More Straight Ahead

After all of my talk about not animating straight ahead yesterday, guess what I ended up doing today. Lol, this time it wasn't as bad since the action I was trying to capture was more familiar. I decided to make a quick trip to the store after the drawing of the deer turning. It seems like that was a mistake since all of the ones after that don't make much sense. I had fun doing this one and would like to do it again (and finish) properly. I think the straight ahead pass captures a bit of the energy/feeling that I wanted though so it was a somewhat success in that aspect.

Why I Never Animate 100% Straight Ahead

Hey guys,
I got my traditional animation lightbox and a new disc in the mail the other day! I'm really excited about finally being able to work in 2d at home. I tried it out for a couple of hours this evening and its working great! This crazy straight ahead animation test is what I ended up with. Lol, its a great example of why I dont work completely straight ahead. I haven't gotten to the point where I can just sit down and coherently animate something without planning everything out first and starting off pose to pose.

Tomorrow I'd like to start on a real 2d test. I'm stuck between animating Bambi prancing around in a circle, some kind of flying creature or a dog going through an agility course obstacle. So far, I'm leaning towards the first one. It sound extremely challenging and its a variation on an assignment that Andreas suggested during our meeting.

More Development Drawings

Man, having a character really makes me want to just sit and draw all day. It's awesome to feel that way again! I feel like I lost that somewhere in high school. Anyway, I'm working on figuring out the structure of his face since I seem to have trouble drawing him from a few different angles. Hopefully the skull drawing will help. I also need to figure out a permanent pattern for his markings.

Less Realistic "Dae Dae"

Sorry guys, I just had to make up for last nights off model drawing lol.

Progress

Hey guys,
I got a tripod in the mail today for my video camera. I hooked it up and am very pleased to report that it will do fine as my poor man's capture station. Now I just need to receive the portable light table that I ordered and I'll be in business. I'm planning to do significantly more 2d work in my free time. I really want to work on the next 2d film at Disney but I don't feel like my traditional animation skills are where they should be for that. Hopefully they will be by the time the show is ready for production.

In the meantime, one of my friends surprised my by drawing an awesome picture of LaQuandae today. I figured I'd return the favor and draw another Cookie picture. I'm not very happy with either of tonight's drawings though. I used a different person as my model for LaQuandae which seems to have thrown me off. He looks completely off model in this drawing. Cookie is better but I'm not happy with her mouth. Lol, they both look wierd but LaQuandae is especially creepy.

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Another One

Even More LaQuandae

He's fun to draw! Lol, I got lazy with the afro pick and changed the end from the usual fist to a bone.

More LaQuandae

Hey guys,

After filling a page with thumbnails last night, I somewhat randomly ended up throwing a drawing of LaQuandae in there. Lol, I'm sure the fact that I was listening to Mos Def while drawing had nothing to do with it. =P Anyway, you can see it if you look through the mess on the page. Today I did another drawing of him in a more realistic manner as well. I think his design lends itself well to this style and am looking forward to seeing how things turn out.

In other news, I've decided to purchase one of those fold-able traditional animation tables. I was debating against getting one of those or a cintiq and the traditional workstation won. It costs significantly less and I've solved the problem of not being able to capture drawings by purchasing a tripd for my video camera. I still really dislike drawing in the computer so the cintiq was an option simply because of my lack of capture station. Now that I've figured that out, I'm definately going with what I really want. I cant wait, I'll finally be able to produce traditional animation whenever I want (provided I have free time to do so, of course)! I hope to use these things to greatly improve my 2d animation abilities in the hopes of being able to work on future 2d films at Disney. =D