Animation Overload!

Today's a very good day, because instead of having simply just one piece or animation to show, I've got three animations to present to you!

Desoldri and Kurian - Walk Cycle: This is my first walk cycle with a moving background (done for animation class). Kurian's walk turned out okay, Desoldri's...not so much. But with practice I'll get better. I'm just so excited that, little by little, I'm bringing my own original creations to life!

Michael Jackson Dance: These next two pieces were not for animation class - they were for illustration for electronic media. We've been getting into sequential art, and one of our studies was Michael Jackson. I've realized despite how hard it might seem in the beginning, dancing is one of my favorite things to animate. It's even more rewarding than a simple walk cycle.

Dance feat. JustSomeMotion: My other sequential piece I did based on the electro-swing dancer JustSomeMotion. This piece leaves me excited to make better (and finished) animations of him in the future!

Wildcard Wednesday #42

This week, we can expect: a lot less than planned. I'm sorry - I know I promised a whole bunch of Chess sketches on my Facebook page, but while I didn't necessarily ruin them in my frustration and rage (based on the teacher and myself, not the actual drawings themselves), I'm still not proud of what I made. However, I did make something I'm proud of that's Chess related - the first ever Chess animation!

Chess-"Bite Me": This was just a simple hand-drawn lip sync exercise for animation class. But then it hit me that I used one of my Chess characters. I'd brought him to life. I was beginning to make them all a reality! It's short, but I'm still proud of this and excited about what animations I'm going to make around this concept now that I'm learning everything I need to know. 

The Plucker - Release

The Plucker - Release: It's been too long since I did a Plucker piece. I spent last night literally just flipping through the book and creating thumbnails based on whatever scenes I landed on. This is one of them, when after the strange doll has broken, the Plucker is released. Man, it feels good to be drawing from this again! More shall come. (Characters and story belong to Brom)

Tools: Pencil (tracing), Prismacolor pens, Sharpie marker (framing), Faber-Castell watercolor pencils, and Studio Series watercolor crayons for coloring in the Plucker.

Wildcard Wednesday #41

This week, we can expect: some caricaturized self-portraits, because double sketchbook assignments ate up my time.

Me #1: The assignment was to draw sixteen expressions on a caricature version of my face (as of now, I've got four more to go). Rather than sit in a mirror and take pictures of my faces, I went through one of my bad fan fiction videos and paused at funny expressions I made while reading it. It's been so much fun!

Me #2: Another silly face, at a moment when I was voicing a fluffy bunny of an author's character (very ill-placed, being it was a Death Note fan fiction-but then again, it wasn't really much like Death Note at all)

Me #3: This face was clearly taken at a cringe-worthy passage. When I was making myself a caricature, the features I messed around with the most were my eyes and mouth. Even though I can be very expressive, my eyes and mouth are super small, so I often look like I'm squinting at everything.

Me #4: This face was taken from a moment where the author was clearly trying to be clever about a song choice for the main character.

Me #5: So often in bad fan fiction, there are moments when you can't help but just groan in frustration at what just happened. This is one of those moments.

Me #6: A face clearly taken during a moment of interrupting commentary and correction.

Me #7: The flustered and exhausted face that screams "Let's just finish this!"

If I make anymore good caricature sketches, I'll post them next Wednesday!

Chess - Turmoil in the Tunnels 2.0

Chess - Turmoil in the Tunnels 2.0: This is my midterms print again, but this time I did a little something fun with it. Because people all week in class haven't been ready to finally put midterms behind us, I had a lot of free time for doodling on my hands. One of my favorite things to do on my black and white art is to put it through image trace in Illustrator and see how it looks. So I did the same with my print. And I have to say I love it even more than the original!

Tools: Corel Painter (original print) and Illustrator (image tracing).

Wildcard Wednesday #40

Today we can expect: the classic bouncing ball exercise, my midterms print, and a little more L in the picture!

Bouncing Ball: The bouncing ball...what animator hasn't done this exercise at some point in their life? The trick in class was while we drew the bouncing ball from a one point perspective, the version we ended up shooting was actually another version of the ball, only angled and bouncing off into the distance. It's hard not to make the ball too small when you've still got so many frames to go.

Chess - Turmoil in the Tunnels: Here is my Chess-themed midterms print. Like I said earlier, I have no idea what exactly the scenario going on here is, but nonetheless I drew it.

You may be wondering why I'm not saving the print itself for Saturday. Well that's because I've got an image traced version (through Illustrator) to show you later, and it looks really awesome!

L Lawliet: After finishing and printing out the previous piece, I had two hours worth of class time to do whatever the heck I wanted. So of course I drew L. I think I'm starting to get better and better the more I draw him. And while I've got a basic understanding of drawing in the manga/anime style, I'm not the greatest manga artist in the world, so I'm pretty proud of the job I did.

Watercolor Love

Watercolor Love: This week is midterms, so I didn't really have time to create a finished piece this week (that and our family desktop and printer seem to be having issues too). So I thought I'd share with you a new weapon in my artistic arsenal!

I love the look and feel of watercolor, but I'm terrible at controlling the colors. As you've seen in previous pieces, I've turned to watercolor pencils in the past. They work just fine, but the colors would often show up less bold after washing over the whole thing with water. So yesterday I was in Barnes and Noble and was walking by the art supplies shelf when I found these.

I'd seen watercolor crayons for sale before, but I worried that some of the brands were cheap and wouldn't look so good. However, I was feeling daring so I picked up this set. And I regret nothing! The crayons run so smoothly on the paper, it's like drawing with butter. And after going over the colors with water, they still maintain their boldness.

I'm so happy I picked these up - I can't wait to use them for future pieces on the blog!

Wildcard Wednesday #39

This week, we can expect: a Stranger Things (ish) animation and new Chess artwork!

Funko Eleven: This week, I had to do a rotation exercise in animation. So I brought in my Funko Pop figure of Eleven from Stranger Things as my subject. It's not quite right, but I did start getting the hang of it about halfway through the animation.

Chess #12: Midterms are coming up, and part of the assignment for my Electronic Illustration class is to make a print with at least three full-body subjects. So I thought, "I'm getting creative justice using my Chess people in finals - why not do it with midterms as well?" So I sketched out some ideas until I narrow down on the one that will be better developed. My classmates responded very well to my characters, which definitely made me happy.

Chess #13: Another sketched out concept. If I go with this, I might shake up the angling and perspective a little bit to make it more interesting.

Chess #14: The last of my preferred sketches. With a little shaping up on angling, this will probably be the one I go with for the final print. There's opportunity for facial expressions, which I'm always down for.

Lament

Lament: I decided to kick back with a little more fan art this week, so I thought I'd do a reaction piece to a certain favorite character's...fate. Ugh.

I knew it was coming. I accidentally spoiled it for myself years ago, long before I ever thought I'd watch the anime. And I ended up with a delayed reaction that had me crying late in the night. I'm such trash, aren't I?

Anyways...

Tools: Pencil (tracing) and Prismacolor illustrator pens.