Kelly Levers Art Blog

The never ending project

2010-09-17T11:09:00.001-07:00

After some great feedback from a friend I have made quite a few changes ranging from lighting, camera angle and so on. I feel like its starting to feel lived in. I still have more work to do. Need to finish the building on the far end and add some other details here and there. As always any feedback is great.

WIP

2010-08-11T16:34:00.000-07:00

Just thought I would update the latest image of the environment piece. As you can see I have done more texture work. Still need to add more detail and do a second pass on pretty much everything. I have a lot to do, but I am feeling really pleased with this. This has been a great piece to work on because I have learned so much. Please if you have any comments as always they are welcomed.

WIP (Cont.)

2010-06-07T22:31:00.000-07:00

Since I have last posted I have made some changes to this piece. It felt like it was missing something and having just the three shops seemed a bit monotonous. I really wanted to add another building and I remembered this building in my grandparent’s town in England. This building has a lot of character to so I decided to add a variation of it to my scene. I really think it was a good idea to add something else and this building not only added some character but also with the lower roof line the sky could peak through. Having made these changes has gotten my back into this piece. I still have quite a bit to do, but I really do like where this is headed now. If you have any suggestions please share.

WIP

2010-05-19T21:47:00.001-07:00

Since its been a couple of months I thought I would share what I have been working on as of late. I have done some traveling over seas and have been a bit inspired so I chose to do an environment that reflects that. It is still in the beginning stages. Most textures are a first pass just so I can see if the color pallet works. Plus I still need to do passes on the spec,transparency, and bump maps. I also am still putting objects in to help show signs of life. Hope you enjoy! Cheers!

Car post 2 (WIP)

2010-02-04T20:32:00.000-08:00

Since I lasted posted I have done some further work on the car. I polished up the textures more and added normal maps, spec maps and transparency maps. I think this has really come along. I wanted to create a piece that was of a different texture style than what I had been previously doing. There are still a few areas I would like to tweak a bit more. I feel like I am now at the nit picky stage, which also can be the most tedious. I am also thinking about creating an environment to have this sit in. Not only would it make it more interesting than just a prop car but also it would give me further opportunity for texture work.

As always any comments and feedback is greatly appreciated.

A visit to an old model . . .

2010-01-06T13:47:00.000-08:00

Spent the last couple of days revisiting an old piece. I had modeled the car back when I was in school, but had yet to texture it, so I thought why not texture it now. I painted the textures in Photoshop. I think I am fairly pleased with the initial texture. I still need to go through and make the transparency maps for the windows and parts of the light. Also need to add a bump map and refine the spec map. The one that is on now is a rough version. Any comments are always appreciated.

Long time, no post.

2009-12-29T16:12:00.000-08:00

Sorry this isn't too creative, but I thought I would share anyways. I tend to do speed paintings when I am warming up for a painting or in this case working on modeling/textures. Hope everyone had a happy holiday.

Cakes

2009-09-14T22:31:00.000-07:00

So I don't know if its because I have quite a few weddings to attend or the fact I love those cake shows on the food network, but I have been inspired by cakes. I guess it also had to do with wanting to make cards for those events like birthdays and weddings. This also gave me a little break from my 3D project, which I promise to post more images soon. Hope you guys enjoy and I hope to post more cakes images soon.

WOW its been forever!

2009-08-14T17:22:00.000-07:00

I'm really sorry for the lack of new work on here for well, quite some time. Its pretty sad and I guess I haven't really figured out a good way to balance out personal work, actual work, and life. Hopefully, I will figure this out soon.

Since I have some free time now I have been working on a new 3D piece based off of the concept work from my last posts. I have wanted to do this for sometime and have really gotten into this piece.

This is still a work in progress. The lighting is just thrown in there and by no means finished. I still need to model the railing on the tower and have to do the plant life. I also would like to push the shape of the house more. Along with this I am planning on doing all bean stalk and all of its branches that hold up the wrest of the telescopes. I look forward to seeing how this will come out. I must say I like figuring out the puzzle of bring something from 2D into 3D. The challenge of it is so exciting.

Jack and the Beanstalk (cont.)

2008-09-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

Its been awhile since I have posted. I have been working on my portfolio and bouncing around from painting this up and a new 3d project that I will soon post up its progress. Any comments are greatly appreciated.

Jack and the Beanstalk

2008-07-07T18:06:00.001-07:00

Edit (Aug.19,2008):

Above is a more updated version of my jack and the beanstalk. I still think there are things that could be tweaked and polished. Any feedback is greatly welcomed.

This is a work in progress . . . I have been working on this piece off and on for a little while now, probably more off than on due to work. But now I have more time on my hands so I hope to finish it soon.

My plan is to finish this black and white rendering and then paint it up with some color. After that I am planning on doing a 3D model of it. I'm excited about this project cause it is something different than what I have been doing at work.

My thoughts behind this piece were that this would be from Jack's perspective as he approaches the giants home. The giant who is in his later years eyesight has started getting bad. So therefore he has created these telescopes and binoculars to help him see any intruders coming his way.

Any comments are greatly appreciated.

MySims

2008-05-19T20:27:00.000-07:00

So I can finally share some of the things I've been doing for the last 7 or so months. Just last week EA announced mySims Kingdom which is game I have been working on. Here is a link on game spot that talks about the game. http://www.gamespot.com/wii/sim/mysimskingdom/news.html?sid=6190937&om_act=convert&om_clk=newsfeatures&tag=newsfeatures;title;2

below are a few images from the game. I did work on this level along with my cube mate who is the level artist. I did quite a few of the objects and also did the Castle. Hope you all like and well I just wanted to share. : )

Long time no blog

2008-02-23T15:31:00.000-08:00

So I have kind of neglected this for awhile partially do to the lack of motivation after a day at work. I promise now to get back into it again. With that said I am starting off with about a 40 minute speed paint. It was interesting to get back into it cause at work I am so use to graphic shapes and a very stylized project far from realistic. Anywho,let me know what you think and I promise to post more things as I get them done.

Puppet Cart (part 3)

2007-08-16T15:03:00.000-07:00

So I have pretty much completed the modeling part of this project. I have gone through procedure and did all the poly clean up checklist. I still need to lay out the uv's. I am pretty happy with this. I am sure if I took a break from it for awhile I could find things to fix or change.

Shadow PuppetCart (WIP)

2007-08-08T19:05:00.001-07:00

This is still a work in progress. I am trying to keep this piece mainly quads with as few tris as possible. So far its going well. The block that you see in one of the images is about the average size of an elephant that would be pulling this cart. This was so that I could build this to scale.

Puppet Cart

2007-07-26T21:39:00.000-07:00

So I haven't just been working on speed paintings this summer, but also been modeling in Maya a bit. Since I have had some free time I went back to past projects from BFA last semester and chose this one to turn into a model. (I will also be working on others such as the golf course). I chose this one first because it is a different style than that of what I have in my portfolio right now. this is still a work in progress, but I thought I would share.

1hr Speed paint

2007-07-26T19:34:00.000-07:00

Speed paints

2007-07-19T17:59:00.000-07:00

more speed paintings

2007-07-09T18:25:00.000-07:00

Back into the swing of things

2007-07-05T18:06:00.000-07:00

So I have taken a little break from this blog. I have been busy with work and graduation festivities. Now that things have kind of wound down I am trying to get back into my own personal projects and little exercises such as speed paintings. Here are twso that I have done ranging from 30 min-1hr. Hopefully, I will be posting more in the next couple of days or so.

original (below)

original (below)

Shadow Puppet Project

2007-04-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

We have started a new project in BFA. The assignment is to design a shadow puppet master, his cart and beast of burden. This is a pretty interesting culture in itself. Along with that we are suppose to be designing our style like that of Enrique Fernadez. He is an amazing artist and you should all check out his work.
So I came up with a story about conjoined twins that have competing shadow puppet shows. The one brother is very traditional is his method of performance down to making the puppets out of cow hide. The other brother is more of the rock n' roller. When he performs he gets so in to it sometimes, well most of the times the puppets break. The one brother gets so tired of this he finally snaps and they end up brawling. Many shadow puppet masters have assistants and these conjoined twins have a litte person as theirs who is constantly trying to keep them apart and from fighting, but you could see how he has some difficulties with this. When coming up with this story I was highly influenced by the circus people.
I haven't yet fully designed the twins and but I thought I would share with you my cart ideations and first pass at my inHouse of the cart and elephant. I wanted the cart to be a bit quirky and assymetrical to reflect their characters and the story.

New Maquette

2007-04-26T19:23:00.000-07:00

These are images of my latest maquette. It is not done, but almost there. Its based off one of my ghost hunters that I talked about in a previous post. I will probably do another maquette of her in the her original pose because that sells her character more. Anyways feel free to leave comments and I should have more work soon.

Maquette

2007-04-02T22:17:00.000-07:00

Hey there! So this semester we were given the opportunity to take a maquette class. When I heard of this I quickly jumped to the opportunity of taking the class. Anyways, this is our second project. There was a character in a Roald Dahl story inspired me, where it was about a pelican, monkey and a giraffe that were a window washing company. The pelican’s job because of his large beak was to carry the water. He is a goofy and somewhat clumsy character that has a hard time landing and stopping, hence the helmet. I am possibly going to paint him.

Week 3: Speed paintings

2007-03-28T10:01:00.000-07:00

So this week was tougher. We were given twenty minutes for each image. I think it went alright, you could really just go in there and block in the main shapes. Anywho, hope you enjoy.

Victorian Ghost Hunters

2007-03-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

These are characters that are part of our new project that we are doing in our bfa class. We were given 5 discriptions to use on 4 of the would be characters that live in Paris, France and were ghost hunters. We had have a blind person, scholar/historian, female, asian and one that was aaffraid of ghosts.
These still need to be touched up with a couple more passes but I thought I would share.

Fitwilliam is the leader of the group. He is a bit quirky of a character. He has always been interested in ghosts. As a child he had the ability to see ghosts, but as he got older he lost some of that innocence that let him see and communicate with them. Now he uses his education from college and his studies to invent and find ways to capture and help ghosts. He is the one that found and brought this group together.

It is said that children because of their innocence can see ghosts, Alexandrea has this ability. She is an orphan that was taken in by the group. She doesn't quite understand her abilities and therefore is affraid of what she is seeing. She wears oversized hand me down clothes to help hide herself from them. She is mainly partnered up with Fitzwilliam since he understands her the most.

This is Charles Brandon-he is my blind character that is also an amputee. He suffers from phantom limb syndrome. The ghosts are pretty friendly with him cause they see him as one of them. He uses his dogs to carry their supplies but also to be his eyes. ( I am still currently working on designing a way to draw his arm, which he still can pick things up with)

Chiyoko is the strong silent type. She is the spiritual leader of the group. With her fans she is able to turn the spirits into butterflies that will take them up to heaven.

I hope you enjoyed them. . . I am planning on still revising them and then hopefully post the revisions soon.

Speed Paintings

2007-03-21T08:01:00.000-07:00

Each week in our BFA Saturday class we are doing 3 one hour each speed paintings. I am really glad we are doing these since my painting skills in photoshop is a bit rough to say the least. Painting textures is a bit different than painting a picture. Anywho, I just thought I would share these.

New Post: Miniature Golf Hole

2007-03-03T10:06:00.000-08:00

Its been awhile since I posted so I thought I would share my first assignment of the new semester. It was to design a hole for a miniature golf course that would be the centerpiece to a Las Vegas type hotel or an amusement park.

I wanted my golf course to be a place where kids could come to and be taken to another world and where adults could go to remember how it is to be a youth. With that said I went for the theme of Roald Dahl. I thought it lent it self to many different fun opportunities. Each hole would be based off of a different story of his.

This one is based off of his Enormous Crocodile short story. Incase you aren't familiar with the story: There is this crocodile that wants to eat children, even though he has never had one before he thinks they would taste wonderful. He tries many different ways to capture and eat them but is always stopped by his friends in the jungle (the elephant, hippo and monkey).

That is the basic premise of the story.

Portfolio Pages

2007-02-12T13:34:00.000-08:00

Here are some models that I worked on during my first semester of my senior seminar class. They are props for a film that a group of us were working on.
The following pages are from my sketchbook.