[Rinaldo]

Hi all
I'm packing two threads into one here to save space (so give me double the attention ). Download could also be harsh.

This is my latest bit of stuff


Just a rough over a sketch. I'm going to work it up And was wondering if anyone cared to join me in the rendering. (Chapel- It's not that good for colouring comic book style but you may want to play with it ). Besides having a few new members who like to "apropriate" other's sketckes and colour them I always like working with another person's ideas, so I thought I'd offer

Big line art is here: http://dove.net.au/~jbrasted/mecharmskla.jpg
I didn't go through levels stuff for layer seperation becuase I thought some pople might not want to use the comic book technique. Consequently it still has that paper texture and stuff.



[This message has been edited by Rinaldo (edited September 06, 2000).]

[Rinaldo]

Chapel-
I always wanted to be a comicbook artist but Look where I live. I'm not quite ready to relocate to the states like that. And lets face it, breacking into comics is hard as it is. There is basicaly no comic scene in Australia. Doing stuff by corraspondance is an option but it makes it a fair bit harder seeing as a lot of that industry is based around "contacts". I can see myself doing a graphic novel in the far distant future maybe, but that's about all I'm up for. Very chalenging business to be in anyway. I think I would find it frustrating in that if one does make it they are stuck doing whatever it was that made them for as long as they want cash.
I still like that style of drawing though

Cheers

[Chapel]

Francis: What in the hell!! You did that in less than an hour? Pass some of that talent my way.

Rinaldo: Some artist work from home. George Perez for one who lives near me. I'm just really leaning towards getting into the comic industry right now. There is sooo much going on in that industry right now I would just love to be apart of it.

By the way do you have bigger copies of the sketches on your sketch page? Email them to me if you do.

------------------
Chapel
- Will Draw for Food -
http://chapel.gfxartist.net/

[Dean Welsh]

Rinaldo: just in case you didn't know about this
www.ozcomics.com

[Rinaldo]

Francis-
I couldn't agree with you more It basicaly stems from exposure. Pure man hours. I'm not that long in the tooth. (turned 19 on the 26 aug) And it basicaly comes down the the fact that I have been drawing in a sketch book for as long as I can remember but only dealing with finished stuff and colour for a very short period of time. I'm getting there but there is only so much time in a day

I think you understood the sketch pretty well. it's one of my favorite redo-sketchy things from you. You can see that I always stuff up the colours. I'm still stuck in that kiddy fase of "grass is green and the sky is blue" I'm gonna put down one colour on the page and hide the friggin colour palete next time

[black_fish]

That looks pretty good. If you want to do game stuff why not check www.liquid.to
We're hiring right now

[Nex]

Nice sketch/linework Rinaldo.

darn.
I would not have tried to color it if I had seen Francis' version before. When I began to scribble it was not there yet-

well here is mine anyway, pity me..
I hope you don't mind.



Its my first try on a coloring like this one.

[This message has been edited by Nex (edited September 06, 2000).]

[Rinaldo]

Black_fish- Thanks One of these days I just going to move to the states. If I could do stuff via email I would be able to undercut just about anyone on price tho. Have you see the state of the Australian dollar. A paltry wage over there would be a kings ransom here

Chapel- Any particular sketches you're interested in. I'll send them all to you If you want but You'll have to wait until I can scrounge them all up
The problem as far as I see it is getting your foot in the door of the comicbook industry. A lot of it relies on "what's hot". It sometimes borders on cultish in a way. I was never a big fan of comics so much as the artwork in them. I don't like the never-ending stories so much as the graphic novel stuff. European comics and Manga are more to my liking than your average superhero. I'll still read it if the art is good but it never grabs me if it's not. The thing that I really don't like about the idea of comics is that you are so locked down. If you go in as an amateur you don't really have a lot of time to develop as an artist. A lot of the skill that I see is not so much in good drawing but good remembering of symbols. Every one looks the same. Different hair cut etc but no real experimentation with emotion or characterisation. There are a fair share of comics that are really well produced but on the whole its more about making money than making art and that puts me off a bit. I would love to get involved in that sort of thing later when I don't have to climb up the ladder so much. I mean It would be great to get involved and I would envy you if you did get in but I don't feel that desperate need to live and breath comics any more (Not much anyway)


Dean Welsh- thanks, I'll check it out

[Rinaldo]

Nex- I don't think were gona see anymore redo's thanks to Francis . Pity us all.
I think your pic is working a lot better than mine at this stage. I always loose the edges and only occasionaly find them later on. After seeing Francis' I was a bit ashamed of my little effort. I'll have to try extra hard this time. Pity spooge is away.

[Chapel]

Don't worry about it Rinaldo. I printed them out and they are pretty large. A few are cropped off, but I'll just draw in what I think should be there if that is ok. Keep drawing. We can talk a little more after I actually color some of these. I may have an idea.

[Jenn]

Bery Bery nice -dribbles over them-
Would like to see more..

------------------
DarkChyld

[above]

Great Sketch Rinaldo! I couldn't pass up the oppurtunity to color it, sorry for butchering the thing to death.

[Rinaldo]

Jenn-Thanks You can nose around my image dump-index-thing if you get bored one day. most of the tasty stuff is here but you might find something you haveb't seen. I'll do a huge sketchbook archive one day and post the lot Sketches are good

Index of images http://dove.net.au/~jbrasted/


above- Pink?...... not my first choice of colour but I think it has it's own charm. sort of "mecha-camp" I think the leg worked out well.

I should really colour this thing, Probably never get around to it after all this

[above]

Pink's a real mans color.

[Francis]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rinaldo:
Nex- I don't think were gona see anymore redo's thanks to Francis .

---

Yo! Not cool! I want to see more, different interpretations. I didn't post that image to show up anyone - in fact I was trying to encourage more experimentation that way.

------------------
Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[Rinaldo]

Ok, onto the second part of my dribblings:

I'm in a situation where I have to update my portfolio pending more aplications. I was wondering if anyone would be so kind as to take a peek at the images below (very sorry about the download) and tell me which ones should get the flick and which ones the go ahead. Also if anyone "in the know" could tell me if I have a fighting chance at getting a job (doing game stuff, concept, texturing, modeling [3D stuff is not up an running yet...heh, so just ignore that part however important for the moment]) or if I should just go back under my rock and draw some more. (brutal is expected and apreciated)

Anyway here the images I've chosen (needs to be culled down to around 5)

A Robot


Rendition of merlin


Mouse and Frog:
(Not sure about these. maybe too cute but shows a bit of breadth and I've always liked them)


This one


And I always like to put an extra frog in there

[Rinaldo]

Now for the sketches (it's initialy an email application so I can't show my batterd and beloved sketchbook.

I've had this page for sketches for a while. http://dove.net.au/~jbrasted/Sketches.jpg And it still has some stuff I like but I was wondering if some of my newer stuff woould be better? For example this one http://dove.net.au/~jbrasted/Girlwalk2.jpg
And the one at the start of this thread that I'm playing with now.

I also have this page of old and grubby life drawing. Quality could be a a lot better but is it worth putting crap LD in place of none at all.



A pretty paltry offering now that I look at it. But It's all I got

[Chapel]

I might try something with it tonight. I have some projects that I want to do for myself right now too. So.. time permitting.

Hey I just looked at those old sketches you have and those are great. I may ink and color some of those. (Keep in mind this is not my strong point, but your pencils are better than mine and I need the practice.)

[This message has been edited by Chapel (edited September 06, 2000).]

[Rinaldo]

Chapel-cool, Take your time


I should probably elaborate a bit on a few things. I realise that most of the pics above don't really serve any purpose and don't show any real skils in The main things People do when making games. Most are more Illustrative than conceptuial. But I am most interested in what areas to build up on. What are the best ways of showing ability in say texturing or something of that nature.
For me it's more a matter of "No?... well what can I do so that the answer will be 'yes'".

[Chapel]

Well veb might be the best to answer what you should have in your folio if you want to be a texture artist. If you wanted to pursue comics, which you have a great style for, you want to show settings.. normal people.. action sequences... cars.. pretty much anything you can think of. And take all of those things and put it in a storyboard. Plus, if you ink and color.. well you are what they call a "triple threat". So, show samples of that too. I'd still like to be in comics and frankly I wouldn't mind being an inker for a good penciller. Like Joe Quesada and Jim Palmotti.

[Francis]

Rinaldo - for what it's worth, I really dig the page with the little quick sketches, and the life drawing page. If you're talking about concept art (and I know you're actually looking at a wide variety of job possibilities), I think it's important to be able to draw convincingly and clearly first and foremost. Your other color stuff is certainly well done, but the pencil stuff seems to communicate your skills and ideas a little better. That's not to say you shouldn't have fully rendered color stuff in your portfolio, but just make sure those images are doing what they're supposed to. I think Phil could probably give you a better idea of what he looks for in a portfolio, since he's the guy who does that here.

On another note, I really liked the sketch, and did a quickie painting over it. Unfortunately all your nice line work got lost in my version, but oh well.



------------------
Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[TJFrame]

I see that on this forum, posting your own interpretations of other people's stuff is pretty popular, so I decided to give it a quick whack.

So here is my redo. Time was a little under 3 hours.

-TJ

[Rinaldo]

*Gasp*................Well errrr........there ya go Francis.....

TJFrame- That's simply fantastic! Don't know what to say, except I realy like the colours. Very very nice


Francis- I was just joking around, I sincerly hope it didn't sound as If I and or anyone else didn't want any more redos. I enjoy all interpretations and apreciate everyones art no mater the skill level. I was just saying that people might be scared off by your fantastic pic. I'm very sorry if I stated it in a way that could be misinterpreted
Everyone should feel free to put up stuff. The idea can often be more powerfull than the technique anyway.
Very sorry if I set the wrong tone for the proceedings. More art?... yes please!

[Joachim]

lots of nice stuff there Rinaldo. I like your drawings a lot. Only thing, some of them could seem a bit unfinished, since you've chosen to color them with such strong colors but in a very rough matter. It kind of breaks up the original shape instead of making them stronger. Then I esp. mean that new sketch. Seems like the underlying sketch would have been better alone.

Hope you see what I mean, but nice stuff, fine figuredrawings and those cute animals. Me Like

------------------
Joachim's Place

[Rinaldo]

Yes I understand and agree with what you mean Joachim. I was just working out a colour scheme. I think I should have used a waterclour effect with multiply and posibly a seperated line layer as opposed to trying to "paint" it first off for the rough.

Thanks for your kind words

[Rinaldo]

Chapel- looks like a good start. I didn't have any colour scheme in mind. I managed to get some good results when I "digitaly inked" that Joe Mad Wonder Woman sketch. I used Overlay blending mode with a brush. If you have black as a colour it will darken the lines while if you chose white it will lighten them. I went over the bits that needed darkening with black. This causes a few of the smudges from the drawer's hand to get darker (not good) so I then go over those with white as a colour. It's like adjusting the levels but you havea heap more control. It's better than trying to paint the lines in becuase it is less prone to mistakes. One swipe of Black and then a swipe of white and it posterises it for you. playaround with it, and it can yeild nice results. nothing beats a nice clean line on brite white paper though

I uploaded one of the sketches on that page at a bigger size. I chose it becuase the lines were a bit cleaner than the others. closer to finished pencil work.
http://dove.net.au/~jbrasted/Robottorsobig.jpg

There are also some more robo skethes that are fairly clean in this page I posted a while ago- http://dove.net.au/~jbrasted/Robosketch.jpg

I'll try and find some less mechanical stuff and scan it. I don't tend to work in pencil anymore. So you won't have to worry about inking. I either use marker or nothin for an under drawing. The sketch at the top of the page was done with nada underdrawing. A tiny composition sketch is all.
Heh...pretty dangerious. I stoped at the legs becuase I was afraid I'd stuff em up
It was done quite small as well, which when added to the grainy paper (Mmmmmmmm....) makes it not all that good for colouring.
I recently bought some nice big thick comic pages which I've been meaning to use, so I might do something a litle bigger and a little less grainy

L8r

[Rinaldo]

Thanks Waco, I've been waiting for your words of wisdom to grace my humble thread
I'm very happy that you like the sketches. I like them the most too. Like I said to Francis It is mostly due to pure man hours doing colour. I sort of know where to go but It's just taking time. I initialy tried to simplify the colours becuase The task of jumping in the deep end is a bit daunting and sort of lead to me drowning most of the times I tried it. I'll take your advice and do some studying of real life.

Your feedback is much apreciated

[Fred Flick Stone]

Rinaldo-I have to agree with Waco and Francis. You have a wonderful sketch style. So much imagination comes through in those images. Once you get to the color level though, the images tend to fall a part just a bit in terms of top to bottom adhesion. The pieces are a bit too separated, there is little to no indication of complex form, modeling and reflection. I know you know this stuff, just slow down when doing these color images. I know that you can pull it off, just invest lots of hours, and use a very critical eye. If you have to, simulate the lighting, orientation, situation, etc. in order to study the effects you are about to embark upon capturing.

One thing that I have learned about interviews, is that some directors know what they are looking at and for, and most do not. I was fortunate to have Phil(wacomonkey) hire me, he is particular about his artists. One thing he was sure of was looking through the sketchbooks and seeing that the artist is on top of his imagination, and conceptual eye is very clear as to what it see�s.

If you show off many things, make sure they are all very strong. One thing that will kill you is to go in for an interview for one position, have that art in your folio, but have other facets of what you do in the folio as well, and those pieces are better than the ones you need to show�

You are going to be showing a variety of things, one thing every type of level of artistry asks for is proof of figureative work. Figure drawing. Select wisely in this department, make sure your absolute strongest pieces are in this section, and nothing more. The next big important one is the sketchbook. Have a very strong sketchbook section.

If you are going to attempt game industry, show that you can work at every level proficiency. Tech, character design, environments, special effects, storyboards, etc. IF one is stronger than the others, you are still more than likely going to get the job, especially you, Rinaldo. What you have shown here shows a strong presence of imagination. My only comment might be that the forum might be dictating poses for your characters that you are getting too caught up in. Try your own pose invention, and try less close ups. You have the skills you just have to find what it is you look at most, and how you envision it in your mind�This group of images is a great assembly of work. But a few of the images could be eliminated.
The cully piece, it is a bit too broken up, if you solidified a few of the forms, I would leave it in the book. The wizard image also. THe shapes are a bit too clumpy in their depiction of paint. The color palette is also a bit strange, a bit too garish. All the other images though are very strong. I would consider developing a conceptual style with your pen hand, it is very loose, accurate, and very interesting. I really love the style your prelim sketches show. Very sweet.

Take your time with the book. I would love to see you get a job, and you can easily do it, just be wise with the art you show, and really push yourself with straining the imagination. The more original the more staying power you will ever have. Good luck with this, and post the other art you are considering placing in your book. I really want to see you get in the industry�

[Rinaldo]

Thank you thank you Fred

I'm taking on board all of what you said. Very usefull and insightfull (as always ).

Only time will tell on the job front. But as for the colour thing, I think I'll levitate towards getting all my head clogging images out of my system with pen an' paper. and then only work in colour on comp with the stuff that really deserves it, spending a lot more time getting it right, as opposed to getting bored of it after a few hours.

Pleasure to hear what you have to say.

[Chapel]

Ok Rinaldo here is my very first attempt at comic book coloring. (Inspired by binder... not) I did this while I was at work with a crappy mouse so I hope you like. By the way if you have certain colors in mind let me know.. I don't want to ruin your creations. Anyway here it is.. anyone feel free to critique.



By the way I didn't get a change to ink this cause my pens suck and so did the print out. So I played around with the line work in PS.

[This message has been edited by Chapel (edited September 07, 2000).]