3rd Year Film: Pt. 2 - Layout & Painting

The layouts and paintings I provided for the production.

Sc. 21 & 23



Sc. 21 & 23 shot tests:



Sc. 24-25





Sc. 24-25 shot tests:



Sc. 30


Sc. 30 shot test:



Sc. 7: *Painting and Shot test only.*
Original layout, line work, and character poses by Thomas Cunningham.

Canadian Landscape

This weekend I was up in the beautiful cottage country around Parry Sound with my friends, at a lovely house that backed onto the water of Lake Manitouwabing. We were treated to beautiful weather as well. While up there, I worked on a quick watercolour painting of the view over the water from the dock behind the house.

Artistically, I can't say I worked really carefully on it. The process was more of a splish-splash of colour and trying to capture of the atmosphere of the lake around the setting sun, hence why some of the lighting and shadows might seem off... because they are! The painting part was quickly done over maybe a half hour to an hour, and given the right amount of extra time to work I could probably have planned the colour palette better and put in finer details. Oh well, at least I managed to fit a quick painting while out in the wilderness.


*note: I added the greyscale in photoshop just because it shows off the range of the palette, but it is not it's own painting*

I would like to know if you feel this piece is successful as it is, or what techniques I can try doing next time to enhance the atmosphere.

Otherwise, it was a very good weekend! :)

Last Hurrah... erm, third last.

This is the last selection of work from the end of year two . It's been a great year. Progress has been steady, but enhanced, and I look forward to the beginning of third year. For now, here are my final projects. First is the cleaned up version of my muzzle sync. Only 40 total drawings were cleaned.



These two digital paintings were coupled as my last two paint projects. The first is a render of one of the layout previous, experimentation with testures and lighting, all be it a rushed one. I do plan to touch up this later and animate to it. Same with the second background, which, when touched up, I plan to add my muzzle sync to.


Finally, this is one of 14 TV storyboard templates that were made with the medieval period piece boards from a few months ago.



That's all for this year!

Titanic!

Here's a quick post showing off a digital rendering I did for Nicole Kozak a few weeks back, as we share an interest in the Titanic. As for the piece itself, it is yet another pass at photoshop painting. Most of the deck portions were done using the pen tool, which I figured out is really useful for static rendering. Still working on the photoshop skills.

Haven't posted anything in a while, so I got a lot of stuff to post. Here's the first bit. These are some digital paintings done in greyscale first and coloured using the adjustments tool rather than pure coloring. Not the best way to paint, but I suppose these turned out as well as they could have.






Also, here are a couple more 3D models I did in class: A Star Destroyer and the Enterprise (because ships are easy). I still don't know the program very well, but I understand the basics now. Maybe someday when I'll learn how to render I'll make these more epic.






More to come soon.

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.

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.

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.

Last Post of the Year!

Well this is it, the last of my work from my 1st year in animation. It was a good run! I most definately learned a lot about the work that I am getting myself into, and about the years ahead... and it is most definately something I want to be a part of. Over the next few years, I hope to improve just as much as I have over this year, and hopefully dish out a great 4th year film that really wows the audience... but I'm getting ahead of myself...

The last projects were standard fare. My final animation for the year, and my final painting project, which I did digitally in photoshop.


I got a lot of laughs out of this one, as you could probably tell. as good as it turned out, I couldn't really get into this project like I did the others, dispite that this one offered more freedom than the rest... end of the year lazyness, I guess.


Now honestly, I'm not happy with this turn out, but that was pretty much expected. I recently got a tablet, and since we were allowed to render the last painting digitally, I saw it as an invitation to experement a little. So seeing as this was my first photoshop project with a tablet, it was pretty much what anyone could expect. But I was given some helpful advice on how to use the tablet and photoshop. This is important since the industry pretty much uses digital background over traditional ones. I need to find tutorials, because this summer is going to be used to learn photoshop inside out!

Well that's all for this year... of school. Hope you enjoyed the work from my 1st year! :D

Stay tuned tho', summer's here and my goal is to practice techniques in art that I need improvement in. First and foremost: Photoshop, but I'm also planning to do some paintings and painting studies, caricatures (perhaps of you!), extra animations, and of course numerous sketches and colour renderings of some sketches! Also I'll post some of my life drawings up later too!

It' gonna be a busy summer! Hope to see ya here again soon!

A bundle of goodies for all y'all today! With the coming of the end of the year, everything is done in bulk, which is good! More art with fewer updates!

To start, our final character project is basically a rehash of previous projects, namely character posing and expression. This time however, we designed one character and then created a character package, a single sheet reference for the animator to use.

I like how this one turned out, besides being a better anthropomorphic than the last project, I think my clean up and posing were better this time around... not perfect of course, but adequate.

Our final painting projects are also due, and this time we had TWO paintings! O_O... It was more enjoyable than I'm letting on. :P

The first was a copy of a master's work. We could chose anything to use, so because backgrounds are his specially, I chose a Miyazaki background from Spirited Away! (also an AWESOME FILM!!!)

I REALLY like how this turned out. Probably because it was a complete copy, it left little room open for mistakes. Although some of the colours are off, and the shades really diluted, it's still one really kick-ass painting! Thank you Mr. Miyazaki!


This is the original from Miyazaki's Spirited Away. Behold it's pure AWESOMENESS!

Following this, we had to paint another background using the same painting style from the first, but this time it was your own rendition of another story, which we got to pick for a list. I chose the Hobbit and the interior of Bilbo's house. (partially because I could just watch Lord of the Rings to get an idea. :P) So here is the result.

I am rather displeased with the way this one turned out. Besides not really following the same painting method, I find I'm terrible at designing interiors. I was pretty hard, unlike the first one, to get textures, proper shades, and a direct light source. My biggest quarrel is with Gouache! It's really hard to use because of the water base and thinning out of the colours! UGH! Somehow it worked for the exterior, but not the interior...sigh...

Finally, we had caricaturing in life drawing last week. Surprisingly, I loved it! It was fun to draw some of our classmates, and because they're good sports, you could exaggerate without fear of disapproval... which is probably more than you could say about people at a fair or carnival... But anyway, here is what I got:

Scotty

Daniel

Keith

Kyle Wilson

Giovanni

Shen Ramu

Katarina Antonic

Kevin Williams

Eyassu Asalef

A lot of these turned out pretty well (or better than I hoped). All have their issues, but it's inspired me to practice caricaturing more, likely over the summer. So next year, I'll be much better at portrait and character! ;)

On a related note, I know I don't post may life drawings up here... it's because I suck at it :P But also because I'm too lazy to scan them... for now. Stay tuned, I'll post them over the summer.