Monkey see monkey tattoo

This one is a quick post. So my friend Michelle asked me to draw out a tattoo for her of some monkeys. The description goes as follows:

2 to 3 inches tall, one monkey that is white with a cream face and the other monkey that is light brown with a cream face. The white monkey sitting on a branch with the tail hanging down. The body profile and looking forward. The light brown monkey swinging below slightly forward while also facing forward. Lots off leaves and branches and such surrounding them.

After much procrastination I finally got a decent sketch ready for her. I wanted to take the image into Corel or Photoshop and clean it up and then perhaps do a colorful leafy background or whatever. However, since I haven't had a wacom pen (that's really the reason I procrastinated so long on it) I wasn't able to do that. So I hand inked the image so the tattoo artist would have something to work with and then s/he could take it from there and I turned it over to Michelle. I'm going to post what I gave to Michelle and then later (once my new wacom intous4 arrives) I will post the digital painting I do with this image. It'll be too late to get the final image tattooed on Michelle as I'm sure she's already gone to her tattoo artist for the final design. However it'll be a fun little project to do in my spare time.

My Red Panda model

I'm working on a project that originally got started while I was still at Ringling. It was my final project there; a small little project that could be whatever we wanted it to be. The intent was to pad our demo reels more. I chose to model a character that I designed my junior year as a possible thesis character. The story that she was designed for never passed, however I always loved her character design and just thought she was the cutest little thing. She is a red panda girl scout.

Here is a picture of the original character turn around. Click on it to enlarge. There is also a copy of the turnaround on my website http://jasmine-hope.com without the watermark all over it.



Even though school was finished and the project got turned in, there was still a ton of things I wanted to do with her model before I put it on my demo reel. So I started working on her yesterday. She still needs all of the patches on her vest and I am going to UV her. Once I get her UVed I will put her into Mudbox and have a run at her. I'm quite excited about this because I've never really had an opportunity to play with Mudbox.



I've been putting off doing anything in Mudbox and anything with texture because I haven't had a wacom pen since the end of school. Mine was stolen during senior render week. I rented one from the college, however that had to get turned back in at the end of school. So since then I've had a wacom tablet and no pen. The tablet mouse just doesn't cut it because there is no pressure sensitivity.



However, I am super excited to report that last night we purchased a Wacom4 wireless tablet package. It shipped today and I'm hoping beyond hope that it arrives this week - which probably means Saturday (crossing fingers). Once again I can do a whole bunch of different things digitally that I was not able to do without the pen. I can do digital paintings again! I am super happy about this.



So in the meantime I want to get her all setup and ready for Mudbox. I'll post an update once I have a chance to play with her in Mudbox!

Catching up since graduation

Wow it's been months since I've last updated this. I can see that I haven't posted my final thesis on here at all. So much to catch up on in this post. So much has happened since April 1st (my last post).

I have finished my thesis! That was a huge relief. Then it was scramble time for the recruiters. I got an interview with Sony which was very helpful. Ken Maruyama was extremely nice to speak with and he gave some wonderful suggestions to improve my lighting demo reel! So I bought the student version of Maya and Renderman for a year license and I hope to get a few more small projects done to up my demo reels.

I graduated on May 7th with a BFA in Computer Animation from the best school ever! Ringling College of Art & Design was an incredible experience. It's definitely not for the faint hearted. You have to be 120% in love with what you do to make it through there and an extremely hard worker. I'll tell you I feel like at this point in my life, if I can make it through Ringling's Computer Animation program I can do anything!

Since then I've come back home to Colorado for a little RnR and to recoop from the last 4 years at Ringling. My primary focus in life right now is job hunting. I so desire to work in film, however it would be incredible to work in video games as well! Right now I'd like to just get in anywhere and get my foot in the door so I can start gaining that wonderful thing called experience!

I've also completely redesigned my website and added more to the galleries pages and another demo reel. So I'll post the demo reels and perhaps tomorrow I'll post some gallery stuff!

My website: http://jasmine-hope.com

My Thesis; Don Pollo:

Alright and here is my Lighting Reel:

Here is my Modeling Reel:

And here is a generalized reel I put together for my website:

As far as my lighting reel goes I'm currently working on a project that Ken suggested I do, placing a modeled object into a photograph and making the lighting on that object photo realistic so you can't tell what is CG and what isn't.

To improve the modeling reel I want to re-render the turnarounds faster and I'll be adding a car model in there as soon as I'm finished with it. I'll post those as I update them, but it might be a while before that happens.

It seems that I have several projects going at once and I'm a little overwhelmed by it all right now but that's ok! They're getting done one at a time. I'm also working on a tattoo design for my friend Michelle. I'll post that when it's finished.

I also make jewelry! Yes I bead. I love to bead. I've beaded since I was a child and it is one thing I've missed so very much since going to Ringling. If you'd like to check out my store here is the link:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/raincrow

Ok that seems to be all for now! Until next time "Just Keep Swimming"!