The Elementalist Concept Art

With Christmas around the corner I've come to find it as a great excuse to exercise some concept work as presents for friends who have been asking for some sort of drawing for awhile now. I figure One piece a week, first two days will be general drawings and concept, and finally a rendered version by the end of the week. Building up my portfolio has been a fun and invigorating task and has definitely helped in developing a process and method to getting work done. Hopefully each piece turns out better than the last. But since this is more of a test of timing and restraint, I'm looking forward to seeing what happens.

On to the sketches! These are some quick character concepts for a modern day elementalist. I'm not entirely sure how I envision her, but I know there are very key physical characteristics I have in mind for the final render. So far I'm really just getting a feel for her style and attitude, mix and matching till I find something that really fit's the mold in my head.

Tomoroww I should have a more defined look to this character and hopefully have a couple sketches for a final render concept. I really can't wait till I start another detailed coloring and get more practice with texturing through brushes and building upon multiple light sources. Till then, cheers!

White Queen

This piece was a practice in creating a methodical process for digital painting. More, specifically in character design. While i originally wanted to get carried away revising the concept and background, I'm much more anxious to start on another piece and plan it out a bit more before rendering it fully.

Hope you enjoy!

Rich Woman WIP

Just a few shots of a current work-in-progress of a character concept piece. More than anything it was to try and really concentrate and build on my proficiency at digital painting. Thankfully I've been studying Papa Ninja AKA Serge Birault. He's pretty much my favorite digital artist and often my inspiration for constant growth.

Enjoy.

Caligula

A Practice in illustration and character Design for a crazy woman named Caligula. Inspired by a quote from a TED talk. Random I know.

Iteration Is The Name Of The Game

After a long day of practice, variation, and most importantly iteration, I've managed to produce a few designs and ideas. So far I've reinforced the idea of tonal value's taking precedent in the composition of each design, working from monochromatic to a limited number of color and minimal variation in text. Time to share the spoils.

After some iteration and thinking, I updated my own work

Monochromatic Exercise (Time)

Monochromatic Exercise (Ripple)

A business card for my buddy with influences of camera and CMYK ideology

Business Card Experiement

In these recent weeks, I've been figuring I needed to really work on my design skills. More the ideal qualities that both knowledgeable and inexperienced eyes react to positively. The Alias alone had been influx for years now, ever since I was just a little kid creating a name that would serve as the umbrella to all my artwork and experimentation. After many iterations I ended up somewhere between nostalgia and simplicity. The nostalgia comes from what could be one of my favorite musical bands since my childhood, Everything But The Girl (EBTG). Their name was simple and unforgettable, but maybe that's just my own personal taste. After many ventures into completely detached alternative names, I found that I wanted to keep my name somewhere inside my alias. My general nickname, Ray, seemed fitting and short. So Low and behold, I've come to the conclusion of Everything But Ray (EBR). I could have spent forever coming up with a name or incorporating my nickname from work, Noodles, since most people misspoke my name from Ramon to Ramen (hence ramen 'noodles'). But I decided to keep it simple and reverted back to my nostalgia and regular nickname.

After deciding it was time to design and practice vs. coming up with names for the sake of design, I knew i had been stalling and in a way working backwards. Technically, you should be able to design any name or words given to you, so I wanted to find a way to make this to work with these ideals in mind.

Useful, Usable, Desirable, Valuable, Accessible, and Credible

So to begin decided on something simple, a business card. Here are the results of a couple hours of experimentation and work.

(If it doesn't work in grey scale, it wont work in color)

(A basic StyleSheet for Possible Colors)

Yup, it's simple, its clean, and I think it works in color while playing with the name.

Next up, possible Logo and website Design while using this as a basis.

Bart Cartoon

If there's one thing that's always full of surprises, it's public transportation. A couple of weeks ago I moved from LA to the San Francisco Bay Area, and while the move was rushed and very hectic, I absolutely love the new city emphasis on public transportation. I quickly decided I'd be investing time on the BART (bay area rapid transit) just to engross myself in traveling about the city. And they don't play when they say rapid. But like all methods of transportation there are time frames of heavy traffic and those times are my favorite! You see all kinds of walks of life and they definitely have a tendency to inspire a little spark here and there. So while nothing fancy, I figured I'd throw together a cartoon sketch. 

Panda Sketches!

A little fun couple hour long project. Creating a stylized panda just cause...well who doesn't love pandas!

So Here's some Panda love.

Next up, currently working on a sketchy piece inspired by public Transportation! Ok, so that doesn't really work as a selling point, but hey sometimes the pictures speak better than their captions.

Demo Reel 2010 - Thowback Thursdays

I went to Full Sail University in 2008 and graduated October 2010. I majored in Compositing and minored in Animation and 2D art. Fortunately I was recruited to work at Stereo D in Burbank, California. Before graduating, I was working on a demo reel to show off my understanding of 2D compositing for Film. Thankfully it was enough to characterize me a desirable and equipped with the fundamental understandings while still having an eye for creating what I consider my own. Anyhoo, at the end of September in 2010, this is what I came up with after 4 months of pre-production, concept work, filming, compositing, and editing. A rounded Demo Reel showcasing technical work and creative creation.

Compositing Demo Reel 2010 from Ramon Rivera on Vimeo.

Day - 0 Food For Thought

I’ve created this blog in an attempt to document and showcase my art and drawings as a canvas of progression, as well as a reoccurring reminder to constantly build alongside my growing foundation of techniques and principles that best represent my art.

And why not start off by posting some older sketches and drawings.