Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Thoughts and Updates

Well, I finally got that picture done. It's okay, but I think I might have to come back to it and add some mentioned touch ups to it. If you want to see it, it's up on my Deviant account so feel free to go there and leave comments. I don't think I'll be back to touch it up for a while....

Next thing on my mind, I should totally get back to my little blurbs about learning to draw. As mentioned, it's not like I feel I'm an authority on the subject, but I thought I could help people find resources or at least get motivated to draw if they wanted to; I believe that is the hardest part anyways. I'll try to look into it when I can collect my thoughts better.

The real reason I thought to post (besides to mention I finished my piece) was due to me reading a manga (japanese comic). I have an artist whom I really adore for her style and story-telling. Today I was reading through a volume of one of her series again and found myself startled at some posing choices and details. I don't know if it's just my animator's mind at work and my own will to strive for more detail in my pieces, but some of the shots just didn't impress me.

There were times when the characters would be posed rather stuff looking in my opinion or even just one piece, most often the hand would look awkward and I would immediately notice it and think to myself, "Oh man, I've been there before and I'd never let that pass as complete." I would think to help enhance a mood, posing should never be left stiff, well it should never be left stiff anyways because if there is one thing I've learned, bad posing can't be hidden no matter how shiny to make it after that. It's the reason I'll sometimes have to go through 7 or so poses before I settle on a pose to clean.

I found the lack of details to be far less important since I know how annoying it is when you need to draw a million frames to tell a story or show what the character is doing. Still, I couldn't help but notice it, perhaps because the artist does such detailed clothing wrinkles (wrinkles everywhere, I swear!) and the real world does have a lot of wrinkles so it's kind of neat.

Hmmm, I guess what I'm trying to say is, everyone has things to work on. Haha, I dunno, I just thought it was interesting to point out. I'm sure all you people who don't like comics laughed reading this, but it does take skill to tell stories shot for shot no matter what the style.


Man, what a ramble...

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Working - The Wind 3



Feels like it hasn't changed at all but I swear I've been working on it for a couple hours today. Uploading this is my break, ya, not much of a break. Maybe I'll go out for a while.

Line Tests in PS



See spot run. People are gonna start to think I have this obsession with dogs, but I don't. They are just really easy to reference since I have two at home. I had this terrible tendency to make this guy look like he was limping. Ya, ya, it doesn't loop because I'm super lazytastic. Sorry guys.

And now for some thing completely different. I was gonna have a jellyfish, but after looking at real reference of jellyfish, they don't really move this much... so what does it look like to everyone? Should I add tentacles and make it a octopus or does it read as a jellyfish?


Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Working - The Wind 2


I think I like the brush strokes being visible. Anyways this is with the light rays out, I'll put them back in later. They will be hardest part since I've never done them before.
More than halfway done... I think

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Working - The Wind

Piece I started today.
Need suggestions for eye colour though any comments would be appreciated.


So far, gonna tone down the sunlight a bit. I'm not used to having things so messy.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Demo Reel Sept 2009



Can't seem to get the Flash animation to look clear, it's very annoying! Looks fine in the original file, but uploading it makes it bugger up.

Not much has changed, but I am working on another piece. Thinking about doing some traditional animations in Flash, just have to think of some ideas first.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Portraits

I'm trying to figure out faces. I would like to learn to do speed paintings for portraits at least. Just something I want to have a grasp on, I still have no intention of doing realistic or highly rendered work. I'm thinking I just have trouble using so many colours... perhaps I'll try some grey scale images.







Feel free to comment with suggestions.