The Triumphant Return

So after yet another LOOONNNNGG hiatus, I'm back. There's a bevy of new things to post (how wonderful).

I'll start with a video for the first time in eons. This is the rough test of my dinosaur ball roll. The animation is where it needs to be I feel, but as you can see there's a lot of cleanup that needs to be finished. Enjoy!









Until Next Time.

More Conceptual Concepts

So for the other project I'm working on I was also required to pass through the gauntlet of character design. This time I'm simply pseudo-caricaturing two regular peoples. This was a really fun process, not to mention I got my brain around their designs fairly quickly. It's clear I had more fun with these than the cowgirl from earlier.


















Until Next Time.

I'm a Tracer

I've been trying to hone my skills in the Flash cleanup/color department. As practice I used that shark drawing that was posted eons ago. I'd like to make more of these so I eliminate as much of the guesswork in the process as possible.

He's surly cause his fin is incomplete.

You'd think he'd be less surly now that he has a complete fin. You thought wrong.

Cleanest of the Roughs

Sometimes I get into a drawing and I just keep working at it beyond a rough sketch. It gets pseudo-complete (as far as my sketchbook standards are), but it's surrounded by other drawings that I was doing before. Those warm-up drawings invariably acted as blockades to my better ones. Too bad for them; I've got Photoshop.

I want to get better at drawing cartoony ladies. Mastering that technique seems like a small rite of passage into animation-dom.

This was done on a marbleized notecard. Curse my lack of foresight.

Until Next Time.

Moleskinnia

Dug out some more of the drawings in my most petite of sketchbooks. Drawing in the moleskine makes you feel so much more officially artsy. Or, at least that's how you may appear to certain people on the train.

Must've been talking about cicadas...and crippled dogs :(

Sometimes the drawings that take 2/10ths of a second are better than something you labor away on for 20 minutes. As far as my standards go, this is one of them.

Until Next Time.

More Cowgirls

So after reviewing the drawings I'd done on my first pass I decided they could really be worked over a great deal more. I pushed the boundaries of how cartoony she could look...and they were sometimes frightening. Luckily I think I'm finding a good balance between cartoony and too realistic and boring.

I had no idea how easy it was to get trapped in that GI Joe style of cartooning. It's hard to break out of because you still want the cartoon to actually look like the person you're caricaturing.

Without going on too much of a rant here, this does look incredibly boring.

Fearing the GI Joe trap, I went in a totally opposite direction. Too much?

What I consider to be a nice balance of the 2 styles. Now she's a Real American Hero in my eyes.

Until Next Time.

Cowgirl Power

So I've been lucky enough to contribute some fantasy segments to a short film about an actress living in Los Angeles. My first task was to nail down a working, competent version of the main character in animated form. The fantasy thing involves a lot of western themes, so I get to make her into an awesome cowgirl. Yay!!

Thanks to a wonderful crash course in caricature from Joe M, (http://www.joeseats.blogspot.com/)
I was off and running. Here's a compilation of a few ideas.
More on this as it develops.






















Until Next Time.