Lovebirds Poster

It's dooooone!

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.

And in keeping with that theme...

The result of our 7 weeks of costume life drawing was an assignment for the creation of 4 characters based on the models and the work we've done in class. Here are the four I ended up with...

Costume Play

This term life drawing is all about the costumes! I gotta say, this is the most fun I've had in life drawing class. We're encouraged to experiment with a variety of mediums and styles and develop characters based on the models. Three hours has never gone by so quickly.

I took some photos of a few of my favourites so far.

Allow me to demonstrate...

Finally got my demo reel finished! Music is "Four Seconds" by The Barenaked Ladies, who have been and will always remain my favourite guys. Go and buy all of their albums right now.

Also, hire me to work in your studio for the summer! In addition to drawing and animating, I am very, uh... clean?

Also these guys were done for the opening of the demo reel:

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.

Moving right along...

Well 2011 is almost over, and I'm pretty sure I only just got used to writing 2011 instead of 2010 on my daily to-do list. I know every year we say "wow, now those twelve months sure did go by quickly", but I'm pretty sure our planet has encountered some kind of spacial... timey-wimey anomaly or something, because I'm confident it should still be March.

That said, despite the days not being nearly long enough, I have managed to finish a few things, and will show them to you...

NOW!

First I've got my finished Action Analysis. I'm about... 50% happy with it. I could have done more, I could have made it NOT about a dog humping a piece of furniture, and I could have not resorted to Yoshi jumping sounds, but the work-load otherwise was already painful and, for now, I am only just one person, and that one person had a killer migraine toward the end. I'm pretty pleased with the layouts, at least.

Now I am devoting my break to coming up with several useable portfolio pieces for co-op, concentrating mainly on character design, story, and layout. This is the first piece I've actually finished, though I've got a bunch more in progress. I'm trying to have fun with it, draw things I've wanted to draw for a while. I'll hopefully be able to throw The Awakened and Ghost of Man in there somewhere, and squeeze in some film pieces.

That said, it's been a kind of depressing holiday again (we always seem to lose the ones we love during Christmastime), so I'm not as artistically enthused as I was hoping. If anyone out there has got ANY suggestions for themes or something you'd like to see me draw, I'd appreciate any and all input.

Cheers, all! Enjoy whatever time off you've got and go hug your loved ones RIGHT NOW!

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*

This little piggy went to life drawing class...

A couple assignments here done for Life Drawing. The first are some anatomical studies. We were supposed to choose a part of the body that we have difficulty with (oh such joke potential--but no time!). I chose the feet because, while they're my favourite thing to draw, they're easy to draw poorly. I figured practice could not hurt at all.

And the second assignment is a drawing done for the Royal Winter Fair, as has become the yearly custom! This year we were to focus on story-telling with our drawings. I chose to be cruel (also now tradition). But seriously, it's next to impossible to get close to the pigs with all the little poky children crowding around.

And the beats go on...

So our group film has come a long way since my last post about it. We've got a much firmer story now, and we're moving into finalizing designs. I've been managing the story team and this week we'll be submitting our film's design pack, so we handled the coloured story beats. I did the first two:

I will leave these completely vague and without description, because not only will that potentially heighten anticipation for the film itself, it will also confuse and annoy!

I also had some fun with the design pack and caricatured our entire team as ghosts:

M&Ms

Most recent project was the "Heroes and Villains" assignment for life drawing. The idea was to take three drawings we had done in class or at Extra-Life and mimic the poses whilst creating a character who either embodied that of a hero or a villain.

So we've got a Musketeer Man, a Mistress Mink, and a Mustache Monster. Yes, yes that's right.

Oh hi!

I never really know what to post when a lot of time has passed since my last update, because of course I've been drawing every day since my last update and now there's just so very much to get caught up on.

Second year of animation came to an end, and I again worked full-time over the summer at Sheridan for facilities management, cleaning and painting and making the school all sparkly and majestic for the next year. This success is of course foiled within the first day, when students smear their conte-laden fingers across the wall, doodle genitalia over every available surface in the most permanent of inks, and cover everything else with masking tape and stickers.

But I digress. Here have some art!

A bunch of stuff from my sketchbook drawn over the summer.

And with the third year of animation comes the infamous.... GROUP FILM! I was lucky enough to end up with an incredible batch of talented individuals, and I think we've got a pretty spiffy story with a lot of potential for some exciting art, effects, and animation. In short, this year is all about improving my skills, expanding my portfolio, and pushing myself to try new things.

Here's a little of the art I've done so far, for our as yet untitled project.

And finally, some random art I've drawn recently of mine and my friends' original characters (Shaari from the first image belongs to Jessica Channer, and Tinette is of course property of no one, but is imagined with caution by Annie Hughes)...

Loved Lost Found

My leica for Storyboarding and Sound class! Much thanks to Nancy Beiman for providing advice and critique from start to finish, to Annie for having to listen to this song forty-thousand times over and not eating my face, and to Chelsea for giggling at the parts I intended to be amusing. It was a fun little story to work on and I'm happy with the results.

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.

School + The Awakened = ??? (Profit?)

And the race to catch up on missed posts continues.

Today, more "Floating Head Syndrome" sketches. This time of Asher and Montague. Both of them benefited from a nose job, and I would apparently make a rather shoddy plastic surgeon, because crooked hooks and gigantism abound.

I've heard a bit of feedback on both of these re-designs already, and I had to laugh at how many people thought I'd made Asher "ugly". It made me smile for the fact that Asher was *always* supposed to be a very ugly, ugly man. He's one of those so-ugly-he's-charming characters. So if anything, this update has taught me that I really have learned something about character variation. If the old Asher appeared "hot" to people, then I fell far short of my goal. So, as Asher is properly ugly now, I am quite pleased!

Received a mostly positive response for Monty, except maybe a little dislike for his new nose, but we can't all have beautiful, identical noses, people!


Aaaaaand in the world of school, I have... more Awakened stuff!

The assignment was a walk and run. We had to use contrasting characters, so I chose to animate Plague and Famine. I was juggling a fair number of projects alongside this one, so it's not as elaborate as I would have liked (particularly the interaction), but it did give me a chance to update their character designs a little.

(Apologies for the awful white BLOB in the corner. For whatever reason, whenever I put this clip online, the compression murders everything. If you squint, you might have some vague idea of what's happening.)

Definitely enjoying the chance to bring my established characters to life (though I can't do it for each assignment... as, well, the idea is to create new characters).

Royal Winter Fair

Once again attempting to catch up on posts here...

IT'S BEEN CRAZY! I'm still loving my second year of animation, but the past few weeks have definitely been exhausting. Many major projects, the holidays wanting attention, various nuisance illnesses... Barely a moment to breathe, let alone any time to myself.

But I'm managing to keep on top of things, so that's about the best I can hope for, and there are only two weeks left until Christmas break, which I think will be very much well-deserved by all.

BUT ENOUGH OF THAT! THIS POST IS ABOUT ROYAL WINTER ANIMALS! Except that none of them were wearing crowns at all, I noted a distinct lack of snowball fights and ice rinks, and I'm pretty sure the goats were just dogs with toilet paper rolls glued to their heads. HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS THE WAY THOSE GOATS CHASED FRISBEES.

In short, our class went to Exhibition Place for the Royal Winter Fair, and drew many a farm animal.




Moral of the story: Don't attend a livestock show if you hope to continue smelling of anything but poop.

Floating heads and boards.

I continue to get back into the Awakened groove with a multitude of little Chase and Sue heads. Chase seems to be pretty much settled in his new design, but I think Sue could still use some work. Asher and the other Hunters are probably up next.




Also got a couple school-related images. Well, technically EIGHT school-related images, but they... kind of go together... so it's like... two, really. *cough*

STORYBOOOOOOOOOAAAAARDS!

I'm really enjoying this class, because I adore sequential art and acting through characters, and Nancy Beiman has a wonderfully twisted sense of humour. Our first assignment was to come up with beat boards for two separate poems, after which we choose one to create a proper storyboard for.






I clearly enjoyed the second one more, so that's the one I'll be boarding out in full.

AND NOW I MUST RUN, for Chelsea is going to demonstrate to me how she achieves such amazing lineart on Photoshop.

Cheers!

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!

Amimawls

Today's post is brought to you by the letter G, the number 57-and-a-half, and multiple drawings of animals done for school projects (unusual sponsor, I realize, though I don't ask questions).

We begin with boring realistic animals, done for Life Drawing class. The entire first year went to the Toronto Zoo to draw depressed-looking animals freezing their asses off at the end of March (seriously, who thought cheetah + Southern Ontario winter = believable home away from home?). It was quite an enjoyable day despite the weather, and also despite the fact we only saw about an eighth of the whole park.

(Many excellent views of the frozen asses in question.)

These are a couple of my gesture pages. Mostly monkeys because the monkeys were inside and the inside was warm.


And some longer studies. The tigers were the only outdoor animals not looking completely miserable. In fact several of us were offered the rare opportunity to bond with our layout teacher through the magic of watching one of these tigers poop into an empty sloping pool. "It's like a game!"


And lastly I have a Swazzle reference sheet. This was done for our last Character Design assignment, so I decided it was about time I used a rat. And which rat better than my funny-looking goofy adorable Swazzle girl? The drawings are cute and all, but they don't do her justice...

(D'aaawww...)

The same ol'.

Well what's new? Mostly the same ol', same ol'. Lots of stuff happening all of the time, so I generally forget to mention each and every little thing. I guess the coolest new announcement is the Artist Trading Card Club that Annie and I started at Sheridan. We've been big into ATCs for a long time now, and have always kind of wondered how much interest an ATC club would get at the school. After several of my animation classmates urged me to go ahead with the idea, we discovered that, wow, in fact LOTS of people are interested! We've got about 30 members now and we had our first meeting last week, which consisted of art jamming, video watching, and junkfood-eating. It was really a lot of fun. We managed to fill four swap groups (5 people in each group) for February, and I'm pretty sure Sheridan's bookstore is going to be consistently selling out of their blank ATC card packs henceforth.

REALLY looking forward to seeing everybody's finished cards at our next meeting!

The painted doodle above is of creepy pervert, Fray. Just one of a lot of random drawings I've done for myself lately but can't find time to colour. I'm also hugely in the comic mood right now and desperate to work on some Awakened, but will have to wait for school to finish. It's like an itch I can't scratch. Especially with our story and film classes, which are really opening my mind to new ways of telling this story and better methods of getting around old obstacles. Maybe I'll get some time to at least sketch/ink some pages on break week.

COMICS. I'm reading a lot of them right now too. Currently I'm in the midst of:

• The Sandman #4: Seasons of Mists (I was really excited to start this one because it involves so much of the Endless, who I think are the bestest ever.)
• Fables #1: Legends in Exile (This one was recommended to me by my brother a day before I randomly found it in the Labyrinth and picked it up. REALLY enjoying the concept and the writing and even the art is sweet--gonna grab the next one as soon as I can)
• The Walking Dead: Compendium #1 (I have to start this one, though I'm excited to do so; it's just so damn enormous that I can't easily bring it to school to read on breaks)
• Batman: Scarecrow Tales (This was bought for no other reason than I like the Scarecrow and think he's the lamest villain ever, and therefore the coolest; and it turned out that the comics in this collection from 1941 through to about 1980 were seriously hilarious with the bad writing and terrible, terrible innuendos. Robin is a "playground instructor", riiiight. )

There are a bunch more I want to buy, but it has come to my attention that comics cost... MONEY!? The horror. I want to start Y: The Last Man and get the next Hellboy, and continue with Sandman and Fables and I want The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One and, and--stupid cheap student lifestyle. It does not play well with my need for good stories and pretty pictures. Oh well. My conversation with the dude at the comic book store might be worth a cheap giggle:

Me: "I'm looking for a comic, I think it's called "The Last Man"?"
Guy: "Y: The Last Man?"
Me: "... Because I want to read it?"

Yeah it might have been clever if I wasn't completely serious. Oh well. Have another video of the Pink Panther! This is the same panther animation from before, cleaned up and placed on a proper background, done for Digital Tools:



Cheers!