Parallel Dimensions

Its been a while since I updated here, and the reason being is because I started a new one. In my school we are required to maintain a professional blog, which means to not litter it with witty anecdotes about friends or opinions as well as just writing about non animation related work.

To read my new blog with the latest updates on school work, follow this link

Its been suggested that I maintain both blogs, keeping this blog as a way to give behind the scenes opinions and other subjects, while maintaining the professional blog as well.

Thinking through

We were told to think through carefully with which character we decided to continue with this week, to give reasonable cause for our choice and to remove second guessing and thus allow the full alloted time to finish it up by Friday.

So there you have it, I have chosen Madame Medusa, the nastiest villain Disney has ever produced. Despite her complexity, I hope my pure love of the character will allow me to finish off this assignment gracefully.

I want that DIAMOND!

Today we got a new character, Madame Medusa from The Rescuers! Man, she's an awesome character. Complicated as all heck, but still really cool, and lots of fun to draw and animate. She is just so packed with personality, that despite her villainous behavior, you can't help but like her.

Below here are some studies I've done while watching the movie. We will continue with her tomorrow, since we are making a 5 second scene that involves her comforting Edgard from The Aristocats.

Walking through the forest

Yesterday we were given a really cool assignment. We have to draw Little John from Disney's Robin Hood being sad in a bar!

The only bad part of this, is he is an absolute pain to draw! Well, thats a hyperbole, but he is quite complex. I'm learning that even for a simple character in terms of personality that they can still have subtle nuances in terms of design. We got a model sheet, but that alone wasn't enough to learn how he is constructed from all angles and expressions, so youtube is a must when studying him.

But otherwise, this is turning out to be a rather cool assignment. I just can't get it out of my head that we are animating a character that was approved by the Disney Animators of the time, that an actual veteran drew this guy, and that we are doing the exact same thing now.

I'm psyched!

Ball with attitude (and tail!)

Well, update time :)

This time around its a ball that has a hateful personality. We all drew cards from a hat and each got a unique and difficult emotion or personality. I found this emotion very tricky, since the ball could not bend out of its shape in its key held poses, and the tail could not be used for acting. So little less of a week went through to make this little gem :P

In all seriousness, my teacher said that the ball itself was drawn nicely and had some good poses and ideas, but the follow through of the tail was rather chaotic, and as a whole, its difficult to read the personality properly, both due to some choices in action as well as the tail (someone mentioned that it looked like he was wagging his tail in the middle).

Oh well, I learned alot from it, and now its an exciting exercise, we're doing the flour sack animation! :D

Illusion of Life!

Finally a post, and such a nice one too :)

These are all the little short exercises I have done since after the first film, but that was a collaborative effort. Now these are all 100% me, and am quite happy with a few of them. I didn't know I had could do stuff like this. We have learned all kinds of stuff about timing and spacing, two key things with animation, as well as squash and stretch. Next up is secondary action.

My first collaborated short film

This is it, two weeks of work created this! And I couldn't be happier! :D

Now, to make sure everyone understands, I haven't done EVERYTHING in this. For example, I only did one background, the one with the bones, and didn't do all the coloring on all scenes and such. However, I did do alot of the animation and colored alot of the 'cels' and did some editing and timing, all in all making my contribution 1/4. Fitting, since it was a team of 4 :)

Tell me what you think, and use this as a reference to see how much more amazing I will become later :P

Animation test

Well, heres a little something that I've done. It was just a little test in order to figure out how the character was built and how she would move, so this shot won't be in the final film. I just thought those interested could take a peek, to see what I'm up to :)

Its going realy well otherwise with the animation. Can't wait for Friday when we get to see everyone's 30 second shorts.

2nd day!

Well, today was the second day, and now we got to work a little more with our film. Me and my team members finally agreed on a 30 second segment from this sound clip we got, and started storyboarding. Eventually we got 4 different takes on the story, though often times having something similar and in common. By the end of class we finally had a rough storyboard together, that we all agreed on. But now we have to see how it works in response to the pacing of the clip. Changes will probably be made, but at least we have something done for the preparation. Now we just have to get an art style done, design characters and actually animate the thing. Should be fun :)

We also got a homework for Friday, to write an ESSAY! I thought I was done with that! :O Oh well, at least the IB has given me plenty of practice with those :P And its just one page, so I should manage ^^

I'll upload the clip once we are done, which should be sometime next week. Wish me luck :)

First day of school!

Today was a great day! Such a great start of my education,

and I doubt it will be the best day of the whole time!

Lots of new students here amongst old friends, making a

great blend of reliable comrades and interesting propects.

Lots of new nationalities being blended in, amongst them

Swiss, Icelandic, English, American and Estonian. Its going

to be one smorgoaes bord of exciting people!

After getting a lecture about the history of animation as

well as computer graphic arts we were put into groups of 4

to make a short film! We have a time limit of two weeks,

and will have to make a story revolving a pre selected sound

clip, as well as include a list of assorted objectives. Me

and my team mates have listened to the clip and sketched and

brainstormed a bit, and by tomorrow we will share our own

pitches to each other in terms of which 30 seconds of the

clip we wish to animate.

This is so interesting for me, because I have usually always

worked alone in animation. I didn't know anyone else with

the skill, or more importantly, the interest to make

animated films. But now I'm grouped together with 3 other

people who are arguably MORE skilled than me, and just as

motivated and interested in making an awesome film!

I believe my little drawing below sums up my thoughts about

the transition from before the Animation Workshop, to after

^^ (not that I was depressed before, just not as excited!)
Wish me luck in the coming years, and keep an eye out in the credits after that in animated films and TV shows. You are bound to see my name there ;)

Gooooooooooooooooooool!

Well, here's the next one of our caricature project :) This is some football player (what? I don't know anything about Football :P ) that has a really cool face, especially when he yells, which is why he got to look the way he did ^^

Yes suh!

Here is a little drawing I've doodled with for a couple of days. I don't usually draw (somwhat) realistically proportionate characters, nor this Disney 'prince' style look, but after spreading the gospel of Princess and the Frog (showed it to my cousins, making it my 4th time watching it now) I was in a Disney mood, so I just started doodling. This is what I came up with :P

Duck Soup

Well, this was the next one of the caricature challenges that me, Dionysis and Natalia are doing. This was my own suggestion, having been a great fan of this actor since a child, always loving that unique and easily recognizable face of his.
Here's the caricature itself. I am actually quite pleased with it, compared to my previous two drawings I've done so far. Then again, this time I really went carefully along with it, and also had the life line of having done this in photoshop, having the ever helpful ctrl+z to save me ^^

And below here we have the studies I did before drawing the final image, using these as help for when designing and drawing it. Numbers show the order I made them in, and all were based on different photographs of said actor.

Next week is Carles Puyol. Never heard of him, but this picture of him makes me like him ^^

Sketches from La Palma

Well, another post before July comes to a close :) For a about a week ago I was in La Palma, one of the Canary Islands, visiting my first home. It was a real joy walking around this paradise island again. I'll put up pictures on Facebook later from the actual place.

First of then, is a collection of life sketches (except one of them, now that I look closely, but oh well) that I did, often when we were eating somewhere due to the comfortable sitting position.

Then I made these doodles, mostly little parodies of those lovely comic book covers from the 60's, including some more normal doodles in the corner.
And last we have a lovely drawing made by lovely Teresa, age 7. One of the more interesting depictions of a Palm Tree I have ever seen. In fact, this could be the very palm tree that makes up 'La Palma'! :D

I choose more!

The last 3 of my current Pokemon Party in Pearl :) Will probably replace Machoke later, since he's not all that interesting, but I recently evolved him ^^ Now I just need someone to trade him with to get a Machamp :D (I'm such a nerd ^^) And the ugly thing at the bottom is a Bibarel, my HM slave :P

I choose you!

I found my 'old' copy of Pokemon Pearl today, and decided to play it again. Last time I did I got stuck in this cave and gave up. But lo and behold, I got further! I even got to finally catch the Pokemon on the cover! So I decided to draw the Pokemon that I had in my party at the moment. Wanted to publish them today, so only 3 so far, will update this post tomorrow with the other three.

Angelina

Well, here's the next caricature as an exercise between my peers. This time it was Angelina Jolie.

Personally I think it looks better than my previous Hendrix one, but I think mostly because it looks more polished despite being all pencil. Unfortunately, once more she's not all that caricaturized. Her lips are a little larger and her head shape is a little longer, but thats about it. Lets see what celebrity Dionysis chooses for us to harass next ^^

Jimi Hendrix

Well, Dionysis suggested that we should all try making caricatures of rockstars (not sure if he meant while at the Animation Workshop, before or since he said it) and since no one else has posted one yet, I thought I'd go ahead and start :)

I placed the image that I used as reference for him, but looking now, nothing except the mouth looks remotely caricaturized. Guess I'll have to get better ^^ Dionysis will probably have a better one up some time later :)

Sculpting last week

Little old me and the rest of my class were sculpting last week, or rather: we were drawing with clay and wire. I had a hard time understanding it all, since it was so abstract, but basically we were supposed to see things as lines, but rather than having to interpret things like foreshadowing, we were free to actually have an arm bend through space. It was an interesting week, and I'm glad I bought some hand moisturizer. My fingers were flaking of after handling that chicken wire :(

Rejoice!

A little late, but thought I might as well update the blog with this ^^ I think the image speaks for itself.

'Fantastic' sketches

Some ink sketches I did yesterday for homework with my classmates. They all seemed to like them alot, so that makes me happy :)













And these here at the bottom were Artem's favorite, and will use them for our exhibition at the end of the course. Fun :)