ACTION!

Come to Ghost Gallery tonight to see a video extravaganza featuring work by DUMB EYES & Tabor Robak, Joseph Patrick Gray & Keith Tilford, Izzie Klingels & Amanda Manitach, and a new video from Frank and myself.

Sponsored by 911 Media and The Andy Warhol Foundation

May 2010 First Thursday

Me and my friend Frank will be showing 2 pieces (out of many more that are ready to be displayed later) at the 619 building, floor 5. Along with the 2 pieces there will be a video projection of video we created. In our playlist for the night ill also have music ive been working on with my friend bryce.

Keep it Light

Me and a bout 9 other friends/photographers started a photography group. We meet each week to create an assignment and look at each others photos based on the previous weeks assignment. It has been a great way to stay motivated and creative. We are keeping a blog to post the themes for each week as well as a place to show everyones photos. Check it!

new oils

ive finally been painting again since in got the new art studio. heres one dude i started on. im not sure how much further i want to take it. i think im finally starting to 'get' oils now that ive been working with it for a few years now. the next one i got an idea for because i really love candy. its not finished yet but she will be snorting a pixie stick, not cocaine. sorry for the poor iphone pics

Studio

Wow its been a long time since ive updated. Me and a few friends got some studio space a couple months ago. Its nice to have a dedicated to have an art space; not only because i like to work when others are creating but it also freed up a lot of space in my room from all of my art equipment. this is now the place where i draw, paint, do 3D, hang out, get creative, look at inspiration, read etc. the other members of the studio are all talented in their own ways:
lindsey
tomkia
kate
amber

professional work status

so i work at a game company called wizards of the coast. yes, its the company responsible for magic cards and dungeons and dragon and no, they dont have the stores around anymore. at wizards i am a 3d artist working on their minis line. this is somewhat new to me; i transitioned from game art at the beginning of the year. working on the game art (for a character visualizer) was a good experience. i learned some new techniques and got the chance to do some unofficial art direction. the only thing i didnt really like about it was that i didnt get the chance to do much creating myself (until towards the end of my relationship with the project) so my professional portfolio was stagnant for a while. what i did learn about myself is that i did enjoy the art direction aspect, even though i wasnt getting my hands dirty and creating assets.

now that i have been working on minis for several months, i am getting back into creation again. this work has the same fundamentals as game art but there is a whole new world that im learning about since the end result is a physical product that people buy. now that i have some knowledge and we have defined a pretty good work flow i will now be working on my own mini. the overall details have already been worked out be r&d and the art directors but i get to take a mini of my choice from beginning to end. this means i get to model, rig, then pose it; do concept art for the the armor/clothing design, then do a fully detailed sculpt in z-brush. this will be so great for my portfolio, showing something from concept all the way to a physical plastic miniature figure. it will definatly be a challenge but i know i can do it. it will also benefit our team as it will give us further insight to the work flow and process to see if we can stream line the process with our vendor that creates a bulk of the assets. this all sounds pretty nerdy but i really love my job and sometimes i cant believe i get paid to do this stuff.

jackson st. bike video

kyle came up with this concept a few weeks ago so we decided to do it the other night when it was actually sunny. i got my d90 and started taking some random footage of him rolling around our neighborhood. later on that night we sat down and edited in a couple hours. it was another fun project and good to work with someone who went to school for video and made a documentary, i defiantly learned some things.

Jackson St. Cruise from Nick Bartoletti on Vimeo.

our buddy floyd jones built the cruiser

more paintings

started a new one, worked on an old one, and just an old one

stellar

me and a group of friends have been getting pizza on tuesdays for the past several years. this time i happened to bring my camera so i could try out some video stuff. this is the result

stellar from Nick Bartoletti on Vimeo.

weird cropping

why are the images in my last 2 posts cropped weird?

Clise Mansion Photoshoot 1/20/09

My good friend/freelance photographer Kyle Johnson organized a bunch of local photographers, models, and make up artists for a photoshoot at Clise Mansion. This was such a great experience for me because it gave me a chance to shoot subject matter that i have never shot before. It was good to meet a wealth of other talented artists. This was the first shoot i did with my newly acquired D90. Check out my flickr for the rest HERE . Also be sure to check out the POOL that has everyones photos, there was some serious talent there

illustration update

i have taken advantage of my time off this winter to work on some new illustrations. i have been trying out some new brushes that i have made and i think im finally getting some that i really like. so far im pretty happy with these, i may add color a little later. id like to thank the latest issue of Spectrum for lighting a fire in my brain as well as animals that use sterioids for the excellent animal reference.

Oils

Ive been trying to get back into oils lately. These are a few projects im working on (i posted them before but got rid of my server space they were stored on). The colors from the photos arent quite the same as they are in real life. My main goal for these is to familiarize myself with the medium and develop my skills. So far it has been pretty fun and i find that its more soothing then painting digitally. Or maybe i inhailed too much turpenoid.

Photography update

Ive been focusing more on photography lately. Me and a few friends have been going to abandoned places trying to capture things that have been forgotten and places that people wont be able to see unless they try. Check out more on my flickr:
http://flickr.com/photos/mrbartoletti/

Photo comps

I decided to combine my in progress photo skills with my professional photoshop skills and create some sort of composition based on a set of photos. I want to use spicific photos that are related to each other so that there is an element of cohesion in the shapes in the comp.

Flour Mill Photo Sesh

Today me gabe and kyle had an adventure in an abandoned flour mill. The first picture shows the entrance to the building.

These are a few of my favorites. Check out the rest of the set at my flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/mrbartoletti/

Back to life drawing

its been about 2 years since i did life drawing at the art institute of seattle. i figured if i want to start painting and creating character concepts again, i need to make life drawing a regular occurrence. man i was rusty.

first session:
second session:



third session:

First post

I started this blog to coincide with a recent urge to start working on personal 3D projects as well as getting back to the fundamentals of drawing and painting weather its digital or analogue. Professionally im a game artist at Wizards of the Coast but in my spare time, i enjoy drawing and painting in addition to creating 3D characters. I have also been dabbling in photography recently so i will post some of my favorite shots from time to time. I decided to make this blog because i have no idea how to update my web page that is now about 2 years old. www.nickbartoletti.com