About Me

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Santa Clarita, California, United States
Jonathan Payne is a freelance artist residing in Santa Clarita, California. His sculptures and paintings focus primarily on creature and character design . He has studied under Jordu Schell (Men In Black, Edward Scissorhands, Avatar), concept sculptor Simon Lee and fine art sculptor John Brown. He prefers to sculpt in oil, polymer and WED clays. Recently he has become consumed with creating an original line of tumorous balls of flesh known as the Fleshlettes. In addition to his macabre "babies" he also enjoys composing fine art sculptures depicting both wildlife and the human form. Jonathan is available for hire as a freelance artist and for individual commissions.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Codger sketch




More practice w/ Mudbox 2010.


Thursday, October 29, 2009

Oct Mudbox Sketch 1



I'm taking Mudbox out for another spin. Much nicer interface than Zbrush but far fewer features.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Walk Cycle-Elderly man waving to neighbors

Walk cycle project from class. I imagine my character as an elderly gentlemen with a bad left knee. He's walking out to check the mail and waving at his neighbor.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

First Polygon Modeling Assignment


We modeled an airplane with simple extrusions and smoothing.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Monday, September 21, 2009

WIP: Young Maasai woman w/ long hair




Here is my next work in progress sculpture: A young Maasai woman w/ long hair.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Bouncing Ball in Maya

Just like in 2D animation we started with a bouncing ball in my Maya class.

Squash and stretch included.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Huggus Paper Sculpture Prototype: A ways to go


1st try on b&w paper. Needs a bit of work to define the form and figure out the transparency folding etc.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

A portrait of Fleck




This was done as a portrait of a family friend's dog named Fleck. I was given 4 photos of Fleck as a reference (she has passed away) and asked to reproduce her pose from one picture specifically. Super Sculpey and acrylics.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Huggo out the window





The photoshop version of this paper cut-out picture I want to make for Huggo the Hippo.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Audrey



My first paintstop painting. I'm just learning the ropes in this new painting plug-in from Pixologic.

Monday, August 03, 2009

Photoshop class final project: HUGUS



The assignment was to reproduce a real movie poster of a recent or current movie using at least 4 layers, adjustment layers, masks and at least 4 text layers. Must include a simulation of both the visuals and font as well as the full credits (but with your own names, made up names etc.).

I picked one of my absolute favorite posters from Julie Taymour's version of Titus w/ Anthony Hopkins. Once that decision was made it was clear looking at Mr. Hopkin's face that it had to be changed to a bull dog...and I happen to have one in my family.

Hugo and Lacie helped with the source picture and then add another 7-10 hours of minor photoshop tweaks and hand painting the blue paint onto Hugo's face and you get this image.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Snacking Bear COLORS! sketch


I painted this in bed while watching Kung Fu Panda last night. Definitely getting better in colors as I'm learning more about painting.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Cannon Beach


From my memory, imagination and with a little photo reference to try and nail how the light works on the clouds (but not copied from a photo).

Edit: This is my 100th post and I can't think of a better painting to celebrate with :)

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

2nd movie poster


Huggo Movie poster. This is intentionally a little cheesy. I am trying to make this feel a little magical and not from the eyes of a jaded young adult.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Artifice WIP


Here is the new version of the recent "Artifice" WIP painting. The earlier sketch had too many little distracting details so I am focusing first on pairing everything down to basic forms. So far it's not too pleasing to look at but I feel like it's a good step in the right direction.

Painting from life: Out the front window

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Updated: Huggo the Hippo


Here is the final Huggo painting (pending any minor tweaks) as his eyes look a little too intense. While painting I've fallen in love with the idea of giving him two tone irises. My biggest challenge in this revision was to make him more crisp and readable as well as to make the lighting feel more real and make more sense.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Friday, July 03, 2009

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Firehole Lake




This painting is my present to Dad for Father's Day. He has always preferred artwork and I'm happy to make it for him. This is a memory of one of our happiest places on earth. Photoshop CS&7. 4-5 hours.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Animation 101

Dog landing: Create a short animation of a dog entering screen from the right, landing, sliding and stretching/squashing. Create key poses w/ follow through on the ears and tail.

Badgers: Lip sync assignment. Create original character and key poses from provided soundclip. Lip sync from 5 different basic mouth shapes.

Beat Assignment: This is the final project in my Animation 19A class. The project was that we had to pick a song with a strong beat and then create two different animation cycles that sync with the beat. I used this as an oppurtunity to do a little development on an idea i had for a music video for my favorite White Stripes song "Prickly Thorn but Sweetly Worn". I plan to keep impoving the animation on my own time and adding to it.





Friday, May 29, 2009

FILM: Why i got back into photography











Film is still the best when it comes to absolute image quality. Film more closely recreates the way our eye and brain 'sees' a bright area that is glowing with light (highlight areas) and can still capture a wider contrast range at a far lower cost and do it in a way that is more pleasing to the eye than with digital cameras as they function now. I believe that digital cameras will eventually change and come up with their equivalent look and functionality but as for right now the way digital sensors currently operate and the way their software is currently designed to function doesn't recreate this look of a broad range of natural looking graduations and deep colors without having both ultra bleeding edge, incredibly complex and expensive (and often fragile) technology and construction.

>If you like taking photos of places/landscapes or people in natural, widely varying lighting situations and high quality is more important than high quantity, then film is your best bet. Another advantage isn't really the film itself as much as how the process of taking a picture is changed when you can't get instant feedback. This change of workflow forces you to preconceive the image and when trying to become both a competent photographer and artist, being able to conceive of and plan your work in your imagination is possibly the most valuable skill you can have. A perfect example of this is Dale Chihuly the glass sculptor. He cannot work the glass himself anymore due to his shoulder injuries but because he can conceive the sculptures and work with assistants to create them.

>If fast paced, high quantity, controlled lighting, commercial photography is your business, then a move to digital makes sense where you have to turn around work ultra fast, you can control the environment and the client can influence the overall look of your work (and you're getting paid enough to play 'keep-up' with technology).

Even if you are a commercial photographer and fall into the latter category I think it's best to keep film in the picture by using it in your personal work at least to experiment if nothing else.

These are my photographs that I create for fun and to serve as documents of aspects of my life. I don't claim them to be great works of art and certainly I don't think of my photography to be a serious pursuit such as my drawing and sculpting but they serve as creative source of fun and to further my other artistic skills (allowing me to practice, framing/cinematography, helping to hone my painting and sculpting eye). This type of photography never was satisfying for me until I rediscovered film.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

If you give a TamanVark a cookie...



...it will ask to eat your brains....

Saturday, April 11, 2009

WIP - Tunnel Mouth



This is an original creature that has sat on the shelf since finishing Jordu Schell's class in Fall 08. I really need to finish it.

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Wrapped




Here is one of my newest sculptures. It's a mini-bust that is sort of in eternal WIP. I really like it though so i should finish it.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Inspirational poster



My inspirational poster for "dinosaurs f'ing robots" was featured in Gizmodo.com!!!!

Look!!!: http://i.gizmodo.com/5155968/what-the-internet-hath-wrought-dinosaursfkingrobotscom

Friday, February 06, 2009

"Soaked" mini-bust






This is a sculpture that started out as the long nose head study and became this rain-soaked character huddling under plastic. This bust is approx 7 in tall and made of victory wax, some short lengths of steel plumbers piping and a plastic bag. He is meant to look as if his hair is wet and he has sculpted water drops collecting under his right ear lobe, his nose and his chin although they are hard to see in the photos. I got the idea for the plastic bag after setting him down on a leftover bag that my film came in from the photolab. It matched the wax perfectly! There is also a major overhaul (hard to see in the pictures) to the proportions of his head. the Original head (seen in the long nose w/ scar photos below) was too short and too thin around the temples. His head is now lengthed and widened appropriately. He still is one of those people that appears to be 'all face'. I feel like there is a strange similarity to Napoleon Bonaparte actually (just with less fat and a massive scar).