Nathan Fowkes "Designing With Color and Light" Weeks 3 and 4 dump

Just an update on the class. Every Wednesday at midnight PST we get a lecture (about an hour ish long), an assignment that is due the following Thursday by midnight PST, and by Sunday (depending on if you turned in your assignment on time) we get a ~15 minute long video critique; the entire course is 9 weeks long. So far, every critique I've gotten Mr Fowkes has been tearing me a new asshole. Which is awesome, since I end up learning a lot more from said tearing than I do in the lectures. When we turn in our assignments, we rate ourselves out of 5 stars and have a section where we have any comments and additional questions for him. We also get access to previous and current students critiques to see what we are up against and let me say I am completely humbled and am reminded that I am just borderline average, maybe even below that. He has said that he is not an easy grader because this is how the industry is and I am sure all of his students appreciate that.

I'm a little hesitant as to showing my assignments since they suck but its all about progress right?? Here we go..

Week 3, my worst week ever.

The assignment was to create five different color keys using interesting color combinations and lighting. I was supposed to play with different values and lighting also, not only the blasted colors. Bahhhh  And also I don't know how to perspective. Time to brush up on some fundamentals.. 

Week 4, hopefully he sees that I'm learning and stuff. D: 

The assignment is similar to week 3, but this time we are to target certain emotions through light and color.

Spaceship Concepts

Nathan Fowkes' "Designing with Color and Light" Week 2

Week two is about believability. He gave us three black and white rough renderings of scenes and we are to paint over it using two sources of warm and cool lighting. I chose this scene from "How to Train Your Dragon."

He ripped me a new hole with the crits from the first week and took all of his advice and worked hard on this one and although I am not completely happy with it, I learned a lot. Meh, knowledge is power?

Here is the original to see what I had to work with:

Sketch Dump

I am back from backpacking and am ashamed at myself for not blogging throughout it. Was too busy experiencing life away from the screen and such. But here is a sketch dump, enjoy.

And I am enrolled in Schoolism's "Designing with Light and Color" class with the epic Nathan Fowkes. The first assignment was to do color study thumbnails of concept work I admire. Screenshots from: The Grand Budapest Hotel, AI, Ponyo, Frozen, Toy Story 3, Only Lovers Left Alive (hnnggg Tom HIddleston), Her, and various works from awesome concept artists. 

Environment Concept

I hate painting rocks and mountains, so I painted some rocks and mountains.

Photoshop CS4

Crack the Sky

New painting! I had this idea floating around in my head for a while. Originally it was in landscape but felt like it was more dynamic this orientation.  A lot of things changed from the sketch, to the first few drafts and the final. The entire color scheme and mood was changed and I would not have thought to do so unless I took this to final.

Photoshop CS4

Liberation of Speed Painting.

I've signed up for Noah Bradley's Art Camp. Its the second week in and I've already been learning a lot and developing a habit of working everyday despite having a 9-5 desk job.

The focus of this week is on painting from imagination. I've always been the type to obsess over small details and render the shit out of elements where I should have been concentrating on the entire composition as a whole.

Here is my first piece from imagination. Not that original but I am happy with it considering I spent about 1 hour on it. It seems like all the mental blocks I had before are now gone. I need to make a lot of work to make great work. Creating a lot of shit work is better than no work.

Trying New Things

Been working on this sketch the past few days for a weekly(or so we try) writer/artist collaboration that has been going on the last couple of months. 

I wanted to try a different approach and try doing a greyscale underpainting before adding colors so I can really concentrate on values and depth. I am still not sure what to put in the foreground, water? Tall grass? Gravel? In my friends story there is no distinguishable path to the cabin there so I'm going to have to think about it. I know I know, right now it looks like cold blooded murder has occured in this cabin to innocent people aside a huge fucking rock so I will make sure to provide a context story via my talented friend when it is finished. 

On a side note, I just saw Life of Pi with my mother and was blown away speechless. My mother was definitely glowing with pride because of Ang Lee and our Taiwanese blood. Now I am going to go off to watch one of my favorite movies, Brokeback Mountain again and cry. Thats right Heathy-and-Jakey-can't-quit-you in all its glory.