PushPull Natural is Done-ish!

Push Pull Natural was submitted yesterday. Overall its about 90% done. I'm still pushing the texturing on the props/character... But I'll post it up by the end of the semester.

For now, here is a screen shot of the heroine.

DFA B/w Enviroment Painting

Thoughts on Junior Year...

As a freshman, you hear incredible stories from upperclassmen about how hard the Computer Animation Curriculum is. People say you'll have no life and its hard work. Well its actually a bit worse than it sounds. The pressure is on for the rest of the semester. People are getting around 2-3 hours of sleep consecutively during this time of the month. There isn't enough hours in the day to get everything done to your personal best level. I guess its necessary to experience the industry " crunch time" but... it really hurts as an artist to have to create mediocre work just to get those points to pass the curriculum. I guess one has to be a little more than human to tough it out in the industry. There are amazing people that do it...but for the average human its hard to adapt to. I've heard from upperclassmen that during second semester PrePro for thesis, we will suffer much psychological damage. From observing my senior friends last year, I don't doubt it at all.

Lipsych Character!

Oh Hai!

More PushPull Texturing Progress

I really enjoy Uving and Texturing. Character WIP...

PushPullCharacter Texturing WIP

3rd pass colormaps and 2nd Pass Bumpmaps. I need to do 1 more pass of colormaps, 1 pass of specular maps, and 1 pass of diffuse...Right now my biggest 3d artist inspiration is Pedro Conti. His stuff has a beautiful balance of stylization, appeal, and surfacing. http://www.pedroconti.com/

"First say to yourself what you would be;
and then do what you have to do."

-Epictetus

Light Adventure!

Playing around with a Canon (Point and Shoot). Then a bit of post-processing in Photoshop. We caught the sunrise :>












We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.

- Talmud

1 month into the Junior Year...

This semester has been another great experience. Even though we juniors don't have free time to do much extra curricular activities, it really makes us appreciate what little free time we do have. Every small special moment becomes even more special. People are already talking about group thesis's, specialization and push-pull.

I even hear about all the psychological damage we'll experience for pre-pro for thesis. I'm already ready for this year to be over. My biggest goal right now would be to be acceptable enough to do an internship for lighting/texturing/compositing. One can dream cant they???

My teacher just showed us the calender for our push-pull animation assignment where we create an animation from initial sketch to modeling, rigging, animation, and rendering. We just turned in our "waiting animation" and now we have to model a head in a couple of days along with all the other homework we have. Haha...fun times.

Drawing for Animators!

Time has been flying by! Its so cool to see that everyone has such different aesthetics and styles in mark-making and design choices. I'd like to touch these up in the future but I gotta keep moving forward 1000%speed!!!!

Summers Almost Over

Time just flew by this summer for me. I've been doing a lot of thinking. And... not a lot of life drawing,heh. Junior year is coming up ...which also includes prepro, thinking about specialization (if i ever want to work at a big studio), and more work in general. I've also given myself the new goal of aiming for big studios next summer. Last semester I tried my hardest to be a generalist and to get a generalist internship so i could try many things. Through it i found many answers to my questions.

I took a big hiatus from from intense life sketching and focused more on computer things...so this is me trying to get back into the groove.

Its about halfway though summer!

Im interning at a local studio this summer...and this is how I use my lunch break! XD

Failing...

A fortune cookie told me "fall down 7 times stand up 8 times."

Drink away the pain...

...of boredom. Its been about 2 weeks into the summer, and I'm working on some cool projects as well as working at the job. Here's a simple doodle inspired from a friend and the bar.

Growing...

I saw this chubby baby at work the other day. He kind of reminded me of myself in my younger days. As I grow as an artist, I'm going to try and still be a hungry kid.

Anyways, i did a doodle and tried to mess with SubSurface Scattering (SSS). I've become more aware of color transitions from specular >light> terminator> dark.

Slice of Life

I've been inspired by some people to start recording the awesomeness of life. My grandma is 76 and still working at my family's restaurant. I always tell her she's doing a good job.

Oh yeah, She's over 9000! Get it? She's cutting up some napa veggies.

Reel/Portfolio

Kevin Lu's Spring Generalist Reel 2011 from klu on Vimeo.

Flat Pages Coming Soon

Sophomore is Year Over!

Ahh... its 1 week into summer and I've been procrastinating from updating this blog. It was a pretty tiring and painful semester for many. I'm glad its over for now. I'd say definitely got my money's worth this year. I can't say I was 100% happy with how the curriculum was conducted. I think my part of my successes this semester were because of the teachings of upperclassmen and peers.

Special thanks to Sam Tilson, Scott Mcwhinnie, Francesco Girodini, Rob Showalter, Uri Lotan, and Matt Sullivan for your generous help, crit and tutorials. You guys rock!

For your entertainment here are some projects from my Ecology of Water class. We had to create campaign posters to promote Crabs which are a sustainable type of fish. Tom by me, Ghaddafi by Mike, and Johnny by Tyler. I'll post my real projects soon...