Notan

My forth year at Calarts is finally under way and I have to say I'm really enjoying my classes this year. This project is from Bill Perkins Cinematography and Composition class. He wants us to do these quick notan images every week in order to become better at compositional design. Drop me a line if you recognize the films I used. 

D

Glitch in the System

will by Eusong Lee

will (director's cut) from Eusong Lee on Vimeo.

Here is a film by my friend Eusong made last year at Calarts. He asked me to be a voice actor for this wonderful film.

Here is a link to his amazing blog.

King of Pine

30 Second Gestures

Here are some 30 second gestures done during Stuart Livingston's gesture class.

Illustration

Color, why do I hate thee

The most recent assignment we had for Dan Hansen's layout class was a dynamic drawing and a calm drawing. Here is my dynamic one. I haven't worked in color much this semester so I tried to push myself in that direction this time around. Hope you enjoy it. I still have to make the calm one. Maybe tomorrow.

- D

Layout

Another layout for Dan Hansen's layout class. I wanted to add shading and color but I ran out of time. I might come back to this one in the winter but with film time around the corner I might not be able to.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

See you soon.

-D

New Layout

It's been a while since I posted anything. Here is a layout I did this Wednesday. Wish I would have spent a little more time on it. There are some things I like about it and some I don't, the paint bucket is driving me crazy. Anyways I am trying to work on the go now so I can get some air so I purchased a tablet and TVPaint.

Now that I look at it, I should have added a boarder. I'll update it soon.

Anyways this was done using a Samsung Series 7 Tablet and TVPaint Professional Edition.

Caricatures

Did some caricatures in life drawing. Had a lot of fun. I don't usually do caricatures, as you can see I'm not very good at em. But I had a good time and practice makes perfect. Benjamin was definitely a lot of fun to draw.

Benjamin

"T"

Taylor

JK

Jessica

Gladiator Study (Storyboards)

Our story teacher, Jim Hull gave us a pretty broad and awesome assignment, we get to pick our favorite film and board out a sequence from that film. Since I would like to become a storyboard artist, I wanted to challenge myself, which I have to say is kicking my butt. Therefor, I decided to board out the opening sequence to Gladiator. I would like to finish these eventually but with our busy schedule I don't know if I will get the chance. Here is a page of roughs for your viewing. Let me know what you think. I still have a way to go since I am only 3 minutes in and it's a 12 minutes sequence, but I wanted to share this.

I'm loving these study assignments!

-D

Also I would appreciate it if any viewers would take the time to follow the blog. I am trying my best to update on a regular basis. I should have some actual animation up in the next week or so, hopefully, it's been pretty hectic but I think I should have some free time at the end of the week.

Film Layout, maybe?

I don't work digitally very often but i have tried to take more risks this semester and push myself a bit. This was a quick layout I did for Dan Hansen's class. I used some advice I got from Ricky Cometa in regards to opacity. I also went ahead and used some different brush and created some of my own. I think I might go back and paint the layouts I'm doing this semester to see how they come out and experiment a bit. The characters are not set so disregard them, lol.

Here we go again

So my second year at Calarts has started. I know I didn't do many updated last year but I will do my best to post as much as I can this year. Here is out first layout project of the year. Dan Hansen the director of the program is our teacher and our first assignment was to create a layout with a panther. So here you go, I'm kinda rusty since it was a long summer but I hope you enjoy it.

-D

IamDario.com

So I just purchased the domain name IamDario.com.

Be on the lookout for my official website this summer. Need to start working on the coding and such.

Like always follow me of twitter and follow this blog as there will be many updates this in the coming weeks and months.

The end of my first year

So the end of my 1st year at Calarts is upon me. I know there is so much I need to do in order to get to where I need to be but I have to say even though I stumbled at first, I am really proud of the work I did this year. I learned so much in this short span and can't wait for my 2nd year to start.

Now that I am going to be on vacation for a few months I will start posting the work I did this semester. Some is bad, some is good but regardless it shows growth and that's the most important thing.

I will also post constant updates throughout the summer with sketches and animation that I will be working on in the summer. I plan on going to the zoo, mall, coffee shops and just draw, draw, draw all summer.

I have signed up for 2 classes over at The Animation Guild in Burbank so hopefully that helps my art out a bit, I will be taking classes with the legendary Karl Gnass and Glenn Vilppu.

So check back ofter as I will have updates on a weekly basis.

Also stay posted as I will be making my official website this summer. You can also find me on Twitter where I post random thoughts on a daily basis, there is a link on my blog, so join me in this wonderful adventure.

Very Inspired

A couple weeks ago we had this amazing model in Steve's Life Drawing class. Here is one of the life drawings I did that I was pretty proud of...

I will also spend sometime after my film is done putting up some work I did throughout the year.

Self Portait

Here is the first in a series of 5 self portraits for color and design. The first one is sort of inspired by Goya mainly for the cross hatching that he used in his Disasters of War collection. The other artists I will be working with are Ashely Wood, and Edvard Munch. I might also have a dia de los muertos theme thanks to the amazing guest lecture we had last night by Jorge Gutierrez, creator of El Tigre and CalArts Alumni. He really inspired me to start looking at work that relates to my heritage.

Sorry for the horrible image, took it with my iPhone

Here is my Calarts Portfolio for 2010

Sorry for the reflection on the images and the yellow tint. I took the pics while it was in the portfolio. I'm not to proud of the work I produced. It was all done in a matter of two week. The last piece was finished the day before the portfolio was due.