Happy Holidays!!!!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Baldur's Gate Comic

The Baldur's Gate series of computer RPGs are my favorite games. With the recent release of the Extended Edition of the first game, I have had it on my mind. I doubt I will get a chance to play the Extended Edition any time soon, but the idea that its there is almost enough for me. In honor of the game, it came out 14 years ago, I am making a short comic based on part of the story. It will only be a couple of pages long but I am super excited to work on it. So excited that I made a 3D gif for it!

The Wall

This is a drawing of Parker Dam I started at Joshua Tree NP. At the time we visited, the dam wasn't holding any water back. Instead it just felt like a remnant of some ruined building.

I didn't get very far in the drawing but kept drawing over it in my spare time for the last couple of months; waiting for renders, sitting on a bus, on lunch breaks, etc. I ended up changing the scale quite a bit and adding in details that were never there. I like drawing because it allows me to go places that don't exist.

Figure Drawing and new materials

For the past year I have been going to figure drawing and basically drawing the same thing, over and over. Since I ride my bike everywhere I am limited by what I can carry in my bag. That was the excuse I always gave myself as to why I never changed up my media. However, the other day I was looking through some of my old art supplies and found an ink pen. The kind you dip into ink to load it up. Its probably a holdover from my very brief stint with calligraphy (almost 10 years ago). Its awesome! I love the variation of the line weight, something I usually don't get with pen.

Mr Mouse & 24 comics day

Whoa! How did I miss posting about 24 hour comics day? Its already December!

Every year on a in October, comic writers, artists, and enthusiasts around the world gather together in some way (comic shops, libraries, the internet) and make a 24 page comic book in 24 hours. This day is called 24 Hour Comics Day. This year Melissa and I went to a local comic shop, The Comic Bug in Manhattan Beach, CA, that hosted an event for 24hcd. Comic Bug was awesome, they supplied food, drinks, tables, and supplies if you needed them. Beginning at noon on Saturday, I ended up finishing my comic at about 7 am Sunday morning. The next weekend I added an inkwash and cleaned it up a bit. You can read it on my website here.

October Naked People

More figure drawing at the Santa Monica YWCA.

Crab Position

Inspired by true events:

Beautiful Creatures trailer

Now that Kia has fully wrapped, I've been working on this film due out early next year. I have one shot in this trailer and lots more in the actual movie!

September Figure Drawing

A selection of my figure drawings from the Santa Monica Figure Drawing session.

Hamsters

I started at Method Studios, LA back in February of this year and have been having a great time. After just about 6 months a project that I worked on has finally been released! Kia has an ad campaign of party-dancing hamster people and Method has worked on the latest two. I did lighting and shading work on some hamster shots as well as some car shots in the most recent commercial:



As it turns out, its a hilariously good time to read the youtube comments of things you've worked on.

Snow Blind

About a year ago I started this project as a way to improve my reel, specifically in cloth simulation. Along the way I realized that cloth sim is very difficult and, at times, very tedious. However, I also found that I loved painting backgrounds for animations. Its so fun! My bro, Nick Avallone, did the character animation for the first two shots (its so good, thanks Nick!) and I did all the rest. I probably won't be starting on any more 3D animations anytime soon, I don't really have the hardware to handle it. I imagined this piece as the first 30 seconds of a longer piece. (though I haven't written anything longer... yet!)

Docks Background Painting

Figure Drawing

More figure drawing from the Santa Monica YWCA:

Reason 1

Reason My Girlfriend Would Break Up With Me #1

Caressing her with my toenails from across the room.

tropical forest

drawing

A drawing I did straight from the Sartorialist... maybe next time I'll change things up a bit more. Oh, I did change her camera into a sketchbook and pencil because sketchbooks are cool.

wip wip wip

Lunch Sketches

Some sketches I did on my lunch break over the past week:



An ogre catching some shade at the beach.


Beach time for wolfboy.


Medusa wears sunscreen.

Mmmmmmm...

I've been CRAZY busy lately and the crazy business isn't even half done! A sneak peak at a project I've been working on:

lunch time drawing

About two and a half months ago I got a job at a VFX studio in Santa Monica called Method. Its a pretty fun gig, since I started in February, I've been working on a commercial that mixes CG and live action. I've been having a good time but sometimes I get a bit tired from sitting in front of computer all day. I've started taking my lunch breaks outside where I sit and draw. This post was a drawing I did on my lunch break. As it turns out, palm trees are excellent to sit against while drawing. Last week I spent a couple of days drawing a couple of buildings around Method. (I really need a scanner)

Figure Drawing

Some drawings from last night's figure drawing at the Santa Monica YWCA:

Cafe Sketching

Old people are the most interesting to draw because of all the extra hair, wrinkles, and extra boniness:

Figure Drawing

More figure drawing from the Santa Monica YWCA:

Figure Drawing

Figure drawing at the Santa Monica YWCA:

Houdini Snow Tool WIP

Houdini's greatest selling point as a 3D app is its procedural workflow. I wanted to create a tool that could place snow geo on environments without having to model the snow. You could just build out your environment without snow and then use this tool to generate the snow on top of everything. I spent a morning with it and came up with a rough beginning. The basics are in there but it could be refined a bit:

You'll notice that which ever way the torus is rotated the snow stays on top. As is, the snow isn't shaded yet. I know that I could do all of the snow in displacement and I may yet play with that a little more as I work with it.