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Bobby Parker 7/19/14 Bobby Parker 7/19/14

Elmstead & Close - A short film by Andrei Shah

A four season piece representing the phases and beauty of life.

Elmstead & Close is a short CGI film, created by Andrei Shah.

OFFICIAL SELECTION: Watford Live Festival
WINNER: UH Animation Expose - '3D Award 2014'

Written & Directed by: Andrei Shah
Sound Composed by: Arthur Gallon

For further info, including shot breakdowns:
andreishah.co.uk
vimeo.com/83603579

Contact via:
@Andrei_Shah
andrei.shah@gmail.com

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Bobby Parker 7/18/14 Bobby Parker 7/18/14

Quick 1-point Perspective Sketch

Bobby Parker 7/17/14 Bobby Parker 7/17/14

Rendering Exteriors in 3ds Max with Adam Crespi

In this course, author Adam Crespi takes you through the full production pipeline for lighting, rendering, and compositing the exterior of a house in 3ds Max. First he'll show you how to create mental ray materials like wood, metal, and glass; customize the Daylight system for realistic daytime lighting; and adjust the lighting for dusk and nighttime shots with photometric lights. Then he'll render the scenes, optimizing and styling the bounced light with Global Illumination and Final Gather. Finally, Adam takes the image into post, adding the final polish required at the end of the pipeline with Nuke and After Effects.

Topics include:

Creating exterior materials
Adding luster to glass and subtle detail to wood and siding
Positioning the sun with the Daylight system
Lighting using HDR imagery
Lighting interior spaces
Fine-tuning the photographic exposure
Rendering and optimizing rendering
Creating an ambient-occlusion rendering pass with custom materials
Setting up additional rendering passes for compositing purposes
Compositing and adding post effects in Nuke and After Effects

Bobby Parker 7/11/14 Bobby Parker 7/11/14

Architectural Rendering Tutorial - Post Production in Photoshop - Inserting People

After many requests, a short tutorial on how to insert people into an architectural visualization scene.Links where to find cutout peopleGobotree.comSkalgubbar.seXoio-air.deImmediateentourage.com/Hope you've enjoyed and feel free to leave any commen… — After many requests, a short tutorial on how to insert people into an architectural visualization scene.

Links where to find cutout people
Gobotree.com
Skalgubbar.se
Xoio-air.de
Immediateentourage.com/

Hope you've enjoyed and feel free to leave any comments and suggestions for the next ones!

Bobby Parker 7/10/14 Bobby Parker 7/10/14

Chiaroscuro

: pictorial representation in terms of light and shade without regard to color
a: the arrangement or treatment of light and dark parts in a pictorial work of artb: the interplay or contrast of dissimilar qualities (as of mood or character)
: a 16th century woodcut technique involving the use of several blocks to print different tones of the same color; also: a print made by this technique
: the interplay of light and shadow on or as if on a surface
: the quality of being veiled or partly in shadow

Contrasting effects of light and shade in a work of art. Leonardo da Vinci brought the technique to its full potential, but it is usually associated with such 17th-century artists as Caravaggio and Rembrandt, who used it to outstanding effect. The chiaroscuro woodcut, produced by printing different tones of a colour from separate woodblocks on a single sheet of paper, was first produced in 16th-century Italy.

Bobby Parker 7/9/14 Bobby Parker 7/9/14

The Architecture Academy - Official Trailer 2

Discover how to create Architecture in Blender

Archi-viz isn't just about making buildings. It's also about photorealistic materials, using light to convey emotion, balancing a scene using harmonious elements and breathing life into a static scene.

These lessons and techniques are applicable to almost any field.

Architectural Vizualization teaches you:

How to use limited subject matter to tell a story
Frame and present a scenes in it's best light
Create realistic hardsurface materials
Inject personality into your renders

Bobby Parker 7/7/14 Bobby Parker 7/7/14

Colored Pencils to Draw this Amazing Picture

One of the coolest Messi tributes we’ve seen in quite a while…

There have been millions of tributes to Argentina’s Lionel Messi since he burst on the scene over a decade ago; photos, collages, murals, paintings etc but this American artist has done a very special one.

JOE’s drawing skills are dependent one whether or not there is a ruler available to us. It’s not the prettiest but it could be considered as modern, new-age art (we can’t draw) but Heather Rooney is a different kettle of fish.

Heather clearly has remarkable talent and she made this time lapse video of her drawing Lionel Messi from scratch, it’s really brilliant…

Bobby Parker 7/4/14 Bobby Parker 7/4/14

Why Chasing Fame Won’t Make You a Better Artist

Artist Michael Grills has developed a unique portrait style and has an endless list of glowing testimonials from happy clients. Yet, he’s never tried to chase fame and puts his success down to hard work and staying true to doing what he loves.

His story begins back in high school, when he got his first gig painting a mural aged just 16. After that, he went on to art school before becoming a video games artist for Bioware and working on a wide range of best-selling titles.
Everything was going well, but it took the birth of his children to make Michael re-asses his life and his art career. Having decided to make the move back to his native Calgary, he set himself up as a freelance illustrator and began developing the unique style of work that you see today.

Although he’s since gone back into the workplace, he still maintains a balance between producing work for other people and his own projects. His story is an inspiring one, which reflects the very real struggles most artists face when trying to market their work and generate a decent income from their creativity.

How Did Michael Develop His Unique Portrait Style?

While working as a video games artist, Michael devoted his time to mastering rendering and composition. At the time, not many other artists were doing this, so Michael saw this as his chance to establish himself as one of the best in this field.

However, despite throwing himself into this challenge and enjoying it, there was a nagging feeling in the back of Michael’s mind: He’d never be truly happy until he broke out of his comfort zone, developed his own unique style and started producing the work he really wanted to make.

Luckily, some downtime at work meant he was able to start work on achieving his dream. When Adobe made huge changes to Illustrator, its industry-standard vector drawing software, Michael found a new and exciting outlet for his creativity. He discovered he could combine his Photoshop working methods (such as layers and rendering), with the precision of geometric shapes and subtle color transitions.

He began working on a sketch which eventually turned into his first finished painting in this new style. Michael worked on this piece constantly; obsessing over the marks he was making and putting everything he could into it. However, instead of feeling drained by this intensive process, Michael felt revitalized and eager to start the next painting. It was at this moment that he knew he was onto something big.

He proceeded to start work on some large-scale portraits of his family, putting his new-found direction into practice and loving every minute of it. Rather than feeling forced to create something, he was now liberated and producing the work he loved. And it showed. The subsequent exhibition was a huge success, and Michael knew he’d made the right decision.

What’s Michael’s Advice For Artists?

In Michael’s opinion, too many up-and-coming artists think more about fame and recognition than their own art. He feels that every artist needs to think more about the reasons behind why they make art and concentrate instead on how to market themselves effectively.

He explains: “Fame isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. If all you’re concerned about is winning awards and becoming famous, you’ll lose sight of what really matters to you as an artist. And, it’s important to remember that you’ll still have to hustle just as hard to find work.”

Michael’s speaking from experience, because he’s had first-hand knowledge of what can happen when those dreams of fame get in the way of carving out a sustainable career as a successful artist. His dad is an accomplished guitarist who joined in a band in the 60s.

His band started to take off and it looked like the big time was calling. Michael’s dad hung out with rockstars and started to think seriously about living the dream. However, it was only when his band was on the verge of signing a record deal that he was brought back down to Earth with a bump. His bandmates had joined for fun and didn’t want to take it any further. They jumped ship, leaving him to abandon his dream of fame and go back to being a regular guy.

Michael’s father could have become a professional musician. He could have gone to college, learned how to read music, and form the foundations of a lasting career. However, his early thirst for fame caused him to run before he could walk. He had the big dreams, but he hadn’t thought about how he could use his natural talent for a more enduring career in music.

Treat Every Gig as Your Number 1 Priority

Michael says: “No matter how big or small the project, your current client is the most important thing. You need to blow their minds with the work you produce for them, so get on the phone and promote it to people. Remember to keep your career moving!”

“Don’t worry about winning awards or getting into Spectrum at first. Instead, worry about getting into art school and perfecting your skills!”

Michael is a huge believer in treating your art career as a business. He loves to read about art continuously, but every second book he reads is a business title about marketing yourself. He explains: “I think about art and business every day, but I never think about fame!”

He re-entered the workplace because he says the time and stress associated with looking for new projects was starting to get in the way of making art. Now, he does his regular work in the week and balances this by producing his own work at weekends.

Although he seems to have found the perfect formula, Michael says there’s still one area of art he’d love to pursue. He’s a huge fan of street art and Banksy, and says he’d love to work on a mural in the near future. Let’s hope he gets to do this real soon!

Listen to this week’s show and learn:

Why it’s more important to focus on your skills rather than fame
How to find the right balance and make the art you really want to
Why making it as an artist isn’t about winning awards

People on this Episode:

Mitch
Michael

Mentioned in the episode:

Michael’s Website
Michael on Facebook
Michael on Twitter
Michael on Google +
Michael on LinkedIn

Thanks for listening to our show! We’ll be back next Wednesday morning 8AM EST.

Cheers,

Mitch

PS, there is also Pencil Kings content on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

- See more at: http://www.pencilkings.com/michael-grills/#sthash.6D2ehrbX.dpuf

Bobby Parker 7/3/14 Bobby Parker 7/3/14

3DS Max Tutorial by Bertrand Ciesielski.

Create a wall of rocks using 3dsmax 2014, Multiscatter, Rock Generator Script, and V-Ray for rendering.

Bobby Parker 7/2/14 Bobby Parker 7/2/14

Insanely Detailed 3D Model of a Castle

Have you ever considered creating an accurate and detailed 3D model from 2D photos? Probably not, it's incredibly difficult. Now, if you try to do it on a truly massive scale and have a huge castle as your subject, it makes it almost impossible to do by hand. The guys at Pix4D took it as a challenge to their software and not only modeled the outside, but also the inside of the castle, all in one interactive 3D model. To prove that it can be done by anyone, they decided to use only consumer cameras (GoPro, DSLR and a Mirrorless).

Chillon Castle ("Chateau de Chillon") is Switzerland’s most visited historic monument and one of the most complex structures in the country, which is why Pix4D chose this location to test out the software (Pix4Dmapper) they developed in the past few years. The software is capable of automatically processing normal 2D photos, and produce a very accurate 3D model. No manual work is needed except for choosing the images the software is going to analyze.

“The goal of this project was to do a fun and instructive project to use the latest features of our software (Pix4Dmapper) and publish a white paper on it. These latest features are the use of the GoPro, Fisheye lenses and combination of both aerial and ground imagery in one project and were introduced with V1.1 of Pix4Dmapper in late April of this year.”

To read more about the project and how it was done, check out Pix4D project page.

Bobby Parker 7/1/14 Bobby Parker 7/1/14

Artist draws incredible illustrations with no prior sketching whatsoever

Kim Jung Gi is one of those rare illustrators that can conjure up any scene he wants out of thin air, without any sketching and in record time. There are no tricks here, just an amazing visual memory, raw imagination, and a perfect command of the medium. Watching these videos of him working is a real pleasure.

Kim Jung Gi is a South Korean artist born in 1975. He studied fine arts at the Dong-Eui University of Busan and served in the army' special forces section during more than 2 years, which allowed him to memorize an amazing number of vehicles and weapons. He's a professional illustrator and comic book artist.

You can follow his work on his website and Facebook.

Bobby Parker 6/28/14 Bobby Parker 6/28/14

Prismacolor colored pencil drawing of Johnny Depp

Prismacolor colored pencil drawing of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. Music: Alice's Theme by Danny Elfman

Bobby Parker 6/27/14 Bobby Parker 6/27/14

Free Cutout Images of Trees and People

Would you like to download some free cutout images of trees and people? Well, now you can! The guys of a studio called Vyonyx, just made available a lot of these images for download. Besides the trees and people, they have free textures too.

All you have to do is visit their website and choose the images to download, no registration is required. This is a very good resource for architectural visualization!

Bobby Parker 6/26/14 Bobby Parker 6/26/14

Pricing Yourself

Pricing yourself is one of the biggest hurdles every creative professional must overcome.
Why is money so scary? Is it because we don’t like it? Don’t be silly, of course we like money.
It’s because we don’t know our value.

What’s your income?
To come up with a price, look at what the market will pay you based on your education, experience, and skill set. If you don’t know, you can find the median salary within your industry and city at indeed.com/salary.

Here are some examples:
• Architectural Illustrator in NYC: $68,000
• Graphic Designer in Houston: $57,000
• Photographer in San Francisco: $30,000

Let’s say we’re the Architectural Illustrator in NYC making $68,000 per year.

Architectural Illustrator: $68,000 per year. He simply needs to slice off the last 3 zeros from his salary. If you could make $68,000 per year, just pitch $68 per hour as a freelancer. Again, this is a simple starting point, so you can just throw out a price off the top of your head. Always be prepared to negotiate.

As freelancers and creative professionals, we constantly have to negotiate our price. If you learn how to master the art of negotiation…it’ll help you in business and in life. Nothing is written in stone. Your “price” is not pre-determined by the Greek gods. You can pitch the high day rate first, which is $680. If they try to negotiate a lower price, now you know how low you are willing to go: $544. We’ll round up to $545. Don’t be afraid to ask for more.

“In business as in life, you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate””

— Chester L. Karrass

Remember to have fun! Believe it or not, negotiating gets to be a lot of fun with practice.

Bobby Parker 6/25/14 Bobby Parker 6/25/14

Rendering Fundamentals with Rhino and V-Ray with Dave Schultze

Before you can showcase your 3D designs, you need renders of your work that really pop. Learn how to render with Rhino and V-Ray in this course, which includes three fun sample projects: a penguin with glasses, a retro TV frame, and a funky birdhouse. First, author Dave Schultze shows how to install V-Ray and demystifies 3D concepts such as global illumination and raytrace rendering. He demonstrates techniques for rendering quickly with both Rhino's built-in rendering and V-Ray, and explains how to customize materials, enhance them with texture mapping, and add realistic surface textures using bump and displacement maps. Along the way, Dave shares insider tips and tricks on rendering, while showing how to get the right lighting for your scene, use color correction tools, and render with the V-Ray frame buffer.

Topics include:

Why use V-Ray?
Installing DR Spawner
Understanding 3D terminology
Activating V-Ray
Adjusting quality settings
Get quick previews with the material override
Understanding lighting types
Exploring materials in the Material Editor
Creating your own materials
Texture mapping materials with bitmaps and procedurals
Saving time with V-Ray presets
Getting the right size for your render with output settings
Working with environment lighting
Strategies for working with cameras and camera settings
Ensuring accurate color for your scene with color correction
Rendering tips and tricks

Bobby Parker 6/17/14 Bobby Parker 6/17/14

2014 CGarchitect 3Dawards Film Festival Teaser

2014 CGarchitect 3Dawards Film Festival Teaser from CGarchitect on Vimeo.

On July 5, 2014, CGarchitect will be showing some of the best submissions to our 2014 3Dawards at the Mundos Digitales Conference in La Coruna, Spain.

Bobby Parker 6/13/14 Bobby Parker 6/13/14

Thomas Kinkade - A Lifetime of Light

A Lifetime of Light - Online Exhibition
Experience this complete presentation of Thomas Kinkade's prolific 30 year career as America's Most Collected Artist. From his published works, we have prepared nearly 500 images; just click on an image to advance chronologically or use the links below to skip to a particular year.
Enter A Lifetime of Light

An American Artist - The Thomas Kinkade Life Story (video)
From his boyhood home in rural Placerville to becoming the renowned Painter of Light, Thomas Kinkade walked a focused path. An American Artist reveals the experiences and inspirations that influenced the artist...From the memories of family, teachers, mentors, and friends, here is the life of the man behind the art. Play An American Artist (57 min. video)

Bobby Parker 6/10/14 Bobby Parker 6/10/14

10 Commandments Color Theory

Make Your Projects More Enticing With Color Theory

Color combinations can be difficult to get right.

When matching with clothes, it’s easy. But for projects, ad campaigns and posters, the millions of colors to choose from can be overwhelming. Working under a tight deadline forces many people to choose safe or dull colors that lack substance.

For those who are not well versed in color theory, there’s this infographic.

The diagram shows brief descriptions of the foundational colors of the rainbow and indicates when and how to use them properly. The best part about the infographic are the samples. Since all of the samples are on one visual, making comparisons of color combinations can be quick process.

If you don’t know where to start in using the guide, start with the questions and work your way from left to right.

Explore more visuals like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

Bobby Parker 6/6/14 Bobby Parker 6/6/14

Breaking Out of a Rut with Stefan Mumaw

Ever feel like you're in a rut? Most people in creative fields have experienced a rut, whether it manifests as a lack of ideas, follow-through, or enthusiasm. Sometimes it's just boredom that comes with routine. Stefan Mumaw designed this course to help you identify the type of rut you're in and its cause, and then break out of it with a series of short-, mid-, and long-term creative nudges. From techniques to get you thinking alternatively to life-changing educational opportunities, the course serves to bust every level of creative rut with actionable ideas and encouragement that's designed to get you back on the path to creative success.

The course is more resource than classroom, designed to be something you can return to each and every time you feel stuck on a project or stalled in your career. Come back anytime you need help taking a creative leap forward.

Bobby Parker 6/5/14 Bobby Parker 6/5/14

Fast, Good or Cheap. Pick two.

Below is The Designers Holy Triangle! When creating a project, clients must choose only two out of the three options. They can't have it all. It's a reality of life, clients must deal with it. Architectural Illustrators must deal with it.

Good + Fast = Expensive

Choose good and fast and we will postpone every other job, cancel all appointments and stay up 25-hours a day just to get your job done. But, don't expect it to be cheap.

Good + Cheap = Slow

Choose good and cheap and we will do a great job for a discounted price, but be patient until we have a free moment from paying clients.

Fast + Cheap = Inferior

Choose fast and cheap and expect an inferior job delivered on time. You truly get what you pay for, and in our opinion this is the least favorable choice of the three.