IT'S ALIVE!!! - The 3D Art of John Shuman

Argh! I know I've been late posting the blog recently. My productivity has slumped a bit outside of my full time job as well. My wife and I have been doing a bit of traveling and wrapping up other odds and ends (*cough* Gears of War 3 *cough*). Ha! But I wanted to post something to let you all know that I'm not dead!

In the last few weeks I've been thinking a lot about the work I've done over the last couple years. More recently I've been working more on illustrations and graphic design oriented work. But a little over a year ago I was busy creating creatures and characters for an MMO that would fail to ever materialize. Some of my work on that project is feeling a bit dated now. But I'm still quite proud of some of those pieces. And I'm even more proud of the work our team did on the game that will never be seen.

One of the greatest pleasures I've had working as a concept artist is to see my scribbles brought to life in the third dimension by 3D artists. The back and forth relationship between a concept artist and a 3D artist is really a fun one. Both of us would grow more and more excited as we'd knock back and forth ideas during the process. And I'd never cease to be amazed at what they'd come up with in the end.

The talented man I'm referring to is John Shuman, a ridiculously awesome modeler. No matter what crazy critter I'd dream up, I could always count on John to take it to the next level in his models. I'd always love to peak over his shoulder as he brought my dreams to life. The experience was amazing and I miss being apart of it every day. John's moved on to other projects and continues to be awesome. But I wanted to share some our work together below. The concept art is all done by me but the way he translates my paintings into 3D is really the interesting take away. I hope you enjoy taking a look through these as much as I enjoyed watching him create them! You can check out more of John's work on his website. And he even has a lot more of the work we designed together posted on there.

That's all 'till next time! Thanks again for checking in and for putting up with my idleness! I'll try to be more diligent this week. Take care!

- Ryan

Did you say chimichangas?!

This weekend I had the honor of taking in a workshop featuring some talented artists at the Kavika Works art gallery in Santa Ana, CA. It was really inspiring and awesome to be apart of. Big thanks to David Pursley, Paul Richards, Kurt Papstien and Erick Rodriguez for taking the time to drop some knowledge on all of us in attendance!

During the art workshop this weekend I scribbled out some random doodles while soaking in the inspiration from the instructors there. I was scanning in my sketches Sunday evening and couldn't help but want to do a quick color pass on this dude. He was birthed after watching Paul Richards rock an amazing troll of his own for us at the workshop. So much fun.

Also, I've been thinking about why I seem to draw so many ugly things lately. I think it mainly stems from the fact that my day job has me consistently creating images that are appealing to what I refer to as "The Grandma Demographic." lol So I'm constantly urged to make stuff pretty. And when I get a chance to do something for fun I can't help but get as nasty and goofy. Ha! Hope you guys like him! More to come so stay tuned and thanks for dropping in!

- Ryan

MegaCute

Just to prove that I didn't completely waste my holiday weekend I present to you this MegaMan sketch that I painted up. I actually had a mostly finished color version but I wasn't really happy with how it was turning out. It got "Howdy Doody creepy" and lost some of the cuteness that I had captured in the original sketch. As I was working this up my wife told me she thought I should keep in in black and white to kindle some of "old school" feelings. I think it does the trick. Hope you guys like it!
If anyone is interested I think I'll be putting the original sketch up for sale over on my Etsy shop. I'll be sure to edit this post once I do! He was fun to work on as I've been scribbling little MegaMans all over random bits of paper recently. He's sort of become my go to subject for doodling. Ha! Maybe I'll compile a bunch of them as time goes on into a grouping of thumbnails. Could be fun!

Before I go I should say that I've neglected my Space Princess duties and have instead been enjoying BBQs and video games with friends. Ha! I might neglect it further as I'm thinking about doing a sample for some trading card artwork I'm hoping to get into. Maybe I can work on both together though since they'll be differing styles. All that to say this... hang with me! I'll get there! Ha! Thanks again for dropping in. Take care!

- Ryan