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Artists Interviews on the Pencil Kings Art Podcast!
We’ve been working to bring you a weekly art podcast featuring artist interviews with the same kind of artists that you’ve grown to love on the Pencil Kings Facebook page.
This first episode will give you a taste of what’s coming up in the following weeks as we dive deep into the stories behind the artwork and get to know the creators in a one on one basis.
You’ll quickly discover that the path to being an artist is anything but easy, but the rewards that each of our guests has experienced far outweighs the often unclear and difficult path that they had to walk to get to where they are now.
While you’re listening you’ll also get to experience how these artists got their breakthrough moments, what they did to get started and what they did when they were faced with failure and difficult challenges.
You’ll also learn all about how these artists were able to translate their creative skills into viable careers so that they can continue to be creative and get paid while they’re at it. Don’t be surprised that if while you’re listening you find yourself getting inspired, uplifted and driven to make a clear path with your own art career.
- See more at: http://www.pencilkings.com/art-podcast/#sthash.G39CmgC4.dpuf
Be an artist, right now!
TEDxSeoul · 16:57 · Filmed Jul 2010
Why do we ever stop playing and creating? With charm and humor, celebrated Korean author Young-ha Kim invokes the world's greatest artists to urge you to unleash your inner child — the artist who wanted to play forever. (Filmed at TEDxSeoul.)
Blue Hour Renderings
The blue hour is a time of twilight each morning and evening where there is neither full daylight nor complete darkness. The time is regarded distinctive because of the character of the light. Artists call it sweet light. Go ahead, try it on your next architectural rendering.
The Colosseum during the blue hour
Success, Failure and the Drive to Keep Creating
Elizabeth Gilbert was once an "unpublished diner waitress," devastated by rejection letters. And yet, in the wake of the success of 'Eat, Pray, Love,' she found herself identifying strongly with her former self. With beautiful insight, Gilbert reflects on why success can be as disorienting as failure and offers a simple — though hard — way to carry on, regardless of outcomes.
This talk was presented at an official TED conference, and was featured by our editors on the home page.
Great Art Quote
“Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.”
Advance2000
I am benchmark testing a desktop as a service (DAAS) called Advance 2000, and thus far, I am impressed! The company has been around for awhile, so they have a solid understanding of the needs of the Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC) industry.
Here, is the scene I used.
The scene I used does use one plug-in, which I have uploaded here. I am in the middle of the test so I will post the results soon. I am using Chaos Group's V-Ray. and Autodesk's 3ds Max®, for my testing.
2 - Intel Xeon CPU X5680 @ 3.33GHz, 32.0GB, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 (Advance2000 Cloud)
My Advance2000 cloud render, running 2 Intel Xeons, took 1h 29m 32.7s. You can see the computer specs under the above final render.
1 - intel(R) Core i7 CPU 965 @ 3.20GHz (8 CPUs), 24.0GB, NVIDIA Quadro K5000 4095 MB (local farm)
4 - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz (8 CPUs), 12.0GB, Stock video card (local farm)
My local render farm, running 5 Intel i7s , took 1h 7m 58.9s. You can see the computer specs under the above final render.
So, we are almost running neck to neck, but in their lane is 2 rigs, and on my side is 5 rigs. Mind you, my rigs are about 7 years old and have already paid for themselves 10x.
Ambient Occlusion Made Simple
I have tried scripts, plugins, and many other things to get a clean ambient occlusion pass, and this is my prefered method. I use Autodesk's 3DSMAX Design, Chaos Group's V-Ray, and Adobe's Photoshop.
In computer graphics, ambient occlusion is used to represent how exposed each point in a scene is to ambient lighting
An ambient occlusion pass is an easy way to add detail to your fine lines, and it also dirties up your rendering, for a more realistic image.
Lighting Ratio
Lighting Ratio
It’s easy to underestimate the tonal separation between the light side and the shadow side in sunlight. When lighting experts set up artificial lights for a movie shot, they call this separation the lighting ratio, and they usually try to reduce it to cancel the unflattering effect of harsh or dark shadows.
As artists we may want to do the same, depending on the feeling we want to create. But most often, beginning illustrators tend to ignore the dominance of direct illumination and play up secondary sources too much.
If you’re counting steps on a value scale from 1 to 10, you might typically see five steps of tone from sunlight to shadow, or two f-stops on a camera’s aperture setting. The separation would be reduced if there were high clouds, hazy atmosphere, or a light-colored ground surface.
The tonal scale ranges along a gradation from black to white, and all colors have an equivalent somewhere along that scale. As you practice this approach, you will become aware of occasions when it was actually the play of light on the subject that initially inspired you. You should start to try looking for tonal contrasts in the world around you, and begin to consider the play of tonal differences within a piece as an essential part of the composition.
Above: Colors you may perceive as being very different may actually be extremely close on the tonal scale. A slight variation in ‘color’ (tone) can make a big difference to your painting
Try bearing these three points in mind:
- Instead of asking what shape the object is, ask how the lights and darks flow across its surface. It is perfectly possible to depict the form of an object simply by using gradated tonal marks, without drawing a single line.
- Instead of searching for detail, ask whether some detail is difficult to see because it is in an area of shadow. This can be helpful in avoiding painting what you ‘know’ to be there, and in introducing some interest to the composition in terms of lost and found edges.
- Instead of asking what color it is, ask first where the area being considered sits on the tonal scale before asking where it sits on the color spectrum.
How Quickly Our Brains Can Redefine Normality
So let me show you how quickly our brains can redefine normality, even at the simplest thing the brain does, which is color. I want you to first notice that those two desert scenes are physically the same. One is simply the flipping of the other. Okay? Now I want you to look at that dot between the green and the red. Okay? And I want you to stare at that dot. Don't look anywhere else. And we're going to look at that for about 30 seconds.
And I'll tell you -- don't look anywhere else -- and I'll tell you what's happening inside your head. Your brain is learning. And it's learning that the right side of its visual fieldis under red illumination; the left side of its visual field is under green illumination. That's what it's learning. Okay? Now, when I tell you, I want you to look at the dot between the two desert scenes. So why don't you do that now?
Your brain is seeing that same information as if the right one is still under red light, and the left one is still under green light. That's your new normal.
So, what does this mean for context? It means that I can take these two identical squares, and I can put them in light and dark surrounds. And now the one on the dark surround looks lighter than the one on the light surround. What's significant is not simply the light and dark surrounds that matter. It's what those light and dark surrounds meant for your behavior in the past.
Notan – A Term That Architectural Illustrators Should Know
For many architecture friends, the line between engineering and art can be very blurred. A well designed building is one that is highly functional, sturdy, and of course, breathtakingly beautiful. Buildings designed with artistic finesse will often have excellent use of trusses, the Golden Ratio, and color theory. When you take a look at a photo featuring architecture of famous buildings, you can also see another element of design and aesthetics that many people overlook – notan.
Haven’t heard of Notan? You are not alone. This term is used in Japan as a way to describe a perfect harmony between white and black in artwork, especially when it is used as the foundation of a piece of artwork. Notan is a stark black-and-white contrast that reaches the core of the work of art, and it is something that can be witnessed when you look at the photo of a well-designed building. Notan simplifies things into the solid shapes that are the very basis of the structure. Moreover, though the term itself is Japanese, the truth is that the Notan is a universal concept.
When every portion of the drawing, painting or photo is rendered into black and white, you get the purest example of Notan that you could have, and in many cases, it is one of the most striking ways to view artwork. Notan is known for bringing out the very basic skeleton and foundation of any artwork, primarily through the use of contrast between black and white. It turns the concrete into the abstract, adds depth to every design, and also can help emphasize the focal point in the work of art. Though Notan is regarded as an aspect of art that is relegated to just black and white, you can see a lot of the aspects of Notan as the display of the very basis of a piece of artwork with monochromatic pieces featuring 3 or 4 different shades of a single color.
In many ways, notan can be used to judge the foundation of the work of art or architectural design. The stronger the notan is in the design, the more aesthetically appealing a painting will usually be. The same idea can be used to help make decisions about an architectural rendering. This is because notan, in its rawest form, is the very bare bones of the work of art, be it an architectural rendering or a painting. With architectural renderings, notan can be used to emphasize sharp angles, deep cuts, and particular stylistic focal points.
Notan can be an architect’s best friend, despite the fact that most people in the architecture industry are unaware of this universal art idea. Black and white architectural renderings, be it done by pencil or CADD, can make a huge impression on both admirers of architecture and potential buyers, as well. If you are unsure about the way that your architectural rendering will be received, looking at the Notan of the rendering may yield flaws that would otherwise be difficult to find.
Construct GTC Teaser
Construct GTC Teaser from Kevin Margo on Vimeo.
CONSTRUCT is a Sci-Fi short film advancing the art of filmmaking, VFX and virtual production.
This teaser was presented as part of a tech demo at Nvidia's GTC conference March 25, 2014. This is a work in progress intended to illustrate recent advancements in graphics hardware and software capabilities.
Watch how we're pioneering new filmmaking and virtual production workflows.
youtube.com/watch?v=nnaz8q6FLCk
Special thanks to Chaos Group, NVIDIA, Boxx, OptiTrack, iTooSoft, Just Cause Entertainment and the AMAZINGLY TALENTED team of artists, actors and stunt performers who've supported this project.
1. Rendered using V-Ray RT GPU 3.0 for 3ds Max
2. Rendered with NVIDIA K6000s and K40s on 3DBOXX 4920 GPU Edition
3. Typical video RAM usage 6-7GB
4. Typical render time 5-10 minutes (DOF and motion blur are all rendered in camera)
CONSTRUCT in its entirety is coming soon...
For more info:
constructfilm.com/
facebook.com/constructfilm
twitter.com/MargoKevin
kevinmargo.com
Optical Illusions Show How We See
Beau Lotto's color games puzzle your vision, but they also spotlight what you can't normally see: how your brain works. This fun, first-hand look at your own versatile sense of sight reveals how evolution tints your perception of what's really out there.
“Beau Lotto is founder of Lottolab, a hybrid art studio and science lab. With glowing, interactive sculpture — and old-fashioned peer-reviewed research—he’s illuminating the mysteries of the brain’s visual system.”
Why you should listen
"Let there be perception," was evolution's proclamation, and so it was that all creatures, from honeybees to humans, came to see the world not as it is, but as was most useful. This uncomfortable place--where what an organism's brain sees diverges from what is actually out there--is what Beau Lotto and his team at Lottolab are exploring through their dazzling art-sci experiments and public illusions. Their Bee Matrix installation, for example, places a live bee in a transparent enclosure where gallerygoers may watch it seek nectar in a virtual meadow of luminous Plexiglas flowers. (Bees, Lotto will tell you, see colors much like we humans do.) The data captured isn't just discarded, either: it's put to good use in probing scientific papers, and sometimes in more exhibits.
At their home in London’s Science Museum, the lab holds "synesthetic workshops" where kids and adults make abstract paintings that computers interpret into music, and they host regular Lates--evenings of science, music and "mass experiments." Lotto is passionate about involving people from all walks of life in research on perception--both as subjects and as fellow researchers. One such program, called "i,scientist," in fact led to the publication of the first ever peer-reviewed scientific paper written by schoolchildren ("Blackawton Bees," December 2010). It starts, "Once upon a time ..."
These and Lotto's other conjurings are slowly, charmingly bending the science of perception--and our perceptions of what science can be.
What others say
"All his work attempts to understand the visual brain as a system defined, not by its essential properties, but by its past ecological interactions with the world. In this view, the brain evolved to see what proved useful to see, to continually redefine normality." —British Science Association
The Expert (Short Comedy Sketch)
Funny business meeting illustrating how hard it is for an engineer to fit into the corporate world! Starring: Orion Lee, James Marlowe, Abdiel LeRoy, Ewa Wojcik, Tatjana Sendzimir
- Written & Directed by Lauris Beinerts
- Based on a short story "The Meeting" by Alexey Berezin
- Produced by Connor Snedecor & Lauris Beinerts
- Director of Photography: Matthew Riley
- Sound Recordist: Simon Oldham
- Production Designer: Karina Beinerte
- 1st Assistant Director: James Hanline
- Make-up Artist: Emily Russell
- Editor: Connor Snedecor
- Sound Designer: James Bryant
- Colourist: Janis Stals
- Animator: Benjamin Charles
The original short story "The Meeting" (in Russian): http://alex-aka-jj.livejournal.com/66...
Are We Passing the Uncanny Valley?
Today, almost isn’t close enough and can hurt your presentation. People get an uneasy feeling, which some say is inherent in our nature, and inherently don’t like things that are almost real looking, but not close enough. Are we passing the Uncanny Valley?
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Build a Good Name
“Build a good name. Keep you name clean. Don’t make compromise. Don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned with doing good work... And if you can build a good name, eventually that will be it’s own currency ”
Augmented Reality for Architects and Contractors
Everyone knows virtual reality, but have you considered how augmented reality in architecture and construction could help your firm?
Augmented reality is a live, copied view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented (or supplemented) by computer-generated sensory input. Virtual reality replaces the real world with a simulated one, whereas augmented reality takes the real world and adds to it with—in the case of architecture—a 3D model of your design.
With the help of advanced augmented-reality technology such as computer vision and object recognition, the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and able to be digitally manipulated. In augmented reality, computer software must derive real-world coordinates, independent from the camera or from camera images.
SmartReality augmented reality app from JBknowledge
Augmented reality is used in architecture and construction by placing a 3D model of a proposed design onto an existing space using mobile devices and 3D models. AR has been used in the video gaming and media entertainment for a much longer period of time to show a real image interacting with one created from computer graphics. Its utilization matured in the AEC industries in the past five years when contractors such as Seattle’s BNBuilders began using it to show clients proposed designs in the context of existing conditions using iPads and other mobile devices on a construction site.
Seeing a Revit or other 3D model in context greatly assists in space planning and design visualization. Augmented reality was confined mostly to AEC firms that had large technology groups who could spend hours integrating Revit models with homemade 3D game engine models, but the technology has now been democratized and is available on a per-project basis, so small firms and even sole proprietors can take advantage of it.
SmartReality from JBknowledge, a technology company previously known for bringing subcontractors and jobs together, is a mobile AR app available as a beta test on a per-project basis. It can place a 3D model in context, viewable through an iPad or iPhone, whether on a 2D set of plans, in front of an actual site, or even on an image of your project’s site. Users focus on a given design or plan file with the camera on their iPad, iPad Mini, or iPhone; the app then recognizes the design, and the screen overlays a virtual model of what the project will look like upon completion. Anyone can see a Revit model in context (Revit drawings have to be imported into a different format to be recognized), in a full, 360-degree view.
Augmented reality has a wealth of design and construction uses beyond visualization, too. It can be used for design analysis to pick out clashes by virtually walking through your completed model. It fits the bill for constructability review by letting the architect and contractor collaborate on changes that have to happen between design and construction due to constructability issues. It can even assist with prefabrication of building components.
An oft-cited use of augmented reality came in the aftermath of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand. The University of Canterbury released CityViewAR, which enabled city planners and engineers to visualize buildings that were destroyed in the earthquake. It gave planners a great reference to what used to be there while also letting them gauge the devastation the quake left behind. Since then, it’s been used as a tool throughout Australia for construction and earthquake investigation.
To learn more about AR, check out 3 Steps to Tap into Visualization with 3ds Max, and read about virtual reality In Take a Walk Inside Your Designs.
Does your firm use augmented reality? If so, how do you use it? Please share your experiences below in the comments section.
CityViewAR is available for both iPhone and Android athttp://www.hitlabnz.org/index.php/products/cityviewar. To download the beta of SmartReality for iOS, visit http://smartreality.co/. To learn more about how BNBuilders has used augmented reality, visithttp://www.bnbuilders.com/building-information-modeling/.
Crystal Point Renderings
Please, feel free to give me some feedback. Moreover, if you have any technique questions, feel free to ask; I would love to share.
The Great Artist Problem
“For artists, the great problem to solve is how to get oneself noticed.”
Embracing Change
They say change is the only constant, and most people don't like change. Well I think that's half correct. To be sure there are a lot of change efforts at work that fail, because the effort wasn't planned well. Employees had no voice in the process, or the right resources weren't in place.This reality makes many employees jaded whenever any manager starts talking about change.But it's also true that humans get stuck in ruts.
Employees find comfort in the routines that define their day. Anything that upsets those routines just might be met with resistance. So what can you do to overcome that tendency and personally deal with change successfully, especially unexpected, difficult change? Good research and common sense tell us that attitude is everything. In sports, the elites have been studied. We know much about how they think and how they behave. They relentlessly focus on the positive perspective, framing things in a way that speaks to opportunities to be realized, instead of tough challenges to be dreaded.
They plan and adjust as needed, never believing that what they are today is who they need to be tomorrow. And the very same traits are found in great leaders. If you don't follow this advice,you know what? You become the professor who appears completely irrelevant to his students.Using 20 year old examples that don't really apply anymore. You become the company that ultimately fails because they believe customers will love the same product tomorrow that they loved today. Doesn't have to be that way. You can learn to make change work for you.
Coping with change and embracing change is a skill. It starts with building an identity bigger than only your professional identity. Even if you love what you do, that's too narrow. Healthy people have multiple, positive identities in addition to their professional identity. This might include father or volunteer or maybe basketball coach. Whatever it is, remember that to stay healthy,you need to be more than just one thing. Next, listen to the age-old advice about counting your blessings.
There's no mystery to share here. You just need to do what many people neglect to do.Periodically stop and reflect on the many specific things you're lucky to have in your life. A person who supports multiple positive identities in life and remembers to take stock of the things they're lucky to have in life is exactly the type of person who has the best odds of successfully navigating change. Okay, now when change actually hits, whether it's a merger you never saw coming and the new boss that comes with it or if it's the loss of your job that you didn't expect.
I want you to react in three simple ways that will help you make change more about possibilities instead of pains. First, remember to think before you act. When big change hits, don't make hasty decisions. Your emotions will be on overdrive. So here's the rule. No big decisions for at least 48 hours. Depending on what's happened, you'll be thinking about your team, your house, your finances, your family, you name it. Resist making quick decisions on any of these for at least 48 hours.
Next, when the shock is gone, it's time to start adjusting, to begin facing your new normal. This begins with a passionate commitment to being positive. You have to make the choice to be better, not bitter. Think about that choice consciously, first thing in the morning, everyday following a big change. Finally, of course, you have to take action. I want you to think about a multi-month plan of attack loaded with specific tasks and deadlines. Depending on the nature of the change the tasks will be different.
If there are problems with the new boss, this might include learing how to initiate tough conversations. Or if you're our of work, you might be spending a lot of time becoming laser focused on networking. This all might sound pretty easy in the abstract, but believe me, easy becomes very difficult when you're stressed out and dealing with the unexpected. That's why it's so inspiring to witness someone deal with change and adversity effectively.