Rioting =! Meaningful Reform

Simple Vertical Pan. Moving object and overlay to be added later. One last week, then reprieve. It would probably be best to work extra hard on these last few assignments, to make up for the disaster last Wednesday.

0.25% Of Total Content Released

After an entire day's work on this thing (Don't you just love the noise gradient Flipbook puts onto everything? I do)  I am glad that, in the foreseeable future, I shall not have to animate anything even remotely spherical again. I also never want to eat pie again (EH? EH?)

This is a pencil test of the rough (to emphasize this, I've not bothered to render the video in any quality beyond the Flipbook minimum. 480p to see lines) animation for the Ball and Tail assignment. I had some actions planned beforehand (who says I didn't do a dope sheet? I do dope sheets ALL the time. BUSHELS of them, whole TREES of them, FORESTS of them, a dense canopy of dope sheets that blot out the day's light!). However, as I decided to add new things, most of those plans were invalidated. I'll need to fix the arc of motion for all bounces, since they are obviously ALL too fast. It is rough, but I have another week to work on it. I only post it now because I feel obligated to post something every week as a matter of course, and since I don't have anything else to post this week...

I was going to animate a real animal tail, but I ended up making it look more like a leaf. Seeing as how it's on a curved hill, the temptation was too much to resist. Hence the little bit you see at the end.

I really did run out of paper. Need to get more tomorrow.  Also broke a peg bar. [REDACTED].

Life Is But A Moment, A Single Grain Of Sand, That Slips Right Through The Hourglass, That Slips Right Through Your Hand

I tried to play with textures, but it didn't really work out. I spent literally 1 minute on the hands, so they look more like talons than anything. 

An exercise in futility? I think so.

I would have put this in the last post, but it didn't really match the subject matter. I have bruises from all the rolling on the floor I did when I saw the video that this is from. Horribly slow murderer indeed. 

I would have had something else to post, but the other digital piece(s) I was working on was murdered. It scrambled through alleyways seeped in shadow, frantic, out of breath, and praying for a miracle. It knew that no matter how many twists and turns it lead through the winding paths of the city, no amount of dancing would elude that which pursued it. Emerging from the alley, it paused on a seemingly abandoned street corner, struggling to regain its composure. The city's skyscrapers loomed over it, their immense silhouettes gaunt and imposing, jet black towers that blotted out the glow of the stars. Emptied of their diurnal occupants, these monoliths were without any sparks of life. No company for the damned, it thought. It continued onwards, hoping that as it tangled its way through the lifeless streets, it would eventually find aid in someone, anyone. But it knew, it knew in the deepest reaches of its soul, in the fear stricken crevices of its mind. It would find no one, and it would not escape. It kept on running, futile as it was, through the forest of concrete, dashing through the lanes, the sidewalks, the intersections. Its steps reverberated against against the buildings around it, in panicked, rhythmic thuds. Alas, fate allows no one beyond his grasp.

It felt the presence of the Thing long before its sight could grasp any coherent image, before its hearing could comprehend the cacophony of the Thing's approach. Forced to a stop by the immense gravity of the Thing, it could not help but be overwhelmed by its pursuer. This was the end, it thought, as it looked upon the Thing's horrible visage. With the deliverance of its death, it heard, piercing through the silence, the Thing's final, terrible pronouncement: 

"Error loading PSD File; Unexpected end of document."

So yeah, I accidentally corrupted that painting I was working on. Whoops.   

Slendermen And Slenderwomen

I've made it my mission to post these classwork assignments as soon as I'm done with them, if for nothing else than consistency. Something my character lacks in spades, by the way. 

This is the facial expression sheet for Character Design class. My character is based on Max Shreck's character, blended with a skrull, a bat, a snake, and the progeny of Clan Nosferatu. Done with one of those really awesome Staedtler mechanical pencils.

Find all the off model details! It'll be like a quick session of Where's Waldo, except Waldo's dressed in drag and The Years Have Not Been Kind To His Figure.

This Here's A Neuronic Hwhip

Confucius says: Blag is used for school work

Yep, so I'm going to get around to posting things from school. This is my character from Character Design class. It's clearly based on Benny Goodman, colloquially known as the King of Swing. 

The line quality took a hit during the scanning process, and my attempts to readjust the lines were met with mixed success. I'm fairly pleased with it, if only because I don't normally draw cartoon characters, and when I do, I have no real criterion to judge them on.

Like A Bolt From The Blue

It's time for Royal Winter Fair Review! Ahem. I may have missed the point of the entire exercise, something about structure and form, er...The pencil sketches I made right at the fair were all fairly mediocre, so I made the forms a bit clearer. I may have made the lines a bit too stiff in some of the sketches. One of the sketches is actually cut off. That is because I did not position it properly in the actual sketchbook, and thus ran out of space near the knee joints of the horse, which, luckily, is where the partitions that blocked us from the horse began to conveniently obscure my view (O lordy I hope that one flies). 5 minutes is kind of a subjective term, I think. Who knows, 5 minutes to any other person could be like 6 minutes. Or 10. Relative time, you know.

The studies don't show quite as much structure as I'd like. I expect my mark to take a hit for that. Also, though I attempted to replicate what I saw as closely as possible, some of the muscles will still look kind of wonky. Or completely made up. Boy, I gotta say, the lighting was not optimal in the gas chamber that was the petting zoo, the hazy methane fumes swirling in a noxious vortex, the light a shimmering incandescence through the choking miasma. I did studies of mostly stationary animals, like the cows and sheep. I find that the goats calm down after eating enough to justify chewing cud. The horses stay still while eating, or, rather, while staring at people drawing them, as was the case of one particular horse (apologies for depicting the person the horse was looking at so poorly, but I think that the very  incompetent nature of the drawing should reasonably obfuscate your identity, and thus, render the problem moot). The cows are like statues. Statues that occasionally poop in harmony.

I hope the zoo next semester will be a less harrowing experience than the Royal Winter Fair. Fresh air is, I think, a welcome reprieve from the suffocation of indoors animal exhibits. The Korean BBQ was nice though. It was mostly beef: a poetic middle finger at the audacity of the farm animals for deigning to not smell like Febreze fabric softener.

Bloop Bloop

So this is what I believe I have animated. It's not exactly a squid, nor it is exactly an octopus. I actually animated 8 tentacles, but I made the tentacles a bit too thick in this, so I could only fit 6. Still, that's a good, wholesome number, 6. I'm sure actual squids have much more variety to the various elements of their bodies than what I have decided to include.

I plan on using this as a color key, so that eventually, if I ever want to clean and color my animation, I have a point of reference. The lighting, for the most part, conforms with the background that I had painted for my animation. I was going to do a color key for the sperm whale as well, but I have concluded that since its mostly grey, I'll just use the fill tool. I was actually in the middle of painting it before I totally decided that it wasn't worth the effort.

The big IF is whether or not I have the WILL to color every single frame. Totally not feeling it right now.

Baals

I've also decided to pad my post count with animations from this year. I heard if you get up to 1000 posts, a genie arrives at your doorstep with an offer to grant your greatest desire! (Or a letter of acceptance from Hogwarts!).Only the Bouncing Baal has the background from Digital Tools, though. Uh, I did the Baaloon freehand, before I knew about The Key Frames, so it looks sort of shoddy. That's why it's in my Recycle Bin, and not an object of public Schadenfreude.

I Want To Believe

So I've, uh, updated the background, based on some very helpful suggestions, and I've also layered the pencil test onto it. The animation itself could do with a bit of a polish, though I am very well aware that the only part being graded is the cycle, which appears clear enough. The squid propels itself just a little too fast in the second entry, and the sperm whale also swims a bit too hastily towards the end. More detail would probably help in distinguishing the sperm whale AS a sperm whale, instead of just a swimming blob. The background is a little bit dark, even after contrast and brightness fidgeting, but that may just be because the line quality is a little fuzzy.

I got rid of the hazy shapes in the back, so that there's more open ocean. Got rid of the weird looking smoke, and added another statue to help the emptiness.

With Strange Aeons Even Deer Antlers May Break...Whoops

So when they said that we were supposed to animate sea creatures, I thought "Oh joy! What a wonderful time I shall have concocting the most deliciously maritime background!", more or less in those words. As it turns out, anticipation=/execution, and the background, according to the vague notions I had when I began, needs work.

Those hazy blue shapes in the back, those shapes represent how I wasn't able to think of anything more interesting beyond Corinthian pillars and rocks. The glitter effect, while cool, doesn't work on everything. Maybe rocks, but probably not menacing looking Great Old Ones who look like they were on the receiving end of a particularly festive beauty pageant. There are probably a few issues with composition, potentially due to irregular lighting. The smoke looks really amateurish.

I will definitely retouch/redo this one, uh, eventually. Before the animation is due, I think. Yeah.

Wake Up And Smell The Ashes

Colored

Oh, and here's a better version.

We Live in Hard Times, Not End Times

You know, it's funny. I began the basic block in for this one during the summer, but then, all of a sudden, I lost interest in it. I only shaded one part of one leg, and then stopped altogether. Yesterday (Well, more like early this morning) I finally decided to finish it (after finally finding a mechanical pencil with lead in it). It's on an illustration board.

You see, it's supposed to be a headcrab. However, for whatever reason, I decided that I could probably wing the accuracy bit, so I boldly decided go through the laborious toil that is the Google search for a reference. As long as it has a main carapace and four legs, I thought it should be fine. I had some fun doing the textures on the legs. I think they're rock formation textures. The main shell has some turtle textures, a tangent that I believe stems from this painting of a turtle shell I did a bit back. I'm fully aware that it doesn't actually look like a headcrab, but still.

As far as critique goes, I think I could have gone further with the shading, and brought out the contrast a bit more. Having a pure white background doesn't help it at all. The positioning of the back legs is probably a bit off plane as well, and the whole drawing is probably a bit stiff from the hard outline. I have, however, tied up a very annoying loose end from the summer. That feels good.

You Are Already Dead

Actually, when one scans brown paper, it is important to remember that the paper itself has been lovingly pre-crumpled, and will scan like it was soaked in the Panama Canal and then dried above the Gobi desert during a sandstorm. No way to fix that, unless I get really good brown paper later on.

What I notice about the hand drawings is the lack if visible structure. Sure there's lots of heavy shading, but other than that, there's negligible demonstration of an understanding of structure. Some of these hands could potentially be considered deformed. As the person who drew them, I can also personally attest to how little care I put into some of the fine work. Some of the folds of the skin, some of the placements of the veins, and even some of the lighting seems to be mashed together at random, resulting in some illogical contortions here and there. Also, the foot poses seem limited. That I can account for by my own lack of ingenuity. It did not occur to me to use a mirror for any of the poses. In fact, two of the poses feature identical feet orientation, and only upon further inspection would one find that the big toe on each is positioned differently. The failings here are mostly due to sloppy work, rather than a lack of fundamental understanding of structure. That may be it too, but mostly, I believe it was the sloppiness.

Necrodelineaticon, by Abdul AlHazdrawn

Here's a few pages from the sketchbook. Having 8 weeks worth of material means I have a wide range to choose from. I'm a bit iffy about the whole "posting other people's faces on your blog" thing, so if anyone has objections, those drawings will be down quicker than Han Solo can draw his blaster on a Rodian. I took down some of the personal info stuff on one of the pages as well. That I know for a fact to be an obtrusion to another's privacy.

I can't really judge sketches by composition or contrast, but I suppose that since most of the sketches I've chosen were done in some form of pencil, I should try to expand my use of media. Maybe try out those markers that everyone else seems to have a full set of (Note to self: Ebay myself a set of markers). Doing more studies is also a good idea, as most of these seem to be just doodles. 

Personally, of all the potentially cringe worthy things I've drawn this year, I'm most proud of the cartoon designs for Samus. (Note to self: draw Samus more. Maybe sketch more in general. But definitely draw Samus more)

No John, You Are The Demons

Okay, this is really recent. Last Sunday recent. It's a quick concept sketch for a game that a buddy of mine is developing. It's essentially worms, but apparently with ASCII art and slugs. This sketch was based on his designs, which had a more varied costume, and more explosions.

I might spruce this up a bit later, add a real background, do some cleanup, render some of the details better, biscuits and tea.

Do Vampires Dream Of Emo Sheep?

Ah yes, forward the progress. This is my cover page for Digital Tools. I learned how to use custom brushes here, but did not actually use any. Any further edits to this that I make would be well and moot, since the grade won't change any. However, for the sake of improvement, further analysis reveals that the floating platform neither looks like its floating, nor does it actually conform to the basic lighting of the background. I suspect it has something to do with how there's no way cast shadows could extend like that in an environment of such diffuse lighting. The improbable floating thing is probably because the center piece was cleaned too sharply before being plopped into the background. Looks unnatural. The brushwork for applying the textures was a bit heavy handed, particularly in the cliff area on the left. (Note to self: create actual custom brushes next time).

Actual Drawings III: Rise of the Machines

Funny thing about the posting mechanism here, apparently, there's an image limit on how much you can put in one post. Evidently, I was pushing that limit in my last post. However, as luck would have it, my other four pieces are all black and white portraits of other people's characters, so they have a kind of pleasing continuity.

Upon further reflection, I note a number of contrast, form, and compositional anomalies, along with one of the more irksome traits of painting on a separate layer, and then cleaning the edges to smoothly. I don't plan on ever coming back to these pieces again, so the lesson here will be for future reference. Practice practice.

This concludes my posting of older, pre-college pieces. If I ever do find the time to scan my portfolio, I believe I may post them. However, as it stands, I don't think I've quite developed the audacity to do anything that adventurous.

Actual Drawings II: Electric Boogaloo

Okay, so here you have it. Digital work. In fact, most of these are from this summer, and the only reason I post them now is because I cannot for the life of me find the will to finish them. Let this post be a sort of Artwork Graveyard, where unfulfilled visions go to commit seppuku. Maybe. Probably.

There's a few here that warrant mention, probably only because of how delightfully wonky the story of their failure was. 

The green alien is one of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Green Martians, inspired by the Frazetta paintings. I believe I scrapped it because it looked nothing like what I wanted it to look like. I also couldn't decide on what each arm should carry, so I was never able to get past the basic planning stage (or the proper lighting and contrast stage, or the correct anatomy stage, uh...I guess I got a lot of work to do). That is my explanation for the bizarre posing of the hands. (Note to self: do more studies)

The poster of the face with a Sephirot on it is a grade 12 assignment, I just thought it would add variety. A BW filter also proves that there's not enough contrast. 

Carmen Sandiego is from the summer, couldn't think of a background. Anatomy's a bit wonky too, but that's a whole other can of worms. BW filter marks the tell tale signs of lack of contrast. In fact, composition is a bit skewed too, but I guess I can blame that on incompleteness. Uh, then again, it may just be a crappy composition. (Note to self: work out composition/pay attention in painting class).

The portrait of BURSTING WITH POWER Gore was just for fun, and again, I couldn't think of a proper background. 

The Samus thing was ditched because of perspective, and because I couldn't think of a background (growing trend amirite). (Note to self: Get Daz and pose the thing to see how exactly to draw this).

This must be what absolution feels like. I am now no longer obligated to ever look at any of these pieces ever again. From the summer, I learned that I am horrible at layouts and backgrounds, something that I perceive very, very acutely as my time at Sheridan rolls by. More work more work, I think.

Actual Drawings

An art blog with only a poorly written short story is totally improper! Thus, ART.

A few of these I actually used in my portfolio, but that doesn't help the fact that all of them are quite old. They're what I have on hand though, so perish the thought. I was going to do two introductory posts, one with traditional work, and one with digital, but uh, I seem to have sneaked a few digital pieces on here anyway.

Let's see, items of note....I think that cropped off life drawing is actually from two years ago, the sphinx was MS Paint and Nintendo DS. Uh, I think the cat was my first time using Photoshop to paint ever (About 1 year and something back? Makes me feel real green, that does).