Happy Holidays!

For the holidays, I was going to try and do a "12 Days of Christmas" series, ending on Christmas day, but because of finals and everything else, I ran out of time. Instead, I did a few sketches I liked enough to finish as paintings. Unfortunately, I still only had time to do one:

A nice wintery portrait of Christian, Kit and Christian's little sister, Evelyn. This was my first time with soft shading in photoshop, and I'm glad to say I think I understand how to do it now. The upside of this being the only picture I could finish is, I think it will be my last finished artwork for 2011. And with all the issues I went through this semester, this year in fact, I'm glad to have finished on a good note with this. 

I will be finishing the other sketches I planned on doing, of course. Hopefully before schoolwork piles on again. 

I also got some nice gifts this year:

A popcorn maker for my dorm 

How to Train Your Dragon: Gift of the Night Fury/Book of Dragons

The Lion King, Diamond Edition

A nice Moleskine sketchbook

Giftcards

A nice new watch

and an Iphone!

My relatives from my mother's side came up from Florida tonight and will be coming over tomorrow for a "second" Christmas dinner. We haven't had this many relatives together in quite some time, so it only adds to the good note this year's ending on. 

I wish this post could be longer, but between the holidays, and recovering from finals, my brain is gone! I wish everyone a Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!!!

Animal Animations!

Our last assignment for the Fall Semester in Animation was to do different animal gaits (walk, trot/amble, canter, gallop). We could use different animals or the same for each gait. I chose different ones because I had several types of animal characters and wanted to practice. It really helped a ton with understanding each animal. 

This was a fun assignment to do. Unfortunately there were some exporting problems and everyone's animations were glitching and sticking between each loop. I did my best to smooth out the glitch but it's still there. I will try and find the problem and export it again if I have the time. For now though, I suppose they are tolerable enough to watch.

For the walk cycle, I chose to do a Lynx because I developed a recent character who shapeshifts into a Canada Lynx. I've grown fond of him quickly and the animal it's self so you'll be seeing plenty of Lynxes in my gallery an animations I'm sure.

My old friend, Trey, finally became animated. I was excited and pleased with how he turned out. Had some issues with the tail earlier but fixed it. Still could be a tad better in my opinion but it still came out just fine. The rest of him moves nicely (if you can look past the stupid glitch). 

I had animated a deer cantering, but that is sort of a work in progress. I have all the keys done but wasn't thrilled at how it looked. The head movement was good and the legs, but the body barely moved. I need to fix it. Once I do, though, I'll be putting it up here as well.

Finally, I did a horse galloping. Reference, for all these animations, is your best friend. Slow motion videos, pencil tests, pictures, anything. There's no shame in using a ton of reference. I loved this one. It was nice and smooth, but thanks to the technical difficulties, it looks choppy here. I apologize for that. 

Lip Sync Work in Progress- Sophomore Year

Another project for my Digi Comp class. I used Trip! Finally, got to see the guy in color and I've had him for how long? I think Jonah Hill as his voice is fairly fitting actually. I decided to put this up before I finish it because it shows the three different steps in making it. The first part was fully colored and inked, then it goes to just the inked frames I did. The last part shows the rough version. I have rough keyframes done for the other two characters. I'll be finishing this sometime soon with those other two and a more finished background.

The audio is from the movie Knocked Up, but Trip belongs to me.

Puppeting Assignmnet- Sophomore Year

Another assignment for Digital Compositing class. I used Niko again for old time sake =) This was a lot more tedious than I thought! Once again I hand drew the model and scanned it in to be inked and colored in Photoshop. Then I copied and pasted the separate joints into different layers. How many layers? A lot. Her tail has 4 joints in it, body has 2, the neck and head moved separately and her ears had 2 joints. The limbs are pretty obvious. It was a lot more trouble than it's worth to make sure the outline matched up at all times so I just got rid of it and ended up liking the vector look to it. After it was all assembled I imported it into After Effects and began animating, joint by joint. At first I thought it'd move a long faster than the traditional way. But now...let's just say my admiration and respect for claymation artists has doubled. You have to have so much patience for it.

Anyway, enjoy this little animation of Niko =) Next week I'm going on a field trip to Titmouse, where my digital compositing professor work. If I can take pictures I will. If not, I'll still share my experience on it!

Prepare yourselves for a slew of pencil tests coming up as well involving Kit playing tennis and another one of my characters, perhaps Ali, cracking a whip. Also, I have another assignment coming up in 2 weeks of a fully colored lip sync (exciting!) There will be a lot more animations to come this year. Lots.

Animating in Color- Second Year Animation

My first animation in color..finally! This was the second assignment for my digital compositing class. I was fairly happy with the results for a first time. The rough drawings were done by hand, then they were inked and colored in photoshop. After, I put it together using AfterEffects.

For this assignment, I used one of my characters, Ali, for this. I originally wanted to put audio to it but really ran out of time =s. I might in the future though and repost. The hard part is done =P. But for now, here is the first fully colored animation I've done!

New York Comic Con 2010/2011

Why 2010 AND 2011? Because I realized I had some neat pictures from last year that haven't been shared yet! Last year was more of a learning experience, although I did have a bit more luck last year meeting artists and famous people than I did this year.

In 2010 I got to meet one of the directors of the Secret of Kells, Tomm Moore. What a nice guy, let me tell you. He literally sat down with our group and drew with us. I got a nice sketch from him in one of my older sketchbooks! When he pointed out the Irish spelling of my name I admit..I got excited. =3 

That same year, I also met the character designer for Kim Possible, Stephen Silver, got a sketch from him as well (you can see him working on it above) and got one of his sketchbooks. It had a LOT of good tips and notes in there as well as amazing gesture drawings and designs. 

Here are some other cool photos from Comic Con 2010:

This year was also fun, even though I had missed two events I REALLY wanted to do: the Adventure Time/Regular Show panel and getting Pendleton Ward's autograph. That led to a bit of a disappointing end to the Con. However, I really can't complain too much. I still had a lot of fun, got in for free for working at my school's booth the first 3 days and got inspired. Met an artist I had some common ground with too which is always awesome. I think next year I will consider getting a booth with some friends. Make some connections and some profit all at once! 

I got some really neat stuff at this Con too, including a free "Comic Con 2011" Finn figurine:

I went a bit overboard with getting stuff but was it worth it? Absolutely. Above is a My Little Pony "steampunked" t-shirt, a small print of Marceline and Princess Bubblegum made by an amazing artist. She also did the little Marceline, Applejack and Marshall Lee buttons above too. I also invested in a Kung Fu Panda 2 artbook. HAVE NOT seen the second movie but I plan to when it's out on DVD. The artbook's amazing though. Definitely worth buying. 

These are some of the costumes/outfits that were on display at one of the vendors. I put these up here too because I was looking for outfits that were a bit more interesting than I designed my characters in. I probably won't change any of the Starcrossed outfits because they are just common kids. This is more for another idea I've been working on again recently involving shapeshifters. I want them to look more unique than the average human being because they are. So I took pictures of these outfits and stalked the store's website for ideas and got a lot of inspiration for some of the characters. 

This was something I was going to print and handout to people for free just to see if I can get my name out there. That plan fell through, however, in a way that's ok. One of my friends made a point that it could advertise that all I do is My Little Pony art, which isn't true. So, if I get a booth next year I'll do a few more characters and sell some prints of this and the others. Apparantly you can do that IF you drew it. I'll probably do some Adventure Time and Regular Show fanart to sell as well as my own original characters. 

This was a sketch of Marceline I was going to have Pendleton Ward sign. I was also gonna ask if he could do his impression of Lumpy Space Princess to record. Next time! 

Traditional Painting Process

This is a bit older but still good. This was the second to last project assignment for my Drawing II class. And I got pictures of the whole process from start to finish! Well...my friend, Corie, helped actually. 

1. I made up 3 concept sketches to choose from for the final piece. My favorites were the first two but compositionally speaking, the first one worked the best.

2. I blocked in some color quick on a small sheet of canvas to plan out how the colors would be laid out. 

3. Next step was putting a grid on both the sketch and the board to make sure it's redrawn in proportion.

4. Then I went in with a softer pencil to get the thin edges of the detail in the background darker. I had to spray with fixative to make sure it didn't smudge into the paint. 

(Close up of the process of getting the detail in)

5. I then went in with a thin paint brush and a dark bluish color to really make the background details pop.

6. And here is the final piece! For the background, I had to make the oil paint as thin as possible and just glaze over it 2-3 times, then took some paint away from the amusement park with a q-tip. That way, I didn't cover up the park completely and it ended up giving it that "far away" look as well. 

Art Trades

So I have seen a lot of people do Art Trades lately and I really would love to get into that also. I did get to do one art trade with one of my SVA friends. She did a nice picture of Christian and his Siberian fox, Aria. In exchange I made a picture of her character, Julitz and my character, Niko in a more cartoony style:

I picked up this style when I began animating Niko for class assignments (seen below). Though it isn't my usual style, it's still fun to do from time to time. The picture I did for her is actually a bunch of inside jokes rolled up into one. The quote it was inspired from was "We can't stop here...this is bat county" Which, for those who don't know, is from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Strange movie but very funny! Instead of putting them in bat country though, they're in "Rat" country. Why? Because during school, I had a few dorm visits from a little mouse I ended up naming Remy.

Happy Birthday Trey!

Well..extremely belated birthday! Actually Trey's birthday was July 10th but due to getting busy and being distracted it didn't get done on time at all. Ah well. It is done and I'm pretty pleased with it. This is a characature of myself presenting Trey with his shiny new collar I finally designed for him! I made July 10th his birthday because that was my dog's birthday (who would've been a whopping 16 if he was still around!)

Also, on a side note, I've really been getting the hang of cell shading ;) Still practicing!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TREY! <3

More Animations!

I really should've put these up a while ago. Woops! Some more animations I did my first year:

A dog walk cycle we FINALLY got to do! I was waiting for this assignment the entire year. I was happy with the outcome. The assignment was only to use 8 drawings (16 frames) but being the perfectionist I am...I added inbetweens as well. =P

This was my segment from our class Anijam. Each of us did a few seconds of animation and the next person had to pick up from there and continue it. I was the third one to go for this.

Happy 4th of July and Belated Canada Day!!

Happy 4th of July and Belated Canada Day everyone!!

This is a sketch I did for the holiday of my riding my pony, Rafferty and my friend from Canada riding her horse, Indy. I was hoping to have it all colored and finished up by then but I got too busy. I will still finishe it up and put it on here. =) Every day is a good day to celebrate America.

I hope you all enjoy the fireworks and celebration!

Intro to my Characters

I will have some concept art, references, and other various pictures of my characters on here later on but for now. I did some group pictures in my "practice" moleskine sketchbook. These are only inked versions straight from my sketchbook. I will definitely have fully colored versions of the two group shots below and maybe one of this first one here. 

Starting from the left: Nix is a female (yes..female) rottweiler/lab mix. She is tough and mischevious and gets a kick out of making anyone's life more interesting..and by interesting. I mean a living hell. Next to her is Trip, a laid back, nonchalant pit bull (mix?) who takes on a rather "surfer" like personality. Nothing really bothers him and he's usually pretty content with life. Next up is Niko, the first one I created. She's a young border collie who is simply there to be sweet, cute and charming. She acts as a motherly figure at times, but she is also naturally curious and energetic. Last but not least is Trey, a German Shepherd. Due to an injury, he was retired early from his job as a K9 officer. This contributes his stiff and grumpy personality, but deep down he is actually very caring and fatherly. He just hates showing it. 

I have been developing my canine characters, affectionately called "The Misfits" for about 2 years and I am thinking about using them for my final animation thesis. This is one of the most recent drawings of the four of them. They were loosely influenced by the animated band, the Gorillaz, believe it or not, and partly based off of people I know. They have really changed and developed a great deal over time in both personality and design. Trip was going to be a drug addict (after escaping a drug testing lab). That was toned down a lot and I am still debating if that should still be the case. Trey was the complete opposite of who he was today when I first  had him in mind. Originally, he was supposed to be a bit slow and, well..a bit of an airhead. The butt of everyone's jokes. He still is the butt of the jokes in Nix's case, but he became more intelligent and took on the role of the leader. 

Starting from the left: Aidan, shown here at 17 years old, is a bit more minor than the rest, but is slowly becoming more developed and important as time goes on. He was born in Waxhaw, North Carolina, so he's got a pretty thick southern accent. He works in his dad's garage and can fix just about anything..except a problem with his latest ex girlfriend, Pepper (who isn't shown here yet). Next to him is Ali (17 here). She was also born in North Carolina but her accent isn't quite as strong...but it's still there. As a kid she is adventurous and fun loving but she becomes the exact opposite when her best friend, Kit (to the right), moves away. Still, she manages to be her same, sweet self to Kit and Aidan. Kit (16 here) is also born in North Carolina, accent and all, however, she has to move to New York and has difficulty adjusting. She, in a way, is the first main character of the story while Ali is the second. Kit meets two new friends, Christian and Hannah (to the left) in New York and things seem to go better for her, until she and Christian fall in love...then she faces a hard decision as she gets older. Next to her is Christian (16 here). Yes he looks emo...but he isn't really. Just quiet...and a bit misunderstood. But he's actually real sweet and soft spoken. He takes Kit under his wing and finds he has someone he can talk to and be himself as well. Finally, there's his friend, Hannah (15 here). She is the youngest, but second tallest, character. She is confident and energetic...opposite of silent Christian. How they became friends is beyond anyone but thanks to her, she and Christian met Kit. 

My human characters are in a whole story of their own. They were created only late last year so they still have some developing to go. I do have a story in the making though. Most of the characters are based on my own experiences and people I know. Some are made up though, Pepper and Christian specifically. Christian was actually first drawn as a bit of a joke. My friends and I, for fun, drew ourselves as men. I drew myself as an emo guy because sometimes...that is how I can be, I'll admit. I loved the design so I played around with it...surely enough he became a character. Originally, though, Kit was not going to end up together with Christian. I was going to pair Aidan and Kit up. But I drew Kit and Christian together once...and it just clicked. What also worked was it gave the story more conflict (I will get into that later though). 

Wow...I did not expect this to be so long. Guess that's what happens when I let ideas sit untold for so long. And this isn't even half of the ideas I have! I will be sharing them though as they develop more. 

Letter Reaction Assignment- Freshman Year

One of the last assignments we did for the fall semester and one of the first animations I did with Niko. The assignment was to have our character read a letter and react to it in some way. In this case..Niko isn't happy about having to wait till Christmas to open this giant present.

2008-2009 Art

I recently found a folder on one of my older usb drives of paintings and drawings I did a few years ago. I actually put these into an old art portfolio. It's good to look on old stuff now and then for inspiration. To break it up I'll post some "now and then" sketches of my dog characters later.