One More Month Left to 2020


Good morning. Or good evening!

To whoever may be catching up with me here, near 3 in the morning. It’s WEEK 13 of my 10th term at ArtCenter. I have to admit, it’s been exacerbatingly difficult. I’ll likely take another light semester, then take a break from school and maybe find some studio work the following summer. I’m already having a huge problem with the engagement/motivation drops that come from the learning environment shifting (and hiding) online. But sometimes, there are things that just take the cake and push over the tip. I’ll elaborate back on that later, but for now, I have some good news to share.

Sample work from Originality in Design and Adv. 3D

Sample work from Originality in Design and Adv. 3D

This site of mine has been online for about three years now, and I always struggled with posting and announcing in a way that felt appropriate. I’ve finally come to terms with just populating as many pages as I can, as often as I can, and leave some clues (perhaps a VIEW MORE button) to guide you to more content. This site is growing as I do, and so everything will almost always be a work in progress. You’ll find some of my taken courses have been updated, and in the future I’ll definitely be including text to deliver the process and experience better. All you need is that same password, and if you don’t have it, you can always get in touch with me. Wink. Oh, I’ve also uploaded things from the beginning of my industrial design career in high school. See me there as a sweet and unassuming boy. :]

My sweet, long-gone teenage years during ArtCenter Saturday High

My sweet, long-gone teenage years during ArtCenter Saturday High

I finished my first final - it was a group project for a class I REALLY liked. Unfortunately, everyone stayed unaccountable until the very end when I had to pull a presentation together. I did it up as best I could, but Saturday morning at the beginning of class I shared it with the group and wished them luck, sent the instructor an email, and DIPPED. For the next hour and a half anyway. No presenting from me: I was too tired from the last 48 hours, too flustered by the audacity that someone else showed the eve of. Thankfully the instructor and I were extremely transparent with each other, and she diffused the whole situation gracefully. You might stumble on it here - I’m a little ashamed to show it, but I do recognize that I made an ass-pull out of nothing. Like anything, time will pass and maybe I’d reconsider revisiting the exercise. This was a big passage for me to write tonight despite the impending finals. But my last class taught me that all I can do in the end is count on myself, and to just make the best of everything.

And so, I hope you do too. 2020 has been rough, but there’s just one month left, and we are hopefully due for some drastic, positive changes. Make the best of what’s around you, and take care of the people around you. Make sure to come back around to look for the new work - I’ll post and see you again soon. If you’re seeing this in the first week of this post, leave me your best in the comments.

Cheers, and happy holidays!

Impending Doom of Midterms


Jeez, I can’t believe the last time I posted was nearly half a year ago - for any of you who try and keep up with me or my work, please know that I am so TERRIBLY sorry. So here, allow me to appease you with some eye w̶o̶r̶k̶o̶u̶t̶s̶ ah, I mean candy, immediately.

It’s Rob and the Orange Lightning!

I revisited the property for my midterm project in Justin Pichetrungsi’s Painting 3 class just this summer. That was the only studio I had then, so all of the work I did in the class will probably be put together with the section I’d be making for my current fall classes. I’ll try and upload more presentable things through the blog here occasionally, but that bulk upload? You can look forward to it around the winter holidays. :]

Here’s a peek at something I’m cooking up for Vehicles and Props this term with Brendan Krause!

Here’s a peek at something I’m cooking up for Vehicles and Props this term with Brendan Krause!

I haven’t taken a semester off since summer last year, so I’ve been especially worn down as 2020 continually throws out its curveballs. Regarding my working tools alone, my previous laptop took a huge dump in the middle of the spring. I requisitioned a brand spankin’ new Lenovo Yoga C940 with some nice specifications, but alas, my relationship with technology has been STRENUOUS. I just got it back a few weeks ago from a service repair, but the wifi connection shuts off all the time, and my Photoshop has been super temperamental. Guaranteed crashes when the laptop wakes, sometimes it becomes unresponsive, other times it crashes in mere minutes - so it’s been rare for me to get long and consistent sessions. But I’ll take it as a blessing in disguise - after all, it’s been forcing me to up my working speed.

And, a film study that doesn’t involve any actual drawing! From Originality in Design with Shannon Jeffries.

I dropped off my mail ballot earlier today - thankfully Jean did much of the homework, and I was glad to see my dad doing the same for his votes. I have to say though, the websites belonging to many of these candidates and sometimes lack of info left plenty to be desired. I’ll cross my fingers - I’m hoping everyone simply does their part in making the world better, because boy do we need that now.

Please send me your fortunes! I wish the same upon you - stay safe and be well!

Cinematic Game Trailer Studies


Here are some cinematic trailer painting studies with minor breakdowns I did for homework in Painting 2 - the top is from Bungie’s Destiny 2 and below are from Ubisoft’s For Honor’s cinematic and gameplay trailers.

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Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend! My family has been relatively good about quarantine, so we had a small gathering for Mother’s Day with a lot of food and flowers. Summer term at ACCD also starts next week (ALREADY?!); I was on the fence about taking classes this time but thought I’m gonna have to do it sooner or later anyway. Looks like it’s going to be busy - I’ve picked up some other projects on the side, and I still have a lot of my personal projects for this site to complete.

Look forward to my future endeavors! Cheers and take care!

Post-Term Spring Update


Hey there!

Before I say anything else! I hope more than anything that you are well and safe! I think we can all agree 2020 can use a breather; moving furiously and quickly, it’s like life itself has been upset for the past four months.

If I haven’t lived it I wouldn’t have believed that four months have gone by so quick. Another semester at ArtCenter has come and gone, and I have the fruits of my recent labor to share!

If you mosey on over to the Coureworks section of the site you’ll find a the new row of content from each of the recent studio classes I’ve taken - below and to the right you can see at a glance at some of what’s added: like my completed presentation deck for Entertainment Graphics, and a page grab from Costume Design. The content’s password locked, but feel free to reach out to me for access - I want nothing more on this site than to share the work I create in my life, and if I could hear from you and your interest to see it that in itself would mean absolute the world to me!

Design for the Wolf from The Three Little Pigs

Design for the Wolf from The Three Little Pigs

Imaginary Landscape Painting “Picking Flowers”

I’m just really happy my loved ones are well and that we still have a roof overhead and food to consume. Quarantine hit right after the spring midterms at ArtCenter, and it really knocked me off my game. I think getting cut off from the outside world and being relegated to a digital screen cause me some mental duress, among other things. Casually broke my back from overworking. (lul what?!) I hit 29 last Tuesday during finals though. And I was really thankful to be able to celebrate it over hot pot with just my parents and girlfriend. She bought me an ice cream cake too. I haven’t had a slice of those since middle school! What I’d like to say is this - really be careful about how you want to approach life, so you can keep guarded, and also just really appreciate all the things you can be thankful for. Cause lawd knows shit can really hit the fan sometimes.

I’m rambling. Come back around sometime. Again, I hope you continue to stay well and safe.
Cheers!

Stylization 1 Showcase


I hope the new year is treating everyone well! Today I’ll be sharing with you one of the final projects I worked on for Kirsten Kawamura’s Stylization 1 class at ACCD this past fall semester. As the course name would suggest, the focus of the class was to learn and adapt different existing styles from life and from other artists, enabling us to begin developing our own unique styles for our work.

Rob in the Orange Lightning - Revamped Final Illustration

The final project that we took on after midterms involved visual development of a basic adventure story following a theme or tone. This included a line-up of characters, an environment to place them in, as well as a vehicle; as for the tone, I attempted to go for something more whimsical. I imagined it as a an animated television series, similar to shows like Phineas & Ferb or Adventure Time. The bones of the visual inspiration came from a blend of artist studio CreatureBox, known for its work on the Ratchet & Clank game franchise, as well as concept artist ‘Spudonkey’ Gareth Davies. For more on the development process, click on the gallery images contained in this post to zoom and enhance!

Overall the class, its exercises, and the final project were a lot of fun to go through. It’s akin to putting your own spin on a master copy/study, and I was happy to see how the aesthetic evolved over the 7 weeks. Of course, this is only representative of half of the work I did for the class; for more on Stylization 1, do check it out in its own section under my Coursework page, where you can find that as well as archives of work from my other classes throughout my college years!

Happy new year everyone! Thanks for dropping by, I’ll speak to you again soon!