Carl's new Backbone

This week, I added Carl's spinal column, ribcage, and humeri (upper arms). He's really moving along. It just brings a tear to my eye when I see how fast he's growing up... >sniff!< My big guy...

Carl gets Bone Pants!

This week, we were to sculpt a pelvis, pair of femurs, tibias, fibulas, and feet for our Imaginatomy creatures. The pelvis is an incredibly difficult bone to sculpt, especially when it is so different from a human pelvis. All the bones and landmarks are the same, but their arrangement is fundamentally different in quadrupeds. Carl's pelvis is based on that of a rhino, who has a rather vertical pelvis. It's a fun challenge. Because he is inspired partly by the elephant and the rhino, he actually walks on the tips of his toes. Elephants and rhinos (and other ungugrades, or toe-walkers) have a fatty cushion under the arch of their feet, and only the tips of their toes reach the ground.

But, anyway, it looks like he has pants on, and my wife referred to them as "bone pants," so the name stuck. I think he may get a bone shirt next week.

Carl, part 2

Here's the final wire armature for Carl's skeleton. The white foamcore base is a bit overexposed, but photos with less exposure tended to lose the definition of the processes on the spine, so I went with this photo. The processes (or bony extensions on the spine) serve to hold up the heavy head and tail, as muscles attach and support the weight, similar to cables on a suspension bridge. Because Carl is so large (in scale, of course), he has proportionately oversized spinal processes. Isn't anatomy fun?

Meet Stanley and Carl!

Here is Stanley Skeleton, my sculpture of the skeleton of a human man, named for alliteration. This was done for an anatomy class I'm in right now called Imaginatomy. The class was invented and is taught by Rey Bustos, and is a lot of fun.

We start the term learning human anatomy and sculpting the human skeleton. Stanley's left (our right) will remain just bones, but his right side (our left) is sculpted to support muscles, once I get time to put them on.

Here is the wire armature for Stanley's pet Xiphodont, Carl. Carl is my Imaginatomy project, a fictional creature created from the inside out. We had to design an animal, then figure out what its skeleton would be. Again, half will remain skeletal and the other half will be sculpted to accept muscles, time permitting. Eventually, a diorama will be constructed around Carl and will display his adaptive traits and such. I regret not having posted my progress of Stanley, so I will post the various steps of Carl's evolution from wire to skeleton. The wire armature as it appears here is still a work in progress, but I'll post pictures of the finished armature once it's done.

Here is the skeleton design for Carl. It is a combination of rhinoceros, elephant, cow, bear, and sabre-toothed tiger anatomy. I don't have an indication of scale in this drawing, but a full-grown man would be able to stand comfortably beneath Carl's head. Well, as comfortably as you could with those giant tusks...

Sketches from Rome

We just got back from our trip to London, Paris, and Rome, and it was fantastic! I was able to sketch from some of my favorite sculptures in Rome, and here they are (the sketches, that is...). The first one is from the Fountain of Neptune at Piazza Navona; the second is from the fountain in Piazza Barberini; the third is the central figure in the Trevi Fountain; and the last is my absolute favorite sculpture in the whole world, Bernini's David. It was such a thrill not only to be able to see Bernini's magnificent sculptures in the Galeria Borghese, but to be able to sketch in person my all-time favorite work of art was a dream come true! It was an enlightening experience for both me and my wife, and one we will never forget. We'll try to get some pictures of our trip up on a blog of our own soon.

Illustration Friday: Red

This week's topic on Illustration Friday is "Red." In trying to figure out what to draw for such a topic I got the idea to do a sci-fi/fantasy redesign of the classic tale of Little Red Riding Hood. This is just a quick marker sketch, colored in photoshop, of Red herself.

It still needs work, but my main intent with this sketch was to establish a precedent for my participation in Illustration Friday-- something I've been meaning to do for some time now.

I think I'll continue the Red Riding Hood redesign as a personal project to flesh out my character and environment design skills. I've got some cool ideas for what exactly she rides that makes her need her famous hood...

Right after the Robot Wash...

Finally, a little over a week later, I've got the second robot up! In truth, I've had the drawing done for several days now, but my hard drive crashed, and I was delayed a few days in scanning and coloring this fellow.

Anyway, this drawing shows that sometimes the same things that plague us humans also affect robots. It never fails that when you get your car washed it either rains or a big ol' bird decides to do some "custom detailing" by leaving a giant poop on your windshield. This bird's scoping out a prime spot to leave his mark.

Robots are awesome

My sister told me that when she has a baby and it's a boy, she wants me to design a robot theme for his room. Well, she and her husband just found out that their first little bundle of joy on the way is a boy, so I've gotta start brainstorming some robot ideas.

My second term at Art Center also just started, and I have the feeling that it's going to be replete with abstract and non-representational assignments. I'm going to need to do some more personal sketching, so maybe I'll do, like, a weekly robot or something. That could be fun.

Farmer Joe

This is just a quick sketch to get me started. I did it during a particularly boring discussion in my final English class at BYU. I colored it in Photoshop just to give it some life. No real inspiration that I can think of; Farmer Joe just kind of appeared on the back of a handout.

My First Foray into Blogdom

This is my first time doing a blog, and I'm not really sure what I'm going to post on here. I'll most likely use it to show off some of my art work, and I'll most likely wind up including the occasional rant. I'm about to write the (hopefully) last paper on literature of my college career (finishing up my BA in English this month, and abandoning "academia" in favor of the visual arts), so I need something to keep up my typing and composition skills. What better way to do so than a blog that probably no one will read? I hope get some artwork up on here soon. See you all soon!