Meat House

[LaleAnn]

Really liking the variety of your studies! e.e Pretty impressive! i really liked the sketchbook part with the animals and the latest environment scenes e.e Keep it up!!

[meat]

LaleAnn: Thank you :D
Lyraina: Yeeeeah, about that imaginative stuff..... working on it still.
ImSkeptical: And the shadows.... still working on that too......

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A rather tiny update.... Some sketching, a bit of studying on animal body structures, some feel-good oil paint fun to get those eyesore of idling canvas out of the way at long last, and lastly 2 color and light studies. Not sure if those color and light studies count, because after watching tutorials and reading Color and Light book, and studying Sargent's Venice watercolors, I sort of knew or expected to see which color in which light, so I just went for them to represent what I saw. Obviously that castle wasn't blue... but I didn't have brown or even black with me!




Use a ball of snow to "wash" your brush if you forgot to bring water!

[meat]

Oh wait... I forgot this... how could I forget this mo-fo that took me weeks to do, then another week or so to just render out all the frames for these 11 seconds?! And then that's how I found out the particle system has a lot of tweaking to do cos it looks like spewing tumble weeds! WTF!

[Adam Lina]

Your animal drawings look great. You should do moar! Do you do some from imagination after the studies to apply? I thought about doing some plein airing in the snow too but I was worried about my brush freezing along with my jiblets. Cant paint with frozen jiblets.

[meat]

Your animal drawings look great. You should do moar! Do you do some from imagination after the studies to apply? I thought about doing some plein airing in the snow too but I was worried about my brush freezing along with my jiblets. Cant paint with frozen jiblets.

I....tried to do application and imaginative stuff from the studies. Hence that sleeping cerberus. But not enough. So need to conquer that fear and short coming next.

If the temperature isn't freezing, your brush won't freeze. It was 50-degree Fahrenheit today, but the snow are there because they're accumulations that haven't the time to all melt away yet. What does happen is your fingers will stiffen and become hard to control when you're staying still so long.

[Lyraina]

This colored snow ball is all sorts of awesome. Reminds me of crushed ice drenched with colored sugar syrup (I think) I ate in Japan a couple of years back! I wonder what the next person who came by after you left and found that snow ball might have though. „I shalt not eat yellow snow, but what if it’s blue and orange too?“

I like the animation, very nice how soft it’s landing (exactly how I would expect it to move), and I wouldn’t have seen anything off with the particles if you had not mentioned it … but since this mostly was a exercise, just take not of what you would do different next time and you should be good :)

Also, great sketches and studies and paintings as always. The bear page is my favorite, he looks really natural to me in his poses, and I’d like to just lean to his side and doze off a bit…

[Adrian]

Nice meat ! I agree with lyra on the animal studies. Those bears <3

[JyonnyNovice]

Awesome stuff Meat, you remind me of a Victorian explorer documenting his discoveries of the brave new world... I look at your sketches and really feel like I'm seeing that stuff for the first time, like properly seeing it instead of just what I think a horse or bear looks like or remember from a flash of footage on a movie. You're really an inspiration dude!

[StardustLarva]

Definitely what Jon said, you're a great inspiration Meat. You're the kind of person that the world of scientific illustration needs. Anyway, I'll stop sucking up to you now, I just really love your work, haha.

[meat]

Lyraina: Thanks! :D There are so much to do! Color and light studies, animal anatomy, 3D… so much!!! RB.

Adrian: And I <3 your human studies!

Jyonny: Thanks man! You reminded me there are a couple of blank-page leather journals on the bookshelf that could be used for sketchbook, and will look even more like explorer documents…

Stardust: Thanks Star! I’m torn between straight nat sci illustration or more entertainment T_T

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Started a challenge to, well, challenge my absolute lack of imagined drawings and designs. 15 thumbs took 2 whole days – 2 whole not-working-day-job days. They’re supposed to be this week’s Crimson Creature Challenge – devourer of warriors. Any C&C and/or votes?




Also just some studies from Hultgren’s animal book. I decided this time to not buy the book even though it’s only $4, compared to all the other art books I’ve lavished way –too-much money on. I know if I buy it, it’ll go the way of all the others, and just sit on my shelf to collect dust. So I borrowed it from the library to make copies from. I most likely won’t finish before due date, but if luck have it, no one else will request it, and I can take it out again in a few days.

[KurtJeremy]

youre mark making is something to be envied with.
may i ask in those life studies what pencils are those? is it graphite?
it seems that you have a strong foundational approach in drawing already, so apart from some of youre paintings i like to see more of them applied to some of the animals cos i think thats where youre drawings are very powerful at.

[meat]

youre mark making is something to be envied with.
may i ask in those life studies what pencils are those? is it graphite?
it seems that you have a strong foundational approach in drawing already, so apart from some of youre paintings i like to see more of them applied to some of the animals cos i think thats where youre drawings are very powerful at.

Thanks man! The ones with the bears, you mean? It was an HB pencil I think... or 2B. I rather dislike pencils on toothed paper because the lines are always fuzzy. And then everything gets smeared after a few days so those drawings are now all smeared and blurred and got big black spots on them from being rubbed against their facing page (which also got graphite on it). Hence ink pens, which creates surprisingly nice line marks on toothed paper.....

[Jeso]

MEAT! HEy man whats up! that is some mean ass mofing chopper you did man. I how how hard that is, i did the digitaltutors intro to maya.. dudddeee those courses take for ever to do! kudos!

[Adam Lina]

Love the animal sketches. I need to start learning to draw animals. What are good animal anatomy books to start with?

[StardustLarva]

Loving those animal sketches, Meat! That reminds me that I need to get on with Hultgren's book...

[meat]

Jeso: Would you believe if I tell you I started that tutorial over a whole year ago and gave up half way? If I didn't think it might be useful for one job application I'd have never finished it. Assign 2 lesson per day, calculate how many days it'll take you to finish, then mark that day on your calendar as your deadline. It's a good feeling to finish what you started, even if that job never got back to me, lol!

Adam: I bought 3 animal anatomy/creature book, downloaded 2 more. Used none of them because I feel like they're not going anywhere anyway. A good animal anatomy book to start with is one you borrowed and not owned, if you're like me. I'm using a library copy of Ken Hultgren's The Art of Animal Drawing right now, copying the drawings for its gestures and storytelling feels.

Stardust: One at a time buddy. The more you diversity, the less you'll retain because you keep jumping from one thing to the next to the next and next. If you don't give a subject long enough time to sink in, it'll get blown off by the wind while you move on to the next one. Whichever book you're studying right now, do it for a spell of time (like a week or something) before getting on with another book.

Like Wil Smith said, focus on laying down each brick in your hand well. In no time, you'll have a wall that seemed like it would've taken forever.

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C'mon, Self, get up, and keep moving. Failure, loneliness, and pain are either illustionary or temporary. I don't care how old you are, you will die making art, even if it's next week. So get up.

[Amit Dutta]

Great stuff as always, love those bears.
The thing that annoys me about you Meat, is that you already have the skills to be working professionally now, if you wanted, but you have no belief in yourself and you let your fears override everything else.

Get out of your own way mate. I know it sounds like a thing people say that means nothing, but having done it myself recently, I know how much I was standing in my own way and all it took was a shift in mindset.

And art isn't everything man, this crazy drive to make it, and feeling of unworthiness until you do is bullshit. Sure it feels pretty great once you are doing it I guess, but not so much that you should torture yourself constantly until you do. Ease up on yourself, believe and just get out there with your stuff!

[meat]

Great stuff as always, love those bears.
The thing that annoys me about you Meat, is that you already have the skills to be working professionally now, if you wanted, but you have no belief in yourself and you let your fears override everything else.

Get out of your own way mate. I know it sounds like a thing people say that means nothing, but having done it myself recently, I know how much I was standing in my own way and all it took was a shift in mindset.

And art isn't everything man, this crazy drive to make it, and feeling of unworthiness until you do is bullshit. Sure it feels pretty great once you are doing it I guess, but not so much that you should torture yourself constantly until you do. Ease up on yourself, believe and just get out there with your stuff!

Thank Amit... I don't like looking outside art skill because there aren't areas of my life that are better to look at besides my art skill. My relationship with family is distant at best, a few RL friends I barely see and always are steps away from clumsily stepping on their toes saying the wrong things, super crap at finding profession art job for self (not investing enough time to self-promote at the right places, so can be fixed...). I get that self-value is not pegged to just art skills and people relationship skills. I just honestly am not sure what else to look at, and becoming a Master at art is something I really would like to achieve, so I can paint all the wonders in this world without tripping over "I don't know how to paint trees!".

...I really need to take a few days to 1.) figure out how to self-promote and where. 2.) Research art conference/event/etc. 3.) Do taxes.

[Amit Dutta]

I think the first thing you need to do is stop making excuses. If you don't like something about your life, change your own perspective about it first, only then will things change externally.
This is going to sound harsh, but when I hear your sob story I know all you are doing is just making it become more true and more relevant the more you constantly feed it and let it define you. You are doing this. Not some set of external things.

You need to be able to really look at yourself with honesty and love, not self loathing, and see yourself for what you are, both "good" and "bad". It means becoming aware of aspects of your nature that maybe aren't doing that great a job of enriching your life right now, and looking deeper at why you may be this way. The first step is awareness, then comes the change. Just wishing things to be a certain way, is pretty pointless without action.

In terms of figuring out how to self promote, I did actually tell you on facebook everything I have done to promote myself recently. Search freelance job boards on the usual suspect websites, Post folio links on polycount, indiedb, reddit, dA etc. Search for and then cold email companies/kickstarters/AD's/magazines/whoever you want to work for saying you're available for work.

Repeat daily.
Might take a while to get some hits, depending on your folio. Do you have one? If you don't, you need one.
That's it. :)

[rainbowsorknives]

Dude! love your pen and ink work, great to see watercolour too! :D keep it up you are crushing it