Hoa the Artist

Occupy North Pole

Hoa — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:45:07 +0000

We’ll never forget how it ended. All those poor reindeer…

Happy Holidays & Happy New Years!
-Hoa

Oh yeah, the genius stroke to turn the canister into pepperMINT spray belongs to my buddy Kevin. Peppermint! Get It?!!!1111!??HA.

High-End Fantasy Game Art Creation Workshop

Hoa — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 07:54:32 +0000

It’s the first week of class in the High-End Fantasy Game Art Creation workshop offered at CGSociety.org. It’s been several months since I’ve done any Lynda.com or Conceptart.org classes, I’m itching to learn again. I’ve been heavy into Javascript and painting the last two years. It’s time to sharpen my 3D game art skills.

The course is taught by Katon Callaway, a character artist on God of War 3. I’m stoked to learn everything I can from his class. I’ve only watched half the videos from this week’s course and I’ve learned a few important practices already.

For our first assignment we are to pick the character we’ll be building through the course. We’re encouraged to pick an existing character/design so we can move forward quickly and not waste time developing costumes or updating our blogs that two coworkers and maybe a cousin who clicks the wrong link from Facebook ends up at. My top 3 choices are Prince of Persia, Mitsurugi from Soul Calibur, and Lion-O from the new Thundercats. I’m leaning towards Mitsurugi cause he has the most interesting costume in variety of materials, patterns, and layers.

I’m itching to get started on the modeling… but alas I have JURY DUTY in eight hours.

Krunken Shirt Colorways

Hoa — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 21:57:11 +0000

Which color(s) do you guys like?

William H. Sharky

Hoa — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:29:28 +0000

I woke up this morning to find William H. Sharky illustration on one of my favorite blogs: Filmdrunk! The picture was inspired by a post I had read there over a year ago but hadn’t finished because of a call that came later that day to interview with Sony. At the time I wasn’t sure how a traditional Japanese run company would feel about a moustached shark in my portfolio. Granted we make a game that involves a killer clown that drives an ice cream truck I probably was over-thinking things a bit.

Long story short I’ve recently dusted him off and put him up on my site and sent Filmdrunk’s blogger/editor a heads link to see the majestic abomination he unwittinly had a hand in creating.

R.I.P. Frank Frazetta

Hoa — Wed, 12 May 2010 07:04:37 +0000

Frank Frazetta passed away at age 82. Last summer I developed a newfound appreciation for his work. His name kept coming up in all the art classes I was taking. Color theory, posing, anatomy, lighting, composition, etc. I was familiar with his Conan covers and Death Dealer illustrations but had never really studied his work. I think only after in depth studying of these art concepts did I truly realize how talented he was.

The He-Man pic that I just finished was even heavily inspired (doesn’t even come close but inspired by none the less) by the lighting and tone of his work. I’ll definitely continue to study the 60+ years of work he’s left with us.

Here is a comprehensive article by Lance Laspina, who produced and directed a documentary on Frezetta in 2003. link