Katana's Gallery

In the past month I moved to Ct. Going to set up the drawing table today, but the comp is still in storage....bummer.

My main project right now is a 3d model of a Hot Wheels car called The Rogue Hog. I'm planning on super detailing it...

Just a couple of concepts for some 3d work...the first needs a bit more love. The second will probably just get a 2d workover...thanks for looking.

a character I'm starting to work through...

getting loose on this Christmas morning...I'll be out with the family nonsense, so all I'll have is my traveling sketchbook...bummer...Anyway Happy Holidays to everyone!

Just a clip out of a page i did last night before going to bed...starting to work with silouettes. I should be doing this everyday...it wasn.t but a quick exercise...

More silouettes...also gave me a chance to work with paper making and lighting effects...about 2 hrs of messing around and dealing with a crash that lost me two good ones...oh well, that teaches me not to save after each one...enjoy.

Seems I'm in this flow...I'm going to start painting one out per sheet...

finished off this study in digital for a friendly comp over at Threedy. When I get the model finished I'll be going back to fix and finish...crits welcome as always...

Tonights work

Wow..you're right. I have seen some Oddworld stuff, but not all of it..suprising. I'm sure I'm no different than anyone else when it comes to scooping up reference. There are times when I just try to find a pleasing shape and run with it. That's how the Kabobs happened. In my 3rd year at school we were told to read one on a list of books and illustrate some scenes form it. I picked War of the Worlds. The descriptions for the tripod were excellent..imagine my suprise when a year later, Tom Kidd brought in his version during a lecture, they compared very closely...I am also enthralled by the character model design used by Animation Mentor and am currently working on some concepts out of my sketchbooks to come up with something for me to work with. Should have them up in a couple of days for feedback.

Starting to work with curves. It's a different approach than Polygon's or sub-d, but the main thing is that you have to be able to see the shape with lines and then essentially attach those curves to make a sheet of material to work from...

Spent to much time on the paper this morning...only 5 this time...started painting out one from the previous page (to be shown soon.)

getting there...

just finished...

With the current discusion on Jab's Jekyll and Hyde characters I pulled these out of my sketchbooks. They are about 2-3 years old. Many times I draw half faces when I'm exploring an idea. The Brute falls into the same category as the first two...as always C&C's welcome.

No. As far as I know only 3D paint does that. This model was built in Maya. The mesh was layed out in Photoshop and I'm using painter for the coloring. I prefer painter for the tools..thanks..when i get the test bump map on I'll post another pic.

I love post-apocalyptic worlds hence the backdrop for these 4...In light of the darker backdrop, I went with a lighter color...

I am working on one from the first set...I am having some issues getting the stroke a I want....I could have had it done if I had been using my colored pencils instead of digital, but I'm trying to get a solid workflow down. Also I am considering moving this body of work to Cg, since this forum is seriously lacking on activity...anyway, here's tonights work...

After looking at rach3's animation mentor stick figure sheet, I knew it was time to get a concept together for animating movements and expressions. I realized that what makes the AM lip sync character work so well is that it's extremely generic. That is...stick a wig on it and it looks female, shrink it and it becomes a child. In the case of the stick figure, it has a pleasing shape and fun to watch as it goes through it's paces. I want something like that. Here's my concept for Grommet. I have a few different helmet variations and moved the eyes lower from the brim to capitalize on expressions. Next up will be the concept for sound bites...crits welcome...and yea I still need alot of practice with digital color work, thought I'd give chrome a try....

Here's what I'm working through now. Started yesterday morning, having 2 days off in a row. I have to muddle through some of it. Model sheet > Maya (for the base mesh) > Mudbox divided to level 1 (for sculpting). I can see that there were some missed area's around the brow (a difficult area) and there might be some issues with the tail (not shown, but I will push on and post my progress at the end of the day..Crits welcome as always, but it's a little early.

a short series of concepts showing a toon through 3 stages of his life. They are for a little forum comp over at threedy...

So here I am at the end of the day...considering it's my first official complete mesh, I'm happy with the way it turned out. I don't think i built it correctly though as I had intended to fully animate it, but I should have stretched out the legs on the build. It should work out well as a painted static...crits welcome

4 textures
345k face count.

Put entirely to many hours into this stupid fish that is going to be about 1/2 inch tall and sitting in a fishbowl....Part of the scene in a comic strip I'm putting together...

Thanks Claire, I think it has something to do with writing on a piece of paper without lines to follow..lol...but yea I actually thought about this myself the other day. I don't set up guidelines when I am exploring a concept, but generally get tighter and neater when I work on a final...thanks again...:)

a concept for a herd animal called a Kabob. They are an intelligent species (this one being a boss). Digital over a color pencil base. The scans from the pencils weren't that good, but i liked them better. As always crits welcome. I was thinking of breaking up the over all orange scheme with a deep purple-blue pattern similar to the black and white cow.

some illustrator work...started as a digital blueprint for a 3d cartoon vehicle at Threedy and I just kept going with it...

Thanks for the comments. The silhouettes started as an exercise much like an ink test. I set up some nice paper and started making a black brushed area. Not trying to make a character, but more like feeling my way through the shape. In game terms, most recently with Team Fortress 2, the silhoueete is a way for the player to immediatley identify the type of enemy or character on the screen in minimal lighting conditions. In my case I decided to make some interesting shapes, and then tweaked them to look like something. What do you see when you look at them? I would be willing to bet that everyone would draw them differently...it's fun and it's a very fast way to get some new stuff going...try it and see...Happy holidays everyone!