About Color

The idea of this project was to explore the possibilities of the Acer ConceptD5 while on the go and make something that played with a couple of the main features that the laptop has. Contrasting, bright vibrant colors with a monochrome/muted palette for a background seemed like a wonderful way to start. The concept is simple enough, I had in mind for a few days the idea of packing a cage with a lot of vibrant spheres, increasing in size to the point of almost exploding out, and thus creating some tension in the environment, as if the cage was about to burst and paint the room.

The software used is Cinema 4D and Redshift.

Sometimes less is more, and I hadn’t made a personal project in a long time, so for this new comeback into the scene, I decided to go back to the basics of lighting, texturing ad composition. I’ve always loved the idea of realistic lighting and textures in an otherwise surreal environment, featuring abstract compositions and shapes. I love when you can tell that it’s not real but it’s close enough that it kind of makes you wish it was.

I lit the scene with an HDRI that’s essentially two long kino lights on each side of the scene, and then individual area lights to provide some highlights and also bring the background a bit. When lighting such an open scene, it is as important to think about the light as it is to think about the shadows. High key lighting doesn’t mean completely eliminating shadows.

Working with the ConceptD laptop was quite fun. I’m not sure of what the technical term for the feature is, but the colors on the screen seem very vibrant and really pop out. I can definitely tell that colors seem a lot stronger on the laptop screen than on the other monitors I own or have tried. Whether that’s a pro or a con is up to you. I think that for enjoying media as well as playing video games it can really be a whole improvement on your experience, but when you’re making artwork you have to keep in mind how your media is going to be consumed as well by others. Fortunately, there is a toggle for the Adobe RGB setting in case you want to preview how you would see your work on a standard sRGB monitor. It’s good to check on that every now and then.

Concept

This was my third and last project with Acer for the 3 months! The idea, once again, was to play with intense colors and have fun with the provided laptop. I find that these compositions are a fun way to study some shapes and how they interact, and this is something that can be easily done on the go.

Overall, I have always been wary of working with laptops. I do love my home setup and it’s customized enough to make everything handy and comfortable. However, some of my favorite pieces I’ve ever made were on a laptop. Most developed from quick explorations or tests while on the go. It doesn’t boil down to power even, since the desktop PC I’ve used since 2016 has a lower tier graphics card than the laptop provided.

What it comes to, is convenience.

There are times when I simply can’t work from home, or I travel around (I am constantly moving between Spain and the UK), and bringing my desktop setup with me is not convenient (duh!). Having a laptop takes the worrying out of the picture and I can just hop into a place and take off. I usually sync all of my files through the G-Drive or Dropbox, so even my desktop remains the same between my PC and laptop.

If I carry a mouse as well, it only takes a couple of minutes on the laptop to fully get used to my on-the-go setup, and from there on its smooth sailing.

Bottom line: PCs, Graphics Cards, Laptops, Software… They’re tools. Find the ones that let you do what you want, and go with that :)

On-The-Go

I firmly believe that inspiration needs to be fostered. It’s not something that you will suddenly feel, but there are ways in which you can help this process happen.

For the past few months, I’ve been sent a ConceptD laptop from Acer in order to try it out - and find out how it could fit into my workflow. I’ve always been kind of reluctant to making work on a laptop, as I feel that my desktop PC lives in a better environment that is more comfortable and relaxed to start work than on a portable PC.

However, for this period of time, I have been trying to use the laptop in places where I couldn’t have my desktop with me. Be it in airports, trains, on the road, or simply while my desktop PC is rendering (there are some tricky licensing limitations with some software, but C4D works if I’m using R20 on one PC and R21 on the other).

What I’ve found is, whereas usually I would have an idea, and keep it in my head until I got home (hoping it sticks), I can actually prop up my laptop, quickly sketch and figure out some of the basics, and have that as a baseline to be able to hit the ground running once I do get home.

Moreover - and this goes back to what I brought up about inspirations - I will continue to work on that same idea, and before I can stop myself I will have figured out something, learned a new technique, or just come up with something cool.

These last few weeks I have been moving around a lot and can’t quite sit down and spend a couple of hours making personal work. Instead, I find it quite helpful to just exercise muscle memory and quickly bring up some lights and materials to make something simple or bring up fun objects that I could potentially use in later projects.

Here I am sharing some of these tests, drafts, and sketches. Many times, most of these never end up being posted or published, but they remain a nice exercise that can spark other ideas if anything. Other times, they seamlessly work themselves into a big thing that I can, later on, take over from my desktop and develop into something bigger.

I can’t choose when something will inspire me, but I can be ready for when it hits, or better yet, choose where and when I want to open up my software of preference and dive into piecing familiar concepts until something pops up and it becomes greater than the sum of its parts.