Ted the Rabbit!

Through working from other artists concepts I thought working from one of Tony DiTerlizzi's would be fun then I saw Ted and thought he was such a unique character and especially different from ones I've made prior. He's been really fun to make. I'm glad I took on the endeavor and got the result! I'm excited to make more for my updated portfolio!

Tony DiTerlizzi's Ted

Modeled in Maya - Sculpted in Zbrush - Textured in Mari - Maya Mental Ray rendering

Thanks for visiting and enjoy! Happy Creating and have a happy new year! 

Mari's patch system makes it easy to texture multiple items on a model at once, just by offsetting the UV coordinate. Back in Maya I had 6 different shaders: 

Body/Head - Jacket - Hat - Bow - Belly Button - Buttons

Some in progress shots: 

The dreaded T pose ;o)

Sculpting

 Base Textures

Wireframe

More Mari Texturing

Look development

 And posed! 

Well almost, a friend pointed out he needed more weight where he was sitting, so there's the smidgeon of a difference from this to the finals above.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Hope you all have a wonderful season and a happy new year!

This marks over a full year I've been blogging! Hope you've all enjoyed it as much as I have. =)

References Galore!

Hello everyone! I hope you're excited for the holidays and getting to enjoy them with loved ones.

I've found a few fun or useful resources of interest I thought I'd share, I suppose my present to all! ;o)

Kitty wrestling, some great movements for them, the stripey guy is my adorable kitty.



There's some awesome stuff on this blog, tons of storyboards, and Cal arts notes.
Chong Toons Blog

Owls playing with tennis balls are really adorable. I doodled these guys and they're fun hoping around. Owl Tennis

So I love owls a wee bit, but this guy is cute too, and also fun to doodle. Owl Pouncing Imaginary Prey

Last animal movement reference, a chameleon trying to back away.  Frightened Chameleon

Weird but cool taxidermy animals

Zelda is my favorite video game series, I loved this art by Sam Neilson. Old and new Link

Another Zelda piece, except this one is a book soon to be released of all of the concept art! Zelda Art Book!

If you like some Nintendo music for nostalgia here's a great YouTube channel. Nintendo Playlists

Some great tips for what to draw when illustrating books from Tony DiTerlizzi,
What to Draw

The Animation Letters Project, always great to read, enjoy!
The Animation Letters

I love dinosaurs so when I saw these it was pretty brilliant. Dinosaur Nest

Amazing brain recording, the early development of recording mental images, they hooked the participants up to scanners that would generate an image of what the eyes were seeing, to compare they would show trailers and various clips. Imagine if dreams could be recorded from it.
Reconstruction from brain activity

Happy holidays and happy creating!  =)

PS Check back Christmas Eve for a Holiday illustration + illustrations I did for family and friends.

Revamping portfolio

Hiya everyone!

Just a quick update with a piece I've been working on. Its one of the many I've been modeling to update my reel to land a modeling position, based on the advice I received from Zack Petroc. I need to finish the unwrap, sculpt more and texture it, but I'm very happy with how its coming along.

Based on a concept by Clio Chiang

Sketch Dump!

Various drawings from the past two months, all picked and arranged to what you see here!
I love having them all scanned, just makes my sketchbook full of floating papers though...

All sorts of animals, some cute some creepy, I used to be dead afraid of spiders but now they're interesting to draw. 

CTN had some great models who where doing 1-5 minute gestures everyday, so I made sure to do it each time!

Some fantastical creations. 

"Getting the idea" of Jeno-lu 

Some people from different flickr photos, practicing faces. 

Enjoy!

I hope anyone who was celebrating Thanksgiving had a good time, and to anyone else I hope so too!

Happy Creating!

CTN Animation Expo + Life Drawings

‎"If bad things happen to you when you are trying hardest, then that means you're about to reach the next level and good things are on their way. However, you must choose to stay positive and work through it." Love the quote from "The Perfect Bait" by Bobby Chiu.

I hope everyone's all excited for the holidays, and creating some great art!

This past weekend was the CTN Animation Expo held right here in Burbank, CA. It is a brilliant time, full of inspiration, excitement, as well as tips and tricks! If you can go I highly recommend it! It mainly showcases 2D art but there is a good bit of 3D and sculpture talks. It's also great to see artists you look up to, and get their advice or opinions on art. I'll also be adding all of these artists to my links panel.

Some artist highlights:
Brittany Lee
Had a wonderful booth full of her colorful artwork, I ended up purchasing a few of her prints to decorate my new apartment

Bobby Chiu
Also had a booth, and was selling his newest book "The Perfect Bait", It's a great read, inspires and motivates you in the first few pages!

Zaruhi Galstyan
Cute art and concepts, now an artist at Pixar

Brian Ajhar
Awesome fantasy watercolor illustrations, also was part of a talk on illustrators in the animation field

Zach Petroc
Modeling supervisor at Disney, and a very nice artist. He's been working on this Zbrush comic on the side of work.

James Gurney
Part of a creature creation panel discussion with some other great artists! He did a demo of his figure speed painting, which you can see on his blog. It was nice to hear his preferred technique for watercolor pencils on the go! Definitely makes me want to visit the museum or zoo and try it!

Terryl Whitlatch
Amazing animal concept artist/illustrator who does plenty of books and concepts for movies. She was part of the creature creation panel.

Creature Box
Two great artists, who started out and still are concept artists at Insomniac Games, on the side run their own freelance gig called Creature box, they were also part of the creature creation panel.

Dominick Domingo
Another great illustrator who does concepts and 2D background art at many of the animation studios. He was part of a panel on art direction.

So much inspiration jammed into three days, it's wonderful.

Earlier this week I attended another Gnomen life drawing, this time Steam Punk theme. Tons of fun and I've been definitely practicing more in between freelance and making new work for my portfolio. (Entry position here I come)

All of these poses were 25 min, on a 11x14 sketchbook with .5 lead pencil and prismacolor marker.

Making wee little steps!

I hope the prior post was informative! I definitely appreciate all the help I've recieved to get to this point and feel it is important to continue supporting other upcoming artists, it is how we continue to push the boundaries of what we create as well as inspire others!

Happy Halloween weekend everyone! I got the fun chance to see Nickelodeon's Halloween party, amazing how the artists and employees there got so into creating a fun house! Gotta love how into the Halloween spirit us creatives get! Thanks to a wonderful employee there for the chance!

I also got to see a bit of the inside of Disney's Animation Studio, on a brief visit through a network I made at SIGGRAPH, I still can't thank him enough for his time and advice! It was inspiring to see there too, and great to get more of a direction on how to reach that seemingly out of reach beginning position. I hope one day to walk back into the doors.

 Gnomon had a wonderful discussion on Composition by concept artists from Blue Canvas. Then soon after another Sketch Theatre. Each of these drawings were 20 minutes each.

Industry advice to land a position

Slowly, but I suppose quickly, I'm making steps to land a position out here. I would love to be helping on an upcoming production with all of the wonderful creative minds!

Networking and visiting studios is so inspirational, and after some wonderful advice from a Disney artist I met at SIGGRAPH I'm aiming to improve and redo my demo reel to reach the caliber necessary to land the Disney Talent Development position or where ever else!

Some advice I got from him, and from other SIGGRAPH attending artists.

Model from art that is appealing and inspiring. He told me, sure we can draw but those concept artist can really draw and it shows you have a great aesthetic eye! It shows you can model from someone elses concept, and make sure to show their concept as comparison (of course crediting it and most likely asking them to use it before hand, they appreciate that). Of course if you have something you think is strong don't be afraid to use that either.

Having textured items is not entirely necessary when you're applying as a modeler but good if you can and want to texture it, show its polyflow of course and maybe an action pose of a character.

For environments give it character, make it seemed lived in, what era is it? who lives in that space, age or gender? what are their hobbies?

And above all as a general statement, know your strengths and focus, tailor your reel to that. Otherwise your reel will be over saturated with so many specialties and they wont know what you're applying for. If you have a reel like that, (I sure do ;o), you can use it as a supplementary piece to display your other skills, but make your specialty one first. Make it easy for them to put you on the yes pile!

If you want to create work for a vfx house, make it realistic as can be, animation studio appealing and full of character.

As for the intro, it doesn't have to be anything fancy schmancy, just a nice title card with your name, number, site, email and specialty. Repeat it at the end.

Best things to do, keep trying, be persistent, productive and confident. You may not be where you want to be at a certain moment but keep trying and being positive, and you'll reach that dream!

Well, that's about it for the moment, if you have any questions feel free to ask!
Happy creating!
~Brittany

Pixar letter of inspiration

Pixar = letter of inspiration

Have to share this, keep creating everyone! =)

New home in LA! - Begining of a new chapter:

Long time no blog! Good news is I've made the big move to Los Angeles successfully driving cross country from Pittsburgh to LA in four days and found a lovely apartment within a few after arriving! Now I'm finally settled and with internet to post!

I've been on the job hunt and still am, hoping to make a break into a studio here. I did luckily receive a freelance bit for a doctor who does hair transplants. So that's a good start within the first two weeks! Hopefully the next few prove even better!

Portfolio review was a wonderful finale to my three years. It was touching, exciting and very bittersweet. Out of a very small graduating group, I won the best of show for Media Arts and Animation, a wonderful honor. When I went to receive it on stage it was such a tickling feeling seeing the faculty and fellow students clapping, making me realize I have a lot of people to thank for a great learning experience. It seems so long and yet so fast. I look forward to seeing more of my friends from AiP to make it out here too! I'm sure the ones that were planning on it will do great!

 Physical Frogasuar model!

The trip out was lovely, as I have only seen small bits of the US, this was definitely a treat. I really loved the drive through the Rockies in Colorado, and being able to see the sky full of stars! Arriving in LA, I like the scenery (we came through the mountains), it has a touch of Greek characteristics. It is also wonderful being around so much artistic/creative places. I attended a life drawing event at the Gnomen school and saw a gallery opening for Neville Page. Drove by a few of the studios, first one I saw being Disney's Animation building upon arriving in LA!

Some of the Gnomen Life Drawing sketches, both were 20 minute poses.