Well, having an assignment to get a website up was not the way I wanted to go about doing it, I guess with all the time I been investing into my work, I kind of let it slide to the wayside. But at the same time it was nice having the assignment and forcing me into the creation of one. Though it was actually two websites, a free one which turned out not to bad, at least I think it hasn't, and is by no means done, the first one RasmussenCn.com I was able to snag the address that I wanted, and I'm currently editing that one and building via Wordpress. The second one http://rasmussencn.wix.com/crasmussen-portfolio#!home/mainPage is being done by Wix.com.
To be able to a foothold back on the web again is nice. I felt bad about it, not having a website and trying to get a job is like saying I'm not sure about myself. At least in my eyes. So now, I am happy with what I have and will continue to work on it.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Monday, October 15, 2012
Self Critique
Self critiquing this piece once again, I knew about the proportions and line control prior to the lessons I have gone over. Completion of the piece I would say is my failure on this one, It starts to really get good depth, but then there are only a few areas that I did that to, completing it would make it really stand out.
Overall a fine piece out of my portfolio, a few hard lines in the upper traps and a lack of shadowing on his left upper quad would make this piece complete.
Lower half on this centaur should've been proportioned correctly, his gluts are a bit small, and a bit of hard shadows going on his lower right ribcage.
This was and probably is my best work for the anatomy of a male. Completion of this would be my biggest flaw on it. This is the first Digital work I did, and not completing it has made me not want to show it. There should be more of a background and I think I also screwed up on the toes.
There are many pieces of work that I have come to really know, I knew about my weaknesses and have been addressing them already. I am hoping that I take the knowledge that I have learned in the last year and now apply it to my work in the 3d realms
Monday, October 8, 2012
Well, in my eye, I see myself as an artist/game designer, so when I look online to see and learn, there are two sites in particular that I have always garnered to. The first, gamasutra.com is a site that really breaks almost all of the industry down, there is information to the coders, sound board guys, the artists, and the designers. I did summarize most of the jobs, because there are many others that would be included into the creation of a game. But gamasutra will cover your needs when discussing the post mortems, to the creative board and how to keep your interest into what you are doing.
The second one that I have as one of my homepages has been game-artists.net. I don't frequent this site as much as I would of liked to in the past year, mostly because knowing my issues with 3d art, I focused on the traditional art, improving on my anatomy and shadowing skills. But this site holds many fine artists, that work in the industry and outside of the industry, they have keen eyes to help you to see things more clearly and where to improve. A big props to the site and the fellows that run it, for they do competitions that range from concept art, to speed modeling.
I forgot to mention another one that I do frequent, though getting response on it is sometimes flaky, would be deviantart.com. Can spend mass amounts of time looking at other peoples art and can get inspired by quite a few of the pieces there.
The second one that I have as one of my homepages has been game-artists.net. I don't frequent this site as much as I would of liked to in the past year, mostly because knowing my issues with 3d art, I focused on the traditional art, improving on my anatomy and shadowing skills. But this site holds many fine artists, that work in the industry and outside of the industry, they have keen eyes to help you to see things more clearly and where to improve. A big props to the site and the fellows that run it, for they do competitions that range from concept art, to speed modeling.
I forgot to mention another one that I do frequent, though getting response on it is sometimes flaky, would be deviantart.com. Can spend mass amounts of time looking at other peoples art and can get inspired by quite a few of the pieces there.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Self Appraisal
A flaw that I have heard on more then one occasion would be that I am arrogant, my friends state this, and even my own brother has stated this. I would say it is a problem, the reason why it is a problem is because I don't view myself as arrogant. I know a lot of information on a great many things, I wouldn't consider myself to a be a know it all, nor do I "showboat" the amount of knowledge or information that I know. When it comes to my skills, I consider myself to be lacking. There are areas in which I see disappointment or a lack of understanding and I focus all my attention onto those areas.
It is a issue, and I do know that I hold myself to higher standards, and maybe this comes off as being arrogant. In effort to not come off as arrogant, I try to be open, friendly and polite. I don't pass judgement on people, at least not right away, I will analysis the situation and the person, and might come to conclusion within a short period, but I don't see how you can't form an opinion without making a judgement on them.
I am creative, I am for the most part punctual, I like to get things done early, unless there is something else of importance that must be taken care of. I am a friendly, outgoing individual, I get along with most of everyone, but there will be a few that I don't, and when those do arise, it is the complete opposite effect, I might not have an issue with someone, because I have worked with a lot of different people, and adapt very quickly, and don't hold things, but that person just won't like me. I am a hard worker, I strive to work at the best of my ability and in a timely fashion.
As mentioned before arrogance stems from me, whether I know it or not, but the other one that I do know of, and this one I have worked on for many a year, it would be strong willed, or during a time when you are holding your ground, another name for it would be maybe headstrong. In this it is a double sided coin, for it is one of my strong suits, where it has helped me strive at becoming better, being on time, having the hard work ethic. And others it clashes, makes ripples in ponds when I don't intend to. When to pick the "fight' and when to back down. And I have no problems with backing down or being humble, I'm not hurt in being proven wrong, I chalk that up on lessons learned. I remember why I was wrong and I continue foward.
I would say that in the last 11 years, I have been opened to many things from many different jobs/careers, and each one of these has made me a better person. From my first job out of the house, learning to control my temper, to my last job as a teacher where I learned to convey and understand many people.
A flaw that I have heard on more then one occasion would be that I am arrogant, my friends state this, and even my own brother has stated this. I would say it is a problem, the reason why it is a problem is because I don't view myself as arrogant. I know a lot of information on a great many things, I wouldn't consider myself to a be a know it all, nor do I "showboat" the amount of knowledge or information that I know. When it comes to my skills, I consider myself to be lacking. There are areas in which I see disappointment or a lack of understanding and I focus all my attention onto those areas.
It is a issue, and I do know that I hold myself to higher standards, and maybe this comes off as being arrogant. In effort to not come off as arrogant, I try to be open, friendly and polite. I don't pass judgement on people, at least not right away, I will analysis the situation and the person, and might come to conclusion within a short period, but I don't see how you can't form an opinion without making a judgement on them.
I am creative, I am for the most part punctual, I like to get things done early, unless there is something else of importance that must be taken care of. I am a friendly, outgoing individual, I get along with most of everyone, but there will be a few that I don't, and when those do arise, it is the complete opposite effect, I might not have an issue with someone, because I have worked with a lot of different people, and adapt very quickly, and don't hold things, but that person just won't like me. I am a hard worker, I strive to work at the best of my ability and in a timely fashion.
As mentioned before arrogance stems from me, whether I know it or not, but the other one that I do know of, and this one I have worked on for many a year, it would be strong willed, or during a time when you are holding your ground, another name for it would be maybe headstrong. In this it is a double sided coin, for it is one of my strong suits, where it has helped me strive at becoming better, being on time, having the hard work ethic. And others it clashes, makes ripples in ponds when I don't intend to. When to pick the "fight' and when to back down. And I have no problems with backing down or being humble, I'm not hurt in being proven wrong, I chalk that up on lessons learned. I remember why I was wrong and I continue foward.
I would say that in the last 11 years, I have been opened to many things from many different jobs/careers, and each one of these has made me a better person. From my first job out of the house, learning to control my temper, to my last job as a teacher where I learned to convey and understand many people.
Well, it has been awhile since my last update. In the last couple weeks, I have gone from having very little feeling and a lack of control in my left hand to having stitches and slow return of both feeling and control into my main hand. I've been having this issue since July, and they finally decided to do surgery on my hand for carpal tunnel this past week. Well, more like about 9 days ago. My workflow has dropped almost to an nonexistence, due to the fact that when theres pain in the hand, I have to stop all activity with it, and take pain killers that put me to sleep. Now, my hand has finally started coming back around, I have to scramble to get my homework done, with a wrap around my left hand protecting the newly formed scar I will have for the rest of my life.
That in a nutshell has been my last few weeks, literally since my last post. I was hoping to have regained everything in my hand prior to school, but as luck has shown me, the dice don't roll in my favor.
That in a nutshell has been my last few weeks, literally since my last post. I was hoping to have regained everything in my hand prior to school, but as luck has shown me, the dice don't roll in my favor.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Work breakdown
Another one where I had difficulty with line control. This was from clothed figure drawing class, understanding folds. A lack of detail on the folds, correct shading would of made this really pop. This was a caricature that we got to do at the end of our semester.
I feel I did well on these, they were about 5-10 min sketchs, bottom left the upper jaw/mandible shows great depth, I believe I worked from right to left, top down on this one, so the bottom left one was the last one I drew, being left handed, and it shows that even though it was a quick sketch, that one has a bit lacking detail.
This was a study off of Michelangelo's work. I put a lot of time and effort into this one, I feel that it came out really well, a few hard lines down in the calf area and abdominal area could of shown a bit more care.
With the leg, the proportion was off by a little bit, and the heel being a bit to large, I think I had decent line control here. It was a great indicator showing the upper and lower leg muscles.
I have good line control, proportions are pretty close, lack of detail in the hands and getting the face correct are issues that I had/have with this one and others.
Dynamic hand poses, it really stressed my ability to draw these in the very unique poses that they were, more shadowing in them would've made them really pop. The line control on these was decent, if done properly, it would've helped with the depth.
Another study off of
Michelangelo, the guy on the right I feel I nailed, I put a lot of time into this one, so when I started to draw the second one, I knew afterwards the proportions were off, I adjusted and tried to fix and make as best as possible.
This wraps up my conventional drawings. From here I will be posting my digital work, from models to screenshots of levels/design.
From here, the thing that stands out the most for me, would be textures, and it is something that will be a constant throughout my work for that is one of my weak points in my eyes. You can see the wireframe, which shows you the topology, and its decent, though it could use some a bit more work inside the joint areas. And of course as it stands to show, most of my work is low poly work. Though I don't think it is a negative point that I don't have any high poly.
Here, my normals are not popping like I would like them to, the topology shows a bit more for the joints, and texture wise, very lacking. I would say that the anatomy is a bit off, biceps should be raised into the shoulder a bit more. I was going off of my perception of what a dwarf would look like, so in that regards, I wanted a very broad shoulder/chest.
Here we have a really low poly model, topology shows once again, need more edges/verts inside the joints. Knowing that I did animate him for a game, I can tell you the legs and groin area could use a bit of an adjustment, allowing better bending/blending of the animations.
Other then the obvious lack of textures. The wireframe shows that cylinder polys are not 4 edge polys! I think texturing the following two models would really make them pop. I would like to add a bit more geometry to them, and finishing them to the concept that I have in mind.
Just another one, that holds true to the same critique the last one had.
It sounds redundant, but textures, textures, textures! Topology shows that a few polys are more then 4 edges!
Textures! This one I was playing around with bumps, so there was no normal's on this. I know how to create normals on organic/humanoid but hard surface I have just begun dappling in.
Sticking to a artistic theme is my big issue here, As I continued working on this one, my style changed due to learning the Unity game engine, on its limits. Textures of course, that is a obvious one.
Normals don't pop! Lack of detail from the texture. Wireframe shows topology lacking the necessary edges on the joints.
Gears of War level design: There are a few areas where it is somewhat obvious that after the cutoff point, you can tell there is nothing there. I worked on optimizing this one, to keep it down, low level poly buildings with Lod's going on, to help establish it to seem like the city. Path finding and some scripted events I think were still bugged.
'
Lack of texture details. The normals did pop a bit more on here, but the lack of speculars did not help. Wireframe shows again that edges are lacking on joints. Facial texturing is completely missing. He was designed for a 3rd person melee/ranged so you would've never seen his face.
'
Topology shows that its weak in the joints, specifically the shoulders, if they are attached, it is hard for this model to have an animation tied to them. Lack of textures.
Self Reflection
To start off, I need to go back to the point where I first was exposed to video games, this is where the first thoughts of my mind started to churn about video games, both in playing them, and in a few short years to creating them.
I was young like most when first introduced to games, I was five or six years old but in my case we would only really play them during the winter months. My parents had a restriction on them that only when it got to be 30 degrees outside could we play video games. So it was then and from that point on that my love for video games started. I played many games from that point, ones that were of interest in my life include Hero quests, Quest for Glory, Kings Quest which the last one was a intro into the 3d gaming genre, and then from there Age of Empires to Diablo and Diablo 2. There have been so many games that I have played, I would have to say that the one that I really don't have a huge interest is in Sports, it was always a thing that I would rather do, which I was able to do rather then play. Though if I would have just played them on a console or pc, I probably wouldn't of had the injuries and consequences that lead from them.
I didn't finish High School, I dropped out in my junior year, seeing no interest in any of the classes. I went into the workforce then, doing Heating and Cooling for 2 years, worked slowed there with not making much, and I went to work for Carver Yachts at that time. Doing metal fab for another 2 years. I was at a point where I saw no chance that I wanted to spend my life doing factory work, or even tradesman job. Before I dropped out of High School I went online and did some looking around for anything dealing with Game Design then, and at that time there wasn't many options, with money being a number 1 concern, I couldn't afford DigiPen or FullSail, for those two were really the only options.
But, thankfully, and I can say that I was happy with the education that I received from ITT-Tech at that time. Ben Giesler just was recently hired there, and he wrote/developed an entirely new curriculum. More to the standards of what was needed to get hired on straight from school. In fact, upon his arrival, the first batch of students that graduated 3 out of the 5 were hired on. One was hired and is currently still working at HighMoon Studios.
I pushed pretty hard on the last 2 years of the degree, for the first 2 it was more about learning the programs, 3dsMax, flash, director, Photoshop, illustrator, and the following 2 years was around the pipeline and learning a game engine to create something for your portfolio. I was selected out of our class to intern 9 months prior graduation, where I was a QA for 3 months. After the 3 months I was then hired as a Teaching assistant. Now you may be wondering why I would go from QA to TA? Well, QA wasn't a paid job, while the TA was and it was good money while I finished school. Prior to graduation, I was hired on as a Adjunct Instructor, and from there I developed a love for teaching. Giving more ambition to continue teaching sometime down the road.
I am continuing my education to develop my artistic abilities and to obtain my Masters for a personal goal. I would love to get a job in the field, and I would love to be able to create my own games instead of following someone else's dreams. Though the experience I would cherish also as I learn more about the field I love so much.
I was young like most when first introduced to games, I was five or six years old but in my case we would only really play them during the winter months. My parents had a restriction on them that only when it got to be 30 degrees outside could we play video games. So it was then and from that point on that my love for video games started. I played many games from that point, ones that were of interest in my life include Hero quests, Quest for Glory, Kings Quest which the last one was a intro into the 3d gaming genre, and then from there Age of Empires to Diablo and Diablo 2. There have been so many games that I have played, I would have to say that the one that I really don't have a huge interest is in Sports, it was always a thing that I would rather do, which I was able to do rather then play. Though if I would have just played them on a console or pc, I probably wouldn't of had the injuries and consequences that lead from them.
I didn't finish High School, I dropped out in my junior year, seeing no interest in any of the classes. I went into the workforce then, doing Heating and Cooling for 2 years, worked slowed there with not making much, and I went to work for Carver Yachts at that time. Doing metal fab for another 2 years. I was at a point where I saw no chance that I wanted to spend my life doing factory work, or even tradesman job. Before I dropped out of High School I went online and did some looking around for anything dealing with Game Design then, and at that time there wasn't many options, with money being a number 1 concern, I couldn't afford DigiPen or FullSail, for those two were really the only options.
But, thankfully, and I can say that I was happy with the education that I received from ITT-Tech at that time. Ben Giesler just was recently hired there, and he wrote/developed an entirely new curriculum. More to the standards of what was needed to get hired on straight from school. In fact, upon his arrival, the first batch of students that graduated 3 out of the 5 were hired on. One was hired and is currently still working at HighMoon Studios.
I pushed pretty hard on the last 2 years of the degree, for the first 2 it was more about learning the programs, 3dsMax, flash, director, Photoshop, illustrator, and the following 2 years was around the pipeline and learning a game engine to create something for your portfolio. I was selected out of our class to intern 9 months prior graduation, where I was a QA for 3 months. After the 3 months I was then hired as a Teaching assistant. Now you may be wondering why I would go from QA to TA? Well, QA wasn't a paid job, while the TA was and it was good money while I finished school. Prior to graduation, I was hired on as a Adjunct Instructor, and from there I developed a love for teaching. Giving more ambition to continue teaching sometime down the road.
I am continuing my education to develop my artistic abilities and to obtain my Masters for a personal goal. I would love to get a job in the field, and I would love to be able to create my own games instead of following someone else's dreams. Though the experience I would cherish also as I learn more about the field I love so much.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)