Totally unrelated but...

Another One

Another digital piece I finished today, took about 2 hours and is in color! No process this time, just the final:

Looks a bit grainy since I worked in CMYK instead of RGB (it's gonna be printed). I like how it turned out - maybe a little more dynamic composition would have been nice, but I wanted almost an air of eerie calmness over the piece.
Also wanted to play with doing some smoke without the use of a specialized brush like my last piece. It was a bit tougher but I think it got across well enough.

Oddly enough, just saw the movie Contagion after doing this piece. Very creepy movie and well done. However, it really is more of less just a documentary for how we respond to epidemics disguised as a thriller. Not that that's a bad thing - it's all very fascinating - but I felt emotionally detached from everyone in the film, save for the last couple scenes. Still, a very smart movie that I highly recommend.

Uh, right. On to the next piece!

New Year!

Okay, so it's a new year, and looking back at 2011, gotta say that although it was a pretty kick-ass year, I didn't get as far with my art as I wanted to. So my new year's resolution is to keep practicing and get better! But then again, I make that resolution every year.

Anyway, did a quick little digital painting in grayscale and liked the way it turned out. I just wanted to experiment a bit with different brush types, since I always use soft edged airbrush settings, which is awesome but then gets me stuck doing blending and details for 50 hours. Instead, I decided to just try and do a quick piece using JUST hard edged brushes and some textured brushes I've had on PS forever but never used. Turned out pretty good.

This was the piece about 20 mins in, just blocking in some basics and getting the composition right. As you can see, that smoke brush I have is pretty awesome and really helped out a lot.

And here's the completed piece. Robot dude is standing a little less lopsided, and looks more intimidating. Also made the vehicles and people smaller, to give a much grander scope. It was a lot of fun to do and only took about 2 hours max.

Gonna really start ramping up my digital works, so I'll try and post some more work in progress stuff.

Happy new year!

The Last Semester

So it's been a while since I updated, but I have been super busy with classes. Hoping to get some really cool stuff done, though. Next semester will be my last, and the classes I have lined up are gonna be awesome. Advanced Study in the Figure and a directed study in Concept Art are both going to push me and it'll be totally worth it. I can't wait! Check out my website for some updates, as I'll be changing it around a bit.

The Fem-Kraken!

So...just finished this piece for a couple of friends at the gaming blog MMOMFG - which I write for as well, if you wanna check it out. I have no idea what it will be used for, and as much as I kind of wanted to put it in my portfolio...I decided against it. Maybe.
The only prompt I got was to make the eyes Red Rings of Death, and to make 'a kraken with tittehs.' Yep. Check and check.
Anyway, check it out below!

It's Been Awhile,

Hasn't it? I'm updating my portfolio site with a couple pieces, but for now I've just been drawing, drawing, drawing, now that it's summer!
Oh, and watching Hulu Plus. Having 1000 Ways To Die and The Office at my fingertips is a dangerous thing.
Check out my portfolio (dannyryba.com) for my new works. I'll post my latest one at the bottom of this post, which is a dragonfly man thing, which turned out really nice, actually. It's weird how different art styles can come together. I chose to do more of a comic-book look to the piece, with black outlines and layered colors. It's very different from most of my other PhotoShop stuff, which tends to involve just using brushes and erasing the outlines.
Anyway, I got the idea for the weirdo from this book: Fantasy Genesis, by Chuck Lukacs. Honestly I've had the book for about 3 years now, but just cracked it open. Yeah, I'm bad. But it's a great way to generate weird monstrosities to draw, especially when I have no particular inspiration. He has a blog for it too! I wish I had used it earlier, because now I'm all about playing the game!
Check out the thing below, and if you were wondering, he was supposed to be a Humanoid Dragonfly (main body) with Bull (minor forms) features. His surface was Turbine, which I made into a weird chest plate thing. His action was Recoiling head/torso and his emotion was Fear. Obviously he didn't come across as intended, because all he has are bull horns and his pose didn't lend to any 'fear' emotion.
Ah well, it was fun. I have more projects coming up, so stay tuned!

This 3D Stuff is Hard

So I've been trying to self-teach myself ZBrush...man, it's tough. The interface actually isn't too bad, and I'm really thankful they have presets, but jeez. 3D modellers, I have newfound respect for you guys. I'm probably going to search for some guides online and give it another shot in a little bit.

As much as I would rather not learn the program and stick to what I know (Adobe Suite), concept artists have to be versatile nowadays. Not that all concept artists need to know those programs, but it definitely helps. So I figured I may as well give it a shot, just so I can at least learn the basics.

I never was good at my 3D classes, though. Ugh.