Fundamentals of Design

Sign ups for CGMA's next term are still going on. Classes begin in May and I'll be returning to teach Fundamentals of Design with lectures by Jason Louie.

Kickstarter Mentorship Reward

From the random doodles in my lab journal as a science grad to art school to the present day, I've built up a lot of knowledge and experience that I've used to help other artists both as a teacher with CGMA and as a mentor with Motivarti.org. One of my Kickstarter Rewards tiers is a Mentorship Package where you can get one on one time with me to provide artistic feedback, portfolio guidance and answer any art/career related questions specific to you. Check out my link for more info if you're interested:

http://kck.st/1R4DLTn

Teaching "Fundamentals of Design" for CGMA

I’ll be teaching “Fundamentals of Design” again this coming term with CGMA. Classes begin Feb 2 and run for 8 weeks. Enrollment now open. For those who aren’t familiar with CGMA, it’s a great online school where you watch lecture videos on your own time, upload your homework, download video-recorded feedback, and get a weekly live Q&A with the instructor.

From Science to Art

There's still one week left to apply for the MOTIVARTI program to be partnered with a professional art mentor for 10 weeks. What most of you probably don't know about me is that I became an artist AFTER having already gone to college to study Molecular Biology in order to become a researcher.

When I made the decision to switch careers, it was back at a time when the available resources to help someone like me who knew nothing about art or the industry were limited only to extension classes at established schools. So it's always been a goal of mine to help potential artists who might not otherwise have access to the best resources. So far everyone who has emailed me for artistic and professional advice has been very professional and courteous with how they've done it, so I'm happy to continue doing so. Please pass this along to anyone you feel might benefit :)

Teaching Design Process

I've been enjoying my new teaching gig with CGMA so far and it seems like so have my students. I've always felt like my previous career in biological research enabled me to analyze and break down art in a way that lets people really understand it so I'm glad it's helping others. It kinda makes me want to teach more and be like a scientific artist Bob Ross haha. Anyhow here's some demos I did when I taught design and visual development at the LA Academy of Figurative Art guest starring my favorite man in tights :)

CGMA Design Demo

There’s always more to a design than meets the eye. This is the completed demo I did during my live interview with CG Masters Academy over the weekend. The overlay drawing on the left is meant to show how the similar shapes, lines, angles and weight of my design all work in sync to make it congruent. I know this isn’t the most ‘sexy’ piece of art but I hope you’ll enjoy seeing the mechanics of design a bit.

CGMA "Interview with the Masters"

I had the pleasure of being a part of CG Master Academy​'s "Interview with the Masters" series earlier today in preparation for my upcoming Design Fundamentals class. I talked about both my personal and professional work and how my transition from a career in Molecular Biology to Art influenced not only my studies but also continues to define how I work today. The interview will be up shortly on CGMA's Youtube channel for everyone's benefit. I LOVE teaching and can't wait to help more young & eager artists understand this discipline that's a huge part of my life. Hope you're all having a great weekend!

Drawing Tutorials -The Foreshortened Figure

I’ve always enjoyed the act of teaching – helping someone else to understand a concept a little better is one of those unexplainable joys for me. It’s why I spent many semesters as a Teacher’s Aid while at Art Center and even more so why I’ve spent the past two years teaching on and off at the LA Academy of Figurative Art.

I’ve had a few people online ask me for drawing tips over the last year, and normally I just take the time out right then and there to answer their questions. However, drawing isn’t something that can be thoroughly explained through text alone, which is why I’ve decided to compose a set of Drawing Tutorials for people to download and have. So far I’ve created some for drawing the human head and for the figure in foreshortening. I plan to create more as time allows and as interest in them increases if they’re actually helping people.

If you have any feedback on them or suggestions, please write me as I’d love to know how to improve them for the benefit of people who actually need them. Until then, keep drawing!

Composition for Print

Extreme vertical compositions that would not work for film, at least not for a traditional widescreen shot. Panning up and down is another case.

Notice the nice rhythm from the flow of Batman's cape in the first panel that originates bottom left of the spread and gets picked up with his fingers in the next, continuing on through Joker's eyes and finally ending on Batman's head top right of the spread.

Nice layering of environment and silhouettes that also take into account the spine of the book and adjust accordingly.

Smaller repeating panels of similar size can denote story beats that are all equally important and that usually build up to a bigger release, as in the splash page.

Very nice spread utilizing the principle of extreme size variations to further enhance the storytelling through the composition.

This spread utilizes a nice division of space that creates very graphic shapes for a quick read but with details for further viewing.

These are some slides from one of my last lectures of the quarter. They cover some points that show how composition for stationary mediums like print are both similar and different from that of film. These beautiful illustrations are credited to the respective creators: Dave McKean ("Arkham Asylum" graphic novel), Barry Jackson ("Danny Diamondback" children's book) & Shaun Tan ("Emigrantes" graphic novel).

The main driving point here is that the difference for stationary mediums allows the artist much more creative freedom with regard to the layout and composition. Since the viewer can gaze upon a single image for as long as he or she would like, the artist can therefore explore less conventional compositions and even play with the read of the image by making it less clear than if it were for film.

The other points are that stationary mediums allow for much more interesting aspect ratios that are not of film dimensions. Of course usually these are set by a publisher or art director, but the freedom to play with vertical compositions and extremely distorted proportions can make the storytelling that much more fun.

Last but not least is that there exists a greater interaction between the art and the viewer. The viewer can go back and forth, skip ahead if so desired, or really dive deep into a singular image. All of these factors and more allow for different needs of the composition than the standard clear read that is required for film because of the length of time on screen of any particular shot.

I hope these help. I've been making good progress on both my children's book and another personal project, but since I don't want to post them until they're finished, I'll try to sneak in another personal sketch or something like that before the new year. Cheers!

Studying Composition from Film

A lot of artists are familiar with doing film studies, and they're a great way to understand a film's certain aesthetic for composition or color or lighting. In addition to doing those, I recommend analyzing key frames from films in the context of at least these 3 questions:

1. Who is the "star?

Sometimes the star is obvious and everything in the composition points to it, other times it's less obvious yet still recognizable. In the first example, Aladdin is the star and the composition literally points to him and reinforces his being surrounded and trapped. In the second, none of the people are the "star" because in the context of the movie, the scene is about the information in those documents and the lighting really helps to highlight that the "star" of this scene is what the guard is holding.

2. What happened right before or will right after?

No composition exists alone, and if you find yourself not understanding a composition, consider what was shown right before or will be shown right after to help put it in context. In the Aladdin scene, it might seem a bit odd that the composition is somewhat symmetrical and that the center of interest is rather in the middle, but it makes sense that such a stable composition would be used right after an exciting and dynamic chase sequence to reinforce the peace and quiet Aladdin and Abu have earned.

3. What am I supposed to feel?

These two compositions both elicit different and rather opposite feelings. The first encourages the feeling that Aladdin is feeling down and insignificant in the context of the size of the city and its imposing nature on him. In the second, we get the opposite feeling. This scene from "Lawrence of Arabia" suggests the feeling of openness and how the landscape is both prone to be explored and its massive presence in contrast to the minuscule presence of the people in the scene.

Hope this helps anyone trying to understand film a bit better. Remember, compositions aren't just dark and light shapes on a screen. They're a visual device to help serve the story.

Composition Guidelines and Breakdowns

These are just a few slides from my Composition & Layout class that I wanted to share. The main idea behind these is that when you're studying a well composed image or want to make one yourself, there are a few key principles that must be in effect in order for it to be compelling. Please note that these are NOT my layouts but those of amazing artists whose work I found online or scanned from books I own and I show them here ONLY for the purposes of instruction.

It all comes down to what your FOCAL POINT is and where you want to place that in the frame of your image. After that, it's a delicate and artful balance of how you break up the SPACE further and place the elements of your image in a way that they create DEPTH and RHYTHM that help to lead the viewer through the image.

I recommend doing some analyses on some of your favorite images and hopefully you'll see that there's more at work in the image than what you originally thought. 

Design Process Analysis

These are just a few of the slides I made for a recent lecture I gave in my Project Preparation and Research class at the LA Academy of Figurative Art. The topic of that week covered design fundamentals and I used the great William Joyce's airship sketch (found online) from the "Meet the Robinsons" Disney movie as an example of just beautifully thought out and executed design. 

I just started teaching a second class, Layout and Composition for Entertainment, this past Saturday and both of these endeavors have kept me considerably busy these past few weeks. I will still find time to keep working on my children's book project and hopefully other personal art as well, but if I don't get around to that, I'll try and post some of the stuff from my classes so that they may hopefully inspire and inform others.

Teaching this Fall at the LA Academy of Figurative Art

A few weeks ago I received the honor of being asked to teach at the LA Academy of Figurative Art in Van Nuys, CA. They are primarily an Atelier school focusing on a strong foundational approach to drawing and painting, but they have recently started introducing Entertainment based classes into their curriculum.

I will be running a class introducing the principles of composition and layout as they apply to Entertainment mediums. I've always felt that a lot of classes only cover composition as it applies to the specific piece being critiqued due to time constraints, so I wanted to focus on really understanding the design principles that create interesting and compelling compositions.

This class won't be a heavily digital class as no painting is required, and quite honestly, very minimal value as well. By removing the need to render or light, I felt that I could really focus on the elements that form the composition - namely shape, line, rhythm, proportion, style, gesture etc to name a few.

If you know of anyone who could benefit from such an introductory course, please visit LAAFA's website for more information or to enroll:

http://www.laafa.org