J Theory

2010-08-20T19:56:00.009-05:00

Some art I made for a TF2 map based off famous works of art. The map can be found here cp_gallery_b1.

These last two "Van Beard" paintings, I only made the beards bigger and nothing else.

ZOMBIES!

2009-09-23T05:54:00.004-05:00

Zombie Survival Kit I made for a friend with a Left 4 Dead theme.

Stage 3: Y Head

2009-05-01T19:45:00.010-05:00

1

2

Trying to decide which of these lighting setups I like more.

stage 2

2009-02-04T15:30:00.000-06:00

I quick color study.

stage 1... The Larch.

2009-02-02T16:57:00.007-06:00

I think these guys are really going somewhere. Maybe the bathroom, in groups, you never know when you'll need backup. I was thinking how much I need more practice at Z Brush, and that means I need some character ideas. So I'm making sure to make time to sit down and sketch up ideas. I hope to have one of these guys modeled by the end of the week but that's if life doesn't beat me over the head and take me hostage.

Winter Kingdoms

2009-01-29T17:27:00.003-06:00

This contest is well timed since Chicago feels like a winter kingdom right now. This project has been keeping me very busy for the past month. It should be done soon and the final movie will go up in the site. The contest has been really fun and given me something to focus on. There are a lot of things I would have done differently but that's what these are for, to learn from. I'm going to try and keep doing projects or at least setting myself deadlines so I don't get hooked on one thing forever.

Halloween

2008-11-04T21:06:00.006-06:00

Here it is the finished piece and me wearing it at the party. It turned out better than I thought, and I was able to leave it running for a couple hours at a time. I did turn it off several times since I was still paranoid it would get too hot and melt to the shirt. I think the most difficult part of the costume ended up being growing the goatee. Ya that took me a month to grow and it looks pathetic. This is why I don't normally have one.

I am Iron Man

2008-10-30T12:25:00.007-05:00

I have so much I should be posting up here but I find I would rather go to bed instead of posting something up. Anyway I decided to make an arc reactor for my Tony Stark Halloween costume. I found this great tutorial on instructables, it still needs the molded plastic top. Every year I make part of my costume since most of the store bought outfits look like crap. I think this is the first time I went into a costume idea with no prior knowledge of how to actually do it. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that I don't suddenly burst into flames at the party. Although then I could just say that I'm Johnny Storm "Flame ON!". Wish me luck that I survive this Halloween.

Johnmonster

2008-08-08T15:20:00.012-05:00

I went to the San Diego Comic Con again this year, I find so much inspiration from the people I meet there. One of witch is Derek Thompson. I Got his 2006 sketchbook two years ago and he had a new one this year. Derek's book has a monster for every day of the year in it. They are doodles and the like that he has done when he has a minute or two, and they all have a unique look and personality to them. He said some are done when he's in story meetings at Pixar. Oh ya did I mention he does storyboards at Pixar!! He just finished up Wall.E (a fantastic film) and is now working on Brad Birds live action movie. He has a great eye for staging and simple designs that have a lot of character. Anyway the first image is some fan art I did after looking at the new book, Derekmonster. The other two are just for fun, I need to sketch more.
I noticed after doing these guys that almost all of my creatures are bipedal, I need to do more quadrupeds and other types of locomotive creatures.

Batmobile (no not the tumbler)

2008-08-08T13:49:00.012-05:00

The new Batman movie got me all excited, and I wanted to model a Batmobile to let out the nerd juices. Batmobile from the 90's animated series is one of my favorite adaptations of the Batmobile, it has a very intimidating shape while still fitting in with the look of the show. I figured since I'm modeling it why not also make it work in TF2. They have similar looks and it would give me more of a challenge to have constraints on the texture and poly detail.
Anyway its out of my system and I can go back to my other projects.
TF2 model here.

More TF2 art

2008-07-22T01:30:00.003-05:00

I just can't stop. This is a feeling I know too well when I play as the engineer. My poor little sentry is being sapped and there is no one to help me get the spy. Sometimes you have to chose between killing him or saving your sentry, because you can't always do both. When that happens, look out because I'm coming for you!

MEDIC!

2008-05-26T05:58:00.012-05:00

This is the first time I think I've liked a game enough to do some fan art.
Medics, don't mess with them.

Getting Messi

2008-05-20T15:50:00.005-05:00

Another character for work, Leo (Lionel) Messi, an upcoming soccer star from Argentina. He looks like he might be the next Ronaldinho. Hes wearing his new Barcelona club jersey. I've cut off the arms and legs since they're still unfinished.

chick4

2008-05-14T05:17:00.006-05:00

I've been very busy lately looking for a new job, and I've been neglecting to post again. I'm trying to update this thing regularly. Anyway I never did post the final mock up of that girl I was working on at work. Here she is sans hair and shoes, which were done by someone else. If this project gets picked up there would be some changes I would like to make to the model, but there are always changes I would like to make.

Oh ya I also had to make her smile. All clients seem to want to see their characters with a smile. Normally you don't want any expression on their face, you want a clean base on which to animate. This means I model two heads for every person an expressionless one for us and a smiley one for them. The smile does become a shape we can use in the animation, so it's not a total loss.

She's so trendy it hurts.

chick3

2008-04-15T15:22:00.006-05:00

I haven't worked on her much the past few days. Just a version with bumpmaps, still needs work on the hands. She could also use a shoe donation to hide those hideous block feet of hers.

chick2

2008-04-02T17:33:00.001-05:00

hoodie mostly done today.

she's all the rage

2008-04-01T16:38:00.003-05:00

A character I'm modeling at work. Don't ask who it is I'm too embarrassed to say, but I think it's coming along. I also just finished putting together a new reel, I plan to post it somewhere soon, along with some stills.

1940's car finished

2008-03-06T23:27:00.003-06:00

Finally its done, my first TF2 model. It can be found here. Now I just need to figure out what I'm doing next.

Mr. Equator

2008-02-21T02:22:00.007-06:00

Here is a painting I had been working on last year, and just submitted to the Ballistic Publishing contest to be published in their next book. There are a lot of great artists entering, so I know the competition is tough but I still have to try and get in. I was really experimenting with coloring skin that looks like it has some substance and flesh to it. I think it came out good for a first try. I think there are some things I would do differently the next time. The hair still bugs me. I also put up a WIP image showing Mr. Eguator at different stages of completion.

normals are anything but

2008-02-17T01:55:00.002-06:00

Here is the latest car model for TF2. Everything is working except when I add the normals to the mis it messes up my textures. The car turns all black in color but retains the reflections, which are now smother because they have the normal information. Ah well, it's a leaning experience.

finally

2008-02-12T02:14:00.000-06:00

After several days of looking at tutorials and the valve developers community I finally have a working model from xsi into valve hammer. WHOO! now i can sleep without having those horrible nightmares about the valve sdk file system sucking. It finally makes some sort of sick sense. Now I just need to finish the model.

quick photoshop practice

2008-02-06T22:31:00.000-06:00

Some doodles I did to warm up, and try out some new color combinations.

I hate Valve for making such great games.

2008-02-06T15:48:00.001-06:00

Its been a long few months, and I left this blog slowly die, but I want to continue with this and try to bring it back to life even if I don't update very often. So I'll slowly add some files of what I've been working on. Team Fortress 2 has been one of the contributers to my loss of time. So here is a TF2 1940's car model I am working on for mod levels.

Images will be up tonight.

I'm in the tubes

2007-07-16T03:33:00.000-05:00

I started up a youtube account here.

JTheory0

I still have yet to get a high quality video up. The documentation out there is not helping as much as I had hoped.

I think this boy's cheese has done slid off his cracker

2007-06-03T00:12:00.000-05:00

I was doing a lot of boring very noncreative promo stuff at work. Even though I had an interest in architecture as a kid I really don’t like to do schematics and practical industrial design. Having to make changes to an object solely on the fact that some dumb unmonitored child might get stuck, loose and eye, or otherwise injure themselves in a way that might cause reason for a lawsuit, and then they complain that the ride looks stupid, drives me crazy. I’m more of a let Darwin work his magic kind of a guy. Anyway I needed something interesting to do before I went nuttier than an acorn, so I took and hour to do this. I didn’t think anything would come of this break from madness, but turns out it was good enough to post.

I’ll sleep when I’m dead

2007-05-16T02:05:00.000-05:00

I find it strange that after a very long day at work I find I can have the most energy. I also find that I can be my most creative late at night while by body relaxes the days problems fade away and my mind is left to imagine and create. Here are some of those late night drawings from the past two days. I tend to draw with very clean lines, a byproduct of thinking I needed a backup plan as an architect if this whole animation thing never worked out. Because of this I was taught that neatness can count for as much as accuracy. I’m not sure if this is totally a bad thing, but I try to loosen up my drawings sometimes because I know that can be just as rewarding. These images are evidence of that fact. I hope I have learned something new today.

john out

The inspiration that is Ridley Scott

2007-03-27T01:11:00.000-05:00

So I’ve been watching a lot of aliens recently, the first movie being my all time favorite science fiction/horror movie. Anyway I really love how the alien is always lying in wait for someone, and then slowly unfolds itself. Then proceeds to destroy all who are in it’s path, assuming their name is not Ripley. Also for those unawares a second alien vs. predator is in the works, and I just got over the trauma of the first. Heaven help us.

john

something old, something new, something blue

2007-03-19T10:05:00.000-05:00

I am terrible at updates.I have a lot of personal projects in the works and have little to show for it right now, so i dug up an old piece. This head you may remember from an earlier post where I put up the flat shaded model. I actually textured this a long time ago but was not entirely happy with it, I planed to rework it but never did. I think the eyes still need a bit of work. Anyway I decided to post it anyway. The new piece isn't all that new. Red guy here is some photoshop over an old sketch. I think someone stole his waffles, and you know you should always eat a balanced breakfast. I've been reading a lot of Batman lately, and well, Catwoman is hot. This is actually more like a cos-player with more lifelike proportions, as apposed to how she appears in the comics. Jim Lee is the man!

fig. 0107

2007-01-19T02:17:00.000-06:00

Just doing a little coloring practice on a sketch from last weekends figure drawing. I like to photoshop in colors which resemble red conte, I'm not sure why.

stupid 23 degree axis

2006-12-11T00:54:00.000-06:00

I hope everyone is staying warm as the cold winds blow in.

pillheads

2006-12-04T11:09:00.000-06:00

So it's been a while since i updated this thing. I've been very busy lately with work, but i wanted to at least post some sketches. The spacemen are ideas for a character in a game we are working on at work, i kind of liked the short out of shape guy but he was not ultimately chosen. The heads are some practice on the shapes of the cheeks. The last few guys were people on the train, the pill heads came from just trying something wacky.

Halloween

2006-10-27T16:38:00.000-05:00

So this second piece (pumpkin patch) did not come out quite as well as I intended so I decided to post the sketches to see where I went wrong. Maybe I need a bunch of bats in the air or something cheesy. The second is because I know some people who hate candy corn, and I can't imagine why. Well anyway i hope everyone has a happy Halloween!

creature 001

2006-10-01T12:37:00.000-05:00

I dropped some doodles on the train a couple weeks ago. I switch between reading and drawing on the train depending on how awake I happen to be that particular morning. I am currently finishing The Historian, which is an excellent book, although a little slow in the middle. One thing I always come back to in my drawings is creatures. I was recently at the aquarium where they had a special exhibit on lizards, the focus being the Komodo dragon. It was amazing to see this guy up close. I think I could have easily taken down anyone in the room. Many of the smaller lizards were very interesting too, the reference photos I took have proven to be very valuable. I am also posting this because the doodle was interesting enough for me to take into 3D. This is my first attempt at using Z-Brush. The lower image is what I brought into Z-Brush, and the top is after. For those who don’t know Z-Brush allows artists to sculpt their 3D characters in the way you would sculpt clay. It’s built to support a very high level of detail, and is becoming a very common program in the industry because of its ease of use and artist friendly workflow. Oh and lego star wars 2 Rocks!

I sense something; a presence I've not felt since... 1977

2006-09-13T02:34:00.000-05:00

Well I’m happier than a wookie with a comb. The original untouched Star Wars movies were released today (yesterday) along with Lego Star Wars 2. I have yet to open them up, like looking at new fallen snow before you run to play in it, I want to savor this moment. Despite loving special effects, especially what ILM does, I have never been a big fan of Lucas’s changes to the original films. I always liked being able to see the black outline between the live action plates and the stop-motion. All that new CG was missing the texture the rest of the film had. Now I feel complete.

I hope the Lego Batman game coming up next is just as fun to play as these.

I think this is the final colors for mr. guy here. I really need to give him a name. Originally I was thinking yellow with red highlights, but I ended up doing a blue overlay in the shop just for fun, and I came up with what you see above. I think it works better since he is the more reserved of the duo. The smaller one is the crazy one of the bunch so he will get the yellow and red treatment.

why is his head so big?

2006-08-29T11:46:00.000-05:00

A little something from over the weekend. This guy came out of some doodles I have done this year. I made a model sheet and created the 3D model over the weekend. I spent 3 and a half hours on the model thus far. I may change a little more of his topology now that I see how the light plays off his body. I found this a good change of pace from the more realistic work I normally do. I came up with a little outline for a short with this and another guy, but I’m not sure if I’ll get to it. Now to do his giant hammer for pounding the daylights out of little happy creatures.

PS: Dib still has a larger head.

CB in 3D

2006-08-26T00:58:00.000-05:00

I think I’m done with this model. If I decide to animate it I may make changes if it’s necessary to help with deformations in the skin. There are two examples of cool and warm lighting schemes. The warm one looks nice and soft but the cool tones reflect the movie more. It’s interesting to see how much lighting can change the look of your model. I think this is why it can be so hard to texture. You need to keep in mind that the character will be moving through different environments with different lighting setups, and in each one the overall feel of the character needs to show through. The close-up was done to show some of the smaller detail in the texture. I wanted this model to hold up even when viewed up close. Most of the textures were pulled from photos of actual clothing I own that matched the textures in the movie. I made sure to scale them up in order to make the model look small, like a puppet. Well hopefully I captured the complexity and fantastic design that made these characters so fun to watch in the movies.

I also have been trying to get more comfortable with ZBrush. I can see a lot of potential in this program; I just need to get more comfortable with the tools. It’s defiantly faster and more fun than doing displacements in Photoshop. Most of the tools can’t be used alone but in conjunction with each other they can work wonders on a low poly mesh. I might post some of these trials if they don’t look too wretched.

This also excites me! http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/index.html?dlink=nightmare
No it’s not that kind of 3D. It’s still stop motion they just went and extracted layers, foreground, mid, and background, and you get those nifty 3D glasses to wear.

Inspirational con + long plane ride = update

2006-07-27T00:45:00.000-05:00

The Comic-Con was unbelievable! I highly recommend it if you have the means to get there. The place was packed full of all the artist’s who’s work I have filling bookshelves. I was able to meet some amazing people which included, Yoshitaka Amano, Cheeks, Cam de Leon, and Stephen Silver to name a few. There is nothing that recharges the creative batteries like being in a mile long convention hall full of amazing artists. This dragon was partly inspired by an artist who I had never heard of, Ciruelo Cabral, and I ended up buying one of his prints. http://www.dac-editions.com/ The little guy in the drawing is learning to fly. Now I have a large pile of artists business cards who’s work I need to check out, so until next time.

Have you seen me?

2006-07-19T22:16:00.000-05:00

I have a few final details left before I can post the fully textured version of this head, plus once I finish Victors hair I will have him up. I have modeled this same person before in college and I look back on it now and can’t believe how inexperienced I was then. This head is a test to see where I am at, and to serve as a benchmark to help me grow. I hope to look back on this and see how far I’ve come. I leave for the San Diego Comic-Con in the morning, I can’t wait to see and talk to artists who have inspired me. Time to try and get some sleep for tomorrow I enter the land of the nerd. See http://storyboredom.blogspot.com/ (July 06 posts) for more info on con nerds.

Tracker

2006-06-09T00:47:00.000-05:00

It’s been a while, hopefully this will make up for it. This is an old drawing of a character I created. It’s a lizard race and this is a guard/tracker. After a conversation with K, she thought there was something wrong about his clothing. It made me realize even though my original design was nice it was also totally impractical for the fast movement this creature looks like it can do. A long skirt would get quickly caught up in his legs and on forest debris. So I revised it and made the second shorter version. I think I still like the longer one. I think he might be a city guard or something where he would dress nicer and more colorfully, as opposed to someone who was a rogue. He would just have to run home and change before going on any long distance treks. I would like to hear other people’s opinion on his outfit. The main purpose of this was to practice with my wacom tablet. Even though I sketched this on paper I “inked” and colored it all with the tablet. It’s also to help with my coloring skilz. I almost never color things, opting to just render them in pencil. This has caused me to be severely behind in where I think I should be in coloring. It’s one thing to bounce light around on a black and white image and quite another to do it with color.

building mileage

2006-05-31T17:58:00.000-05:00

Some sketches from over the weekend. Coat guy was done for fun at work, the girl is from a live model, and the guy on the bench was done in a park by my place. Not much to report.

Vincent... i mean Victor

2006-05-11T13:50:00.000-05:00

I’ve buckled down a little more recently, and the Victor model seems to be ready for texturing. I think the hair will be a displacement but I’m not sure yet. That way I won’t have to model it all. I think since work has been slow I’ve had more energy to work on personal projects. I had a discussion with Luc about how I might be able to animate the soccer shoe below, similar to this spot http://www.theembassyvfx.com/asics_movie.html . It went along the lines of a thief beating up an old lady and taking her purse but all you saw were their shoes, a ski hat, purse and a babushka. I think this is going on the backburner for the time being, although I would like to do some short simple spots that poke fun at what’s already out there.

Note: anyone can leave a comment as anonymous, but if you put your name at the bottom of the post I will know who to thank latter.

level annoyance

2006-05-03T23:22:00.000-05:00

I think this is as done as this model is going to get. I could tweak this for days but the changes are so minute at this point. The image looks great on my large monitor but when I copied it over to my ancient one all the blacks were super dark and all the detail was lost. Leave a comment if it seems too dark, I would like to know how people are viewing the art here. P.S. I wish I was going to E3.

also starring Bean

2006-04-15T02:55:00.000-05:00

Struck with some inspiration. Sometimes you just need to know when to stop what your doing, pull out your sketch book, and start doodling. This character just spilled out of me. There was no rough drawing, every line just worked as I put it down and I didn’t have to use the eraser once. I’m not sure what dormant part of my brain this guy was lurking in. All I know is if I ever have to go there I’m bringing a gun. Maybe it has something to do with the recent release of “Lady and the Tramp” although I still have yet to see the new re-mastered version. I’m not too sure about his hair. I think less might have been more in that area, but I wanted to post it just as it came out. The little bean dude came out before the dog, that should have been a warning.

you shouldn’t be throwing anyone with your bad back

2006-04-09T02:22:00.000-05:00

I need to post more. Work’s been really crazy, stupid clients with their stupid brains taking forever to get back to us. This was a quick sketch I did while waiting late at night for client feedback. Also got some new sculpting supplies for my day’o’birth, so look forward to some of that plastalina goodness. P.S. Leon (the professional) kicks ass.

Mr. Pinkles

2006-03-13T02:04:00.000-06:00

It’s been a while since I last posted, and since I’ve gone to the figure drawing studio. Stupid life getting in the way of my hobbies. Why can’t I just live under a rock, with my computer, and art supplies… , and a high speed internet connection. No honestly I need to get out more. Anyhoo, here’s a couple of this weeks model. I think I’m improving, but still have a lot to learn. My proportions still look a little off, although I’m not one to hold up my pencil in front of my face to measure. I just eyeball and feel it out. I seemed to be attracted to arms this week. I call the guy in the second image Mr. Pinkles, for his lack of digits.

be careful timmy

2006-02-27T01:05:00.000-06:00

Yet again I start a new project before finishing an old one. Watched Corpse Bride again this weekend. Character design and overall look of the film was beautiful, it’s too bad the story wasn’t there. Not even Vincent Price could have saved this film, rest his soul. I guess you can’t win’em all. This is about one and a half hours modeling.

Slog

2006-02-21T01:39:00.000-06:00

Part slug, part dog, part hooves? Not sure where those came from. This is one of my foray into creature land. I need to spend more time there, the food is good.

All Day I Dream About SubD’s

2006-02-14T22:52:00.000-06:00

Animation has consumed my life for some time now, relatively recently there is something I have noticed. Modeling comes naturally to me, more than animation. I still have a lot to learn in both disciplines. I love creating creatures as much as giving them life. So with that in mind here is what I am currently modeling for fun. I’m going for photo-real; I want it to hold up next to a photograph. I am currently working on maps, texture, displace, bump, spec, shine, are what I have planned for this bad boy. I’m still getting up to speed on Z Brush so the displacement for this will still be done by hand in the shop.

figure drawing

2006-02-12T22:35:00.000-06:00

I have been going to an open figure drawing studio here in Oak Park for a few months now. It’s not an instructional class, but more a chance for local artist to sketch a live model. This week we had a great model unfortunately I was not in the zone, and didn’t walk out with anything I’m happy with. I’m still glad I went, you never know when you will have a good day or bad, sometimes it comes out easier. So in lieu of today’s events I am posting an image from 2 weeks ago that I think came out better. Also now people who are not registered can comment.

Routine Possession

2006-02-08T01:15:00.000-06:00

Here’s something a little outside what I normally do, these were made about a month ago. Not really my style, too cutesy, just wanted to try something new. Comments welcome.

one of us

2006-02-07T01:11:00.000-06:00

There’s a mug that will scare the kids, oh wait that’s me. Practicing making faces, I’m fascinated how pliable the human face is. It’s no wonder people can seem so transparent.

john

eh hem

2006-02-07T00:59:00.000-06:00

Come One Come All!
see the strange and unusual, or maybe just some silly drawings.