Today's sketch

Revision

I spent a few hours revising my Playing with Matches shot. It looks much better now...

Revised Shot

Practice Makes Perfect

Earlier this week I received a commission which requires me to draw in the Boondocks anime/graffiti/sequential art style. I'm very excited about this since I've been practicing with that style for a while now. The fact that I have a commission will force me to get a move on with mastering that style and will speed up the advancement of my drawing skills. In fact, I want to spend the rest of the day drawing, LOL. Hopefully I'll be able to finish setting up the layout for my new AM project before the day's over. If so then I'll draw until I start to fall asleep, LOL.

Anyway, I did some studying last night. I looked at some Boondocks pictures and noted how the character's eyes, brows, noses, and faces were shaped. I also went to one of my favorite sequential artist's portfolio site and studied how he drew the same things as well. I'm making progress...

Here's my attempt to draw my alter-ego character in the graffiti style. I like all of her except her chin. That part didn't come out the way I wanted it to. Other than that I think she looks cool. With practice she'll look even better though. Oh, the lines below her are studies that I did of graffiti fire and part of a hand, LOL.

Sea Lion

While I was waiting for my video reference for my new AM assignment to export, I noticed a post card with a picture of a sea lion on my desk. I had drawn a cartoony version of his face yesterday and decided to finish the picture. My lack of knowledge on sea lion anatomy is painfully apparent, but the picture's cute anyway. I can't draw water at all...

Duck

I drew something today!

Rendered Version

Ok guys, after spending waaaaayyyyyyyy too long messing around with a global illumination script, I've finally gotten my shot rendered. I've been told that it would be a good idea to post two versions, since people running on Linux can't view QT files with the H.264 compressor. As a result, I'll post a H.264 and a Sorenson file so everyone will be able to see my work.

Playing with Matches H.264

Playing with Matches Sorenson

This Week at a Glance

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of posts as I've been quite busy this week.

First off, my stepfather's dog was saved. They got him to the hospital in time and he was able to make it through the night. It turns out his intestines were infected for some reason.

Monday's and Tuesday's have become busier for me. I have to go to this high school in the morning and help the kids there with their summer projects. I didn't want to go, but it's turning out to be better than I thought it would be. Although, when it's time to get up at 7am my body begs to differ, LOL. Thankfully I don't have to stay there all day. I get to leave at noon since that's when the kids that I'm helping leave. After that I spend the rest of the day doing my usual AnimationMentor assignments.

Friday was my birthday and I had a wonderful time with my best friend and my significant other. I'm 20 and officially no longer a teenager, yay!

Last, here's what I turned in earlier today for my assignment. I plan on rendering this tomorrow when I get back from the high school. The file's kinda hefty since I had to include a face camera shot as well as some audio choices for my next project.

Class 4 Week 3

A Death in the Family

My stepfather's dog will die very soon. He's very weak and is quite dehydrated. The vet says there's something wrong with his intestines...Either they're blocked, turning in upon themselves, or are infected. They don't expect him to make it through the night. Though I referred to him as "stupid dog" many times during his life, I really feel sad for him. He doesn't deserve this...

Class 4 Week 2

Alright guys, here's what I turned in on Sunday.

Week 2 Refining

The lipsync gave me some trouble at first. It turns out I had tweaked it too much and made the ease in/out too extreme for the amount of frames between each shape. After I toned that down it worked out well. I like my bouncy brows too, but my mentor says to get rid of the brow's antic in the beginning. I really liked that part, but if he says it's gotta go, then it's gotta go. Speaking of which, Ethan gave me another excellent critique. This week's crit was 13 minutes long and pointed out stuff that I hadn't noticed. I love how he takes the time to nitpick and find the slightest thing wrong with your shot! He's seriously a fantastic mentor!

Crunch Time Fun

Hey everyone, I just had my first 15 hour workday! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I started working at 9am and was able to come to a nice stopping point around 12:30pm. What caused me to work so long? I'm expecting to spend tomorrow with one of my friends who I don't see very often. As a result, I had to get as close to completing two days worth of work today. Surprisingly it wasn't bad at all. Sure, I had a few obstacles to overcome animation wise, but I made it and learned something in the process. The only strange thing is that I don't feel tired. I got up this morning at 6:40am since I had to be at the dentist's office at 8am. It is now 12:45am and I don't feel tired at all. I fell like I could keep working but I'd like to get up early tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to get some work done before I leave. ^-^

Sketchbook Assignment

This week's AM sketchbook assignment was to find two photographs from a magazine and recreate the person's expression with Bishop. Here are my versions:



Getting Bishop's mouth to point downward in the first picture was extremely time consuming. The rig refused to make that shape, but after spending hours making the smallest tweaks I was able to get what I wanted, LOL.

New Blog

Hey everyone, I was checking the various forums that I frequent and came across a link to a fantastic blog.

The Art of Glen Keane

Glen Keane is an amazing animator as well as an amazing draftsman. It's great to see so many of his drawings, especially one's that weren't even in the films that he worked on. He has and will continue to be a source of inspiration for me.

An Old Friend

Alright, here's my AM assignment from last week.

Facial Blocking

I had uploaded this picture to my deviantart gallery last week, and hadn't gotten a chance to upload it here. It's an aold colored pencil drawing that I did for my 12th grade honors art class. The picture is full of errors but I like it anyway. I'm thinking of getting it framed and giving it to my grandmother. She always enjoyed recieving my art work.

E-critiques

I just watched my e-critique for last week's AM assignment...It was fantastic! I had heard of mentors giving students really long crits, but I hadn't had the opportunity to have one of those mentors yet. To my surprise it seems like my current mentor is one of the "long critique givers", LOL. My first crit from him was 20:03 min long and every second of it was golden! He answered my question about jaw arcs and then went through my shot and drew pictures letting me know where and how I could include them. He also went over how I could push my facial animation by adding more asymmetry and upping the intensity of some of the poses. After that, he gave me a critique on the body animation, even though the assignment just called for a facial critique! I am so glad to have Ethan as my mentor and feel privileged to have one of the famous "long critique" mentors!

By the way, I will be uploading my facial blocking so you guys can see what I turned in yesterday. You can expect to see that shortly.

Pirates!

I saw Pirates of the Carribean 2 last night...it was great! Johnny Depp is the most versatile actor in my opinion. I still can't believe that Jack Sparrow and Willy Wonka were played by the same person. Johnny Depp is an excellent source to study when it comes to getting into character and bringing a particular character to life. Since I'm in advanced acting class now, I was sure to pay attention to the characters acting choices. While I haven't had enough AM lectures to fully grasp and understand what I saw, I was able to pick up on a few things here and there. Though I am by no means one of the simple Johnny Depp fangirls, I have serious respect for his acting skills.

Alright, I'm back and ready to type some more. The next character that made Pirates great was Davie Jones. He looked stunning! Everytime I saw him I was blown away by his facial animation. Later, I found out the ILM was behind the cg stuff in the film. That explains why Jones was so well done, lol. Excellent job ILM!

The Start of Class 4

I am officially in AnimationMentor's Class 4: Advanced Acting! They've started the new quarter with a bang for us. We have to thumbnail the facial expressions for our shot, block them in, shoot video ref, watch a bunch of training videos for the new rig, get to know our mentor, and upload a new progression reel. Looks like its going to be a busy week. I had planned on drawing a 4th of July picture today, but it looks like I wont be able to.

Alright, its time to shake off the laziness that accumulated over the break and get to work!

Hey I just found out who my mentor for this quarter is...Dreamworks animator Ethan Hurd! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

Today's Drawing

I'm trying to get into the habit of drawing something everyday. Here's today's entry.

My second completely digital sketch...I think I'm coming along nicely. It would be even nicer if the hand was finished though, LOL. Oh well, it's my hand and that's pretty much all there is to it.
In other news today is supposed to be the first day of class 4 at AnimationMentor. The website isn't accessible yet, but I imagine it will be up soon. I can't wait to get started again. It's been nice being able to play video games all day, but alas I'm almost done with Elder Scrolls. I've beaten all the guild quests and the arena. All that's left now is the main quests and some random free-form adventures. AM seems to be starting up again at a good time.

Dragon

I drew something today! I got lazy when it came time to color, but it's better than nothing, LOL.

The cool thing is I drew all of this digitally. I normally despise drawing directly into the computer, but I seem to be getting better at it. Yay!

I wanted to give him a light brownish background, but I couldn't remember how to do that quickly. Normally I would select the image, invert the selection and color the background that way, but my sketchy lines kept me from easily getting a clean selection. I didn't feel like hand painting the background in around the dragon so I gave up. I really need to draw and color more...