Hey everyone.!

I haven't forgotten about my blog, I've just been using my web site to post all of my stuff. I'll probably continue to post my work on my site. Once I start sketching more stuff instead of just doing portfolio work, I'll post the sketches on here. Until then, my site is artmahler.com

Cheers,
Joe Mahler

Environments!

Just finished working on thumbnails for the environment I am going to do. I did five and added a sci-fi twist to one of them. I initially started off with a ruined temple idea, but it sort of branched off from there, location wise at least, heh. I also posted them on my site on the main page, e-mailed them to Kev, and am about to post them on a Facebook. Kev just e-mailed me what he thinks for the environments and he liked Solitude a lot, in case blogger doesn't like to show the names I'll name them in the comments section.

Been a while, here's a quick sketch I just whipped up.

I was going for a greaser, but he ended up looking a little too modern. If I put some more work into this piece I might add it to my web site, but for now I'll put it here. I'll probably do that with my sketches, post them here, and possibly work on them some more and add them to my site.

For the next 5 weeks

I'm going to be doing all of the sprites for a top down war game from an indie studio. I just wrote up my schedule and a check list for everything. I really want this to pick up so I can convince the guy to sell the game on multiple platforms. Hopefully, after this release, I can also convince him to get some of my friends from school to join his studio so we can start building something bigger and perhaps garner a decent sized studio in MI at some point. Still, its kind of cool, knowing that I might be helping start a game studio, heh. I am also working on a character seperate from this project, which I am working with Kev on again! Along with the character, I will also try to do an environment as well. Works picking up again, lets do this!

Hey everyone!

Sorry I haven't replied in a while. I finished school on May 26th and have been on a break since then, job hunting a little here, and there. My web site will be my primary source for my updated works, but I'll put them on here too. Now that I'm getting back into the groove of doing work, I'm going to kick it off with an environment. I was thinking of something real, obviously, but with a sci-fi or fantasy twist to it. I might do fantasy, since my portfolio pieces are all cyberpunk. Artmahler.com is my site again. See you on there.

Cheers,

Joe

Quick Update

About 11 hours until I have to present my game with my team at our school's annual conference, interfaces. We've put a lot of time and effort into this game. Countless hours and endless days were spent making this game. Hopefully we do well! Also, the booklets they have for Interfaces messed our team names up, we're team "What She Said", the other team is team "Death Ink", but the booklet reads as my team and I are team "Death Ink" and they're team "What She Said". In spirit of that, I drew their character, Scrap, in our game's style, and one of their artists draw our character, Anarkitty, as a stick figure. I will post my rendition of the Scrap character. Moving on to Capstone, I am working on the final character, Utnapishtim. I have his rough outline done and will post it along with Scrap(Both tone and color.)

Quick update

Finished the third character for my Capstone class. Its called the Bull of Heaven. Kev and I went with a mech for the character. It still needs polish, but for time's sake, we're moving on to the last character now, Utnapishtim. After Utna, I'm gonna do an action scene with Gil and Enki. I'll post some narrowed down thumbnails of Utna when we get a good idea of what he'll look like.

Quick Update from my Capstone class

Kev, my mentor is having me use a program called Alchemy to do the thumbnails for the next character, the Bull of Heaven. In our iteration of the story, the Bull of Heaven is a mech, and the program Alchemy is good for technical thumbnails. Its a different program, kinda. It took some time getting used to, but I like it. A lot of the thumbnails ended up looking kind of goofy because I didn't really know what I was doing at first, but some turned out alright.

Web site

I have a web site now, its kind of barren right now, but it has two art pieces so far. I put Gilgamesh and Enkidu in my Portfolio gallery on my web site. I am working on stuff right now to add to it, probably figure drawings. artmahler.com

Here's Enkidu so far

She's not done yet, I still need to add detail on her arm and suit. I also need to add a coat and another glove to her bare hand. She also needs a pistol on the bare hand.

A minor set back

I forgot to mention on Tuesday, my pen tablet died on me on Tuesday, so I ordered another one, and it came in yesterday. My mentor, Kev, also taught me how to paint properly on Tuesday. That being said, Enkidu, the next character, should be done pretty soon. I'm almost done with her now, I just need to finish painting her face, and adding more detail to it overall.

More stuff coming soon.

Getting close to finishing the second character for my Capstone class. Once I finish her, I'll post some of the stuff I did with her. Right now, I am going to work on anatomy and get some portfolio stuff to put up on my web site, which I just recently made. My site isn't ready yet, its still pretty barren; it just has contact information and a greeting on the homepage.

Gilgamesh is done for now. Now onto to Enkidu.

Gilgamesh is finished for now. I will go back and touch him up when I get a few more characters done. Kev had me do gray scale for Gilgamesh, not full color because of time constraints. I'll post him and also post the artboard for Enkidu
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On to the next character, Gilgamesh's partner, Enkidu. In the story, Enkidu is a male character created by the gods to keep Gilgamesh in line, but ends up wreaking havoc alongside Gilgamesh. For this character Kev came up with a cool idea, put Enkidu's "soul" into a female body, ala the Major from Ghost in the Shell. Enkidu will have a male "soul" in a female body. Here's the art board idea for the character's design. For the direct reference, overall, I want mid length hair, down to the shoulders at most with blond or red hair. With a body kind of like Alison Haislip's from G4 or the model Susan Coffey. Personality wise, I want "her" to be tough and boisterous with a little bit of cockiness. I don't want her to exude sexuality, I mean its there, she's just not overly flaunting it like most video game chicks. I want her to be more like Zoe from Uncharted and less like Ivy from Soul Calibur. Strong female characters need a personality foremost, not a huge rack. The composite character is Nagi from Bloody Roar 4, kind of obscure, but I think she kind of gets the point across.

The Composite is done for Gilgamesh.

After finishing the thumbnails and overlays. We agreed on how Gilgamesh should finally looks by combining the last 5 overlays I did. I'm going to show the last five overlays and not the ones before because they are also a combination of the last overlays with adjustments. The composite is the last image, above this text. I need to keep working on anatomy and will until I am positive I understand it can draw it with ease. I also need to work on my line work, pressure, stroke, and stuff like that. Kev is helping out a lot, but I must be more diligent in my practice.

Capstone update.

The ball is rolling now. The first thing Kev had me do is make silhouette thumbnails for Gilgamesh the main character of my project. We decided on doing a cyberpunk twist on the epic of Gilgamesh. The first task was to make the thumbnails and now I am onto the next part, making the costume. Out of the 12 thumbnails I did, Kev and I chose 3, numbers 2, 6, and 10. What I am going to do now is drop the opacity down to 5% and do an overlay to figure out the costume. The bottom image is Kev taking the liquify tool to the three figures as an example of contorting them to get a different look.

Class is starting up again.

I've been drawing a little bit here and there, but with school starting up again, I will be posting my art as I work on them in my classes. From my quest trying to find a mentor, I know what I need to work on and I plan on working my ass off to achieve my goal. I will also be posting my works on the blogs for the class. I'm ready to finish my tenure at IADT, build a great portfolio (both during and after school), and try to find my career.

Posting some year oldish figure studies.

Teaching myself digital painting. Here is my first attempt.

I know it could use a lot of work, especially with the heavier shading and adding more value to the work itself, but I plan on working on this piece a lot more. The newer picture is a panel from a storyboard I am doing for my Senior game project. Its newer(I painted it today(3/1/11). I am starting to get the hang of digital painting now and feel I have a basic understanding of it now. I will definitely post more paintings when I have the time.

A couple of quick sketches.

More, better, art coming soon.

I found some sketches from a little while ago and am going to upload them. They are mostly hands; one is a self portrait of my face drawn with crayon though. I have two crayon drawings, my face and a hand. I need to darken the sketch of my face, it came out really light with an orange crayon. I am going to continue to draw and scan what I like in. A lot more figure studies on the way, probably going to be a handful of subjects; Alex Sim Wise(model/tv personality), Susan Coffey(model), Suicide Girls(models), celebrities(probably Christopher Walken, Bruce Campbell, Patrick Warburton, Bruce Lee, and Olivia Wilde), and body builders(male and female.)

Posting more work from my team project class.