Deleted Storyboards

    I apologize for the schedule being so inconsistent. I'm trying to figure out the best day to pick to post something/have a due date for progress every other week. Right now my work schedule's been so whacky and I'm in the process of trying to secure work at a studio again so that is only adding to my inconsistency right now. I'm thinking of just picking Saturday or Sunday as a post day only because I know I'll eventually be booked up all week and will have more free time on weekends.

    But I digress...

    While I was going through my production folder and just sorting things out, I came across a scene I had thumbnailed this past summer that had long since been excluded from the film so far. However, I still thought it was a cute scene and wanted to share it anyway:

    I had talked about this scene in one of my previous posts and why it was taken out. My intention was the show Oliver's human side and how while he can hunt, he also lives in a cabin and relies on human resources as much as he tries to live as a wild, solitary animal. However, because his hunting skills aren't up to par, he is hardly able to catch his food and being a kid living alone in the wilderness, I can't imagine he'd have any money to pay for much human food. To add insult to injury, a little mouse comes along and robs him of both sources of food basically. 

    The reason I ended up scrapping this scene was it added unnecessary time and it made the point of who he was kind of redundant. I've already established he's not good at hunting and dealing with confrontation in the beginning and that he's basically alone. Still, I was pretty happy with how it was all staged out anyway and it's good to kind of look back on it from time to time because while it's small, it is a quaint little home. Also, was really proud of those hands...hands are never my strong point. His cabin still does show up later in the story, in fact, I am using the same establishing shot later (*cough* Act III), however, I don't think I'll need to show the inside of it...at least not for this film. 

Post Holidays

So already I am slipping, but it was the holidays so there wasn't much to talk about anyway. There still hasn't been much done for Shift. It's been put on the back burner a bit to make these two cards for the holidays:

Fogarty Family 2016

Shift Holiday Card 2016

    I sent the first card to family members. I got roped into it completely by accident and because I opened my mouth about wanting to make the second card. My mom mistook it was me offering to do a family card. That unfortunately set back the Shift card, which I JUST got today and will mail out by tomorrow. So instead it'll be a thank you/new years card. Still holiday time so I can't be too upset. 

    With the holidays done though and my hours at my part time job slowing down I will finally have a lot more time to give Shift the attention it needs. My goal is to get Act II storyboarded out by the 6th so, fingers crossed!

Third Year Film

Once again, it's that time of year where I must make a "short" Short animated film. This time, I have the absolute pleasure of working with one of my good friends and classmates on this next film: TOTEM.

During one of our Wildlife Watercolor Painting classes, we had to take a trip to the Museum of Natural History. There, we began tossing ideas back and forth and came up with a common interest and inspiration: Northwest Native Americans. So during break, we had some lunch and wandered over to the Pacific Northwest section and studied the clothes, houses, jewelry and, of course, totems. We did our research on color choices and what animals were often represented in the totems and boiled it down to 4: Eagle, Salmon, Bear, and Coyote, 3 of which are the main characters of the film. 

I am trying not to talk about the film too much because I feel I shouldn't really talk about it until it's complete.  I will, however, show some of my rough, unofficial concepts of the characters.

Coyote Early Concept

Eagle Early Concept

Bear Early Concept

Unfortunately, my scanner isn't working with my new laptop, so I had to rely on my phone to take these. Thank goodness it takes good pictures! 

This was the final color scheme for Coyote, but in his final design, his face looks more like the original sketch. 

With the designs just about set, and storyboards currently being drawn, the film is coming along nicely! As the film gets closer to completion, I will be posting some stills to show how it looks. Stay tuned!

Animals and Watercolors

Well, it's been quite sometime since I've last posted here. I have a feeling I'll be posting more frequently with the work I've been doing in school though. I'm excited! 

This year I'm taking a class called Animals in Motion, where each class we take a trip up to the Central Park Zoo or, more frequently it seems, the Bronx Zoo and paint animals in water color. Although it's not my best medium, I still enjoy it and it's been helping me tremendously. I've let go of small details, even when animation or drawing, and I've been focusing more on the movement and the big picture. That's huge for me. Plus I get to draw/paint animals for hours too. 

Here are some paintings I've done so far from the Madagascar, Jungle World and Bird exhibits at the Bronx Zoo:

Starcrossed Storyboards (WIP)

Not sure why I haven't uploaded these yet, but here are 3 pages from my Storytelling class. For the class, I wish I chose a different story, but I chose this because it was the only one I could think of that was most developed story-wise. I'm still actually glad I did, because it really helped flesh out the storyline for me. 

This section is sort of in the middle of the story actually. I'll try and explain this without having to explain the whole story.

The main protagonist, Kit, has moved to Ireland (where she falls in love with Christian) and her absence has really upset her best friend Ali, who has been left behind in North Carolina. Their friend, Aidan, is worried about Ali after she's been out of school for a week. He goes to check on her...only to find she's gone insane and destroyed her beloved wooden sculptures!

I will finish this section up and repost when I do.

Street Saviore Faire

Just a little something I did for myself before I went from school chaos to job searching chaos. If you haven't guessed already, a friend was playing "Why Should I Worry" from Oliver and Company and gave me the idea to do this. Gio is the spotted hyena and Oliver is the lynx (in a kitten form). Both are shapeshifters. I'll put their human forms up here as soon as I get other things done =)

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

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.

"Take You There" Process

First off, an important thing to mention is I did this in Photoshop CS4. So if you're using Sai...well, it still could be interesting. This is gonna be sort of broad as I was experimenting for the most part. I would like to go more detailed as to how I do paintings and digital pieces as I get more comfortable with the process. But for now...this is basically how I did my most recent digital:

1. I have a very basic tablet so it's easier for me to sketch it out on paper. Sometimes I ink the characters out it if it gets really complex like this did. Just to make it clearer when have to ink it digitally.

2. After re-inking Ali (right) and Kit (left) I put in the flat colors. At first I used the colors they were, then used color balance to get the colors to match the background. (I got familiar with the lasso tool when I got to the grass.)

3. This. Was. Tedious. Particularly the grass. Again, got familiar with the lasso tool for that. I made 2 other layers for both the blue and golden grass. Both with slightly different shades than the first layer. Then for the blue grass I sort of cheated (^^') and copied and pasted different shades into different layers. To show more variety.  

After adding in all the shading I put in golden highlights in everything. For the fireflies that will come in later. Masking layers..becomes your best friend for that. Trust me.

4. Then I put in highlights in the eyes, stars, the fireflies and some glow effects to finish it off. And...ta-da!! It is finished! You can see a full view of it here:

Take You There