Rob Finlay Art

I Am A Pirate Queen

2011-06-22T18:55:00.000-07:00

And it is, it is a glorious....dream
To be a pirate queen.

Apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan.

This was part of an art test I completed recently for a position at the Toronto office of Gameloft. The parameters were essentially to create a sexy female pirate in a threatening pose (without any kind of background embellishment). Anyway, it would be hard to come up with a test that fell more directly into my sweet spot; I think only lightsabers could have inched that needle up the scale a bit more. I played with a few options and ultimately tried to avoid an overtly aggressive pose, instead relying on lighting, perspective and expression to help sell the threat. Did I succeed? YOU DECIDE.

Anyway, I didn't get the position, whether because of this or another part of the test, but had a really good time doing it, so can't complain.

Some Art. For My Millions of Fans.

2011-06-11T17:59:00.001-07:00

Man, the regularity of my updates are astonishing. I've been learning Maya, mostly, over the last year or so, and doing some work that I'm not allowed to post, which has meant that there hasn't been a lot in the way of paintings to throw up here. Anyway, here's something recent I worked on (assuming anyone is going to see this anyway). Was trying to add something a little more cartoony/comic book-y to my portfolio, and had a really good time drawing it out.

Also, I guess I never got around to posting this guy here. I was thinking about Han Solo and why all the cool, roguish dudes in science fiction are human, so this guy was meant to be a kind of alien answer to Han Solo: Ming Mono, captain of the Centennial Sparrow. His right leg is wonky and maybe....one day I will fix it.

One last thing, mainly because some of my friends back in Calgary might be curious as to what exactly I have been spending the last year of my life doing (I have heard some unsavoury speculating), my website has been updated and scraped clean of placeholder text. I also updated my demo reel, although all of the 3d segments are going to be refined a bit more (especially the lip synchs). Anyway, it's at www.robfinlayart.com. Very simple and plain. Just...just like me?

HOLY CRAP I DID A PAINTING

2010-09-04T19:29:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe it's September and I won't be going back to school.

I've been managing to squeeze a little painting in lately, when I'm not taking care of my daughter or reworking my demo reel (now in GLORIOUS 3D). For a while after school ended I'd open up Photoshop, doodle a little, lose interest, and go play some Dragon Age, but I feel like my enthusiasm has returned. I had a lot of fun painting this.

Stone Temple (Unpiloted)

2010-05-24T12:55:00.000-07:00

Just trying to fill a couple of gaps in my portfolio. It's kinda scary not to be a student anymore. There's a fine line between 'student' and 'unemployed bum'. This was fun to paint!

[PRESCRIPTION]

2010-05-01T22:45:00.001-07:00

This is the film I made this year (or trailer, rather). It wasn't in the family day screening today, so I thought I should probably post it somewhere. The title really only makes sense if you see the whole thing, but since the whole thing isn't done yet....you'll just have to find a way to live with that. Anyway, enjoy. It was a difficult and at times frustrating year, but I didn't compromise what I wanted out of my film and I'm proud of the result so far.

Hard to believe my time at Sheridan has come to an end. And despite the all-nighters, absent social life, stress and challenge, there's no question that it made me a better artist, and that I learned a lot. I'll be sad to leave it all behind, not least because of the extraordinary people I got to know while I was there. It really was a privilege to work among so many incredibly talented people. I think a school is really only as good as its students; the bar set by those around you makes you push that much harder and doesn't let you satisfy yourself with ordinary or mediocre. Good luck to everyone. I honestly don't think I've ever been a part of a group so universally motivated, mature and hard-working.

Well, okay, maybe not mature. But definitely motivated and hard-working.

Edit: Oh man, for the love of god, watch it on Vimeo, not on the blog, until I can figure out how to make it larger. That is ridiculous.

Days Adrift

2010-04-26T19:32:00.000-07:00

Some very good friends of mine, who also happen to be crazy talented musicians, have released their debut EP! Which is exciting! Hence the exclamation marks!

Despite the roughly 8000 km between them, they've managed to put some incredible songs together, and I wholeheartedly recommend you get thee hence: http://www.myspace.com/daysadrift where the download of their album is free. Seriously. Why are you even still reading this?

I did the album cover (above) for them, and while I'm not sure it really does justice to the music, it was super fun and I was really honoured to be involved in this project. Anyway, check it out. There's a really nice range of material, and I think they've shown a lot of growth since we were but young lads plucking away at guitars in Cedarbrae basements of yore. My personal favourite is the title track, Into the Ocean, which is maybe the best song ever.

In other news: school is all but done. But I'll talk about that another time.

Hired Gun

2010-02-28T22:08:00.000-08:00

Man, I dunno why I have a dA account, a blog, and a cghub account. I post pretty much the same stuff on all of them. Took a break from painting backgrounds for my film to paint this for on art jam on cghub. It was fun!

FIVE GOLDEN RINGS

2010-02-15T11:10:00.000-08:00

Four calling birds, three French hens, two turtledoves, and a partridge in a pear tree.

I dunno. I'm sleepy.

More Life Drawing

2010-01-20T15:04:00.000-08:00

Buried in my film right now. These are from the latter half of this past semester.

Yuki

2010-01-10T22:45:00.001-08:00

This isn't a final design for the character in my film, and there are some egregious drawing errors in this iteration particularly, but it's getting close. The costume elements are largely where I want them, but I think I can maybe push the character a little more. Anyway, this was an opportunity to mess around with some different colour options. I'd love to hear which colours people prefer (and feel free to mix and match).

As far as the film goes, I've felt really torn this year between going all-out and making as good a film as I can and working on a videogame portfolio that will help me move, professionally, in a direction I want to go. In the end, I've decided that I'm going to aim to complete a minute of my film by the end of semester (which works out to roughly half). I want to finish it, and plan to eventually, but I really need to balance the film with my portfolio. While it may not be a finished film, hopefully I'll have something I'm proud to show by the end of April.

Edit: apparently Yukio is a guy's name, so that's being changed, possibly to Yuki.

Concept Sketches

2010-01-06T14:04:00.000-08:00

Man, I haven't updated this thing in a long time. I don't really have any finished work to show, so here's what you get instead.

I've been trying to speed up my painting process, and to that end have been doing a bunch of 1.5 hour warm-up sketches. I start with no real direction and am just designing as I go, so obviously sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But I think it has helped me improve my speed and has helped me to work on a painting more holistically. Rather than really getting in there and detailing a face and then moving onto the torso, hands, feet etc., I'm trying to gradually work on rendering up the painting as a whole so that, even if the final product is unfinished, it has an internal consistency (though as you can see, I haven't necessarily always managed that).

I've really come to realize what a diminishing return there is on time invested in a painting as well, which is pretty useful for someone who has, in the past, spent six hours just painting an arm. The difference between 20 minutes of painting and an hour and a half is huge. But the difference between a 1.5 hour painting and a 3 hour painting is less noticeable, and by the time you get up to 20 hours you're talking about really subtle refinements that don't necessarily add a lot to the finished product (depending on the complexity of the subject, of course). This is not to say that there's no use in taking something as far as you can, but I think the awareness that maybe zooming right in and spending 10 hours painting individual strands of hair may not be the best expenditure of my time is a bit of a revelation for me.

Anyway, these are a few of the products of that experiment. A couple of them I like and might try to polish up a little bit, and when that happens I'll post the finished product.

Life Drawing

2009-10-24T12:57:00.000-07:00

Some costumed life drawing from this year (mostly pirates). I've really been having fun with life drawing this year, and finding more time to go (possibly to the detriment of my film). Anyway, thought I needed to put something up, if nothing else to affirm that this blog, like Bruce Willis, dies hard.

The Blog Is Dead...Long Live The Blog!

2009-08-14T10:42:00.001-07:00

...or something. Our third year film has been posted, and here it is:

Not much to add. It was a thing that we did, and it's time to move on.

More...Gorilla Warfare?

2009-05-27T19:06:00.000-07:00

Nothing else to put up just yet, but I don't want the blog to die.

Gorilla Warfare

2009-04-30T22:56:00.000-07:00

Our film is done. Third year was, in many ways, a crucible, and those of us that made it did so with a lot of blood, sweat and tears, each in abundance. But as much as it is flawed, I'm proud of what we strove for and what we accomplished with the film. These are a couple of the layouts that I contributed. I look forward to posting the film or at least some scenes from it when I'm allowed to.

Action Analysis

2009-02-04T18:27:00.000-08:00

At this rate I could complete a feature film in roughly two hundred and twenty five years!

A couple of things

2009-01-27T23:53:00.000-08:00

Mostly working out some painting techniques.

A little action analysis action

2009-01-22T19:48:00.000-08:00

This is the opening shot (sans character and prop) for my as-yet-incomplete action analysis assignment. I'll post the actual animation when it's done.

>Reboot

2009-01-18T20:04:00.000-08:00