Drawing

Just an update on a few of my life drawings and other drawings i have been doing.

Life Drawing

Sketchbook work

Pre Production Project

Another update on my pre production bible. I have altered my story for the third time but now am happy with it and have been focusing on getting all the design work for it done.

I started by going back to my art that i was given/chose. The art of Robert Crumb.

I decided to move away from the internet a bit and got a couple of books from the library on this amazing comic book artist.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crumb-Fabrice-Hergott/dp/2759601927/ref=sr_1_22?ie=UTF8&qid=1385656102&sr=8-22&keywords=robert+crumb

I soon found that this book was a far better resource than anything I could find on-line and would recomend it to anyone who is a fan of Robert Crumbs work. The book was just full of a wide variety of his work, so I started copying some of his crazy drawings trying to mimic his style even more.

my sketches.

I made sure I used pen as I found that practically all of Roberts work was done using ink. at the front of this book there is some scans of his old sketchbooks and it was really interesting to see some of the lines tippexed out where he had made a mistake. This made me appreciate his work even more as there wasn't many corrected lines. showing the level of skill he had as an illustrator. I have came to love working in pen as i find myself focusing so much on what I am actually drawing and not worrying about getting it perfect because I cant rub it out anyway.

3rd year 'A Light from the dark'

A light from the dark is a third year film that i was asked to help out on and do some concept art for. the story is based in a dark scary warehouse that will eventually be on fire, that has this fire/wolf/alien monster that is chasing this girl.

I was asked to come up with the design for the monster and some designs for the interior of the warehouse to try and get across the mood of the film.


The development of the character design for the monster.

A close up of the monsters face.

A couple of inside concepts one with a more surreal look to it with the darkness overtaking and the skewed perspective and the second piece is more realistic.

Pre Production Project

So my initial idea was a no go. This meant i went back to the beginning and primarily done allot of research, mainly on my style first. I looked at underground comix in detail and found that the artist Robert crumb was said to be the pioneer of underground comix I really loved his style and the content in his comix were just crazy which made me love his work even more.

Here is just a few examples of the vast amount of comics and illustrations Robert crumb has done.

I also came across a documentary called the confessions of Robert crumb, which was really interesting to watch as it gave me an incite into his life and who he is as an artist. i found that he is just as mad as his drawings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR9vfcNYBhc

After doing more research it sparked an idea for a new story.

This new story is based around the idea that for the soldiers to get into Hitler army they have to be able to sing. it will be along the same lines as x factory but with Hitler and his fellow men as the judges with the soldiers as the people auditioning for a place in his army. if the soldiers cant sing then they would be sentenced to death. The hermit character is the executioner hired by Hitler to kill off any of the un talented soldiers. I want there to not be much focus on the main story but more on the back stage element of the show with crazy things going on and creature comfort styled interviews with the soldiers and the hermit character. 

I haven't thought a great deal about what format it would be but i was thinking more of  strong black comedy series as it doesn't have a strong story and will have some strong violent and rude content in it.

So the next stage was to come up with some concepts of various bits in the same style as Robert crumb.

I started by trying to create a poster looking concept in the same style of r. crumb but mainly tried to get across the message of what the series or show would be about. and then a quick character design of one of the soldiers in the same style.

here is just a few frames of what the set-up of the show would be with the interview backstage first, then the performance on stage and then the execution and interview at the end. This is a very brief structure of what an episode could be like  and i plan to change allot of the content in each episode to make it more unexpected, crazy and interesting.

 and finally a quick concept of what the hermit could look like back stage as an executioner.

Pre Production Project

For this project we were give 4 cards consisting of a setting, a character, a style and a show. it was completely pot luck and the idea was that we have to come up with a story including all 4 cards.

The card I received where:

Setting : WW2 Berlin

Style: 60s/70s Underground Comics  

Character : Hermit 

Show: Music show

My initial thoughts was to do a story about this hermit character who lived underground away from the warzone above in Berlin. and when it went quiet the hermit would come up to the surface and collect the soldiers souls which he kept in his underground lair in jars and bottles. I loved everything about this idea i had and cold see it going a long way. but after pitching my idea i soon found that we had to stick firmly to are cards in terms of what are animation had to be and mine was a music show, so this quite sinical and dark story went out the window.

here where some of the concept pieces I did for my original idea.


This was my initial character design for the hermit which is this all knowing wise man who represents solitude.

The war zone setting. i Tried to get the comic book style across in this piece but found it harder than i had first expected.

The underground cave where the hermit lives and stores all the souls of the dead soldiers.

again i tried to get across that black and white comic book style but with a bit more detail. I felt that this piece was allot more successful that the one above.

Funny in 15

So the funny in 15 second group animation is finished. Overall I was happy with the outcome and felt that we all worked well as a group. There are a few things that I would have done differently if I was doing it myself but that's just me being picky. doing this short animation has inspired me to do more of my own projects on the side of my course work to give me that extra boost, and it would be nice to have a finished piece of animation that is all me to show off what I love, my style and what I can do. I loved this project as it was nice and short so we could get it finished at a good standard rather than rushing it to get it done in time. Hope you find it funny :)

Funny in 15

The next part of funny in 15 for me was more 2d animation.

Shot_4

This shot proved a bit more difficult to animate as it was all about the lift and showing weight, but also not too much weight as the main part of this animation was the gag that this skinny weak character is lifting a heavy sumo wrestler. but i felt that i achieved what i wanted after altering the animation a few times and going back over it. in the end i just acted it out and done a lot of research into this dance move.

Shot_5

 

This shot was very simple to animate but was all about the facial expressions which i really loved doing. it was a very easy piece of animation to do but at the same time hard to get the right expression and i found that the timing was the main thing in this piece with pausing certain face movements for longer . 

Shot_6

The final shot for funny in 15 I had to animate, a simple very quick piece of animation, the main thing i had to think about in this animation was how the limbs would move and how they just gave way, the it was a case of just adding in the little things like the facial expressions and eyes turning to crosses. 

Funny in 15 project

Animation

we decided to make things quicker to do the animation in 2D as it was only a short 15 second animation. we sorted out a system of having Bradley do the main key frames to get the timing right and then me and Charlotte would go over with the more characterised animation and do the in-between. i had the skinny guy in a suit character and Charlotte had the sumo wrestler. we decided to only have one person animating each character to keep the style consistent throughout.

I started with a rough character design to make it allot easier to animate .

I didn't really think about this character much other than i knew i wanted it to be very simple and the fact that he would be lifting a sumo i thought it might be nice to make him look really weak with long flimsy limbs and large clown type feet.

first I did the rough animation just trying to get the type of walk correct with the right pace and trying to get the character across in it.

Shot_1

I next added more detail and filled in the gaps.

finally i added facial expression and small things like the movement of the tie and briefcase.

 

Shot_2

shot 2 was more of a close up facial expression of the character saying "huu" just for 1 second.

again first i put the rough animation in.

and the final animation with colour and more subtle movements.

Funny in 15 project

The funny in 15 project, the aim to create a funny animation that last 15 seconds.

so far i have been really happy with my group and how we are working together and just thought i would do an update on my contribution and progress within the group.

Backgrounds.

One of the backgrounds was from the side and here is the progression from my first rough concept to the finished thing.

This first one was to get a rough idea of what the background could look like.

After showing Charlotte and Bradley, my other group members and seeing what they think we came to the conclusion of it needing to be longer to fit in the animation and to have more freedom to add different camera moves.

also to add a pin board to the hall way just to break up the amount of doors involved.

next i added colour to the original design and again got feedback from the group and we decided to add another board to spread things out further so it would give more focus onto the characters when they are added into the scene.

finally i added extra ligting and detail, i also changed the colour of the doors to draw attention away from them so again the focus would be more on the characters.

The second background was allot easier to do after coming up with colour scheme and design that the group had all agreed on.

 This background was all about trying to get the perspective and camera angle right from the original intention from the animatic.

Again i finished off with the same colour scheme and some lighting.

start of term and digital painting

I have been a bit lazy with my blog posts and this is my first post for the start of my second year. Its soo good to be back and im so happy to be doing the stuff that i really enjoy and focusing more on the design stage of animation :) so far the work has just been all about story telling, creating story board and animatics.

The third year pitches are coming up and i was asked to do a quick concept piece for Alex Watkins, one of the third years who will be pitching his idea.

I wasnt really happy with this concept mainly because of the style and its not what i would normally go for but on the other hand its the style that alex wanted and im glad that it fitted with the idea he had in his head. over all i was pleased with the outcome considering i only had a limited amount of time to complete it.

These next three pieces are for are funny in 15 animation, two quick background and a character design just to get an idea of what things will look like. The funny in 15 task was to be put into groups of 3 and we had to come up with a 15 second funny animation that would be completed in 5 weeks. at first i wasn't too sure about the group i had been put with but after getting to know them more im happy that they are both hard working and talented people.  

Inspired by the gaming industry

                                                                      The Last of Us.

I had always been put off by the idea of working in the game industry for some reason, maybe its because i felt that games are a bit limiting with the things that you can put into them, whereas there are not as many limits with film. But after coming across this game and playing it my mind has defiantly been changed.

A game set in a time after the human race has been devastated by an infection and when nature has reclaimed back the cities and habitats of humanity. This game is very brutal at times and has a very standard story line when it comes to the theme of an infection overtaking. But I don't think it matters because the way this game is made in terms of the look and game play is truly amazing.

The main thing about this game that really has changed my perception of the game industry is the attention to detail in this game and the beautiful look of it. Environment design and concept art has always been a big interest of mine. Playing this game and watching this video has inspired me even more to pursue my love for art in a future career.

It truly is a beautiful looking game and weather your a gamer or not i highly recommend that you play this game to just see how well it has been done and why the game industry is getting bigger and bigger.

Student Ambassador Film

Within the first few months of being a student ambassador and an animation student me and the rest of the ambassadors on the animation course were approached with the task of creating a short video to explain and advertise what a student ambassador is and all of the things that come with being an ambassador. The brief was to mention specific things and that it had to be suitable for the university website. other than these small restrictions we were allowed to do what we wanted with it. Me, Tony Walker, Matteo Veglia and James Rowden who did the sound all worked together on this film along side are course work. we treated it professionally and went through the whole process of starting with meetings to get initial ideas from everyone, a short story board, a plan of how and when we would shoot each piece of animation/film and what was possible in the time given. we all had are individual strengths but as this was are first project together like this we all decided to chip in with whatever we could as we all had lectures and things going on at different times.

It proved hard to focus on this short film and get what we initially wanted to do done, as other work got in the way but all in all i felt that we worked well together as a team and i certainly learnt allot from this team project and got to work with some talented people on my course and people from outside the university such as Lee Bickerstaff who worked on the sound.

Looking back on it i feel like there was allot more we could have done with it and it could have looked better but for a first team work based project that we were being payed for we and the university were pleased with it so i was happy with it.

Check out the finished video on the falmouth university website here http://www.falmouth.ac.uk/becoming-a-student-ambassador   or below.

portraiture

Drawing portraits has always been something that i have really enjoyed doing since i first started doing art and I'm not sure why, maybe because i feel that i can get allot of emotion across in a portraits more than that in a landscape painting and so on. I still find it odd how popular portraits are considering we see peoples faces every day are of are lives and still find it pleasing to look at a piece of art that is of someones face. maybe its because it is something we all recognize easily and after all it is how we get are emotions across to each other. so i started doing a lot of portrait drawings mainly going for a realistic style just with pencil. First it started as just a hobby but eventually came to a stage where people paid me to do portraits.


Here is a selection of portraits, drawing and paintings that i have done in the past and recently.

 My first attempt at doing an animal portrait, and surprisingly i found it easier to draw an animals face.

 This portrait was done using nothing but a blue biro pen.

acrylic painting on canvas

this was done very quickly using acrylic paint on an old peace of cardboard.

This painting was done again using acrylic on a canvas board, but this time i tried to make it as realistic as i could using a photo for reference.