Illustration of Matt Leese

Detroit Association of the Deaf Bowling Brochure

2011-10-22T16:50:00.001-04:00

Just a little quick piece I could have done in Photoshop or Illustrator if I wanted to... but I was slightly bored and wanted to try something a little more fun and challenge myself. So, I did it in Maya. Not too shabby for being self-taught, huh? And only took about 3-4 hours.

(The years on the pins were each year the event had been hosted.)

10,000 Views and New Logo

2011-10-02T00:56:00.001-04:00

Hi all, I was posting originally because I wanted to see how everyone would like the new logo I designed for myself but then I saw that this blog has passed the 10,000 mark, so first I must take a moment to thank everyone who has viewed my artwork here and shown their support. But enough of this gooey shhh----ow of emotion, check out my new brand logo for "Illustration of Matt Leese" and leave me comments! Any tweaks? Just perfect? Or hate it like no other? Feedback is appreciated. Thanks.

Lethality Guild Logo

2011-09-28T00:14:00.002-04:00

Well I haven't been able to post much on here lately, or really display much of my work. Almost everything I do can't be disclosed to anyone due to contract agreements. But this is a logo I did for a non-profit guild site, Lethality. They wanted something that represented as much "lethality" as possible, so how about a chimera with the heads of 4 deadly animals? It's a tad different from the classic chimera, but it gets the point across and looks cool, which is all that counts.

Gerudo Sorceress

2011-05-20T00:26:00.001-04:00

Finally finished the second character in my Zelda tabletop game. This is my sister's character, a Gerudo Sorceress, which we came up with a name for but misplaced it (I'll add it in here later when we come up with one). I had her use her limited artistic skills (I drained the family of this skill for the last few generations at least lol) and she designed a decently well thought-out costume for her, inspired a bit by Gypsy clothing. Later, her boyfriend and I went to a hobby store for tabletop games and we found the PERFECT figure for her, one that not only looked like a Gerudo, but who wore an outfit very similar to her drawing and had a bit of a Gypsy flair.

So, in this drawing, I decided to combine elements from the two: her sketch and the figure. This is what I came up with. I also wanted to put her in a visually-interesting place, and the most interesting place in Gerudo Desert (besides all the lovely sand lol) is the Desert Colossus statue, marking the entrance to the Spirit Temple in Ocarina of Time. The setting takes place a few centuries after Ocarina of Time, so I figured perhaps the bottom half of the statue would have been claimed by the sand by this point and the Spirit Temple forgotten to all... except those delving into the dark magic arts that is. Perhaps her character has been spending some time there and learning the ways of Koume and Kotake? We shall see.

Larien: Twili Rogue

2011-04-22T00:54:00.001-04:00

I've recently found a tad bit of free time that I am filling up with doing something you will either find ridiculously stupid or amazing. I'll say this first... I love The Legend of Zelda... a lot, sometimes to the point where it's a tad obsessive. Anyways, in light of this, I decided to design a D&D-style role-playing game to play with my friends who also enjoy the series. It's a lot of work setting it all up but luckily I found some existing rulebooks made by other fans to help me along. Anyways, I decided to create nice images for each of my friends' characters. This is Larien, a female Twili Rogue. I used elements based on Midna and Zant from Twilight Princess and then some more typical rogue attire. Those two characters are the only normal looking Twili seen in that game. The like... 4 others you see standing outside the Palace of Twilight are rather oddly shaped and look quite different from the very humanoid Midna and Zant. So, I chose to ignore those weirdos and stick with what I felt defined the Twili race more. I'll probably post the other characters sometime soon.

Krewe of the South Shore Marauders Logo

2011-03-21T00:02:00.002-04:00

Some requests for art do make me chuckle. This is one such request. A representative from the Krewe of the South Shore Marauders, a group of pirates established in Florida, found this blog and was very much interested in a piece I had done a while back, the Pirate Manatee. To me it was just a humorous sketch but it inspired him to request of me the creation of a logo for their organization. He wanted a pirate chick riding on a manatee. My initial sketch was rather toned down, but he wanted all the typical "features" exaggerated, blond with less clothing, so here's a small version of the final rendering:

Website Masthead for Karen Sandler

2011-03-07T20:25:00.001-05:00

Well it's been forever since I've actually uploaded anything on here but I have good reason for this. For the past few months I've been extremely busy with various freelance jobs as well as one that has now developed into a full-time position. Most of this stuff I don't have the rights to anymore so I can't really post them on here, but one I do have that is now complete is a website masthead I designed for sci-fi/fantasy author Karen Sandler. The novels she is currently working on involve a futuristic society on another planet that is heavily based on Hindu culture on earth, which influenced my work. Take a look at it here: www.karensandler.net and check out some of her work!

Abaddon

2010-10-04T22:32:00.004-04:00

This is a quick design I did for the demon known as Abaddon "the Destroyer." In The Lord's Legacy, he once impersonated deities including Shiva the Destroyer of the Hindu pantheon. However, it was not long before Abaddon began to feel the tugging of his heartstrings... the emotions of the two human bodies he had claimed for his earthly form were filling his mind with regret. The two humans, one male, one female, were in fact once husband and wife. Abaddon still retained their thoughts and feelings and could actually feel the love that they had for each other and could feel the power of the human spirit. He began to doubt his allegiance to Satan, sympathized with humanity, and mourned that he could never return to Heaven again.

Soon Abaddon began to work in exile from the rest of the demonic horde in order to aid humanity and God's cause. He knew he could never be forgiven for what he had done, but he did what he could anyways. During the Crusades he introduced himself to the men of the Knights Templar as Baphomet, the demon that they supposedly worshiped. This was incorrect, however, as he simply initiated them into a secret society and taught them secrets of heaven in order that they might be able to do God's will more effectively. This was not officially authorized by God but Abaddon felt it necessary. Eventually other groups spawned from his teachings including the Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, and various Occult groups. Finally, Abaddon aided the Sons of Light by releasing the "locusts of the shaft of the abyss" to attack those marked with 666.

The character is a combination of three entities: Abaddon, Baphomet, and Shiva. Shiva is typically depicted as having four arms and blue skin. Baphomet is typically shown as the Sabbatic Goat by Eliphas Lévi, which is a human with the head and legs of a goat, feathered wings, and female breasts. I thought it would be interesting if he not only had four arms, but that two of them were male and the other two were female. This would give the opportunity to retain the breast feature of Baphomet while keeping Shiva's feature. Then Shiva's blue skin I downplayed a bit but decided to make him very pale with lots of blue blood veins which is because of the lack of oxygen in his blood system. If he only had one heart but now had two additional arms as well as wings, this meant more of an area for blood to circulate and the heart might not be able to effectively oxygenate the body. Hence the blue tint of Shiva's skin. Of course, when a demon entity like this shows himself to a group of people, he is able to put on a cloak of deception and show them whatever form he likes. So in India, he took on a more pleasing face and demeanor for his role as Shiva. Abaddon the demon typically does not have a particular shape so I was able to mold him around the other two.

Reworked Website

2010-10-01T15:58:00.003-04:00

Hello my loyal fans, friends, family, and potential employers,

I'm making a note here in this blog to state that my official illustration website has been completely altered so that it now only contains my best digital work with emphasis on highly-rendered pieces and concept art. It's about time that I removed any irrelevant art from my website which is meant to showcase the specific abilities I would like potential employers and clients to see. These include character studies, environments, vehicles, architecture, etc. for use in movie and video game production, book illustration, and comic book covers. The selection on the site is now much smaller than before, but all what I would consider to be good quality and what I would like to emphasize.

With such a change, this now means that a lot of the pieces that had been on their previously are no longer to be seen. However, I believe I shall start posting pieces to this blog that were once on the website, but only the really good ones. I'm trying to concentrate more on building up a new portfolio with more concept designs and really start pushing for art jobs.

Thank you to all of my supporters who really push me to do my best! I wouldn't be able to do it without you!

The Wizard

2010-09-30T16:41:00.002-04:00

This is a piece I recently did for a client who wanted to use it as a header for her website. The idea was pretty straight-forward: a wizard who is receiving inspiration from a light above which could represent God or some other higher power. One of the first things that popped into my head was the northern lights and how mystical they looked, so I definitely wanted to include that in the night sky. I also went with a star motif throughout the piece, including the sky, on the wizard's robe, and the colored stars that each represented a different inspiration the wizard is receiving, delivered right to his heart.

Muhammad Abijah

2010-08-30T16:35:00.013-04:00

This one took forever to do and I actually used my last piece, Leviathan's Final Strike, to take a break from this one because I needed something refreshing to work on. However, about 2 weeks ago I dug it back up because of some recent research I have been doing that got me excited about working on it again.

The character is a man named Muhammad Abijah, the main villain of The Lord's Legacy. He was born for a single purpose: to impersonate the Jewish Messiah and the Muslim Mahdi in order to manipulate those cultures into worshiping him. Everything about his life was meant to appear to fulfill the ancient prophesies about the man who would save each culture from their enemies and bring peace at last. Many unfortunately believed him and they became his pawns in attempting to exterminate the Christian population who refused to bow down to him and to Satan.

This is because the Christians identified him when he first appeared. In the book of Revelation, he was called the Antichrist, the Beast of the Sea... and Muhammad definitely fit this title since he was the leader of the lost land of Atlantis. The ancient and long-believed-sunken island of Atlantis was not destroyed at all, but had been removed from this dimension just before Noah's Deluge when God meant to destroy the Nephilim inhabiting the earth. He had mercy on even the demons and allowed them to retreat to their base of operations on Atlantis, but he sealed them within, the only passage allowed was going in but none returning to the rest of the world. Nestled within the area known as the Bermuda Triangle (called "The Devil's Triangle" by some), the ambiguous entrance to the lost land claimed many who sailed or flew by plane through the region, bringing more incidental inhabitants to the land. This is how Muhammad Abijah managed to get to the island: in a plane flight over the Atlantic when he was still a child. The ruling king at the time had pity on the sole survivor of the crash and adopted him as his own, leaving the kingdom to Muhammad upon his death.

But Atlantis was far from a primitive ancient kingdom. While the rest of the world spent thousands of years fighting amongst each other, spread plagues, and kept their advancements handicapped, Atlantis suffered none of these since it was a single-serving community. It built up its technologies with help from the knowledge the demons knew about the world (as they are higher-dimensional beings and have seen our world inside-out). The people built flying machines called Vimanas that used natural energies that enabled the craft to defy the laws of gravity (Vimanas are thought to be the explanation for many UFO sightings). The demons continued to impersonate false gods to the people of Atlantis, making them incredibly loyal.

Muhammad means "Praiseworthy" in Arabic and was prophesied to be the name of the future Mahdi (named after Muhammad the Prophet of course). Abijah is a Hebrew name meaning "The Will of the Lord" or "The Lord is my Father." Both of these names were given to him on purpose in order to fulfill what the Muslims and the Jews think their Messiah should be. But he has another name: Belial, the prideful demon-lord, of which this physical body is but a human incarnation. Belial is called the Angel of Lawlessness, the Ruler of this World, and Leader of the Sons of Darkness in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The demon, often confused with Satan himself, has been waiting thousands of years for his chance to take this role for his master in Hell and is destined to rule the world in opposition to Michael Scarborough during the Tribulation.

The face model for Muhammad Abijah is that of Wentworth Miller from Prison Break. I wanted the character to be a sort of "cultural melting pot," having genes from all cultures in order to help make others trust him more. Wentworth Miller has a very culturally-diverse heritage, being African-American, Jamaican, English, German, Jewish, Cherokee, Russian, French, Dutch, Syrian and Lebanese. I chose him to appear reminiscent of a futuristic Babylonian King (since the land the Antichrist comes from is called Babylon the Great in Revelation). The crown is a simplified version of the six-horned crown worn by kings of Babylon and the long hair and beard is not only meant to remind us of Babylonian royalty, but also because Muhammad Abijah is a self-proclaimed Nazirite (like Samson and Samuel in the Bible). Nazirites were those in the Old Testament who gave themselves up to God entirely and swore to never cut their hair or else they would lose the powerful abilities that God gave to them due to their devotion.

Leviathan's Final Strike

2010-05-28T20:36:00.004-04:00

Wow, it seems like it's been forever since I posted anything, especially anything regarding The Lord's Legacy. This one, believe it or not, is from that story, and it started off as just a loose sketch to get an idea down. I started to see some real potential so I just kept going with it.

The piece features the surprise assault of the demonic forces on the Isle of Avalon led by the Leviathan, the serpentine monstrosity mentioned several times in the Bible. Avalon was a hidden location for the dispossessed under the leadership of Ambrosius Aurelianus (aka Merlin) and the demonic horde absolutely obliterated it. After the destruction, Michael, Viviane, and David appear too late on the scene and are taken captive themselves. All seems lost until a mysterious entity appears on the battlefield: Abaddon, the Destroyer. Once a demon lord loyal to Satan, he secretly longed to undo his past deeds, including posing as the Hindu god Shiva the Destroyer. Abaddon uses this opportunity to show his loyalty to God's cause by battling the Guardian of the Gates of Hell: Leviathan.

The Leviathan in The Lord's Legacy is one in the same as the Mesoamerican deity Quetzalcoatl ("the plumed serpent"), the evil Egyptian serpent of the underworld, Apep ("Apophis" in Greek), and several other dragons and sea serpents throughout history (including the Chinese serpent dragons).

Don't tell me what I can't do!

2010-04-02T20:37:00.001-04:00

"I have looked into the eye of this island, and what I saw... was beautiful." - John Locke (after having been attacked and dragged underneath the Temple by the Black Smoke and allowed to live)

Clearly, fame isn't everything, is it, Mr. Potter?

2010-02-28T18:32:00.002-05:00

My latest caricature that I quite enjoyed doing because I got to pick the subject this time. I just wish I could have somehow drawn Alan Rickman's awesome, dreary, sarcastic voice as well.

"Well, well, Lupin... Out for a little walk... in the moonlight, are we?"

James Forsythe

2010-02-01T17:23:00.006-05:00

The man who was once Michael Scarborough's most trusted friend since childhood, but he was conditioned since birth for a terrible role in the history of the world. Being born a Nephilim (offspring of a human and an angel/demon), James had been granted the powers of much higher spirit, including the ability to rain fire from the sky. The demonic horde of Babylon provided everything he ever needed in order to first become Michael's 2nd in Command, a U.S. Senator, and finally the U.S. President while also being the leader of the Sons of Darkness... right under everyone's nose. He gained the trust of the entire world before his mysterious disappearance, which granted him the power of a tyrant when he returned with Muhammad Abijah with Babylon's revelation. It was then that James' motivations were clear to the Sons of Light: he was the False Prophet.

James comes from the original name Jacob, which in Hebrew means "Supplanter," indicating his desire to overthrow Michael from within. Forsythe means "man of peace" in Scottish, which alludes to the lie that he desires prosperity for the world. His title as leader of the Sons of Darkness was Anguimorsus, which means "bite of the snake." As the False Prophet from Babylon, he holds the Rod of Asclepius, which is a symbol of health and renewal, indicating to the people that he wishes to aid the world. Muhammad Abijah, the Antichrist, also holds one of these scepters and when together, the two staffs merge together into the Caduceus, the symbol of commerce and trade, which Babylon offers to the world. However, the Caduceus is also a symbol of deception.

In case it wasn't dreadfully obvious, the face model for James is Patrick Dempsey. I originally wanted him to look like Sean Penn, but I needed James to look younger, so luckily Patrick Dempsey's face is strikingly similar to Penn's.

We'll start the ass-kissin' with YOU!

2010-01-15T18:27:00.007-05:00

A recreation of one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies ever: The Boondock Saints. This was for The Hallway Show presenting Willem Dafoe.

We don't know if Jesus ever rode them... BUT HE PROBABLY DID!

2009-12-17T21:35:00.010-05:00

So I found a picture a long time ago on the wonderful internets that made me giggle a lot. It was of what looked like a page torn out of a Bible coloring book featuring an illustration of Jesus riding a dinosaur. If that doesn't make you laugh, then the choice of text will. (I do not have the rights to this image and do not know who the creator is.)

Just a couple weeks ago, I was at a CRU event (Campus Crusade for Christ) at a local college when they invited everyone to enter a design for their new T-shirts. Now I mockingly said to a couple friends there, "Oh yeah... I should draw Jesus riding a dinosaur or something crazy awesome like that." To my amazement, they said that I seriously should. So... I did.

No, this was not some attempt to make some religious mockery, because I am quite religious myself, but only as a recreation of something I found to be astounding and to hopefully make more people laugh.

You want me to curse?

2009-12-17T21:09:00.003-05:00

Graham Hess: I'm losing my mind! It's time for an ass-whupping!
[Merrill and Graham meet each other]
Graham Hess: I cursed.
Merrill: I heard.

A caricature of Mel Gibson, placing him in the crop circle from Signs.

I was talking to that squirrel over there...

2009-12-04T19:06:00.007-05:00

*Points at a goat*

A caricaturization of Steve Buscemi for The Hallway Show. It actually took me a bit longer on this one to get a likeness, but I think I pulled it off. Such a crazy looking man! (But we all love him)

I'm the administrator of this facility, and who might you be?

2009-11-27T13:06:00.005-05:00

That's right. Lando Calrissian. This was an entry to The Hallway Show blog started a few weeks back by some fellow CCS alumni. This week's subject was Billy Dee Williams. Although it looks detailed and stuff, it only took a little over 3 hours or so to render. It was fun.

Michael Scarborough

2009-11-20T22:16:00.006-05:00

I apologize for how long it took me to do this one, but I think it was worth the wait. This is the main character of The Lord's Legacy © during the end times. Michael is Hebrew for "Who is like God?" and Scarborough is Old Norse for "Fortress," emphasizing his role as protector of Christian refugees. His given Latin title is Optivus, which means "Chosen," as he was the long-anticipated chosen Great Monarch once prophesied by St. Malachy.

This piece is a bit more representational than the last one. Michael holds the holy sword Excalibur in one hand and a shepherd's crook in the other while standing in front of a church doorway. This signifies the dual responsibility of gathering the flock of believers and defending it from Satan's forces. The halo around his head is also purely expressing that he has seen God with his own eyes and spoken to Him directly. The bronze doors of the church are etched with the famous painting The Archangel Michael by Guido Reni, in which the Archangel strikes down Satan as it is prophesied. This alludes to the idea that Michael Scarborough may be more than he appears.

The face model for this one was Wanted actor James McAvoy.

Eliana Vasquez

2009-10-05T19:35:00.008-04:00

Well it's about time that I started doing art for myself again, and it was well worth it. I've been reworking and rewriting parts of The Lord's Legacy © and really starting to flesh out some of the old characters. One of these was a woman who I had not quite settled on a name that I liked enough to make it official. But now, here she is in all of her splendor: Eliana Vasquez. Eliana comes from the Hebrew word meaning "God has answered," signifying her future role as wife to Michael when he pleaded for a partner. Vasquez is Spanish for "Shepherd," signifying her other role as one of God's shepherds in her position in the Sons of Light.

When she was still quite young, she was caught up in a demonic incident that merged her body with that of an owl. Before Satan could make much use of his newly created Harpy, she was captured and taken to a Father Andrea Colombrino, who exorcised the demon within her, but her bodily form was irreversible. She lived a life of secrecy, hiding her wings from public view until she was guided to joining the Sons of Light. It was only then that she could finally feel free and be herself once again.

This is also the first image I have rendered with the official Sons of Light uniform. The model for the face was based on Hispanic actress Catalina Sandino Moreno.

Wisconsin

2009-09-08T12:26:00.008-04:00

So I finally completed my contribution to Ken Krekeler's graphic novel "Wisconsin," based off a short story that he wrote and won an award for. We agreed that the comic would be done in Ken's artistic style and that flashback and fantasy scenes would be done in my style. In order to speed the process up, after I finished the black and white, Ken took up the coloring of the frames. He was more suited to doing it anyways because he used to it and was able to finish all the coloring in a couple of days. Surprisingly, I was able to quickly adapt to Ken's comic book style fairly quickly and found the experience a good lesson. However, I have decided that I'm not really interested in continuing in the comic book genre. It is possible I may do a bit more in the future, but unlikely, mostly due to just how many pages must be completed quickly and efficiently. I find it more in my range to focus on fewer pieces at once and make each one a masterpiece.

Here is what I completed and sent off to Ken. He colored the remaining frames (looking similar in style to the first page) and added in the dialogue. If you want to see it completed, you can review and purchase a copy here.

San Diego Comic Con 2009

2009-07-30T02:39:00.002-04:00

So it's been quite a while since I've posted, which is because I seem to have a way of distracting myself from doing one task by attempting to do a million others. Of course, I like to keep myself busy and productive, as I find sitting around doing nothing very depressing and pointless. So, although I've been getting pretty far with the 3D Enterprise, I suddenly decided to take a break from that and see if I couldn't make something of my own design. I began experimenting by creating a quick model of my Locust-class aircraft and a mechanical entity from The Lord's Legacy. Both of those only were started and put on hold until I finished some other things, like a comic I am working on for a friend and job searching.

But something else also came in the middle of all this, which I had been planning for some time. Last Wednesday, I left with my sister and her boyfriend to San Diego, California to attend the internationally famous Comic Con there. I was not prepared at all for the sheer scale of this event and unfortunately, I was only able to acquire tickets for two of the four days. Amidst the confusion, however, I made my way over to the fantasy artist section and was pleased to find some artwork I could relate to (unlike most of the comic-related stuff).

The first one I managed to talk to was Jerry Vanderstelt, known for his unbelievably detailed and realistic Lord of the Rings prints that have been used in all sorts of posters and merchandise. I honestly could not believe that these things were all done in paint on a canvas. They all looked like production-quality movie photos and stills arranged seamlessly in character montages. He was quite happy to look at my portfolio, even though he said he wasn't particularly familiar with digital mediums. He was very kind and offered lots of advice, telling me about his process.

I walked only a few feet before a nearly passed out upon seeing a nearby booth. It was Todd Lockwood, whose artwork I had been idolizing for the past year. His artwork is very well known in the fantasy genre in the Dungeons & Dragons handbooks and merchandise as well as Magic: The Gathering and many others. I was almost afraid to speak to him because I had such respect for his art and I felt like mine was like the filth under his shoe. Nonetheless, I nervously asked him if he would look at my stuff and give me some pointers. He was a bit more scrutinizing than Mr. Vanderstelt, pointing out things that I hadn't even considered before. He also immediately knew that I had used Poser for some of my figure reference and told me I should throw the program away and hire models. His favorite piece of mine was the Wrath of the Valar, since it seemed to have an excellent composition, had action, and a focal point.

On Sunday, I was lucky enough to arrive at the portfolio review tables just as soon as the woman from Wizards of the Coast was coming by to pick up the pile of dropped-off portfolios. She sat down with me and discussed my work for about fifteen minutes, where I recieved even more insight that was new to me. She suggested that I look into gaining a better understanding of various textures and apply them to my work. She also pointed out things about how certain things in my pieces made them look flat and uninteresting.

When I left that day, I realized that after all that was said, all three of these professionals agreed on one thing: "whatever you did on this dragon piece... keep doing it." My dragon piece, entitled Etherion the Dragon Slayer, was unique amongst my portfolio as being one of the very few to include linework. All my other ones have focused on simply rendering while avoiding line to attempt to recreate realism. However, now I see that the line, even if just very faint, in aesthetically pleasing to the eye and I feel it is necessary for my future art to possess this. I am now inspired by this information revealed to me and am starting to get excited about possible new drawings, since I have not done one in quite some time.

Oh, and on a side note, I saw David Tennant from Doctor Who there!

More Nacelles

2009-06-21T10:55:00.011-04:00

I'm extremely pleased with the way the nacelles are looking. My learning of Maya seems to finally be showing and I'm getting a bit fast at working with it. I've had to do some major reshaping in order to get those dark blue strips on the sides (aka the Power-state Magnatomic Flux Chillers... try saying that five times as fast). On those flux chiller things, I've used my first bump map to make the ridges stick out just enough to be noticeable from close up. You can see this in the two second pictures.

Right now I'm trying to find accurate reference pictures that clearly show where the self-illuminating lights are located on the hull. As you can see, there are areas on the saucer section that project light onto the hull surface, which illuminates certain areas, usually any place on the hull where the ship's name and registration code (USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A) is written. I have several reference pictures already, some are screen shots from the movies and others are other 3D models people have made, but there are some general inconsistancies between them all, including the placement of these lights. Eventually I will make sure these lights are in the right place and will add the text and logos to the hull, which will definitely help the appearance.

Getting the hang of the Nacelles

2009-06-18T20:46:00.005-04:00

I think I'm starting to figure out how those nacelles work. I found a website where a couple of model makers acquired a rare gigantic build-it-yourself model of the Enterprise A, measuring about 3 feet, 10 inches long! They did a lot more than just build it. They cut out all the little windows and anything that illuminated or projected light and filled the inside with electronics.

They even made a miniature forested garden for the arboretum (seen through the large windows in the engineering section). Anyways, from looking at the images they posted of their incredibly detailed model, I've been able to figure out a lot of problems that simply using blueprints won't help you with.

Continuing on the Enterprise A

2009-06-08T15:57:00.007-04:00

I'm still learning how to use Maya and creating a replica of the Enterprise featured in the first 6 Star Trek films as hands-on experience. Someone with some experience in 3D modeling could probably make this thing in a few days, but I am just beginning to grasp major concepts. Since the last post, I've greatly improved the saucer section, adding details to the bridge and navigational dome, and putting in the self-illuminating lights on the hull. I've also changed the awkwardly-made connecting dorsel and put in the basic shape of the torpedo bay. The nacelles, however, still look quite daunting of a task...

Working with Maya

2009-06-03T18:24:00.003-04:00

This is one of my first attempts at getting the hang of Autodesk Maya 2009. I've been learning the techniques of the program off and on since December using Lynda.com.

Ever since the new Star Trek movie came out, my brain went all nostalgic and I ended up watching most the older movies. Then my mind went all crazy and I downloaded the soundtracks to all the movies and then started working on making the Enterprise A in Maya. I actually made another one before this using polygons, but it was getting pretty messy in places, so I started again with NURBS and used actual blueprints of the ship to get the dimensions right.

This is far from finished, but even at this stage, it has proven to be a tough project. I'm just now getting around to do some lighting effects and rendering, and will soon be adding textures to areas. Most of the basic hull is there, just a lot of detail stuff and figuring out those darn nacelles.

Detroit Zoo Poster Competition

2009-05-21T15:16:00.005-04:00

This is my submission to a competition that was offered by the Detroit Zoo through my school. They were calling for artists with a variety of styles to create a poster. These were then voted on by a committee and one was chosen to become the permanent poster that represented the zoo as a whole.

Unfortunately, mine was not even amongst the top 10, even though most people in my class were pretty sure I would win best of show. I was somewhat disappointed with the result of the judging, not just because I killed myself for a week trying to get it done in time, but because there were some amazing pieces that seemed to be completely disregarded. In addition, I did not agree at all with their choice for best of show. There were, however, many pieces in the first through tenth place winners that I very much appreciated. I guess they were not going for realistic and instead were favoring the whimsical.

All submitted posters are now on display all summer at the Detroit Zoo on the 2nd floor of the Ford Education Center (located behind the Wild Adventure Ride).

Final Project in Environments & Characters

2009-05-20T21:07:00.005-04:00

As you may have seen from my website, I have several new pieces of art that I have not spoken about as of yet. For the final project in my Environments & Characters class in Animation, we were to invent a story and describe it briefly in sections, such as basic plot, character info, style, intended audience, possible competition, etc. Then we were to draw out a main character in front and back view, a dynamic 3-quarter view, 3 expressions, as well as a relaxed/dynamic pose of a secondary character. Then we were also instructed to create an environment in which at least part of the story takes place.

I decided to make a return to my novel, The Lord's Legacy©, but this time focusing more on the events that occurred around 500 AD. I entitled this "prequel" to my story In Satan's Impatience, since it deals with the devil attempting to bring about the apocalypse much earlier than God intended by introducing pieces to the prophecy, namely the Antichrist and False Prophet. Priests discovered a newborn infant in Wales that was born of a woman and an incubus (type of demon), whom they were able to baptize before any harm could be done. This washed away the inherent demonic evil found in the child, yet preserved unnatural abilities. This child grew up to be called Merlin, and he would find a path with God fighting back against the forces that made him the way he was.

Much later in life, Merlin would encounter a horribly disfigured woman named Viviane, the victim of a demonic fusion mutation which combined her body with that of a snake. The demon that did the act was in control of her actions. The demon's mission: stop Merlin from hindering the demons at any cost. Merlin managed to free Viviane from the demon's possession and protected her from angry mobs of witch-hunting villagers. Eventually, Viviane found her powers and God-given path as well and became known as the Lady of the Lake, forging a holy blade for the leader God promised to send to defend the Church in the apocalypse.

1st of these images is the secondary character, Merlin (aka Ambrosius Aurelianus).
2nd is Viviane's character study, including three expressions: happy, mourning, and possessed.
3rd is Viviane's action pose, holding the newly-forged Excalibur.
4th is the island on which Viviane hid from the rest of the world who believed her to use witchcraft. On the island is a house, a boat to bring in supplies, and a smithy to forge holy weapons and armor.

Graphic Novel

2009-05-18T13:38:00.009-04:00

During my spring break (the week of March 8th - 14th), my professor Dave Chow suggested my name to a friend of his, Terry McCarthy. Terry, a published author, had been looking for someone to illustrate a graphic novel for him and Dave immediately thought of me because of the ancient Greek subject matter. I met up with Terry, we discussed things over, and eventually decided on how we would proceed.

The project was this: create a sample package of the graphic novel to send out to about 10 comic book companies, including Marvel, Dark Horse, etc. The standard for doing so is the first 5 pages in just line or black and white, as well as a colored front cover. Also included in the package was a sample of the full story written in novel format with a cover letter, résumés, and a copy of Terry's last book, The Sword of Hannibal. It took me a while to get it all figured out and completed with school still going on, but as of the end of April, I had everything done, printed, and Terry mailed them out. Now it's just a matter of waiting to see which company will offer to publish it.

Here are the pages I did. The story is called Barkane: The Wrath of Alexander the Great. The last page is in color because Terry wanted to send at least one sample of what a colored page would look like. Also, thanks again to Stephan Egei for posing for each frame.

Since last time to Graduation

2009-05-16T14:46:00.005-04:00

It's been quite some time since I've updated because I have been concentrating on finishing up my senior year, working on a graphic novel, and finally graduating. At last these are finally complete and I can now return my attention to such things as this blog.

A few things have come up in the past few months that I will speak more about in other posts. I graduated from CCS on Thursday and put up my senior wall for the Student Exhibition. I was able to fit 14 pieces on the wall as well as a tray for business cards. To the right, you can see me presenting my wall space with my shiny black suit and shirt.

For those of you reading this blog that have not seen some of the pieces here yet, I will bring you up to date in future posts.

Also, in the past semester I have made a new website for myself. It contains most of my best artwork, though I still need to update it to include several newer pieces. Check it out at www.matthewleese.com

Occupation / 4 Styles

2009-02-20T21:08:00.003-05:00

This is an assignment I did for my Environments & Characters class. The point was to create a character with an obvious occupation using visual cues and then duplicate the character using 3 other styles. I immediately knew I wanted to use the styles of some of my fellow illustration department friends, so i picked the two quite recognizable styles of Sean Mack and Wesley Eggebrecht. I also had a strange hankering to use the style used in Zelda: The Wind Waker, which employed simple cell-shaded figures (this is the outlined version that appeared on the box covers and instruction booklets). It was fun to do and made me realize how easily I could replicate another style if I ever needed to, like if I was working in a group project.

Assignment 4 - Escape

2009-01-07T02:10:00.000-05:00

The word was "escape," which is pretty vague and leaves a lot up to the imagination. However, in my discovery of the amazing new tools available to me in Photoshop CS4, including page rotation and even 3D object creation and manipulation, I decided to play with it for a bit. I created a 3D pyramid with texture rather quickly and plopped a background image behind it. With a little bit of tweaking, it looked somewhat convincing, so I decided to just take what I had and adapt it to the "escape" theme. I took advantage of the footprints in the sand and placed in an undead pharaoh who has apparently escaped from his colossal tomb. In the future I will actually try to achieve dramatic angles and contrast, but this was little more than a couple hours spent experimenting.

Assignment 3 - Manatee/Hat

2008-12-23T20:35:00.000-05:00

This assignment, randomly selected through pointing blindly at a page full of words, was "Manatee," but to give it some extra flair, we added "Hat" as well. Here he is... apparently he got hit by a motorboat or something and decided to replace his fin with a hook and take up being a pirate.

Weekly Assignments 1 & 2

2008-12-16T23:31:00.000-05:00

These are the first couple of assignments that me and a few others have chosen to do every week based on a theme. Unless otherwise specified, these can be done in any medium and style. The first week's theme was "keymaster," so I created a creepy character using a quality of linework that I generally don't use. Technically the second week's was "robot thanksgiving" but no one ended up doing it, so it was skipped. The next one was "nightmare," so I recreated a scene from a reoccurring nightmare I used to have about a scary museum filled with evil, sort of first-person-shooter video game style. Every time, it ended with me reaching the "boss" of the museum, which happened to be a sorcerous mummy that emerged from its sarcophagus and always killed me.

End of Senior Studio A

2008-12-10T21:53:00.000-05:00

Forgive me for not posting things in here throughout the semester. I have been doing a lot of things recently and there has been a lot of other things on my mind and personal life. However, now I have gotten to the last week of Senior Studio A and fixed up each of my Silmarillion pieces. So if you click on the digital button on the right, you can see how that time has paid off. Unfortunately, with my mind a blur and some complex situations occurring in the last two pieces, I have only completed four renderings this semester. It is somewhat disappointing because if I had followed the flow of the class, I should have seven by now. But alas, I can only hope to do better next semester for Senior Studio B.

Over Christmas break I intend to keep myself artistically busy. My girlfriend Rachael and I intend to keep each other on track by giving ourselves weekly assignments which we will show each other for critique. That stuff will probably make its way here as well as some ideas for next semester's projects. I should also start figuring out what I want to do with my website that will be required of me in Image Making III. I'm thinking about using the title "Art of Optivus" as my artist brand name, though I'm still debating whether that might categorize me even more than my subject matter does.

Speaking about websites, check out Rachael's awesome new website!

Senior Studio Project

2008-09-21T22:29:00.001-04:00

I'm so excited about beginning this class. It will be a lot of work, but I think I am starting to really grasp the style I can use to get my work out there.

For my project in Senior Studio, I will be illustrating scenes from Tolkien's novel, The Silmarillion, which takes place thousands of years before the events of The Lord of the Rings. Honestly, I wanted to continue to do artwork for my own book, but the teacher suggested I aim for something known and classic. Since I decided I want to gear my work toward fantasy genre books, movies, video games, role playing games, and packaging (namely for companies like Wizards of the Coast), I wanted to start molding my style toward those artists. It's all very intimidating, but hopefully I will finally whip myself into shape this year.

This piece is the epic battle between Fingolfin, High king of the Noldor Elves, and the Great Enemy Morgoth, to whom even Sauron was but a lieutenant. Morgoth stole the precious Silmaril jewels from the house of Fëanor and set them in his iron crown. Many years later, Fingolfin set out to the gates of Angband and challenged the dark lord to single combat. Morgoth attemped to crush his foe with Grond, hammer of the underworld, but ended up cracking holes in the earth, from which fire and lava erupted.

Facebook Graffiti

2008-08-21T22:02:00.001-04:00

Ok, so maybe I still haven't been all that active artistically, but I did find that I like the Graffiti application in Facebook. First, it limits me in a lot of ways because I can't zoom in, I have no layer options, and no color picker. That means it makes me take less time on things that normally I'd spend forever picking and prodding until 3 days go by and I get bored with it. Also, it's a lot like painting because every color needs to be individually selected and used with opacities to get the desired tone. So here are the ones I did, the first I did long ago and the next two I did just now.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

The Joker (The Dark Knight)

The Doctor (Doctor Who)

Random sketch, hopefully the start of many

2008-08-06T02:33:00.000-04:00

This isn't anything special, but seeing as how I don't sketch at all, it's an improvement. I need to keep myself on some sort of a schedule if I'm going to consistently practice my drawing. After finishing things that I have to do, I seem to have a short period of mind rest and then enthusiasm to do something I want to do. So since I'm finally done with that children's book, my mind and time have been freed up and I will now try to throw some ideas out there.

I seem to like creature drawing since I get the chance to make up some anatomy and can do pretty much anything with any level of detail. This is pretty mild compared to how far I would generally go with anything I start. Bear with me as I use this blog as my art scheduler and motivation.

Blue and Spaghetti completed

2008-07-31T20:05:00.000-04:00

Well here's what I've doing art-wise for the last couple months. Sadly, I'm so used to the 3-week deadlines for one piece of art that I still take about that long to complete something. These are illustrations for a children's book written by a friend of a friend for a class project. The author had a brochure of children you can sponsor in Nicaragua, noticed one boy named José, and decided to write a Christian-based book with him in it. She wrote it out in a blank-paged book and drew her own pictures. Although it was initially just going to be for the class, she was told that it was good enough to be published, so she inquired of her friends for a decent artist willing to help.

The title "Blue and Spaghetti" refers to things that José mentions that he likes in the story. It's basically José being told a story at the orphanage about how much God loves him. Miss Ann makes analogies like "you are a treasure to Him" (pirates) and "He even has the number of grains of sand on the shore counted." At the end he falls asleep and imagines himself grown up as a firefighter, telling his own child about God.

Story copyrighted by Ana Tindall

Something old

2008-07-13T21:00:00.000-04:00

I'm still working on some other stuff right now, but as soon as they are done, I'll post them in full here. In the meantime, I'll scrounge around on my computer for some other completed stuff and maybe I'll do a few idea sketches, which I really need to do. Anyway, in case you haven't guessed already, I'm a big Zelda geek. I did a marker drawing a while back, maybe like 8 years ago, of the final battle between Link and Ganon in Ocarina of Time. At the time, I thought it was pretty sweet, then time went by and I began to laugh at how bad it was. So I revisited the game, found screen shots online, got much more detailed with the scene, and posed the figures much differently. This drawing is about 3 or 4 years old, and now as I look at it, I'm filled with a desire to remake it once more, this time digitally. I may or may not bother. Time will tell.

Caricatures from an amazingly brilliant comedy show

2008-07-11T23:11:00.000-04:00

I have been a fan of a few sitcoms on television, especially The Office. However, not even that comes close to the sheer greatness of Arrested Development. It features a perfectly chosen cast, very witty humor, and some of the best quotes I've ever heard. If you have not seen it, for your own sake watch it all. Some time ago I started doing caricatures of some of the main characters. Here is George Bluth, Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor) and eldest son Gob (Will Arnett).

Trying to adjust my style

2008-07-10T20:27:00.000-04:00

For most artists, there comes a point where they have purposely or inadvertently created an identifiable style to their work. I, however, do not feel as though I have reached this point yet. Yes, I can see similarities in my art, but I wouldn't call it "my style." However, if this is indeed the same style that will continue for years to come, then I am a bit worried. I have some things I still really need to work out. I would love to have multiple styles that I can switch between when called for.

This is an example of what I mean. This is one of my last drawings from the 2008 spring semester. First of all, I chose a very complicated scene from my novel The Lord's Legacy, in which the heroine shows the world that she has wings for the first time and uses them to dispatch the attacking Sons of Darkness. It took me a while to get the right camera view and then struggled to get some sense of perspective. However, I used no photographic reference for this, other than the basic layout of the V22 Osprey (which I altered).

So while my one teacher praised the piece for my use of composition and light, I had harsh criticism from another at my end of the year review. He saw right through me and told me just what I had dreaded. He told me that I am not ready to make up figures yet and when I do, it looks very fake and rigid, my perspective was off, and my drapery folds weren't right. But the part that got to me was that it was obvious that I desperately tried to cover all that up with details, as in most of my work. And it was all true, though no one had ever told me that before. So, that did get me thinking and planning out what I needed to do.

Making Snuffy come to life

2008-07-09T19:59:00.000-04:00

As you may have seen in my digital art slide show, I made a character called Super Chicken. But every superhero has an evil to fight, and this evil is the race of aardvark-like Snuffies. Yes, sounds very goofy, but when I first came up with the whole thing years ago it was meant to be cute and goofy. So, just like Super Chicken, I revamped a Snuffy to more Marvel-like stature, rather than the innocent, round-bellied original. I do like both versions, though the former looked like something out of Banjo-Kazooie and this one is like a long-nosed werewolf.

Anyway, the assignment was to create a villain, pose it in the act of doing something mischievous, then cut it out (pasting it to foam-core for support). I posed the Snuffy so that he would be in the display window releasing an airborne toxin out of a phial while holding his nose. So, I assumed it wouldn't be that hard to cut out, so I left lots of crazy hair sticking out. I was wrong, and it took about 3 hours of careful work to remove the excess. Twas a fun project, though.

Here are links to the ones some of my classmates did. We had them all over the hallway.
Anthony Baez-Sanchez 1, 2, 3
Matt Byle
Wesley Eggebrecht
Ryan Gitter
Sean Mack
Jon Piggott 1, 2
Sherrie Savage

The Crypt Sentinel Graphic Novel

2008-07-08T17:17:00.000-04:00

I had a class called Sequential Storytelling that I wasn't too thrilled about. In the end, I really didn't learn a whole lot from the teacher and I felt like I was cheating my way through it by basically drawing over photographs. That's what he wanted though, so here was my final project. I took out the intro page with the explanation of the story and the next two pages after that because they were unnecessary for the story.

This is a segment that I just randomly added to the Lord's Legacy story, simply because the assignment did not allow me much freedom. I could not change the background or clothing, so I just decided to do what I could with what I had. I took these photos while in a cemetery up on a hill and I think that worked out quite nicely. After that, I took the photos into Adobe Flash and used its unique brush tool to ink the lines. Using the photos as a guide for pretty much everything, I did completely create the skeletal phantom from bone reference and placed it to fit the photographed figure. Once the lines were done, I colored them all in Photoshop and placed the inking on top on Multiply. Simple, but this also took way too long. The teacher also suggested using burn and dodge for shadows and highlights, but I generally disliked this look, as the skin tones especially look off.

Thanks to my sister Lauren, and my friends Stephan Egei and Chris Kulczyk.

Duplex - better use of Z-Brush

2008-07-07T20:30:00.000-04:00

Just one more post on this subject of Z-Brush. For an assignment, we were expected to invent a Marvel superhero and then complete a final piece using the Marvel style. I realized that most superheroes are mutations of some sort, but never a mutation anyone has ever seen before. So I thought: "hey, what about conjoined twins? That actually happens in nature." So these are my conjoined-twin superheroes, which together I named Duplex. Each figure wields double-sided weapons to even further exaggerate their double-sided-ness.

Anyway, I had a hard time figuring out where all the limbs would go so they would all work compositionally and perspectively, especially with the weapons. So I made a muscular male model, copied him, reversed him, then posed each one. After coloring them, I took a screenshot and then used the airbrush in Corel Painter X to get the ink lines down. I had to fix a few things here and there, but overall, it is mostly line over the screenshot. This worked out pretty well, though took way too long, once again. So unless I was going to make an entire comic book using these guys, it probably wouldn't be worth the hassle.

Example of what not to do

2008-07-06T18:31:00.000-04:00

As I explained in the last post, I was using Z-Brush for posing, lighting, and perspective issues. This may sound like a good plan, but there are many problems around it. First, making a realistic human model in Z-Brush is extremely difficult. If you think drawing one is hard, try making a 3D replica of a human, including all bone, muscle, and tendon protrusions. Not only that, but unless you've actually gone into the model with a complete skeletal and muscle structure with rules on what bends, twists, and stretches, then when you go to pose a model's limb, its like bending a straw. It's just plain fake looking. Of course you can go back and make it look right, but that also takes time and unless you know exactly what you are doing, the model is bound to have mistakes that will be apparent in the final piece.

So, for this Film Noir piece, I was struck with the problem of the lighting and the model. I had no one to pose for it, so I decided to try using a pre-made female Z-Brush model. I did my best to pose the figure in an elegant way, then adjusted the lighting for a dramatic effect. It didn't look too bad, however, I got lazy and just brushed over the actual model. I did a similar process for the man's face. However, without actual photo reference for faces, figures, or clothing at those angles, the people appear stiff and made the piece feel... well strained, if you will. I do like the setting I placed them in, including the spiral staircase. It does have a 3D quality to it, for being done in Photoshop, and the perspective of straight lines is not as effected by the "strained" look of the figures. In the end, I spent way too long on it and the strives I tried taking were not worth it in the end.

Z-Brush

2008-07-05T20:22:00.000-04:00

Around December I started playing around with some 3D modeling software, specifically Z-Brush 3. It's quite a hands-on program, allowing you to virtually sculpt as opposed to clicking and editing complicated polygon meshes. I started just playing around with the demo head and ended up with this:

It's a relatively simple thing to get simple objects made, but trying to merge multiple objects or pose the figure is quite frustrating. I wasn't going to really go too far into the 3D realm, just use it for lighting and perspective reference. I have tried to incorporate it into some of my other work, but the figures look stiff and fake nonetheless, so I don't think I will be using figure references directly from that program. It is nice, for faces and stuff however, not so much with hair, as you can see.

I was contemplating going a lot further with 3D after seeing how fun it could be and how good it could look. I started looking into other programs that would fill in the gaps, like Maya, Poser, and Vue. I may yet try them out, but without classes or instructional videos, that would be hard. I think I must simply try to overcome my own problems with anatomy and perspective through rigorous sketching sessions. I can't expect myself to just magically get better without practice.

Video game actors

2008-07-04T22:37:00.000-04:00

I have been a pretty big fan of a few video games, particularly some Nintendo products, seeing as how I've only owned Nintendo systems. By far it is led by the Legend of Zelda series, of which I began with Ocarina of Time. I knew after beating it the first time that I wanted to see a movie rendition of it. As time goes on, I continue to watch movies and look carefully for actors who I believe could accurately portray a character. I have gone to entire forums devoted to this subject and found that some of my ideas are shared by others.

I cannot recall whether I found it somewhere or decided for myself, but Arnold Vosloo, known as Imhotep from The Mummy, shares many facial similarities to Ganondorf of Ocarina of Time. Just to prove it to myself, I took a photo of Mr. Vosloo and edited it considerably in Photoshop, coming out with this:

I think that with minimal prosthetics to his face, he would make a very convincing King of Evil. Also with his performance in The Mummy, I think he could pull off the acting bit as well. Another good suggestion was Javier Bardem, whose smile here convinced me, though more like the Twilight Princess Ganondorf.

The parts for Link and Zelda have always eluded me though. I am a perfectionist and would not stand for anything less than perfect casting for such a film.

For Link, my best find look-wise was Riley Smith, who I had seen in a season of 24. Here are some photos 1, 2, 3, 4.

Suggestions I've seen for Zelda include Alison Lohman, Ellen Page, and Natalie Portman, though I think I'd stay away from big stars.

For other games, I always thought Nathan Lane would make an awesome Mario, and Ali Larter would be a good Samus. Any thoughts? Or am I just crazy and think about such things too much?

Those salty dogs...

2008-07-03T20:45:00.000-04:00

So if you know me personally, you've probably already seen most of the stuff I'm going to be posting for a little bit until I start getting some new stuff in. I've been helping with renovations at my late-grandma's house this summer, as well as a lot of other things I was trying to get to but couldn't due to school. One art job I am doing, however, is for a friend of a friend who is writing a children's book and I'm doing the illustrations in a sort of "Polar Express" style (the book, not creepy CGI movie). I'll be posting those as soon as I'm done with them.

In the meantime, here is a character sheet based off my dog, Lucky. Yes, he really is that fat, if not more so.

New Website

2008-07-02T23:23:00.000-04:00

Hey all, this is now my new website for displaying my artwork since they decided to raise the price on domain names. Although www.mattleese.com is no more, I may eventually get it back again once I get a stable and organized website format figured out. Until then, I'll be using this simple blog which is really nifty for updating quickly and easily. I also upload all my images to Flickr and have links to slide shows of my best work. Other stuff that I don't think is portfolio-worthy for one reason or another will only be posted within the blog.

This guy here, although fun to make, was easily outdone by the Witch-king costume I made later. He's a captain of the Bando Gora, a crazed, death-stick-dealing cult from Star Wars: Bounty Hunter. I was kinda feeling crazy when I made it. It hurts a little when I wear it and there are blue Christmas lights in the corners of each eye. They burn the face a bit when they are turned on, but hey, it was worth it that Halloween, as I got a lot of good reactions from people.

Anyway, I'm going to start posting things here more often than I do other places. Setting up a good website in Dreamweaver on my crappy computer that is always on the verge of self-destructing again is just getting old. I'm looking forward to this blog and I will hopefully show here that I'm not just sitting around.