Journey Toward Concept Art

In the times of cautiousness, two things keep one CG Spectrum student from going insane. Those two being anime and digital art!

I, Jillian Bailey or better known as Bob Pickle, developed an interest in anime and saw many artists do fan-art of beloved anime characters digitally. Wanting to gain this power, I researched this foreign art. For about 9 months, I worked many hours at a coffee shop to buy the equipment needed to unlock this ability. To this day, my training consists of waking up at 4:40 a.m. to gain coins for the courses and strengthening my power with CG Spectrum. 

Sword

The first test was when I was chosen to design a sword for a sword swallower named Alex Magala. Remembering the days when I was obsessed with sword swallowing, I dug through my room to find the sword designs I made back in 2018 (hoping I didn't throw them away). After around 30 minutes looking in 4 boxes, I almost gave up. As luck would have it, I found them! When seeing them for the first time in 5 years, I could see major flaws in my design. To see my growth as an artist, I decided to recreate one of them (No commissions were actually made). 

When creating this piece, old knowledge would come up in my head. For example, Alex needs holes in his sword to indicate when he should stop pushing the sword down. More random facts such as how one would prepare would pop up. Alex would need to eat a large meal or drink a lot of water for my particular sword to go down easier.

After completing the above piece, I felt as if I could have done better. Thanks to the TAs at CG Spectrum, I improved on the design and Alex Magala was more than satisfied to use this for his sword. Mission was complete!

Process video

Android

The biggest obstacle yet was the final stage of my course at CG Spectrum. It was filled with around 5 weeks of stress. 

After the first few weeks, I debunked the tail and wings. I redid much of the drawing and started rendering. To complete the next stage in time, I sacrificed my lunch time, and the following high school class times: independent study, songwriting (when it was a workday), choir (when it was a workday), study hall, and open period. I was so focused that many times I forgot to eat lunch. 

My mentor checked up on me and emphasized that adding more functionality such as rotational joints and another leg would help the piece come together. So I was, once again, determined to make the piece better. I repainted whenever I could, including during lunch, study hall, etc. However, I ended up making the piece look worse.

With the feet looking like fortune cookies and the noticeable tangent, I knew I couldn't summit that. Luckily, I had time to redo it once again before the game was over. While playing around on the keys, I stumbled across a code. Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, select, star. Hints of red appeared, and I loved it. 

With the final week getting closer, I honed in on making the android look functional by listening to Winter Soldier's theme song. The robotic-like sounds in the song kept me focused. To add more of an eerie mood to my piece, music videos such as Popular Monster (FIR) and Gladiator (Jann) helped me visualize the feeling on canvas.

 https://youtu.be/pgs4KeaEsBk

Gladiator by Jann MV

Finally, to help the android become the best, I got amazing advice in CG Spectrum's Slack channel. I was able to find a way to get rid of the tangent!! Finally, I was very proud of how far the piece had come!! I learned more than that!! For high school art class, I interviewed my mentor and learned so much. His advice was to keep the emotions regulated and to believe. That happened to be the perfect time to hear those words. It gave me the motivation I needed to finish the piece to where I would be proud of my accomplishments. Conquering this level was a success.

I cannot wait to see what the future has in store for my journey.

Thank you to CG Spectrum for helping me surpass my limits.