Garden Encounters

Picket meets Laurent for the first time. He forever wishes he’d just stayed inside and endured his wife’s nagging.

Lovebirds Stills

Yep, still alive! Been working on my final thesis film since my last post. I've got plenty of art to share, but let's start with some stills from "Lovebirds".

 

Still need to do some more polishing before I post the film itself anywhere, but stay tuned!

And then ponies.

Been hard at work on Fan Expo art since my extremely rad internship with Untold Entertainment completed. I'm going a bit overboard this year, but the selection shall be plentiful! Here's the first finished piece...

I'll admit I'm not a huge MLP fan. I don't straight up dislike it, but it's not really my thing. THAT SAID, I am not about to ignore a pretty huge fandom, so I gave it a shot. Was definitely digging the various pony colours.

This'll be a print, as well as individual bookmarks.

Prince Laurent

Laurent is one of my favourite characters to draw, because outwardly he appears suave and handsome, when in fact he is a loud, spoiled, cowardly, entitled jerk under the delusion that he is not only the perfect male specimen, but also irresistible to women.

You keep at it, Laurent.

Powdered Sugar

It seemed odd to me that I've only been posting life drawing assignments for a while, but then I remembered I don't do anything other than FILM FILM FILM FILM of late! Which is super cool with me because I have an awesome group and we're going to finish this thing, which not too many can claim.

(Okay yeah, it's still early to be making claims, but I am nothing if not ridiculously hopeful.)

Also, look! Another life drawing assignment...

Aaaaaaand... back to film.

Chuggin' right along...

Just a couple more portfolio pieces! I have a ton of sketches to scan and many more pieces in the works, as well. Panic sure does induce some intense creativity, I must say.

Ignore the random nameplates on these. Slowly saving all of my portfolio stuff with the same template.

It Begins (Continues)...

PORTFOLIO-ING CONTINUES.

Fell quite a bit behind, unfortunately. We had been expecting it to happen for a while, but my grandma passed away on the 30th, and art has been the furthest thing from my mind. I am forcing myself to really jump back into it this weekend, however, and so far so good. The creativity is coming back to me, so I'm exploiting it as much as possible.

I have a few big pieces in the works, but I managed to finish this smaller one tonight. I'm trying the 100 Themes Challenge at long last, and this was for #1. Introduction.

Little kid Chase and Sue! Pretty sure it was all downhill from there.

And then some more things happened...

Wow, it has been busy.

I feel like I have not stopped moving in weeks, but I'm sure to still be living--and I like to live--I've managed to do so now and again. But Christmas break is on the horizon and I will soon have, well, at least a week to relax (before two weeks of my break are then hijacked by co-op portfolio work).

A few things to share (there's a whole truck-load more but honestly I don't know where to begin and I'm not sure all of it would be terribly interesting).

First I've got the layout for my Action Analysis:

This was my first real serious attempt at a lineless painting in Photoshop. I learned a LOT from beginning to end and started to develop my own method of doing things. I'm really looking forward to trying some more of these over the holidays, now that I have a vague idea of what I'm doing.

And here's the whole thing composited:

I've also got a little illustration here from the People and Places assignment. We kept sketchbooks this term of people we'd observed, and I'd been watching some travel documentaries... ... ... ... okay so it was Destination Truth. Regardless, I saw some rad Romanian dancers and thought the portly fellow with the beard was particularly adorable, so I chose to develop him a bit. Then I felt generous, so I gave him a fine lady to dance with.

Got a little more to post, but I'll save it for now. MORE HOMEWORK TO TACKLE, AHOHOHOHO--*weep*

The Prince and the Assassin

More roleplay art!

Here's my completely inept and dorky prince Laurent somehow managing to look rather suave as he gets frisky with Jessica Channer's character Rin the blind but extremely competent assassin (except where cats are concerned).

The scene didn't end well, but freeze this moment and they almost look normal.

Merry Christmas?

Just posted a placeholder on The Awakened website. I plan to install ComicPress over the Christmas break, and then with luck some actual comic-making will be initiated.


And speaking of Christmas, I have a piece of lovely, wholesome holiday art to share. This was done for our English class, of all things. The theme was "Capitalist Scrooge". Simple explanation is that by the end of the story, Scrooge is still a capitalist, regardless of how generous he may have become with his money. Lots of meaning forced into every corner, which may or may not have been lost as I went on, just trying to make the thing look nice.

No, I don't believe the argument this illustration is trying to make, but it made for something interesting to draw.


Finally, I wanted to share this... I'm sure every animation student under the sun has already seen it (I believe no less than 20 people posted it on my Facebook over the past couple days), but it really does deserve all the attention it's getting. Absolutely beautiful little film.

Roleplay Arts

First off, yup, I re-did my blog layout again. And I think this one will stick around for a while, as Blogger finally added a proper Template Designer, allowing me to let go of the free-downloadable-template life preserver. Now it's miiiine, all miiiine! Right. And to the post...

Laurent and Ninja
from "The Nine Dog Tree"

Those who know me well know that I really love to forum roleplay. It's an excellent creative writing exercise, and it's helped me to get to know my characters more thoroughly and more quickly than by simply filling out character sheets and charts and poking at my brain with a sharpened stick (it tickles! But on the whole, unhelpful). I only RP with friends, and only in well-structured environments with stable storylines and a lot of behind-the-scenes plotting and discussion, but even then we've got five or six active stories in progress.


And why does all of this matter?

It doesn't! Well, see ya, that was a fun post--Oh no wait, I drew a bunch of RP artwork.

Our most recent story is "The Rift", started by Annie, Chelsea, Corrin, and myself. It's a sci-fi, space-exploration theme, and I'm using Chase as a physicist (for the utter durhurhurhur factor), Fray as a mechanic (an excuse for him to hit metal stuff with other metal stuff), and my Dr. Foss as exactly what he always is.

In preparation, I drew some character profiles. Had particular fun with Fray's if that isn't completely obvious.


I definitely highly suggest any writer struggling with character development to consider roleplaying with some writing friends. Knowing exactly how your characters would react in any number of situations, really becoming them, is incredibly helpful and necessary for constructing believable, unique characters.

Oh hey we're back!

Second year of animation has begun and I really didn't realize how freaking much I missed this place. I'm back with my little second family, meeting a lot of people I haven't met before thanks to the second year studio, and all of my teachers seem pretty damn rad.

Already swamped with homework, but as always it can hardly even be called that. Too much fun to be lumped into that dangerous category.

A few weeks ago was Fan Expo, and that was amazing as always. I met a whole slew of awesome people, did some commishes, sold some prints and buttons, and was thrilled beyond measure once again to be reminded that this world is literally teeming with wonderful geeky people whose passion and opinions and obsessive random knowledge of everything keeps life perpetually interesting.




Above is the print I sold at the con (also sold bookmarks of each sin).

For the past month I've also been working hard on The Awakened, which I have very big plans for. Aside from a refined script, the characters are undergoing re-designs. Today I was working out Tristan's design, and I threw in a random Asher for good measure.





Will be going through all of the characters as I finish re-scripting Chapter 1. I'll be roughing pages and overhauling the website after that. Haven't decided yet whether I'll be updating on a page-by-page schedule or if I'll put whole chapters up at once. Depends on how much interest is still out there, haha.

Until next time!

We don't need no stinkin' surprises!

Wow! You'd think I was suddenly on vacation or something from the lack of updates...

I have been super uber ridiculously crazy-busy since getting home, but I'm really enjoying myself. The Awakened updating again has been REALLY refreshing. I can't tell you how happy I am to be able to devote time to that project again, and the practice with digital painting is paying off and I am learning oodles (yes, OODLES).

I'm also working on several business endeavors, as the summer job hunt is turning up absolutely nothing so far, and freelancing is really all that's left. I'm not quiiiiite ready for new commissions yet, as I have a couple that NEED to be finished before I can in good conscience spend time on anything new. But I'm working my tail off daily on those, so it shant be long.

I think my major problem with freelancing in the past was that I allowed too many personal commissions to come in without deadlines, and then new, larger jobs would come in WITH strict deadlines, and I had no choice but to push back the other commissions again and again until a painful amount of time had passed and though I knew there was nothing I could really do about it, I felt like a jerk. SO, as of now, ALL commissions MUST come with due dates. Even if you're of the mind: "Oh, take your time! No rush!" just... make something up! "Take your time" could mean years of I have a steady stream of work with deadlines always on the table. Come up with a number, and it will be done on that date. Eeeeeverybody wins!


All right, enough of that for now. Got a couple things to share, starting with the raffins (Gadzooks and Blimey for those who don't know me personally). I haven't taken nearly enough photos of the girls since they were babies, so I grabbed the camera the other night and photographed playtime. Unfortunately they got overly preoccupied with half of a Kinder Surprise casing and didn't want to do anything but fight over that... still cute though!

Aaaaand, finally, one of the commissions I've finished since coming home. This is the client's original character, Pasibor (kind of Cthulu like, and therefore awesome), who is looking after his ancient city.

Already?

I'm finding it incredibly hard to believe that today is already the last day of school! This year has been amazing. A year ago I never would have guessed that I'd be here, going into animation, leasing a house with three friends!

I have no idea what's going to happen this summer. I'm looking for work, obviously, but finding slim pickings so far. I'll be freelancing in the meantime. Contact me to get on my commission list (though I will be finishing up a few outstanding commissions first).

Finished my last project of the year yesterday, in the form of a chair design for Imaging Systems. I of course chose a chair designed to kill people, because... well why wouldn't I choose that? Behold, The Perforator!

Whatever looks good...

In my quest to conquer the elusive digital painting skill, I decided to pick from the 100 Themes list that floats allover the Interwebz and paint a little scene. I ended up just starting from the beginning with "Introduction" and stuck Nenua and Fray in there. This is vaguely how I imagine they might have first met one another.


And because some friends have been asking me, here's a little collection of progress images. I know it's not really typical to chunk the painting in bit by bit, and usually I'll lay down general colours and light sources when I first get started... but for one reason or another, this one ended up being mostly layered in. Oh well... at least it worked!

I'll probably continue using the themes list whenever I'm lacking inspiration. Plus I still feel like I could spend more time learning about the Ghost of Man characters before I jump into the comic. Not to say you shouldn't expect *something* soon!

Goat Sucker

Well I never intended for this much time to pass between posts, but we're in the midst of portfolio days at Sheridan and I, like just about everyone else in my course, have been busy trying to meet that deadly deadline! Today I took a bit of a breather to really give my new tablet (his name is Julio Intuez) a proper workout. I wanted to draw/paint something completely using Julio, rather than rely on previously-sketched or inked creations.

I decided to draw a little dude I found in my sketchbook, who was born from a mask design for my 3D class (the mask is supposed to protect against a human frailty, so I chose my social anxiety; the mask completely obscures my identity and feelings and is covered in quills for that extra little bit of "NO TOUCHIE").

In the end I decided to use him as a species for Ghost of Man. One of my favourite cryptids, El Chupacabra!

I have a few sketches here and there that I need to scan and will hopefully have something unique for you all soon!

Sneaky Peeks and Fun Linkage

Test #1 was a success! And because it was a success, I will actually post a sneak peek (if it had been a disaster, well... I would have just kicked it under the beg, folded my arms behind my back, and wandered off whistling).

This is a page from the Prologue of Ghost of Man. The character featured isn't anyone super important (though certainly significant), so don't attempt to locate him hiding somewhere in the line-up below. I did a few things aside from painting the backgrounds that *should* cut comic creation time considerably, including the shrinkage of the page size from 8.5x11 to a more standard comic side of (roughly) 7x10. I also got rid of those coloured lines. Now, I'm a big fan of the coloured lines and I really think they look better in a finished piece of art, BUT, I can't be super picky. Pages can't take forever, so I'll keep the nice lines for other pieces.

So! There you have it. I enjoyed that experiment and am looking forward to painting again.


Now for something I found this past week...

Little People - A tiny street art project
http://little-people.blogspot.com/

I thought this was really cool, and suddenly I find myself searching for teeny tiny people on the street as I'm walking, just in case I miss something cool or accidentally smush them to death. The artist known as Slinkachu has set up ridiculously tiny people in ridiculously tiny scenes on the streets of London in a really unique and rather bizarre art experiment. Bizarre simply because... how many people have actually spotted them?

Check out the photos! And then be wary of teeny tiny people forever more.