Eye Vomit

Forest Thumbnails

2012-03-01T03:08:00.000-08:00

Some quick thumbnails done in Paint Tool SAI for the final forest rendering.

Fuzzy Acorn

2012-02-22T00:16:00.000-08:00

Gotta lighten up some of the cap edge closest to the light to give it a bit more roundness. Otherwise, I'm good to go.

Egg Progress

2012-02-18T14:30:00.000-08:00

This was the first egg I had ever painted. Did this last semester and came out pretty ugly.

This was a required redo of the egg which came out a little better than the first but still had some problems.

This was the egg we had to do in color [mine was placed on a sheet of green colored paper] this semester. The instructor was impressed. Still got a long way to go.

Team Fortress 2 Hat Modeling

2011-12-21T16:25:00.000-08:00

For our final project in Maya modeling, we made hats for Team Fortress 2. Steam has a workshop where users can make and submit items to the workshop for consideration in the game. My hat was a last-minute-conceived angler fish hat. All the modeling, mapping, and texturing was done without instruction [the only advice that I asked for was how to use the nCloth function]. I'm quite proud of it actually.

Here is the model without texture applied. In these, I forgot to soften the center seam since the piece was mirrored. The Pyro head model was provided by Valve.

The first run in TF2's itemtest. Steam's Source SDK was initially tough to work with and miraculously I was able to get it to export. I wanted to test out how it looked with the low-poly version [the first image] and how it would display in-game.

After a few tweaks in Photoshop, I rendered the final hat that I would turn in. TF2 tends to make objects super shiny in the itemtest, so it seems like my spec map didn't do much. I also finished painting both the RED and BLU versions.

I also tried the hat on the other classes just to see how it would look. The Sniper was the only other class that the hat fit decently on, besides the teeth clipping into his ears.

I plan to continue with this project so I can submit it to the Steam Workshop and if luck is on my side, get it published. I received some good constructive critique and positive reactions via players on reddit and tumblr, which is useful to see what the TF2 community wants to buy. The hat itself is one still object, so I'm going to try some things to that the lure and fins can move corresponding to how the character moves. Also I am going to add a glow effect on the bulb.

Maya Projects

2011-12-21T15:39:00.000-08:00

I signed up for this class last-minute after the faculty opened up a new section, which pushed me to take 3 studios in a semester. Initially I disliked Maya because it was giving me a lot of problems and I was a Photoshop newbie. Gradually, I found myself liking it more and more, and now I really do miss the class. I've learned quite a lot from it, and my professor Dave Gustlin is awesome.

Here are the renders of my projects.

Our first real project, a Native American shield. We learned how to make UV maps and color maps.

A Civil War-era belt buckle. This project taught us how to paint bump maps in Photoshop.

An old trade knife. We applied a specular map [for shininess] plus the color maps and bump maps. Probably one of my favorites of the class projects.

A bullet and cartridge. Taught us how to use AO maps and reflections.

A Native American war club. This was a last-minute-proposed project when my professor, Dave, decided we should learn how to model using NURBS [Non-uniform Rational B-Splines]. Yeah, I don't know what that means. The feather was just an image that was fixed up in Photoshop.

Next Step

2011-11-23T22:51:00.000-08:00

So I ended up passing the portfolio review! I got the news last Thursday and I was extremely giddy the rest of the day.

The next step is to fill a sketchbook which the faculty was very strict about. Every page has to be dated, and the sketchbook must be a 6"x9" spiral-bound.

Me and Claudia nabbed the last two Aquabee sketchbooks at University Art this afternoon.

Gonna fill this up starting... now.

Portfolio, Go!

2011-11-06T14:15:00.000-08:00

I guess what's left to do is hope for the best.

BW Rendering Complete!

2011-11-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

Whew, finally done. Acrylic paint is very fussy.

8"x8"

Figure Drawing Portfolio 2...

2011-10-16T14:29:00.000-07:00

The second portfolio required for Sheldon's class, and this time, he wanted construction. The day we turned them in, he gave us a lecture on how much time we should devote to drawing, and how much free time we won't have. Three studio classes were a bad idea in hindsight. I pretty much curled up into a ball on top of one of the wooden blocks lying around the room and almost cried. Anyways...

Bleah.

Still Life Rendering Progress

2011-10-12T21:33:00.000-07:00

Here's the original image:

Here's what I have so far:

All done in a lot of layers of acrylic paint. I tend to use it as a wash, building on a lot of layers. I think it's a habit carried over from years of painting watercolours.

Colin Fix

2011-09-24T22:36:00.000-07:00

This pretty awesome dude came to give a short guest lecture this afternoon. Most of what he covered was his process on creating an illustration, and how to develop characters. His sketchbooks were passed around and they were pretty thick and messy and rad. After the lecture he was mobbed by a lot of students since he was doing unique little paintings in their sketchbooks or Bioshock 2 art books. Unfortunately I had to take off quickly, but he didn't want me to leave empty-handed so I got a quick funny face. Yay!

Check out his work HERE.

Figure Drawing...

2011-09-24T01:15:00.000-07:00

We had to turn in a small portfolio of gestures for Sheldon's 55 class...
I'm sure I could do a lot better. At least they aren't as ugly as the ones I did back in 28.
Yes, I put in the angry!gesture with the accidental boner, just because I could. And Sheldon said he liked that one. I personally like the gesture of the model lying down on the first page, and the pen drawing of the model on the second page.

As each semester passes by...

2011-09-16T16:06:00.000-07:00

...it becomes more and more apparent that sometimes I still don't know what the hell I'm doing.

Here's an egg painting for 113a.

Page 'o Dragons

2011-05-11T02:05:00.000-07:00

Brush and ink and col-erase.

Some Self Portraits

2011-04-26T10:03:00.000-07:00

Drawings of the outfits I wore that day.

Zippersaurus?

2011-04-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

Some pose practice. It seems like I'm subconsciously making it act like a very curious puppy.

Someone commented that this reminded them of a terrestrial gulper eel.

A gift to Felix Kramer.

This guy has been around for quite some time. He was probably created in 2005-2006. Here's a drawing from 2009.

Misc. Sketchbook Dump

2011-04-26T09:49:00.000-07:00

Some tigers in ink. There are col-erase lines, but they do not show up when scanned.

A little gulper eel tattoo.

A very fluffy and uppity llama.

This was a secret santa gift to one of my classmates who wanted herself as a pirate queen. I will never forget how happy she was when I gave this to her.

A panther in ink. I was trying out a technique where you draw an image with water and drop ink into the water, letting it spread.

Charcaol Reversal

2011-04-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

Here's that massive beast of a drawing that I finished back in late March. It's a 18"x24" charcoal reversal of Damian Kulash, the frontman of OK Go. I spend some good nights working on this thing, plus staying overnight at the art building.

I'd like to go fix it up during the summer since I got a low grade on it.

112A 4/25/2011

2011-04-26T00:50:00.000-07:00

A new approach on figure drawing from today's class. The first set of drawings were 5 minutes per pose and we had to loosely capture the feeling of light on the form without all the construction.

The second drawing was a 20 minute pose where we'd use the same method, but have the time to add in more detail. The one here is the only one out of three that I liked. Funny thing is, one of my classmates saw it on the table while we were on break and asked if it was my teacher's work.

Jasmine's Marvelous Tour of Her Workspace [It's Not Even That Exciting]

2011-04-25T23:19:00.000-07:00

This is where all the stuff happens. Seriously, even the large-scale ink wash drawings happen here. Well, except for the charcoal reversal, that took place in the garage. As you can see it's pretty colorful. Yes, there are two computers on my desk.

I just bought some new pen nibs last week, and a bottle of pen cleaner earlier today. The Higgins ink has lasted me quite some time and I'm about to use it again for another assignment. I also keep a supply of napkins on my desk for spontaneous inking.

Yeah, that's my gross ink dish. I should wash that thing more often.

My trusty brushes and pens and dusting brush.

My eraser collection. Those lumpy things are my used kneaded erasers. Now they no longer pick up any more charcoal dust. Instead I can draw with them.

This handy CD holder became storage for pencils, pastels, glasses, and ink supplies. On top you can see my bag of OK Go concert confetti. The mannequin doesn't post much these days so he's a bracelet holder.

I just finished sculpting a planar skull and these are the leftover shavings plus the leftover block of clay.

My traveling drawing set. There's a few pens, a brush pen, nib holders, various pencils,three Col-Erase pencils, retractable erasers, and charcoal pencils.

Some painting stuff I keep in a box in my desk. My makeshift meat tray palette [seriously, you don't need to buy a fancy one] and a bunch of acrylic tubes.

Motivation. And a Serious Business records sticker.

I keep my CDs on top of the desk so I always know I'll have my tunes in arm's reach.

A bajillion sketchbooks, more pencils, and some colored pencils.

Right now I'm too lazy to find a home for everything so it goes on the floor for now.

Moving away from my desk, we see that I have a whole storage full of materials.

And supplies have invaded my closet too.

Figures and Maquette

2011-04-25T14:33:00.000-07:00

First time doing a 40 minute pose with charcoal on toned paper. Probably the first time I've gotten an entire figure done with shading and highlights ever.

Just a small sculpture of a pteranadon for the ink piece we need to do for 112A. I also need to snap references of piles of cloth and lighting inside a cave, probably also sculpted as well.

Over 40 Hours For Sure

2011-04-25T09:46:00.000-07:00

Piece I sent off around 2-3 weeks ago, took several weeks to finish it up. I'm guessing it's around 6 feet long because I forgot to measure before I mailed it out.

The medium is black ink, watercolors, and white gouache on Chinese paper.

The photo I referenced belongs to a lovely wildlife photographer here: Sooper-Deviant

Also, I just checked the competition website and I've won a gold medal!
Results

You can check out previous years where I've been awarded:
13th year
14th year
15th year
16th year
17th year
19th year

Welcome Post

2011-04-22T14:43:00.001-07:00

Hello, this is the blog of Jasmine Ho, a student. I'm sure you've figured that out already for reading the other stuff that's on this page. If you're looking for personal stuff, it's not here... this is only for my art.

Have fun, stick around and I should have some stuff up soon.

Cheer.

-Jas