How I started draw pictures by oil paint.

Hi,
I just want share my fisrt experience of draw pictures by oil. I never ever did it before but I have crazy ideas in my head.
How it started think about drawing pictures

I always spend time in public transport and both my hands are free - this is benefit of driving car.
I use to live at house and of course I had to drive my car to work and back. I usually spent about 1 hour of driving one way. I moved downtown Toronto less than year ago and started use public transport. Even if I spend ~30 minutes to get work I would liked to to something.
Nowadays you can see many people use they smart phones to play games (most of time) or just simply holding phones in hands and looking at contacts, simetimes writing messages to their friends. In any way - One day I took pen in my hands and started draw different pictures.
Some-times I showed it to people and they responsed me with most liked pictures. I started like it and would like move it to canvas and put it on walls in my apartment.
I don't know why but I wanted to use oil paint. many people warned me that it is very complicated for the beginner, but I did't care.

Buying accessories for oil painting:

I started look at stores, where I can buy accessories for oil painting. One of the good stores is Deseres (pricy one but good), which is located not sor far from my place at Younge and Eglington (main cross).
I bought following:

1) oil painting set for the beginners, which included: oil paint of different colors, dissolver, pensil, eraser, low odor thinner, couple of brushes, paletter, cloth ~75CAD. I was very surprised that thinner didn't smell at all.

2) 4 canvases for the price of 16CAD

3) another set of brushes (I had a feeling that I will start use them) ~20CAD (not the best one but it worked for me).

4) Gesso - I used it as a base to put it on canvas before start paint ~13CAD. Gesso is the preferred sealer for the porous canvas. It is an isolating layer between the canvas and the paint.

5) Stand  ~110CAD (it was on sale)

Drawing pictures by oil paint

I didn't finish any special courses and classes of drawing, so I use to use youtube and internet articles for the beginners.

1) I adjusted canvas by setting wood triangles ant the back of the canvas
2) Applied gesso to canvas and waited until it dried out
3) Draw draft picture by sing pensil
4) applied oil paint by using thinner from time to time

This is my first work I ever done on canvas by drawing by oil paint:

This is my second work:

This is not finished work but here it is:

The same but a little bit late (still working on it):

Guys,
If be honest, I don't even know what style it is. I am just doing it for fun. May be people will tell me what it is.

P.S.
Professionals probably will laugh at what I wrote here. As I said at the beginning, I am beginner and never did it before. My whole point is to do it for hobby. I am enjoying do it. In addition to that, it is a good chance to change environment for my brains. If you ever thought to start draw pictures - try it. Nobody will blame you. First of all, it is for yourself. I am not going to sell any of my work and don't want think about money at all - you should draw it with clear mind.
Instead of it, I will give it for free if you like it.

Graffiti symbols in 3D MAX

I am spending a lot of time in traveling by bus to work and from work.
I use my laptop to learn how to work with 3D studio Max.

I wrote article recently about Graffiti on streets of Toronto.
It became interesting research for me. I asked myself - "Can I create graffiti? Is there any rules to create graffiti?". First of all, I don't have any art background so I found some tutors in internet about how to create graffiti letters:
http://www.ehow.com/video_4991150_write-graffiti-letters.html

I liked author statement that there are no restrictions and rules to do it - just do it.
Your creativity will show you results. It is pretty same as in software development: you can achieve result by many ways.

I took a pen, piece of paper and started create some weird symbols. Here is what I got - my son would do it better :-)

I got an idea to move it to 3D Studio Max and create it as 3d objects.

next Idea was to add some rain and camera moving and here is final result:




Here is another abstraction, which I created in 3 minutes. I call it "Glasses":

Obviously, I am just beginner in it but I will try improve my skills.

3D MAX Autodesk 2012 - I am back from 3D Studio 4 to the future!!!

I wish to say "I am returning to 3D Graphics!!!", but my returning will be hard.

  

Pre-history:

_____________

I was born in small city "Ust-Ilimsk" in Russia. When I was at grade 8 in a school, all software,

which we could get, was written on CD disks and delivered to us by magic channels.

We had chance to try different software, including Operation systems,

Different programming languages and graphics software!!!!

I remember how in our hands we got 3D Studio 4 - it was first product, which we started work on.

We didn't have any books and we had to investigate product on our own.

Every weekend we met together with our friends to discuss what new features and tricks we found.

I remember couple valuable projects I made at that time:

1) Image for the local discussion board "Slonopotam". After all these years I found one but it si in bad resolution:

The idea was to use on of the "star wars" character and give him weird name. On a picture displayed russian spelling of "Slonopotam" and its character.

2) Another my project was advertment video for the "Grafika-sm" company.  My friend Oleg owned that company and he asked me assist him in creating good TV adverstmenmt for his company.

That company still exists and making different kind of stamps. I only remember that rendering process took 4 full days!!!!  We (me and my friend) used 3 computers to rendered TGA files on each computer. After that we used Video post to combine them to video and apply music and text.

(I am still trying find that video on my hard disks and will put it to YouTube if I find it. It was very impressive video at that time)

3) <n> years later I made another small project in 3D Max for software company, which I was working for. That video was showed at local TV. I had to render project twice, because their super duper machine for video processing didn't accept resolution of the Secam format, so second time I used PAL.
All these projects I made fo free. At that point of time it was just a hobby. I used Maya as well for static image rendering - very impressive product, but I wanted to make video and I decided to use 3D Max.

Start:

____________

In First step, I downloaded trial version of 3D Studio Max 2012 Architect edition. I installed it in stand-alone mode and started from basics. I was impressed what I found. The basics were the same as n years ago, but it became so easy to work with projects.

Modelling

Object creation was the same as before -

Standard Primitives objects, Compounds objects (I liked use boolean operation), shapes.

I found some new architect edition object types, such as windows, doors... but I would create it easily in standard edition as well.

I had to spend some time on object modifiers and read manual about what every modifier does.
The huge difference was to use real world coordinates in map size. There is "customize->Unit Setup" menu option, which allows set default unit measute for the objects.

Materials:

My weak part was always work with material library. I found "Autodesk material library", which impressed me. All materials, which exists in this version we would  have to create manually. I simplifies work n times.

In old days if I need create material I would take my photo camera and go make pictures or

use very slow internet to download images or buy material library (Last option was not acceptable for me).

Lights

The knowledges was the same as before, but I found Photometric type of lights and "Sky" type of light, which makes day light.

Making animation

Oops - I better leave it for future investigation :-)

Cameras:

The same experience as before- I am happy,

Helpers and space warps
the same as an animation. I will start investigate it for the making videos.

Rendering: Now you can easily select rendering engine in your project.

Some rendering engines, such as V-Ray use they own objects, so it is better decide what you are going to use from the beginning. following renderers are available in this product:

• mental ray renderer
• default scanline renderer
• iray renderer
• Quicksilver Hardware Renderer
• VUE File Renderer

I remember those days then "Mental ray" was a separate product and now it is part of 3DMAX!!!

Finally,

I can say that new product very impressed me - It is very simple to use it and I was getting pleasure to work with it on very powerful computer. It will take some time, in any way, to learn new features, which Autodesk brought to this product.

Here is my first rendering after <n> years:

I worked on http://www.sympatico.ca/  - that is why I made it. Of course,  not a professional 3D work (I would say it sucks), but good for the beginner. I played with text object  + glass material + photometric lights.

Here is another one:

In this project I played with muli/sub-object material + lights + real-World mapping coordinates. I used inches in environment preferences + I created floor, based on material size proportions. I selected tile 3x3 inches/sq.
There is one bug in my rendering - black tile on the floor. I think it is 3DMax bug  - I double checked project material assignment.

As I said, I will start look into new feature of 3DMAX (buy one  - of course) and start make good videos (hopefully).

P.S.
I would like to have friends, who already doing it on professional base to get new knowledges and would like to learn new things based on real tasks and help with real projects and ideas.
I really impressed what other people doing in this product, but most of work I would like to see as video and not as static image. I am understanding that it serious work but I woould share my knowledges about distributed rendering and it's optimization.

Toronto, Graffiti - Art or Vandalism?

Hi,
I had a chance to walk 28 May 2011 at corner of Bathurst and Queen.
I saw graffiti on walls of some buildings and I decided to make some pictures.

I was going that direction:

When I was making next picture, old guy told me "It is sad, but current Toronto mayor wants remove all these pictures from Toronto streets".

I never liked politic, but it bacame interesting case for me. I started look for information in internet and here is what I found:

Here is a link on wikipedia about all mayors of Toronto.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mayors_of_Toronto

In 2005, then-mayor David Miller signed an anti-graffiti bylaw that makes a distinction between graffiti (illegal) and art murals (legal).
http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/municode/1184_485.pdf
http://www.toronto.ca/graffiti/

What’s graffiti?: According to the city, graffiti is “one or more letters, symbols, figures, etching, scratches, inscriptions, stains or other markings that disfigure or deface a structure or thing … [Graffiti] does not include an art mural.”

What’s an art mural?: An art mural is “a mural for a designated surface and location that has been deliberately implemented for the purpose of beautifying the specific location.”

Hotspots: The Scarborough RT line (near Lawrence) and the Keele Wall along the Bloor-Danforth subway line, from Dundas West station to Keele station. (The work starts behind the Midas at Indian Grove Road, and is best viewed from a subway car.) You can also check out the laneway and parking lot behind Exclusive Paints at College and Spadina, or take a stroll through Kensington Market
In 2010, Rob Ford became 64th mayor of Toronto.

Here is what Rob Ford said about graffiti: "It’s just out of control, nobody likes it, it doesn’t help our city,” Ford told the National Post. He put Cesar Palacio, the new head of the city’s municipal licensing and standards division, in charge of eradicating all downtown graffiti within the next six months. They’re targeting bridges, main streets, hockey rinks, community centres and utilities.

Here is list of links to different sources about what was going on since then:

• During the 2010 Toronto mayoral campaign last year, Rob Ford pledged that he would clean the city streets, including graffiti that has plagued Toronto.

http://news.helium.com/news/12939-toronto-mayor-city-councillor-launch-clean-toronto-together-campaign

• Feb 7, 2011 - Toronto mayor pushing graffiti-free city

http://unews.ca/incontext/item/Torontos-mayor-pushing-graffiti-free-city/

• April 7, 2011 - Mayor Ford declares war on graffiti

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2011/04/07/tor-fors-graffiti.html

http://wx.toronto.ca/inter/it/newsrel.nsf/7017df2f20edbe2885256619004e428e/b4dad75fcd12acc78525786300516f52?OpenDocument

• April 8, 2011 - Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Buffs Graffiti

http://senseslost.com/2011/04/08/toronto-mayor-rob-ford-buffs-graffiti/

http://spacingtoronto.ca/2011/03/08/the-question-of-graffiti/

• April 29 -  Message to "Rob Ford" at northwest corner of Queen and Ossington

http://spacingtoronto.ca/2011/03/08/rob-ford-toronto-graffiti-crackdown-personal/

  

• March 4 - another article

http://www.blogto.com/arts/2011/03/city_initiates_large_scale_graffiti_crackdown_on_queen_st/

• March 13, 2011 - The Toronto graffiti writers Jaro and Paces leave a message to the Toronto mayor.

http://senseslost.com/2011/03/13/jaro-paces-fuck-rob-ford/

• May 12, 2011 - Graffiti community fuming over crackdown

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/graffiti-community-fuming-over-crackdown/article2020606/

By other words - it is war going on between graffiti artists and Toronto mayor. The question is "What is next?".


P.S.
I made following video based on pictures from that street and going share all images in good quality at flickr:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz5Wnp6bYjU