Nate Moody's Sketchblog

Bittersweet recognition (Brian Jacques RIP)

2011-02-13T17:44:00.004-05:00

I was featured as part of a tribute to Brian Jacques, author of the Redwall books. You can see the full resolution image here: http://fav.me/d392ef7 , and the article is linked there as well.

This is my personal tribute to him. I learned the meaning of chivalry, honor, and valour, thanks to reading his books. Martin was my role model, in a sense, and the worlds created by Brian Jacques were things that have inspired me to explore the art of storytelling.

What's going on here?

2010-12-03T11:34:00.003-05:00

I'm busy with finals projects and such. If I get things done, there will be a few things to post, but in the meantime, I'll probably be quiet until the 3rd week of December. In the meantime, have a pokemon.

http://fav.me/d342vqx full rez here

His name is Snivy, from the latest generation, and yes, he is more awesome than you are, and he knows it. Hence why Nintendo couldn't use his real name, which is too awesome for any company to utilize, "Smugleaf". I even feel a bit guilty saying it, I am not sufficiently cool enough!

More Flash animations!

2010-11-13T20:26:00.001-05:00

Flash animation test WIP 2

2010-11-09T00:13:00.002-05:00

Another update to the flash test, almost done.

2010-11-08T16:29:00.001-05:00

Walk Cycle, with the Norman Rig. This is my first "fully completed" animation in Maya since my first attempts at 11second club over a year ago, so this is a vast improvement from that at the very least! I have made progress!

But of course, there is much more room to improve.

Animation WIP

2010-11-07T23:05:00.002-05:00

Just working on some fun little animations for class, although I'm deviating from the assignment a bit.

Put your money where your mouth is.

2010-11-01T00:11:00.002-04:00

This is a really great point about how you need to handle your career.

While you are at school, you should spend as much time as possible working on your portfolio. You have the rest of your life to relax and have fun, college is the time set aside for preparing for your career. In an industry as competitive as ours, there is no room for the lazy. If you have applied to lots of places, and they have seen your portfolio, and they don't offer you a job, you are not good enough yet. Sometimes a single place isn't looking, or wants someone with more experience, but with the current state of the game industry, there is always a job for good people. Many companies will manufacture a position for someone if they are good enough even if they weren't currently looking. When that happens it is called an opportunity hire. Some students believe it's because they don't have enough experience. This is almost never the case. The reason companies list experience requirements for job listings, is to discourage the people who know that they currently aren't good from applying. No company will see an awesome portfolio, and then decide not to hire you based purely on not having any experience, unless it's for a senior or lead position. Remember you will always have people with experience and shipped titles competing with you for jobs, and they have been paid to work 40-80 hours a week for a while. If you are investing only 5-10, you aren't going to be catching up anytime soon.

Follow the link below for the whole article by Ben Mathis.

Put your money where your mouth is

Digipaint!

2010-10-31T09:17:00.004-04:00

Some paintings up at deviant art.

11Secondclub Preproduction (oct 2010)

2010-10-16T13:35:00.003-04:00

Here are preproduction pages for my 11SecondClub submission... I want to keep track of it even if I don't finish on time (at the very least, I think I'll finish this month's submission on the merit of a potential demo reel piece.)

11Secondclub WIP

2010-10-15T17:31:00.002-04:00

Here is a rough animatic of what I'm doing for 11secondclub... I'm getting nervous because I will need to start kicking it into animation gear soon... I'll need to do several burnout days of animation. And I may need to order some more paper... We'll see. 408 frames, here I come!

The essential books for animators and character designers...

2010-10-15T13:28:00.006-04:00

Or... how I spent a lot of money in order to be better educated.

Here are the first 3 books I think animators especially should get.

Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators
Draw the Looney Tunes

Animator's Survival Kit

Force: Dynamic Life Drawing should be studied first, along with Draw the Looney Tunes (provided that you have been studying drawing already, beyond the basics). Both books combined form what I like to call "The Art and Zen of Stylized Drawing", because they are not the standard drawing manuals that describe how to perfectly make a complex character from a sphere: rather, these teach you about the head game.

Draw the looney tunes looks like a simple book, but actually it is essentially the cartoon manual granted to new Warner Bros. animators, who are just starting to learn. It is all about the proper psychology to drawing, starting with the line of action, followed by advanced concepts like rhythm. It is definitely a text that requires you take each page slowly, drinking in all of the info it is giving you.

Mattesi's book, Force: Dynamic Life Drawing essentially teaches you a specific process and thinking behind life drawing. It teaches you how to create some very pushed and exagerrated drawings, more to find the active forces in the image rather than the realistic edges.

I'd suggest supplementing either of these with something that keeps you grounded in realistic life drawing as well... It could be dangerous to make yourself a one-trick-pony early on, and it is good to have as varied a level of expertise as possible.

Last, but without a doubt not least, Richard William's Animator's Survival Kit is now your Bible as an animator. It is the holy writ in regards to motion and timing, and is indispensable as a resource and guide. No animator should be without their own copy of this book.

Woah, long time no update...

2010-09-27T11:06:00.002-04:00

So I haven't updated in a while. I have started posting work on deviant art because it has a nice resolution for hosting images. My most recent exploits are delving into the wonderful art of digital painting, but I am still continuing to do more and more life drawing at the zoo. Here is the link!

http://natemoody.deviantart.com/

Odosketch

2009-09-29T13:20:00.003-04:00

Found this cool thing thanks to Keith Lango, a really powerful but extremely simple drawing program built into a browser.

Adam's Rib

2009-09-09T23:24:00.002-04:00

Some excellent and powerful acting in a sequence from "Adam's Rib", starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. First 5 minutes is some of the best stuff.

Book by Miyazaki, you should buy it.

2009-09-09T22:37:00.002-04:00

Amazon.com: Starting Point: 1979-1996 (9781421505947): Hayao Miyazaki: Books

Buy this book. I'm going to, and I haven't even read it yet... Here's a quote that hit me posted by Mayerson on his blog...

I like the expression "lost possibilities." To be born means being compelled to choose an era, a place, and a life. To exist here, now, means to lose the possibility of being countless other potential selves. For example, I might have been the captain of a pirate ship, sailing with a lovely princess by my side. It means giving up this universe, giving up other potential selves. There are selves which are lost possibilities, and selves that could have been, and this is not limited just to us but to the people around us and even to Japan itself.

Yet once born,there is no turning back. And I think that's exactly why the fantasy worlds of cartoon movies so strongly represent our hopes and yearnings. They illustrate a world of lost possibilities for us. And in this sense I think that the animation we see today often lacks the vitality of older cartoon movies. Economic constraints in production are often said to be the main reason, but it seems to me that something spiritual is also missing. It would be stupid to turn my back on the times in which we live and act arrogrant about it all, but I always find myself thinking that the old cartoon movies were indeed more interesting and exciting that we have today.

I've always had this thought, and yet Miyazaki NAILED it. Have you ever thought about every bit of possibility and potential you have left behind? I have. I could have gone into the military, I could have become a politician with aspirations for the presidency, I could have started an indy band and become the next big thing (for a little while), I could have gone into culinary arts and become a restaurant owner, I could have been born 50 years ago and been a scientist, I could have been born 100 years from now and gone out in the first mission to deep space... The possibilities were limitless, and, out of my own choices and the parameters set around me, I have endeavored to pursue the art of animation, in order to birth these worlds and present them to others to see. Whenever I tell a story, it's a little bit about me, and thankfully, I'm satisfied with that prospect, despite all the lost potential for greatness in other areas. Can you speak with the same satisfaction and resolution?

Delays, delays.

2009-09-08T18:05:00.003-04:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, hopefully once I get into the rhythm of classes again I'll hopefully be able to get into a better posting schedule.

I'll go ahead and post a raw vid from my drawing trips. It is an epic duck fight.

Things to come...

2009-09-01T22:01:00.002-04:00

Soon I'll take some pics of my latest zoo drawings, but I'll also be working on some possible webcomic ideas, maybe some shirt designs, as well as some outside projects. Most prevalent to this blog however, I'll be working on a video presentation on why exactly I'm doing this whole drawing thing. I filmed the shots this Sunday with Rolando's aide, so hopefully I'll remember enough of Adobe Premiere to get things cracking. I'll also try to post some of the scratch video I have, there are some interesting interactions with animals I think you would all like to see. Stay tuned for more details hopefully this week.

Living Expenses

2009-08-29T16:37:00.004-04:00

Illustration by Kevin Cornell.
If you are unfamiliar with the comic strip "The Superest" click the image to check it out. Basically, two artists play a game where they make a character and illustration to directly defeat the other one. Lots of clever wordplay is used, but this particular one haunts me rather directly (and most artistic students as well...). This one was used to defeat "Artist Son", which is worth checking out as well. Hope you enjoy! Should have more zoo drawings to post next week.
Also, class has started, so maybe some school projects will be shown as well? Only time will tell!!!

Animal Drawings (Aug 16th, Post #2)

2009-08-28T07:00:00.003-04:00

More drawings from the 16th...
Lionesses lazing languidly loosely inspires alliteration. Not really, I'm just bored.
An elephant bathing itself... The doodles in the upper part were a baby elephant rolling in the dirt, but he moved too quickly for me to really capture it...
Dolphins.
I LOVE the red panda at the zoo. Apparently her name is Nima.
Dog sharks. You can pet these, I've done it each time.
Penguins, and a demonstration on how their body is akin to the beginner's flour sack character for 2D animation.
Polar Bear, Walrus, and Walrus inspired man.

Animal Drawings (Aug 16th, Post #1)

2009-08-26T07:00:00.001-04:00

Drawings at the zoo, finally! It's so refreshing to draw the living again. This time, I'm using Sakura Microns, due to what I read in Walt Stanchfield's texts, advising to use pen. I've also found it an excellent study to use them, since you absolutely HAVE to be confident that your line is what you wanted to draw.
Penguins!
More penguins...
People viewing the Walrus, or the Walrus viewing the people... Wait... Who's doing the most observing I wonder?
Kudu, Gazelle, and Ostriches.
Different iterations of a lion, in varies styles. It's hard to draw these guys because they stay about 30 feet away.

The rest are to be posted Friday, 7:00 AM!

IMA Drawings (8-8-09)

2009-08-24T07:00:00.000-04:00

For our last time at the IMA (it's getting a bit boring, so we'll go back to the zoo to draw LIVING things again for quite a while), I decided to do a bit more focused study.
Just some doodles to start off the day...
Middle American designs.
Drinking vessels, Middle America.
A figure.
A ladle illustrating a killer whale, middle american.
My favorite sculpture, a lavender jade figure of a woman and a phoenix... It's a beautiful sculpture you have to see in person, in the Asian art section.
African masks! Again.
This a really big porcelain vase... The reason it is flat on the top is because I drew it in my perspective, and my eye-line IS at the top of the jar. It has a depiction of a battle between a lizard and an octopus.

IMA Drawings (8-1-09)

2009-08-21T07:00:00.000-04:00

Started in the African section this round...

There is a photo in the exhibit of an African tribesman, and I just loved the way his face looked, in shape and wrinkles... It's not something you see much of.

Starting in the Asian section soon...
Indian sculpture...
An amazing Japenese figure, the eyes have jewels inset that make the eyes low amber, contrasting sharply with the gold accented, dark black figure... It's chilling to look up into its gaze (It is on a 6 foot pedestal, staring down at you).

And, more coming next week on Monday, 7:00 AM!

IMA Drawings (7-26-09)

2009-08-20T07:00:00.000-04:00

Rolando and I have been going to the Indiapolis Museum of Art as a way to shake things up with our drawings (We've been to the zoo for about 2 months in a row, so something was necessary to keep it from getting boring). Here, I've learned a lot in terms of visual design and drawing appeal. Most of the time, we study the sculptures, and draw them, as it is easier to draw more lessons out of them then simply copying a painting. I'll try to credit the different artists and works as I can, but is a little difficult to find all the names and titles, so bear with me!
This is "Brother and Sister" by Aguste Rodin, 1920. I drew this sculpture from one angle, then tested if I could do a form of study I heard advised by Walt Stanchfield, which is to attempt to draw something as if you were viewing it from another 90 degrees away, without actually viewing it from that side. In other words, you learn to draw what you see in your mind, as well as you draw from what you see with your eyes.
"Satan", by Jean Jacques Feuchere.
"The Peasant", by Jules Dalou.
"Bronco Buster", by Fredrick Remington.
The same using the 90 degree technique, came out rather well if I say so myself.
These are African masks... They have so much personality!
African costume. This thing is about 5 feet long.
More masks.
An African statue, lots of character in this guy!

More coming tomorrow, 7:00 AM!

Animal Drawings (Jul 19th)

2009-08-19T16:28:00.000-04:00

Drawings from way back when, these come from my first attempts with Conte Crayons... These are excellent drawing utensils, they have this beautiful slick feel when they glide on the paper, and they give very pure intense lines if you press firmly with them. They add an extra layer of expression, and they hold to the paper much better than charcoal.

As you'll see as these progress, I get better at reducing forms and interpreting shapes in simpler ways, and I'm doing my best to get more of a design element in the drawings. Next post: Art Museum!

Random Pic Day!

2009-08-19T15:37:00.005-04:00

Didn't you hear? It's post up random pictures day! Not really, but I'm posting up a few here for your enjoyment. Apologies for the lack of posts for about a month, I'll try to reset to a stable schedule, and in the meantime I'll post the things I've been doing for the past month, including these things. In case you've been wondering, I've been weekly doing at least one big trip of drawing a week, on Sundays, about 3-5 hours of sketching. It's been some of the most valuable work I've ever done, because it has really revitalized my visual skills. My drawing has become 200 times more confident, and I'm becoming much more sure in terms of character design and visual appeal. Here are a few pages that have become inspiring for me this week...

Inspector Cleuzo

Character Design | Artist Interviews

This was a render I did for fun, messing with a couple of dog rigs. I call it, "Evolution of Dog". The rigs are some free rigs, I can't recall who they belong to... Check out my post about rigs and you can probably find the equivalents.
Decided to do a ship design for the fun of it.
I was watching the 7 samurai with a friend, and felt like drawing a samurai dude. Used Copic markers, a W1 (light warm grey), to give a soft feel.
Random character designs, in random styles. One of my basic rules for my drawings is never do the same style too many times, and keep it always mixed up, and be able to do any style, any time. Thus far, I've never felt crippled or restricted, so its worked well. And, I really only need to study someone else's drawing about 3 times (By study, I redraw it while looking at it), to assimilate about 75% of the style (In other words, I get 25% of the internal concepts of the picture each attempt, although never to exactly 100%). If it is a character, I can usually then redraw the character in any pose, in my style, for the most part.
Felt like doing painting today, so I did a watercolor on canvas today, the first in... 2 or 3 years probably. I like the mood of it.

Rigs and things...

2009-08-14T10:34:00.003-04:00

Sorry for not updating in a month, I've been busy trying to set up things for the new semester, as well as finishing my maya training (without the ability to use maya 2009, something I hope will soon be rectified.)

So here are some things I've found that will be of aid, some that I will have to buy once loan money comes in...

Home (Norman)

Servings of Maya Rigs from all over the web. Free Delivery!: Norman

Just found out this fantastic rig has been released, and also has a rather sensible guide on how to modify it for improving its design. Incidentally, this is the rig that was used by the famed Pixar classes taught at Academy of Art University, until the program was disbanded recently. It is free to use by creative commons license (non-commercial), so definitely use it if you need a solid rig to animate on. It's got lots of intuitive controls, and a guide on its usage, so check it out!

Servings of Maya Rigs from all over the web. Free Delivery!

Also, the Animation Buffet site linked above is an excellent resource, basically all of the better free rigs on one site, and a much more sensible selection than highend3d. The only difference is, this site only holds maya rigs, so sorry for those trying to use 3DSmax.

Soon I'll be ordering a year's term of Maya 2009, as 2010 is around the corner...

Amazon.com: Flip UltraHD Camcorder, 120 Minutes (Black): Camera & Photo

This looks like the solution I've been looking for... A cheap, extremely portable but high definition camera (720p is fine) that I could use for taking reference footage, as well as possibly videoblogging my animation travels.

EDIT: Also, some people have figured out a way to mod it to add camcorder lenses to it...
YouTube - Flip Ultra HD DIY Lens Hack

Recently I've been sketching at the Indiana Art Museum, which has been a rewarding experience, to say the least, and sketching the sculptures there has been a great study.

Last but not least, I recently ordered and received these indispensible animation study texts...

Amazon.com: Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures (9780240810966): Walt Stanchfield, Don Hahn: Books
Amazon.com: Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: Volume 2: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures (9780240811079): Walt Stanchfield, Don Hahn: Books

One of the most worthwhile purchases I've made this year. Each page is like a lecture that you've been needing in your classes, it is so much to digest (You can't really "read" through the book, you just have to slowly digest it and work your way through.). Buy this book if you are planning on being an animator! Or an artist who draws! No exceptions.

Results of 11 Second club competition for June

2009-07-05T18:19:00.002-04:00

So, finally, I now finally have actually placed in the 11 second club competition. I ranked 130 out of 136, but that's fine by me, as that just means I have that much more room to grow! Make your mistakes now, as they say in the biz. I'm debating on entering next months, or waiting until I have brushed up my animating chops first by working down the proper path... The difficult part for me is finding good self-training material, but for now what I have is what I'll be using. To say I learned tremendous leaps and bounds in my animation this competition is an understatement, so I'm happy with what I have! I'll try to post up more of my zoo drawings this coming week, I have 2 weeks worth to post this time.

And More Sketchpad Drawings!

2009-06-29T07:00:00.000-04:00

Hero of the World
Departure from my usual style... Just trying things out.
I drew this girl while in box office. She looked so morose... I don't think she was excited to go to the movies.
Dolphin and seal... these creatures are fun to draw.
Cat Shit One anyone? This would likely be Botaski. I can't remember who the characters are now.
Drawing inspired by We3, a great comic book by Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely. Check it out if you can, it isn't that expensive on Amazon.

More Sketchpad Drawings!

2009-06-26T07:00:00.000-04:00

The following require an explanation. A friend of mine has a practice that he helped me develop to increase my drawing/storytelling prowess... At least comic style. Basically, you develop a concept, and a number of frames to tell it in. You are required to stick to those strict guidelines... And you only have 50 minutes to do it all.

This is the tale of an alligator and a dog, in the middle of an epic fight. The dog must win, the alligator must have a gun. 6 frames.

TaDah! I think I succeeded.

Kingdom Hearts reference, here is a real life King Mickey and his Key(blade)
Balloon kid. Anyone else remember playing that?
Umm... I don't know either.
SQUIRREL.
We have these little stamps in the box office, that say void. I like imagining they have personality (see the eyes? see them?)
Exit signs too.
Oh hey, the alien from "Hero of the World". I plan on remaking this someday.

Animal Drawings (June 7th drawing trip #3)

2009-06-24T07:00:00.000-04:00

More drawings...

11 Second Club June Competition WIP

2009-06-23T20:21:00.003-04:00

A late attempt at the June competition. http://www.11secondclub.com/competiti... For all practical reasons, this is my first animation in maya. The clip is a James Stewart line. I'm trying to get this in on time, if possible. This is my first rendered pass, but probably my 4th or 5th animation pass overall.

Enjoy!

EDIT: Here are my thumbnail sketches for the poses. I built this out of sequence, as I was kind of exploring the program while adjusting my poses (A BAD IDEA). I'll be spending my time until next week salvaging what animation I can, and plus-ing it to the best of my newfound abilities.

Animal Drawings (June 7th drawing trip #2)

2009-06-22T07:00:00.000-04:00

Meerkats again this week.

Sketchpad Drawings!

2009-06-20T15:14:00.005-04:00

One of my mini sketchpads just hit its last page, so I decided to pry out the best for all of you to see! Hope you enjoy! In celebration, I'll also share a guest's work today (when she has a website portfolio, I'll let you all know).
This is one of my guest drawings, done by Abby Alexander. She asked me what she should draw, I told her a drunken lemur being dragged out by bouncers. I think she did a good job, what do you all think?
Ship design, love doing those.
Felt like doing a strange pose.
The drunken animals of the plains... I really had fun with this one.
Caricature of how some men look when they are dressed up.
A man picking the lock to his own home, the key residing by his left cheek, a futile attempt for naught.
Cat and dog, sassy cat too. These drawings were in a van, whilst being driven around, thus the shaky lines and poor composition. I try my best though!
This guy for some reason sat through the credits of terminator, to see nothing. Had this expression/posture the whole time. I had to wait so I could clean the theater (this was a work day).
Fantasy creatures are fun to draw... You have lots of places to pull for inspiration.
Animals!
Dolphin show, inspired, of course.

Mall Drawings (June 8th drawing trip)

2009-06-20T14:55:00.006-04:00

This day we decided to draw another type of animal, people. Here are the results. I was experimenting with using different mediums, for instance I started using a Micron, switched to some charcoal and pastel. Enjoy! I enjoyed drawing them (we were at the Circle Center Mall, during lunch hour! Lots of fun).

Animal Drawings (June 7th drawing trip #1)

2009-06-20T14:18:00.004-04:00

Assorted animal drawings from the 7th. This day I tried to keep the medium I was using varied as possible, so I started in graphite, moved to the copics, then strayed away from the copics and used a Sakura Micron.

Lemurs dominated this days trip, for the most part.

Up painting!

2009-06-17T23:34:00.003-04:00

Well, here are the pictures for the finished painting for Up. Sadly the day I took these pictures, I had to clean the windows. There are only a few parts left up there (maybe none at all now).

A simple panorama...
One with perspective... Hopefully you can sense the scale if you've never been to this theater.

Movies vs. Film vs. Cinema. Is there a difference? (4 of 4)

2009-06-12T07:00:00.000-04:00

My second favorite company, Sony Picture's Animation, has few movies to really judge it by. I really only like it for one film in particular.

Open Season (2006)
Okay Movie, Bad Film, Good Cinema
Not the greatest story at all, but had a good visual style. Not a good movie to characterize them by, though.

Surf's Up (2007)
Excellent Movie, Great Film, Excellent Cinema
Leaps and bounds better than Open Season. Had great direction and animation, and the visuals were stunning. I've never seen water that looked that beautiful in animated films before, and the visual style of the documentary shooting was perfect, especially their revolutionary development of the hand-camera setup. Sadly, I'm not sure if the crew is continuing further in developing any other movies. (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is being handled by another set of directors...)

And of course, Blue Sky.

Ice Age (2002)
Great Movie, Okay Film, Good Cinema
Character design was really well done, and the visual style was well thought out. Animation was a little shaky, and the pacing was a little off in the storytelling... The music was really defficient in this one.

Robots (2005)
Good Movie, Okay Film, Great Cinema
Character design was actually realy nice in this one. Animation was better visually. Not very memorable though.

Ice Age 2 (2006)
Good Movie, Okay Film, Okay Cinema
Newer characters were relatively useless, and the only thing that saved the pace in this movie was Scrat, sadly.

Horton Hears a Who! (2008)
Excellent Movie, Good Film, Excellent Cinema
Great story, visually fell in line with the Seussian logic, and the storyline was fun and enjoyable, with a lot of good touches. The buttshaking dance sequence was the only thing that felt completely out of touch, but was redeemed by a very dramatic feeling sequence where the Whos are almost doused in the vat of oil.

So that's all for that long post. Hope you all enjoyed, please comment with your opinions, and whether or not you agree on the terms I'm using. I'd like to see your opinions!

Movies vs. Film vs. Cinema. Is there a difference? (3 of 4)

2009-06-10T07:00:00.000-04:00

Alright, now the second favorite, Dreamworks. I'll skip anything that I think is nonessential, or that I didn't/haven't watched.

Shrek (2001)
Excellent Movie, Okay Film, Good Cinema
Was very enjoyable... at the time. Many of the jokes are extremely dated now, which is one of the unfortunate traits of most of Dreamworks' movies. Really funny key moments, and felt great as a parody of the Disney established storytelling.

Shrek 2 (2004)
Great Movie, Okay Film, Good Cinema
It was essentially more of the same, but had a much better distribution of humor, but none of the pizzazz of the first film.

Shark Tale (2004)
Good Movie, Okay Film, Good cinema
Has a good style, but the storytelling still seems stunted. Much more story based than any of the previous Dreamwork's fair, but the character design really needed a lot more feeling in it.

Madagascar (2005)
Great Movie, Okay Film, Good Cinema
Character design improved tremendously, but the animation style kills it for me. It's just too zippy, when it really needs to be more stretchy and elastic. Too many scenes get dry, though.

Over the Hedge (2006)
Great Movie, Good Film, Good Cinema.
Still, the character design isn't pushed as far as it needs to be, but everything began to improve with this movie in particular.

Flushed Away (2006)
Great Movie, Good Film, Great Cinema.
Ardman's character design lends a lot to this movie, and the amount of gags that they had was excellent (especially all the sequences with slugs were hilarious.)

Shrek the Third (2007)
Good Movie, Okay Film, Okay Cinema.
With each movie the character design wears on me. The characters are just not abstracted enough for the type of story that it is, and this leads to some really ugly looking characters. Basically, if a human character looks worse than the designs in Shrek, I think that someone should get fired, because Shrek is kind of the bottom line in terms of how people can look. Granted, that is a very subjective sort of opinion.

Bee Movie (2007)
Good Movie, Okay Film, Great Cinema
This one was a lot more fun, and had a much better visual style than other Dreamworks movies. Not very memorable though.

Kung Fu Panda (2008)
Excellent Movie, Excellent Film, Excellent Cinema
The only movie that really steps up to the plate in comparison to Pixar's movies; this still is the absolute best of what Dreamworks has made, visually and story wise. This movie had so much more pathos than any other film that came from Dreamworks, and I really hope they continue this trend. Watch the commentaries for this one, it shows how much work went into this film.

Madagascar 2 (2008)
Good Movie, Okay Film, Okay Cinema
Yet another unnecessary sequal, this movie actually bored me a bit. Funny sequences here and there, but otherwise unmemorable.

Monsters vs. Aliens (2009)
Great Movie, Good Film, Good Cinema
Closer to what Kung Fu Panda got right, but still difficient. It had some really good sequences with pathos, but the thing that killed it for me was that stupid paddleball sequence in the beginning, which served as an instant headache for me. Lots of fun to watch though, but the ansellary characters were just annoying to listen to and look at. The characature like designs worked with the general, but could have been dropped for all the other people and been a lot more funny, that way they could have had a dynamic contrast. That and it made Susan look weird, when her design was actually one of the more visually acceptable. The other character's appearances should have been pushed a heck of a lot more cartoony, as well... This movie had a lot of issues with visual harmony.

Next up is Sony, immediately followed by Blue Sky, on Friday.

Movies vs. Film vs. Cinema. Is there a difference? (2 of 4)

2009-06-08T07:00:00.001-04:00

Starting with mine and many other's favorite, Pixar...

Toy Story (1995) (John Lasseter)
Excellent Movie, Excellent Film, Excellent Cinema
Has great pathos for all the characters, cinematically has a good visual feel for the aspect of being a toy, and as a film it's story is somewhat formulaic but retains a sort of newness thanks to the storytelling.

A Bug's Life (1998) (John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton)
Great Movie, Okay Film, Good Cinema
The story drifts down into the formulaic slump, (basic hero revolt story, basic character development, basic character archetypes.) but still retains a very genuine feel for the movie as a whole.

Toy Story 2 (1999) (John Lasseter, Lee Unkrich, Ash Brannon)
Excellent Movie, Excellent Film, Excellent Cinema
The pixar heads themselves recognize that Toy Story 2 was where they found what Pixar now represents, and it came at just the right moment as well. Almost every pixar movie after this point is a great film or better. All of them are great movies or better. This movie in particular was much more dynamic in its storytelling.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) (Pete Doctor, Lee Unkrich, David Silverman)
Excellent Movie, Good Film, Great Cinema
So many scenes held excellent pathos, particularly the emotional scenes between Boo and Sully. The visual style of the movie was rather breathtaking.

Finding Nemo (2003) (Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich)
Excellent Movie, Excellent Film, Excellent Cinema
This movie hit the big high point for Pixar in my opinion. It is one of those rare films that comes along, and it is definitley one of the best of the Pixar films.

The Incredibles (2004) (Brad Bird)
Excellent Movie, Excellent Film, Excellent Cinema
Again another high point, this film hit the apex at a different angle, making an equally powerful film in my opinion.

Cars (2006) (John Lasseter, Joe Ranft)
Excellent Movie, Good Film, Great Cinema
The quality seemingly dips in this movie in particular, but it was a departure necessary for the story. This is the only one of the Pixar films other than A Bug's Life that feels like a definite kid movie.

Ratatouille (2007) (Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava)
Excellent Movie, Great Film, Excellent Cinema
This movie, in terms of musical score and visual style, is one of the best of the more recent films from Pixar. The storytelling is really good, but it is subserviant to these other aspects.

WALL-E (2008) (Andrew Stanton)
Excellent Movie, Excellent Film, Excellent Cinema
A return to the higher quality of their previous films, WALL-E recaptured some of the initial magic that was discovered earlier. It still doesn't top the other films though.

Up (2009) (Pete Doctor, Bob Peterson)
Excellent Movie, Excellent Film, Excellent Cinema
The latest title is an excellent example of storytelling, but its main weakness is how much the suspension of disbelief has to be maintained. If anyone comes more than 15 minutes late than the start of the movie, after the montage with Carl and Ellie, the movie is almost destroyed thematically. Visually, the movie is breathtaking, especially in 3D (they focused on making the 3D immersive, and it is extremely effective... My friends commented that there wasn't much that was 3D about it, which I believe was the main idea. The 3D didn't distract at all from the storytelling, and made the movie suck you in faster (I liked that the short beforehand sort of prepped you for Pixar's version of 3D, then it subdued that effect even further once it started the film).

I'm sure a lot of people would disagree on some of the ratings I put here, but frankly I'm a little partial to Pixar. Their story's have a magic that isn't captured often elsewhere.
Next on the agenda is Dreamworks, on Wednesday.

Movies vs. Film vs. Cinema. Is there a difference? (1 of 4)

2009-06-05T07:00:00.003-04:00

Movies, Film, Cinema... All relatively synonymous terms. However, none of them really illustrate the complexity of the artform. Although I'm sure there are terms for them somewhere in the study of filmaking, I like distinguishing between them in terms of complexity and accessibility. Some movies are accessible and very understandable, easily connecting to emotional heartstrings... These I declare as "movies". However, when it comes to the general artform of the movie, thematically and storywise, communicating on a much more sophisticated level, I deem those worthy of the title of "film". The final group I call "Cinema" is the audio-visual aspect of the film, where the visuals communicate sophisticatedly an subtly. Almost all movies (general term) have different levels of these qualities, and they match up very near to the ideas of pathos (movie), ethos (film), credos (cinema), but for the most part they are my methods for putting a term to the nature of the movie in general. As an example, I'll disect the animation films of each of the major CG animation companies (Pixar, Dreamworks, Sony, Blue Sky), and I invite you to see what you think about those rankings.

The differing levels for my rating method ranges from bad (few receive this. They have to be exceptionally horrible for that to happen.), okay, good, great, excellent. Note that the ratings for "films" are always markedly lower, as the only ones that hit the "excellent" mark in those terms are films like Citizen Kane, Seven Samurai, Benjamin Button... In other words things that would be in the criterion collection, and are usually deep in meaning within the story and are very timeless. Excellent movies include Ferris Buellers Day Off, Indiana Jones, and Back to the Future: they are characterized by accessibility, understandability. Excellent cinema are things like Clockwork Orange, Star Wars, and 2001 a Space Oddysey: These are all visually or orally pleasing, with excellent scores and visual composition.

Alright, this is the first of several longish posts. This essentially explains my scoring system for the following movies, and my intent is not to downplay certain movies, but develop a method of communicating the strengths of a film. Some movies are better in different ways. It's very easy to make a good movie, and be a terrible film. The opposite is also true. I'll do Pixar on Monday, Dreamworks on Wednesday, and Sony and Blue Sky on Friday. I'll try to post some pics in between as well, so don't worry all those only looking out for pretty pictures.

Animal Drawings (May 24th drawing trip #7)

2009-06-03T07:00:00.000-04:00

Here's the last of the zoo drawings for may 24th.

Fish, and jellies. Jellyfish have such a hypnotic way of moving...
These sharks were cool, you can pet them, WITH TWO FINGERS. They keep warning you so that you and the sharks won't get hurt.
Fish, and HEY THAT'S NEMO oh wait that's just another clownfish.

Penguins are so much fun to draw, especially the guy at the upper right, I took a picture just so you could see how perfectly illustrates the thought "I've seen more of life's darkness then you could ever know..."SEE THAT GUY? Yeah, he looks like a person who's been through a lot.
The polar bear had moved... And then fell asleep again.

Lil bit of Walrus. And some drawings from the next page, that may end up on the blog. We'll see. Thanks for watching folks!

Animal Drawings (May 24th drawing trip #6)

2009-06-02T07:00:00.000-04:00

Polar bear. He was sedate when we saw him.

Seals. Awesome thing happened, the keepers came out and did a presentation with the sea lion, which was really cool to watch.
Sea lions have such expressive looks to them.
Went into the aquarium, saw the rays... These guys are so strange looking. They move really gracefully.

THAT'S A MORAY.

Animal Drawings (May 24th drawing trip #5)

2009-06-01T07:00:00.000-04:00

So, dolphins, yes? These guys were awesome. We went to the show, which was a lot of fun (was turned into a huge environmental/conservationist propaganda piece rather than being about the dolphins, but that's another story/rant).
The challenge may not be apparent, as dolphins have such simple forms, but the trick is this: Drawing from a reference that shows up for about 1 of every 20 seconds, only for half seconds at a time, is very difficult, but a heck of a lot of fun!

Dolphins have this impish subtle smile that shows in their frolicking expressions. Amazing seeing how well coordinated the trainers and the animals are.

Seeing them do that backwards scooting thing is amazing. I wonder what purpose that actually serves in the wild... You'd think at least one dolphin discovered that naturally for a person to realize they could train them to do that.
Ah, the flamingos. I only have a few drawings because I was eating a delicious strawberry lemonade sherbet at the time. It was such a hot day!

These are the lemurs there, I wanted to get that odd posture down where they balance in a curve with their tales, sort of hanging on the branch on stilts in a way. It's amazing to see them drop and bounce. They spring about effortlessly, it's something to behold!

More animals tomorrow.

Animal Drawings (May 24th drawing trip #4)

2009-05-31T07:00:00.000-04:00

Something really interesting about elephants is the expression of the eyes. The baby ones have a sort of happy look, but the elder have a weary vacant expression, like they don't see anything anymore...
This is of the baby nuzzling up to the mother.
Tried to study the head, then the legs. The legs are a strange shape in comparison to other creatures... The joints are not as apparent as with other creatures.

The Komodo dragons are a new feature at the indianapolis zoo, at the tail end of the plains exhibit. They are there only for the summer, so I would advise checking them out before they go back to Denver.
They have very piercing looks, and they look powerful. They have a very regal appearance, as they raise their heads up so much that you always see the bottom of their wrinkly neck.

This was a lot of fun, and it is a teaser for tomorrow's post. We watched the dolphin show, and it was the biggest challenge that day. More on that tomorrow!

Animal Drawings (May 24th drawing trip #3)

2009-05-30T07:00:00.000-04:00

Baboons are interesting creatures to draw. I kind of ignored the majority of their facial form, hence why many of the pictures don't resemble a baboon, but I worked to capture their personality and posture.
Here they are cleaning eachother. Saw a lot of interesting things there... Let's just say that animals are rather spontaneous.
For instance, one of them seemed to be cleaning its tongue by licking the cage. It was kind of weird. The eldest ones' walks are very provincial. It's cool too, because some of the eldest ones have a shaggy layer of fur that looks like a mantle.

These were more about the posture... I really wanted to get that loping sort of look that they have when they sit.
Elephants! Weirdly enough, most of us have better understanding of an elephant's anatomy then we would realize. The reason: we are very familiar with seeing their skulls, and tusks, in documentaries, in museums, in movies (lion king, anyone?). Thus we have a basic understanding of their forms right away. Bone structure is more valuable than you may realize in drawing.

next post, more elephants!

Animal Drawings (May 24th drawing trip #2)

2009-05-29T07:00:00.000-04:00

Some more animals of the plains!
The last of the giraffe pics. It's weird seeing them use their tongue as an appendage.
This rhino was the perfect model, as in, he stayed completely still. He'd be dead if it weren't for the slight breathing and constant morose expression. I kept trying to capture how despondent he looked...

His eye shape is also very specific, with the semi-triangular shape. It's fun to stand for an hour and just observe as much as you can. It makes me look forward to visiting these animals, becoming "friends" with some of them, and slowly getting to know each of them.
Last pic of the rhino...
Next post: MONKEYS!

Animal Drawings (May 24th drawing trip #1)

2009-05-28T07:00:00.000-04:00

This drawing trip was a lot more fun. We did it for 5 hours this time, and started out in the plains area, since we couldn't see much of it last time. It was about 86 out, so it was reeaally sweaty and hot. Lots of improvement in my drawing though!
Zebras! It's more than just stripes that makes them a zebra... The head shape is so specific. I wish I had studied them more beforehand. It's tough trying to draw somethings basic elements when you have no idea of any of their elements, let alone how to reduce the detail.

I think these were impalas or something? They had interesting expressions, rather dull looking.

They have very pointed gazes too. It's interesting just to observe them.

And now some giraffes! Giraffes have very graceful walks... It doesn't look like they walk with weight, yet their bodies are very powerful. But watching them slowly stroll around is like watching something float lazily above ground.

Again some more drawings... There are about 30 more pages to go, so hope you enjoy/critique!

Animal Drawings (Apr 27th drawing trip #3)

2009-05-27T07:00:00.001-04:00

Now some reptiles...
Horned lizards are neat. They just kinda stare at you. There movements are so foreign. It was funny, Rolando commented that we draw so many dinosaurs and dragons, and yet we never studied the closest real life equivalent until a few weeks ago.

Meerkats. They are so much fun to watch at the zoo, they have such a personality. Had to keep switching markers, they ran out a lot that day.

The turtles were neat, they have an odd shuffle to their walk.
Ah, the lizards. They are huge.

Ostriches have such a foreign shape to their bodies! Nothing like them in this neck of the USA.

Giraffe. It's a giraffe. Must I say more?

The lions are always laying down at the zoo. Strange how the most sedate animals are the predators.

Animal Drawings (Apr 27th drawing trip #2)

2009-05-26T19:00:00.001-04:00

Some more drawings from the zoo (What's fun is I get in about 6 or 7 pages in an hour, so the first trip was about 3 or 4 hours.)... We were still working our way through the aquatic section. There were tons of bees around too, and they really messed with us the whole time. We also had a friend who was allergic to them, so there ever present nature became rather disheartening. Either way though, we got a lot of drawings done.

Walruses at the Indianapolis zoo have so much personality. They are showmen, and they have no human guides either. They interact so humorously with kids. For instance, that one in the bottom would play peekaboo with his tusks, and his motions were so hilarious. Their size is rather impressive though. They are big creatures.

This red panda looked as if he were stoned... The entire time his tongue was hanging out. It was about 90 degrees out, so I guess that makes sense.
I believe these were Gibbons, with peacocks in the pens as well.
Brown bears... These were so much fun to watch! In the midst of us viewing them, they began to fight spontaneously... I got one picture of that below.

You can see an analysis I was doing of structures... Triangles are thematically interesting in visual compositions... So if you look at the human face, you can see about 4 triangles or more in the face...
The major ones are:

corners of the nose (top, bottom right, bottom left)
eye-eye-nose
eye-eye-mouth
top of nose to mouth edges, especially when smiling, as the triangle goes from isosceles in shape, and then transitions when smiling to an equilateral in shape. Look in the mirror and try it.
Face as a whole, the ears and then the chin

At least that's what I observed.

The majestic eagle... But this one wasn't so majestic. Still acted like he was though!
His wing was bandaged, but he bore it like a regal cane. Looked like one too.

Some more will be out soon, will be finished with the first trips drawings on Thursday.

Animal Drawings (Apr 27th drawing trip #1)

2009-05-26T14:08:00.007-04:00

So I did some drawings at the zoo last month, and now 4 weeks later finally have the hours worth of time to scan them in for you. I'll post the old ones this week, and then post this Sundays drawings throughout the next.

The goals of these drawings are to practice live figure drawings. There is an art to catching the vitality of an animal in motion, putting it into a static image. Most of the drawings are attempts to capture the postures and emotions of the creature, not necessarily the heavy details. The reason I do this is to study them, guided by what I've seen of CalArts entry portfolios. See, CalArts has a Character Animation school that is considered the best and the world, and it is one of the hardest to get into. The latest quote I had on acceptance rate was 8% of portfolios. The only thing they ask in your portfolio are 20 live figure drawings, with the construction drawings still intact. They, as a rule, do not accept high school students directly from graduation. Only about 30-40 students are admitted per year. It's a tough school to get into... I may try to get in there if I can't get a job straight after IUPUI, or if I don't think Animation Mentor can cut it. It's a challenging debate... I'll probably at least apply and see if I can get accepted. I'd love to actually go there... I mean, the best come from there, right?

By the way, the medium I'm using is standard 65lb paper, with Copic markers.

Seals are fun to draw... These are all from underwater. They have really cool expressions, and the way they move through the water is spellbinding.
Penguins! They just are naturally very humorous to look at... One of them made repeated passes and floated above my sketchbook below the waterline, visibly observing what I was doing. I wondered who was making more astute observations at that moment...? Love the guy on the upper right. Was just chilling, with his chest shoved up on a rock. Looked hilarious.
There he is, looking at me (the bottom right one).
It's a polar bear! He was eating a block of frozen meat the whole time. He'd look up with a bleary expression now and then.
The expression was a hard thing to capture in this...I'll post some more the next few days.

Star Trek and Up Promotions.

2009-05-20T17:32:00.011-04:00

I've been working on this the past week, hence the lack of posts. Here is a full Panorama. I'd suggest clicking to see the full hi rez. It'll take a while, it's an 8 meg file. Those kiosks are almost 5 feet tall... a bit shy of that, just for scale, in case you haven't been to the theater. Otherwise, visit my theater sometime, Rave Motion Pictures, Metropolis 18. Plainfield, Indiana. As a reminder, the house still needs to be finished, so I'll be posting another of these at a later date.

So this is it (almost). The house for Up needs to be finished, but apart from that, it's practically done.
Starfleet insignia. This was my work...

This quote was painted by Abby Alexander, who collaborated with me on the Star Trek one.
Abby painted the linework for the Enterprise, I shaded and colored it.
Nero's face, my work...

Kirk a la Nate Moody
Spock a la Abby Alexander.

Bones, by me.
Scotty by me.
Ohura by Abby.
Tsulu by Abby. Chekov's picture disappeared somehow... She did his painting also.
The dogs of Up.

Detail of Alpha's and Dug's standoff. I'm not sure if this is compliant with the actual story, but I had to make do with what I knew! Also, this is a good time to note that Abby arranged the composition for Star Trek, while I did the composition for Up.
Alpha, Beta, and Gamma.
Hey look Balloons!
The fierce confrontation...
Balloons and a logo
Logo.
Carl and Russel.Full panorama of the Star Trek one...
Photomerge of the whole thing... Did an intial pass with the regular settings....
This one is done with Cylindrical as the setting. Like how it turned out... Fun stuff this thing is. (I actually had to break it down and do three passes, and then combined those three (left center right). It kept trying to put the text in the center, for some reason.

I'll post more pictures once Up is finished.

This makes me want to go to CalArts again...

2009-05-13T23:13:00.004-04:00

This stuff is inspiring, Rolando pointed me to this, it was on Cartoon Brew here.

Here's a few quotes from the post...

Christopher Meeks, his story teacher at CalArts, has written a blog post with some fascinating details about the film:

One of my freshman, David Ochs, last fall had asked me one day in class what the controlling idea (i.e. theme) of “Hansel and Gretel” might be, and off the top of my head, I said something like, “With true innocence comes great power.” Little did I know David wanted to redo the fairytale, and he created a fully animated five-minute film.

Meeks also offers insights about the year-end CalArts Producers’ Show screening and the risk that David took by making the film:

Freshmen, for instance, cannot create a piece over 90 seconds, and if they do, it will not be shown [at the Producers' show], with one exception. The exception is if the student body chooses it as the best film…He knew going in that the only way it could be shown is if the student body selected it. The film ended up being so fabulous that it won the Peer’s Pick Award.

My original intent was to go to IUPUI as a temporary solution until I could make it to CalArts. The hefty tuition fees made me stow that plan away... But stories like this make me want to find some way to get that money to go there. Everyone wants to go there for a reason, right? I just wish I could find the cash. Just like this guy.
For those uneducated, CalArts is the toughest type of animation school to get into... Last quote I heard was 17% acceptance rate, based entirely on a portfolio of 20 life drawings. Finished animations are considered secondary. When accepted, you are ONLY admitted as a Freshman. No transfers, really... But seriously, listen to any director's commentary, or animation interview... "Well at my time at CalArts", "I learned so much from my friends at CalArts", "I'll never forget that professor at CalArts"... I don't know.

I hope I can prove the idea that it doesn't matter where you come from, but who you are and who you choose to surround yourself with and grow alongside.

A couple of harsh truths, untested as they may be, that I've come up with are the following, from my studies of those who are successful, and those who make it to the top. I've watched many commentarities and documentaries, studying as many books as I can get my hands on, listening to as many interviews as possible, and here are a few things that I've figured out.

There is a lie that's passed around, that good things come to those who wait. Here's the real truth: good things come to those who know where to be waiting.

Those who sit around on their asses all day will never get anywhere. The ones that go places are the people who get up, work their asses off, and never sit down again.

Here are a few harsh ones that are a little darker... These ones come from various sources, a few of my own mixed in.

It isn't stealing if you do it better. (But it is stealing either way)

Don't piss anyone off. It will bite you in the ass later on.

Make sure that you are comfortable with an idea for a project before starting on it. Once you get too far, you will regret it if it isn't right for you.

Realize that the person sitting in the desk next to you may not make it in their career destination. Realize that the person sitting in your desk may suffer that same fate. Be wary.

If you aren't proud of it from the start, you won't be proud of the end product. You might pretend to be, but that faltering spirit will show through in your work.

Never say you can't do something: the real problem is you've not spent the time and effort learning how to do it.

That's all for now. Let me know if you agree, disagree. I like hearing opinions on these sorts of things, they are very important to me.

Paintings at Rave, Sneak Preview!

2009-05-13T15:44:00.004-04:00

They aren't quite finished yet (the Star Trek one is basically finished, but the Up one still has work left to do), but here are the paintings that I'm working on, collaborating with Abby Alexander. These are a preview of what we've been working on. I'll post the finished Star Trek pics once there is a day with better sunlight to photograph them in, and then I'll post the Up one when it is finished.

Kirk's face...
The insignia with text... Trekkies should know what it says on sight.
UP logo!
Meet Dug. Could not resist putting the Elizabethan collar on him! Could not at all.
Hey look its Russel! Just finished him today.

Meet Dug!

2009-05-10T19:15:00.001-04:00

Featurette for UP, if you are interested. I sure was. Within this week I won't be posting for Monday, as I'll be working on a mural at my movie theatre for the film (as well as finishing one for Star Trek, which is an excellent film by the way). At any rate, meet Dug!

Dreams and Artsy stuff.

2009-05-08T07:00:00.000-04:00

Drawing captured immediately after waking from a strange dream... Had to draw quickly and indistinctly to capture it. Weirdly enough it was like watching a film, (I was analyzing the staging and cinematography of my own dream. How weird is that? I was watching for motifs and everything.) The protagonist, a female, akin to Ripley as a character was wandering through this post apocalyptic wasteland of a city, she had a cut on her hand, and she wandered into a section with what seemed to be rooms shielded by tarps. If you've seen Brazil, then think the interrogation rooms at the end. Inside, were these strange floating creatures that exuded evil. Groups of people would wander in like zombies, and from behind the curtain you would hear the sound of a deep inhaling, and all of the people disappearing. The heroine approaches the veil, and then, pulling away the strange clear plastic tarp, sees the creature full view. Immediately she recognizes the terror of it, recoils, and tries to leave... and then... I don't remember any more. Amazing that I solidified that much of the dream though. Drew this IMMEDIATELY after waking.
This was a more artsy piece, I was drawing on my sketchpad, the tiny one, I always like the idea of wings bursting out of someone's back... Ever seen Haibane Renmei? Best depiction of it ever. And also a great story.But anyways, messed with some perspective lines, tried to get the sense of falling, and also worked a bit on composition of elements.

Experiments in drawing

2009-05-06T07:00:00.005-04:00

So for kicks a priest from 3210AD, but anyways...

Random doodles, the bottom ones are developed from King of Thorns by Yuji Iwahara, good survival horror manga. Along the left edge are the starts of my short experimentation. These are all drawings done with my left hand (I'm right handed, and no, not ambidextrous). Most of the other drawings are self explanatory. Including one very bad rendition of a character from memory, but i digress.

These were the most fun. I suggest any artist to try this to test their mettle. Draw eyes closed, from memory. Just get your hand on the paper, and don't open your eyes until you are finished with the drawing.

Adventures in Sculpey!

2009-05-05T07:00:00.002-04:00

So I forgot to upload these a month or two ago when I made these, but anyways... These are my adventures in Sculpey, a fun little medium that I decided to explore so that I could build maquettes for my projects.

Here is my base form of that one guy that I draw a lot. I haven't actually finished this one yet, due to the fact that I got side tracked and wasn't sure about how I could bake sculpey multiple times, and then got caught into school projects.
Basically, you start by putting down layers of wire and foil, then mold the sculpey over that. Sounds simple right? It becomes a fine art when you mess with maquettes, as they like to unbalance and bend continuously, particularly if you don't know how to properly build one. I should mention, i've never had any formal training or experience in doing these types of sculptures before, so everything I've learned came from the back of the box, or from trial and error. Got some good sculpey tools, although I've learned that you can use practically anything to get the results you want. So long as you learn how to handle that tool, of course.
As I wasn't sure where to go after that, (I had used half of my 1 lb brick of sculpey) I began work on a small bust. This is the wire I started with, about 2 inches high.
Built the basic form around this. Now, I would bake it, but I didn't know you could/should bake layers of sculpey.
Getting more like a face...

Much more like a face, getting details in... This is about where I started learning how fun sculpey is... It's a blast, seriously! It's such a lively material, and with a steady hand you can achieve any results you desire.
Heh, more face, and a little goofy. The fault starts to show... I built this only looking at the front side, and almost exclusively from there. In other words, turn it sideways and it looked like a flat face... Cause it was.
Still kept working with it, added clothes and stuff, had fun making the tie. Started on the hair...
And the end result. My first sculpture to be finished and baked, and it turned out great!

Sadly, with all of these developments, I got sidetracked by something called my college classes. Finally, now, about 3 months later, I was able to get back into it. Fun thing about sculpey, by the way, is that I've had that one maquette sitting out on my desk, and it is still pliable and sculptable. Need to bake it sometime to set it and then really sculpt it finally. Anyways, I decided I needed more practice. Originally, I was building on that old head, but was convinced to preserve my first sculpture by my parents. I restarted, and settled on this design first...

I decided I wanted to make a bone structure. One of the hard ways of developing sculptures is how much the sculpey shifts under your fingers. Thus, after discovering online that baking it multiple passes actually works best, started making a bone structure. Decided to do something like a skull to give a good foundation. Included eye sockets, so that I could fit in a eye ball and keep it round and in the proper position. This is about 3.5-4 inches high, in case you were wondering (I realized that a 1 inch head is really hard to do any detail work in for your first sculpture).
Afterwards, started applying more material afterwards. Covered the whole thing again, and made the general shape of the face. At this point, realized I should have already made the eyeballs...
So I went ahead and baked these two eyeballs, pushed them into the sockets, and started putting sculpey around them, to form eyelids.
The face finally takes a lot of shape, and starts looking like I want it to. Baked it at this point to settle the flesh.
This is right before baking it again, I had to put in the hair, found a good method for that, added structure to the mouth again (it seemed to recede too much), and then put in some final structuring to the cheeks. One last bake and a little sharpie to the eyes, and...

...

Wait for it...

...

Well, here it is RIGHT before baking (It's sitting on my oven)
and...

The finished product! Here is Arthur, my main man from Muse, for the first time in 3D! Looks better than I thought it would! Let me know what you all think, I think I'm ready to buy more sculpey and forge ahead and make Ashlyn.

Oh, in case you were wondering, Arthur took about 6 hours to make from start to finish.

Some sketches, some Muse, and thoughts on drawing.

2009-05-04T07:00:00.001-04:00

So this is an example of my sketching habits. I usually just doodle away at a page, bouncing from corner to corner and seeing what comes out. On occasion, there are common threads, but most of the time it is really frenetic and free. Again, my best concepts come from the character having a direction or purpose, or a story. I guess I should recall the story of a few of these. The pianist is a man so deeply into his music that the emotion shows on his face in tears... Below is a pair of monks, although one is particularly inspired by a bit of concept art I've seen... That little guy in the lower right is a Cthulhu creature. I always love having tiny, unimposing characters that are supposed to embody the exact opposite of what their appearance communicates. Juxtaposition is FUN!!!
nd, here are earlier concepts of Muse, This being Ashlyn.
And here's Arthur. I decided not to do any censoring on my sketches, ie. removal of any scribbles or HORRID attempts. A lot of times those mistakes are me testing proportions or form choices and seeing what it communicates. Eventually, I discover archetypes, and then choose to utilize them at some point. The more archetypes I develop, the time required to draw them diminishes. There's a reason they say to be good at drawing is that you have to keep drawing. A LOT. One of the things that pains me is the number of people who decide that they can't draw, when in truth is all that it takes is a lot of practice. Granted, certain minds can grasp it better, certain personalities fit into drawing more easily, but in the end drawing is muscle memory an observation. The numerous blind artists and artists with disabilities prove that all you truly need to draw, is an appendage that can hold an implement, and the guts to take that to a paper and express whatever there is to express.

Wouldn't this be nice for a reference?

2009-05-01T11:24:00.002-04:00

Check this out! Although they are kinda goofy, imagine how much reference footage you could develop from this sort of thing... Would be great for animators, is what i'm saying. If you have 1k lying around to buy yourself some horse legs.

Feeling more artsy today...

2009-05-01T07:00:00.002-04:00

So this is me attempting to explore my innate knowledge before heading into the anatomy books. I've learned I don't understand much muscle wise, I know bone structure pretty well, but muscles are an unexplored mystery to me. I also need to learn the joints again. This is from before I studied any anatomy though, so there has been improvement since when I drew this a month or two back.

Guestures from my film class. The guy on my left is the instructor... He always hits this posture, and its something I wanted to capture. The others are classmates.

This is a reference to René Magritte. Just in case you didn't know. This is what happens when you are working in concession at a movie theater, and you are really bored. You draw popcorn kernels. This is also proof of why you must ALWAYS have something to draw on if you are an artist. Life presents you with plenty of drawing time.

Do you like Star Wars?

2009-04-29T07:00:00.001-04:00

Well, this is actually inspired by Aliens. Star Wars is a couple pics below.

Huh, I wonder who the guy on the right is... HE'S SO FUN AND EASY TO DRAW...

A generic soldier. Trying to hit a style I'm not good at.

Here's the cool thing... I'm trying to improve my skills in technical drawing. This is inspired by the concept art from Star Wars, specifically the Art of Star Wars - Episode 1. I'm trying to master the more mechanical angular stuff, it's my weakness. I'm always drawing organically. For instance, the bottom right one, my own creation, started out mechanical, with essentially a front end of an X-wing, but then it suddenly turned organic with the feathery patterns in the back end. The rest on the right are all copied from the book. I really liked this character for some reason, I'm sure some true Star Wars fans can tell me who he is, but I love the way the artist captured it, and I'm pleased to say that I imitated it rather closely too! Definitely a great way to learn... Draw from another artist you want to gain the abilities of. You can easily assimilate the technical abilities of others by doing this. Not much you can do about nabbing their creativity though, that's something all your own that can't really be absorbed. You can however, be inspired! The key is to not let yourself get in the way of that process. Just follow your instincts, and whenever something is even kind of good, and it pops into your head, draw it. It may further inspire you to something even better in the future! Always have something to write/draw on with you. You won't regret having it right there. Trust me. Except when you get those in-car ideas. Those suck. Hard to draw while doing 55 on the highway... Just kidding, I don't do that, but it is seriously a frustrating thing when you have no way to put down that idea.

Random Doodles

2009-04-27T07:00:00.003-04:00

Here's a guy a draw for when I can't draw anything else. Originally, I drew birds for this purpose (Birds were the first organic thing I drew, so they come easy to me). This guy is all organic curves though, and I like his visual appeal. Kind of a cross between the pokemon-esque style and megaman, but either way he's an original thing I've messed with. I've also starting making a macquette of him, but whenever that will be finished is questionable (When I worked on it, I sat for about 4 or 5 hours straight. Lots of time I don't have to invest.)

Some random guys from my sketchpad... I was trying to make a good cartoony bird though.

Sketchbook drawings... The girl, and the guesture above her are from someone I saw while at school... I've found it very difficult to find good subjects to draw. Either they are boring and isolated and inactive, or they get up too quickly. I got the guesture before she got up. My paranoia says that it was because of her seeing me looking at her for reference, but most likely that is all in my head.

Although it sounds creepy, I wish I had a mini secret camera to take with me everywhere, so I could observe people without them knowing, or being self-conscious, and without being obtrusive. But that does sound creepy... But seriously, there are days where you see the perfect situation...

For instance, a guy and a girl were having a conversation nearby me one day while I was in a bookstore. They started chatting the usual small talk, and then suddenly the conversation took an awkward turn, where the girl flatly stated "I'm not interested in dating right now..." "... What? Oh I WASN'T TRYING TO..."Oh, sorry, I just thought..."Oh I wasn't meaning to... I mean I was speaking professionally" "OH, sorry, sorry..."

Any animator I think can sympathize with this... When you see some real life moment that is perfect, you NEED to watch it. Not just want, but you physically NEED to see it, to observe it. But I couldn't. Without being noticed, it would be impossible. I needed a secret camera (seriously, I was looking all around for reflections to observe them from quietly). This I'm sure sounds creepy to the casual reader, but honestly when you want to create the illusion of life, you have to look at real life to get that inspiration. It's a tough thing to do succesfully.

It's why his summer I'm trying to go as a group to the zoo for figure drawing. Animals aren't self conscious, and when they notice they are being watched, their reactions are of mutual curiosity. Hope you enjoyed my little rant.

Quotes, and words from the wise...

2009-04-24T15:04:00.000-04:00

Great art can't be made without making rules and limitations

-- Andrew Stanton (quote from Spline Cast interview)

The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.
-- Orson Welles

I feel like its our job is to know better, than the audience, what they want.
-- Andrew Stanton (quote from Spline Cast interview)

So I'm a fan of finding some good quotes whenever I can... Recently I've been listening to all of the Spline Doctor's podcasts, and they are good stuff, really. Their interviews have been some of my driving inspiration as of late. One of the most cutting ones was a quote from Brad Bird:

"To animate means to give the appearance of life, and you can’t create the illusion of life if you haven’t lived one."

It's tough being an animation student. You struggle from some of the toughest of things to learn about: there are really no "secrets" to animation. You either know how to do it, or (more importantly) how to learn how to do it, or you can't do it at all. The important thing is being a constant learner, something that isn't stressed enough anywhere. You never stop learning in any field, and animation is no exception. For instance, think about how many ways one could pick up a fork. A simple act, no? But that person could be upset, so would he pick it up, hands shaking with fury? What changes that from hands shaking in fear? What if he is bawling? Wouldn't his hands shake too in that situation? What makes each of those different?

Animation is such an intense study of subject matter: You can't just know the technical side of squash and stretch, and all the principal's of animation from the Illusion of Life... You need to have your eye's open recording everything around you constantly. I've noticed something recently: I don't hang out with people anymore, and if I do, I'm talking about animation. If I'm not talking, I'm watching the subtle cues of body language and taking it in as if it was a fine wine. I don't play video games anymore JUST for enjoyment, I do it to observe the story telling practices (A good example is Braid. The storytelling in that is brilliant). Learning the bouncing ball isn't enough. Learning the walk cycle isn't enough. Learning what makes things tick is what is important. Looking at the way someone swaggers is what is important. Observing the way people talk is the true secret to learning animation. The technical side of everything comes with time and patience. The hard part is observation and learning. In order to be an animator, you can't just be an animator. You have to be...

A Scientist - To study how things happen, and observe things through experimentation.

An Actor - To understand the methods of evoking emotion, and expressing it to the audience.

A Storyteller - To understand the methods of delivery, in order to tell the most effective story.

A Musician - To understand the painstaking process of rhythm and timing.

A Designer - To understand the points of composition, and what makes good compositions.

A Filmmaker - To understand film language, and cues to the audience.

A Linguist - To understand the rules of social interaction and speech.

And almost any other field applies. As an animator, you simply cannot know too much: you ALWAYS know too little. That's why its important to be able to practice finding resources. That's why youtube is one of the greatest inventions known to the modern animator: almost limitless resources for the taking, reference footage for almost whatever you need! And for a small cost of a digital camera, you can record your own references, cheaply and easily. Animator's now have more resources than ever. And yet, sadly, I have seen nothing as great as an accomplishment as what Frank Thomas did in Pinocchio. This is borrowed from Michael Sporn's Animation Blog. I'd suggest you read his full post, along with all the images on it... It's magical stuff that Frank Thomas accomplished. I'd also watch Pinocchio if you have the chance, they did a rerelease of it with some great featurettes on the old days with Walt.

Hope you other animator's find this inspiring, or interesting, or at the very least informational. All other readers, I hope you learn to appreciate what a fine and intricate art that animation is. Animation is the illusion of life, and that is one of the hardest things to master.

My next editorial will be on advise from peers, professors, and industry people.

Long time no see!

2009-04-24T02:48:00.009-04:00

Since I've maintained silence for quite a while since before the exhibition, I've decided to start posting again, and setting up a system for regular posting. I'll try to maintain a Monday Wednesday Thursday setup, posts scheduled for 7 am, with midweek editorials at random. Anyways. Found a good system to keep this up, so wish me luck in keeping with this!

Exhibition went beyond awesome, it was great for a first time, and very inspiring for future ones. I've spent the last week or so finding a project to fall in love with. You'll hear more about that in just a bit. First, some old sketches.

It's our favorite blue dude from Watchmen. Figured out I can't draw muscles... Time to study that anatomy thing. I've gotten into some good books since then... Burne Hogarth is an indispensable resource.

At first, I felt like drawing pirates and ninjas. Cliche, I know. Anyways, discovered something important: I can't draw people well unless I know what they are doing. Thus, everything after those two was drawn with a specific idea in mind. There are a bunch of jokes in the boxed ones, sorry for my atrocious handwriting.

The one on the left is one of my favorite gags. I also like the robotic assassin girl.

The peace-day-resistaaaaans.
This couple is the subject for the story I've fallen in love with again. For now, I'll give you the title, and someday the story once it is finished with story boards.

It's called Muse, and I'd like to introduce you to Arthur and Ashlyn.

I'll let you all in a little bit more on Muse in the future, but for now, here is a teaser.
In case you are wondering the upper bits are a sign of how I've started doing these types of polished designs... I go with a thick light marker (Copic cool grey, C1), then put on layers, then use a fine tip (Sakura Pigma Micron 05) to get the sharp details in, then go over with darker cool greys, followed by warm greys, and then give the flesh color to the characters. I like how it turns out, which is a rare thing for me!

EDIT: Site will be held to the schedule at the very least through the 1st of May! Hopefully this will be the first of many weeks that this happens.

Just so you know...

2009-04-13T10:29:00.003-04:00

I've been busy lately prepping for the IUPUI SIGGRAPH Student Exhibition... It's been some fun design/print work for me mostly, but a lot of people's hard work and effort are coming together quite nicely for what will likely be an awesome inaugural event, hopefully to continue through my college studies and beyond. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here is the registration page. Also, here is the youtube video promoting the event, developed by Wes Kirk, treasurer for IUPUI SIGGRAPH...

I've also done a redesign of my personal logo and business card, for handing out at the exhibition... Will be printing those today.

So yeah, I'll try to get some sketches up this week, have plenty unscanned that should definitely get on this blog. After the exhibition, I'll start up some regular updates.

Also, I know I've probably mentioned this before, but Scott McCloud is a genius. Just finished reading Understanding Comics, so the last of his that I need to read is reinventing comics... Their is one part in there that I think anyone should read, no matter what creative field they are in. It's some really good stuff... Chapter 7: The 6 steps. If you have a chance to read any part of his work, read that. Talks about something that translates into all creative fields, and it hits the nail right on the head.

I've got the power!!!

2009-04-11T18:34:00.003-04:00

Got a new laptop, thanks to some very much needed aide from my parents... It's an Asus G50VT, Intel Centrino 2, Core 2 Duo mobile, 2.13 GHz, 3MB Cache, 15.6 widescreen, 4GB ram, 320GB Hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GS, 512MB.

It's a significant leap from my now defunct netbook. Been able to multitask more effectively, and I now have something that will willingly run Maya, 3DS, or CS4. I'm happy!

Monsters Vs. Aliens Review

2009-03-31T13:46:00.004-04:00

Dreamworks animation has always held the close-second slot in terms of 3D films (Pixar of course retains the apex), and their newest entry affirms that role. I've always been perturbed by the quality trend of Dreamwork's films... Although Shrek was a great movie at the time, watch it now, and a lot of the jokes and gags have lost its luster. It hasn't aged well, and neither has the animation quality. Granted, the earliest entries of any of the companies are all a bit jerky and awkward, but there has been something disturbingly static about the characters of Dreamworks films... I'd point out the considerations that Scott McCloud puts out about character design in Understanding Comics, in that realistic renderings make us perceive the presence of others, while cartoon imagery allows us to perceive ourselves within those characters (He puts it more elequantly and visually, but you get the picture: If you wonder what I mean, read his book). At any rate...

Monsters vs. Aliens stands up to the new precident in Dreamworks quality, at least in my point of view, which is Kung Fu Panda. First let me state what I think their major leaps in that film were: they found a story formula that worked, if you listen to the commentary for that film you KNOW the director's actually thought through everything. They discovered the methods of building pathos in their character developments, and they went further beyond the realm of concept into a strong story that will last beyond its release. Although it riffs on a genre, the genre itself is rather timeless, and the archetypes set by it are readily understood. Even without knowing much about Kung Fu films it stands well as a traditional hero's tale, All of it connecting well and animated in a crisp snappy fashion (It's interesting to note that martial arts lends itself to animating well: It's all about moving from pose to pose in a quick, snappy matter). The music was phenomenal in it, which is to be expected of Han Zimmer's flavor. Interestingly all of the score is original aside from the end credits theme, and the music tells the story just as well as the visuals. In terms of film quality, Kung Fu Panda is one of the best. All the pieces fell together in that movie, and it shows.

Monster Vs. Aliens does a lot of things right, with just a few misplaced points. My biggest worry, that the movie was simply built on concept and no story, was luckily unfounded. From the start they managed to exhibit a story with a great degree of pathos, and the characters are endearing, even if a little undeveloped (the only one with any true character growth is Susan, no pun intended: the rest either don't change, or have minor revelations. Beyond that...). The music for the most part is really transparent, and kind of boring. The score itself hits some major film references (Spielberg fans: listen to the music. Enjoy.). Even some of the camera work strikes the vein of the genre they are going for. Some of the musical jokes are out of pace, but that's forgivable: the licensed music is used sparingly, and doesn't get too over reaching. (ie. watch any of the Shrek movies and see how many scenes are driven by what song happens to be playing at the time, or Madagascar(s)...)

Overall though the movie was very pleasing. I'm intrigued by the level of rigging in characters like Bob. I mean seriously, what does a gelatinous blob rig look like? Also the length of the rendering times for scenes with Insectosaurus in them would probably be a hilarious statistic.

In terms of 3D... Well here's my take, which is supplemented by many other's takes on the issue. 3D works in terms of immersion IF the 3D elements recede, the EXACT opposite of all the push in advertisements for 3D ("It pops right out at ya!!!"). When the elements come forward, although this can be kind of... "cool", it becomes one of the easiest migraine inducing joyrides in existence. Examples of recent BAD: Beowulf. Too many shock moments. Examples of GOOD: Coraline, Bolt, and now also Monsters Vs. Aliens. Kind of.

See... Well let me show you what I read before going to the movie, on Cartoon Brew:

To paraphrase a well-worn saying, With employees like these, who needs enemies? The DreamWorks employees interviewed in last weekend’s NY Times don’t exactly exhibit the type of enthusiasm for 3-D filmmaking that their boss Jeffrey Katzenberg appears to have for the technology. Nowhere in the article do they even attempt to describe how 3-D is integral to the film’s narrative or creative structure. That’s probably because, according to the article, 3-D was added midway through production.

In the piece, Monsters vs. Aliens director Conrad Vernon recalled how he felt when Katzenberg told him that they would be switching to 3D: “We were totally taken aback. I didn’t sign up to do something garish.” Producer Lisa Stewart had a different reaction when she heard the news: “I just remember thinking, ‘Oh, great, I’m going to have a headache for the next two and a half years.’”

The Times also explains how Katzenberg told the artists that 3-D shouldn’t be used as a gimmick, but that when the film was nearly finished, he asked the filmmakers to go back and add more 3-D “pow.” Stewart, who prepared herself for 3-D by studying Beowulf, says that they put in a paddleball sequence at the beginning of the film, because “that was basically us telling the audience, ‘Look what we could do to you, but we’re going to control ourselves.’”

Yeah, I was worried. And the paddle ball sequence really really hurts. Luckily for only 3 or 4 seconds... But it still is painful. It's pathetic looking too. It's unnatural, looks tossed in (cause it is), and doesn't frame well in terms of layout. There is a later sequence where one character is holding a space gun, and it too comes towards the camera, at an angle. Again, layout is ignored and general considerations bipassed for the sake of 3D. THIS is a huge error and the dark side of 3D. When it overtakes film elements... BAD. However... Here are the cool things.

3D opened up the door for some unique new film composition techniques. You can think of layouts not only in 2D design principles, but now in a sort of single perspective 3D layout. It's kind of challenging, really. It's half way between the considerations you'd make for a sculpture, and for a drawing. There are a host of new effects... One scene in particular uses an inventive transition, where it is blurred and simultaneously repeated and brought forward and backward in depth (the character is passing out). This was extremely new, and I think that this sort of exploration is exactly what needs to be done with 3D. If we treat it like a new medium, it WILL BE a new medium. It needs to be explored and experimented with. For instance...

New rules in scene transition and camera movement come into play. These are my opinions, at least...

First, beginning shots CANNOT be fast paced or moving. The sole reason is that the eyes are slowly adjusting to the focus of 3D films. Odd, I know, but notice how bleary everything looks right off the bat? It's partially why I think having trailers before in 3D is a good thing: it preps you visually.
Shots in general cannot both pan and zoom, and have movement: ie. "realistic" on-the-field camera work is a bad idea, unless the elements are far out in the depth of focus. The frames skip too much and it makes it dizzying. Shots where the camera remains static work well, or scenes where the action is further out in the plane of view work well.
Foreground elements cannot pass quickly in front of the the camera's "lens". This causes a jarring effect, due to the fact that since both eyes miss out on their set of the 3D data at different points during the pass-over: basically two or more split-second instances lose the ability to see the 3D element. This transition is painful to watch, and is visually confusing and distracting. Unless the screen can actually fill or overpower the watchers' POV, this cannot be done in 3D. The lack of visual context is too jarring.
Things cannot "pop out" of the screen. This doesn't even make sense in terms of the concept of immersion: The viewer needs to be drawn in, not pushed back. Thus by pulling on the 3D reigns and pushing the depth of field backwards, the audience is sucked into the picture frame: This can enhance the sense of immersion! This is the true advantage of 3D, true audience immersion. This rule can be broken, but not every 5 seconds, and not repeatedly and jarringly. If the object is held in the foreground, it feels natural. If it is pushed in violently, it feels violent and jarring (ie. styrofoam jab by Mittens in Bolt, she stabs forward into the foreground... This was actually poorly executed because the shot immediately dodges away from the effect, making it look unnatural and distracting. Not only that, but the 2D composition is terrible. It looks forced. Probably because it is.)
The focal blur effect, a staple of showing depth of field in 2D films, still has a place in 3D: Although it isn't necessary to show depth, it is necessary to control what the audience looks at. Otherwise, they look at all the funky little details in the background that aren't important at the time.
Flashy 3D effects does not cover up a bad story.
Flashy 3D effects do alienate certain viewers: Anyone with vision problems, blindness in one eye, depth perception issues, etc.

There are a lot more, but this is all I will write about for now. I want to see more 3D stuff, but I want to see them stretch the boundaries. Now... back to the film.

Character Design: I've never been a fan of Dreamworks character design choices. Some characters look so remote from eachother in this one, however, I'd rather have the awkward looking Shrek "extras" than this cacauphony of styles. Not to mention that the main characters all look rather... Well... Bland. They look like the first draft design... The "initial concept". They all fit too well into the archetypes of the character they parody, and they stretch very little beyond that. Besides Susan, the rest of the cast suffer from a complete lack of character development. Although Susan's character has pathos from the start, the rest have absolutely no draw other than their base personalities and the vocal work behind them. The villain, Gallaxhar, is just too visually jarring with 4 horizontally positioned eyes. It looks like you are seeing double, which is bad since your eyes are already being strained.

Animation: It varies... Right off the bat Susan is too pose-to-pose... It looks hammy and stupid. The rest of it is rather impressive. Nothing really stood out to me, though, to be honest... Which is kind of dissapointing.

Anyways, these are all my criticisms for the most part. The movie is good, but I think it could have been so much better, and my criticism is mostly for the fact that Kung Fu Panda was so much better. I want that to be the standard for Dreamworks, but I'm worried that the old standby will be acceptable. Anyways, I suggest watching it in 3D, cover your eyes for the paddleball, and have a few laughs at the Spielberg-ian references.

Wonderful setbacks...

2009-03-29T15:04:00.004-04:00

So yeah, one of those wonder viruses just knocked out the OS on my little lappy, adding to my tech issues. I'm currently salvaging the files out of it by using a flash drive linux boot, which is successful, but slow. Literally has taken 2 days of work figuring out what to do. Probably won't be posting for a while.

And, although many of you may know this... BACK UP YOUR FILES FREQUENTLY. That's all I'm gonna say.

EDIT: As of about 5pm Sunday my computer was back up and running, with all the files restored. Thank goodness for Damn Small Linux on a flashdrive... Basically, booted up the compy on that, then copied the files over to an external drive, then sweeped the drive multiple times while wiping the hard drive and restoring it to factory settings. Fun times. I need to send it in for repairs soon too... Before the warranty runs out. Basically... Processor fan is too noisy, one of 3 USB drives has failed somehow, and their is some worry on the motherboard in general... Video card showing ugly signs. Fun times. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up something nicer to run off of... For now this will do. Yeah, but apparently watch out for viruses coming up... A new version of an old baddie conficker (link to wikipedia entry on it) coming up soon. Watch out people, even when you are as careful as I am you can still get screwed over. Unless you are Mac user, and then well... You get what you paid for, right?

EDIT EDIT: As of 1:50am Wednesday, my computer decided to let it's hard drive fail. The benefit of all this shenanigans is that my external hard drive has a back up copy of everything that I would have lost otherwise... The downside is that I just wasted about 8-10 hours of installing programs, running updaters, virus scans, etc. AWESOME.

Sky Pirates ship design, now in Illustrator!

2009-03-26T05:59:00.003-04:00

I left this in high res for those who understand illustrator... For the uneducated, however, Illustrator is a vector program. Usually everything people do in Illustrator is very graphic, however it is extremely powerful in rendering images with exquisite nature of control in terms of gradients: The particular weapon of choice is the gradient mesh. Most people avoid it, but if you can learn to use it, it can make things look really nice. I think I might be getting the hang of it. The upper b&w shows the paths that I made, the background was a gradient mesh, I used probably no less then 50 meshs total, in addition to gradients, and Gaussian blurred blobs (seriously, you can shade something QUICKLY knowing how to properly use a Gaussian blur). This whole thing took about... 7 or 8 hours in total (it's for a midterm in one class, but I'm also taking advantage of it to be a visualization for my story...). That doesn't count the time I was drafting it and testing different versions, almost another 10-20 hours of messing around and experimenting. I like how it turned out, and those who actually use Illustrator will understand how complicated something like this is. It's intense work. And it was a blast. Hope you guys like it!

Sketches galore! (Sketchbook 1.... I dunno)

2009-03-26T05:27:00.006-04:00

I'm overdue on sketches, so here is the result of five hours straight sketching from Tuesday (I have a rather sizeable gap between classes that day.)

Well, I lied, this one is from my spring break sketchathon... Basically me messing around with imitating the disney art styles. The only two characters I can really clame as "mine" are the two circled guys, and their iterations and attempts surrounding them.The restfor the most part are either just random doodles, or are drawn from pictures that I was seeing in the Illusion of Life. Also, note that I drew my attempt at Walt's famous expression in the upper left corner. That reappears later on a page: I just find that whole description/picture amusing.

Here I was messing with structures in the upper right, you can see my little practice that I'd seen in a "how to draw comic strips" book. Essentially it is taking an object and then making a face out of it, turning that into a character with personality.The rest were me testing eye shapes, art styles, etc. I never stick to one, because although I have issues with consistency, falling into the slump of being a one type only artist doesn't really appeal to me. I'm doing my best to expand my studies in terms of art.

This is partially me seeing if I can draw females properly. The face never works for me for some reason in this style. I usually get frustrated, but I actually really liked the results of this one. Also, a DJ.

Although I have some early drawings of the characters for Sky Pirates, I don't really like my current character design style. I'm trying to find ways to make each character's profile more unique and characteristic, but I'm struggling in doing that while maintaining a consistent art style between them. I'm experimenting with proportions at the moment, but I haven't found my preference yet, so the characters will probably look nothing like the original drawings I have, once I finalize my ideas for them. I should also note the drawing in the upper left corner... I was studying the interesting nature of how when you sketch a human face, it seems to age. I actually drew it at first as if it was a person in their late teens early 20s, but if you add a few lines it suddenly turns into 30s, 40s, 50s,... so on and so forth. Finally you reach a point where the lines begin to emaciate and deteriorate the face, effectively decomposing the drawing. From there I basically did just that: decomposed it stage by stage, line by line. If you are keen at drawing interesting things I'd suggest doing that: Something decomposing little by little (whether that be living creature or a man made object).

I was studying the graphic novel WE3 published by Vertigo, written by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. Well worth a purchase, trust me. The art alone is something masterful, particularly in the arrangement of panels, the sequencing, and the use of pacing with those. Also, he never uses the panels as simply borders, but attempts to integrate them into the artwork at any chance available. It's stunning work, evident in the first few pages (Trust me, you'll never forget them). To quote my friend Rolando's reaction when I showed it to him, "I'd gladly trade my entire comic book collection for this single one." Realize this is a 3 issue comic, or in other terms very short. It's 10 bucks on Amazon. You have no excuse not to get it (unless you are squeemish with blood and guts. the artist doesn't spare you the details on that bit.).

Anyways, the art style was partially derived from that. I was studying one character in particular in the 2nd page or so, just an "extra", but his expression was interesting. I have a method on how to study something... I think I'm getting the hang of it. If I want to draw an object, or an art style, or a character, and it isn't mine? I need to draw it from reference about 3 times, until it only has minute differences. After that I can draw it, utilize what I've learned from it, rotate it, manipulate it, etc. I just have to be patient. The first faded out one is underneath everything. The second is just above it to the right, and the 3rd is the one with the box around it. Once I get past the second one, things stop looking crappy and start becoming sensible. The other boxed frame is also from WE3, I was trying to study why the animals eye looks animalistic yet emotional... I think I figured it out. If you observe it, (If you have WE3, it is on the back cover), there is a sort of jagged fuzzy edge to the pupil of the dog. This, along with the dead center eyes, allows for it to look unfocused. blank. The expression comes I think primarily from the shape and also just association with dogs in general. That's the short of it, anyways.

I was recently discussing the art of Tetsuya Nomura with a friend, found a site with video game concept art, including his, and then discovered not only has he done the famous final fantasy series and kingdom hearts, but one of my favorite games from back when I just started gaming, Brave Fencer Musashi (PSX). At any rate, I'm wanting to learn his art style, and particular what makes it so appealing. center and bottom right are taken from the base concept image of Musashi, the upper left is me attempting to repose him. I really like his sense of proportions. Anatomically, they are terribly wrong. But in terms of visual appeal? Perfect. As well as simple to put into polygonal form (Look up screenshots of BFM, and you'll see how much they simplified it.)

Anyways, that's all for this post. Hope you enjoyed.

Sky Pirates ship design (Sketchbook 1.4)

2009-03-20T19:11:00.005-04:00

Although this particular sketch is being used for a class project as well, I'm trying to develop model sheets for the main ship in this story...

Here is the first rendition, from a few weeks back. (You can also see the earlier concept work on this post)

I had some issues, particularly the back end. It's boring and empty. The propulsion system isn't even apparent. So, I needed to rework it. This was also the second time I had colored with the copic markers. I also lacked a pencil for the sketching, so I was using a Sakura Micron pen as a sketching tool. Lovely pen, but it doesn't lend to clean sketches.

Here is the new revision of the design. The tail end is inspired in part by something I watched this week, Royal Space Force. If you haven't heard of this anime, I'm not surprised, but honestly I've never seen such in depth design work in any film. It's an alternate history type of story about the launching of the first earth orbiter, but the level of detail and development of the fictional world and society is beyond intensive. If you want to see the bar you ought to set in developing environments and fictional worlds, watch this movie. And this was made in 1987 by Gainax, their first film. Try to find it, seriously.

At any rate, I also am trying to work on my ability to properly show lighting in my color work. The shadows have a lot of detail if you view the expanded image. Soon I'll be putting this into Illustrator, as well as detailing the inner components and turret designs. I also will be trying to make a sheet detailing the inner workings. I'm going to eventually work out the enterior environments as well...

Spring Break Challenge (prologue)

2009-03-20T18:28:00.002-04:00

So, the SBC didn't go as well as I had planned... I didn't get through what I wanted to necessarily, but what I did study was immensely helpful. I'm looking at my work in a different way again, I got to reminisce as I looked through my sketchbooks (I think I'll go through sometime and pick out the highlights for you readers with images by the year I did them. I have about 10 or 15 sketchbooks dating back to 2004.), I learned quite a bit with the reading I have accomplished. Also studied several films... I've at least learned. Not much product to show, but I think the work to follow will reflect a bit of maturing in my drawing ability. Anyways, I'll tackle most of the goals within the next few weeks hopefully. Biggest issue right now that I thought could get past... But actually couldn't.

Tech:
I'm currently using the Acer Aspire One. It is a really good computer for it's size, but a netbook can barely handle CS3, let alone Maya or 3DS. At first I thought it might be able to cut it, but honestly it isn't working out (Then i feel ashamed because Toy Story was developed on more primitive technology, but that's besides the point). My desktop is old... It was worth about 400, 5 years ago. It was able to get frames out of Maya rendered, but at low resolutions. I'm currently afraid to download the free CS4 we get provided by IUPUI, because I doubt that this netbook can actually handle it. And I can't afford anything better right now, unfortunately.

Money: Well, like previously stated, I lack the funds to get what I need. Not only tech wise, but also the programs necessary. I'd rather be legitimately owning all the programs I use, and sadly Autodesk turned their Personal Learning Edition into a crappy 30 day trial. Very frustrating.

Granted I could have got more sketching done than I did, but I actually find not drawing for about a week while studying different styles can do wonders when you are unsatisfied with your artistic output. Like I have said in a previous post, I really want to get the Disney style, particularly the character style of Fred Moore, and also try to develop the sort of inner personality and spirit that character's need to becom alive. Most of my drawings are very lifeless, mechanical in nature of character types (This works in many cases in the anime style, but in any other style it can completely deaden a character instantaneously), and I really want to capture that: it's what got me started in the first place. I'm carefully trying to not slip back into my normal faulty drawing style, and I'm also trying to keep a heavy emphasis on lighting techniques.

So, SBC was a success in my book. I learned. That was more important to me. As long as I developed as an artist, I'm happy.

When you wish upon a star...

2009-03-17T19:25:00.004-04:00

Last night I purchased the new release of Pinocchio for BluRay... breathtaking the work they did to clean the picture. I haven't seen anything more crisp and clean and beautiful in terms of color saturation... And the features included are very valuable for any animator to watch at least once, just to see the process of the story, and more importantly WHY everything fit together perfectly. Seeing the techniques they employed at that time... amazing. Especially breathtaking reading the Illusion of Life alongside seeing their accomplishments. I'm finding my time more devoted to the study of animation rather than the execution... Not to say I haven't planned out anything mentally. My art style is shifting thanks to this intensive study, so animation has been coming slowly.

What saddens me most is that the things I learn in school rarely if ever compare to what I am learning on my own through these books, and simple observation. I think just spending the time to sit down and slowly digest the information in these texts... (By slowly I mean reading a page for a minute, contemplating it for two, sketching from inspiration in it for 10... It gets very long to read everything. Hence why the Illusion of Life has hundreds of flags on the pages now. Many things that are very important to learn...

If you have the chance to rewatch Pinnochio, I want you to take some extra consideration on the scene where Geppetto is using the puppet. Something beautiful about the way Frank Thomas animated that bit... Without video reference even. And yet the puppet moves believably, like a bunch of blocks of wood suspended on a string. It looks real, it moves in a real way. Phenomenal work... And perhaps will never be done as well again.

The artistry that goes into every frame is breathtaking... I really suggest going through and watching what the old masters did in that film. Granted, almost any of the classic disney pieces are worth taking a look at, but this is the one I'm currenlty obsessed over.

In terms of the Spring Break Challenge, I'm now more focused on the study of animation elements than anything. Honestly, I know I could sit down and go through frames and frames of animation, but my time at least for these first days will be better spent studying what the masters did. I have noticed I need to improve my methods from going to the standby of tweening directly in lines... That is, when I put a frame or pose between two extremes, I have a tendency (as do many animators when they first start) to simply draw a straight line between each pose and put everything halfway between everything else. What is more visually appealing is a curve, that is that the tween pose is either bowed down or up. It allows for more sweeps than simply mechanically drawing the poses in between.

I'm also working on how I design characters... Many of my issues come from that point. Most of the characters I've drawn lack appeal. I'm really trying to work from the drawings of the masters... For instance what really appeals to me are the character designs of Fred Moore... His work has a sort of perfect sense of what visually looks good. It might not be anatomically correct at all, but they appeal visually in a way that is endearing. The animation style that really gets to me though is that of Bill Tytla. Every time I see a set of his frames it sets itself apart. For instance this sequence was keyed by him... In motion its breathtaking. He's most famous for his work of the devil in fantasia... At any rate, I need to get back to my studies. Hopefully I'll have some sketches by tonight to post up here. I want to show a bit of how things have progressed.

EDIT: This has some of the Tytla work that I love of stromboli... http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/?p=1253

Spring Break Challenge!!! (Monday)

2009-03-16T16:20:00.002-04:00

So, things are starting slowly, but I'm still okay with that. My goals were lofty, and they still stand as they are. But I'm also reminded to stay satisfied with even achieving only some of them. As Rolando, one of my peers and a good friend, reminded me, I will be happier with one excellent work then 20 abysmally poor ones. And currently, I'll be happy if I can read through each of these books. Each is dense and full of wisdom, and i'm reaching a saturation point in terms of intellectual load. I've also learned another thing... sleep cannot easiily be sacrificed for more work, as sleep will demand your worktime in repayment. By losing 3 hours sleep last night, getting to bed at 3am, I lost 3 hours work time this morning (I woke at 11am. And was still very groggy.) Luckily, I spent that much time reading because I was working very hard to process everything.

In terms of other achievements today, I've concluded it may be easier to work in 3Ds, as that is more readily available to me. I also messed around with flash for a bit, and I need to get used to that workflow. I need to draft stories today, so basically my sunday goals are moved to today. I've found some of my old idea books, which I wouldn't have found otherwise, so I'm quite satisfied with that accomplishment. For now, the ultimate goals are: finish Hero of the World, make it presentable. Create one bit of character animation in flash, and at least set the groundwork for doing the same in 3Ds or Maya. Whichever is more easily available. There is also the possibility of using blender, but we will see how that turns out. Here's to a not-so-late night.

Spring Break Challenge!!! (Sunday)

2009-03-15T14:32:00.004-04:00

Sunday -

Finalize stories, get things cracking. This is the only time I should be on the computer, otherwise I should be drafting on sketchpad.
Maybe storyboard and experiment.
Work on redeveloping logo for website, possibly website design.
Plan out rest of portfolio.
Conceptualize Illustrations for a 2D portfolio.
Clean workspace, reset up desktop PC and monitor to begin working, sort through files necessary for reworking Hero of the World. Install necessary programs onto either computer.
Read Illusion of Life, ch 1-3. Read Pixar Touch, ch. 1-2. Read Acting for Animators, ch. 1-3.
Post progress to blog

I'm not sure how much I'll get done for today. I'll definitely hammer out the reading, but most of the cleaning and setup was done last week, thankfully. Story thing is coming along well, found some of my old idea sketchpads, so I have a few more stories in the animation stable. Tomorrow will be the first burn out day, but tonight... Well I really need to rest. I haven't gotten consistent sleep in a while, so it might be a good idea to catch up. I'm also going to definitely do some late night sketches, maybe some boards... More updates on how well I did that this evening. For now, green text means it is finished.

EDIT:
So, I've reached the end of the first day, at about 3:30 am. Fun times. Mostly the lateness was unexpected business, and although today has a long list of unaccomplished tasks, it isn't much of a discouragement to me. The rest of the week will be dictated on the successes of tomorrow/today (monday), as I will be putting together whatever stories, shorts and clips I want to do in storyboard form. I think my basic work process will be draw, storyboard, key, tween, then whatever. I don't have too much else to do tomorrow other than drive up to campus to put in a form for something, so hopefully that will be the only distraction. Found out that reading through books like Illusion of Life and Acting for Animators 3 chapters at a time is difficult, as they are DENSE. Not that this was really unexpected. I just now know not to leave that all til the very evening. Well, today was uneventful story wise other than finding the original story for an old concept, one that will definitely be a good story if not for this week, then another time. We'll see. Anyways, I'm going to go to sleep for a couple hours. Then, hopefully wake up to get working.

10 Things They Don't Teach You in Design School (Link)

2009-03-13T22:24:00.006-04:00

A friend of mine, Kevin Trehan, put this article on advice for designers up on Twitter. Good find Kevin!

Good advice even if you aren't doing design, but are in the creative field.

SuperGo! by Alex Butera, Lindsay Small (Video Link)

2009-03-13T20:52:00.005-04:00

Somehow this student film charms me exponentially every time I watch it.
Created by Lindsay Small and Alex Butera. Enjoy!

Git Gob by Phillip Eddolls (Video Link)

2009-03-13T20:45:00.002-04:00

Somehow this little story charms the soul. Here is the synopsis: In this animated short, two creatures wonder, “What is a hole?” They have different points of view. Their debate leads to an idea, an idea that changes the world.

Article and interview about it here.

Happy Up Here by Reuben Sutherland (Video link)

2009-03-13T20:43:00.004-04:00

This trippy music video gets me moving some days. Good music too.

Happy Up Here from Röyksopp on Vimeo.

Please Say Something by David OReilly(Video Link)

2009-03-13T14:37:00.005-04:00

This film won the Golden Bear for best short at the 2009 Berlinale, created by David OReilly.
Prepare yourself for one of the most unorthodox of storytelling methods. The film consists of 23 episodes, 25 seconds in length, telling the dramatic tale of a cat and mouse in love in a distant future setting. Watch, digest, and enjoy! It is unorthodox, but heartwarming and excellent in storytelling. Hope you find it inspiring and enjoyable! I've seriously watched this 5 or 10 times... Trying to catch everything. *Note* some coarse dialogue, if this offends you do not watch.

Please Say Something - Full Length from David OReilly on Vimeo.

Speedpaint at Siggraph

2009-03-13T01:49:00.003-04:00

We had a Speedpainting competition at Siggraph Night Life, and the key theme was "Shipwreck".

So, I won! Fun times, but anyways, here is the result!

Links for Animators

2009-03-13T00:43:00.006-04:00

Just in case any readers don't already check out these sites, these are all excellent for animators, or CG or entertainment in general. Or enthusiasts. Enjoy!

Animation World Network
Excellent news source for the animation industry. Excellent forums and careers page as well.

The Animation Guild Blog
An excellent way to keep up with the industry, this site is posted by the animation union. The author makes frequent visits to many of the local industry companies, allowing for a decent amount of insider info. Also gives a close glimpse of the industry, as many comments are posted by animators.

11 Second Club
Essential for novice animator, this site posts a challenge each month to animate an 11 second audio clip, and the winner receives a professional video critique on the animation as a prize. Forums are very active, and the resources page has some excellent rigs up for free, for Maya, 3DS Max, Blender, and SoftimageXSI. Indispensable website.

Cartoon Brew
One of the best blog sites out there, Cartoon Brew provides many links for animation info, as well as excellent videos for inspiration.

Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog
Great blog for... well illustration and cartooning. Many videos posted frequently.

Lineboil
Great site for videos and articles, all about animation.

Mayerson on Animation
A critical but well written blog by a veteran animator and instructor, all about the mechanics and fine art of animation. Excellent articles. Definitely a good site to check out frequently, particularly for his analytical articles.

Keith Lango Animation
Keith Lango has many critiques and tutorials for animation, as well as an APT (Animation Personal Trainer) service. Great posts very frequently, all examining aspects of animation. Read and watch all of his tutorials and videos! They hold a wealth of valuable information.

Victor Navone's Online Gallery Blog (VNOG Blog)
Victor Navone is a Pixar animator, and although he posts infrequently, his work is good to look through, and he regularly posts excellent articles in relation to animation techniques and concepts.

SIGGRAPH IUPUI
This is the student organization I've recently become a part of. Our goals entail collaborating with fellow students to enhance our education in any field towards the creative ends (i.e. 2D, 3D, Animation, Web, and almost any New Media field). The blog has many posts about the group, as well many video links. Frequently updated.

Hope these help my fellow animators and enthusiasts! Most of these have RSS feeds, so they are all rather convenient websites.

Spring Break Challenge!!!

2009-03-11T22:25:00.008-04:00

Okay, in order to keep productive over spring break, since I won't work much and I'm going to stay home the whole time... So yeah, in order to get things done, I will publicly post my objectives. I'm working hard this week, in order to have stuff for the student exhibition. So yeah, here we go.

Sunday -

Finalize stories, get things cracking. This is the only time I should be on the computer, otherwise I should be drafting on sketchpad.
Maybe storyboard and experiment.
Work on redeveloping logo for website, possibly website design.
Plan out rest of portfolio.
Conceptualize Illustrations for a 2D portfolio.
Clean workspace, reset up desktop PC and monitor to begin working, sort through files necessary for reworking Hero of the World. Install necessary programs onto either computer.
Read Illusion of Life, ch 1-3. Read Pixar Touch, ch. 1-2. Read Acting for Animators, ch. 1-3.
Post progress to blog

Monday -

Work on flash animation, use flash panes to finish Hero of the World's missing frames, as initial practice.
Build curves in Illustrator for Midterm project, as well. Start making illustrator paths for other models... Plan out curves, make character sheets.
Start learning Maya modeling. Work on staging poses in Maya on existing rigs. Block out animation, finalize Storyboards.
Start work on submission for 11 Second Club's current challenge. Set up Keys, blocking.
Begin work on Illustrating, physically with Copic markers, and digitally in photoshop.
Start participating on forums, particularly 11 Second Club, CG talk, etc.
Continue reading Illusion of Life 4-6, read Pixar Touch ch 3-4, Acting for Animators 4-6.
Finalize goals for Wednesday, set goals for Thursday.
Post progress to blog.

Tuesday -

Continue work on Maya modeling, start modeling with existing curves.
Continue flash animation.
Possibly work on redesign of website.
Start animating in Maya, continue work on keys.
11 Second Club submission, finalize blocking and keys.
Continue Illustrating in Photoshop, Copics, try painting for kicks.
Work on putting music to Hero of the World.
Continue reading Illusion of Life 7-9. Pixar Touch 5-6, Acting for Animators 7-9.
Finalize goals for Thursday, set goals for Friday.
Post progress to blog.

Wednesday -

Study rigging in Maya, analyze how that is done. See if it can be applied to existing models. Continue modeling, animation in Maya.
Continue Flash animation
Continue 11 Second Club work, start working on inbetweens and such (still not sure how this process will roll for me.)
Continue reading Illusion of Life 10-12, Pixar Touch 7-8, Finish Acting for Animators.
Finalize goals for Friday. Set remaining goals for Saturday, or beyond.
Post progress to blog.

Thursday -

Continue reading Illusion of Life 13-16, Finish Pixar Touch.
Post progress to blog.

Friday -

Finish reading Illusion of Life.
Post progress to blog.

Saturday -

Cover any of the bullet points above that were missed, relax, unless working.
Post progress to blog. Recap the weeks achievements, failures. Analyze why these plans succeeded, or failed.

Alright. I'll probably refine these some more later on this week, but for now, this is the plan, unless I get a head start on some of these bad boys. Wish me luck, I'll be keeping the faithful readers updated. Expect HUGE posts next week. Unless I totally screw things up.

How I got started doing this whole "art" thing.

2009-03-10T23:06:00.017-04:00

I've noticed it to be a common theme amongst most professors to have as an assignment "Write about how you decided on your major.", or something to that effect. Many people ask me, "How did you get started on art and animation?". Well... Here's my origin story. Here is the story of how I got bitten by the radioactive pencil.

I've always been a fan of animation and the drawn work... I was huge manga reader in high school, along with anime (I partook in many a fansub in my time). Something about the entertainment caught me better than anything else... I loved my fair share of animated films as well, particularly those from the wonderkinds at Pixar, and of course I watched my fair share of Saturday morning cartoon

s (Genndy Tartakovsky is of particular note). None of that gelled into me wanting to draw it though.

I have ALWAYS had a creative urge, from reenacting dramatic scenes as a child with stuffed animals, to building tremendous structures with legos, to constructing battlefields out of little more than twine, paper, and scotch tape. I was a HUGE fan of the Lion King, did some tracings of those, but for the most part, it was nothing big. At one point, I was taking art lessons while home-schooled, with a Mrs. Whetstone, through whom I learned the basics of drawing. This was the beginning, but I didn't really have a passion for it at the time. It was just I think I did, another thing I was good at.

I did doodles at the time, but they were simple, rudimentary... They were poor imitations of what I saw. And I wasn't that serious about them. Then one, magical day, I was reading one of my manga... Crescent Moon, by Haruko Iida, published by Tokyopop in 2000. Most likely, you have NEVER read or heard of this one.

Now, I know there are a lot of naysayers over the manga style, but honestly, despite whatever complaints or arguments you may have over the artform, you cannot deny that the following page is a work of art. (Or at least something that the artist slaved over for hours.)

There was something particularly stunning about this page that caught my attention... The intense nature of motion that you can see clearly depicted in this page. And most of the pages in the manga are like this, intensely detailed and heavily worked on, each a work of art and storytelling combined in a seemingly effortless fashion.

At any rate, just the way it was depicted, how an artist could make something as still as lines on a paper seem to be alive and move? This astounded me. I had never had that come to mind as being possible before. I was stunned. And I wanted to know more.

Naturally, I drew work of my own. It was... well they were all VERY rudimentary. But it was around then that a sketchbook was always in my possession. Something that all creatives should do: keep a notebook or sketchpad with you at ALL times. At the very instant a half-way decent idea pops in your head, you will have something to solidify it for all time. Honestly, the tiny one I have is about 3 bucks. I think you can afford it. Anyways... Here is some of my work from those days... Just so you know this is from... about 4-5 years ago, before any really firm study in the true art of drawing. Just a warning. They aren't that good. Okay. Here we go.

Yep, I was one of them anime freaks who could ONLY draw this style. Thankfully, somewhere along the line I saw/was told/discovered that learning to draw this way, although fun and offers quick easy results to feel proud of, completely and utterly destroys your actual abilities to draw. Sorry, but its true, it stunts your growth as an artist. That's why currently whenever I sketch a page of cartoony characters, they span an infinite variety of art styles, all attempting to be different from the next. I don't like getting into ruts, and the anime style is a dangerous but alluring one. End rant.

Anyways, I eventually came under the tutelage of a good fine arts teacher, Theresa Wisehart, and then the results turned rather beautiful rather quickly. Although, I must say that a lot of this all stems from a good and simple piece of advice that was directed to me by Mrs. Whetstone.

"Draw what you see."

Yup, simple, but it was extremely helpful and it actually is excellent guidance. NEVER draw what you know (at least at first), because what you know is rusty and tainted. If you first can draw what you see, then what you see in your head will make its way to the paper. But almost never will you be able to do the reverse. There are always exceptions to the rule, but I will say for most, do NOT draw what you think an object looks like. Draw what the object looks like by having it before you. The first one of the following was a still-life. The others were developed from using references.

So here is a simple still life. Nothing too fancy, but this was one of the weirdest perspective challenges I ever faced . And somehow, I made it work.

Over here is an Escher inspired work. This was done mostly developed from my head, but the key reference I used was a looking glass ball, that I used to analyze how light reflects on a curved surface. If you have never done this before and would like a good challenge as an illustrator, trust me. Grab a mirrored ball, and have the time of your life trying to wrap your head around the patterns of reflection. Particularly when you have objects reflecting upon other objects that reflect upon themselves. It gets confusing. Really quickly.

This last one was mostly developed by me staring at my hands. A lot. It gets really frustrating when your model is your drawing hand, which is why cameras are of the essence. Yup, I know, crazy stuff.

So yeah, draw what you see. Most definitely. But from here... Well basically my enchantment with drawing progressed from here to the comic book form. I decided, well, since I really liked the moving stuff, I liked telling stories, and the fine arts thing... Well, it gets too weird for me sometimes. I've co-developed a really good practicing method for comic art, alongside a friend, Travis, in which basically I'd ask him to tell me a random story idea, and a number. The story idea would have to be worked into that many number of frames. Eventually, this developed into a simple challenge. Either...
A. Take a complicated story, and tell it in 3-5 frames.
B. Take an obscenely simple story, and tell it in 15+ frames.
First assignment was the sinking of the Titanic in 5. Not too hard. A samurai fighting a crocodile in 3. Really difficult. A person eating an apple in 15 frames... This is getting kinda tough (trust me, try to figure out how to make THAT an interesting story, and draw it). Eventually, if you actually do this sort of practice, ideas and concepts to develop and embellish stories come really quickly to you.

The comic art form was fun, but eventually my interest in making things move drifted into the animated sector. From there... Well first I muddled with 2D, I dabbled in stop-motion, and then quickly became enchanted in 3D. My teacher through all of that was Danni Brayer, and excellent graphics instructor, under who's guidance I met my most improvement. Everything basically hit the fast track then, and after spending hours slaving away on a light table, I knew that this meticulous labor of love was my passion.

That's my story in a nutshell. Eventually I'll post a few animations that I've done for you guys, but hope you'll enjoy what's here thus far. And... I'll post something that I never got finished, but was proud that I even tried to do this: a short little animation about a dog and an alien. Took me over 80 hours of work during senior year in about 2 or 3 weeks. I never kept good track of the work time.
My tools? Pencil, Animation Paper, Light table, Scanner. That's it. I also used Premiere to make the frames a video, but for the most part... Yeah. Basic, rudimentary, old school.
Maybe at some point I'll put it to music, but there isn't any sound, and I apologize for the hilarious frame gap that happens midpoint. Maybe someday I'll return to this, but I'll probably redo the whole entire short.

One thing I will leave you with is a few good books to read. Any of Scott McCloud's books are excellent for comic or graphic novel artist. Even if you aren't, you probably should read it anyway, because it will challenge you to think more about what you do already. The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston is a must read if you are an animator, along with the Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams. If you look up to Pixar's work to be inspired, I'd definitely watch the Pixar Story, a documentary that you can find nestled in the special features on the DVD of WallE, and then also read The Pixar Touch by David A. Price. That, and read and absorb and observe EVERY piece of artwork you can get your hands on. Be literally drenched in the stuff. Even if you hate the art style, still, study and observe the thing to death. Anyways, hope this answers the question for how I started into this whole shindig.

Oh, and interesting trivia bit: my full name? Nathaniel Arthur Moody. "Art", in fact, IS my middle name.

Insect Warrior, 2nd Copic, now in color! (Sketchbook 1.3)

2009-03-10T22:48:00.002-04:00

Got color pens. Eventually, I'll rescan this instead of taking a photo!

Insect Warrior, 1st Copic (Sketchbook 1.2)

2009-03-07T01:36:00.000-05:00

I was hating how this was going til I got to the end of drawing it. Now I absolutely love how it turned out. I need more markers... And if any of you SIGGRAPH cohorts read this, you might have seen this in sketch form during last Thursday's nightlife.

Copic Markers!!!

2009-03-07T01:29:00.000-05:00

I just bought 2 copic markers, a 100 black, and a C3 cool grey. Man... these are amazing!

Seriously, I never bought these at first because of the cost (6$ at the local art store), but man, they are worth EVERY penny. I'm definitely going to expand my collection of these... This is enough though to do some epic B&W stuff, and that's going to be shown in my next post... and what is slightly visible in this post's picture.

Just a note...

2009-03-05T12:58:00.000-05:00

Anything in Sketchpad is drawn on a 3x5 sketchpad... Really shrimpy thing, but it goes EVERYWHERE with me in my pocket. All of my random ideas are given life on this little sketchpad. Anything listed as Sketchbook is on a large 9x12 sketchbook. Thus the line fidelity is much more clear, thanks to the scaling.

Who's Watching the Watchmen? (Sketchbook 1.1)

2009-03-05T12:52:00.000-05:00

Seriously, who is? And in celebration...

If you don't see this movie, by the way, something is seriously wrong with you. I was lucky enough to be able to screen it last night... And man... The story choices were almost BETTER than the original comic. The pacing, the sound quality, the image and style... ALL PERFECT. Seriously, watch Watchmen.

Sky Pirates (Sketchpad 1.11)

2009-03-03T14:55:00.000-05:00

Captain Jean Paul Lasseter

These are character designs for a story I'm working on... The names for these are based upon friend's names and names of respected members of the industry! See if you can guess which ones are where... These are all part of a story I don't have a title for yet, but as you can probably tell it is kind of a "steam punk" air ship theme. I'm doing a bunch of concept work for it, but it will be a while til it goes into production... I want to eventually do it in 3D, but for now sketches are the name of the game. For now the working title is "Sky Pirates"
1st Mate Matthieu Stanton & Cabin Boy Caspen Escher

Ship Design

Object Design

Turret Design

Me, and my buddy Rorschach (Sketchpad 1.10)

2009-03-03T14:49:00.000-05:00

Hey guess who this is!In celebration of the movie... Rorschach.

Character Sheets (Sketchpad 1.9)

2009-03-03T14:46:00.000-05:00

Here are some character sheets for something... I haven't really done a story development for them yet.

Random... (Sketchpad 1.8)

2009-03-03T14:39:00.000-05:00

Random character design stuff... I do lots of doodles like this, testing character types and such. Most of my sketchpad is filled with guys like the one on the left: part of the character drawn, and then nothing.

Sketch, Tattoo, Fractals... (Sketchpad 1.7)

2009-03-03T14:27:00.000-05:00

Failed attempt at sketching Bone from memory, but some interesting doodles on the side... Because this one is pathetic, I'll post another image in this post...
Here is a tattoo design I want to have done (at some point). Pretty cool thing.
Fractal patterns, done by hand... Looking kinda crappy.

3210 AD (Sketchpad 1.6)

2009-03-03T14:09:00.000-05:00

More 3210AD.

3210 AD (Sketchpad 1.5)

2009-03-03T14:05:00.000-05:00

More 3210 AD. I guess I should explain now why all of these are really crummy resolutions... I'm basically just taking photographs of a really tiny sketchpad with my camera phone. Until I get a faster scanner, or a better camera... Well I'm sorry but this resolution will have to do. I will however, rescan and repost higher res stuff once I get around to it. Yeah, I need money, I'm a college student. What can I say?

3210 AD (Sketchpad 1.4)

2009-03-03T14:02:00.001-05:00

More concepts for 3210 AD. Sorry, no details on the story of this one...

3210 AD (Sketchpad 1.3)

2009-03-03T14:02:00.000-05:00

More concepts for 3210 AD. Sorry, no details on the story of this one...

3210 AD (Sketchpad 1.2)

2009-03-03T13:58:00.000-05:00

Here is a concept drawing (the first I made) for a personal project of mine, 3210 AD (working title). I won't divulge the story concept here, and I doubt you'll be able to decipher my scrawl. Sorry, but I kind of want to keep this a "close to the chest" story concept, because I think it may reach into some untapped market... I'm planning on doing this a comic book, possibly released online, but we'll see whenever I get the means/time to work on it further.

Kitsune (Sketchpad 1.1)

2009-03-03T13:52:00.000-05:00

Character design for a story I may do in the future... It's really blurry and obscurred because this particular page is in the center, and anything heavily shaded gets blurred to heck inside my pockets... These sketches don't age well while I'm still using the sketchpad.