Well, Fiddlesticks!

A Long Overdue Update

2011-09-02T06:42:00.004-05:00

Yes, I am still alive! And I'm still drawing! As usual, things have been pretty busy over here. If I'm not doing freelance work, I'm MAKING work for myself to do, because my brain just can't abide being idle (to quote Monk, "It's a gift... and a curse.")

I've taken another rather lengthy hiatus from my graphic novel project (sigh), but have been getting back into the swing of things recently. Here are the thumbnails for scene 03 of Overtures, for which I generated the final pages months ago:

And here are the thumbnails for scene 04, which I am currently working on.

A few of the pages are still need some help with the compositions and what not. I'll be sure to work on the problematic page thumbnails before I move on to creating the final pages for them.

Here are some random odds and ends: sketches, in-progress personal projects, tidbits from contract work.

Below is an assignment for my Web Animation class that I had a lot of fun with! Everyone had to find a clip from an animated (2D) TV show or film and replicate it in Toonboom Animate Pro using tradigital techniques. This was my first project in the program and I absolutely LOVE it! It has its quirks, like any other program on the planet, but man it's great to work with.

The paintbrush in Animate Pro alone brings tears of joy to my eyes. If I can figure out a way to export the vector information of a single frame as a .esp or other universal vector file format, I am totally going to start using Animate Pro to ink Overtures.

I also have a group project in the aforementioned class, and we're creating an animated short. Our short is about a unfortunate snake who finds himself dealing with an amateur snake charmer playing a kazoo. Myself and m'colleague, Kevin O'Flaherty, have been working on storyboards and such. Here are some thumbnail storyboards I did, followed by some refined boards for the second half of the short. We're still tweaking the timing and shots, but at this point it's down to the details.

And I'd say that does it for this update! Maybe next time I'll have those explanations of what I learned while doing the Ed Edd n Eddy master copies, hur hur hur.

The Struggle Continues

2011-02-10T05:43:00.001-06:00

Here are a few more Ed Edd n Eddy master copies I did today. I know last post I said I'd post about some of the things I've learned, and I will; I just have to find the time to illustrate and explain the concepts.

Reference images:

Copies:

You can actually see some of the under-drawing now, yay!

Funny enough, I had to redraw the bottom pose 3-4 times because I kept over-exaggerating (even this version ended up over-stretched!). I have a tendency to make Double-D longer/taller than he actually is, so that didn't help. I really should have considered studying the characters and their proportions before starting the master copies, haha. Ah, well.

I'm slowly picking things up, but I've still got a while to go before I'll be able to whip these out without a reference. Perseverance!

"Ed, Edd n Eddy" Kicks My Butt

2011-02-08T03:29:00.005-06:00

Over the past couple of months, I've been getting reacquainted with a show that - for some unknown reason - I stopped watching YEARS ago: Ed, Edd n Eddy. I gotta be honest, I have no idea why I stopped watching it, because it is an excellent show. It has all the sorts of things I love to see in animation... like... you know... the characters actually being ANIMATED! None of that poopy stuff you see so much of today that looks like paper dolls being moved around, no sir!

Anyway, I've been trying to make it a regular habit of doing "master copies" from screen captures of old cartoons, to try to learn the ways of an awesome animator/cartoonist. I usually copy old Warner Bros cartoons, but decided I'd try something a bit more challenging this time.

Now, I'm definitely not saying that EEnE is superior to old WB, but I've found that its style is MUCH more difficult to replicate. The heads in EEnE don't always follow the basic sphere and pear volumes that dominate much of WB's character design - not in a way obvious to me, anyhow. So, it's a bit of a challenge, trying to figure out what makes the style tick, and what the logic is behind the drawings.

By and large, EEnE seems to be pure gesture, which I dig, though sometimes it means the volume drops out of the drawings (not so cool).

My selection of reference images comes from "Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show."

Annnnd... Here are the master copies I did.

They're far from perfect copies; I've noticed that Edd's hands aren't pushed back enough in the last picture, and I completely goofed up the third image, for example. But to be honest, I toned down things a lot less than I thought I was going to, so... yay?

The real struggle here was to avoid my subconsciousness' desire to just start copying the lines rather than deconstruct the foundations of the drawings. I started each one trying to figure out the under-drawing for the character(s), then putting it down before starting on final lines. Unfortunately, my scanner tends to eat lighter lines, so you can't really see my roughs here (note to self: adjust Levels on scanner) - but I swear I had under-drawings for all of these, haha. I still haven't quite figured out a system/technique for the... rawness of EEnE, but I'll get there eventually. In the meantime, I'm learning some cartooning-related things that I've somehow missed up until now. I'll share some of those things in my next post.

'Til then, ciao!

ATTACK OF THE ZOMBIE SLUGS -- a Self-Critique

2011-01-12T19:51:00.001-06:00

So, a few days back, I created quick sketch/paint on a whim:

The concept actually came to me a few months ago, when I had the foresight to draw a quick thumbnail of it:

Written around this thumbnail were a couple of hand-written notes about how to improve the composition and such. Even so, the composition of the paint-sketch I did a few days ago also needs improvements before I can continue on to the final painting.

Welcome to Tangent Central Station!

Untangling this mess is going to be a bit of an effort. The zombie slug in the foreground is something I felt needed to be there in order to create some depth, but it causes a number of problems, namely: overlapping Mr. & Ms. Slug is likely to result in a tangent no matter where I put it, but that overlap helps to create the depth I was looking for; I worry that overlapping Mr. & Ms. Slug too much will cut them off from the bottom of the canvas, causing them to appear to be "floating" in the composition, rather than anchored to an unseen ground plane. Some other places of concern are the top edge of the middle-ground zombie slug's body as it passes behind Mr. & Ms. Slug, and Ms. Slug's elbow protruding in front of Mr. Slug's armpit. Both of these can be solved by some repositioning; heck, maybe changing those will alleviate the problems coming from the foreground slug.

Currently, the middle-ground zombie slug is pulling too much attention in the composition. I think this may be due to two things: one, I inadvertently gave him more detail than the other zombie slugs; two, he has more "levels" of lighting than the other zombie slugs. Together, this gives him more visual information than the other slugs, drawing the attention away from the high-contrast areas I had originally intended as areas of focus. I think toning down the lights on him alone will help significantly.

Mr. & Ms. Slug's heads are possibly too simplified. Their heads just don't say "slug" to me. They need more fat to them, more mass. I think having a bit of a bulge at the necklines would be a plus. The "lip" also needs to be better defined:

This area is too cramped. There needs to be more space between the end of the gun and the attacking zombie slug

Mr. Slug's arm is seriously awkward. It has a terrible silhouette. I plan to have some friends pose for me so I can get the anatomy and clothing folds right in the final version; with any luck, the reference will also give me better ideas on what to do with Mr. Slug's arm.

The folds on this sleeve way too evenly spaced. Having photo/life reference will help here.

Probably wouldn't hurt to have more space between the U and the G for readability purposes.

Some final small notes... I need to bounce around the red that's on the zombie slugs' antennae. I'm thinking maybe a bit of blood on Mr. or Ms. Slug. There will be some faint red coloration on the background zombie slugs in the final, though, so that might be enough -- something to test before starting the final. The other small note would be to improve the grouping on the background zombie slugs. They serve the composition fairly well as they are, but the grouping could definitely be better.

This probably won't be the last people-with-bug-heads piece I do. Sitting next to the Attack of the Zombie Slugs thumbnail is...

Mantis and Slug Miss Take-Off

Any additional critiques are, of course, very welcome.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-03T03:42:00.002-06:00

Well, hello there, 2011. I hope you're settling in well. I have to admit, my relationship with your elder sibling was not the greatest. Here's to hoping you'll provide me with less illness, and more art production!

Here are some tidbits from last quarter of 2010.

To start with, here are the thumbnails from Scene 02 of "Overtures."

And here's the thumbnails for the pages of Scene 03 that I've completed thus far. I'll post the others later, once the final pages are posted on www.altairuniverse.com

At the Universe of Altair, the site where "Overtures" is displayed, we have a Map Room which is slowly but surely being filled up with maps from the fictional setting "Overtures" takes place in. To help spruce up the world map, I made some sea monsters to put on it.

And here's the map. I made this a while ago... Wanna say a little over a year ago, but at the time it didn't have any of the names on there. Tom took the time to put all the names in place himself, which is pretty awesome! I added the sea monsters and compass rose a few days ago.

You can see a larger version of the map by visiting www.altairuniverse.com and going to the Map Room section of the website (it's in the Compendium menu).

Here are some sketches I did for a creature design idea. I was trying to combine a Long-Tailed Pangolin and a European Bee-Eater. I haven't uploaded all my sketches because my sketching gets pretty nasty; since this is my exploration phase, I don't give two toots about making my drawings pretty. Or having them make sense to anyone other than myself. One of these days, I'll get around to doing an illustration of the final designs I came up with.

My first sketches are always littered with reference drawings. I'm very particular about wing and tail anatomy on birds, and make a point to refresh my memory every time I need to draw them.

And this is the little fellah I decided would be my final design for the chick form of this combi-species. The adult will be based on the small thumbnail with "adult" written below it in the image above.

I revisited Ugly Vamp one afternoon, and started rethinking UV's appearance. I also developed Mum's design a bit more. Hunch-backed, Igor-esque women are CRAZY fun to draw.

Here's a random painting I did in pchat, a java-based painting program that allows multiple people to work on a canvas at the same time. While others were drawing pretty ladies and majestic dragons, I was in my own little corner, creating this little guy:

I had a photo for reference, but unfortunately the lighting and focus on it wasn't very good. I've since researched mantis anatomy and learned that the mandibles I painted here are incorrect. Mantis' mouths are quite complex, but very cool! I'll have to post my reference drawings sometime for anyone who might be curious.

And lastly, I finally got around to picking at my slimy meatball painting again. I adjusted the lighting, as suggested by a friend, who rightly pointed out that my highlights were too large and too "hot" on my previous attempt. The same friend has already given me further suggestions on my newest version; hopefully it won't take me another four months to get around to using them ;)

Toodles, everybody! Maybe I'll post more frequently in 2011, hur hur hur!

Bad Hair Day

2010-09-11T22:36:00.003-05:00

I took a shot at painting some human hair today. It didn't go so well. I think I need to go study a bunch of hair styles to see how the volumes of hair fall. One of my big mistakes this time around was treating some volumes like snakes rather than thick planes.

I'll take another whack at it tomorrow and see how it goes. Hopefully, with what I've learned tonight, I'll do a little better next time!

Last night, I painted up a furball with mange. Could've been better, but I don't think it's too bad.

Paint Chat

2010-09-10T19:40:00.000-05:00

Yeah, so I gave pchat a whirl today. It's... Different. Being limited to only 2 layers makes me much more cautious about laying down "paint" and experimenting (there's also no Undo button! Oh noes!) It's not bad, though. I just wish I could draw better with a tablet!

Anyhoo, I did this right quick just to get used to the application.

Go go, cheesy sunset scene!

Furball #4

2010-09-08T15:51:00.002-05:00

Took a little time out of my afternoon to paint another furball.

I seem to have a habit of making the shadows between fur clumps too dark. Aside from that, I do think this is an improvement over my previous attempts. A friend, Jason, has suggested I make a furball with mange, which sounds like a fun challenge.

Paintballs

2010-09-07T21:28:00.002-05:00

Hello, ladies and gents!

In my on-going journey to become a better artist, I've begun a series of studies. It started with a meatball.

I thought, "What would a steak look like if you squeezed it into ball form? How would subsurface scattering affect the appearance of the ball, and what sort of textures would be found on its surface? How does fat marbling actually look?" And so on. I decided to add on top of it a translucent skin in order to study how translucency works, and on top of THAT some clear slime to help me understand how reflections work on liquid surfaces.

So, here's how it started:

After receiving a few helpful comments from friends, I set off on improving my meatball. I also took a swing at some translucent skin.

Top left: old version, top right: new version, bottom: new version with skin.

Again, friends came to my aid and provided some excellent observations with which I could further improve my meatball. It seemed like most people were mistaking the skin for ice, which turned out to be because of the high amount of specular. The meatball itself seemed to please people, but I felt the specular pattern on the meat's surface wasn't quite right.

Which brings us to the most current attempt:

I'm pretty happy with the meatball at this point, and the skin. However, the veins could use a bit of help and the slime could use a LOT of help. Fortunately, my friends have once again come to the rescue. I'll be making corrections once I find the time and the itch to work on the meatball again.

In the mean time, I've decided to start on practicing fur and hair. Saving hair for later and starting with fur, I've made these three attempts.

My first try wasn't horrible, but definitely needed help. I'd managed to grasp the idea of fur forming into clumps instead of remaining a bunch of individual little hairs, but the size and spacing of the groups were too uniform. In a way, the first attempt came off to me as feathers more than it did fur.

The second try was an attempt to overcome the even spacing/size issue... But failed horribly, probably because I did not remain focused while painting (yes, artists have to use their brains! My goodness!) I felt that the fur looked striped, rather than appearing to be rings of fur on top of one another. I believe this is because I did not blend the shadows properly into the fur. Alas.

The third try is... getting there. I clearly still need to work on my fur painting skills, but I feel like I'm starting to get a grasp on certain properties of fur.

Anyway, I'll still be working on the meatball and furball again when I find the time. Once I am happy with my fur-painting abilities, I will start trying out hair.

A Random Find

2010-08-03T19:13:00.001-05:00

Do you ever go looking through your old files and find a piece of artwork that makes you think, "When did I make this? And why did I forget about it? It's kinda cool."

I found one of those pieces today while selecting my new 2D portfolio collection. Not sure if it's worth putting in the ol' portfolio, but I figured it might be fun to show here:

Some of the color choices could've been better, but eh, I like it. Maybe I'll make a new version of it sometime.

You Might Be a Visual Storyteller If...

2010-04-09T02:13:00.002-05:00

So, I went on a family outing this evening to attend a somewhat historically significant hockey game (if you're at all interested in hockey, anyway). Three renowned, record-holding players (Mike Modano, Marty Turco and Jere Lehtinen) played their last game for the Dallas Stars (or, in Modano's case, his last game in professional hockey, period.) It was a very emotional game for players and fans alike. And best, of all, the Stars won! What a wonderful final game for some of the finest lads to whack a circular flattened thing with a stick.

At any rate, I didn't really even pay attention to the game until it was almost into the last period. What was I doing during all that time beforehand, you ask? Playing games on a mobile device? Reading a book? Staring blankly into space and pondering the meaning of existence?

NO!!!

I WAS SKETCHIN', FOO'!

Here are some samples of gestures I drew during the game. You can see a few places where I drew the same poses more than once in attempt to get a better read/silhouette/line-of-action. I'm going to get better at these things, dang it!

They're roughly in chronological order from top to bottom, so hopefully you can see a gradual improvement and gaining of confidence as you look down the page. I'm terribly out of shape, though. I really need to do this on a daily basis.

Caricatures, part deux

2010-04-06T23:11:00.002-05:00

So, here are the caricatures I drew for the second half of March. Some of them aren't too bad, some of them are a little off the mark, and some of them are just... Aughghgh.

I'm better than I was when I started, but I've still got a long way to go.

And, dadgummit, eventually I'm going to find an appealing way to draw eyes. I couldn't draw eyes with appeal even to save my life. ... Not without copying someone else's style, anyway.

April's challenge is focused on drawing poses. Rather than drawing them straight from life, I'm attempting to develop skills in drawing "from the gut" - taking my knowledge of anatomy into account, but drawing how the pose FEELS rather than just slight exaggeration of real life. I've been studying cartoonists and the old Warner Bros animations, and realized that many of the drawn poses aren't anything like their real life counterparts. There's... Something more there. An essence. Like drawing pure emotion.

I want to be able to do that.

A Little Side Project

2010-03-15T20:47:00.005-05:00

... Sheesh, it's been a long, long time since I posted here, eh? I promise I've been drawing! I just need to get better at the posting part. Dur.

At any rate, I've started a small side-project for myself that I'm calling "Ugly Vamp" until I can come up with a better name (I guess you could call it the production title).

Generally speaking, vampires are considered very attractive or charismatic creatures; this is a trait necessary for luring in victims (or stalking insecure teenage girls, if you're in the Twilight universe - blech). So, I thought, what happens when you get an ugly vampire? How would he be treated amongst his peers? How would he feed himself? And so on.

I've already been developing some back story for the character and the world he lives in. I don't have a name for him, though, so I suppose I'll call him "Ugly Vamp" for now (or "U.V." for short).

When I first started sketching ideas the other night, I wasn't sure what direction I wanted to take U.V. in visually. I originally considered making him a wretchedly skinny little thing, on account of his inability to lure in prey. I also thought about making him a bit nerdy/emo.

... It wasn't really working out, though. 'Course, I was warming my hand/mind up, too, so I suppose the drawings were destined to fail on some level. Alas.

"Okay," I thought, "this isn't working. I need direction. What does the typical vampire look like?"

"Alright... Tall, slender, long in the face, extraordinarily well-kempt, yadda yadda... What's the opposite of that?"

So, I'm starting to get somewhere. I haven't nailed anything down, yet, but I feel like I'm headed to the right place.

Here are some little odds and ends. I want to give U.V. buck teeth or something along those lines. There's also a small thumbnail showing the shape differences between U.V. and a couple of average vampires. Finally, a couple of small sketches in preparation of the first story.

U.V. has a vampire dad and a mom of Igor decent.

Okay, enough vampires and such! Now for the werewolves! That's right. You heard me.

WEREWOLVES!

Say hello to The Gang!

From left to right, they are Biggs, Fumes, and - last but not least - Fronds, the Gang leader.

Each of the characters have their own little quirks, and aren't what they seem to be at first glance. For example, though Fronds looks like your typical jerk-face jock...

... he's actually a drama nerd!

And Biggs, well... Okay, yeah, he's more or less your typical nerd, but when he goes into wolf form...

It's a whole other story.

Poor Biggs is at that time of life where a boy begins to become a man - that is, he gains his shape-shifting powers. Unfortunately, like many hormone-based growth spurts, his changing abilities are a little out of control. Nearly every time he comes back to human form, there's some remnant of the wolf that sticks with him!

As for Fumes... Well, we'll let him remain a mystery for now.

Caricatures

2010-03-15T20:21:00.003-05:00

So, I started a monthly sketch challenge thingamagigger for myself to help facilitate improvement in my drawing abilities. Basically, I set up a topic/subject for the month, and then every day that month I have to draw something based on that topic.

This month's topic is caricatures. I'm at the halfway mark, so I figured I ought to post the sketches here as a collective. I started on the 2nd of the month, so there are only 14 drawings at the moment; I may do two drawings on the 31st to make up for missing the 1st.

I had a number of friends volunteer themselves for this project through Facebook. All of them have my thanks!

I'm Really Starting to Love Environments!

2009-07-28T00:05:00.001-05:00

The title pretty much says it all. I've been working on environmental design for a project I'm collaborating on with some friends, and today I sort of let my mind start drifting...

I've been looking at a number of old Warner Brothers cartoons lately, and really admiring the level of understanding their layout department had in shape design and color theory. When my mind started drifting today, I thought about all the crazy stylized trees you can see from time to time in the WB layouts. I figured I'd take a whack at a few, to see if I could start to understand the method behind them.

I'm not sure that I've gained a lot of knowledge, but I've gained some. I didn't approach the canvas thinking I was going to end up with a full painting, so unfortunately the overall design suffered from neglect. I might take another whack at it tomorrow, this time putting some focus on composition.

Honestly, I don't know what's up with the spirit stag. It's like Lisa Frank walked by and spit on my canvas.

Animatin': Just a Little Bit More

2009-07-15T20:33:00.000-05:00

My work-flow took a baseball bat to the kneecaps, thanks to recent sinus-related illness, but I'm getting back on track now that the meds are kickin' in. Here's an update on a couple of my animations:

Good Bloke

version with frame numbers: http://www.amysaundersonline.com/animation/good_bloke_frames.mov

I'm Invincible

version with frame numbers: http://www.amysaundersonline.com/animation/invincible01_frames.mov

Animatin': Yep, There's More

2009-07-02T08:53:00.000-05:00

Just another update on the animations I've been working on. Wee!

http://www.amysaundersonline.com/animation/giraffe_run_unblocked.mov

http://www.amysaundersonline.com/animation/good_bloke_block5.mov

http://www.amysaundersonline.com/animation/invincible_block_03.mov

More Animatin'

2009-06-28T06:53:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple of new pieces of animation I've been working on.

A Good Bloke

I chose this quote from "Hot Fuzz" because it gave me the opportunity to show two characters interacting, and an emotional change for both. It is currently in the blocking stage.

An MOV version of the video above can be seen here

A higher-quality version (without the weird clipping in the face) can be seen here . Unfortunately, this one doesn't have the frame numbers... I've been looking for a way to add frame numbers onto renders produced by 3DS Max, but haven't seen a solution yet. A Playblast! A Playblast! My kingdom for a Playblast!

Invincible

A rather famous quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The bigger fellah is pretty well blocked out aside from the face and hands. The little guy... Well, his blocking is painfully basic at this point, with certain points (such as when he should be falling from the big guy's hand) not worked on, yet. I have some thumbnailed plans for the little guy to flail his fists about in a frustrated manner as he's jumping, but I wanted to get the timing down for the jump before attempting to squeeze the fist-flailing action in there. I also want to make sure the little guy convincingly counter-balances the movement of the big guy's hand, so that's something I'll be focusing on today.

Uuuh... And try to ignore the sound clip repeating in the video. That's one of 3DS Max's "wonderful" little traits. Once I have a final render, I'll composite the sound clip and an audio-less version of the video in Premiere or After Effects.

An MOV version of the video above can be seen here

A higher-quality version can be seen here

In addition, Randy and Kevin have given me some feedback on the animations from the previous post; I'll be refining those to completion during the next couple of days, along with these recent ones.

... Not sure what the deal is with my tastes being more on the subtle side recently; that is SO not me. I might take a whack at doing something really quick in 2D to see if I can yank myself back into fun, cartoony stuff.

Animatin'

2009-06-21T23:28:00.000-05:00

Woo! So, I've been animatin' stuffs when I can this past week. As a result, I know much more about giraffes and their extremely goofy way of moving around. Such awkward animals, I'll tell ya.

For critiquing purposes, I've added a link to a .MOV file below each video. For the giraffe walk/run cycles, you can view them as a loop in Quicktime by going to View -> Loop (or hitting Ctrl+L).

Here are the blocking stages of a walk and run cycle I did for a giraffe. The tail remains without animation for the moment; I'll wait until the body movement is solid before trying to animate the tail's reaction to it.

http://amysaundersonline.com/animation/giraffe_walk_blocking.mov

http://amysaundersonline.com/animation/giraffe_run_blocking.mov

And here's an updated version of the "Out for a Drink" animation:

http://amysaundersonline.com/animation/ofad_second_block.mov

... I love how awful the silhouette is on the frame Blogger's automatic-movie-preview-frame-picker selected. Egh.

It's Business Time!

2009-06-16T14:49:00.001-05:00

Alright, so I'll be spending at least the next two weeks getting my animatin' on. However, I need to make some choices on what to animate before I get to it! Fortunately, I already had some projects in the works...

Out for a Drink?
This was a project with a rather unusual set-up... I wanted to see if I could portray something without dialogue that normally would have dialogue. So, basically, I gave myself a script, but didn't record the dialogue.

Once I had the line decided on, I drew up these thumbs to help guide my performance:

I then set up the first (very) rough blocking. And I seriously mean rough... The hands aren't positioned and the eyebrows are only elevated and angled - not shaped. Heh!

And then I got an intense three-month freelance gig. D'oh! But, now I have a chance to finish it! Woo!

The Many Ways to Say "I Love You"
I can't remember how this idea came to me anymore... but it developed like this:

I started thinking about the different ways the confession of "I love you" comes out in movies - especially in romance movies (eh.) Sure, a lot of times the confession isn't so direct, but the phrase "I love you" gets said with a very broad set of emotions.

With that in mind, I wrote down nine common scenarios that occur in romance films where a main character finally makes that painfully revealing confession. I put the scenarios in groups of three, wherein each places emphasis on a different word: "I," "love," or "you."

I did some quick, nasty sketches of the first six... Looking on them now, I think they'll certainly need an overhaul.

I'll need to grab some friends (male and female) that have decent voice acting ability and have them do a series of recordings for each scenario. I can then pick which recordings I like best and animate to them. For the sake of time, I would probably pick my favorite three.

Cycles
I have a personal project of sorts where I'm creating some custom content for a Neverwinter Nights server a few Intarwebs acquaintances are running. For now, I'm going to focus on the following:

A land animal (quadruped)
A bird
An aquatic animal (fish or porpoise)

I'll make basic cycles for each, including: walk/fly/swim, attack, hit, and death.

And that's more or less what I've got planned for the moment. Any suggestions on things I should add, things I should drop, or things I should change will be appreciated.

They're Concept Doodles More Than They Are Concept Sketches, Really...

2009-04-01T03:23:00.001-05:00

Here are some concept sketches I did yesterday for an animated short a group of friends and I are working on. We're really determined to create this sucker, so hopefully it'll be out for all to see within the year (unlike the projects I've been working on by myself, har har har).

Overtures: the Graphic Novel

2009-03-21T02:53:00.001-05:00

So, among the numerous personal projects that I fantasize about completing one day, I have a graphic novel in the works.
It is a joint project between a friend of mine, Tom, and myself. Tom is a writer, and has created a wonderful little fantasy setting dubbed "Altair." He wrote a spiffy story that takes place in the Altair setting, and I liked it so much that I wanted to make a graphic novel of it.
The project has created an interestingly symbiotic working relationship between Tom and I. While Tom has taken up the title of "Writer" and I've taken up the title of "Artist," we've got the tips of our fingers in one another's pies, so to speak. Tom created the setting, plot, and characters, while I brought to life the story's protagonist, Flynn, whose existence forced the events of the story to change slightly. At the same time, Tom's descriptions of places, things and people is the driving force behind my designs, and he continues to give me feedback as we develop the visuals for the graphic novel. Collaboration is awesome!
Anyway, the comic is part fantasy, part historical fiction, part political adventure.

The story follows our hero, Flynn, who unwittingly walks into the palace of Éndora just as a heinous series of events is about to take place! Distrusted by many of his fellow politicians due to his country of origin, can Flynn gain the allies necessary to untangle the already well-established web of deceit that is about to encapture them all? You can find out, but only in...

OVERTURES: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL

... Okay, I've had my fun now - back to business.
Below are descriptions and development sketches for a number of the characters in the story. Not all of them are huge players in the plot, but nonetheless add to the setting.
Flynn
Flynn comes to the palace of Éndora in hopes of patching up the poor relations between his race (the Changelings) and... Well, pretty much all of the human race. Generally well-meaning and friendly, he does have a bad habit of coming off as a clown from time to time.

Sveringen
An extremely charismatic man from the Island States, Sveringen is one of those fellows who puts up an excellent front, but still leaves you feeling a little on-edge. Was the last thing he said a complement or an insult; a simple stating of the facts, or a hint of things to come? Only he can tell.

Drummond
Sveringen's secretary of sorts. He's small, shy, and afraid that everyone is out to make his life miserable - the matyr-like star of his own drama. Having previously lived and worked in a monestary, Drummond finds secular life unpleasant at best.

Originally intended as a caricature drawn just for laughs, this drawing of Drummond eventually became the basis for Overture's character design.

Ophelia
A sly gypsy woman and Sveringen's "maidservant"... That's about all anyone knows of her, really.

Bruno
Assigned to work for Sveringen by his uncle, Bruno acts as a body guard and "muscle." He is rather well-known for his excellence on the battlefield, but has a personality rather unfitting for a man of violence.

Logan
A long-time veteran of the political game, Logan acts as Ambassador for the people of Branduin. He has assigned his daughter, Lillian, as his secretary, so that she might gain the knoweldge and know-how to become Branduin's next Ambassador. He and Sveringen are at odds with each other, though they both put up a front to suggest otherwise.

Lillian
Daughter and secretary to Logan, the Ambassador of Branduin, Lillian is just a sharp young woman trying to find her way in the world. Though very loving and caring of her father, she probably sometimes wishes he'd worry about her a little less.

Bianca
A Baroness from Ardendora, Bianca has the interesting conflict of wishing to be the top social butterfly of the court while stimultaneously realizing how silly and preposterous it all is. Deceptively elegant, she's likely to get one past you if you don't keep an eye on her.

Alcavar
Duke of Ninendora. He has a cat-like aloofness, and has no qualms with using his perceived social status to get what he wants. Though supposedly courting Speranza, the most popular lady of the court, he seems questioningly disinterested in her - and all other women.

Theodric
Ambassador of Tundrad, a strongly theocratic country. Naturally, he is a very pious man, and will find the culture of Éndora's court to be quite a shocker. Though quick to point out the morals faults of the severe self-indulgence that is courtly life, he never comes off as unfriendly.

Here are some random odds and ends, and the beginnings of wardrobe design.

Two line-ups showing the change in style that happened after the Drummond caricature changed the direction of character design. The top shows the old, less exaggerated style; the bottom the new, more 'toony style.

An attempt to tell, through images alone, that Drummond, who is easily the shortest human member of the cast, has finally seen someone inside the palace that is shorter than himself. I'd like to insert this gag into the graphic novel, but the delivery needs work - I don't think it "reads."

Freelance - with an Emphasis on the "Free"

2009-03-21T02:13:00.002-05:00

Yeah, so... I did some freelance for a guy wanting to create a television show based off a product he created.

Unfortunately, he ran off with the $1,300 he owed me after I created a great deal of artwork (noob mistake on my part - should have had a signed contract before doing anything.) However, there is a silver lining to this otherwise dark cloud: I never signed a Non-disclosure, Work for Hire, etc.

Hellooooo portfolio pieces!

He had some pre-existing artwork from another artist (whom he mysteriously lost contact with), and asked me to translate the currently "Nick Jr."-like art into something for a slightly older audience.

Here are some sketches and a color illustration of the main character:

I think he was also considering the idea of redesigning the main character's "body" or something like that, so I did some thumbnail sketches for ideas:

Extra Ketchup

2009-03-21T00:32:00.001-05:00

Apparently, I need to schedule myself to post something at least once a week on this thing... Otherwise, I'll keep having months between posts. Argh.

Anyhoo, I went through the ol' computer, and found some things I can share from the months past.

First up, Olivia's Weekly Sketch Challenge. A buddy of mine from school ran a weekly sketch challenge on Deviant Art from November '08 to January '09. Each week, she would give us an "assignment," and we would have to create a sketch based on it.

Week 1: Draw yourself as a Steampunk character.

Week 2: Pick a song, listen to it, and draw what comes to mind. ("Cheatin' on the Church" by Graveyard BBQ)

Week 3: Draw a recent dream, or one you remember from the past.

Week 4: Draw a scene from a book. ("The Cyberiad" by Stanislaw Lem.)

Week 5: Draw an evil version of yourself. (Beware of Lady Lederhosen!)

Week 6: Design a monster using things around you as inspiration. (I was eating cheesecake at the time.)

Week 7: Design a character that represents an emotion. (I did three... It was too fun to stop at one.)

Week 8: Draw your pet as a human. (My old, jumpy, arthritic cat, Blanco.)

Week 9: Draw something in celebration of the up-coming Chinese New Year! Must contain an Ox, since this year will be a year of the ox. (I added Old Man Rat to represent the past year.)

Week 10: Draw yourself with your favorite cartoon character, doing an activity that the character normally does. (I don't have a favorite, so I picked one of my favorites at random: Ren from "Ren & Stimpy.")

It was really, really fun. I'm thinking it would be great to get a group of people together to do this ALL the time. Each week, everyone would submit an assignment, and then one would be pulled at random to do that week. It'd be awesome!

Ketchup

2008-10-17T16:28:00.001-05:00

Whew! Man, it's been pretty crazy for the last couple of weeks, but things are finally settling down. I did lots and lots of drawing, but unfortunately I can't post most of it, due to it being work for a client. Poo.

However, there are a few things I can post. First, a random doodle.

Sadly, all the work I did ate up the rest of my awesome Faber-Castell pencils, which I couldn't seem to find at any art store... Meaning I had to resort to some pretty terrible H lead pencils I had laying around. So, I apologize for the quality of the following images... I had to use Levels in Photoshop just to get the pencil lines to show up in the scans!

Fortunately, I found out that dickblick.com sells my beloved pencils for cheap! I'll probably order some today... It'll feel so good to have a decent B2 pencil in my hand again.

Last week, I sat down and watched the movie Clue, and made an attempt to caricaturize/cartoonify Tim Curry. He is extremely hard to get down right! Apparently I'm not the only one to think so; I did an Internet search for Tim Curry caricatures, and the few I found were... Well... Not very Curry-ish.

I didn't do so hot myself, though I think there were a couple of attempts on the second image that were starting to get there.

Something I've been raving about for the last month or so is the French animated film "Les Triplettes de Belleville." Seriously. It is SO awesome. Excellent art, amazing character animation, unusual but touching story, and some great humor.

However, I was frustrated to learn that the American DVD release of "The Triplets of Belleville" doesn't have the original French audio. In fact, they removed the French audio in order to put a Spanish audio track (WTF? Honestly?) In addition, the American release lacks all the extras that are in the original French AND Canadian DVD release (which has much nicer packaging, to boot.)

Lucky for me, I have a good friend that lives in Quebec, who was nice enough to take time out of his extremely busy schedule to track down and ship me a copy of the Canadian release. As an extra sign of thanks, I've decided to do an illustration for him based on the film (he has a six-figure job. Giving him more money as additional thanks seemed a bit frivolous.)

In order to complete this little personal project, I've been doing a character study of Champion to figure out his proportions (particularly of his face), and sketching some thumbnail ideas for the illustration.

Finally, I doodled up some ideas of a Mime character in a short I'm working on. One of these days, I'll finally hit a design I like.

Head & Shoulders

2008-09-27T20:48:00.000-05:00

Whew! Sorry for the lack of an update yesterday, things got pretty crazy! I went to a dinner party with a bunch of ol' pals from the Art Institute, and had a wonderful time catching up with everybody.

Also, I called about a freelance illustration opportunity. I just might get the job! Just have to hope I can impress him with my "skillz." It's a really, really cool project, and I'm VERY excited about possibly being a part of it. However, because the next few days will be spent taking on the "test," in which I have to draw some copyrighted characters, there probably won't be any updates here for a couple of days (though I will try very hard to squeeze some studies inbetween the work.)

Anyway! Yesterday, I studied the neck and shoulders, along with some of the upper body.

Something else I did was a fun little exercise... Basically, you draw random shapes, and then triy to make something out of it, sticking to the original shape as much as possible. Because of my current studies, I stuck mostly to heads alone.

Urgh

2008-09-25T20:53:00.000-05:00

Whew, okay... No anatomy studies tonight... For some reason, doing two paintings has just wiped out my brain and eyeballs.

Here's the second painting for today. The color unification sucks, which is somewhat irritating because I tried carefully picking out the pallet. I must not have an eye for color at all. Bleh.

I got super lazy with the clothing, but one thing I like is that the structure/volume of the face holds up reasonable well even at a distance.

Harumph

2008-09-25T15:48:00.000-05:00

One day, I shall be a great painter.

Today is not that day.

... Tomorrow probably won't be, either.

Not a quick paint, though that's what I'd originally intended it to be. I didn't keep track of the time, but I'm sure the amount of time I took to do this is embarrassing.

Not-So-Quick Paint

2008-09-25T03:46:00.000-05:00

So, I set out to do a quick paint earlier tonight, and made a really poor choice of photographs to reference. Why was it a poor choice, you ask? The lighting was outside on a cloudy day, meaning that the lighting was all over the place. Grah. Anyway, it ended up being a not-so-quick paint.

Can't say that I'm particularly impressed with it, but I feel like finishing it for some reason or another.

Here's a WIP.

Necking

2008-09-24T22:08:00.001-05:00

Okay, so I got a wee bit off task today while looking for neck anatomy reference on the Internet (curse you, intarwebs!) But! I still got some neck studies done. Today's thanks goes to Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life. I'll continue studying the neck tomorrow, with the addition of the shoulders. The neck ended up being much more intimidating than I expected.

Also today, I cooked up a (rather poor) explanation of my technique for drawing ears. I might take the time in the future to make a more in-depth example... If I can just help one person not have to go through the "AAAUUUGH!" of trying to figure out ears from scratch, I will be happy.

Lend Me Your Ears!

2008-09-24T00:02:00.001-05:00

Man! Ears are so incredibly intricate and amazing! Not to mention that ears can be so different from person to person. I understand now that a lot of the reason why I can't find a good "system" for drawing ears is because it'd be darn near impossible to make one; you'd have to change it for nearly every ear!

I decided that, while I was at it, I should incorporate everything else I've learned thus far into my drawings... By drawing the head and face as well. I got the chance to draw a couple of children's heads, which is good, because childhood proportions are way, way different from adult proportions.

While looking in my photo collection for ears (people have a bad tendency to cover them with hair, blargh), I found an interesting fellow with a wonderfully crooked face. I decided to go all-out on him.

If you look really closely, lots of people have crooked faces, or at the very least, crooked noses (I know I do!) Most trained artists also know that actual symmetry in the face is rarely achieved in life. I think perhaps as we age, these nuances become more and more apparent, possibly because structures underneath the skin are no longer padded and smoothed over by full, youthful flesh.

After the drawings above, I felt I had grasped the anatomy of the ear well enough to try a system... It actually worked out pretty well!

I'll find some time tomorrow to explain the system and draw a "how to" of sorts. However, I will note that it will only work if you already understand the anatomy of the ear to a certain extent. It is not a substitute for study of the ear in life!

(By the way, if you're wondering where I got the above and below views of the ear... The answer is I didn't have any. I also couldn't make use of a mirror for those particular angles, so I had to go by touch alone. My right ear has been fondled more times tonight than I care to mention.)

Also, I didn't get a quick paint done tonight (boo!) I'll have to make sure I do two tomorrow to make up for it.

Studies of the Face

2008-09-23T15:08:00.000-05:00

For the last few days I've been studying the structures of the face, rather than doing quick paints. I believe today I'll start doing both anatomical studies and a quick paint. Every day.

In fact, I'm trying to set up a plan/schedule for my studies. I'm starting with the face and head, and will then continue to the various limbs and section of the body. The goal is to study the entire human body in detail, to where I know what muscles/ligaments/bones are where, and how they move.

A few days ago, I studied noses. I looked up a few references for the planes of the nose, and tried using them a couple of times. They didn't turn out very well, and I imagine you can probably pick them out from the rest (hint: they're towards the center of the page.) I decided it would be better to deconstruct some noses from the many pictures of people I have at my disposal. Not surprisingly, my understanding solidified quite a bit by using this technique. I've still got a long way to go, but I'm getting there.

Three days ago, I studied eyes.

I got carried away with one and ended up doing a whole face (and yes, that guy's brow really does stick out that much. Cool, huh?)

Two days ago, I studied the mouth. I found the mouth to be a bit frustrating, because I was having a hard time picking out the basic structure of the lips. I ended up looking around for some clues into the situation, and found some great help in a Loomis book, in which he describes the lips as five small masses (three on top, two on bottom). I'll see if I can't post an example later.

And yesterday, I studied the head as a whole. This ended up being a real struggle for me, as I had a hard time finding a system that allowed me to draw the head from any angle and gave me consistent results. I ended up using a mixture of Loomis, How to Draw the Marvel Way and an online tutorial by Ron Lemen. I'm showing all the pages, so hopefully there's a noticeable progression. The sketchbook is about learning, not making pretty pictures.

Today, I think I'll study the ears.

And so, she began her epic journey to become... an artist.

2008-09-23T14:27:00.001-05:00

I've been wanting to take serious measures to improve my art skills for some time now. Unfortunately, due to the pressures of a large student project, portfolio, and finding a job, I never really found the time to spend on self-improvement (heck, I was lucky to get 5 hours of sleep and two meals a day.)

However, last week I was temporarily "let go" from my job while we awaited word from the client of the project I was working on. "Well," I thought to myself, "what do I do now?"

During the previous weekend, my father and I went to the Kimball art museum in Dallas to see the Impressionists exhibition. I marveled at the use of color. So deeply I wished to master this element of art, to truly understand the futility of the color peach when painting a human subject, or green when painting the grass. My first couple of days were spent solely looking for photographic reference of anything and everything, with a particular focus on landscapes (during different seasons and different times of day), and people of various skin types.

The first night I attempted a quick paint, I used Photoshop, and kept my time to an hour or less. I made two attempts on the same photo, and was deeply dissatisfied with both.

I found that I struggled a great deal with Photoshop's brushes. I wanted something that felt more like using real medium. Trying to get anything to blend in Photoshop was a real chore for me. Apparently, there are ways to make custom brushes in Photoshop that act more like real medium brushes, but it requires a lot of fiddling. I'll have to try making some later.

The next night, a made another attempt, this time in Painter. I was much, much happier with my results. I felt much more like I was practicing in art than struggling with a program. I wasn't quite as happy with the next attempt, but never the less, I DID feel I was coming to a better understanding of color in human skin and hair.