Stock Photography

I found this guy's site through the latest issue of ImagineFX. He's got a pretty good variety of stock models in various pose, free to use. If you're looking for some good high-res stock models, he's got quite a few on his site. http://mjranum-stock.deviantart.com/

Got it!

Hey guys, so I got the job in Florida. I have a very short time to pack up my stuff and go. I'll be leaving tomorrow bright and early. The game looks amazing. I've never seen anything like it. it looked so much fun to play and I think it will really be groundbreaking. Especially the level of art direction, and all the art I saw the guys producing was mindblowing. There is even going to be an "Art of" book when it's finished which I'll be in. I don't have much time right now as it's been crazy stressful the past few days, but I will be posting still, I'll probably make a more in depth post when I have the time. I know you guys are going to Comic Con, I might go if time allows, I actually can get in free from a "Pro Pass" so i thought that was pretty awesome haha! Definately next year if not this year. Also if you guys ever make your way out to Florida, let me know! best of luck -Mitch

Enigmata's Wizard of Oz

I feel we should clarify what we're doing here... Steammachines is a group of Las Cruces artists who meet on a weekly basis to share artwork, critique each member's work, discuss projects, and exchange ideas. Every week, we come up with a theme to get our pencils moving. This blog is meant as dumping grounds for the work produced during those meetings,announce any upcoming events, etc. This time around, we've decided to test our character design skills by re imagining and redesigning well known characters from the Wizard of Oz. Each week, starting from the end of June, we will drawing characters inspired from the film, with additions from the books as we see fit. We will be updating sporadically with new drawings so check in often. Anyway, here's my contribution... On the left: The Good Witch of the North. The idea behind this was that despite being known as the "good" witch, she is still a witch. Witches are supposed to be scary, and the more potent the witch, the more intimidating her presence should be. I see her name being more of a general label she's earned than a proper description of her alignment. She's not evil, but she's not a crusader for good either. Something like that. On the right: The Scarecrow. Kind of hard reinventing a character whose name alone plants a very specific image in your head. I added some mechanical parts to his arms and spine, and kept his post on his back. His arm is still attached to a horizontal plank while the other has a sickle attached to it.

Glenda redesign

Character redesign for Glenda, good witch of the north from L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz. I figured this blog had beeen around for long enough that I should probably contribute some more artwork. Heh.

change of plans

Hey guys, so I went to Houston, checked out TimeGate's studio, everything went really well, nice studios, and they seemed to enjoy my stuff, but while I was there I received an e-mail with an even better opportunity from Ignition Entertainment in Florida. So they'll be flying me out to Florida sometime next week to show me around the studios, lunch, talk art and the new project, the whole deal. The art Director, J.P Targete (!!!!) called me up to my surprise, super nice guy and super talented. Also Steven Stahlberg is working there as well, really super talented guys, and artists i've looked up to since I started doing concept art. You guys should look them both up. So if everything goes well, i'll be going to Gainesville Florida, instead of Houston. Just some tips and advice i've learned so far from this whole experience, and talking to some of the artists. I know not all of you are looking to be concept artists, but just incase you want to pursue it someday, some may be really obvious: Diversity- I'm talkin characters, environments, vehicles, creatures, weapons, storyboards, even some 3d thrown in there. Do it all! Passion- A game studio would much rather have someone who wants to learn everyday, draw non-stop and is just passionate about what they do! I know i'd much rather work with someone not so good, but has equal passion for drawing, rather than a really good guy with little to no desire to get better. I garuntee you that the not so good guy will exceed the other guy in a year or so. I've seen many examples of this happen! "forever a student" is a great way to think. The proof is in the pudding, Doing is a lot more than saying you will do something. I've unfortunately seen many of that too.. Style- It's prefered you don't have one. Better yet, is the ability to have multiple styles, ranging from cartoony stylized to realistic and choose what's appropriate for the project. just another aspect of diversity. Lifestyle - This is actually super important and a lot of people don't realize it. Sleep enough, Workout, eat right. It helps you focus and stay alert. Humility - yeah you wouldn't beileve how many amateurs i've seen totally dismiss a professionals critique. I've seen it the other way around as well, a professional thinks he's perfect. "forever a student" Time Management- you wouldn't beileve how much you can actually get done if you stopped doing all the random unproductive crap... T.V., internet surfing, too much video games. one of my friends put it very well " Think of it like this, while your watching T.V. you are now watching someone elses creation, people who put their sweat and blood into it to get it put on television, you could be doing the same thing." soo yeah, those are just some of the things i've been talking about with those guys. I hope it helps, as a lot of it is pretty universal to any artist. I should have put blogging in the Time Managament.. haha back to work! -mitch

Life after EPAC 2008

Steammachines had a very successful turn out at this year's El Paso Anime Con, I hear we had more people stopping by our table than anybody else. That's great news, and we will definetely be attending next year's event. Now that we know what to expect, we will be prepared. Maybe even a table cloth? A big thank you to everybody that supported us with their kind donations, I hope everybody enjoyed our work. Feel free to contact any of us, we appreciate any kind of feedback, positive or negative, but keep it constructive! I'll be posting some of the drawings I got from the other artists and some photos soon so check back soon! Edit: Here's the photos, much sooner than I expected! I took a LOT of pictures (most of them blurry) and I'll update with more later this week. Check back soon! Also, some of the cosplay pictures can be seen in my scraps gallery on my Deviant Art page, check it out.

M@'s and Barontieri brushes

His new brush set: http://mv.cgcommunity.com/echange/matbrushes07.zip The old brush set: http://mv.cgcommunity.com/echange/matbrushes5.zip Barontieri's brush set: http://www.barontieri.com/Misc/BARONTiERi.rar and both of their websites: http://mv.cgcommunity.com/ http://www.barontieri.com/ Thanks to Mario for reminding me. -mitch