee mused to her self as Chris sighed and slowly faded away into the receses of his mind.
As the two sat silent deep in though of ambitiously making plans for the rest of the day and the usual griping of what to even do, an upper classman walk up to them. *Sigh* "Are you guys at it again?" Kathy, who was the head of the student council and one of the most popular girls on campus. Also long time friends of both Dee and Chris. "You know, your dreams are good ones." she said. "You just need to be more realistic about them. For instance, I've wanted to be a novelist, but I had to get a second job because the the fiction market sucks."
Chris thought about that for a moment. Perhaps he could travel or find other ways to express himself. But he was suddenly broken from thought when he noticed a weasel in Kathy's arms. It was a vicious looking little animal, that would occationally try to take a chunk out of one of her hands. "What is that?!?" Chris asked, as he started to back away. Kathy shrugged, struggling to hold the animal still. "It's a weasel. I wanted a pet ferret, but they are illegal in California, so I settled with this guy, now that's being realistic." She said gloating. Chris began to really wonder if that was such a good example.
Kindra, another upper classman, was sitting in a desk behind the group. She couldn't help but smile to herself as she contently sat there listing to the trio's banter. She knew of dreams and realities. She married at a young age and already had three children of her own. She also knows that finding the time to fullfill her own dreams was difficult. Sometimes you just have to take a chance. "I think you are both right. Having dreams is good and being realistic is important. But you don't have to be safe in your dreams or goals - you can take a chance at the impossible too." She shared with the group. Chris, Kathy and Dee just looked at the older girl like she was crazy wondering where all that came from. Clearly not knowing and probably not careing of her experiances, especially comming from such a young looking person. But as young unexperianced kids do, they just ignored her. Unphased by the interuption, the trio headed for the classrooms door, continuting their talks of Pro Wrestling, weasels and adults who think they know it all.

The End

Well that was pretty much it. Hope you got something out of it, I bet you can probably see where each person took over. lol Not the most exciting of stories, but this helped understand more about how I can be more creative with the rest of my art. Hope this helps you too. :)

-Chris


That's not angst! Now my preteen and teenage years are real angst. Surrounded by death, suicide, and struggling with sexuality. Now THAT is angst.

Haha. Don't worry I'm not trying to cheapen your story. I'm just saying. I know angst. It's interesting. It's like a vague version of your life in a way. And I do stress vague. At least it has a somewhat happy ending. It's not really like ride off into the sunset or anything, but it's still happy. I'd be willing to collaborate with you. As a writer I love bouncing ideas off other people. And I'm so unegotisical there should be a law against it so if someone.. like you started writing stuff for me I'd let you go as far as you want with my characters and maybe it might make it into the book ?(if so credit gets where credit is due of course) or I might find a new angle... or even better a new side a character I hadn't thought about or the past that I hadn't thought about.

Chris, if you want to interview me again for illustrating my characters go for it. I need something to focus on. Things... are slow and irritating in my life right now. Fiction is the perfect place to withdraw for a break.

~Amy

Assassin Verses Vampire

I'm not sure if Chris explained or not. I'm trying to get him to be an illustrator for two novels I'm working on. One is an assassin story and the other is for a vampire story. I haven't been feeling the assassin story. I've personally stopped progress on it and on the verge of abandoning the project... except someone I know had taken it on themselves to write it.... I didn't ask them to. They were just going to do a D&D campaign based on the beginning because it gives interesting elements... I thought that was fine because I am using one of his D&D characters as inspiration for a support role in my story it's fair. But lately he's been actually writing the story. Not in detail. Very roughly. But I can follow it and I like most of the ideas. There are only fine details I disagree with... but he's tweaking them. So... the project might move on with a co-author idea. That wasn't my original intention... but if it gets the story written... fine. But, I'm just saying... if I'm not really feeling the story.. I don't expect the illustrator to be feeling that story either. I'm feeling more for the Vampire story. I have more on it in just a month than I've gotten on the Assassin story in the what... 4-5 years I've been working on it? So, I'm going to roll more focus on the Vampire story and have Assassin be a side project/back burner thing.

So, if Chris is more willing and more inspired by Vampire... we're more on the same page than I realized. Let's do it!

~amy

I this time I'm more committed to this project just because, like you said, I'm more inspired by the idea. I hate the fact though, that if projects aren't remotely within my circle of interests, motivation to brainstorm ideas is nearly impossible. And I already have issues with brainstorming as it is! lol This concerns me a little bit, this is something that can't keep happening, especially when I start to work on important projects. Like these.......
With the recent string of good news I've been having in my life, I have a sence of rejuvenation. I hope I can keep this ball rolling. More then ever I'm excited about the new semester and the pile of ideas and projects I have lined up. But for now, it's one step at a time. I will get things done, and I've learned recently that steady is the smarter road to take. :)

-Chris

Kalanna Concept Design

*Edit 7/10/09*
*sigh* I really wish I had good news, but all I've been doing is struggling. I'm totally out of practice and basically technique-less. Don't take this the wrong way, I'm not depressed, I'm not being hard on myself, I just know the honest truth. my drawing needs help and practice. Honestly again, it's not a priority, I only use what I know up to this point to help illustrate my ideas for sculptures. That is why I never bothered to expand on my drawing. It's just a tool for me. SO, with all that being said, I really did give it my everything and for some reason I would never get a rhythm going. I'm also not saying that it's cause I'm not into this project, my talents only go so far for right now. So, I regret to tell you that I'm taking a break on this till I can figure myself out a bit more. I dunno, maybe it's the genre? I'm just not feeling it for some reason, but for some reason the Vampire story right off the bat sent a million ideas in my head. You'd never believe half the crap I came up with, you'll have to remind me some time to tell you. hehe Anyways, I did at least finish up a sketch I was hoping more out of, I like the concept, I just need to learn how to bring it to life. So here is Kalanna with a head wrap. :)
Hopfully I'll be able to work it out, I still plan to keep working with you, maybe in a more non traditional way. I think the more we talk about what we can do with your books, more we'll start to discover ideas we never considered to help illustrate your characters. I have ideas, and lots of them hehe. I just hope we can work something out so that we are both happy with what we are doing. :)

-Chris

*EDIT*
I'm not liking how my coloring is coming out, which is really frustrating me cause it's slowing down the process. But oddly enough I'm fine with it because I know coloring isn't my strong point. Eventually I'll study on that more, but for now, I'm going to stick with my strong points and use the techniques I know will work with this particular project. For now I'm just showing you some of the progress I've gotten with the lines. Not that it matters, cause I'm basically going to completely switch it up for the final design. lol Anyways, enjoy the art! (I think this is like the fourth time I've redrawn her ^^; )-Chris

Well finally after all these months, here's Kalanna! So far just the line art, sorry, but soon I'll get it colored. I dunno why, but this took me longer then it should have, probably cause I haven't worked in Photoshop in such a long ass time. lol I almost forgot all the steps of making line art. I think this is a sign that I need to pracice all forms of art much more often. hehe Anyways, like always, this isn't final, infact, if there is anything you want me to change now please tell me. I won't color and finalize it till you tell me if she looks ok. But please tell me soon so I can get going on the next character. Thanks! :) So here she is!
I can probably already guess what you are going to tell me. lol There is a few things I'm not to happy about either, but again please tell me if I forgot something or if I'm totally wrong on the whole look. lol

-Chris

She seems kinda stiff. I don't know how else to explain it. The ears look funny too. Other than that you're spot on for what shes wearing and hairstyle. I like that you gave her a dagger! Go Kalanna! By the way... for strangers reading this... Kalanna is a character in a book I'm writing. Chris is going to be my illistrator since I'm too lazy to practice my art often enough to be comfortable doing it myself. Yeah.. I know.

~Amy

Random Poll of the week.

So I'm checking out some pics of male models for reference for the comic and I start to notice a trend. All of them are pretty muscular and practically shaved clean. Now what I'm wondering is, because I'm not a body builder, is it like some kind of club when you can only shave your chest if you look good? haha I was curious to test this theory with myself, even though it's been years since the last time I shaved my chest, I wanted to see again if I'd look ok. lol I'm kinda not too thrilled about the miniature forest that's parked itself on my chest, myself. Change is needed sometimes right? DO I need this? I guess we'll see. Also, do women find it attractive for men to be hairless? If so, I'm also wondering about other areas where hair grows. ;) What do you think about shaving down below? Did before and found it interesting, I would contine so if it meant that most women wouldn't freak out or wondered if I worked in the porn industry if I did. haha! Anyways, I know no one reads this blog but you , but your opinion is all that really matters to me anyways. So I guess the Poll Question is:

Should I shave, and how much is too much or not enough?

Oh yeah, how do you like the new blog layout?
-Chris

Web/3D Comic Concept Design

Not a whole lot of creativity on my end, mostly due to Dia de Padre. Had to get the house prepared for family and put lots of spare focus time on making my dad's present. (I'd show you a picture but I forgot to take a picture of it. lol) The day went well, with lots of awesome food to eat and ended on a bizarre twist with my dad giving my Brother-in-law a pipe bomb, that after blowing up the wrapping paper revealed a cigar inside...........haha, now you see why I am the way I am, my dad's crazy. Even during all that madness I at least managed to get some sketching done. Would like to have done more, but can't complain with what I got. So far I've been working out a over all style, look and feel of the "world", starting with the characters first. To Amy: To explain, it's going to be a comic about our random collection of conversations, ideas, flib flab and mumbo jumbo. hah And the main characters? You guessed it, us. lol Why not, half the crap we come up with is way more entertaining then real life anyways. I was tired of wracking my brain for some superly awesome, overly convoluted, story of bad assery for a comic idea. So I'm taking many steps back and going with something I already know and love. Why sweat it, it's art right? It's suppose to be fun! Besides, if I ever wanted to go back and make a comic about a 16 year old girl that finds an abandoned Mech suit only to discover that she's royalty of an ancient alien species that has the duty to stave off invading evil aliens with her suit for the preservation of Earth..........I can. Would I make this porta-potty catch tank of a comic? The world may never know. ;) Aaaaaaany who. Back to the subject. Art! So I doodled some various styles for the characters and am getting closer to what I'm looking for, still not quite satisfied but is hoping you could help me with anything you could build off with what I have already. Hell, if you have something completely different that you think would work please tell me. Ideas are great in any way. So take a look of what I have so far:
Like I said, it's not much and VERY much so in the beginning stages. This is me too by the way. Haven't gotten to stylize anyone else yet, but your character is next for designing. Muahah! Keep in mind too that I haven't designed bodies yet, just been mostly working on facial expressions and features. So if you have ideas for clothing too, that would be appreciated. But first I need to find a style that gives the characters something memorable, unique and fun to look at. Ex: body proportions (abstract, realism). I still have lots to play with as you can see. I'll make sure I'll post more sketches when I gt them done so you can see the progress. I can't wait to really get this thing going. It's going to be fun as hell, also with lots of surprises I have in store. Stay Tuned!

P.S I think that smiley is checking you out Amy. ;)

*EDIT*

Well that was fast. haha! Post edited now with a new sketch! This is still conceptual, and right now I'm kinda liking my comic version of Amy. Again, if you have any critique please let me know what you think. If I made something that was unflattering, or maybe make her more sexy, what ever you want I can change. :D What do you think of the hair. haha *shot* Sorry I couldn't resist, I know how much you hate your hair, Hmm, this may give me some ideas now for the comic heh.

-Chris

Haha. You need a hat. Like a barrett! Or better yet those glasses you wear from time to time! Either would add really great character. They wouldn't look good together though, so you'd have to decide.

Actually, I think the way you drew my hair adds character and... mirrors what I look like now haha! Go with it. Though you have to for my ego draw a very sexy version of me. I really need to bring sexy back.... I'm feeling anything BUt sexy. My wisdom teeth are gone! I still look like I have a chance at being a member of Alvin and the Chipmunks and it's been 4 days! I feel like I'm dying from pain or hunger.. maybe both. I can eat, but it gets to the point it hurts so bad I can't. So I get tiny liquidish meals often to compensate. Anyway enough of my tiny violin. Do the webcomic! I'm going to harass you until you have a working page!

~amy

*Edit*
Okay, well here is another update of a full character design sketch. This was a quick sketch that took me two hours to draw O.o............it's quick in that I didn't put too much effort in clothing design, yet for some reason I still had a hard time drawing these two. For the longest time I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get the girls glasses to fucking look right, I was getting REALLY pissed. lol Why would glasses be so damn hard to draw?!?! Then I realized I was making her eyes too big, so if looks like I erased there a shit load of times....its cause I did. lol After that it was cake, figures it would take no time for me to draw boobs. haha As you can see I did kinda go with a style, modern bohimian. But over all style is still up in the air, everthing I do is still experimental untill I say it's final. lol So this is still experementing. As always let me know if you have anything you may think would look good. Oh yeah, for now the web comic is kinda sorta on hold, the only reason why I am still drawing this is cause for my summer workshop I'm doing a one time project using these two. Later I might use it again for when I get back into further developing the comic. So don't worry about the Assasin Story characters. :) They are next up. So here they are:
-Chris

*EDIT again*
One character down, one to go! Amy is drawn and ready to color and cut. Yeah I know I'm not getting very original on my poses. For this project I don't care, but for the comic I will defiantly have a plethora poses. hehe At least I tried out a different outfit, AND with lube! lol Doesn't she look soft and warm :3 I call this "Comfort Amy" hehe. Glad you suggested this outfit, I really like it a lot and REALLY loved drawing it. :) Well, better get cracking on Chris now, stay tuned for that update!

-Chris

*EDIT*
Once again! lol Here now we have Chris in all his glory. lol Now in summer gear! lol I thought I'd make him complementary to Amy's outfit, btw, I do own these clothes and are my fav thing to wear at home. lol So as you guessed this might be a dress rehersal for the lube comic lol. So far it's looking good. What do you think of them now? BTW, do you know that you can click the pic to get the full size? Just making sure you knew that. hehe

-Chris

Sculpters Guild

Blah, sorry for not posting lately, it's not that I've been busy or anything, I just kinda at the moment lack anything really worth posting about. In fact, there was a plan to have some work, either in progress of finished, shared here on a weekly basis. To explain more, a small group of art friends I made from the last two semesters decided to create a summer art workshop to help us not get lazy and to keep the creative juices flowing, so that when the new semester begins we can rock out our creativity on day one. heh But the reason why I said at least every week is because that is what our group decided to go with for project deadlines. First we would pick an idea out of the hat, for example "figurative sculpture" during our weekly meetings. Then from that day, we have a week till the next meeting to pull together any and all info gathered from research, sketches, and then finally a final finnished piece. All of that will be brought in to the next meeting to be shown, discussed and critiqued. This way not only will you be geting some very valuable info and feed back from your peers, you might actually educate them in the process, such as like a technique they never considered using. Either way, someone is bound to learn something for the process, which is what all of this is all about. Eventually after a few weeks of doing this we discovered something that leads me to writing this post in the first place. Our dead lines were too tight for the type of high quality projects we are giveing ourselves. Unfortunatly, after awhile, instead of turning in a completed work to show to the group, it was only half way finnished or less, or I only had enough time to only make a prototype and eventually it got so bad that only sketches were only being turned in. This was turning into a group wide epidemic, which was totally bumming us out because the level of projects were exactly what we wanted to expand on and we were stressed to work on them fast which in the end had a loss of quality and more inportantly, it just wasn't fun! Thankfully last week we had a good meeting with the members and decided to hold a vote to expand the dealines longer so that we are actually making progress in our skills instead of hindering them. Eventually we decided to give ourselves three weeks on a large project and a two week dead line on a smaller one. This should work much better, the only down side is that there will be less time for doing more projects durring the summer. But if you ask me, I'd rather have quality over quantity. So that being said, I would have had two things to post on, I just ran out of time to finnish them up, so the quality is nothing worth talking about or sharing. But with the extended times on the rest of the summers projects, there are some really good chances that those will be talked about here. I'm currently working on a 3D comic, which was this weeks group pick from the hat. Soon, I should have some bits and pieces to show and talk about. Hmm, lets see, well I think I mentioned everything about the group, it pretty much the only real exciting thing I'm doing this summer, but hopfully I'll to get out of town a few times too. hehe Oh, to give you an idea ofI should be showiing you more of soon, I had an idea of bringing back an old work and incorportate it with a new comic idea I came up with a month ago. It's more or less going to be about my daily life that is, wheather I like it or not, spiced up by a certain friend. ;) But the style of it will be baised from this work:Right now I'm thinking pop-up book, orsomething of the like. If you have any other ideas, PLEASE let me know. lol The more ideas I have the easer it will be for me to figure out how to do this. haha Well that it for now. Check back for some updates on the progress. :)

-Chris