Friday 28 December 2007

Holiday Greetings


Hi. I hope everyone out there in Internet land had a great Christmas break. Enjoyable and relaxing I hope.
I went to see Enchanted a few days ago and I really enjoyed it. I was worried that it would be Disney doing a Shrek on itself, but you didn't get that feeling at all. The animation, especially the hand-drawn, was stunning, the songs were great and you left with a big smile.

Telly on Christmas day here wasn't so great. Not to spoil it for any American Doctor Who fans out there, but the Christmas special wasn't terrific. I got a couple of really cool books for Christmas though. The new Nicktoons and Pixar book are really terrific, full of information and pictures. I got a character designing book by Tom Bancroft which is really useful (http://tombancroft.blogspot.com/, also visit http://www.chrissandersart.com/www/blog.php) and purchase the book "Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators". This is really handy and I am trying to go through it from start to finish to improve my drawing like Chris Bailey suggested. Here's some early work below.



I also worked on a storyboard. I liked the way it and the character's turned out. I think I might re-do it again and increase the Charlie Brown quality of the character. Basically, they're hungry, pass a turkey in a shop, only costs a pound, excited, don't have enough money, depressed, little guy notices help wanted sign in shop window. It's supposed to be quite simple and quiet.



Well, there is only one week left till Ravensbourne starts again, and I will probably just practice some more before I go back.

Bye!

Wednesday 19 December 2007

Merry Christmas


Hi. Just wanted to report in and tell all you guys and girls out there what I have been doing recently. Well, Ravensbourne didn't give us much homework over the Christmas break, so I mostly have been practicing by myself. I know that we have to do contextual studies presentation next term, but it's a group presentation, so obviously you can't do much research. The weird thing is our groups are decided by what you want to do your presentation on, so you have to a least of decided what kind of area you want to do your research. I was thinking of either doing Frederator again, as it was so much fun to do it for the Vocational Case Study, or Goofy, because I like Goofy and I think delivering into his personality might be interesting.
I did do some life drawing on Monday, but I won't put them up here because they are all awful. I feel like I have been off my game recently and have not liked my drawings. When Disney animator Chris Bailey says your drawings lack 3-dimensions, it must be true.
I did do some storyboarding yesterday, they turned out pretty good. I also be tutoring my sister in Maths for her A-levels. For those of you out there who don't know what an A-level is, it's the exams you take to get into college. Statistics mostly, means, frequency distributions and discrete random variables. Nice Stuff.
Anyway, just wanted to say thanks to all my teachers, Fred Seibert, Chris Bailey and Linda Jones for all their help and support. Finally, Merry Christmas to you all and the best wishes of the holiday season.
Bye.

Friday 14 December 2007

Hi

Hi, just wanted to report in at the end of the week. It is getting really close to Christmas now. Not really too sure what to do at the moment. Below are some more developed character designs for that little idea I had "Door to Door Dentist". I'm don't know if I will keep those colours, but I did only have four different colours of pen. I'm not entirely sure what they are supposed to be, duck, rat things.

The basic plot, these two pester a poor man with their free door to door dental service. It's a loose plot I admit, but one that could be padded with more gags.

I did want to attempt to make a real complicated rig walk in Maya. I couldn't find anything complicated enough on the Internet so I modelled and rigged it myself. What's more complex than this? I don't think it turned out that well. The model is awful, but I'm not a modeller, and something about the walk cycle just doesn't seem right. I think I bit off more than I could chew.


Friday 7 December 2007

Finally Finished Drawn Animatic

Well here it is. I finally got around to finishing the drawn animatic. I redid the timing as much as I could, within the limitations of the dialogue. Now I know it isn't perfect, for example, I may have forgot some overlapping here and there and I may have held some frames for a bit too long. The Doodleboy problem as not entirely my fault, I ran out of animation paper and had to use regular A4 and didn't realise that I drew Doodleboy too high up. I'll remember next time. Enjoy!


Monday 3 December 2007

New Doodles

Here are some new doodles of some of my own characters. The first you may recognise from previous posts. It's Stitch bag (I do need to think of a better name). I've been watching my brother play Metal Gear Solid lately and was really drawn in by the story and cinematic experience of it. I decided to maybe give a bit of Snake's personality to Stitch bag. Make him an ex-underworld soldier you has retired and then become the Grim Reaper's advisor. Hence I drew this picture trying to capture the style of the Metal Gear Solid drawings. I not sure how well it came out.






This is Tag throughout the ages. It's a homage to the great picture of Mickey Mouse throughout the ages.






These are some rough character designs for a short idea I had called "Door to Door Dentist". The title kind of speaks for itself.







These are Baby Boo Boo illustrations in the style of E.H.Shepard. I really wanted these pictures to look cute, and I thought the cutest thing was the E.H.Shepard illustrations of Winnie the Pooh. I don't know if I will keep this look, it is just an experiment.








This is just something I drew. I don't know what it is.












I was watching some old episodes of the Powerpuff Girls and realised how violent it was. The Girls would punch monster's eyes and goo would come out, or blast through monster's chest or just beat people to a pulp. That's what made it great, hence I have tried to recreate this with Doodleboy.



Finally, here is a drawing of a pretty girl. I like drawing pretty girls and I draw her quite a bit. She doesn't have a name, but kinda picture a mixture between Kim Possible and Orihime Inoue.

Happy Holidays.

New Fan Art


Well, Here some new Fan Art I have done over the past term, in my spare time of course. I can 100% guarantee that none of these are copied. Hope you like them.

First up is Spidey. I like drawing Spidey, as he is different from the other superheroes as he is skinny and you can push his body into wild contorting poses. This makes him real fun to draw. The only pain is all the detail his costume requires.





Here's a small picture of Bloo and Mac. Not really much to say about it.








I call this picture "I shall now hide in my pants". I love this show.












Kim, Ron and Rufus. Kim's head can be a little bit difficult to draw, to get those eyes and that upper lip mouth looking good is tricky.











I love drawing Goofy and Donald. Personally I fell Goofy is underrated as a cartoon star. He is the best character to work with for pure animation, his cartoons are hilarious and he has had possibly the biggest career of the Disney stars.









Mickey and Bugs. I really like this picture, even though I am not quite sure what they are looking at.