This merry holiday season I thought about getting my dog an ugly Christmas sweater. Above is what I suspect his reaction would have been. I thought better of said idea and got him a giant bone instead. Below is what his Christmas actually looked like.
Here's a portrait of my friend Anne (who is a kick-ass illustrator, by the way. I highly recommend clicking that linky link).
Alright, so here's the deal. I was trying to do another traditionally animated lip sync and I got ridiculously frustrated with it. So, I decided to not touch it at all today and instead paint something (which is something I hadn't been able to do since the summer!).
I modeled, textured, and rigged this vegan-milk-carton dude for our sophomore simple poly assignment. Spent around three weeks animating this guy and it was a blast! Here's a compilation of his jump, walk, and turn.
I am aware I haven't given my blog some lovin' in a while, but here's the first post of the school year. Just some character sheets for our first Concept Development assignment and some dolphin silhouettes
So, me and my friend, Kevin, have been giving each other little art challenges to keep us from slacking off during the summer. These are some of my favorites from the ones I have done. The one above is a caricature of Kevin. The challenge was to just draw each other.
Challege: Draw yourself in the style of Gravity Falls (which is, by the way, one of the best animated TV shows out there). This one was probably the funnest to do.
Oh hey, character designs! I barely ever draw creatures, so I decided to step away from human characters and try to make some cool monsters/aliens. I started with the silhouettes above and then translated those to an actual drawing. This whole process was really quick. Everything took me less than an hour to make. Below are the three designs I liked the most. I tried to step away from cute...but that didn't work at all.
Also, bonus 5 minute Korra sketch; because, why not?
Just a quick still life painting. I tried to focus first on value and then on color, eliminating detail from my priority list. Overall, I had a lot of fun doing this quick piece; maybe it was because of the plantains.
I mean seriously, you should try them sometime. They are delicious.
This is a just-for-fun piece. I just wanted to make something fun and most preferably involving dogs and their careers. It was definitely a nice break from summer classes and overall academic studies. I will also be printing it on some canvas fabric soon for a little project I have so I might post pictures of that later.
In all seriousness though, what would your dog's career be?
Just a quick painting I did of my good friend Megan. I tried doing this in color, but quickly ran away from it. I just wanted to focus on likeness and shape without having color get in the way. Plus, it's always fun drawing friends you miss!
Just a quick doodle done under an hour. I used a Cup O'Doodle...well, doodle as the base. I think I'll start doing more of these. It's a nice break from all the academic studies I've been doing. (:
My friend Adele and I arbitrarily proclaimed today Fan Art Monday and taking into consideration that I am currently obsessed with Legend of Korra I had to make some Korra fan art. I tried mostly using the lasso and paint bucket tool which was pretty fun. I liked doing such a loose sketch, nothing was really planned too much, which was pretty cool.
One of the many still lifes that I will (hopefully) be posting during the summer. I feel like I want to work on this more and fix some of the colors (and add that one object I left out). But, for now, I'll call this finished.
Whenever something isn't going as planned, I just like to leave the project as is and either play music or draw something fun. This time I chose to do a quick (and eerily accurate) self-portrait. Can you tell I've been having some issues with colors?
This is my 3D Design final. We had to invent a character, sculpt it, and then make an environment for it. I chose to make a snobbish and pretentious frog who always looked down on anyone who isn't at her level of sophistication.
Original concept sketches and illustration, complete with a brief summary of her character
I've been attempting to do some color studies from movies for a while now. Usually, I would get frustrated half-way and never finish them. After all those failures, I decided it was time to stick with one until I finished it; this is the result! 'Tis a color study from Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. No color picking or tracing, as it should be.
I found this blog the other day called Cup O' Doodle the other day and quickly became fascinated by it. They basically make random shapes/scribbles and them turn them into awesome art! My friend Kevin and I decided to give it a try. We chose the same scribble, just to see what we came up with and this is what I have! You can also check out what Kevin did here
As part of our History of Animation class at Ringling we had to pick a scene from a computer animated film and analyze it as much as we could. I thought it was a pretty cool project and I wanted to share some knowledge with all of you. So, warning, this is a HUGE post! I just hope I don't get sued for posting pictures from the art book on here.
Rango in the Terrarium
The back story on Rango
Rango is the Academy Award-winning story
of a pet chameleon that is trying to find out who he is through acting. He is
constantly faking his character and confidence, but under that bravado lays a
troubled chameleon that has no idea who he is. It isn’t until a twist of events
propels him out of his owner’s car that he finds himself more lost than ever,
but this time in a real desert rather than his terrarium. Lost in the strange town
of Dirt, this little chameleon takes the character of brave Rango, a Western
outlaw who isn’t afraid of anything.
I picked to analyze the movie Rango, because ever since the first time
I saw it, I fell in love with its unique story and characters. The movie was
very different than most animated films, since it’s not necessarily meant for
everyone. Crash McCreery’s character designs were very realistic and rather
strange, compared to most characters in animated films. It was definitely an
unusual movie, but in terms of storytelling and animation, it is one of the
greatest. The movie was made by Industrial Light and Magic, a company that
focuses primarily in special effects rather than feature-length character
animation, making it their first fully animated film.
The Terrarium: Explained
The scene goes from 1:54 to 5:37
The first scene in the movie, Rango in the Terrarium, introduces the character in one of the most brilliant of ways. In this sequence, the filmmakers present all of Rango’s different personalities; from the acclaimed hero, to a sea captain, to an anthropologist, and even a Spanish womanizer. From the first shots, the audience expects the movie to look very simple and cartoony, but it is actually the exact opposite. This scene presents the main conflict (Rango getting lost in the desert) in one of the most creative ways possible. In Rango’s eyes, conflict is the most important part of the story and its characters. As he mentioned during his epiphany: “The hero cannot exist in a vacuum”. During the first five minutes of the movie, Rango is living in this vacuum. A vacuum that doesn’t allow him to develop as a “person”. When the terrarium falls from the back of the car and breaks, it literally breaks Rango’s bubble and thrusts him into his own personal conflict. I specially found this storytelling mechanism to be very smart, creative, and appealing.
The team
Kevin Martel was the lead animator for the
character of Rango
and Geoff Hemphill (seen on the upper left hand corner
acting out a shot in the terrarium scene) was one of the
many animators who worked on the movie and, more specifically,
in this scene. I had a chance to have an e-mail interview with Geoff, in which he explained his experience working
with this sequence which will soon be posted online. Click
through for Geoff Hemphill’s Rango Animation Reel.
That's Geoff acting out reference for his shot.
The look and set
The director, Gore Verbinski, wanted this
first scene to look very safe and family friendly. He wanted the set to look
very clean and perfect in contrast with the rest of the film. When asked about
it he said: “It’s a sucker punch. We played to the conventions of an animated
film and then abruptly shattered them.” Everything in this scene is made of
plastic, making it look like a very sterile and safe environment; something
that soon changes. Rango tries to breathe life into this set, by giving the
inanimate objects around him different personalities.
The
character
The final version of Rango was designed by
Crash McCreery and first brought to life through storyboards and then placed in
a fully rendered animated film. Physically, Rango has certain traits that make
him special. One eye is bigger than the other one and is constantly offset and
looking to the side. Also, his tail is
an extension of his emotions; if he is sad, it will be dragging on the ground
and if he is upbeat, it will be upright (both which can be seen in this scene).
Emotionally, Geoff Hemphill considers him to be a “faker”; someone who
constantly tries to fake confidence but who also has certain mannerisms that
give him away. In this scene, Rango goes from being an energetic hero who saves
an “emotionally unstable maiden” to a chameleon who shows his true feelings
when he realizes he has no friends or family, just a couple of plastic objects.
Rango’s character obviously dictated a
lot of story choices in the rest of the movie. Since the main character is an
“acting geek”, there’s a lot of homage shots throughout the film and the first
one is found in the terrarium scene when he is acting with the Barbie doll
(putting her hand on his knee and pretending she was flirting with him, a clear
reference to Singing in the Rain’s “Make ‘Em Laugh” sequence.
The animation
When asking Geoff Hemphill about the
animation process in general, he made big emphasis on using reference to make
the acting look believable. For Rango, the director actually filmed the voice
actors interpreting their characters.
The animation in Rango is very subtle and
realistic, rather than wacky and cartoony and this gives way for some beautiful
performances. ILM is essentially a visual effects studio and that definitely
shows in the movie (not in a bad way, of course). The terrarium scene is
characterized by the beautiful slow motion water shots after Rango is propelled
out of the back of the car. It’s certainly an image that stays with the
audience.
As part of my project, I also made this animatic (of sorts). After this assignment, I can safely say I can quote this scene word by word now.
This is officially the last day of my Freshman year at Ringling. It's been a pretty weird day, but satisfying nonetheless. I feel like I have accomplished and learned a lot, even if I haven't slept much. Ringling is where I've always wanted to be and it's great to be surrounded by people that are so talented and passionate. Here's my Drawing II final, which coincidentally was the last one to be finished and the first one to be posted.
The assignment was to reinterpret the Trojan Horse story. So, I chose rats, owls and a giant piece of cheese do the job! And this is the result.
Jungle Gardens might be a small little zoo in Sarasota, FL, but it sure is fun to bike over there and draw their animals. They don't have a very big collection, but they have a lot of loud birds and some interesting reptiles and lemurs. Oh! and one single spider monkey.
Here are some gestural drawings from my two visits to Jungle Gardens the past week.
And here are some squematic drawings that are based more on construction.
By the way, flamingos are far scarier than they seem. Especially when they are nibbling on your sketchbooks and looking at you with their beady eyes.
In which a girl imagines her stuffed animal has grown to massive proportions as she, playfully, tries to fight him off with a bubble gun. Will she be able to defeat him?
And now, for process:
First crappy thumbnail
Second pass.
Final linework
Work-in-progress. Much experimentation with a "chalky" brush.
In Figure Drawing II, we have been turning observational drawings into different characters. In this assignment, we had to incorporate the character into an environment that fit the mood and the person's personality. This is the end result.
