I brought my sketchbook to the Getty yesterday and tried out my rusty quicksketch skills while waiting for my friend to arrive. These were some people waiting in line for the tram (click for larger image):
And a slightly longer study of one of the busts in a gallery:
It felt good to be putting pen to paper again. Clicking a mouse doesn't make me feel like much of an artist, at least not in the way that sketching does. I wonder why it's so hard for me these days to open my sketchbook and just draw. Maybe I'll try the 30 Day Challenge that's been circulating Facebook, once my iAnimate class is done.
I've got this subtitle on my blog that says "Running commentary on anything that moves or gives the illusion of movement." Animation to me is more than simply adjusting sliders in Maya or sketching on paper. It's not just about moving things, it's about getting to the essence of things that move you. The best animators are able to boil down the complexities and subtleties of life and people into a focused state, and infuse their work with that essence.
Last week I experienced something that moved my soul. It was animation in the very rawest sense of the word: liveliness, spirit, energy. I haven't yet figured out how to translate it into my artwork, but I am hoping it will find a way. In the meantime, I've resorted to the more mundane medium of writing and chronicled my trip to Costa Rica at my other blog here:
Traditionally each wedding anniversary has a material associated with it (i.e. 1st - Paper, 2nd - cotton, 25th - silver, 50th - gold) and for our 3rd year it was "leather." Well, I'm no good working with leather, but I had an idea of what I could do for this year's gift. Tommy loves baseball, and baseballs are made of leather! So I managed to sneak down to the gift shop during an Angels/Rangers game and procure an official game-used baseball. This year's are pretty sweet because it's the Angels' 50th year, so each baseball has a 50th year logo on it.
Then I set about creating a display to hold the baseball using a material I was more familiar with - Sculpey. :) The tricky part was working on it so Tommy didn't find out! I sculpted mostly at work before and after hours. Below is the finished product along with some WIP pics.
I was talking with Michelle this evening about "style" - that is, an artist's means of expressing themselves in a unique way that is instantly recognizable to others. The illustrators I like to keep an eye on all have very strong styles that distinguish themselves from other artists. I told Michi that I didn't feel I had a style all my own. I believe it's probably because I don't draw often enough to discover what it is that I find to be uniquely me.
When I do get around to picking up a pencil, I feel a need to study, improve my draftmanship and anatomy, learn about line and color, perspective, appeal, design, lines of action, dynamic poses... then I get overwhelmed and don't feel like drawing anymore. When I was little I didn't care about any of that stuff. Now I peruse other blogs and I get this feeling of inferiority, like I should have tried harder, gotten better. These other bloggers know who they are as artists, they know what they want to say to the world. What is it that I want to say? How can I get "better" if I don't know the answer to that question?
My problem is that I worry too much about drawing a good picture. I have to just start drawing and turn my anxious brain off for a while. That's what I attempted to do above, and I guess I resorted to my old fallbacks, cute "jelly bean belly" creatures and ugly monsters. Is that considered a style? Meh.
There's probably some psychological reason WHY those are my fallbacks. Who knows, perhaps every artist's style is some physical manifestation of their inner psyche. What does it mean when one person has a clean, simple style, while another has a super-detailed, complex and chaotic one? Does anyone analyze sketches the way some people analyze handwriting?
Soooo, it's been a while. I've moved on to Sony Santa Monica to work on an unannounced game project and it's a little slow going. In the meantime I tried another short project at home similar to the 11-Second Club entry from last October. This time it was a contest hosted by Kevin Freeman who runs the AnimationRigs.com website. We had a choice of 5 audio clips this time, and the only rule was that we had to use the rigs from the site. The rest was up to us!
I downloaded some free geo for a background from turbosquid.com and some sound effects from freesound.org. Here's the final product:
And the good news: I won first place! So not only do I have a nice piece for my demo reel, I also have some prize cash to get something nice. :D There were some pretty nice entries from other contestants too, and I was surprised to learn who the judges were. Pretty high profile folks!
Anyway, next post I'll try to upload some WIP videos so you guys can see my animation process.
This is a short abstract film I created as part of the "Bored Animators Club" challenge at work! After we were done with Medal of Honor we were sitting around thinking of stuff to do, so we came up with the idea of 24 hour animation challenges. Take that, 11 Second Club. Who needs a month to make a short film? Hehe.
Anyway, I figured it would be a fun opportunity to finally get around to making an abstract film! I've always loved watching experimental animation - as a kid I was drawn to things like the pink elephants in Dumbo, song sequences from Fantasia, seashells gliding around in the sand on Sesame Street, and so forth. In college we studied lots of different animation styles, from the Hubleys to Oskar Fischinger to the Brothers Quay and even Chuck Jones. Although I knew I wanted to work in the mainstream industry, part of me highly respected and envied the people who found time (and money) to create something completely new and unexpected.
Abstract animation, to me, is like visual poetry - it's able to convey things that aren't easily put into words or purely representational images. The scene from Ratatouille where Remy tries to describe "taste" is a perfect example of this. Perhaps because I grew up in a musical family I also feel a strong connection between music and image. When I listen to a song, I visualize it too, if that makes any sense. That's kind of how Goatboy Bebop came into being.
I'm glad that some artists and studios are still making room for experimental work in their films. In an era where 3D photorealism is all the rage, it's nice to see something that takes a different path. So often we stay grounded in real life and we forget how to be artists and poets, we forget we are capable of transcending the representational world. Our brains can make those abstract connections between color, line, icon, shape, sound, smell, object and feeling. That's what makes being human so awesome!
Huh, I guess it's been a while since I've waxed philosophical about animation. I could keep going on about this topic, but I think I'll wrap it up with a link to some abstract animations I've compiled together that have inspired me over the years.
I found myself with some free time last month so I tried out the 11 Second Club competition for the first time. I've always found the competition inspiring but never quite worked up the nerve to enter myself. I earned a respectable 5th place out of 256 entries, not bad!
I went through a lot of free rigs available on the internet before settling on the "Blake" rig by Jason Baskin. I found that his rig had a decent facial setup and controls that I wanted for the body (although I did wish the spine was better). There were some other good rigs, but Blake's character design seemed like he would fit the audio for the month.
I'm playing around with Josh Burton's "Morpheus" rig which also seems very promising. Maybe some other month... once we're done with all this condo-buying nonsense :)
Kind of piggy-backing off of my last animation assignment, I decided to do a little concept work for my characters on the short film brewing in my head to nail them down a bit better. Hopefully the more I can visualize them on "paper," the easier it will be to model them in Maya.
Wow, 12 weeks went by fast! This last assignment features two characters I'm thinking of developing a short film for. Not sure I've nailed down the design yet. I was mainly considering the contrast between the two personalities for this test. I'll probably end up animating the short in 3D since that's the medium I'm most comfortable with. I wish I didn't have to go through the trouble of creating my own models and rigs, though! It's been so long since I went through that process for "Swing."
Anyway, the shot was a bit poorly planned as you never see the fan catch the home run ball (ran out of room at the edge of the paper, something you don't have to worry about in 3D!) I still had fun with it though, and enjoyed the class with Alex Topete and Mike Polvani! It's nice to do something completely different and remind myself of the reasons why I wanted to become an animator in the first place. Mocap cleanup has a nasty habit of sucking the life and creativity out of one's work. Thanks Alex and Mike for reigniting the spark! :)
This time the line of dialogue is from a movie called "Sling Blade" starring Billy Bob Thornton. The audio quality for the dialogue wasn't great, but I had fun working with it. I also wanted to try my hand at more exaggerated takes like they did on the Looney Tunes. I studied "Dripalong Daffy," in particular the scene where Daffy takes a drink from the bar. It's amazing what the animators were able to do with just a few drawings! Very efficient yet hilarious at the same time.
I've got to give props to the sound engineers who worked on those old WB shorts as well - up until I started adding some SFX to my pencil test I kept thinking it was not quite finished. The right sound can make all the difference!
I have to say... the hardest part was the rocking chair! I should have just modeled the damn thing in Maya instead of trying to work out all the in-betweens and perspective by hand. But hey, now I can say I did the whole thing old school.
I signed up for a traditional animation class with the Local 839 Guild up in Burbank on Monday nights! It's a lot of fun getting to pick up paper and pencil again. Here's the latest assignment pencil test:
My professor Alex Topete gave us model sheets for Darla Dimple from Cats Don't Dance (an excellent movie if you haven't seen it) and an audio file from "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" I had a lot of fun pushing Darla's facial expression as she manages to shut off her alarm clock by pure fury.
On the side I've also been helping out a friend with his short film so hopefully I'll be able to post my shot for you from that soon as well. Meanwhile it's crunch time at work, we're shipping in October but we have to pass certification much earlier. Hopefully things will cool down in a couple weeks!
So one of the online games I play has these drawing contests on their forums every few months or so. Figured I'd give it a shot for some in-game currency. Mostly it was an excuse to keep drawing and trying out new stuff.
This time I tried a technique that one of the panelists at last year's Comic-Con demonstrated when coloring in Photoshop. Basically they start out "flatting" dark shadowy color, and then layering it up on "screen" until it reaches its lightest highlights. At first I didn't see how this would be possible, I mean, if you want something red, shouldn't you start with the midtone red rather than the dark murky brownish-red of the shadow?
But after a little experimenting with my color palette it did seem to work out alright. My question now is how to keep all those shades of brown organized! They all look the same on my monitor, it's only once you start building up layers that you see what different colors they turn into.
Yet another card design, this time a thank-you for some members of the Angeles Chorale who have been working tirelessly to put together our concert taking place this Saturday! I was inspired by one of the songs we're singing entitled "The Promise of Living" by Aaron Copland. Had a little fun with custom Photoshop brushes to make the field, and heavily modified an old photo I snapped along highway 5 for some cloudage. Someday I might learn how to paint clouds by hand... but why bother when I can take pictures? God does a better job painting clouds than I ever could!
The composition is a little wonky because the finished card will have text. But who needs the rule of thirds anyway. ;)
Crunch time at work. It's nice to draw and do something completely different now and again. Have you seen the extended trailer for MOH yet? You can catch it here:
I discovered a cheap, simple art program called "ArtRage" that tries to simulate real-world tools such as paint brushes, pencil, marker, etc. They have a 30-day demo so I tried it out. Overall it feels really nice! You can control how much paint is loaded onto the brush, add thinners, easily control the rotation of the canvas and the drawing implement (very useful!) and all sorts of intuitive settings. And for $40 it's definitely affordable. I just wish I knew how to paint better. :P Anyway here's how it turned out (I got too lazy and didn't do a background):
I've been fascinated with birds lately since there's a freshwater marsh across the street from my work, and I recently picked up David Attenborough's "The Life of Birds" BBC series so I've been watching and sketching. Maybe I'll post a few sketches that I'm happy with later.
Work has been busy as we prepare for yet another demo, but there's some fun stuff I'm working on :)
Ah well, so it's a little late... but the 12 days of Christmas go until January 6th, right? So there's still time to squeeze this in!
Everybody knows and loves the Peanuts holiday special, "A Charlie Brown Christmas." That goes without saying. And who could forget "How the Grinch Stole Christmas?" But I figure, as an animation afficionado I should point to some other cartoon Christmas specials that may get overlooked from year to year, but are nonetheless entertaining! Check them out if you're in need of a little post-Christmas holiday cheer. :)
Prep & Landing - this is 2009's freshly unwrapped special from Disney, and is quite fun! Hulu's only got it until January 1st though, so check it out soon!
Phineas and Ferb's Christmas Vacation - If you've never seen Phineas and Ferb on the Disney channel, I highly recommend it! It's one of the few current cartoons both me and my husband both enjoy watching. Their Christmas special is just as slick as any of their other episodes.
Olive the Other Reindeer - Ok, so the animation's not Pixar quality or anything, but this is an inventive special for the younger crowd produced by Matt Groening of Simpsons fame.
'Twas the Fight Before Christmas - Ah, the Powerpuff Girls. :) What would the holidays be without a little bit of baddy bashing?
The Very First Noel - I saw this cute film at the Religious Education Congress a few years back and fell in love with their character and art design! It's a neat way to introduce kids to the Nativity story. You'll have to get the DVD from veryfirstnoel.com to see the whole thing, but I'd say it's a worthy investment and supports independent animation. :)
What animated Christmas specials do you recommend?
How time flies! Work has been busy, and a side project has been keeping me busy in my free time as well (as any YouTube followers may have noticed). We finally released a trailer for the game I'm working on, which you can see here:
My main contribution to the trailer was the ATV shots (a few other random things as well). There will be lots more to see later! I'm really hoping this latest effort does well. The team is enthusiastic and of course we have something to prove since Call of Duty currently leads the pack in FPSes.
Anyway. Like last year I found some time to draw a card for my mom's birthday (which falls near Christmas). I went for a sort of classic storybook style this time:
Every once in a while I do a little sculpting with Sculpey polymer clay, just for fun! This latest project was a gift for my sister's birthday, very much in the style of Tim Cotteril's bronze frog sculptures (which I can't afford :P)
Here's a couple pics, sorry the first one is kind of dark:
He's got an inner skeleton made of tin foil and 1/8" armature wire to add stability and help it bake faster. The metallic sheen was created with a mix of red and yellow Daler Rowney Pearlescent Liquid Acrylic Inks, with black enamel for the eyes and legs, and gold spray paint for the toes. For the spots I also used black enamel but quickly dabbed up most of the paint with a paper towel to create a faux patina look. Coated the whole thing with some Sculpey glaze for a nice shine.
I think he looks pretty happy hanging out in the backyard :)
BTW, "Santa Rocks" is on hold as a side project came up which offered me a chance to do some 2D animation :D It won't be anything spectacular but it does get me drawing again! I'm excited to haul out the Wacom and *gasp* even a pencil and sketchpad!!
I thought I'd make a birthday card for my grandma, and this is how it turned out:
My grandparents are big fans of Mah-Jongg, and often host games at their house. The hand I put on the birthday card is one of the highest scoring hands you can get in the game, due to the difficulty of drawing the right tiles. My grandparents actually have pictures of their lucky hands in photo albums to show off to other Mah-Jongg players. Hey, I'm impressed! :)
This was the first time I tried "inking" the outlines in Flash. I've seen some other artists get very nice results from changing lines into fills to adjust the shape of the outlines... but I got lazy and just left them as lines :P Overall I was pretty happy with the control I had over the shape of the lines, even though it probably ended up taking about twice as long as it would have taken had I inked them freehand in Photoshop.
I keep telling myself that someday I'll learn how to render! Y'know, light sources and textures and all that jazz. I guess I get too impatient and want my illustrations to just be finished already. Maybe that's the animator in me wanting to move on to the next drawing...
So I took a chunk of the animation I'm working on and weaned it off of stepped keys, finally. I hadn't touched this for a while since things got busy with my choir's concert and work stuff.
I always dread the transition between stepped and spline, because it's so hard to keep that snap and spark to the animation once you start in-betweening. It's also when I start noticing that the cheats I did to capture certain poses don't work once I need to put a breakdown in between the two keys. What do you guys think?
