Chess - Bishop v Knight Test

Chess - Bishop v Knight Test: Getting the hang of Flash has been a little rocky, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of things! This was a little pencil test I did of a bishop versus a knight (definitely going to have to revisit my run cycles).

Tools: Adobe Animate (Flash).

Chess - Concept Art Video #1

Chess - Concept Art Video #1: And here it is, the first Chess concept art video! I realized the ideas I had were too big for one video, so I've decided to make a whole series as I develop the concept. I'll probably do the same for other projects like Between God and the Devil and Tommelise.

Tools: Sketches (traditional) and Photoshop.

Wildcard Wednesday #55

This week, we can expect: if you guessed Chess, you're correct! More Chess work, why not?

Chess-Character Sheet #1: Starting to crank out the character sheets now! This one is for Lorenzo.

Chess-Lorenzo Test 1: Lastly, a little test animation of Lorenzo. This one's based more on personality than movement and combat, but those will soon follow!

Chess-Isolated Pawn

Chess - Isolated Pawn: A new teaser for the Chess concept art video. Since I haven't focused on this aspect so much, I'm going to be drawing/animating more in-game scenes, like fights between pieces, dramatic shots, and other such stuff. I've got pretty much all of next week off, so I'm going to be putting in a lot of time into this.

Tools: Adobe Photoshop (plus thumbnail).

Wildcard Wednesday #52

This week, we can expect: developments in Chess! Yes, all current focus is now on this concept.

Chess #24: You are looking at the first scene of the first episode of Chess! For four years I've struggled with finding a compelling story to tell with these characters and the people who play them. Now I have one. This concept is going to be bigger than I ever dreamed it could be.

Chess #25: A blind date in the chess world usually means an interrogation. And when it comes to loyalty, none are harsher about it than the White side.

Chess #26: Some gesture drawings of fencing knights. I know, I know, they're knights! Wouldn't it make more sense to have them joust? But why use a horse and a lance when a fencing foil is so much quicker?

Chess - First Stage

Chess Stage #1: To help make the worlds in my concepts more real and tangible, I'm creating props and backgrounds for a small cardboard box I'm using as a stage! This first stage is very simple. I used acrylics on the background, but I'm going to be a little more considerate using acrylics again, because when you paint with acrylics, seventy percent of that time is spent blending.

This is a view with the chess pieces themselves. And then...

Chess Stage #1.2: ...here's a view with the characters themselves! I'm going to learn how to better make character stand ups and props the more I work with these stages.

Tools: Cardboard, Prismacolor pens, acrylic paint, pencils, and crayons.

Wildcard Wednesday #49

This week, we can expect: new Chess doodles and a bit of Cirque gestures!

Chess #20: As my Patreon launch gets closer, I'm kicking back into original projects! I'm really excited to be getting back into Chess. I'm actually going to be studying a couple books on the game to bring even more awesomeness to this concept.

Chess #21: I've never really taken the time to explore rooks in my Chess concepts. But after reading about just how powerful and important to capturing the king they can be, I'd say it's definitely time to work on them.

Gesture #1: After having enjoyed it in classes, I'm taking up the practice of doing gesture drawings. They're good for warm ups, cool downs, and practicing action and movement in the human body. It's also a great way to build up reference poses for future projects.

Wildcard Wednesday #46

This week, we can expect: trading card art of various delights! (I'm afraid I've got an unpleasant announcement concerning my Patreon page, but I'll save that for tomorrow-enjoy what there is now!)

Card Art #1: An overlaying view of all the card art I've made so far! I'm definitely going to make more over the next couple of days.

Card Art #2: Card art featuring various Chess characters.

Card Art #3: Card art with various fantasy landscapes (similar to the one I made for Concept Development)

Card Art #4: Fun little doodles displaying bounce and walk cycles.

Card Art #5: Going back to the roots in this blog with some Between God and the Devil art.

Card Art #6: The last bits of card art, also themed from Between God and the Devil.

Chess - The Note

Chess - The Note: Due to the enforcement of Deformation #98, relations between Rank II (pawns) and Rank I (bishops, knights, etc.) pieces are prohibited. But while Eliza has guarded her feelings all this time, will this keep her from expressing her feelings to the bishop Lorenzo?

Inspiration: So this is my final for animation! This scene is a little longer and more nuanced in my perfectionist mind, but for what it is and the amount of time I had to work on it, I'm pleased with the final result. You'll be pleased to know that this is a spoiler-y look into a subplot for what the finished story for my Chess concept is.

Tools: Photoshop (animation) and After Effects (rendering and compiling).

Chess Fight Pics

I'm running pretty tight on schedule (gotta scram for a film festival soon), so until I get the full quality PNGs from class, here are some pics of my finished prints!

Chess Fight-Part1

Chess Fight-Part2

Wildcard Wednesday #45

This week, we can expect: nothing but Chess! You're going to be so sick of it by the time these finals are out.

Chess #18: A WIP view of the second print (the first one's done, but I'm saving that for next week!) Looks like the queen's in quite a pickle there.

Chess #19: A quick Illustrator sketch for the opening title and end credits of my animation finals. It's coming along nicely, and I'm going to put in some serious work over the weekend to finish it!

Chess-The Note (Teaser)

Chess-The Note (Teaser): And here it is, folks, the teaser for my animation finals! As can be seen in all my previous animations from the class, I've been a bit bare bones when it comes to detail and whatnot. But despite the fact that time is ticking, this time I really want to try making a good-looking short animation to go out with a bang.

Tools: Photoshop.

Wildcard Wednesday #44

This week, we can expect: one juicy teaser for my electronic illustration finals. Finals and Patreon planning are keeping me busy. (Sorry, going to make you wait for the animation teaser 'til the weekend, 'cause I'm evil like that)

Chess #17: A rough sketch for the last of two prints for finals. The prints plus one sequential piece have to be connected, and they are by focusing on an epic fight scene between the Black Queen Florence and the White Bishop Basilio (the scene is obviously shortened). In here, Florence has put up on hell of a fight, but it looks like Basilio's going in for the win.

Wildcard Wednesday #43

This week, we can expect: me (animated), and previews for upcoming Chess finals!

Lip Sync - Bad Fanfic Reading: My latest piece from animation class, a lip sync exercise! (Sorry, for some reason Blogger doesn't think the animation exists on YouTube yet) This features me reading bad fan fiction. I upload readings on my personal account - to see this reading in particular, click here, if you dare!

Chess #15: Here's a sneak peek for my electronic illustration finals! Comprised of two prints and one sequence video, we see a shortened version of one of the main showdowns between Queen Florence, and the White bishop Basilio.

Chess #16: Lastly, a taste for my animation finals. I'm titling this "Chess - Love in a Nutshell". As the title suggest, this shows one of the subplots in the overall story and establishes the relationship between Lorenzo and Eliza. The required time length for the animation is fifteen seconds, but I'm putting in extra time to make a longer and high quality animation to put up at the end of the quarter.

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. 

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.

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.

Wildcard Wednesday #37

This week, we can expect: a sneak peek to another animation, and some more Chess art!
(also, I've been going through more tendonitis issues, might have to take a health break)

Anim. #1: Here's one of the extremes from my latest animation-this one is fifteen drawings. I'll put it up this Saturday when I finally retrieve it from the server!

Chess #11: A free-style Chess drawing I did in Painter during my spare time in Electronic Media. Proportions aren't quite right and everything, but I still liked the mod of the drawing.

Wildcard Wednesday #34

This week, we can expect: chess and preparation for creative justice!

Chess-Origins: I know I'm a day early for a throwback, but here's one nonetheless-all the way back from 2013! In my storyboard class, my final storyboard was going to be about a White pawn defecting to the Black with the help of some friends on the other side. But because my teacher couldn't see how I could fit it in the final, I caved in and did a storyboard on the Bluebeard legend (which you'll see in due time). I found these sketches yesterday, and nearly cried-I wanted so badly to show off my characters in a finals assignment. My classmates loved the concepts. But coming up this spring quarter, I will seek creative revenge!

Chess #8: Next quarter, I have Electronic Illustration with my storyboard teacher. So this time, knowing what I'm in store for and being a stronger artist, I'm going to make my finals assignment centered on my Chess people. Heck, it could even involve the proposed story I had in mind for storyboard class! So for now on my break, I am refining, reworking, and practicing drawing my characters and building the world they live in.

Chess #9: The timing for my creative revenge couldn't be perfect. For years I've been struggling with this concept. I knew what my characters looked like, and even had a grasp for their relationships with each other. But I didn't have a full, overarching story to go with them. It always boiled down to a traditional "good versus evil" story or a drama, and neither of those felt fun or exciting for me. But as I'm preparing this concept for spring finals, I'm getting a better idea of what the story should be.