The Art of Thomas Zenteno

Life Drawings

2012-02-14T12:10:00.000-08:00

Mostly from last term, but I've been sitting in on classes and workshops. It's been all too helpful but I need more time to buckle down and truly enjoy it. Maybe I'll post some more old ones later. Oh and pardon the crappy picture quality.

A Slight Change of Pace

2012-02-14T08:34:00.000-08:00

Some new, some old, some sketchbook. Lots of fun. More coming soon.

Dr. Evilstein + Life

2012-01-06T00:06:00.000-08:00

So this one was a practice, turned into a longer practice, turned into the unfinished mess you see here. He was inspired by Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, who has a lovely singing voice. I imagine the fellow below is up to no good, but he's also a bit of a hack. Anyways, I'm a bit outside my comfort zone on this one, especially with harmonizing the colors and skin tones. I've been doing a lot of observational sketching and life drawing which helped tremendously but it's still not enough. Also posted the process for this one but if you want to see it done a thousand times better check out Gil Rimmer and Sam Nielson in the sidebar over there.-->

This one was roughly a 90 minute digital portrait, the model was very nice. There are lots of problems and I don't like it nearly as much as I did tuesday, but here's to progression. I've been painting in acrylic a lot lately, so I'll post those once I get some decent pictures.

Skaters gonna skate

2011-12-23T06:23:00.000-08:00

Some environment and building concepts for my final for James Clyne. I was lucky enough for my Department Chair, Tim Flattery, to set me up with him. Both of them are insanely talented and the feedback James gave me helped me realize where I have a lot of problem areas I can improve on. Light, color, brushstroke, use of black and composition were some of the things we addressed. Time to get ready for 6th term.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

2011-12-23T05:51:00.000-08:00

This project took up the second part of my Character class with Kevin Chen and Hong Ly. It was a rally fun project, although it was almost always an uphill struggle for me to do characters. I think learning about clothing cut, value grouping and overall color were some of the most important things I walked away with from this class. Kevin and Hong both gave some great notes and demos. Also we got a visit from Eytan Zana, who gave a demo on his process for painting from life.

Architorture

2011-12-20T10:58:00.000-08:00

More from Gary's Arch 1 class, I wanted to paint underneath one or two of them but looking back its probably better just to do new ones, I keep finding compositional issues in them. Have to learn from it.

Future

Modern
Cambodian
Baroque (With some major compositional issues)

Anatomy study... Miles to go

2011-11-27T17:09:00.000-08:00

A study done over the weekend of one of my friends. Some progression, not enough, and miles and miles to go... Using a limited color pallette.

Late Nights

2011-11-26T16:12:00.000-08:00

A couple of images from my continuing Independent Study with James Clyne. Interior and Exteriors inspired by a trip to Baltimore, Miami and some images of Iran mountain ranges James showed me. I'll see if I can post the process for one of these when I have time. Enjoy!

Sargent Mastercopy

2011-11-11T11:12:00.000-08:00

Acrylic on Cold-presses Illustration board

Porco Rosso Redesign

2011-11-01T13:03:00.000-07:00

This is some of the work from a project in Character 1. We had to reinterpret a Miyazaki or Disney film into a 2D style, and I used Secret of Kells as my style guide. It was interesting working with the constraints of a style guide, I learned a lot about simplification, editing and shape breakdown.

If you haven't seen secret of kels it's a visual feast. Almost too overpowering for the story but all in all a great movie I wouldn't have been exposed to if I hadn't been looking for amazing 2D animations. You can see the trailer here.

Mastercopies and Studies

2011-10-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

A few studies. Sargent, Repin and Tyrese. The Sargent piece turned into a concept painting, which although I enjoy, it simply butcher's all that made sergeants painting holy. Also worked on the composition a bit. The Repin master copy taught me a lot actually, more than I expected. I'll probably do another one after learning a few of the tricks fromBob Kato's Vis Comm. 5 class.

Babylon: Ancient Near East and Gothic Architechture

2011-10-27T20:35:00.000-07:00

These were done for Gary Meyers Architecture 1 class. I enjoy this class immensely, both because it's fun to hear lectures on historical architecture and because its FREAKING GARY MEYERS. On this assignment I chose to do a low shot image of a couple of Ziggurats. Being one of the earlier drawing sin term I think there are a few things I would address compositionally that aren't working. Anyways, its interesting to have the dynamic of new classmates and different types of classes going on at once this term and I'll be posting a little more frequently.

Also have to completely redo the value version, but let's call that top one a placeholder for now :P

EDIT: Added a Gothic Interior, the perspective is really push, and the drawing took me longer than I initially thought it would, like most things. Had to use a ruler to keep the three point true... Now if I could do that all free handed I'd be as awesome as Roy Santua.

Photostudies

2011-10-26T15:53:00.000-07:00

Just some warm ups, did a little bit of learning through these. Focusing mostly on color and luminosity. Looking back on them there's no subtlety in the transitions.

Summer life paintings

2011-10-25T15:11:00.000-07:00

I have a few posts that will go up soon that have been a long time coming. These were from July. The first was a painting at Tedx Long Beach. One of my past instructors, Nick Pugh, invited past students and colleagues to do paintings throughout the event and we compiled all of our paintings into his presentation. Nick has some great ideas on the future of digital painting as a medium, and I sometimes forget how in the dark the rest of the world is from our small corner of the concept art world. Take a look at the talk here.

The other paintings were quick 5-20 min. studies from life squeezed in wherever I could get them.

Just a taste...

2011-09-06T17:00:00.000-07:00

I've been busy this summer interning at both Lin Pictures and Animal Logic Santa Monica. As always I realize how little I know and as soon as I get my bearings something else comes along and again I realize how little I understand, and how much sensitivity I still have to develop.

This little girl up here is a redesign of Vermithrax Prejorative, the dragon from Dragonslayer. Great movie, and now one of my favorites. It was done for Carlo Arellano's Advanced Entertainment Design class. Easily one of the greatest learning experiences of my life. More to come soon so check back.

Some crappy environments

2011-04-25T14:56:00.000-07:00

Learned a lot on them though, so thats the good thing.

Environments for Palindrome

2011-03-28T16:58:00.000-07:00

More to come as the days progress, check back soon!

Helicopter + Tanker

2011-03-28T16:54:00.000-07:00

Designs for a survival videogame concept, Foundry.

Clay the Hillbilly Spaceboy

2011-03-28T16:21:00.000-07:00

Quick character I did a couple of weeks ago. He's been thrust from his hillbilly lifestyle on the sector 4 farmlands, to his cousin's utopian future city for the summer. Lets see how he does...

Digital Landscapes

2011-03-26T10:31:00.000-07:00

These paintings are a culmination of various life-painting trips within the Pasadena/LA area. They serve as a reference for observation as well as further my understanding of lighting, color, edges and temperature by forcing me to paint quickly to get as much information down on the page as possible. Most of these paintings were done within a 10 to 20 minute time frame.

Costume Design

2011-02-26T17:08:00.000-08:00

Just updating some with some costume stuff from this term.

Candle Studies

2011-02-17T19:18:00.000-08:00

Fun day in Nick Pugh's digital landscape class. We've been ding a lot of life painting but after critique today we did some timed candle studies. Each of these was 10 minutes, and I had forgotten how much I love having a timer on me. Strangely enough I enjoyed the glass candle the most, so many wonderful refections. Im going to have to do more of these timed still life paintings and close ups, I learned a lot in the process. Definitely encourage anyone to try it.

Environment Paintings

2011-02-11T16:34:00.000-08:00

Victorian Steampunk+Advanced Perspective

2011-02-11T16:13:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know, again with the old stuff... Anyways here's some animation style renderings for my Viscomm class. they relate to the Steampunk/Victorian style drawings for Advanced perspective. Maybe one day I'll come up with a project that will include them. The last two images are more drawings for Advanced Perspective but they have their own little stories.

Study + Character Sketches

2011-02-01T21:54:00.001-08:00

Some sketches. At the top is a painting from a photo, the inspiration was a piece by Tyler West. The others are just miscellaneous characters I was messing around with.

Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver

2011-01-23T21:35:00.000-08:00

This is a sample of a project from my 3rd term at Art Center. It's a take on the 1960's German story Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver, done in an animation style. This class was called creative ID process and was probably the class I learned the most in, partially because of the subject being so different from my normal line of work and also because of the teacher Fridolin Beisert. Basically we did visual development for the story while trying to come up with designs that would break from normal thinking. I'll have to revisit this project some day, there's still a lot to do, but I'm glad I got around to doing characters and this style was extremely fun.

Pink Motha Trucka

2010-11-30T21:05:00.000-08:00

Just did these this afternoon in a really fun, quick painting session. I'll go back into them at some point but it was definitely fun. Finals around the corner!

Nester Tandem Vehicle

2010-11-19T09:28:00.000-08:00

So this post goes out to Vaughan Ling and Carlos Gonzalez, two of my buddies at CCS. They've been posting a lot on their blogs with some pretty inspiring stuff. You can check their blogs out here and here. It's funny cause I learned how to draw cars from Vaughan's old sketches from high school, and Carlos was the one that got me into Industrial design in the first place.

Anyways, enough cheesiness, this was a vehicle inspired by the egg and nest, just a quick little project I'd love to add more to. Hopefully I'll be able to add some interior shots and renders over break.

Sketchy Sketch Stair Sketch

2010-11-05T23:20:00.000-07:00

More Vicomm. 3

2010-10-20T22:20:00.000-07:00

Vis Comm. 3 + Advanced Perspective + Speedies

2010-10-15T15:42:00.000-07:00

Well here's a few pieces from the start of term and some speedies.

Spores

2010-10-06T11:52:00.001-07:00

Morning Painting.

Sketch Dump

2010-09-20T21:30:00.000-07:00

More work from the summer... More to come soon!

Wreckage Series

2010-07-23T15:06:00.000-07:00

Summer So Far

2010-07-02T14:27:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! Here's some stuff that I've done so far this summer, check back cause I might update. Feedback is appreciated. Thanks for visiting.:

The above environments are all for James Paick's CDA class, he's a great teacher and concept designer. You can check his work out here: http: scribblejames.blogspot.com/

As always I did a few car sketches and some ships. Enjoy! More coming soon.

Gattaca, the continuation

2010-04-20T18:33:00.000-07:00

Cars

Environments

Props

Thomas and Cornelius Story Book

2010-04-15T18:15:00.000-07:00

Freelance book i've been working on in the weeks leading up to intern show. The project will be finished after term.

Vis Comm. 2

2010-03-31T08:30:00.000-07:00

Internship show around the corner...

*Edit- At the top is a mock up for the Viscomm 2 final

Traditional Speedpaint and Digital Speedpaint

2010-03-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

Traditional

Digital

Alien Race

2010-03-18T21:31:00.000-07:00

Evil Antarctic Exploration Vehicle

2010-02-18T19:37:00.000-08:00

Vis. Comm. Ship

2010-02-17T08:56:00.000-08:00

Shaded in black prisma and polychromos

Sketchbook Dump

2010-02-17T08:55:00.001-08:00

Feels nice to do cars again...

Another bad painting...

2010-02-13T16:55:00.000-08:00

Long Overdue: Billy the Kid Summer 2009

2010-02-11T19:35:00.000-08:00

Ship Speedie and Crap Photoshops

2010-01-29T22:09:00.000-08:00

Winter Break Vis. Comm.

2010-01-27T21:57:00.000-08:00

I worked on two other projects over the break but I probably won't upload them until internship show... Hopefully Billy the Kid will be uploaded soon.

Treaded Vehicle Vis Comm. 1 and Study Models

2010-01-22T18:04:00.000-08:00

Work from last term. Its a treaded racer to disperse water throughout South america in times of drought. Lots of new work coming soon.

New Years Around the Corner...

2009-12-28T11:04:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays to all. Hope your breaks are going well. Here's a painting inspired by Seng Ho Henrik http://www.seunghohenrik.com/. I found out about him through Annis Naeem, a fellow Art Center student, who you can link to here: http://annisnaeem.blogspot.com/. Take some time and look at both of them, they have some amazing work.

Teaser

2009-12-10T17:59:00.001-08:00

Vis. Comm. Car

2009-11-15T17:34:00.000-08:00

Vis. Comm. Airplanes

2009-11-14T22:03:00.001-08:00

Sketch Up Models

2009-11-04T16:50:00.000-08:00

First off I have to give a shout out to Justin Oaksford, a third term Entertainment student here at ACCD. He gave me a quick demo for using this program, called sketch up. He's a really cool dude, and super helpful for crits. Here's a link to his blog, check it out: http://justinoaksford.blogspot.com/

I love sketch up. Its a free program offered by google, check it out. All of these were done in one night over an 11 hour period. It was really fun, and you can be sure I'm going to paint over these, once I can find the time.

The Swarm

2009-11-01T01:30:00.000-07:00

Instrument Panel for Study Models

2009-10-29T00:24:00.000-07:00

This was a really fun assignment for a class taught by Dennis Campbell. My Instrument panel is a central seating, curvilinear form. This model is made of a volumetric foamcore base with Art Center Special paper formed around it.I think the model does the sketch justice but I feel like the mock up I did in copy paper had more feeling to it... Oh well, next time.

Old Study Model drawings

2009-10-29T00:19:00.000-07:00

Vis. Comm.

2009-10-28T04:24:00.000-07:00

Vis. Comm. is easily my favorite class. I love the technical perspective tricks and being able to make complex forms out of the side view and footprint. The last four are modifications of a disc sander, all really fun shapes. The earlier airplane was a quick extra for week 3 or 4.... Anyways, I have a feeling you'll be seeing this last sketch again very soon...

Way Things Work Highlights

2009-10-28T03:39:00.000-07:00

This was a class taught by Nathan Allen. I learned a ton in this class and I enjoyed figuring out how different products worked. The actual 5 hours of class every week was hard to stay awake in with presentations and such but the research done outside of class was awesome. Just go to "How stuff works" and type in whatever you want to find out about.

Design Process 1 Highlights

2009-10-28T02:16:00.000-07:00

So here are a few highlights from my Design Process 1 Class. It was a lot of silhouette, linework and value. All in all it wasn't half bad Mike Yamada gave pretty good crits every week, and I can actually walk away from that class understanding the difference between good and bad silhouettes.

Study Models

2009-10-02T16:36:00.000-07:00

Here are a few of my crap cubes and my volumetric model. More coming soon.

Last digital painting before Art Center kicks my butt

2009-09-07T02:05:00.000-07:00

So here's a progress piece im working on for my project... Its so close to done, but now that Art Center is starting Im not sure I'll have the time to finish it by the end of 1st term. Its all time management. Wish me luck!

Queen Series 1

2009-09-02T20:05:00.000-07:00

To Let You Know I'm Still Alive...

2009-07-08T11:52:00.001-07:00

Quickie sketch that I did on a chalkboard... The project is coming along quite well, it's going to be a lot bigger than originally planned so it will be up when I finish it, most likely in august. Keep safe!

Summer Projects

2009-06-08T09:46:00.000-07:00

These next few weeks I'll be working on a big project and I wont be posting it until its done... You might get a teaser or some sketches in a little bit. I'll also be doing a few viscom pieces but like I said, you wont get a big project until the 22nd probably. Best wishes to everyone. Later.

Sketchbook Stuffs

2009-05-28T18:21:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try and update more often. Here are a few of todays sketches from my new sketchbook.

Finished painting

2009-05-27T19:18:00.000-07:00

SORRY THE PICS ARE SO BIG. JUST CLICK TO VIEW THE WHOLE PAINTING. THANKS.

So this is the finished painting or when it was almost finished. I was painting it live at the senior showcase, alll in all it was pretty fun. I worked on that painting for 6 days. Didn't really finish it. But i just sold it for $1000 to the head of the law firm upstairs of the gallery. Luck seems to be going my way lately, hopefully i have as much success with my Entertainment Design portfolio. Can't wait for the summer.

Cityscape Progress

2009-05-17T13:41:00.000-07:00

So here are some progress shots... this is actually from a day or two ago, so theres a lot more work thats been done.... And still to be done. Wish me luck, it looks like an all nighter... Oh yeah and the colors of a few buildings have changed.

Sorry for the Break

2009-05-11T17:31:00.000-07:00

So hope you guys are enjoying your time off, if indeed you do have time off. I've been chillin' lately, making new friends and listening to some good music. Most of all just sleeping, trying to get some rest in before the Art Center Korean kids kick me in the butt. Im working on quite a few projects right now but they're on the down low for now.

Heres a painting im doing for senior showcase which by the way is May 23rd, so if you are in miami come check it out. This is the initial layer for the cityscape i want to do. Hopefully i finish in time. Oh yeah and its 10 by 7 feet.

Adidas and Art Center

2009-04-16T10:19:00.000-07:00

So I ended up getting third place in the Adidas watch competition, i won a pack of 36 nupastels, a gray prisma set and an Adidas Watch. It was a really fun project. Jose Alfonso, the DASH grad sponsoring the project, turned out to be a really cool guy. He talked to the class about design and his experience in the industry. You can see the winning watches at http://dashschool.org/. Hugo took first and Laura took second. Now im just waiting o see how much money Art Center is going to give me in scholarship.... they mailed it out yesterday so i'll know sometime this weekend hopefully

2009-04-04T22:10:00.000-07:00

Just finished up with the Adidas watch competition... Winners will be announced after spring break in a week so hopefully i place in the top three

Entertainment Design: Junkyard Robot

2009-03-20T23:53:00.000-07:00

This is my first stab at an Entertainment Design Project. The brief was taken from the blog of Annis Naeem. He is an Art Center student in his second term at the Entertainment Design Program. The brief reads as follows:

"This last week, we had to design Junkyard Battle Bots with MANY limitations. One, it had to be designed out of things that already existed. Anything that was on our bot HAD to be from somewhere- a shuttle, office chair, light bulb, fan. An object on your bot could only compose 10 % of your total design, so you were forced to go around and salvage from MANY things.
Second, it couldn't be taller then 30 feet. We were also not allowed to have guns, wheels, or treads, or wings (to fly). Only thing left was flying, since the game level is a Volcano.
The class is taught by Scott Robertson, and I truly believe him to be a genius. Not only in visual design but in theory and as an all around businessman. The information is invaluable and I know I will positively use it for the rest of my life."

So I decided to put my own spin on it. So far its been really fun, started out with some side views, picked my top 4 and did a quick marker render of my favorite. I plan to add a human character to battle it and render a few of the pencil sketches in photoshop. Wish me luck! Critiques are welcome...

2009-03-14T08:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry the picture is so crappy, i couldnt scan it. Angelo, Carlos and I are doing a group project to redesign the American car in trans so we started out with research and a few grill and headlight drawings. These were inspired by the Bald Eagle to reinforce the whole "American" Car.

2009-03-07T10:07:00.000-08:00

Thes are the revisions for the Adiddas watch... I developed two concepts to present

Adidas Watches

2009-02-18T15:31:00.000-08:00

Some watches for Adidas Originals. They are getting reviewed by Jose Alfonso. He's Adidas and Fossil designer and he's also a DASH grad. Hopefully he likes them. Did most of them in one night.

Mech 02

2009-02-13T14:59:00.000-08:00

So in Trans today we were doing some fun 5 minute design challenges. We would all agree on a vehicle, creature or product to design and spend 5 min. drawing it. One of the challenges was to do a land/sea submarine... I won that challenge and redrew the submarine without the land aspect of it. theres a lot of useless stuff on it but it was a fun drawing and I got to practice my perspective.

Mech 01

2009-02-09T14:44:00.000-08:00

Just a little sketch that popped out of my head today...

Some Stuff from my CCS portfolio submission

2009-02-05T14:18:00.000-08:00

Some Fine Art I did this year and a final for a body glove pack/chair we did in ID. The third one is unfinished.

Steampunk City

2009-01-30T21:20:00.000-08:00

This is a steampunk city that I started back in november... It finished with the exception of the clouds... Ill probably include it in my CCS portfolio

Audi Racetrack

2009-01-12T18:45:00.000-08:00

Progress on the final pages of my environment sketches for my Audi car and track. The cars are racing in a clear tunnel, racing so fast that they are able to drive upside down to passing each other.

Mazda Speedboat Final

2009-01-08T16:04:00.000-08:00

This is the final for the speedboat... ill be mounting it on a board soon

Some exploratory sketches

2009-01-08T15:49:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of sketches i did for a mazda speedboat, a personal project that i did in three days. The forms are inspired by Mazdas design philosophy of "Nagare", which is japanese for flow. I would recommend looking up their concept cars to see what their philosophy is all about.

I'M Back and Merry Christmas!!!

2008-12-25T19:11:00.000-08:00

Hey guys... sorry its been so damn long but I've been crazy busy the past month. Portfolio Day is coming January 23 and Im keeping up with Ms. K's projects and doing a few extra ones. These are a few pictures of my work all around the ID room, Ms. K and Dr. Mancuso showed it to the head designer at Vitra so that was cool. At the top are the finals for my Laptop project. The illustration sucks but it was done kinda fast... enjoy

Just some stuff to get you started...

2008-11-25T21:06:00.000-08:00

These are just a couple of pieces to start the blog off... The first is a page from a scooter project I did this year along with a kitchen timer I did at Art Centers summer program. The piercing painting is from my junior year and the Metro/sheep piece was one of my earlier pieces from this year. Feel free to leave comments. I love feedback