Art Order Challenge: Nymphs; work-in-progress

Posted on January 15, 2013 Posted in Blizzard, The Art Order, WarcraftTagged artorder, blizzard, digital painting, druid, illustration, night elf, TheArtOrder, Warcraft, World of WarcraftLeave a comment

Here’s a progress shot of my work for the current Art Order Challenge: Nymphs. One of the subcategories of nymphs are dryads, for woodland areas. When I saw that Jeremy Cranford was going to be one of the judges, I knew exactly what I wanted to do for this challenge: the dryads of the Ashenvale Forest. In other words, World of Warcraft themed ~~fan~~ art (and this falls in accordance with Jon Schindehette’s portfolio building guide; to do the work I want to be doing).

Funny thing, I got further on this painting in progress in the course of 2 days, while the two artworks I planned for the Warcraft Tribute book by Udon Crew took me two to three weeks to get to half of this point. Amazing how much time you can save with a good composition thumbnail. Those two other artworks aren’t going to be finished by submission deadline for the Warcraft Tribute, but that means I’ll actually be able to share them since I won’t submit them. I might go back to try to finish later on with better planning, since the themes and subject matters of those fan-arts are quite close to my heavy metal heart.

Illuxcon

Posted on November 19, 2012December 20, 2012 Posted in Blizzard, Illuxcon, Jesus, WarcraftTagged art, blizzard, illustration, Illuxcon, Jade Forest, Mists of Pandaria, Mogu, Panda, Pandaren, World of Warcraft1 Comment

I apologize for not having been as regular on the updates. I will do my best to resolve this.

In charismatic Christiandom, preachers and teachers will sometimes remind the congregation that instead of asking God for more power infusions from the Holy Spirit, they ought to take an account of how many gifts and how much power has already been given (and to then properly apply those) rather than to take what’s already been received for granted. In my art education, I have made the same mistake, of underestimating how much I have already received from my teachers, and instead of trusting God’s faith in me and using what I’ve been given, I had placed my faith in the art education system. This isn’t to say that art education is bad, but I had made an idol out of the system, believing that if I could just complete x amount of courses or programs, I would be able to get a job from it.

Taking my tiny portfolio of 3 whole pieces to Illuxcon was a good test of faith and skill, rewarded with good feedback and encouragement from many artists much better than I. The above images display a fan piece I began back in August in anticipation for the release of Mists of Pandaria, but was delayed in finishing due to school (TAD). Jeremy Wilson impressed on me the importance of having stuff to show around for feedback at Illuxcon, so I ditched all my classes to grind it out (maybe not the best decision from the educational standpoint, but I needed to do it). The top image shows what I thought was the finished product when I brought it to Illuxcon, and the bottom image is the finished version after applying a lot of the feedback I received at Illuxcon.

Illuxcon itself was a wonderful event, and I do not even have the words right now to describe all the cool and awesome things that went on, and the cool and awesome people that I got to meet and befriend. Anyways, I’m going to get back to my drawing so as to apply everything that I’ve learned from the portfolio critiques. Thanks for stopping by.

Blizzcon 2011 retrospective

Posted on October 25, 2011October 27, 2011 Posted in Blizzard, Diablo, Esports, GSL, Starcraft, WarcraftTagged blizzard, blizzcon, L90ETCLeave a comment

For being my first time attending a Blizzcon live, it is certainly the best Blizzcon for me to have attended. I had watched the via virtual ticket last year, and even then, it was a blast, with notable exception of there being no TAFKAL80ETC show at the closing ceremony. In preparation for this year’s event, I purchased another virtual ticket, in addition to the charity dinner ticket, knowing that there would be so many things to see at this huge event. To see it all is impossible, but having the virtual ticket at least gave me VODs of critical panels and stage replays that I would have had to cut out in order to glean as much information and wisdom from the legendary Artist’s Stage.

My trip began Thursday morning in the East Coast, in morning hustle and bustle of Richmond, Virginia. Steel birds ferried me from Richmond’s tiny airport to Dallas’s megalith, and again to LAX, where the transit arteries were ever clogged. My buddy Dan Zhang drove up from San Diego to meet me at the airport, but was delayed by the traffic. We made it to the convention center by around 7:15PM PDT. I was almost an hour late for the beginning of the charity dinner, and Dan had to wait out a huge queue for the standard badge pick-up.

The charity dinner was rather interesting in the most positive way. They had accidentally printed two badges for me (I wish I had known, I would’ve let my friend have that extra badge, haha) and when I entered the ballroom, I met none other than Greg Street, lead systems designer of WoW, at the cheese and crackers table. Some of the really cool Blizzard employees I got to meet with that night include Chris Sigaty (producer on SC2, also guitarist for the Chieftains), Dustin Browder (lead designer SC2), Mike Morhaime (President, co-founder), Frank Pearce (co-founder, and VP of executive production), John “JP” Polidora (Artist, creative development), Wendy Vetter (lead dungeon artist, WoW), and Chris Metzen (VP, Creative development). I said to Chris Metzen, “Hey I’m really looking forward to the Sons of the Storm signing tomorrow,” to which he replied, “Oh cool, by the way when is that?”

“10:30,” I answered, to which he then said “Oh damn, I have a panel at that time, no wonder they didn’t invite me to the signing.”

Chris Sigaty, Dustin Browder, JP Polidora, and Wendy Vetter gave some really good insight as far as breaking into the industry, and especially at Blizzard. Had a lot of fun speaking with Chris Sigaty also on the topic of heavy metal (I mentioned to both him and Mr. Morhaime that I looked forward to their performance on Saturday). I conferred with Dustin Browder on the issue of GOMTvT and also had a geek out session with him on the GSL October Finals and also the Global Battle.net Invitational. Mr. Browder informed me that speaking with Day9, Tasteless, and Artosis, they had all said that IM_MVP was going to win, but reminded him that SlayerS_MMA had a thin chance, having beaten MVP in the GSPA finals.

Dan and I stayed over at his old RA’s place for Thurs-Friday nights. Cool tidbit here is that his old RA’s roommate is in fact a Blizzard employee, on the web team.

Day 1 begins with us scoping out the different stages, and deciding mostly to camp at the RTS stage and Artists’ Stage. I took some pictures of the pro-gamers and even snagged one with Day9. I watched the opening ceremonies on the screen from the RTS stage. Pandaria was very exciting to me, as a long time Warcraft and Samwise fan familiar with the Pandaren, and the new trailers for Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm was very engrossing as well. I spent most of the day in Hall A, where the Developer stage and Artists Stage were located, easily bouncing back and forth between the two. It was very exciting to see the new units for HotS, the Blizzard Art Gallery, and to see Luke Mancini and Samwise Didier do live art demos. I even caught a picture of Rene Koiter costumed as Jim Raynor! I gave Samwise a print of my Elite Tauren Chieftains fan art, and he seemed to really like it.

The GSL October Finals that night was spectacular. I happened to sit right infront of renowned photographer Zemotion at the front row on the floor, where we were within 10 feet of Tastosis! It was hard getting out of the crowd when my friend called me to leave. Cheers to MMA for taking the win!

Day 2 began with us getting to the convention center late, because our host woke up a little too tired, and also my friend was not interested in most of the morning panels/matches. I missed the Sons of the Storm signing, so I planned out to try and stalk each individual Son to get their signatures (I had gotten Samwise’s the day before, along with Luke Mancini’s). At the WoW art panel, I got to meet Wendy Vetter again, Gary Platner (lead environment/level designer), and also Mark Gibbons (aka the Red Knuckle). Alas, no silver sharpie on hand, so I was unable to get his signature. By the end of the main activities of that day, I had managed to get Glenn Rane, Peter Lee, and John “JP” Polidora’s (whom I had met at the charity dinner) signatures. I missed the Battle.net Invitational finals, due to my quest to get signatures, and also due to my attendance at the realm meeting area (where I did get to meet long time internet comrades Vigaro, as well as an old guildmember from over 6 years ago).

The personal highlight of the event however, was being able to see TAFKAL80ETC– i mean L90ETC, live in concert. To be honest, I am not as familiar with Foo Fighters as maybe 90% of the people filling the main stage for the closing ceremonies were. But I was more than geeked out over Level 90 Elite Tauren Chieftain. Halfway through their set, two drunk dudes helped me get to the front of the section of the standing pit, even almost picking fights to do so. They declared me “hardcore” and “deserving” of a front row standing spot because I was actively fist pumping and singing loudly along to all of the songs. I am very grateful to these two drunk guys, because I have some awesome pics to show for it. They’re mostly of Samwise though.