More Commissons

Another Commission, this time of people, so it came out a lot better than the others I've done.

I was going to edit the photo so the faces were closer together and just do them, but I was told that they wanted this particular photo drawn because of the happy memories of the day, so I felt it was best to keep the entire photo in, canes and all.

I'm very happy with it.

Baby Commission/ Garden Sketch

It's around 6 by 6 inches
Took 2 hours.

This wasn't really a commission as my mother was asked to try doing this drawing for a friend a while ago, but seeing as I had just drawn the baby I decided to give this ago as well.

A4 sized and also took 2 hours.

No longer Monday but still updating

I just thought of something.
Even though I'm trying to make myself post more, even though I have 2 people who actually look at my posts, when it comes to new people coming to my blog, any of the important stuff is few a far between. Instead they just see a whole load of sketches.

So what I'm thinking of doing is scrapping my weekly timetable.
I will still update on Mondays and Sundays when it comes to updating you and showing my comissions and big projects. But the rest isn't really important or mainly just takes up space.
I realise this time table didn't last very long, but there was so much I didn't get round to ever poting (like writing) and I forgot to post a lot of the time.
So with my Sketch dumps, what I'll do instead is either once a month posts, or every other month.
I still want to share them but not the way I'm doing now.
So much so that I may delete all the past posts to get rid of the clutter and do a big post with them all at the end of this month.

I'm not sure yet, but I'm gonna think a bout it a bit more.

Monday Update

Sorry I have been so inactive of late, but with Halloween and a Team Fortress 2 update celebrating it I was consumed by just playing it all the time. Consider the past 2 weeks as my break!

I have done work however, commissions and just drawing portraiture still.

The biggest news I have is that my EXO Growl animation went VIRAL! Kind of...
But I did get over 90,000 views on it over the past week!
I was absolutely mind blown. One minute I'm checking up on to see if I've finally hit 200 views (once it did I considered talking a screenshot on tweeting it. The next my phone is going crazy with comments and subscriptions! I want to thank EVERYONE so much for viewing it and commenting and liking and everything! Seriously, It's made me so happy. All because 1 or 2 people shared it and all their followers came flowing in to watch.
So a week ago my goal view count was 200, this week it's 100,000!

I feel I should do something once it hits it. Don't know how long it'll take but I'm hoping the views will steadily keep going up.

But because I got subscribers I recorded myself drawing D.O, which I'll post here on Sunday.

In other news I finally got around to doing some commissions and have been paid for one (the other is only small so don't expect much for it). So will also post them in the following weeks.

Will try to be a bit more active here now, but no promises (mainly because I forget to post a lot).

Rd6

Dd6

Monday Update

As you know I've finished my animation now.
So my plan is to take a break for a bit, mainly because the game Team Fortress 2 has an annual event on around Halloween which I look forward to every year so will be playing that a lot once it's started.

But there are a few things I stopped working on, (writing mainly) which I will starting up again afterwards.
I will talk more about them when I try and make a plan for myself and start them.

A small note also is that I haven't been drawing referenced sketches at all lately, it's all been just drawing random faces and trying out new styles. So my Friday REFdump will be ending in a few weeks; unless I manage to do a few more between now and then, but I'm not sure if I'm in the mood to do referenced drawings at the moment.

Hopefully however other areas will see more work coming towards them as I have so much free time. Also I will probably getting on with a commission before my break which, if I do actually do it instead of getting distracted, will be up this Sunday.

Less work related, i have so many lose drawings (I use to doodle in sketchbook, but now I just love using free bits of A4 paper.) and I realised I need a much better way to organise them. I have big piles of about 500 drawings each which include random doodle, ZERO art, portraits and character designs. If I want to find a certain piece it takes some time, so I want to group everything together and need somewhere to put them. I've been looking at paper storage units and although IKEA has some nice ones, they aren't quite what I'm looking for.
Thinking about portraits actually, I haven't drawn a really detailed one which has taken a good deal of time doing for a while. I still do one each month but they have been forced and quick. So I definitely need to get back into doing them.
Maybe not 'Portrait a Day' but at least trying to get my skill level back up in that area, I really feel as though it's suffered a bit.


Well with a lot I can do I'm not gonna go bored for quite some time.

EXO Growl, Music Video Cover Animation

I have finally finished

I feel as though I should properly count how many drawings there are, but I haven't yet. All I can say is that there's a minimum of 1230 drawings.
Took around 70 days to do (not all consecutively as I had a weeks break in the middle of September).
I also can't say that with 100% confidence as I can't remember exactly how many days I didn't draw any/ drew very few so wouldn't want to count it as a days work.
When doing a proper days work however I would say I spent on average 10 hours a day.
Either way I started on July 31st, and finished October 17th.

I spent the last day going through frame by frame to check for any mistakes. there were quite a few (missing limbs mostly, but sometimes I'd even missed a member out.) and there are still some in, but hopefully only minor ones which aren't too obvious.

I'm very happy with the final result, even though I would like it to be even smoother, the thought of adding more frames in to do so is a bit too much for me. However, after having a long break, I may come back to it and add the background I said I might do before. The reason I didn't because I realised; even though the background would be very simple and take under half the time to do than these first drawings, I'd still have to do over 1000 drawings which I didn't feel up to at this point.

Another small detail is that I only add faces when they come close to the camera, I had always planned to do this but I had trouble with the flashing lights in the original footage so when the lights went off, I couldn't see the faces at all at some points, so they aren't well done. Also the scene with the 3 members walking forwards, the faces cut out early because the last few frames were so dark I didn't even want to attempt it.
But the flashing light style in this MV was the only trouble I really had doing this. I enjoyed drawing this very much (when the lights were fully on). It kind of gave me something to look forward to if I had a long string of dark frames.

Also the start and end I ended up keeping white;  was going to make the inside of the caps dark so it'd make more sense, but for this version I decided just to keep it as line work. Again when/ if I go back to do the background, I may also add shading.

It's slightly hard to believe I've finished. For over 2 months all I've really been thinking about is this animation and planning it all out trying to work out how much work I need to do to finish it in the least amount of time (and if I had kept up my 20 drawings a day, I would have finished a lot sooner).
I had that feeling of "why am I doing this?" around the 400 drawings mark, and thought about just stopping. But thought that I may as well finish it, even if I have a lot of work to do it's still something to do and I'm sure it'll be worth it in the end. And it really was. The night I uploaded it to Youtube/ Vimeo I had a moment of realisation that I was finally done and was very happy.

I love this style of animation and hope I can do another like this. But maybe even do it for more than just a bit of fun.

Monday Update

Same as usual;
Only news I have is about the MV.

I find it quite exciting though that I only have 25 more drawings to do,
I have only done 15 today so far so I can make it to 20, meaning if I do 20 tomorrow as well I'll be done!
Other than all the little extras that is.

Can't wait though.

Once I've finished I'll feel as though I have so much free time.
And seeing as this MV has kept me busy since finishing college, that may be a bit much for me.
So after I have a good Halloween break to play video games, I'll get planning on new projects (and existing ones I stopped).

I definitely would enjoy doing more animations; ones of my own though, not using someone else's videos.

Rd 5

Dd 5

Monday Update

On Saturday I was tasked to go to an art exhibition and just sit there in order for it to be open.

Unfortunately it was a slow day and no one actually came in to properly look around, a few did take notice and look in.

Part of my train of thought is maybe the random woman sitting at her laptop sometimes staring at them put them off; I wasn't really inviting. I'm sure it wasn't that, but I get paranoid.

It was a fun experience, and wouldn't mind doing it again. If you want to check them out I found their website: http://www.neonarts.org/

I think they have Facebook too but I don't know how to find it seeing as I don't have one.
I think what they are doing is amazing, such a great idea.

Mother of mine also keeps trying to push the idea of me getting my own show, with the help of these guys. 

Which would be nice, but going off what I've seen my work is nothing like what they are promoting. So while I think I could have fun doing some art a bit more related; I am not willing to put up paintings of musicians, most of which people wont have heard of.

Small update on my MV, I have about  140 drawings more to do. 

Depending on my level of work, it can range from finishing it this week (Which I doubt), next week or the week after that which is the longest amount of time I think it'll take.

That's not including however I'm going to try and get the newest version of Photoshop to add my drawing to the main file, and export properly. Also I need to add some things (like I haven't drawn faces because using Photoshop elements isn't a very high quality.) and may even try doing some sort of background, depending on how it looks.

Monday Update

There's nothing really new happening at the moment.

But I feel I keep forgetting to post of here a lot.

As of last night however (or about 3am this morning) I reached 900 drawings for my MV rotoscope.
Hopefully just over 300 more to go!
If I work hard it'll be done by the end of October, if I work at the pace I've been doing recently It be a bit longer.
I also need to find  a way to use the new photoshop for just a little bit to put everything together.
I don't think another free trial will work because I'm not sure you can render off videos in the free trial... but I'll work it out.

Bunny Commission

This took me about 4 hours, done on A2 with pencil.

Thankfully it was well received and had fun doing it.

I did frame it but the photos I took of it weren't very good.

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Dd4

Monday Update

Yeah last week I just kept remembering to upload the day after, so decided just to skip the week.


I had a weeks break before it though from doing the MV rotoscope, and am back doing it again now but not as much as before. (I had been making sure I do at least 20 a day, and by the end I was doing about 30 a day. Now I just try and do 10).

Also want to do a few more commissions, they aren't as urgent as the last one I did though. (Which I'll try and remember to post a photo of this Sunday).

OC

I have many characters I like but never did anthing with.

I created Liam in 2010 and put him in my Original Character Calender I did. Other than writing one small scene with him in I've not done anything and I still really like this character.

I drew him again recently just because I saw an old drawing of him and wanted to redraw him in my new style.

Random fact, I don't think I've ever drawn him with a nose (I designed him around the time I stopped being able to draw noses). So that was the only thing I needed to design.

I love to compare my drawings from over the years, so here my first ever drawing of him I did back in 2010.

http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/331/c/2/cutie_punk_by_threatened_angel-d33qvn5.jpg

And the drawing I used as reference

http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/316/c/3/occ__november_by_threatened_angel-d4fxtte.png

Rd 3

Dd 3

Monday Update

I didn't post last week because it was my fathers Birthday week ( yes that's a thing apparently) and the workers of the house took a week off to do stuff. We went camping! It was fun. Also finally went back up to Garrigill and I refound my N64 and played some Zelda OoT.

In art news I only have 5 days left of my free trial of Photoshop CC so will be trying to draw as much as possible before it runs out. I've drawn 570 and have 660 left.

I've also finished my rabbit commission.

Original Character Work

Nigel Franklin

I've done this for a few of my characters now, where I draw them in these 2 styles. Mainly because I can't draw full body shots very well so I turn them chibi so I can design the outfits.

Nigel is from a story I am working on, and have been working on for about 3 years.

I might post some of the writing I've done for it here soon (maybe even tomorrow) but I'm not sure. I may check to see if I have any scenes just to show a bit of Nigel's personality. 

Monday Update

Nothing much to report

But I do have a few little things I can draw on commission. Mainly just my mothers friends trying to throw me some work, which I'm happy to take on.

Still working on the Growl MV as well. Done 44 seconds and 270 drawings.

Commision Practice

I have been commissioned to draw some things, I decided to start with a bunny because it's something I've not done before (not properly at least)

So this was actually just a practice piece before I do it for real.

Took 2 hours and actually ended up liking it quite a lot.
I will be doing it bigger, but first will practice it using chalks.

Rd 2

Dd 2

General art..... again don't have a name for today.

Tao and Sehun

EXO M and K's maknaes (youngest members)

Monday Update

So I have been posting like promised, but you may of noticed only on certain days.
That's just because I haven't got things for the other days, but because I thought filling your inboxes up everyday with posts may be a bit much, so I've decided to add a weekly plan as well; as in every other week will be a different set of daily posts.

Week 1:
Tuesday, Friday, Saturday

Week 2:
Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday

And Monday updates will be both weeks.
I think this evens things out a bit more and if I do want to stick by it each week I wont have to draw constantly to match it.
So Week 1 are the sketches while week 2 is more my own proper projects.

In other news I have started a new animation.
It's nothing special and not original. I decided to rotoscope a Music Video again, like my Big Bang one.

It's EXO's new 'Growl' MV.
The main differences is that I'm doing it digitally. I made some calculations, and because I'm doing the FULL MV, and not just half and not mainly frames, it'd mean I'd have to use over 1000 pieces of paper, and while I can use my student load money to pay for that, I'm not really up to using that much paper.
Plus the obvious fact it's just easier to do it digitally.
And while I'm doing more frames a second than last time, it's still not EVERY frame so I wont be completely dead afterwards.

I expect this'll take me 1 or 2 months to complete.
I'm still very excited about it, even with having drawn 50 frames and only being 6 seconds into it (out of 204 seconds).

Haven't thought of a good name for todays post yet....

exo group drawing

I thought it pointless to post 5 at a time of this. So maybe each week if I draw a whole group I'll just post them all.

Or just any amount each week.

Also you should see how it's different from REFdump, because before I was trying to draw it like the photo I referenced from in a semi realistic, but quickly drawn, way. Here I used reference but not all are anything like the poses in the photo, it's just cartoon versions of the members (the reference was just to get shapes right).

So REFdump is a drawing of a photo, this is just cartoons of the people.

REFdump

I Started using drawings from my 5th skethdump on deviantART because I have already posted the first 4 on this blog before. Not sure if I should have started the numbering at 5 too though...
This also means I have a good back log of drawings to post the next few weeks.

DOODLEdump

I made a proper set up for putting the sketches. 

Blog Plan

I am wanting to get back into posting on here, but I also don't like forcing myself to do art when I don't feel like it, so this plan isn't exact... you'll see what I mean.

I have a few different series I do, the main one is a reference sketchdump where I do portraits quickly. I post it on Fridays.
My portrait a day stuff (which even if I'm not doing a Portrait a day I sometimes post on Fridays there too for Moleskin pages.) will remain on that blog.

One I have recently decided to start is to do another sketchdump where I randomly doodle instead of using references. So I want to make that a series as well.
I have also started to referenced drawings but cartoon style (my other ones are still trying to be slightly realistic) which I may make into a series, because I have been doing a lot of them lately.

Even though I don't do many finished paiting/ drawings/ whatever I will start posting the ones I do, do here as well.
I am also writing again, and even though I also don't write a lot, I will start posting that too.

SO!
I have made a rough time plan


Monday- News/ Updates: as usual I will post any updates I think belongs on here (so I wont be telling you about my week or anything like that, more as if I have a big painting I'm working on or what ever).

Tuesday- DOODLEdump: I gave it a name! This will include a selection of random doodles I have done.

Wednesday- Character Work: Any of my original character related drawings I do will be posted today, finished or sketchy.

Thursday- Writing: Any writing I do for either of my stories (I have 2 going at the moment). I'm not sure how exactly I will go about doing this, Whether I post by chapter/ scene, or maybe even less than that because I don't have many of either at the moment. Also, if I do any random pieces of writing which may not be part of a proper story I'll also post.

Friday- REFdump: This is why I named the 2 different sketchdumps, so you know which is which.  So this will be any sketches I do using references of actual people.

Saturday- Fanart Cartoons: So this is where I will post referenced drawings which are done in my cartoon style. This may not seem like a big difference to REFdump, but you will see what I mean when I've posted the two.

Sunday- Finished: Any fully done, finished pieces of work. This includes Digital and traditional paintings or drawings. And even the rare ocassion where I may even do animations.... Which reminds me My blog title will change to 'Illustration Blog' now that my Animation course has finished.
Also I jsut though, if I ever get any commissions, I will also post them here on this day.


Now this is when I will be posting each type of art I do, but it doesn't mean I will be posting all of this every week. There may still be weeks I post nothing at all, and some weeks I may post on each day.
This is just to help me organise my blog, and maybe if I do keep up with a few of these you all will have something to look forward to (because my art is just that much fun to follow).
This is also so I don't flood my deviantART page with loads of sketches, which I have did over the weekend.

I will start with what I have recently put on deviantART and each sketchdump will only include 5 of the drawings I do, so I can space them out a bit more. So for the first few weeks I will be active but don't expect it to be at that level for too long, unless I am still this motivated.

Final Show

I kept forgetting to come back here, but this'll do.

I had my Final show last month and I think it went quite well, had fun. Only thing was that my animation for the showreel on the big screen didn't show up because my line work was way too light, but that's all.

Here are my walls for the Final Show.

In other news I plan to start posting here more often again.

I am setting up a time plan/ schedule for posting on here. Which I will probably keep for like 2 weeks before I start either forgetting or stop doing much art.

End of The Course

This is my final day, other than the final show, and I have everything done and dusted.

I've definitely enjoyed the course and had the opportunity to try out new things and my own styles of animation, not just being told what to do and blindly following.
I'm not sure my own animation skills are really up to par with others, and am more likely to pursue a career in illustration. However I have learnt a lot more on character design and story boarding which is something else I would be interesting trying to make something out of. I'm just wanting to make sure to keep improving as I still feel I have a long way to go.
I opted for not going on for a 3rd year, mainly because there is a lot less help from tutors and you write/ animate your own thing. Although I can see how that could be helpful to get more experience, I feel as though I have gotten as much out of this course as I can, without just feeling as though it's becoming tiresome and a chore to do, I still want to enjoy it and  want to try and do that by going out and producing my own things my way. That's the only thing I worry about, I'm not sure working for clients is for me and don't know how to make it with just my own work. But I plan to practice more and more with creating stories and maybe start working towards making a comic/ motion comic. It's the only thing, other than doing portraiture, that I think I can really get a career out of.
I hope to show my illustrator side more at the end, and through final show I hope my traditional methods of creating my work will stand out from the rest.
My business cards just have illustrator on them, as animation is not for me, I just haven't got my skill level at the right level to advertise myself as one, but I will continue to try and work on animations, even just small, I'd still like to work with programs like After Effects and see what things I can create.

I have a lot planned, I just hope that can actually lead me to where I want to be.

Monday Update

It's the final week!
And I am pretty confident in the fact I seem to have completed all my practical work.

This morning I have planned out my Portfolio ready to print.
Also planned my Show Reel ready to edit all together.

I have also started writing up all my live briefs, done all the evaluations for them, I just need to find the briefs for 2 of them to either copy and paste, or just rewrite, but either way I need to make sure they are right.

I need to also re find where I saved my Proposal and Treatment for my main animation and print them out, or I may need to rewrite it as I may have just made them in presentation form.
My script also needs to be finished, I still only have my first scene written out.
Im going to take photos of my story boards, because they are A3 and I don't want to hand in the originals. So I will print them out in A4 so everything can go into 1 File.

Last of all is the PPD writing and research which I will try and get most of done this afternoon.

Then that's it!

CV needs to be printed out
and Business cards should, at the latest, come on Wednesday, if not today.

Friday Roundup

Well I have finished my CV and have ordered my Business Cards, which will hopefully get here next week.
I also been digitally drawing, hoping I can have more for my portfolio.
But after 4 hours I really hate it.
1 hour spent on the left eye

This failing has put me in a bad mood, and the colleges internet isn't helping...

Gonna start drawing something else now.

Next week is all about the writing side of my projects.

Business Cards 2

I've stuck with the Loki one, but I've been trying to think of another few designs I could do.
My tutor wanted me to try and tie it in with my CV, which is a comic book, but nothing I tried seemed to work. I will however be trying to do some via actually using comic pages I have made using random scenes of stories I have created while at college.

But for now, here are the 2 designs I did today.

 This one I have redesigned a bit, (added more people)
 but as my tutor pointed out with how small the BC is going to be the faces are going to be really small
So I may try doing it again but with only about 6-7 people.

This one I will definitely be using.

So this with be my main one and will get 250 of these.














Should have blurred out my number... (will do that later)
But I will hopefully not be using this on anyway.
I want to see if we have any sim cards lying round the house (because we have so many mobiles) and use another phone for like commissions.
Just because I never hardly ever answer my phone when I don't know the number.

Project Green Screen

So even though I can't officially enter it, this is my monster design for the competition.

I am rather happy with the design.

I tried to do a more mutated monster, but I really can't, so I stuck with the humanoid structure, but over exaggerated aspects and made my kinda like a lizard creature.

Only think I don't like is the plain square head in the front view, seems too simple. So I may try and redo that, even if it is only slightly, just to give it a bit more depth in the design. It's okay for the size guide though.

Part of me is quite happy to not properly enter it, I like the character, and not that I could have a chance at winning, but I still like being able to keep him for myself.

It's not everyday I design characters like this (I think all together I have 3 other non-human characters) so was good fun to do something different.

Monday Update

This week I'm concentrating on getting my CV/ Business Cards and my work based projects.

So I need to find out how I'm meant to write about the live briefs/ competitions I've done...
I submitting my rotoscoped Music Video I posted on here last year, because it's a competition and I haven't submitted it for any other project.
I've also done a character sheet type thing for the Project Green Screen thing. Which has actually finished/ not accepting any more entries, but I did it anyway.
And will be using the 2073 ident I made for my tutor.

So that's work based.

I want  my tutor(s) to check my business cards to make sure they are okay, so I can order them.
And I've pretty much done the back page of my CV, and I have done a rough version of the front, so will finish that off soon too.

Just got given a checklist for PPD as well today.
I've looked over it and apparently I need to research universities even though I have no plan/ interest in going to any. Which is annoying.
Not looking forward to having to do any research in general.

Business Card Ideas

So i've decided how I'm going to do my Business card.
It's going to have one of my portraits on the back.

Some designs:

I will be probably using more than just the one design (most likely these 2 and maybe 1/2 more).

But for the front/ my details I will do them in the same style as how I have done the top one.

But hand drawn, this was just quickly done to get the idea.

So if i need the same front, I may change the Loki one so it matches.

Monday Update

Well we are back in college now for the final 3 weeks!
Over the Holidays I did do the painting I had been planning, but no college work.
It was a nice break but now I feel I need to sort out a new time plan and what it is I need exactly to pass this course.
My minds still asleep at the moment so I can't think straight.
I'm pretty sure I have everything in  control.
I'll try and list what I HAVE done... that might be easier.

I've done my model test, with a paper model not a card one.... and I'm kinda wanting to leave it at that, but if I have plenty of free time I will  redo it.
I've kinda got a work based working thing, I'm using something we did in class, given to us by our tutor.
I've got my storyboards done, and the start of a script but not one for the whole story.
Portfoliooo.... um.... Well I have a few things for it. That's a whole other plan I need to do.
Same goes for a showreel.

So next lists. Portfolio and Showreel.
Portfolio first;
I have plenty of portraits drawn/ painted to put in.
I can put in model sheets for characters (I want to create one for my newest character; maybe 2).
What else do you put in?
No  idea.

Showreel.
I  may put something in I did last year (XYZ animation) as an example of a animatic, because it looks goo as that, not so much as a proper animation.
Will have my Lock animation in.
My group rotoscope work (2 animations of group, one 2 second thing I did as a test).
My Big Bang MV cover.
And my stop motion model test (need to finish that  one)

Oh that's something else to put in portfolio, making the stop motion model and other sculpts I have done.

And also! Just remembered; need to finish off my CV and do a proper design for some business cards (I already have an idea in mind).

Well that's all I can think of now.

Will try and post work I did over the 2 week holiday on here as soon as I properly finish it.

I think you can see my mind slowly waking up during writing this.

Painting Practice

I was challenged to paint without using any initial sketch lines by a friend. I was going to paint a portrait everyday for a week, but was too busy doing another painting. I'v finished the main part of said painting though, so decided to give this a go.

I also recorded it so enjoy! (I apologise in advance for the fact my hand is in the way for a bit of this.)

I  have fixed it a bit since finishing this, and will be going into more detail, but wont record anymore.

Friday Roundup/ holidays

This week I finally got round to animating my little model
It looks funny, but I got a good understanding of how it all works.
Will go over the footage and erase the crane that held the model up so it looks better.

But what I plan for over the holidays it what I'm  really excited about!
Ignoring the fact I have completely wasted today playing a new MMORPG that came out yesturday (came out at 7pm, so after a quick trip to the pub and having to eat, I played on it from about 9pm to 3am....then got up this afternoon and played on it from 1pm to.... well I'm still playing.) and the fact I will most likely waste the rest of my weekend doing the same; I have plenty of paintings planned!
I realise that's plural, but I only really have the 1 painting planned, but a big one, and a fellow student and friend has challenged me to do a painting a day for a week, instead of my usual drawn portrait a day challenge. So big painting this week, attempt at painting a day for next week.

I also want to plan how to make my model in a more sturdy material than paper so I can do a proper animation, not a long one, but one that one destroy the model in the process. So I'll also be thinking of a mini script to go with it.

So looking forward to the next 2 weeks, and I hope you all are too!

Monday update

30 minutes after Monday, but close enough.

I just wanted to make sure I update.

This week I want to try and get a few animations done.

I have my very rough model and will make his hands and feet tomorrow then get to making some line tests.

I'll remake him out of card later, but just get some animations done this week will be good.

Also, I had another idea for a quick animations. I may have mentioned doing something like this before, but my hand sculpt I did, probably back in 2011 by now, if not just early 2012, I want to go back to that.

My tutor wants me to make a full scale puppet, but I wont be doing that.

I'll make different shapes with my hand, sculpt them and then hopefully through that method will get an animation of a hand crawling along the ground. I think it'd be cool. If I added some blood and can make it zombie-esque.

So some rough animation tests are the plans for this week.

Small side note, I hope to also have an idea of what to do for a live brief by the end of the week as well.

But more on that on Friday.

Friday Roundup

This week I planned out my paper model, and yesterday finally made a very rough version of it.

I will try making a few line tests with this one.
What I'll need to do is make it again out of card so when I actually come to animating it properly, it wont break on me.

Today there was someone coming in to talk to us I think about illustrations or something. I wouldn't have minded going but I had to stay home and look after the dog (Parents went to a funeral and stayed in town a bit afterwards) so missed out, hopefully however I'll be able to get notes on it on Monday and have a go at what they were doing.

Also this week we were told we had to do a presentation for next week, so I'll probably start that the day before we do it. Not gonna lie, the live brief stuff is something I had been putting off because I wanted to do my own thing. But will have to look at it now... oh well

PaD

I've restarted my Portrait a Day challenge, I was going to wait until after Easter but I wanted to draw today, and seeing as I'd probably be wanting to carry on drawing a lot, I may's well start the challenge when I'm motivated.

Check out the PaD blog here: http://kjayportraits.blogspot.co.uk/

Monday Update

I didn't end last week in the best of moods, but I'm feeling better about my paper model this week.
I finished strengthening parts with plastic and started trying to work out how I'd make the paper parts today.
I liked the way it was drawn out. And because I suck at sculpting, being about to just draw my design onto a model is much better.
Tomorrow I'll be actually measuring the pieces out properly and cutting them out to make sure my patterns are correct.
If that works I'll redo them again neatly and coloured up in photoshop for the final thing.

Meaning by the end of this week I hope to have it ready for animating.

Portrait a Day

I've decided I'll restart this challenge again.
I'm unhappy with how little I'm drawing portraits this year and other than the fact I draw birthday drawings for a few bands, (because I do that every year) I don't draw for the pure pleasure of it.
Also looking back at what I did last time, my drawings SUCKED.

But thanks to my other challenge of doing a sketchdump every week, which I only posted on my deviantART, I have improved.
So hopefully this time around my drawing will be/ get better.

Only thing I haven't decided yet is to draw people by name/ alphabetical order, or just draw who ever I want whenever...
Last time I tried to draw one person from each kpop group I listened to, until I ran out and just drew whoever.
Also, need to figure out when to start. Either on Monday, or maybe after the Easter holidays and do it until the end of college. So either 2 months or just the 1.

Friday Roundup

Well yesterday I started another model but just a rough one to make into a paper one. So it's just a quick structure then I'll draw out the design.
It's an interesting idea but not actually something I'm interested in, like, at all.
My tutor seemed to want to do it though, as it seemed something I'd be good at because it's more drawing orientated.
So he just started making the model. Which is something I'd have liked to do myself, but at least I saw how to make the basic structure, so next week I'll just do one by myself.

Sorry I don't seem to be in a very good mood about this.

Touchstone

After drawing Lock constantly, it's nice to draw a new character obsessively.

His name comes from a Shakespearean character from the play 'As You Like It'. He was quite a witty character and brought humor to the play. 

So I took elements from him to create my characters personality.

Because at first I wanted him just to be this serious hunter, but now I've added an element of mischief which makes him more interesting. My initial drawings of him had him always frowning, which I still like for a personality trait, but saved for when he's by himself/ hunting and taking things seriously. But when he is around others he is different, and not known for being this so serious.

I like to think that he is quite mischievous at heart, but is very intelligent and skilled, so while he is tough while hunting, he gets to relax by playing pranks on others, with the added element of being constantly underestimated; which he likes.

For his race, he is classified as an elf, but I do have some reptile like features in there too.

Also as seen on a previous post, he has bio-luminescence.

Monday Update

This week I plan to start the modeling process with help from my Tutor

However that wont be until Thursday. So until then I'll be getting portfolio stuff ready to be looked over. I don't really have anything I like, so I guess I'll mainly just have a plan of what I'm going to have. But the few things I do have I'll print out.

Today I've just been drawing my new character, Touchstone.
I do plan to make him into a model, but I think to start with I'll model Flin; otherwise I feel as though I've abandoned him for Touchstone.
But I'm doing more digital paintings and model sheets for both characters.


Now I'll leave you with a mischievous grinning Touchstone.

Elf Design

Yeah I still haven't named him yet,
But wanted to do colour design.

I also wanted to design the environment he'd live in.
I can't for the life of me draw/ paint landscapes, but was still fun to at least get a bit of my idea across.

I did plan to actually make it looks as nice as I could, but for now I'll leave it in it's rough stage. -needed a break from it-



(part of me really wants to call him Touchstone, but haven't quite decided yet)

Friday Roundup

Haven't had one of these in a while.
Well, the beginning of to the end!
In this first week I've created 2 characters,  Flin and....... I haven't named the other of yet, lets just call him Elf for now.

Flin is the character I wanted to make into a stop motion puppet, and will start doing that next week with the tutor. He'll end up being animation in a very short Short.
I created Elf because as a design, Flin is quite boring, not in a bad way he's just simple so will be easier to make. So I created Elf because I wanted so more detailed design work.
I want to make him too, but he wont be for animating, I'm concentrating on his looks more than his movement.

I may not make them in the same way, if anything I want to make Elf into a little toy (Like scan him in and print him out). But it'll give me something to mess around with for the next few weeks.

I still need to look over some of the live briefs, to chose which one I want to do. That'll either be over the weekend or sometime next week.


What I'll probably do tonight is make Elf's staff. Because a friend from college got bored and wanted to make it in digital 3D, so I want to make it traditionally and compare...The competition is ON!
..GO

Random Thought

I've been thinking about starting my portrait a day thing, just because I've definitely had enough of a break since doing it. However I may do that after I've finished this course, just because these last few weeks may be a bit hectic.
So another though I had, was maybe doing a character a day.
So try and design a really simple character each day. It wont take as long to do and by the end of it I'll have a nice little collection.
I kinda did this once before but it wasn't one a day, I just took one day to fill up an A2 piece of paper with as many characters I could think of.

If I did, I may just do it for a month. Or maybe less because there's a good chance I'd run out of ideas after the first week.

I'll think about it some more, but I'm designing one at the moment which would be more fun to print out than Flin; because Flin is Kind of plain where this one is more detailed.

Final weeks Plan

I guess I need to make a plan for the last few weeks I have on this course.
However, I can't really plan everything out like I've been told because I don't now how much time I want to spend on each thing. And yet to properly look through competitions...

But the first week has been, and still is, about creating Model Sheets for the character I am wanting to create a stop motion model for

The Second week is going to be the start of me making that model, my tutor said he'll show me how, kind of a week of master classes on it.

Then I don't know what will happen the weeks after, is I will carry on working on the model or make more characters.
I want to create a character that I can print, just because I want to print something.

I also need to properly look at all the competitions/ live briefs I can do and pick out the ones I want to try. I'm most likely going to chose illustrations ones, maybe one animation one (like the 5 second animations thing).

So lets say that's 6 weeks of stuff,
I have a week to fill, which will most likely just be planning stuff for my final show, which I can create between the gap between final hand in and the actual show.

It's not a very solid time plan but I don't like everything set it stone because I'll never keep to it, having a basic plan works best and it gives me room to breath.

At the end of this week I'll post my model sheet for my Flin character (I'll just be doing one) ready to start making next week.

Oil Painting Attempt

What has turned out to be my first painting of the year (although small and quick) is using Oils!

It was very interesting to work with. I definitely need a lot more practice; more then anything I'm just happy I got a reasonable skin tone out of it. I only bought a very basic set of colours and for the past 4 years I have been using a pale skin tone paint with my acrylic paintings, so no mixing needed to get a base layer down. Which is all well and good but you don't get the same textures and subtle mixes of colours you do when mixing it yourself.

The Oils really nice to blend together. I didn't use any water when doing this, which would have been better if not just to clean my brush.

And as always my line work is still just done it pencil; even just using pencil with it was a big change, it makes nice marks in the paint.

For my big painting, I've drawn out everyone, so now it's just a case of starting to paint. Which probably still will be done in acrylics, but I'm going to delay starting it just because I want to see if I get better at Oils first, in case I change my mind.

Also on Friday, when I go into college to hand in, I'm probably going to end up staying in all day again (apparently too lazy to get the train, and would quite like to see people) so will be bringing another small painting work in progress in to give myself something to do.

... I love painting again.

Reading Week

Well after the big hand in and the fact I have finished my essay (if it weren't for the fact we don't get emailed the front covers until Thursday I'd have handed that in too) I finally have some free time.
So I can do my own art without feeling guilty!!!

So what the first thing on my agenda...


PAINTING!

I haven't done a painting yet this year, and haven't even done a proper painting for quite some time anyway (I don't count my EXO painting because it SUUCKS). So I'm finally going to do a new painting!!!
And who of? SHINee of course!
I have 3 big paintings of them already, and stopped because I though I was doing too many of them, but seeing as it's been so long, I'm now going back to them.

On a simular note, I've just bought some oil paints, so I want to give them a try out. Probably not on this painting, but some time in the future.

I've missed doing paintings, I'm finally letting my Fine Art side free :)

[EDIT]
I checked, I haven't done a proper Hardboard painting since my 'Fantastic Baby' one April last year!
And I haven't done a SHINee one since before I started college back in 2011!!!!
How have I survived?!?

Cut Out Music Video

When trying to search parpercraft animations, I some how came across this music video
Not paper, but it's an amazing cut out animation.

Enjoy

Hand In

Hand in was yesterday, I have happy with what I managed to get done.

If I were to go back I think it'd be to animate to whole thing properly...
No stills, and camera panning, just all drawn out frame by frame, what I had planned to do, but ended up cutting corners.

But I'm slightly sick of animating drawn frames so will have to give myself a bit of a break before thinking about going back to it.

I'm more likely to come back to the Comic Book Version and finish that off for the Final Show.

But for now, I'm taking a Break from Lock.

Monday Update...On A Tuesday

usual late update, we weren't in yesterday so didn't feel the need to update.
I managed to get most of the third scene done yesterday, I didn't completely do it because i need to properly draw out the last action, which i have very roughly but didn't want to put in because I thought it was too rough.

So even though most of it is rough, I've got it to the midpoint I wanted to get to.
I also put all of what i have already together to see the time, which is 1min 30. Which will hopefully get to 2 minutes once I've added to end (and edited a bit of the start to last longer).

CV wise.
I keep saying I'm nearly done, because i am, I just haven't worked on it for ages.
Done the comic book page layout, added all the backgrounds, added some of the characters (pretty much all them apart from the drawings on myself which I haven't put in). So all I really need to do is the back page layout with my actual CV details on it.

I may try and finish that off today, then draw the final scene of my animation and edit it together and that should be able to be finished at least by tomorrow.

Only things I'm missing are sound and backgrounds.
But again, i don't really mind that.

Quick Update

I haven't updated on my animation for a while.

I have roughly animated the first 2 scenes ( and I'm only doing 3) so once I've scanned the final scene in and completed that, I'll go back over in more detail. But getting a rough version done on time should be no trouble at all.

I do like it, there are some really simple, animatic looking scenes I should try and fix, but the fully animated parts I'm very happy with.
Only problem is, is that I don't have any background drawn.
I myself don't mind but tutors may be a bit disappointed.


Anyway.
I'll leave you with Lock kicking some @ss.

I realise I forgot a frame near the start, he should be bending before he jumps, but it's one of the things I'll fix later....

Lock Model

I made a sculpture of Lock
I want to 3D scan him and finish him off (adding the face and generally cleaning it up).
And not that I'd know if I would be allowed, but I'd love to 3D Print him so I can have my very own Lock toy.

I made him in Plasticine because it's the easiest thing to work with, but obviously it doesn't dry so I'll have to be very careful with it.

Puppet Face

This is VERY poorly done
But it was a practice to see how I'd make a stop motion puppets face.

So I used air dry clay to do a quick model of a head around some plastic eyes I have.

Then I put sculpey on top to create a mask.

Pealed it off and baked it, then made the mouths

Then animated!

(The eyes can move, I just didn't do anything with them for the test)

As I said,  it is very poorly done

But it's practice more then anything.

I really need to get better at sculpting .

Vimeo Account

Thought I'd may's well post a link seeing as I finally posted something on it

THAN AnimatioN

(Ignore the Lady Gaga drawing, I uploaded that 2 years ago and don't really want to take it down....)

Monday Update

Well, been a while but last monday I was ill so....

Today we were just looking at different competitions we could do. I'm quite interested in ones like Red Kites contest, but the only thing is I don't think my animating skill level is really high enough. So what I'd like to look at more so is any illustration ones.
Before today I did wanted to do the british Eurosport brief because I'm a big tour de France fan and to work on something I'd really be interested in would be fun. But It's not really animation based, but I think as long as I use the things they want, I could make an animation for it. But I will have to look into it more. Also, I think the deadline is in march and I don't think I will really have enough time to do it while still working on my animation short project.

Talking about my Short, just been drawing out my scenes, I need to re-look over what I've done and what I need to do. I'm thinking of cutting my story in half; partly because the second half looks really complicated to animate, and the other reason is that I think if I just concentrate on half, I think it'll come out well instead of trying to do it all and everything looking too rough.
So I'll concentrate and getting the first 3 scenes done, and if I run out of time I can add 'to be continued' at the end and it will still work (I have a good cut off point for it).

I made a checklist for myself, so either tonight or tomorrow I'll post it up here.

CV STRIPS

For My creative CV I'm doing a comic, and I found a Comic book strip Generator online, so I made these using it, because it seemed like the easiest way.

What I'll do is print them out and just draw on them traditionally.

I will aim towards getting this finished this week.

Sculpting Part. 2

I over heard my tutor talking to first years about 3D scanning, and seeing as had my hands on some Plasticine  I decided I'd mold something with intentions to scan it. So I tried doing a face. Which was failing until I decided to make it not look too realistic and keep it cartoony. I ended up liking the results.

So when I got home I decided to make some more.

And here's an ikle Deadpool :D

Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have these scanned in.

Don't know what I'd even do with them, I think my tutor will enjoy doing this more than me. But it's something to have a go at.

[EDIT]
I did more!! :D

This time with sculpey, because I like the idea of having some of these faces that wont get squished sometime in the (probably near) future.