The Conoco project made it to reddit and well, I just have to post the comments. ;)
Excerpted from How to Fly a Horse
Learning to say, "No" is probably the hardest thing to do in business and art. Here is some more reading up to help us all with that.
“Time is the raw material of creation. Wipe away the magic and myth of creating and all that remains is work: the work of becoming expert through study and practice, the work of finding solutions to problems and problems with those solutions, the work of trial and error, the work of thinking and perfecting, the work of creating. Creating consumes. It is all day, every day. It knows neither weekends nor vacations. It is not when we feel like it. It is habit, compulsion, obsession, vocation. The common thread that links creators is how they spend their time. No matter what you read, no matter what they claim, nearly all creators spend nearly all their time on the work of creation. There are few overnight successes and many up-all-night successes.
Saying “no” has more creative power than ideas, insights and talent combined. No guards time, the thread from which we weave our creations. The math of time is simple: you have less than you think and need more than you know. We are not taught to say “no.” We are taught not to say “no.” “No” is rude. “No” is a rebuff, a rebuttal, a minor act of verbal violence. “No” is for drugs and strangers with candy.”
New Work for ConocoPhillips
The talented photographer Jamie Kripke brought me on board to help with some background rebuilds for a project documenting the new look of gas stations for Conoco Phillips. Really had to dig deep to build all these up. Lots going on here in the before and afters. Check them out on Behance or in the portfolio section here.
How to be an artist with a day job.
Great little article on managing creative output with work obligations. Good read.
“In order to get creating and avoid the instant gratification monkey, you may need to force yourself to get started. This is normal. Set a timer and make yourself begin working for 20 minutes, distraction free (no phone, no email, no social media, etc). If you’re not locked in when the timer goes off, step back, take a break for a few minutes and eat some string cheese. I find string cheese is pretty good at getting my creative juices flowing. Then go back and try again for as many sessions as you have time for. If you are truly in the zone when the timer goes off, ignore it and go as long as your feeble body will take you. Ride that wave to glory, my friend.
Most people aren’t able to do anything continuously without breaks. In fact, it’s been scientifically demonstrated that taking breaks is good for your creative energy. But even if you just get one rather unproductive but good-intentioned 20 minute block in, that’s still progress. And if you can get a couple chunks of work done every day (again, form a habit), you’ll be in better shape than most people who walk all the way to the corner coffee shop to write four sentences of their shitty screenplay about a vegetable who was raised by fruit, then goes on an epic journey to find the broccoli family that abandoned him as a child. Again, on the spot, you’re welcome for the idea.”
Damn......
RIP.
Just gonna leave this here.
Classic
Glen Keane - Step into the Page
New Work in the Wild: Butler Bros "Real Good" gum.
Been a busy monkey here so I have not been doing enough of my daily CGI or postings here. Much apology, such sorry. But anyways, I recently did some CPG renders for Butler Bros out of Austin that came out really well. Getting the foil looking like that was fun to figure out. Check out the full gallery and read up on it at their site. Butler Bros Real Good Gum Campaign.
Adidas Winterize
Photographer Ryan Unruh asked me to lend a hand with the post and CGI for a project with Camp Grizzly for Adidas. The concept was to have weather changing and swirling around the photographs of the product. We had less then a week to concept, build, render and composite these files. A bit of a hectic week but very happy with the results. Used Modo and a few particle sims to render out the FX and sweeps. Assembled in Photoshop. On Behance.
Client Adidas
Agency: Camp Grizzly
Photographer: Ryan Unruh
CGI and Retouching: Daniel Kopton / Danklife.
Hate the new healing brush in CC2015? Change it back!
The new healing brush in Photoshop has been universally hated by any retoucher I talk to. Seems like Adobe listened "kinda" and gave us a way to roll it back with the newest Photoshop. Just have to get into prefs and a text editor. It's not as hard as it looks. The link will take you to the tech page.
Solution
Follow these steps:
- Install the Photoshop CC 2015.1 update.
- Use Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac OS) to create a plain text file.
- Type the text:
- LegacyHealingBrush161 1 into the text file for Photoshop CC 2014 and earlier healing brush algorithm (i.e. Legacy), non-realtime user interface feedback
- Save the file as PSUserConfig.txt to your Photoshop settings folder:
- Windows: [Installation Drive]:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC 2015\Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 Settings\
- Mac OS: //Users/[User Name]/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 Settings/
Now I need a roll back to the previous liquify since the new one puts a 1 pixel grey border on anything I run it on....
Music!
Have some news on the music front to report on. In "Old News" a old band of mine called International Grey just had a EP from 2010 reissued which you can check out. A Post Rock project with keyboards and all that stuff. You can read a bit about the project in this interview with the Guitarist Jeremy Wilkins. Lots of dynamics and textures in this one.
But coming back to modern timelines you can here two new tracks I recorded of the new Punk project I am in called Trouble Cuts at Bandcamp. Power trio line up that has a lot of energy and hooks. Keep an eye out for our shows around town.
Particle Simulation render
Fun simulation I have been tweaking on trying to get really clean. With some help from the Modo forums I was able to get it to look the way I wanted. Might be used by a record label shortly, we shall see if that comes to pass!
Daily Doodle project
Been doing a "Daily Doodle" project for about 7 months now where I try to do something in Modo everyday. I seem to swing and miss more often then not but it has been a great learning experience in a few ways. My Modo chops have been improving leaps and bounds of course but it is interesting how it has helped me concept ideas and approach creating. Simple is always better when the goal is just to knock something out in a day. But I hate to recycle ideas and I am slowly learning that it is OK to do that as people view that as your "style". Interesting stuff for sure
Here is a sample of them that I have really enjoyed and I wanted a place to post them where they can be seen at a higher res. Did the gym render this weekend and a lot of experimenting with scale. The boards are not big, the whole sphere and wires bit is as big as a basketball. ;). You can see them as I make them by checking out my Instagram account to the left.
New Work in the Wild:Nike Doernbecher
Proud to have been brought on board by Photographer Ryan Unruh to do the post for Nike Doernbecher, a pretty awesome charity.
"Twelve years later, the Freestyle Collection has raised over $11 million to help expand the hospital’s pioneering research, support clinical care, purchase state-of-the-art equipment, recruit new experts and subsidize the cost of care for families in need."
Did all the post and came up with the fun little CGI boxes to put them all in. Great shooting by Ryan made it easy to snap it all together. Check em out!
Autumn in the air
Having some lovely autumn weather right now and was motivated to work on a CGI landscape piece. Few things I am not happy with but overall I enjoy this one.
Shoot At Oddball Tattoo
So the last post was all about getting the Vivitars fired up and this one shows the results. Because they are so small you get razor sharp light on your subjects. Man, they are moody things to work with though. Moody but worth it.
Getting the old boys fired back up.
Doing some portraits tomorrow and the good old Vivatars are coming out of storage for that sharp pin point lighting I need. Much dusting, cleaning of contacts, jiggling batteries and remembering what power setting "Purple" is.
New Work in the Wild: NIKE SOCCER WOMEN’S CLEAT PACK FOR 2016
New work released into the wild today. Nike women's cleat pack for 2016 is live on the Nike site. Shot by Ryan Unruh I built up the CGI stadium and grass. Few "out of memory" errors later and VIOLA, here ya go. Enjoy!
New Work in the Wild
Made a new illustration for Predator Friendly Records for their 2015 sampler. Fun little cassette tape piece.
New work in the wild
A project we did with Empire Green Creative for Riddell just went live. Bunch of images on insatgram as well. Look for it in the portfolio soon.
