New Year, New Prospects!

Hey all!

Well, I've been back at home for the past two weeks or so for winter break. I don't go back for another two weeks, either. To make the time at home less...'meh,' I've gone back and touched up a few paintings, while working on a few new things.

First, if you didn't notice, is the little original painting of a penguin waving goodbye to his polar bear friend. I felt like doing something without references or observation and that little thing just popped out.

Next, I touched up the old skull painting. A few posts back, I put up pics of a skull we did in painting. I really, really wanted to go back and touch it up, so here I did!



It has much deep shadows and is generally sharper looking. I also added a bit of saturation into the background hues.




This isn't new, but I never put a pic of it up. This was done before the skull, almost entirely with a palette knife. Sorta Obama-esque, no?



I also went back in with this guy and deepened shadows, defined the apple a bit more, and sorta cleaned things up a bit. It's interesting what another hour of work can do for a painting.



Lastly (for now) is one of the more recent 3D design projects. We had to create a wall piece that was to be viewed from three sides. I initially wanted to do something that moved or opened, sorta like a cuckoo clock, but that proved to be too complicated. In the end, I went to a good ol' GanPen motif and did this movie ad-type wall piece. I painted some foamcore to make the buildings and explosions and printed out pictures of the bank and GanPen, then slapped them all together with glue.

That's about it for this update. I'm looking forward to seeing how things turn out at the end of this year. Seems to be a tricky time to be a toy designer, what with the economy and all this lead paint going around....

Look forward to more updates, especially featuring 3D design stuff!

Happy New Year!

-Jordan

A new Ganpen?! WHAT?!

So, I did Secret Santa with my friends this year and I was really at a loss for an idea.

Then I remembered that I had a small army of penguins at my beck and call.


So, I converted my desk into Santa's workshop for a few hours. I retrofitted winter clothing onto one and slapped on a quick, easy paint job for the tie and buttons to fit in with the whole "holiday spirit" thing. I actually had to hand sew the hat. Felt and black thread! GO ME!




I actually have a number of blank figures here with me, including a unicorn Ganpen. I have a blue one and red one that need to be finished and I have one with a golden tie, just because.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Painting

I have discovered the glory that is oil paint!

Painting class is progressing nicely. Since moving into the world of color, we've done four or so paintings. Here are two of mine (pardon the low quality of the pics, they were taken with my cell):



This is the latest one I've done, still in progress. We've finally moved into the realm of the living (almost). We were only allowed to use the biggest brush we had; this was done with a 10 flat.


Here is a painting with some progress pictures.



Base tone of Burnt Sienna and Manganese Violet with a quick schematic outline.



Most of the important colors blocked in.


The finished painting. I couldn't get my camera to take a single in-focus shot of this painting for some reason...this is the best I have for now.

Thanksgiving draws near!

24 Hour Comic Book Day 2008

So last weekend was 24 Hour Comic Book Day. The idea is to create a 24 page comic in 24 hours. It was started by Scott McCloud a few years ago to show how capable an artist can be.

I was lucky enough to be near Jim Hanley's Universe, which was apparently the only place in NYC doing it. Here's my 24 hour comic.

Shodown is rated PG-13 for language and violence. Yeah.















It's interesting to see how the quality of work drops as time goes on... Compare the first 6 pages to the last 6 and you'll sorta see. See the Negative Laser Pew-Pew on page 16? Yeah, that's my way of getting rid of all the black space I'd have to color in. I thought it was clever....

Another way to save time was the use of splash pages; those pages with just one panel of stuff happening (pages 4, 24, etc.)

The idea was sorta random. I just drew some crazy UFO thing at the top corner of the first page and went from there. Very spur-of-the-moment. you get a good idea of what goes on in my head.

I learned quite a bit from my first comic book. It sorta reinforced the fact that I'm not a sequential artist....But I had fun. Making a 24 page comic in 24 hours once a year is alright with me.

More work!

Here are the latest versions of the 2D design project. It's the same broken name design, but using value to create form differences.




Both are pretty metal-esque, yeah? The first one may imply some sort of obsession with blades and other pointy objects. The second is sorta like some metal animal thingies on a neutral background.


Here's a painting I did in Painting I. We use oil (almost) exclusively, this is the first time I've ever used oil paint (well, second or third time in class). This is also the first time painting on an actual canvas. Oh, and this is also also the first time I've painted with a palette knife. Last week in painting, we've finally started using brushes with our oil paints.

It's a greyscale painting of a Morandi painting. We've been looking at a lot of his work in this class because of the way he uses color. We actually haven't seen any of his paintings in color yet, just these greyscale photocopies that we make paintings of. There's a Morandi exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art over here, which we'll be visiting Thursday. Should be interesting.

3D Design: Funnest class so far?

So here are some pics of my first 3D Design class project. The basic idea is to create a 3D form using 13 parallel planes. I didn't want to do something boring, so I came up with this:



I'm not religious or anything, but the cross is a simple form that looks complex in this context.



The center piece is a 7x7 inch square. For the first piece, each corner has a .5 inch square cut out. Every plane after that has another half inch cut out until you arrive at the cross, which is 1 inch wide on all four arms.




A time consuming project, but really fun. I like constructing things.

Our next project is a bit more complicated. More details on that one later.

More 2D Design

So, here are the projects for 2D design. We're taking the name design idea further by taking one of the designs and creating a more geometrical composition.

I took this one:


And turned it into this:


After that, we had to rearrange the shapes. Mine turned out like this:


I think they look too similar, but there are some interesting negative spaces.

This is the next part of the project, using line to define the shapes instead of solid black and white.

Not sure how I feel about it, but it's interesting.

Current Projects

Life so far in the city has been quite nice. After getting past the noise and mess of the city, it doesn't seem all that much different from Durham. Just bigger.

Here are some pictures of my first 2D design class project. We first had to do various compositions using our names, then use a viewfinder to zoom in on three areas to enlarge. This project is about figure/ground relationship and positive and negative space.


Taken from a "broken letters" name composition.


From a "large and small letters" composition.


Overlapping letters

Movin' on up!

New York City, here I come!

I'm moving up there to begin my education at the Fashion Institute of Technology where I will do Fine Arts and eventually Toy Design.

Waking up at 4 AM to make the drive up.

=_=

GanPen production will be put on hold until I can find a workspace. I'll be taking a few with me if I find some space and time to paint them in.

Will update blog with cool stuff soon! Expect to see more of the artsy side in future updates.