Deftones New Album: Koi No Yokan

I remember my first listen to the Deftones. I was laying on my bed, not exactly paying attention to the vomit pouring out from the T.V. I was about to turn it off when the song 'Bored' came on. I watched for a few seconds as Chino and the band jumped about in the grunge style band room. My head fell back onto my pillow and my eyelids shut. Even as a 13 year old, I could tell what a beautiful expression of emotion this was. I'm sure I speak for all Deftones fans when I say this, "The pieces this band produces are absolutely gorgeous". They're delicate yet rough. I truly believe one can do ANYTHING while listening to the music of the Deftones. This band is one of the many reasons I'm proud to be a 90's Kid. Their new installment, 'Koi No Yokan' which will be their 7th record, is coming out in 5 days! Run, grab, kill! It's worth it! Ok, maybe not kill...

Digital Painting Assignment 4: Seasons

 Unlike the other projects, this one was not done from photo reference. We were given line art which would be painted over with the expression of a particular season. As shown above, I chose to paint a winter scene at a later time in the day. Painting trees is quite complex, especially when they're affected by rain or snow. I definitely found it challenging trying not to make the snow look like icing or cotton candy.

Dragons, dragons, dragons

Generally, my life drawing sessions end up with many of these. "I can't help it if I'm looking at a model and all I see are horns and scales!" All bad jokes aside, I enjoy drawing creatures. At times I find drawing a few over grown reptiles is quite relaxing. I do feel bad for letting my life drawing time go to waste though...ah well, gotta stick to your guns right?

Traditional to 3D

One of our Lighting/ Texturing assignments required us to render a kitchen model in a creative way. A few lights, textures, an ambient occlusion and here we are.

Weapon Collection

Trench Knives

Curved Shirasya

Dynasty Warriors Dragon Blade

Curved Bushido Katana

Bushido Demigod Katana

My brother and I like collecting weapons of all sorts. Compared to his collection, mine is a smaller and simpler set, reserved only for the zombie apocalypse. Note: These are not authentic models.

Digital Painting Assignment 3: Cars

I'm a Lamborghini kinda guy so I pulled up a photo of the Aventador. Cars have an excellent supply of shadows, highlights and particular textures so they make for a formidable challenge. I blocked in almost every single colour shape to make the piece as realistic as possible. With a bit more time, I could have feathered some of the very sharp tonal shapes, producing a better end result. Despite the nit-picking, I'm still quite happy with the way it turned out.

Digital Painting Assignment 2: Head And Hands

It's Denzel Washington! This week's assignment requires the study of head and hands. I snagged a pic of Denzel after he ate all the cookies in the cookie jar. This assignment in my honest opinion was a tremendous amount of fun. Although I did manage to get frustrated and storm off screaming swear words in different languages, I pulled through and finished it in the end. The face could still use a bit of work however, I'm rather pleased with the hands. With this project, my greatest challenge was trying to make him look like Denzel and not Obama.

Digital Painting Assignment 1: Creatures

For Digital Painting this year, we're working from photo reference which is no walk in the park. Working off of a photograph still requires an extreme amount of skill. You've got to apply all the techniques you've learned to create likeness and believability to the referenced photograph. For this particular assignment we had to paint the head of a creature in black and white. After browsing around, I found a picture of a gorgeous Bengal tiger and thought I'd take a stab at it. I learned a lot about manipulating the brush mechanics to create better structure and form, allowing me to develop a different approach to my usual painting style. My greatest challenge was trying to paint the texture of the fur.

Summer!

This summer was fantastic! My family went to Mexico for my cousin's wedding where I consumed enough alcohol to make up for the 21 years of sobriety. Shortly after, I took a trip down to Dubai. I was constantly drooling over the Lamborghini and Porsche models. Thanks to my cousin, I was fortunate enough to get behind the wheel of a Porsche Cabriolet 911! My final destination and yearly visit was to Hong Kong. Since I've grown up there it's served me as my first home and sanctuary. I definitely took advantage of those 4 glorious months. Until next year, summer!

*Sniff* My little bro's all grown up

This charming young buck is my 18 year old, younger brother, Darren. I think this picture clearly explains why he's one of the most important people in my life. He's hilarious, mature, talented and loyal. Darren's that little ray of sunshine that everyone needs in their life. Now, he may be a slacker when it comes to school but hey, nobody's perfect! He's sort of like an eclipse...you rarely see him but when you do, it's special. We get along extremely well which is why we're in a band together. I'm absolutely honoured to call him my best friend and my brother.

Second Year Art Book Submission

Every year, our animation program puts together a yearbook which catalogues every students best pieces. It's an excellent source of exposure to simply get students names and styles out there so I definitely wanted in on it.

More Sake?

I just watched "The Last Samurai" for the 30th time and decided that I'm a Samurai too. That is all.

Freedom In Sexual Intensity

This is the artwork for one of the tattoos I have. I did this piece back in high school for a post modern art project calling it, "Freedom In Sexual Intensity". I've dedicated a feather out to each person that has changed my life in a significant way so far, piecing the wing with over 120 feathers.

They do exist...

I found these online one day and thought they were worth posting. Now...whether or not they're real, it's always fun to imagine. 

SERIZAWA!

For those of you who don't know, we are graced by the presence of an unbelievable movie titled, "Crows Zero". It's got a fight club feel with possibly more screaming and chaos. I'd recommend this movie and its sequel to any action/ adventure junkie in a heart beat.