JCL Santa images

Christmas is here and I just wanted to post some of my favorite Santa images created by one of the best illustrators ever, Joseph Christian Leyendecker. Just amazing stuff!

Carolyn Taylor Photography

This is a post I have been meaning to do for a while about one of my favorite people on this earth, Carolyn Taylor, and her recent photographic journey! I could go on and on about Carolyn and her work , but I ramble enough here, and I would rather that you pay her blog a visit-

http://www.carolyntaylorphotography.com/blog/

The powerful images shown below are some of what you will find within Carolyn's Blog, as well as the stories behind them ..So go and check it out!!

Best Artist EVER!!!

Isabella with her tour de force

My niece Isabella was over on Thanksgiving, and she was really excited about doing some painting with her kook of an uncle. I tried to set her up with a small piece of canvas board but she shut me down and insisted that she painted on a wooden panel, similar to the ones I used for my thesis paintings. I didn't have any that size and so we settled on a smaller panel that I had kicking around. Here she is looking serious with her first ever acrylic on panel masterpiece! Pretty awesome job, especially the floaty little hearts in the sky! Love this kid!!!

Trail Runner Illo

Dog Attack

Digital

Pit Detail

Digital

This image was used to illustrate an article about dog attacks in the December issue of Trail Runner Magazine. Unfortunately I had to vilify Pit Bulls in the piece. Despite the bad rap that Pit Bulls receive they still remain one of my favorite creatures on earth. This was a tough one because I did not want to make a super gory , extremely dark image, as the topic is already heavy enough.

At any rate here is the image in which I came up with. It was created with a variety of techniques and with a combination of both 2d and 3d software.

OLP

Here is an old video that my friend Phil Schaal shot of me lying, cheating, dabbing, flailing, and invalidly climbing my way up one of Connecticut's best problems, the Owls Lair Project. If you pause the video at 1:45 seconds and look at it through a pair of X Ray glasses, you may get a life! But then again we will need sound to confirm the fact that you are not a total loser.

Power Struggle 6

Competition season is rolling in and Prime Climb is beginning to prepare for their annual event known as the Power Struggle. Above is the poster in which I created in order to help promote the event. It is sure to be a good time so be sure to come on out for it. For more information have a look at the poster or check Prime Climb out on Facebook, or at www.PrimeClimb.com

Black Dog of the Hanging HIlls 2

This image was intended to accompany an article in which I illustrated for Rock and Ice magazine a while back. We ended up using a different composition which was much more effective at telling the story of the Black Dog of the Hanging Hills. Although I do enjoy the simplicity and feel of this one as a stand alone image, so figured I would share!

Another WIP

Saloon Drawing

"Where's the Gold"

digital

Here is another work in progress from my Gold Rush series. There still remains quite a bit I would like to do with this one, including incorporating a 3-D model as a border. Hopefully that will happen in the near future. For now here it is!

Work in progress

Thumbnail comp

Mule character design

Painting in Progress

This is number one of four in a series of paintings I am doing about the Wild West and the days of the Gold Rush. This one is about 80 percent finished, with a bit more to do here and there. As always I like to show preliminary drawings that I have used along the way when creating an image. So here is the initial thumbnail, character design for the mule, and the final painting in progress.

More renders

Here are a few renders of Guan the monkey, who is now rigged, weight painted and ready for animation. Now I need to give him eyes and teeth, as well as his cape and hat. These renders show how blend shapes are used to deform the models mesh in order to create different facial expressions.

Getting ready to animate

Over the past few months I have spent a whole lot of time in front of a computer screen working on creating a short animation. In past posts I showed some preliminary character designs, poly models, as well as z brush sculpts of both Ganesh, and Guanteen. These will be the main characters in the animation.

At this time I am finalizing the models and getting them rigged for animation.

Below are some screen grabs of the rig in which I built for Ganesh. This is an image of the controls in which will drive the character and allow him to be animated.

Here are some mental ray renders of my low poly model with its texture maps, displacement maps, and normal maps , applied. These renders show how Ganesh will appear in the final animation, as produced with Mental Ray in Maya.

Looking to have a simple walk cycle of him animated soon.

Angels and Demons

This is a little detail of an illustration that was published a while back in Rock and Ice Magazine.

WMCC Rendezvous 2011

Saturday October 1st. marks the return of the Western Mass Rendezvous. The Festivities will kick-off once again at Wendell State Forest at 8 a.m as in past years but the evening excitement will move to Central Rock Gym in Hadley where a full line up of events are planned.

This years event is to include a wide range of activities, including climbing, biking , and kayaking. The focus of the event is to raise funds in which are to be used to protect New England's outdoor playgrounds.

As in years past I was asked to design a promotional poster for the event. So I created this image and the Jeff Squire at the WMCC handled the text and layout. Always a fun project to work on, and for a great cause!

For more info on the event visit:

www.climbgneiss.org

Creature Creation

Creation of Nesh from dan yagmin on Vimeo.

This short video was created in order to illustrate some of the steps that I followed while creating the Hi Poly Sculpt for Nesh.

Traditional meets Digital

Monkey in T pose

three quater view

Rough Sculpt before texture and polypaint

rough sculpt2

rough3

Z Brush is a program that draws from all that I have learned over the years as a traditional illustrator. Working with this program involves not only computer knowledge, but the ability to draw , paint , and sculpt. During my undergraduate studies I was lucky enough to do quite a bit of clay sculpture with a great teacher, and friend Peter Bonadies. It is fascinating to me to see how this has carried over to Z Brush. Although you are sculpting on a computer screen it is the closest thing to the real thing, but does not require the space, and time you would need to produce actual clay sculptures. Plus it is all highly editable with a click of a button.As you can see the model is sculpted out according to my drawings in a rough clay like texture, and then later textured and painted.

As a 2 D artist this also opens a lot of doors. These clay models can be posed in any position and used as reference for paintings. This particular model is gong to be used in a short animation I am working on. This hi resolution sculpt will be transferred as a low resolution model into Maya , rigged and animated..

Ganimation

This is a short walk to run cycle with the Ganesh character model that I created during the Intro to Maya class that I attended this past spring. The Characters actions are a bit jerky, and need to be smoothed out a bit. But in the meantime I am remodeling the character in Z Brush and will plan to create a more refined animation with it.

I had some issues uploading this for some reason here, and i guess that is why the color is all wonky in the beginning..?????Either way it is a lot of fun to see two dimensional artwork come to life in a three dimensional space. Can't wait to begin to fine tune the techniques and build upon what I have learned with this. As for now here is my super simple animation..

Model sheets,Key Frames, and Character Designs

Monkey from Humanality Pencil Test

Climber Key Frames

Climber Turn Around

Saloon Character Key Frame

Saloon Character Key Frame

Guanteen model sheet

Here are some model sheets, character designs, and key frame drawings from various projects I have been working on recently. The top most monkey in this post, as well as the climber where drawings used in creating the Humanality pencil test in which I posted previously. The Saloon Character key frames are scans of actual frames from the Saloon character animation I posted earlier. The Last Guanteen model sheet is a refined character design of Guanteen the Monkey, a character in a 3d animation I am working on.

Z Brush Sculpts

Guanteen

Monkey Island

Over the past week or so I started to learn the program Z Brush. I have to say it is one of the most amazing tools I have ever used. I can also say that it is also one of the most confusing and frustrating as well..... At ant rate here are my first two sculptures I created using Z Brush. These are assets from the pencil test I posted earlier, but rendered in 3D. These will become the basis for a fully animated short. Versions of these will be simplified, brought into Maya, rigged,light , and later animated.

The monkey model will be recycled for both the Ganesh project, as well as the Humanality short.

Humanality

This little movie was created as my final project for my animation 688 class at the Academy of Art. This was one of the best classes I have ever attended . The instructor Tom Arndt was awesome, super helpful, informative, and not afraid to tell you like it is..

Thinking I would like to take this to a finished animation but in a 3d format. For now here is the pencil test...

Nesh and Guanteen

Nesh and Guanteen

This painting served as a way to test the colors and textures that were applied to my 3 D Ganesh Creature model.I plan to post my finished Ganesh model and animations as well over the next few weeks. For now here is the painting in progress.

Ganesh's Monkey Side Kick

Monkey Designs

Monkey Orthographic Sketch

In a previous post I included some drawings, as well as screen grabs for a model I am working on of a Ganesh inspired creature. My creature is going to have a sidekick which is a monkey and these are the preliminary drawings for what he will look like. These will be made into a 3D model as well with Maya , and animated along with Ganesh.

Gold Rush Character Pencil Test

A character in which I created for a previous illustration of an old western saloon was the basis for this pencil test. It was also done to fulfill the assignment given for my Anm 688 class at the Academy of Art in SF. For this one we were required to do a simple voiceover. It's rough but here it is:

Ganesh 3D Model in progress

Learning a program like Maya has not been easy, and to be honest, I didn't think I would want to see it through. As I have spent my time knocking my head against my computer , things have started to come together. In this post are some screen grabs as well as renders generated from Maya of my model. The model itself still needs some editing, and the textures are going to be much more refined before he is animated. For now here he is in progress.

Boozy Bachus

Bachus was the name given to the God Dionysus by the Romans. Bachus is also the Liberator, whose wine, music and ecstatic dance frees his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subverts the oppressive restraints of the powerful. In the case of my animation, Bachus is a dandy, fat, drunk guy, who can devour barrels of wine. Some of the timing as well as weight distribution for Bachus needs to be adjusted, and this is just my rough pencil test. I hope to post the finished results at some point...

Back to School like Rodney Dangerfield

Ganesh with Monkey

Ganesh Side

Ganesh Crawl

Ganesh Pointing

Looking to broaden my skill sets as an illustrator and artist I decided to take a few classes in animation at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. So far the experience has been pretty good and I figured I would share some of the preliminary drawings I am doing for my intro to Maya/3d animation class. This character was inspired by the Hindu Elephant Deity , Ganesh. Ganesh is said to be the Lord of success and destroyer of evil and obstacles. In addition he is worshiped as the god of education, knowledge , wisdom, and wealth. For various reasons I am a bit weary about being back in school again. Reasons such as the financial burdens that come along with education in the US. So I am hoping Ganesh will look out for me, even if I happened to cross him with a turtle in my design. These drawings will be made into a 3d model, textured, rigged, and animated. I hope to post the process along the way. For now here are the drawings...