Borderlands 2 Concept

For our concept design class our next project we are coming up with art for Borderlands 2 make-believe downloadable content. My assignment was to come up with some kind of armored robot that can be used as a weapon that you would have to fight. We decided that it'd be cool if he was made up of tiny claptrap robots. So I tried to imagine what it would look like if they were all suddenly magnetized together to form a huge mech-like robot. I like the top left design of a robot that walks on his hands, but it would be made out of small scraps and have more guns like the 4th robot down.

Unsuspecting Happy Dog

For my advanced Illustration class we had to choose a theme for all the projects we will be doing this semester. You'll never guess what theme I chose....

I tried to do this Illustration in the style of Jean Baptiste Vendamme. He is an excellent artist and I can appreciate his style even more having tried to emulate it. I have to admit I spent as much time (if not more) on the design and shape of the dog than the actual painting. For anyone who thinks an artists way of illustrating is easy just because their work looks simple, try it out and see for yourself.

Featuring Jared Salmond!

"Hey Nate's blog visitors!
Jared Salmond here, Nate's schoolmate at UVU. Nate accepted the call of the blog trade (or whatever this is called) and gave me an idea of what I should do for his blog. He suggested I do a triceratops on a tricycle. Which I thought was a hilarious idea he posted earlier on this blog. So Nate said his was chewing three pieces of gum, mine is in a triathalon. I wanted to have him prescribing tricyclien (or however you spell it, like on Arrested Development!) but I think that stretched it too far. So enjoy! I did one in a more realistic style and then some cartoons for your viewing pleasure."

Here is my original sketch that Jared used.

Make sure to check out Jared's blog to see some more excellent artwork!

Elk

This is a quick line drawing of an elk I did for my friend. It will go up on his wall with the beartender and some other pieces.

Long.......drawn out......sentences

So my good friend Lee VanNoy Call invited me over to watch a movie called Starcrash (1979). It was so out-of-this-world awesome that I had to make this illustration (plus it's been a while since I've worked on something just for fun). For anyone who hasn't seen Starcrash, go watch it. For those who already have, go watch it again. It's one of the best worst movies of all time, it even gives Troll 2 a run for its money. It's extremely quotable and is fun to watch with a group of friends. With Christopher Plummer as the Emperor of the Galaxy and David Hasselhoff as the Prince, you can't go wrong. This is a scene from just one of the many excellent parts of the film. If I knew being emperor came with such power I might have gone a different direction in school.

Adventures In Provo Canyon

Last week I went up Provo Canyon to do some plein air painting with Adam Dove. I had only painted with oil once or twice before and I definitely wasn't confident using it. But he gave me some excellent pointers he learned from Perry Stuart and helped me along the way. It was a really fun experience and I'm starting to understand oil painting a little bit more. Now I know why so many people like it.

Even though we had put on bug repellent there were so many flies all over the place, and they had no problem landing on us and biting us. There's nothing better than having flies land on your eye while you're trying to paint with a brush in one hand and holding your pallet in the other. This guy landed in my cadmium yellow and got stuck for a few hours. My my, how the pallet has turned.

After he finally escaped my glob of paint I thought "Wow, I can't believe he survived." Right up until he waltzed his way into my little puddle of turpentine and started washing his hands and face as flies so often do. So whether he died right where I left him on the picnic table, or if a bird swooped down to get him for an easy meal and died from fly poisoning, either way he got what was coming to him. Let that be a lesson to the rest of you flies.

Figure Drawing

      These are some drawings of the figure that are from both figure drawing and figure structure classes. I didn't have a scanner big enough to scan them in so I used a camera to take a quick picture. Between the terrible lighting in our apartments, the newsprint, and that fact that I don't draw dark enough sometimes, some of them look kinda funky. I messed with them in Photoshop enough that you can see most of the basic outline.

    These figure drawing classes have been a huge help. At first I was kind of reluctant to take figure drawing and I probably wouldn't have if it wasn't required. But I am always surprised to see how much my drawing skills improve by the end of a semester with a figure class. I'm actually starting to enjoy drawing the figure now (and not just thinking of it as medicine) but I still have a lot of improving to do. I guess the human figure is the ultimate drawing practice, maybe that's why the masters have been using it for hundreds of years. . .