11 second club December competition take 1

I decided to try the Eleven Second Club competition this month.  This is my first pass at animating my dialog.  I'm still working out the specifics of the characters (especially for the first guy), but I wanted to get the timing and acting worked out.

Erm...It's been a few weeks...

So yeah...sorry it's been a while.  It's been a busy few weeks.  A few weekends ago was CTN, which was awesome!  I should probably do some kind of report thing on it, but we'll see.  Then Thanksgiving and family events happened, so I fell behind here.

I've almost finished work on another shot from my film.  It was a more physically active scene than I've been doing recently, so it was a bit tough.  However, I had a lot of fun acting it out and posing it.  I'll probably post it up here when I finish it.

What I can show you this week is a couple things I worked on yesterday.  I never draw birds or really any non-humanoid creatures, so I decided to play around with them.  I really liked one of my parrot sketches so I cleaned it up and colored it in photoshop.  I played around with a background as well. 

I really liked the finished product, so I put it up in my Society6 shop.  <= shameless plug :)

I also did some hummingbird designs which are in the process of being colored.

I should play around with other animals.

Demo Reel November 2012

I'm going to the CTN expo this weekend, so I've updated my demo reel.  I'm also working on updating my flat portfolio.

Edit: fixed some of the cut off shots

Updated In Waiting animatic

I've updated my short film with the new shots I've been working on.

Let's Run to Gallifrey One!

Every February there is a big fan-run Doctor Who convention near LAX called Gallifrey One.  I've been going for a few years now and it's a lot of fun.  It is the 50th anniversary of the show this year, so the convention is the biggest one yet.  They're capping the attendance for the first time ever.

So I decided that I wanted a custom bag or shirt to wear/carry around.  So, I made up this design.  I have it up on my society6 page.  I just ordered myself a bag, so we'll have to see how it comes out.

Watercolor Mermaids

I was playing with watercolors this week.  I haven't done anything with them for years, so it was a bit of a learning curve.  I was on a mermaid kick, so it was fun.

Cupid designs

I really like my new Psyche design (shown last week and below), so I've moved onto Cupid.  I really had to think about his age when working on Cupid's design.  He has to look older than Psyche, but still be in his late teens.  I knew going in what I wanted his body shape to be, so I decided to jump straight into working on his head.

 

I started working with sharper angles and shapes than Psyche, and while the design above felt like a good start it didn't feel quite masculine enough for a leading man character.   So I decided to broaden his chin a bit and give his face a bit more definition.  I'm still playing around with some of the interior shapes, but I'm currently thinking that either of the top two (or some combination thereof) will be my final design for Cupid.

 

I tried going in a very different direction for the 4th facial design, but he turned out too old and too much like Jamie Lannister from Game of Thrones...

Reworking Psyche

I've decided to visit my Cupid and Psyche project.  I've been working on it on and off since high school, so for at least 6 years now.  I'm kinda stuck story-wise, so it's been slow going.  Each time I feel like I've improved in my drawing/designing skills I go back and work over the designs.  Some of my earlier designs for Psyche can be found on my deviantart page.  The last major design change took her from what you can see here: Deviantart to the overall look below.  While I've had the overall look down for a couple years now, I've been going back and getting more details down.

After doing some different face designs (a few of which are shown above), I decided that since Psyche is a much softer character overall than the other female characters I was going to have in the film (especially Aphrodite her main opponent) and that she is younger than the others, that her features should be softer and made up of soft curves and spheres.  My final design of Psyche face-wise will be very close to the upper right face.  It feels a bit too young, so her face will be a little less round around the chin.  Body shape-wise she is going to be narrower in the shoulders and overall more delicate than Aphrodite, who will have an strong hourglass figure and will be made of sharper angles and lines.

I'll try to get up more on Psyche in the next weeks as well as a start on redesigning Aphrodite and Cupid.

Finished Scene

I've finished this scene (for now at any rate, I may take it further in the future).  I've probably put in another 10 hours or so to get it this far and shoot it at least 6 times in between last weekend's version and this one.

Work in progress scene

A scene I'm working on.  I spent about 12+ hours on it so far...

Wolves

 Just something I've been working on.  It's available as a print on my Society6 shop.

Here is a promocode for free shipping valid through September 16.   http://society6.com/Gallagirl?promo=cb3480

Progress on Short Film

In progress on version 2 of "In waiting."

Marker funtimes

I got some Copics earlier this year and just got around to working with them.

Chuck Jones Experience (Part 2)

This is the continuation my exploration of The Chuck Jones Experience in Las Vegas's Circus Circus.  They had a life size character line up at the about half way point.  I, of course, had to jump in and see how I would match up.  Not including his hat, I match up height wise with Elmer Fudd.


Immediately following the line up, there was a life size 3-D set up of Bugs and Daffy directing/filming a Coyote and Roadrunner short.

There were more drawings and paintings in the next few rooms.  These included some of his personal paintings (I don't have any photos of those unfortunately)

The exhibit then went on to discuss the process of animation, giving a basic breakdown of the process.  There was also a foley area as well.  The exhibit ended with a timeline of Chuck Jones' career and filmography.

Quotes from Jones were interspersed throughout the exhibit.  The one below was one of the last they had up.  Out of all the quotes up on the walls, this was probably my favorite.

With that I'll end my recounting of this experience.  I hope that anyone who is interested and able to go has a chance to see this in person. 

I should have some new art up by next week.

Chuck Jones Experience (Part 1)

I was in Las Vegas a few weeks ago and found out that Circus Circus had a Chuck Jones exhibit up. It was a really well done exhibit and you could take as  many pictures as you wanted.  I didn't want to photograph the entire exhibit, but I took a lot of pics.

It started with a montage of clips of his animation after which you could walk through and see his animation desk.  The opposite wall had a bookcase full of books covering a wide variety of topics.

The next couple of rooms had animation drawings, model sheets, character turn-a-rounds, gag drawings, and more. 

I'll end the tour here for the week.  Next week should finish off my recounting.

Article for State Park

I'm in Hawaii, so this and the next post are scheduled...

A few weeks ago i posted the designs I did for a project to keep Los Encinos State Park open.  Recently the efforts (and one of the drawings) was in a local paper.

July 2012 Demo Reel

I'm applying for a couple jobs/internships this week, so I needed to update my reel with what I've been working on.

There might not be posts for the next couple weeks as I'll be on vacation with my family.  I'll try and have some scheduled posts, but if not then I'll hopefully have some new drawings (I'm bringing watercolors, so I may do some paintings as well) up.

Girls

I wanted to post yesterday, but I was away in Vegas and didn't have internet access... but here are some girl drawings I did while at a concert at my church.  I did the underdrawings at the concert, and did the graphite lines after.  I got some Blackwing pencils at the gift shop at the Chuck Jones exibit at Circus Circus (if you're an animation fan and are in, near or are going to Vegas while its there then definitely go!) and decided to try them out.  I LOVE THEM!

In Waiting Animatic

Here's the animatic to go with the story boards from last week.  Some of the timing on it is still a bit off, but I can use this as a jumping off point.  (I've already extended one scene from 2.5 seconds to 6.5.)

Short Film Storyboards

I've finally finished reboarding my short film.  I'm still working on the animatic, but when that is finished it'll go up here too.  We'll see how long my film has grown in this version.