Merry Christmas All!

I have dabbled quite a bit in photoshop over the break, and one of the first projects I did was, not surprising, a Christmas card! Because I'm poor, I need to give something out, right? :P

Hope you're all having a great holiday!


(Pretty much sums up my financial situation this year)

Figure Drawing thus Far...

So, I finally took the initiative to get some figure drawings up here. While I did decide it was good to see my progress this far in the course, I personally think my skill in life drawing is... well, lacking would be an understatement...

Doesn't seem much has changed in my drawing skill since the entrance portfolio. Oh well, all I can do is work harder in the future. So here are some recent samples for different time sets, and an écorché. Feel free to give me advice on these, I certainly need it.

The Last of Semester 3

Well, second year semester one has drawn to a close, so here's the last of my major projects. First, my final animation for the semester, and expression change. The requirements were a short three expression animation, but I decided once again to work above the minimum and opted for a full narrative. Only a little actual animation, but it was done on only two weeks and the face was the most important part, so I think it turned out well.

Enjoy!



I also had yet another leica reel done for sound design. I can't upload it properly tho', don't know why. Anyway, basically it used the Fidgety Philip boards from earlier in the semester and used pretty much the same requirements as the Not Prepared leica. I'm dissatisfied with it mainly because of the poem voice sync I had to throw in there. For such a long poem, it couldn't fit within the whole story as it is told, so I cut a lot of it out. Oh well... if i can manage to post it in the future, I will.

Over the break, I hope to post more stuff as well. Hopefully some nice sketches will follow, and I also have some caricatures and figure drawings from this semester to post as well.

Stay tuned!

The Many Works of Pre-Production

So the semester's coming to a close, and all of our projects are actually all related. I've done this "I Am Not Prepared" story to death, but I'll admit, it's quite enjoyable to see you original story develop in this mimic of pre-production.

So, the first half of the final projects for semester one, year 2 is a Leica reel of my I Am Not Prepared story, synced with music and sound effects, a selection of painted boards from the storyboard, and finally, an interior design of the Saloon used in the story.

Enjoy!









The last bit of the semester end projects will be up in a couple days.

An Expression of Sleepy-ness

Here's a quick update of character expressions. Nothing much to say other than these are actually redesigned caricatures not original characters, and that I was really lazy with this project. Oh well, I need sleep...

Layout Workbook

Finally, a post having to do with layout. I typically don't post layouts because a) I totally suck at them and b) usually they're on seperate layers, so it's hard to compire it together.

Anyway, we were asked to create a layout workbook for five scenes from our storyboard. Basically, a workbook is a compilation of concept art that would be handed over to the layout artist to begin production on. This project was kinda annoying (seeing as I hate re-drawing stuff, especially with more detail), but it does look quite professional in the end, so it gives me a good feeling of productive accomplishment!

BUDDY COPS! Do-Do Do Do Dooo!

Here is our Walk and Run animation. For this one, we had to have two original characters, created in character design class (see older post) do one walk and one run cycle with a take linking the two, which actually makes this the first story driven animation ever! WOOO HOO!

As you will see, I went all out on this project. It was a lot of fun! Actually, the bulk of this I got completed (in rough) in the first week. We had four whole weeks to work on it, so I spent a lot of the time making it as spectacular as possible (I think I re-did the walk cycle four-ish times).

So here's my Buddy Cops cartoon animation! I designed it like an opening to a television cartoon, complete with music and all! (the music used is called Opus D'opus by Spyro Gyra)

Enjoy! :)



AND as a bonus, here is my first walk attempt for this project. I took it out because I decided to switch the walk character, but I kept this just because it was a pretty good walk for one attempt.

This time, I was Prepared!

My final "I Am Not Prepared" original storyboard was completed today, along with in class pitching, which I didn't suck today. My teacher said my pitch was good because it was because rehearsed, but really, I didn't rehearse this one. In fact, I think not rehearsing is better because improv can provide a much more confident presentation... or maybe I'm a natural showman when I'm not nervous. :P Bottom line, if you know and are confident in your story, the pitch should come natually.

Overall, the boards themselves have received quite the acclaim, so not much to comment a far as art is concerned. I was asked to change some things in time for the Leica reel for the next part of the project. Not much, just more animated elements, which should appear in the final Leica. You'll also see more of this story art later on seeing as our layout and painting classes are also overlaping projects using these boards. I'll have some of these with layouts and painted colour keys for next week.

Enjoy!

Winter Fair 2009

Yesterday our program went to the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto. Sound familiar? Yeah, we also went this time last year to do pretty much the same thing... draw sweet animals. Unlike last year, however, my drawings are miles better in quality! I appeared to be more into this project than last year... part of that is probably due to the less amount of pressure of the project than last year, where instead of six full study sheets and another six full sheets of sketches, we only needed one of each this year. Quality over quantity, I suppose.

Ich bin keine Nazi!

For those of you who can't read German, it says up top that "I'm not a Nazi." Just thought it should be said before I continue. :P I do however have an interest of that period, and my abundant viewing of World War II films, many of them lately being about the Third Reich itself, became inspiration for this interior painting.


Not much to say about this one. It's a German World War II bunker, but I bet that's pretty obvious. I'm usually not a fan of interiors because I hate drawing static objects, but I think it turned out fine. I've recently been using a waterproof pen for my gouache paintings, and I think it helps bring out the detail, especially for interiors which are a pain to detail with the paint.

Them characters I drawz.

Reading week was pretty hectic. I spent most of my time working on every porject we had for every calss, which didn't leave much time for some anticipated extra work... damn...

Oh well, here be some contrasting characters for your ammusement. Similar to the last projects, these characters (who are buddy cops) can be seen in action a few weeks down the road. But for now, enjoy their antics in pose form.





Also, here is a beat board story of our own design for a "I am no prepared" conflict. This requires some explaining, unfortunatly. The first three I suspect are pretty self explainitory, but the twist ending is the sheriff is apperently "not prepared" to give away his daughter at her wedding. It'll probably be more clear in the final storyboards.


Character concept

Animation Galore!

A slew of video related projects today! The last of the pre-break semester is completed! I'd be thankful for break if I hadn't so much to do for when we get back.

Oh well, here I've posted my first REAL character animation, a character I'll remind is original and of my own design! (see three posts below) Woohoo! The project is about weight and balance, where the character is to lift a heavy object and toss it. I loved this project, as I am determined to get good at character animation! I've been waiting three years to do this stuff!



Next we have a sound effects animation for sound design. IMPORTANT NOTE: the animation was not created by me (I believe it is called the Bulgarian Cowboy), so I have no credit to the video portion. As well, the sound effects are taken from the Sheridan SFX library. I did however arrange the sounds to correspond with the actions. Not bad, but could be better.



Finally, I have a sound scape from my wave-boat-sack animation. The sounds are credited to the same source as above, but the animation and arrangement are my own doing. It's no without it's flaws. There are some mistakes I noticed after viewing it later, but I was low on time, and it was my first arrangement with an original animation. Overall, it was quite enjoyable.

Caricature-rama!

Lately, in the spirit if learning in character design, I've been workig hard to get better at caricaturing. While I have been doing our assignment to sketch from film or real life, since the best thing to make fun of is yourself, I thought I'd do a few of myself. So today I went ahead and did two using different approches. The first is you basic illustration caricature that exaggurates the features but still looks like a drawing from life. For the second, I used a method and techniques inspired from the great Peter Emslie. That is with a more cartoony approach with almost goofy features, but still shows the essence of the character. (and for those of you who may be busting a nut, so you know I'm not trying to copy Emslie's style, but merely learn from it).



Let me know what ya all think, and if you have any pointers on how I can further push the design, I'd be happy to hear them!

Hope I can turn out better stuff in the future (the first took almost a half hour to do...).

Here's a quickie... of a fishie

Finally, a post that doesn't revolve around my school work. Anyway, here's my first real personal project.


While this was actually a tattoo design I worked on for a friend, this did allow me some experience with photoshop, and the result wasn't poor to say the very least. I can say it helped with photoshop colour theory.

Woohoo! I can do a simple design in photoshop! Next step, FULL RENDERING!

End of Round One!

Here we go, the last of the first bulk of projects. As of now, we have nothing to do as far as assignments go. Other than our next animation project, nothing else has really been assigned, never mind getting finished. Looks like a lazy Thanksgiving weekend.

Here we have the character model and pose sheet for our joint lift & toss animation assignment. Not much to say about it, but stay tuned to see this guy and all his animated glory lift and toss in a few weeks!



Next is the final storyboard for the fidgety Phillip poem. The story beats were posted in my last entry, and this here is the final shot by shot story arc. Hope y'all find it appealing.

My back hurts!

The first batch of projects are just now being finished up. So far, second year is just as busy as everyone says. Not to say it isn't manageable, and actually, it's a lot of fun!

This year, a lot more is being applied. We're no longer beginners, we've entered the professional world! As as such, I've been trying harder to put out better work, and i see some aspects of my skill improving... while others *cough* life drawing *cough* still remain less that grand. But this year we have a lot of capable teachers, so all should be well in the world soon enough.

So here I have the first animation of the year: the Wave, Boat, and Sack. I think the premise is pretty self-explanatory, but the project was mainly about water effects, and weight.



I think this turned out pretty well, tho' I believe it could have been better. There were various struggles at first, but most managed to be worked out in time for the due date. Personal opinion: not a bad start.

Here is our first painting assignment. Just a random layout. The rough portion dealt with black and white tonal rendering to lay out the mood of the piece (they're not posted here). Following this, we did a minimum of three colour studies followed by the final.





My painting skills seem to be the only thing that has improved over the summer, thanks to a single painting projects done in May (see previous post). So I can safely say do enjoy this, and I like the result!

Finally, here we have beat boards and a related character design done for storyboard class. We were given a poem and asked to tell a short story through narrative beats (ie. through as few panels as possible). This will function as a stepping stone for the following process of creating a full storyboard, which is in the process as we speak.




So far, so good. More projects are due in the near future. Expect more work in the near future.