Leader Talk

It's been a while talking here, I don't have any where to talk about this but I don't want this experience to be forgotten. I don't think this topic is suitable for my members, but I feel the necessity in recording it down.

What to say, Aik Sern is a pretty damn good lecturer I'd say, and I'm not playing a sarcastic tone here. But there's just no but with his discussion. No BUTT. -__-

I understand there are many ways to lead a team, while Aik Sern think I should push my team more and I think otherwise, there's always BUT because we have different thoughts. BUT exists because we have conflict in thoughts.

When he dismissed my 'but' explanation and went like, "There's no but..." That was a total selfish and proud thinking. It's like I'm right and you don't understand, why don't you just listen to me.

But I'd say, even you think someone is wrong, would it be a problem to try and understand how the person is thinking and what's his reason. Don't we have the experience where we think we are right, but found that the opposite after listening the explanation? So this is what I want to explain as a leader of my team, why I choose to direct my team in this way.


There's a culture in a team, not in the sense of religion and belief, but the working essence. I believe Aik Sern would lead his team as a how he lecturers us, that probably his character and behavior, it's hard to run from our original instinct. And so does I.

Here's the conflict thought in our opinion.

Making mistakes
Aik Sern thinks that we should prevent mistakes and always head on to bigger plans. I think that my team should make more mistakes to be prepared for more bigger plans.

There's a lot in my mind now I don't know how to begin. This is always a problem for me but let's just start from the example he gave.

Pushing My Team
I understand how some producer and leader pushes their team to finish this, to finish that, I mean I also plan some deadlines and asking my team to finish it on a certain date. But I do not push them if they go over the deadline. Few reasons for this but I will only focus the relevant point in this discussion.

If I always push my team, they will be dependent to me. And I have to push them here and there. That's not the leadership I'm forging, this could be Aik Sern's style but just not me. I'm not the kind of person who care about how great we are going to be, how we are going to show the world, or something like we are greater than most of you. For me, I can let other people humiliate me in order to make mistakes that would let me learn more. It's a pretty darn feeling to handle, but the sense of falling in to the pit is what makes me wanna climb higher. If you ask me why some people are not successful enough, depending on the situation, I'd most probably say that, "Maybe they have not fallen deep enough."

It's always easy to achieve something we have not achieve before, it's even harder to maintain. I think, the reason is because we do not understand why we success, sometime things just happen, our subconscious mind pick up the right decision and totally out of our understanding. Mistakes makes me understand the foundation, why we shouldn't do this, why shouldn't do that.

But at this period of time, making mistakes is not encouraged in our education, what they focus is, do not do this, do not do that. If we listen, we get what they want, but we let the experience slip out from our grasp. Knowledge and wisdom is different.

I do not want my members to be dependent on me, I want them to be initiative, I want them to take as much credit as possible in this learning process. I want them to experience the deep pit, and climb back up but not to be afraid of falling into it again. So that nothing can stops us, we just climb whatever happens.

Color Study

i bought an art book in chinese the other day for only like 10 bucks, oil paintings, kinda like how it was done roughly with bold strokes, it'd be easy for my to study the color.

still not good at seeing their palette. I'll post more soon. what have I learned? erm good question, it is hard!

Practice

My objective was to paint as quickly as possible, showing all the message that's there. This is after the Gladiator movie, and it was done 30 mins. Well the result can't speak for itself, but I think I'll get use to it. I must work hard and smart to be a great artist! Someday I will!

Rythm and Hues

This studio is just awesome, kewl. Actually there was a sharing session talk in TOA today, as usual, it's only for 3rd year student. I just went there to test my luck not having high hopes of getting in. The following event happened exactly as I mention:

I entered the main block, walked up the staircase and upon reaching the 3rd floor, we saw Jason standing in front of the door hall. I was like, oh shit there's no way we can get in (the other person being Ah Jon). So I said ok, let me go and ask him and was expecting to get rejected, if it happens so, I'd just walk off. My love for TOA had died off anyway since they last rejected me from entering Ubisoft sharing session.

"Hey Jason, err.. can we enter?" As usual he was like last time, don't know how to decide, and ask this question to the people in the registration booth, there were Chong Heng, Hoe Yi and other guys that I couldn't recognize or forgot, sry hehe. Everyone was like only for 3rd year student right, you guys aren't 3rd year yet right? And suddenly Hoe Yi bust into the picture and shout, "Let them in laa! x2" Everyone agreed in an instant, hahhaha! I was like, I wasn't expecting that. Hoe Yi mentioned that he should have helped some people to get into the last Ubisoft sharing, so he did this and I'm sooooooo thankful for that. Really do! And I ended learning lots of things inside.

The managing director of India whose name is, I forgot but start with P, hehehe said that share what you hear here and let our network expand. With that being said, I don't think R&Hs limits the sharing session to certain people, it's only TOA's doing. And I ask why? Why do they have to do that? Is that because the hall is too small or what? Would it be great to get the student inspired with their work rather than pushing them hard for no apparently reason or vague one? I think someone has to revolutionize our creative industry as well as our education system. I think it's doing nothing good.

Another thing I wanna mention here is that TOA is a freaking bloody credit sucker! Students' work always get sucked for advertising purpose, for the college, and it seems like they put that more into priority rather than the students' development. Do you notice how bad is that? How can they train a good artist like that? The main intention to improve the students IS NOT sincere. And just now I have stumbled upon their new poster promoting a year 2000 graduate from TOA who got into EXPOSE 6! Come on! I mean after 8 years they still wanna to suck the credit for advertising purpose!!! Even cok3ster's work who got into the artbook that they sell during the CG convention in Midvalley was never been inform to him personally! Who do they think they are, would a simple phone call to ask the permission for usage be that hard? I know they have copyrighted it once a work is submitted to the college, but this is just ethically wrong! And it's called exploiting the regulation for personal benefits! Geez...

And Jason came to me asking me to be his product and making TOA proud, give me a break... *Take a deep breath and smile* Ok, I'm not going to let that happen in my future company. I will respect my employees because they are my work force and I'm responsible to motivate them and grow them. My vision is almost the same as RnHs, really I learn a lot on how to establish a studio although it was just touches the production side, but that wasn't the main point. A company's success is determined by it's belief and philosophy which will automatically lead it to its vision. And so will I act accordingly. :D

New Tag

Before I leave for today, I want to introduce you a new tag, and I call it "Objectives". This will help me to focus what I need to find to improve myself and go further. And I should make new questions and objectives every time I found a new finding. Just like the post below.

With that said, I need to start finding some paintings that doesn't have the temperature contrast and still looks good. And then analyze them. :D

Enlightment

I wanna note two things here.

1. Temperature contrast also known as WCC for me, didn't know what's the proper term for it at first but now I do. Usually I just thought of using color of the subject and background to work out the contrast. However I notice yesterday when I was lurking around sijun in the class, I saw some nice speedpaintings, and that made me realize that in some scenario where subject and background appear to be the same color, we can make use of warm light to lit the subject and there you go, the temperature contrast. Am I going to call it WCC again? haha doesn't matter

Here's a 30 mins study after gladiator, to demonstrate my point. I observed how the tones of gray changes to warm and cool, and it didn't need much changes in hue to do that.


2. Another thing is regarding how I design some concept. Most of the time my priority goes to the aesthetic of shapes, so everytime I start, I'll think of some way or another to make it look good in shapes, cos that's the fundamental of the design. If the shape looks good, it's going to be awesome. In my context of shape, there's more to it than just volumetric form and silhouette. It can be more detail but I don't mean details.

However, I was never concerned with the material that makes the forms how they are. This is new to me and I think it's rather important too and helps with my rendering but should come after the forms. Junning made me realize this, and I am thankful for that. But hahaha, I wish he could appreciate the hardwork and my intention for rendering a rough model template. Asking me to just dump my work and do another outline is making my heart broken, he could have ask me to further refine it or something. Or maybe I am just easily frustrated being look down upon, sigh, how can I build my confidence. The moment I think I should accept what I wanna do, I think people started to think I'm arrogant. If I remain under and just follow what they say, what value do I have and where is the standpoint I stay?

You know what, I am trying not to be arrogant, other than that I still need to see whether I'm still arrogant to the people. Most of the time lecturers think I'm too arrogant, well... at least all my friends don't think so, hopefully. This is so tiring, for the time being, I'll just focus to build my confidence and humbility. This is the way of 'The Secret'.

I don't think anyone is reading this, but as I write, I'll remember more. Someday I read this back I'll can weight how much I improve. GOGOGOGO!

SP Study

Craig emphasized on structure study using solid color. Blending color just doesn't help us understand much about it, so I'm starting my study. Here's a 30 min quickie after Gladiator movie.

Contrast and Harmony

Lots in my mind now, I think this should be my last post. I'll go to bed after this, maybe a painting before that.

Well, contrast and harmony is a very important element in art and design. Contrast is what makes the harmony obvious and harmony is what making contrast obvious, in other words, there'll be no contrast without harmony. I think it's the beautiful combination of these two that makes a design wonderful, question is, what is the combination?

Contrast, which can be in many form, line, shape, color, edge, space, etc... makes a focal point, usually we abuse this to find a settle point for the subject, and most of the time neglected the other part it, without harmony, the piece will just look dull.

Below is my painting, an example of dull painting with not enough contrast in any term to show interest because I couldn't find the right lighting for this. Ended up over 30 mins, probably around 50.

Big Head Syndrome

This one just hit me by one of Sijun's member rant while I was reading thru Craig's replies. No matter how talented he or she is, I think everyone suffers from big head syndrome. And seems like the only cure is to immerse yourself with other talented people, and you will be humbled again. But I wonder how God can be that humble? How can I?

The reason why in my opinion is because of the competition. Many a time I have kept telling myself to be humble but sometimes I just can't hold it especially to my close friends. Sometimes when I see them acting so proud, it just destroyed my whole humiliation. This is by far my weakest threshold. If only the competition was not this tough, people wouldn't compare each other that badly. What if you are better than him? What if I'm better than her? All this is sickening me, I never compare myself to anyone nor do I compare anyone with someone. I strive for what I can achieve and look for what I'm able to achieve with their standard, usually my idols.

However, when I commented someone. They always aspect me to say something in comparison to mine, it just doesn't seem right to them when I say it's nice. I'm also not the type to give criticism unless I was asked, even so, sometimes I couldn't get the right answer because individual interpretation varies. That's why I like to get comment from online people rather than just one lecturer, only to get bias if I were to agree his comment blindly and made the changes to his heart content for better marks. I refuse such judgment, I find it rather contradict to my philosophy of art and entertainment.

Well I guess rant is just a rant, but I'm working this out because I want to be better at attitude as well. For the time being, I'll keep monitoring my own behaviour. One day I can be really humble and respect people for who they are, when I think how the world should be, it just contradict with my philosophy again. T_T

About Craig

To start off, Craig Mullins is one of my idol, great sense of lighting, texture and accuracy almost to photographic realism. I just did a search on Craig this morning and found out that his name was spooge demon in Sijun, I was so thrilled and searched all his post, and I'm planning to read all of them, so far I've finished 7 pages out 49! I have learned a lot from this great master! I'm still going to finish them day by day, I'm getting headache reading and scrolling pages which were almost 10 years from now. Gawd I remember it was still in 56K, I wish I could turn back the clock, learn and get feedback from him.

What I learn from Craig is that its important to think, although he mentioned his too analytical thinking makes him more of technician rather than artist, and everyone can learn to paint like him. I disagree however, I found out that observation and analytical thinking are the best tools to learn and improve, Mathias Verhasselt had stressed this too. And I am and was always analytical about my own progress and what I learned, yet I feel there's always something missing that's hindering me from improving faster. Not everyone can be as good as you are Craig, although I will still strive for it! Someday I will!

I guess my impatience is one of the reason that's slowing me, Craig Mullins paint thousand of works from ref, life and imagination, using no more than 15 mins for a piece to learn about value, colors, light and other things. Sometimes it doesn't always satisfy you, but by putting it aside, the subconscious mind will eventually work it out for you. The next time you view it, you will or will not get the answer. This much give me insight about his thought and philosophy, and how I should work more and not feel disappointed at my own work. I need to do more study, however thinking just about my homework breaks my heart even more.

I've already scored real bad last semester, and for an excuse, I was learning other stuff outside the school's module, I think I learned zBrush more in depth although it wasn't necessary but I think it's useful to me, I established and practiced a fast way to work with maya using the hotkeys and marking menus although the aim was to make wonderful final product but I think I should differentiate between technical and conceptual for now instead of copying stuffs, I really went and study the shapes and form of mechanics. At the end I did not fulfill the modules' criteria, ended up pretty bad although I felt it was just ok.

I've been telling myself that the school's result doesn't matter at all, or really was it just an excuse? I think I need to humble myself even more, admit that I am not that good enough.

2 Hours after

I've done my pipeline. This is it, the later is by Brian Yam, and my god, how simple is his comparing to mine. Now I need to simplify my pipeline, of course I need to get familiar with my current pipeline first.




For now the major difference between our pipeline is that mine's too specific, I need to get more simplify and more general so that I can work comfortably without having to worry the creative block constraint by my own 'too specific' pipeline. Nonetheless, like I said, it needed to be tested to know its credibility.

Within this 2 hours, I also collected Cole Eastburn Work from CA. And holy, his work is really.... @@ I just don't know what to say, every character design that he posted just blew me and my heart away, totally speechless. Really, that's the standard I think I should achieve! After looking through all his work, I've concluded that WCC is really important to make your subject stands out. Remember!

Now I need to start designing my characters, dunno if I should start from bnw, perhaps I should try it again since I got reference from my idol here. :D Let the work begins!!!

Failure Attempt

Hahaha, now I can crap like hell since it's private now!!! Only to write what I need to remember to improve. It's alright if this were to publicize one day but let that day be the right time. :D

Okay I need to start designing my workflow, from my yesterday's speedpainting, I realized that I always use 'that' same color scheme, I got the warm and cool contrast but it just doesn't seem right. My own analysis tells me that it's almost always interesting to keep background cool and the subject warm, contrasting each other and vice versa.

I looked back at my idols painting after so long since my last look, I knew I can be at their level soon, but I just realized there's much to learn from them. Nevertheless, this also indicates that I have gain new enlightenment, just how cool is that. :)

I need to further experiment on this and to keep in mind!!! Okay now off I go to design my speedpainting workflow. I'll be back 'shortly'.

I have created a sketchbook in CGPad.org http://www.cgpad.org/forum/core-randize-t1136.html
So maybe from now onwards I'll update this blog lesser than before unless I have some rants from school. Then I'll compile my artwork and post it here. :)

Today, Seamus make a remark that I very disagree upon, "We don't work from total imagination." To me, this statement kinda limits your imagination to produce something, I'd say why not turn it into, "We work from imagination, but it's important to retain the believability." Notice how different it sounds?

I also went into the illustration exhibition in the Gallery, and I was all awed by the illustration of the portraits but dissapointed when looking at their imaginative work, stuffs like concept art. I mean, they can come up with such a good work, relying reference but not without it. I don't want to make it sound like we cannot use reference, but reference for us should be a learning tool to understand what we don't know, not a tool for copying. That is the difference. It is important also to do painting from imagination, which requires your understanding about light, shadow, color, composition and other elements, so that we can retrieve whatever we have in mind visually. It's like communication, we have to know the words to express, that's one of the reason why I sometimes fail in communication too as I normally think visually rather than literally.

Oh well, my observation tells me that TOA has always been following this guideline to produce a painting:
a. Research
b. Finding the 'right' references
c. Composing the right shot
d. Production

These are just based on my analysis but this module is very outdated in my humble opinion, the first reason is because you can't start working without ref, and therefore you are slow. Second, you cannot start off without ref, then you cannot express your idea well, thus your work will look unoriginal and will be based on the ref you got.

I don't know what kind of pupils is TOA going to produce in its illustration course. With this module, these students will have a hard time finding pre-production job in the entertainment industry, and forcefully go for only editorial. I'm concern about this because I would like the industry grow a little bit mature. I've asked people from western country, for all I know, they take life drawing, anatomy studies, color theory, value studies, lighting studies and other theory classes very seriously. For this, I think worth much more than producing beautiful portraits painting, because this knowledge can help you in long term, rather than technical techniques of painting just palying around with certain color schemes while you keep copying the value without much understanding or how light affects on the skin color and all.

Following my own module, I painted this off a few photo ref for study, some that I shot myself while others from the net. The fall shadow is inaccurate, my emphasis was on the reflective behavior, in order to define the materials.

1. red car paint metal, comprising 3 diff layer: metal, paint, and shellac (If I'm not mistaken)
2. metal sphere
3. black car paint metal
4. metal cylinder
5 white car paint metal

*white car paint doesn't reflect things, I don't know why but I'll find out. Maybe it need so much white pigment that the reflected images got desaturated by it?

Ok things that I have to take note for myself:
a. the behaviour of reflected image on curve surfaces
b. metallic surface receives bounce light more easily
c. also it reflects the environment -> loop back to (a)

From the speed paint session. I actually used a base painting like usual, just forgot to save it there. The base painting was by James Paick by the way.

I kinda like how it turned out, I need more speedpaint so that I could further develop into finish pieces, for my portfolio. Oh noes... metal studies....

Oh god, I can't stop speed painting. Base painting that I use is by Mathias Verhasselt. He's super cool without any art foundation guy. I admire that kind of people, it truly shows that we, people with passion, doesn't need to be forcefully bound by some modules. We can solve our own problem better, well, given that we do have the time to do so.


Talking about modules, hahahaha! Where's my freaking own assignment??? :D :D Oh well, I did find ONE reference, it's pretty cool, and mind you finding references is actually hard you know. I mean you could get sucked into the internet, spending lots of time just to find those ref. I'll try to manage my time better next time. Now off I go for maya...

Oh btw, I just found the answer for white metal surface. Hence they are white, they should act like a white plane surface, reflecting any color in its surrounding. So when the sky is blue, it's unlikely to form bright white surfaces except for hightlights, which exactly the same as other color. Well, I'll just jote down what I've observed and find some reference later. Bye! Maya!!!

But I was wrong again... or am I? I'll post some photo later.

After paperblue again, although mine's sux to hell comparing to his. Oh well, this was about 2 hours of work. I was struggling with the storytelling part, just to make it a lil bit more interesting.


I was gonna find some references of metal surface but my friend called me up for a speedpaint, I introduced my sp workflow. He did quite well. Ok, problem here, weak, very weak focus point, weak lighting. I'll try to recomposite a better solution in my dream, perhaps. Going to sleep now.

The workflow. :D Original painting from paperblue, really cool artist, one of my idol. Went to library today, learned something about color in painting. The difference between the teaching and my understanding is, I tend to think color logically as in scientific manner, normally traditional painters memorize the color scheme. So I now think there should be a middleground between this two understanding, in order to create compelling scene, we have to break the logic a lil bit. :D


Well, I thought the characteristics of metallic surface, I haven't collected any reference yet but based on my understand and some analysis, metallic surface acts similar like a mirror. Thus whatever that is in its environment will be reflected, I exclude white metallic surface, white highlight shouldn't be happening as much and the reflection would not be brighter than the real image.

I'll study how a white metallic surface reflects thing and paint from some good metallic references. Gonna learn maya...

I started from Craig Mullins' painting, the whole process took me 1.8 hour, I spent almost an hour rendering the character.


Despite of the chalky effect, I used a slightly diff method to initialize the concept. Actually I'm already on my own modules, this is part of the surface characteristics assignments.

I think this illustration fails to create believability of the metallic surface. For I know, the form doesn't show enough, probably the highlight is overplaced too. I'll keep studying.. gogo!

This one took about an hour plus. Omg, I'm going to be late for something.

My previous project.


Spent like 3 hours correcting here and there but I notice there is a major problem there and all I'd been doing was correcting minor problem. But I learned a few stuff here, I also noticed some of Mathias Verhasselt's favorite complementary colors. I also need to study more of the back muscles, more on distortion of the muscle.

Sleep time...

An hour product, was speedpainting with Shereendar. I got stucked rendering the head and chest part. I should get the rough shape first.


After an hour refinement, damn am I slow? haha but still love it! :D This is actually an art trade with zhaomeng. He asked me to illustrate his golem. I would like to finish and detail this speedpaint, but I'll keep speedpainting until I find the right moment. ;P

This is an hour work, no ref. Pretty crappy I had problem with the left arm, and I wasn't daring enough to change the whole thing because of the time limit. Damn I need to get rid of this bad habit.

* Be brave to make changes!

Ahh, after close an hour of refinement. Kinda heart the way it turned out. 3 weeks of holiday, and working as waiter for 2 weeks. I think I learned a lot, I studied consumer behavior while I was serving as a waiter, made me realize something. It's really important to give and understand what they like. :) What a cliche remark, but yea, saying and experiencing is two different things.

Erm, my mayaaaa.... But i'm quite happy with my improvement so far. I just wish! I could see such improvement during school time.

I went to my friend's house to give a lil hand and did a paintover job while he's bathing.

From this:

Problem that I spotted here :-
a. No lightsource
b. anatomy structure
c. composition, too much space on the right side


To this:

And the problem I faced in the process :-
a. hard to pick local color, so I had to throw in some basic mood first
b. hard to change the expression convincingly because I don't want to change much of what's already there
c. too chalky


It's a good practice, good for both of us, this took me about half an hour, though it looked better on his monitor.

While this, is a product of speed sculpting with some friends, lecturer, Hoe Yi. Sculpted from a sphere ball, did some experimentation on the tools there. Quite fun!

Speed paint, no ref used. Request of espada trades. OMG haha, I delayed it for so long. But I'm beginning to get used to painting, it's so fun! :D

A reminder for myself, contrast = focal point. Lighting does not have to be really accurate but it's important to create believability. So it's also important to follow the official formula for accurate lighting, but some artistic approaches could be forgiven for its aesthetic value.

I'll keep fighting! GOGOGO!



Anatomy study with cok3ster, carson and arseton. Well, talking about 3d, I haven't started on MAYA!!! zomg...

Oh, this is supposed to be 29th's entry, but I was rushing for work. Anyway, hope that I can make 30th's entry, I still have work tomorrow. I'm still weak at defining form, yes, I need to study more. However, I have planned my own modules for my own studies.

1. Surface characteristics
2. Light and form

For the moment, just these two, lets hope that The One does not spoil our own plan with their hellish amount of assignment. They don't care those who need time to do what they like to do, and only think highly of their own modules. This in my opinion is a very bad education culture, making students needed to be pushed and dependent to the assignment.

Oh shit, I haven't started modeling in maya...

Roughly an hour, I'll keep on painting and painting and painting... This painting is a test for my color composition, I give myself a B-. :D

And a friendly reminder to myself, local light = hard shadow. Thank you! :)

I'm late for work, this is less than an hour i think, the design of the shape is horrid. I will study it however. Bye!

Posted this on dA, few problem here, I need to take care of the seperation level carefully next time. Gambateh to meeh!

This one took an hour plus as well. Another valuable study, I'll keep on improving gogogog!

Another speed paint, this is horrible but it made me realize what to study next.

My sculpture, the finishing wasn't so good cos I rushed for this actually. Got a merit for this, and because of that, I got a voucher of RM50 for basheer's books, ain't that great?

Anyway, I've completely destroyed the sculpture to recycle my clay back, it's an expensive clay, and I wanna sculpt more. :D

This one took longer than usual. Trying to keep the light source simple first, focus to show better form.

A small contest I entered during my Senior 3 Year, from concept to modeling:

I dug out my old animation. I think it was done during high school, Senior 2 I guess.

This was done in 2008's Vday for someone... and the whole world actually. When I looked it through, even myself can't tell which was the past and present, that's why mood is so important. Well, I learnt. :)

I was just browsing through my external hardisk and I found this, an old project I did in my foundation year for History of Art II class. It was done in 3ds max and flash. I miss the Happy Tree Friends :D Just in case you guys see this, holla from me, the ex-member of that group. I was lucky to be part of the team. Thanks people!

I'm formatting my laptop, and I need to cleanup all the old files from my external hard disk. Otherwise I ought to buy another external hard disk. Well, I see if I can dig something interesting there maybe I'll post my past works which are quite sucks actually ahaha.

Another sp, I didnt' count the time for this, but in an hour or so. Study emphasized on mood and light, I overpainted a painting by paperblue, this is a nice and fast practice, the result is unpredictable too.


Finally it's holiday! I'm gonna focus on studying mood and lighting, especially epic and dynamic lighting. Other than that, I will also start some modelling in maya.

Oh yea, I almost forgot, Empress Chung told me that she would do daily updates on her blog. That's nice, I hope to see that JN! :D

My final project for typography class. Despite of the hectic environment, I manage to learn a few stuff from typo haha, did I turn that wrong? I just love to learn stuff in relaxing way. I think I'll learn more if Lily show us more example, or where to find some reference. There's so much she can teach us, but I think the way she learns things is different from me I think, I know thru the way she critique our work. She guides us by seeing our potential but doesn't categorize the styles. I know it maybe a little spoon fed, but in order to do the odds we have to know the commons first right?

So we pretty much started from knowing nothing what she wants, and she hopes her student could find their own string so that she could grab the string and fly the kite. I managed to find my own string to fly on my own, I'm thankful actually, to Lily, just a little edgy with her methodology of teaching.

Less than an hour speed paint. I ripped of a lot of artwork for me to study, learn a few things here and there. This artwork is a supper for me before I go to sleep at 5.26 am. :D I already slept 4 hours in the evening, and I don't feel like wasting my time.

Anyway, recently I can imagine color more vividly than I could before. I really hope that one day when you say shit to me, I could visually the color in my head. Wait... This comes to another theory that I could explore, between normal people and anesthesia people, and I've been wondering how come human have emotions. This could be the link. :D

This was done in about 40 mins. I just couldn't post without any painting, need to improve my lighting, color, atmosphere and mood.

Alright, I just need to rant now. First, about Lily. Yea, she made a point there where doubling your effort will not make you go far, you need to do more than that. I agree, but at some point, I have to disagree with her teaching. Pushing student to their limit is good, she did this because she had experience it before, and maybe thru this she finds it to be the right path. BUT that was only a path that she had been through, she wants her student to follow what she had been through. And I believe there are infinite numbers of path to go, and I have mine.

Personally, I think Lily is the kind of person where work comes first and have fun later, which is exactly fine, I'm fine with that, most of people also would agree with her. She also mentioned that we need to be flexible, create more path for yourself, not to just limit yourself with the thing you wanna do. For this, I have to disagree. I am the kind of person who wants to do certain things, and if I can't do it, I'll try again and again until I get it, or rather die than doing any others.

See, this is my passion. When we talk about passion, it's suppose to be fun for everyone, and that's the reason I do it. Simply, I do it because I like it and I do this work because it's fun. So I work and have fun at the same time, that means working is having fun, did I say it too many times already? :)

However, Lily stressed that, in the industry 90% of the work given will be out of your realm of liking. So I ask, why do it? Why not do something that you like? I always stand by a philosophy, "do whatever you think is right". So if there's no place for you to create your work, you create the place, pretty straight forward huh. You don't have the tool, you invent one. You don't have the path, you make one. :D It just involves your creative problem solving thinking.

So there you go, just do whatever you think it's right for you. I know that I rant too much, it's good to be able to pin point the odds and wrongs, that gives your the opportunity to correct them, but I had been focusing what I can't do rather than what I can do. Well, at least I've noticed it now. :D That means I can change, can't I?

Battle scene, well not entirely finished. I don't really get the hang of working from grayscale, it gets too, I don't know, define by certain color scheme.

So I'm still working on the color scheme, I love the composition though. :D

Almost break now, I have yet complete the finals for typos and drawing for animation. Today morning, was the last class for animation. A couple of things that Syed made today that really inspired me, he's a good teacher. I hope he'll remain in The One so that I can seek guidance from him in the future.

These are the WIPs for good side characters design. I rushed for the previous design, so this is a refinement to that design actually, which means I already have certain concept to work on for these. So fun to do them..

Next to come the battlescene of these characters.

From the speed paint session again. about 50 mins for me. The time given was 45 mins. So I cheated a bit. :P

Well I read about my rant again, and I found something that's missing. When I said that lecturers should find a way to increase the potential force of a student, it did not mean by increasing the exertion force, it could strengthen the force within the students. This is where most of the lecturer think it's right to put as much assignment as possible, filling up all the schedule up to 80% of our time, some may agree it's even more, and by that, students could be trained to cope up with the stress.

I say this is method is workable as well, but there's better way in my opinion. In regards of the rubber band theory, if you exert more force without increasing it's potential force, it WILL get backfired. Again, potential force being the enthusiasm, I think it's up to us to find what we like, and it's lecturer's job to get us what we will like, why we should like, what we should like and how we should like. And when every student is motivated in their way, they will do their own study, they will want to do what they like, they will have the urge to learn and grow, just to get where they think they should be in the future.

But if we don't have time, how do we do this? If we don't have time, we are only forced to do what the college asks us to do? If each and everyone of us has different goal, how can we achieve that by just depending on the general basics taught by the college?


End of another rant.~ :)

Btw, this is the complete list of the sps:
syrianwind http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs31/i/2008/208/2/d/Weirder_by_syrianwind.jpg
hikari http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j85/hikari151/36f42ce8.jpg
eppie http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b153/ppiexppie/petitefrog.jpg
jeska http://xjeska.deviantart.com/art/watch-where-youre-going-T-T-92842607
Zymz http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v601/Zymz/speedpaint1.jpg
sissypaper http://5amwithham.deviantart.com/art/not-so-iron-giant-92842981
jake http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc313/oreodunk/bigfoot.jpg
hoooon http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/5001/petitebigfootfrogkk1.jpg
marcus http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y177/HAJE/bigft.jpg
emma http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/4302/petitefrogandbigfootmlyqb8.jpg
dick http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/5816/petitebfootfrogzx5.jpg
randize http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/einstei/SPS/17.jpg

I really really had a lot of fun doing this. I spend the whole day completing all the silhouettes plus the final design. It's really fun doing what's unpredictable and turns out to be actually your stuff. Words cannot describe the experience I'm enjoying but this only happens when you don't have much thing to worry. With all sort of different kind of problems that we, as TOA students facing, it's very hard to focus and enjoy what you are doing, even though you love what you are doing, if we don't have the room and space to enjoy, things would just get backfired. And this will forcefully turn the passion into hatred. Again, it's paradoxical but I think TOA should understand a bit more of student's psychology.

Haha, I try not to sound like I'm lecturing, but let me explain the rubber band theory which I have learnt from "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus." This theory was primarily meant for love relationship, but I found it quite universal and can be logically used in many practice.

Let us start by viewing this rubber band, stretchy, yet no matter how stretchable it is, it has a certain threshold. Now this stretchable characteristic of this rubber band can also be viewed as the enthusiasm of a person. When there is something interesting, it just stretches to grab it and go back to its original state, and the original state being your comfort zone. And of course, I think most of us would agree that this is the normal behavior of most people unless you have lost interest in everything.

But, the elasticity of this rubber band has a limit, and this threshold is protected by a potential force of the rubber itself. If the force is greater and over exceed the resisting potential force, it will out burst and boom.. there goes the enthusiasm.

So I don't know how to put this, it's quite an analogy or whatever you wanna call it, heh, but yea, in order to keep the enthusiasm within the students, the lecturer has to find a way to increase the potential force, the capacity to withstand the force that's coming. This is what I think is lacking in TOA, they just dump every force that's there, and hoping the students to cope with it. However, they don't realize that they are draining most of the enthusiasm out of the students.

I personally think it would be better to have students built as stretchable as possible, that means very enthusiast with what they are doing, so that they could be an independent learner in the future. Rather than a graduate who thinks they had been tortured enough and never wished to go back.

End of the Rant. :D

Speed Paint Session. Theme: Apple + Girl
Duration: 55 mins
PS

Lots of assignments due in this week. I feel so unproductive of not being able to practice painting. My mind was occupied with ideas of my projects and assignments, and because I held them in my brain,, things get overwhelm that I couldn't focus on other things. This is my plan management problem I guess, I think it'd be better to jot things down instantly once I get the idea and record where I stopped, so that I can keep the continuity in my work flow.

I feel sooo confused now. I still have lots of character designs in my head, and I'm working on my robot design at the same time.

Stay calm and think positively, solve thy problems and hath it done like you have no problem at all. :D It's so contradicting... :P

There are the other participants' work:
julian http://i37.tinypic.com/sq1hcp.jpg
randize http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/einstei/SPS/randize-14.jpg
jeska http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/171/ccrappcopywf0.jpg
eppie http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b153/ppiexppie/apple.jpg
emma http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/8737/applefemalenotreeeaallyqx2.jpg
syriandwind http://syrianwind.deviantart.com/art/le-apple-91458733

This is from the Sat's SPS. I did a little improvisation after the session. About 90 mins all together but I will continue to develop on this.

Here are the works of other participants:








keen http://keenho.deviantart.com/art/wormie-90729218
jake http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc313/oreodunk/worm.jpg
dick http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/6571/wormpiratefightingoh7.jpg
emma http://img357.imageshack.us/img357/8365/piratewormfightmlynnzii6.jpg
randize http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/einstei/SPS/randize-12.jpg
eppie http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b153/ppiexppie/piratewormfighting.jpg
jeska http://xjeska.deviantart.com/art/pirate-thing-90729536
marcus http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y177/HAJE/pir_fcy.jpg
mimi http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c391/tokyostripper/pirateughthingy02.jpg
syrianwind http://syrianwind.deviantart.com/art/piratewormthingamajig-90730706

Study after eWKn
1 hour
PS

Am really hardworking, am I not? :D

Study after E. Tiemens.
I fell asleep during the process. Roughly an hour. :)
PS

Just wanna share some wips. These are my usual work flow. Done in Painter.

Study after gizmodus
35 mins
PS

There was a sharing session from Ubisoft at TOA today, and all the not 3rd year students were forbidden to enter the "sharing session". I was so upset, so disappointed. A sharing session, shared by someone else, limited to the upper hand. How wonderful is that.

It's my dream to hear insight from Ubisoft, all that is left now is my shattered dream of almost came true but unfortunately not. I begged them to enter, I would stand at the corner, I would sit on the floor, just let me enter and let me be appeased with my little wish. All that stopping me was a simple idiotic rule, "Only 3rd year students are allowed to join." and all that's left was nothing for me...

I really wanna learn something, Ubisoft doesn't come every year. What could possible be so menacing to let me in? I hate...

Study after Hideyoshi.
20 mins
PS

Study after 章鱼烧.
45 mins
PS

I gotta do at least one SP study everyday. So ambitious haha!