Sunday, September 26, 2010

Site Launch

I finished up my site and launched it yesterday. The site hosts my art portfolio as well as a collection of other work I have been involved with. It's still a bit clunky right now, but a friend is going to help me optimize it so that it can run smoothly and fast. It should be running at 100% in the next week or so, but the basic site is up and can be viewed at www.mattmuzzy.com

Now that I have my site up, I can continue work on my portfolio. I hope to have a lot more props and characters done in the following months (unless I can land work on a particular comic book). With a new site, I have new confidence to work on building my gallery. Within a year I should have a real solid portfolio and hopefully be able to land a job at an actual studio. Here's to hoping! But in all honesty, I have confidence in myself. My skills can only get better from here.

In the meantime, I will be holding a launch party for my new site this Tuesday night at the WRDL radio station at Ashland University. I'm probably not suppose to ask a lot of people to come because it's not my studio and I don't want to get the person working there in trouble, but then again, I don't believe a lot of people read this blog anyway so what the hell? There will be pizza as well as Ricky from The Ricky Stewart Show. He will be signing autographs for anyone who would actually want one. He'll also probably try to sell you all his new line of health products, so watch out for that as well.

If you are in the Ashland, Ohio area, tune in to 88.9 WRDL on Tuesday night from 8 to midnight and you can hear my friend DJ Eu, as well as John Gees every week. Ricky and I are usually there as well and this Tuesday will be the site launch extravaganza.

This site should start a new period in my art career, so I invite everyone to check back for new work. I'll keep this blog up to date with what's happening even if it's only to keep track of everything for my own benefit.

-Matt

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Site revamp

I'm getting more excited the more I work on my new web site design. The current one I created in the midst of vast amounts of portfolio work I had to contend with during my senior year. Now that I have that giant load off my shoulders, I am able to sit back and clean the site up a bit.

The foundation is going to be the same. I really like the black and white color scheme for 2 reasons. One: it's different from everyone else that I graduated with. The typical portfolio site is dark, usually gray or black. I wanted the opposite so I went with white. Two: by having the site itself be white and black, the only color that pops out is that of the artwork itself. Although darker sites can look sleek and cool, I think my site has a certain boldness to it that corresponds with my own personality.

The new site won't be a drastic change from the old design; just thinned down, boxed in, and cleaned up. It will be MUCH easier to navigate and there will be no need for javascript (sorry Dan). So that's something to look forward to in the coming weeks.

I am continuing my portfolio work. I'm in the process of mastering retopologization in 3Ds Max. There is a killer video on it that someone posted on YouTube, but I think I am missing a plug-in or something because neither version 2010 or 2011 have the tool set that this guy was using. Nonetheless, I hope to have this next character done around the same time as the new site launch. The sooner I finish this character the sooner I can start working on some props and some other characters as well.

This morning I received a registered letter (I had to sign for it :D) from a professional game company regarding my interest in a concept artist position at their studio. I'm not sure if they send registered letters out to everyone that has contacted them, but it sure as hell made me feel special. The only problem was that the date on the letter was the 8th, and today was the 18th. I emailed the woman who wrote the letter as soon as I got it, hoping that it wasn't too late to respond. I'll probably have to wait until the weekend's over before I get a reply, but I definitely have my fingers crossed.

I'll keep everyone posted on what's going on, as well as inform you when the new site it up. Maybe I should have a launch party. Those are always fun.

-Matt

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Air is fixed

So we got our AC fixed, although, we don't know for how long. A friend of the family came by to give an estimate on how much a new one would cost but instead he replaced some part and it started working again (why couldn't the other 3 guys have done that?). So I am definitely grateful for that. Our only problem now is Time Warner Cable and their internet access. A few months back they called and said they were raising our rates. We expressed our displeasure and ever since our internet has been flicking on and off every day and night. I'm pretty sure it's a conspiracy considering they have a switch in their offices and can just shut our internet off whenever they want. Someone probably just sits there and flicks it back and forth for a few hours every day. It's really irritating. But I digress...

I started working on a self portrait model. I made one back in Character Modeling 1 but I never actually textured it. I tried again a few quarters later but only finished the face. This time around I have the whole base mesh done! I hope to finish it in the coming weeks so I can start something else.



Something else I've been working on is a YouTube talk show with Ricky Stewart. We had made The Ricky Stewart show many years ago, but we just recently decided to revamp it. Well, the new episode is 13 minutes long and is really, in my opinion, a horror. Don't get me wrong, Ricky is awesome, and so is his guest Reubnick, but just the idea of trying to market a 13 minute video on YouTube is hell. I don't see it doing too well in accordance to views and such, but we are going to continue to make more. The plan is to fix all of the mistake we make with each new episode and hopefully have an actually good product by the end of it.



Other than all of that, I've just been sitting around watching TV and applying for jobs here and there. It's still pretty lonesome with all of my friends in school, but every Tuesday night me and Ricky Stewart drive over to Ashland to help with our friend's 4 hour radio block on WRDL. It's pretty fun, so if you are even in that listening area, check it out. I can't remember the actual channel number, so sorry about that... (no one reads this blog anyway)

-Matt