Agricultural Badassity

Long Time No Posty

2009-07-26T14:30:00.003+09:00

Yikes. It's been a while since I posted. But I'm not sure if anyone reads this blog so maybe it doesn't matter. Regardless, in my head I believe there are thousands of avid readers refreshing this blog day and night, waiting for a new post. To appease those non-existent fans, I'd like to post something.

Below is a cover I made for my brother, who recently wrote a book about buying stock options. The books is good and easy to understand. If you're interested in options, check it out at:

http://www.amazon.com/Trading-Stock-Options-Option-Strategies/dp/1441490418/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1248586393&sr=8-12

Here is the cover (the actual picture, not the text and title):

I made this one in Painter X. I'm working on another cover for him as well and I'll post that up here after his new book (about making a home-based business selling things online) is done.

In other news, I'm converting one of my film scripts into a comic script right now. Once I hire an artist for that I'll post some stuff!

Later!

-Matt

Sea Horse Mania

2009-02-21T09:26:00.001+09:00

Well I haven't posted in a while. Unfortunately I've been a bit busy.

The other night, just for fun, I sketched out a comic. I haven't colored it yet but thought I might as well throw it up here. Enjoy!

Recap

2009-02-21T09:24:00.001+09:00

I haven't posted in a while. I've been doing a lot of writing, as well as drawing. Anyways, I wanted to post all the recent artwork I've done over the last few months in one place so it's easy to view. More to come soon.

*Note: The first two images feature characters created by Blizzard Entertainment and are thus copyrighted by Blizzard. I threw a copyright on them by accident out of habit.

Thanks.

-Matt

Balanced Diet

2008-04-20T16:36:00.002+09:00

The following is a picture I made in Japan that I wanted to put it. It's still in a rough draft phase, because there are some aspects of it I want to change. The background and the red pins were photographs I took, but they didn't turn out very well. For instance, there is a blueish hue to the pins. The background was made out of felt, but the colors are a little too desaturated, at least the sky part, which looks gray rather than blue. Anyways, in the future I'd like to do a book that has this style throughout.

Back in the USA

2008-04-14T14:50:00.002+09:00

I apologize for the lack of posts lately. For the last month I have been preparing to move back to the USA from Japan, so I've been busy. Anyways, during that time I made an art flier for use at a Children's Book convention in New York. The convention happened last month I think, and I haven't received any contacts from my fliers being there yet, so I'm not sure if they were received well. But it was fun making the flier. Here is what I settled on, though I only had a short time to get it ready and out the door-

It's supposed to resemble a cereal box, full of Matty goodness! More posts to come soon. Also check out my tea blog at http://ochaniverse.blogspot.com.

Thanks.

English Textbook Concept Sketches and Snowboard Sticker

2008-02-02T20:53:00.000+09:00

Sorry I haven't updated in a while but I wanted to throw up to small pictures. The first is of three characters. The characters are concept characters for an English textbook. The choses character would appear throughout the book introducing lessons, etc. I'm trying to decide which of the tree is best. The characters also have friends (e.g. the otter pirate has a seal, parrot, and dolphin friend) but I only wanted to make one character for concept purposes.

The second picture is a snowboard sticker I made for one of the teachers at my school. If you have an opinion about the English textbook characters I'd love to hear. Thanks.

Hot Oolong Tea

2007-11-25T17:44:00.000+09:00

You guessed it. I'm drinking hot oolong tea right now. It's cold! Here are a few more pictures of character sketches for the children's book. I hope to have some of the flash stuff up soon too. I'll be working on that soon I hope! For the sketches, the colors chosen are subject to change. In fact, after I do the main sketches I'm going to take a really close look at the colors and change them based on whether they work and also what I want them to represent in the story.

One of the pictures if of Christina, who I have already posted. I changed the color and length of her arms. The other two pictures are Tadeusz, the main character, and the Coco fairy. There are a few things I want to change about Tadeusz, such as the little box on his belt. It's supposed to be a pouch filled with tools and parts but I don't like how it looks.

Enjoy!

Chicken and Noodles....as well as some egg and vegetables.

2007-11-18T23:47:00.000+09:00

In the last post I named the song I was listening to at the time of the post. I'm not listening to a song now so I posted the name of what I just ate (which I bought from the Mini-stop by my house). There are actually a lot of convenience stores in Japan, and they seem to all carry different, interesting things. Anyways, here's another character design sketch for the children's book:

More to come soon! Thanks.

-Matt

Digital Love

2007-11-15T23:11:00.000+09:00

So the title doesn't have anything to do with the content of this post but I couldn't think of a title, so that's the name of the song I'm listening to right now. Anyways, lately I've been working on the flash intro, a website and, most of all, a children's book/script. I wanted to throw up a concept sketch for one of the characters in the children's story, so here it is:

I didn't crop the image so there is a lot of white on the bottom. Anyways, this is Christina from the story. I'll put more concepts of all the characters up soon. This is just a concept, but for the final artwork I want to use this same type of messy coloring and outlining. I'm going to change the color of her wrist things too, I don't think the green works well.

Also, I hope to have some more info on the website and the flash animation soon...I just need to...er...work out some final 'details' with the Flash program. *ahem*

Thanks!

-Matt

Respect Your Thumb

2007-10-28T00:35:00.000+09:00

Alright I finished work on the thumb picture. This was a picture I was doing for the CG society 'Strange Behavior' contest. Here is the final image:

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out but compared to the other stuff on the CG society page my picture is pretty amateur. The stuff on the CG society page is amazing.

But, now that I've finished this picture, I'm going to work on more story-related stuff. I will finish the flash intro for my site soon as well as start work on a short children's book. More to come on that! I'll try to post some concept stuff for the children's book soon.

Thanks!

-Matt

Thumb Part 2

2007-10-18T23:43:00.000+09:00

Alright so here' s a quick update on the thumb picture. I've been slackin' lately and haven't been doing as much work as I want, so for the next few weeks I really want to get some things done. Anyways, the thumb picture is almost complete-

If you have any advice let me know. Thanks in advance.

-Matt

Ain't Nothin' But a Thumb Thang

2007-10-04T23:58:00.001+09:00

Hello!

Here's an update on the 'thumb' piece I'm working on. Just wanted to throw it up. There are notes and stuff written on it, as well as reference colors, but please disregard those. Hopefully I'll be finished soon. I'll post another update soon regarding other stuff as well.

-Matt

Mo' Money, Mo' Keynesian Econimics

2007-09-30T01:04:00.000+09:00

Alright so here are two more panels of the flash project. I think that's it. Now I just have to put them in flash! It's not going to be any kind of spectacular flash animation, but I'm excited to get it finished!

Thanks!

-Matt

My Apartment Stinks

2007-09-27T23:07:00.000+09:00

Hello!

Yes. My apartment started to stink suddenly for some reason. Not sure why, but it could be due to a lot of laundry lying around...hehe...em...anyways, I've been working on the flash project and I tried to churn out two more panels tonight, so here they are:

I posted another panel a month or two ago and it should be below. Anyways, I have to color one last panel and a few other things, then put it all in flash. Also looking at the picture right now I just realize I need to add some strands of hair to the creature's ears on the left picture. I'm also working on another project at the moment and I've been having a lot of ideas for some scripts and a children's book, so I need to get working on those too! More to come! Thanks.

-Matt

WIP: The End...well, maybe

2007-09-12T21:52:00.000+09:00

Alright. So I wanted to explain the story of the comic just for anyone who isn't familiar with World of Warcraft. Basically, there are two main races in WoW, the Orcs and the Humans. They don't like each other. They've been at war for a long time. The two characters in the comic are Orcs. One of them, the one without the helmet, is the leader of the Orcs, Thrall. The Orcs are tough, and thus there leader is pretty bad ass. So, he would never be playing around with dolls of puny HUMANS would he? Well, unfortunately, a messenger stumbles upon Thrall while he is playing with dolls. This leads to Thrall having to pay the guy off (though I guess he could have easily killed him as well). Anyways, hopefully that makes sense. Here is another version with an updated background. I might send this in to the WoW website now. Hopefully it's easy enough to read if it gets posted on the website, cause their version will not be as big as the one I have here (when you click on it). I think I'm pretty happy with it as it is. Thanks for reading and for any advice.

-Matt

WIP Continued

2007-09-11T23:33:00.000+09:00

Heya,

Alright. Here's an update on the comic WIP. It's almost done, but I have to fix the background and probably some of the dialogue too. Anyways, I'm about to goto sleep so I'm not going to post about the story, but I will tomorrow or sometime this week for sure. If you don't player World of Warcraft or are not familiar with the lore of that universe, the comic will probably make no sense. But any advice is appreciated. This project has been fun because I am working in 300 dpi and am not used to working with files that large. Here it is:

Thanks.

-Matt

Yeah you know me, I'm down with WIP

2007-08-20T00:51:00.000+09:00

So here's some work in progress I wanted to post on the blog. One is of a 1 page World of Warcraft comic I'm making. It's good practice for coloring, but I need to work on the lighting a bit I think. The other piece is just something for fun, a cartoon hand. I want to remove some of the spots on the hand and also fix the wrinkles on the thumb. The thumb was going to be my CGsociety 'Strange Behavior' contest entry but I recently decided to do something else. I'll post the sketch of that soon! Thanks.

Matt

World of Warcraft Comic (I'll post more about the story of the comic later):

Thumb Picture (still need to alter coloring on the hand and add background):

World of Warcraft Comic

2007-08-10T13:33:00.000+09:00

Heya,

Here's a quick concept sketch for two characters in a very short World of Warcraft Comic I'm trying to make. The WoW website has a monthly comic contest. Anyways, I was trying two different coloring styles on the two characters. Trying to decide which one I like better. Thanks!

-Matt

Great Paw of the Eternal Flame

2007-07-29T02:15:00.000+09:00

Hello!

I've been working on a few different pieces and I decided to post part of the flash intro for my website on here (it's one of the frames for the intro). I'm pretty happy with how it turned out though some of the shading looks a bit dirty I think. Anyways, hopefully the intro will be done soon, as well as other stuff. I realized too that I need to start working on stories more. I'm making a few short comics but I don't qualify those as the stories I would like to be working on. I'll post more updates soon! Thanks.

Here is the flash intro frame:

All is Gray but Blood and Fire

2007-07-16T23:07:00.000+09:00

There is an art contest for Blizzard coming up soon so I decided to make a picture for the contest. I'm also going to send it in for Blizzard's general 'fan art' section. I'm semi-happy with the piece, though I thought I could have done better. It was pretty good practice, though. Hopefully it gets put up on the fan art page. Anyways, the picture is a postcard of an area in Blizzard's game, World of Warcraft, called 'Blackrock Mountain'. Here it is:

The next two things I'm working on are a flash intro for my website and a World of Warcraft comic. Hopefully those will be done soon. If you have any crits or comments on the picture above, though, be sure to let me know. Thanks.

Wacom Madness pt.2

2007-06-27T23:38:00.000+09:00

Alright, so I finished another picture with the Wacom. This time I wanted to try shading, as it's not something I'm good at. So, I decided to do a portrait. The following is the end product (click on it if you want to see the full version):

Anyways, I'm happy with the practice I got from it, though I still need a lot of work in terms of shading/coloring/drawing real people. I'm not as concerned with drawing real people, though, as my focus is going to be on more cartoony stuff, but the shading practice was good. The picture was made in Photoshop. I'm thinking of buying painter this week, as well. I tried out the trial version and it was pretty sweet. Anyways, next project is the World of Warcraft comic. After that (since I'm living in Japan), I'm thinking of doing an Edo period style picture but with a modern theme. Until next time...

-Matt

Edit: Updated the photo above. The first one I posted looked a little 'blotchy'. This one I think looks better, and I made it a sepia-ish tone. Anyways, I'm currently working on another piece for a World of Warcraft contest (as well as the flash intro and comic). Hopefully it's done soon. Thanks.

- Matt

Wacom Madness

2007-06-17T01:13:00.001+09:00

Alright so I finally started using my Wacom tablet. The following is the first thing I've drawn on it. I drew the hula girl for a hawaiian restaurant nearby my apartment here in Yokohama. Hopefully they will use it as the logo. So, with that said, the picture is only white and blue, as requested by the restaurant. Anyways, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, but there's still a lot I need to get better at when using my Wacom. Hopefully future drawings with the tablet will improve. I'm going to try and draw some pictures for a flash animation I want to add to my website next. That's it for now. Thanks!

-Matt

The picture:

HDR Images

2007-06-11T22:02:00.000+09:00

Last weekend I tried to take some photos and turn them into an HDR image (High Dynamic Range). Basically, I took three pictures of the same object/setting, each at different exposures. Then, in photoshop, I combined them into one picture. It didn't turn out very well, but this was my first experiment with HDR. I've also heard there are better programs to use than photoshop specifically for HDR work, but I need to look into those. Anyways, thought I'd throw up one of the pictures. The picture is of some boats in the Yokohama area.

Here is the original picture:

Here is the HDR picture:

Anyways, we'll see what happens next time. Hopefully I'll have some artwork to put up soon. I'm working on a Flash intro for my website. I'll try to post pieces of it as I make it.

-Matt

World of Japancraft

2007-06-05T22:49:00.001+09:00

Alright. Most of the people who view the blog will have already seen the picture I'm posting, but for the people who haven't, take a close look. That's right, while at Yokohama stadium I caught a rare glimpse of an Orc in Japan. I was thinking of making a whole series of 'World of Warcraft characters in Japan' but the last few I've made haven't turned out well, so I'm thinking of abandoning the idea. I might just try to draw Pig and Corn on photos I take in Japan instead. We'll see though. In the next week or two, I'm going to post a new comic I'm working on. I'm making it for the monthly comic contest Blizzard has on their website www.worldofwarcraft.com.

-Matt

Blarg

2007-06-03T01:03:00.000+09:00

Alright. After a long period of procrastination, I've decided to put up a blog. Hopefully this will help motivate me to draw and write more. Anyways, I will be trying to post artwork on here whenever I can. For those who will read the blog, I hope you enjoy what I put up!

-Matt