Character Rigging and Animation Final

Playblasted!....And in low quality.

It's ok, because I'm done. @__@ Dear Jesus.
This is where most of my time went this semester.

It was crazy.
But I'm glad to have done it.
Because I got soooooo much better in rigging now.
But at what cost?


Time. And Patience
:P

For the Day: In Color

Decided to post this recently finished picture of Cathy.
OMG She's colored!!

Yeah. Colored with Prismacolor Markers.

Though, I don't like the shirt.
If anyone has an idea for a better t-shirt, let me know.

Laterz

For the Day

Some more animations.
Walk cycles this time.


Edit.
Ok. So I'm having trouble uploading the second walk cycle. @_@. Give me a while

For The Day:

Yeah, Cathy's angry at me for not posting her up sooner.
In my defense, until recently, I never figured out how to post animations as gifs from my flash animations. And in all actuality, the process was simple as all get out.

Shame on me for not finding it sooner.

But anyways, now you guys can catch a glimpse of what I've been dumping most of my time into.

Art Appearance!

So I'm gearing up for Modern Warfare 2 and it looks to be sweet!

And as a plus, I'll be doing art cards at GameStop's Midnight Release Party!
I'll have prints of MW2 characters and other stuffs.

Plus, there's free food, so come on out!

Directions!
Hebron Super Target
729 Hebron Parkway
Lewisville Tx, 75057
(972) 315-0747

Walk

"Keep My Composure", Chemical Brothers

I haven't been idle. :P

SO!
I'm busy working on a new class assignment, I properly chose my awesome character Catastrophe.
2D Animation blended with 3D Animation. It should be good.

....Yes those are notes.

...And yes I have need for all these action poses :)

Essentially, it's like watercolor you can drink.

The name of the game at Art & Coffee was...coffee.

For the longest, I wanted to do something like this, but never could figure out how to get the lead/ink to stay while I painted.

The solution was to use blue or red lead as the sketch, paint, let dry, then draw in graphite over the sketch lines.

After I'm done, unless you want it then, I usually spray fixative over it. You can't smell the coffee anymore, but it keeps the graphite from smearing.

I tried using ink after painting too, but it ends up making too much contrast for the image.

Also, I haven't experimented with different blends of coffee. But what makes the mix darker is more coffee ground rather than water. Saxby's coffee was much darker and gave a lot more contrast than Starbuck's brew. But Saxby's had coffee grounds with water instead of just ordered coffee. Go figure.


By the way, I do coffee sketch cards (2'' x 3 1/2'') for $10.
Without it's $5 bucks.

An 8'' x 11 1/2'' with coffee is $20
Same size is $10 without.

Laterz

So, Art & Coffee Was a Success!

Yeah.
ArtLoveMagic rocked
Ended the night with a good chunk of change to take home. But, what was even better was all the people who showed up to it!

My family came out and stayed for a bit.
Tessa and her sis came out to see me, which was real cool.
A ton of my friends.
And my friends from my old work place at Hobby Lobby! About 3/4ths of them came out which was real cool.

So the night was a success.

My Batman picture sold a bunch, which I'll post up in a bit.
And, true to the name, I painted with coffee.

My scanner's been dead for about a week or two now. So I'll scan what I have left over when I have the chance. Lol.

Update! Art showing at ArtLoveMagic!!!

Kinda busy working on art right now, but I wanted to let everyone know that I and my friend Marty (probably) will be at ArtLoveMagic drawing!!! WHOO

ArtLoveMagic is an art community that's dedicated to live art in Dallas. Live music, poetry, painting, sculpting, drawing, whatever.

So yeah!

Working now, but Friday, September 4th @ 7ish.
Saxbys Coffee Shop
13605 Midway Rd
Farmers Branch TX 75244


http://artlovemagic.com

I'm up at the school scanning things!

The school has a large Epson this-that-and-another-with-4-digit-number-you-can't-buy-me....scanner....perfect for 11 x 17 pages. I think it goes to 12x 17 1/2 or something. Anyways...

Thought I might show the first design sheet for Ivan Greystone; a mercenary, rogue, and professional asshole who can heal from any wound. He's the main character of the story who prefers to keep his past a secret, even from his closest friends. When your secret involves the near destruction of an entire nation and threatened the entire continent (all volunterally), you'd wanna keep it a secret too.

I'll post more when the school's not closing for the day.

This thing took up my time today

And what a thing it is.

Orthographic front view of the creature called the Seethe. Front view, complete with notes to Gene who'll be modeling it in 3D

Side view is next.

Am I the last...

...To check out this awesome site?

Wear Science

Who ever made these is a GENIUS!

The 4th

Was pretty fun. But I'm tired as all get out.
I downed so much coffee it's not funny.

Me and my friends went out to a little NorthWest Texas town called Munster and shot fireworks.


Catastrophe shot off fireworks too.

...Really big ones...

...The tech specialist she is.

I'll post the comic when it's done.

I've been drawing!....Seriously.

I just haven't been posting! I'm not in the habit.
My friend Gene got onto me about posting because he's seen some of my work and said, "Ok dude. You need to be posting this stuff. All of this stuff. This is cool!"

So I will.

But I've also been reading a few blogs and websites too. I'll post the links to these later.

Without further ado, more art!

So, I'm working on a graphic novel project called The Legends of Basiliea, and it's made a lot of progress over the past few months. The books I've been reading, advice and feedback I've gotten, and everyone's input at this stage I've been so appreciative of.



These are some cover designs I've cooked up over the past while. Most of them arn't complete as you can see. But they're something I can work off of.



Cover of Issue 2 as it stands. "Your house is burning". A few things need to be changed and worked out. But the essence of this picture is the same. We've got our main characters standing in front of a burning house. Ivan, the guy in front is going to hold a torch, not a sword. :P
In the background is Indira (the girl), and Devin (the guy). All three are mercenaries and these first few issues go completely wrong for them.



And here we have this guy. Big bad looking dude. I don't have a name for him, but he's called a Seethe. Seethes were once Matalla, a race of silver-mask wearing gods who preside over the universe's ecosystem. Their mask is their main source of of power and energy that's called their Glory. Seethes are created when their Glory consumes them and takes over their whole body, giving them a slowing silver appearance.

Needless to say they're a major part of the graphic novel project.

Gene wants to model this dude here. So I need to give him a really good name. Any ideas? Dunno if he's an ally or enemy at this point. So feel free to bring some names.

With all this drawing, I need to get back in the habit of writing. So I'll be making time for that soon. I just need to get into a habit and routine and I'll be fine. And actually be more productive.

Laterz

Celibrate Freedom Concert!

So I'm going to this concert Saturday with a group of strangers.
Yeah, sounds strange, but they're my friend George's friends, so they're probably pretty cool.

The concert's going to be in Plano of all places, down the street from my college. Waking up at 7 in the morning isn't so bad when Big Daddy Weave is opening...Or so I hear. I've never heard of the guys, but it's nothing a little Myspace link can't fix. They're actually pretty decent. I won't mind listening to them or their album actually.

Some other bands who'll be there are:

Leeland	Early Evening
Lincoln Brewster	Early Evening
Newsboys	Early Evening
Mark Schultz	Evening
Kirk Franklin	Evening
Jeremy Camp	Late Evening

Most everyone else I haven't heard of before, kinda like Big Daddy Weave. And I'll just be pleasantly surprised by their music. The Afters and Sanctus Real will be there too.

So hanging out with strangers is pretty cool, just getting to meet some new people is awesome. But keeping up with 'em is even better.

Best of all:

It's free to go.

Yeah.

Free.

Absolutely.

That's what I said too.

If you want to go, you can go to the main site, click tickets, and pick one up from the listed locations or just print one out.


Later!

Edit: The date said yesterday @ 11:15ish. I'm still figuring this system out. @_@

Concept Design

What a fun term. It can be used to describe all sorts of things! Conceptual design!

An awesome excuse for not knowing what the heck we're drawing!
lol j/k

Just a robot concept for my friend Adam. He's a writer by trade and manager by profression. He'll be fine. But he's asked me to design the robots for a story he's working on.

So this is a warm-up.

June 11th Excercises.

Last one tonight, I promise.

So this is a storyboard I did based on Raphael's School of Athens, circa 1510-1511.
I needed it to be modern, so I added a subway. Why not, right?
The third picture has a reflective surface in it using one of the train's windows.

I probably should finish it. I was having a lot of fun with it before I had to go. These were actually done Thursday afternoon. I drew a lot more than just this that Thursday, but I'll post that tomorrow.

And yeah I did draw today. I'll post it tomorrow too. It's kinda late now.

My next assignment is to finish three sketches of my choice. So fully rendered drawings on comic art board. I've got two weeks, more like a week and a half now. Too much Red Faction 2: Guerrillas did me in. lol.

If you wanna see it finished, let me know. I can probably finish it real quick.

June 10th's Art Excercises, pt2

Cool. I can type up here too.

So this batch of images consists of another scene I wanted to work out, but with the same elements. I took the setting from a Barnes & Nobles Starbucks I go to often. Drew this almost immediately after the 3 drawings of the business man.

The cube is a TransDimentional Flux Device that grants super powers to people for figuring it out....or some such coolness...probably not. Any takers?

Pictures!
1. The Setup
2. Exaggerated
3. Hyper-Exaggerated
4. Security Cam view.

Kinda my progression. #2 I guess would be good for a panel in a page.
#3 would be a better cover....I guess.
What do you think?

June 10th's Art Excercises, pt1

Alright. Show and tell time. I always loved that part of class, but I'd more like to see everyone else' stuff than mine. But I'm slowly getting outta the habit of that and enjoying seeing my stuff online.
Then I wake up the next morning and wonder why I put my stuff up. lol.

Anyways, this batch is from an exercise my art teacher had me do, based on another exercise we both did at Dallas Museum of Art.
Combine an element of classical art (14th - 17th centuryish) with a modern scene. Along with that scene, I had to give 3 variations, or three perspectives, of that one scene. An effect very similar to what you see in manga in their establishing shot/page. And for the kicker, one of those images must include a reflection.

Yeah.

So I tried, and honestly avoided the exercise until last Wednesday the 10th (my lessons are Thursdays), but I found the art history book of my teachers and used it.
So out came these few pictures.

From my point of view, they're not really classically inspired, just good examples of perspective. If something comes to mind, let me know.

I drew a lot of sketches, so these are part one.

Industry Giants '09

Well wow.
If you live in the Dallas Metroplex (or not), and heard about Industry Giants, I hope you went out. I had a great time last weekend.

Massive Black, Digital Domain, and Reel FX among others; a number of representatives from each company came to talk to us, both students and professionals, about the industry, how it works, and somehow staying afloat there. One of the keys to making it was community.

One of the seminar speakers was a guy named Jason Manley, founder of Massive Black and creator of ConceptArt.Org. Fitting the community theme as that is what ConceptArt promotes. It's kinda how you also get a job in the industry.
An Animation director says, "I know someone who does lighting real well. It's that guy who befriended us on Facebook, right? I saw his stuff there. Let's get him!" And that person happens to be you and you're in.

That's kinda how it works really. It's not anything cheap. You've just built a network of people, and those people happen to work for someone who works at Epic Games. It's the company's prerogative to bring people in who have a good sense of their job and who works well with a team, particularly their team.

So, what I received from those two days was to get out on the internet, post my stuff, and get a response. I'm competing not only against my classmates, but against the person in Boston who doesn't sleep because he wants to finish his Dominance War entry. I'm competing against the person in Japan who downing Red Bull (or the Japanese equivalent) and finishing up his graphic novel. I'm competing against the dude in London who's sleeping after a good day's work at completing his daily concepts and finished cover page.

So yeah. I've got a lot to learn, but I'll learn everything I can.
But in the meanwhile, I'll post what I have.

Also, I have friends on Blogspot! Didn't know that. Lol.
Going out and making friends never hurt either.

And some Shout Outs
A big shout out to Chris Hatala of Massive Black for giving me a personal 1hr tutorial of animation. Even if it was so simple, there was a ton of wisdom. He's got animation tutorials coming out on conceptart.org....sometime soon....Eventually. He's got everything (he showed me most of it), it's just being compiled into DVD format at the press I think.

And Michel Gagné
Guy who inspired me to continue to pursue my own creative endeavors. He's doing what he wants to creatively do, while doing freelance stuff on the side. The guy's got a lot of stuff going on. Working on the next best game, InsanelyTwistedShadowPlanet. It's a mixture between hand-drawn adventure goodness and "OMG THIS THING IS HUGE SHOOT IT!!!" action.
That and ton of graphic novels. One of which is Zed. Go check it out. Go go go.

Anyways, these conferences are worth it. If there's one in your area (that doesn't cost $500 to go on preorder mind you...unless you have the money) go to it. Well worth meeting some awesome people.

Spring 09, 3D Animation 2 , 2D Animatic

Yay! More content!



And content makes me happy.

It took me about 10 hours spread over 3 weeks to finish. I dad a Digital Video class running at the same time as my 3D Animation 2 class (which kicked my butt), so whatever.

I originally did the animatic in Flash, but re-worked it in Adobe After Effects to get a better handle on the program. Also, I believe the music is a bit different. The second track is still from The Pillows, but I changed it for times sake in the 3D Animation.

Any other comments or concerns, (like adding charred feathers at the end, and more dynamic framing at the battle sequence) feel free to add.

Let me know I'm loved.

Spring 09, 3D Animation 2 Project

Ok! So I just now uploaded my final project to YouTube. I needed a spot for it to be seen online.



Sweet petunias! IT WORKS!
So now I'm in a good mood.

There's a ton on it that needs to be reworked. Like including depth-map shadows, my blend shape facial expressions, and keeping it closer to the original 2D animatic that was sooo much better. To give you an idea, compare 50 seconds to 2 minutes.

Yeah.

Anyways, even though class is over, I'm still working on this little endeavor. Fixing the facial expressions for both characters and generally keeping it closer to the 2D animatic which I'll post here soon.

Any other questions or comments about the project (like the lighting; the seams you see on the characters; and the music volume difference) feel free to post.

Neccessity is the Mother of Invention

Yeah, I never knew a concept could have a mom either.
That'll teach us.
But it's true. I invented a blog because I needed it.

Gotta have a home for all my little imaginary creations, or just creations in general.
3D shorts, concept art, comic pages, that usual stuff.
It'll be a little messy, but that's the point of a blog, and rooms.

Oh, I can put rants here too! The possibilities are endless....kinda.