Baby's First ZBrush

On a whim tonight, I sat at a computer and had a good friend teach me the very basics of using Zbrush! This is my first ever introduction to digital 3d work. All the video-game companies want to see examples 3d expertise. So I figure cosying up to Zbrush is not a bad idea (at least so I can say I've touched it, rather than just being vaguely terrified of it). So, I made this from a ball. It's nothing mind-blowing by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not as scary as I thought it would be to do! And it looks like a face! Like, of a dude!
I still have no idea what all the tools and menu items do. But at least I feel like I can start somewhere.

To those who actually read this stuff: Hi!
Just a quick update before I go to sleep...a few small things to post and a little news!

SOME NEWS:
I've just committed for the summer to extend my stay at the MIT GAMBIT Games Lab for the 8-week summer program with three of my cohorts already in the program. It was awesome, actually...it wound up that there were 2 slots open and 3 of us yet to make the call...so we talked it out and decided to ask if they could accommodate an extra artist...and they totally are helping us figure out how to squeeze a third spot because it would be a little tragic to break the Fellowship. So: yay! The first real adult decision of my life. Not a full-on real job yet, but it gives me time to spend with some of the people I like the most and some time to get prepped for whatever else the 'real world' has to offer. The upshot is, come June 11th, I'll be working at MIT with Fabiola and Brandon.
Guys: It's kind of, like, 2 weeks until things are like...kind of...done here. It's crazy.

OTHER NEWS:
I've been featured by this really neat little blog called Artlibs. They asked for an interview and to fill out a mad-lib...you can read both by scrolling down a little here.

MORE NEWS:
I'll be an officially published comic-artist on June 3rd, when my little two-pager for Dark Horse Studios goes live HERE. SUPER EXCITING! I'll be blabbing about it more as the time approaches, I'm sure.

This week for John Foster: a cover to "Wolverine: Netsuke". It's a comic about Wolverine's Japanese connection, and it needs a fitting cover by next week...so above are the sketches I'll be hearing back about tomorrow. Any favorites, y'all?

And finally, this week's dumb Youtube reccomendation is this: Auto-Tune the News.
It's awesome. I think I'll watch it again. :D
Much more art in the near near future!
In the meantime: sleep!
Thanks for reading!
-Nick

Puckahontas: Painting With All the Colors of the Wrong Frickin Movie

THE SUN IS OUT THE SUN IS OUT THE SUN IS OUT.

YAY.

I also have art!

This week for Jon (Foster...he's kind of a big deal) we got to do a cover for "A Midsummer Night's Dream". No sketch phase on this one...so pretty much under the gun and in a week with whatever we could come up with (which is, in some ways, how I prefer it).
I am by turns pleased and displeased with this piece. I don't know how to fit it. For myself, I was happier with the lineart phase, and the colors went in a different (albeit, functional) direction on their own. I just don't necessarily equate this palette with Midsummer Night's Dream...I think (what with the Birch trees, too) I've managed to make MSND look very like Pocahontas.
Hmmm.
Also, I've ripped off Magritte. I know, I know...but it's not like he's doing anything with it anymore.
(I had this idea vaguely sketched out, and then my friend Peter said "hey, like Magritte!" and showed me the piece...so then I went with it and made it SUPER like Magritte) :)
I think I should have done a color study beforehand...generally I should just be doing more color studies.
Oh, and this was a nother night-long piece (pencils, inks and color)...a little more time spent than last week's. Digital color in photoshop...the yooojgeual. Which sucks, because I really wanted to bust out the watercolors for this piece...too little time, too little courage.
Did I mention Spring is here?
Yay!
Also: musics! I've recently received a massive dump of J-pop from some very generous and half-asian freshmen. The stand out track this week is from a crazy celtic/japanese combo artist named Kokia! (IGNORE DUMB VIDEO)
And my current jam (played at every opportunity) is mostly unspellable in english and comes from my bee-eff-eff Beth: XI SHUA SHUA!

Since I like the lineart this week, here's that:

Enjoy!

-Nick

Steam Thursday

The sun is out today...and I am glad.
I have just pulled a pretty rough all-nighter on this piece. I'm pretty pleased with it for all that (it's a personal best for a single-night's work, I think). Still, I'd love to dig in more and respond to some of the critiques to get more light into the foreground onto the characters.
It's a cover for a Steampunk novel called Boneshaker...there was little information given (ie: none) about the plot, but we were told there was a female lead, her son, and some dirigibles. I took some liberties :)
I think the tone of the book was much more adult...grim-gritty realism and all that. But if I'm being given a little wiggle room...:p
I need to get some sleep and take a little break from working. It's been a mad week and it doesn't look like the semester's going to let up. I'm going to try getting some more sleep in the coming weeks...I always forget how gross the world seems when you haven't slept. Ick.
Anyways, next week there will be another cover: Midsummer Night's Dream! Should be good fun.
Other quick news: job hunting is looking good from this vantage point. Waiting to hear back on a lot of things. Hope you enjoy this little piece and thanks for reading!
-Nick

Steam on the Horizon

And that's that!
Not much in the way of work to show at the moment, but plenty of news on the horizon!
I've braved the my senior Illustration Portfolio review and it went very well! It's been a crazy week, just prepping for it, but I've made it through the other side with a snazzy print-portfolio to keep showing around.
Marvel were a no-show at the event: ":("
But Microsoft and Blizard are coming soonishly! So there's still something to dress nicely for in the near future.
The big news today is that Piper's Pet is done and sent off to Dark Horse. I'm awaiting their feedback to that end, but I am very excited about it. The bad news for y'all is that you're unlikely to see any of it until summer is in swing. Still, I'm really glad to have done that. It was a great experience and a lot of fun to do. Here's to many more! :p
All throughout Piper's I've been on this weird Jpop kick again. I know this will not be interesting to all or any of y'all, but I always think it's fun to share music that's been stuck in my head with everyone. This happens every time I work on a big piece...I always wind up with one song in particular that I repeat back again and again.
So:
Ayumi Hamasaki - Trauma
and, today: Gackt - Mizerable

(I went through so much troublle just now trying to find that Ayumi Hamasaki song online. I have the file, but it was unlabeled. So I had to guess the lyrics from some of the sounds and search them up and match the phonetic japanese lyrics with what I was hearing. :p I'm obsessed)
This sort of proves what my friend Robyn's been saying...there's a little asian girl trapped inside me somewhere. Weird.

Also, the next piece to look out for should be good fun. It's for Jon Foster again and we're doing the cover for a vague steampunk-ish novel (vague as in, we didn't get much/any plot info) called Boneshaker. All we really knew was that there's a lady, her son, and some zeppelins. Suits me right down to the ground! Here are some sketches for that...finish in a week :D

Muties, Business Cards, and Pets for Pipers.

Hey all!
Sorry for the silence. I didn't have much to show, so I prefer to wait until I do to jabber to the anonymous intarwebs.
Above is my latest piece for Jon Foster (and the product of a day and night's work including breaks for food, RCB, and a Dentist appointment). It's been a crazy day.
We were assigned to re-do the cover to Marvel's Muties #1, a story in which a picked-on kid (Jared) comes to school to shoot the jocks who have made his life miserable, and ends up finding out that the main jock (Dunk) is a mutant, who he shoots in cold blood. Fun. Then the kid's hailed as a hero for killing a mutant and we're out.
So that fun-filled angst-a-coaster called back all the fun of high school. I went with this option because it was the only one I was a little bit excited about that I could complete under deadline, and it meant I got to make up awkward high school characters :) (all of whom were individually illustrated and inked, even the cropped ones...it was an exercise in baby-killing to crop, shrink, and degrade them to yearbook quality.) It was probably most fun naming them :)
It's pretty specific to the book itself, but I hope you enjoy it. At least you know what I've been doing with my time recently.

I went on a very pleasant Spring Break to see my friend Beth in Virginia, and now I am back to the grind of assignments. This time is going to be intense. I have a LOT of work to do in very little time. It was a little weird coming back to school from what must have amounted to my last Spring Break ever and knowing that this is kind of the last leg. I know I'm likely to depress the crap out of some people out there, so I'll shut up about that for now.
Still, this next bit is going to be HAIRY. I'm looking down the barrel of a massive amount of comic-book work that still needs to be completed (read: polished, pencils are done...it's all inks and colors from here). And to add heat to already tight deadlines, this upcoming week is our Portfolio review (companies coming to chat with juniors and seniors and exchange business cards) and this year, for the first time I've seen, MARVEL STUDIOS is coming to RISD. So, yeah, that's sort of a thing.
In preparation for that, I have some business card designs I've been working on. My favorite of which, that I think I'm gonna send to the printers post-haste, is this:

Let me know what you think!
Other news: I've just been given permission to say so: One of the secret comic projects I've been alluding to is a project for Dark Horse Studios! (yay!) It's just a two-pager, but I'm quite excited about it. It will be published in an upcoming issue of Myspace Dark Horse Presents. Then bound up and published in an anthology of that work that will be available on amazon.com!
Yup: my first legit published gig! I'm excited, and I will be keeping y'all updated as it develops. I can't show much, of course. But I think I can say, it's called "Piper's Pet" and it's about fishing. That's all you get for now :p

Also: Ok. I know everyone's not likely a Counting Crows fan out there...but they are one of my favorite bands. I've recently rediscovered a song they did for none other than the "Mr. Deeds" Soundtrack. They actually exclusively wrote a song for (and about) that film which failed completely to lodge itself in the canon of great American films. However the song rocks, and it's my musical recommendation for today. It's SUPER hard to track down. I don't know this guy, and I'm not recommending watching his slide show, but it's the only place I could find the song:

Counting Crows - Goin' Down to New York Town

God is good. Thanks for reading. More work soonish!
-Nick