Ho

Merry Christmas y'all. Hope your day was as good as mine. Had a great time with the family, visiting grandparents, my aunty and uncle, huge tasty dinner and then loads of cool presents. I managed to do some sketching at my aunty and uncle's place but i am sans scanner at the moment, so i cant post those. They were mainly designs and page layouts for my Zuda entry. I've been working on the script for that too. Here's some random bits and bobs:


The cover to a graphic novel i had for Christmas. I've started it and it's really cool, sucked me right in. Burns' inks are really heavy and solid which adds several creep-points to an already creepy tale.

This is me havin a two or three minute try of a WACOM Cintique!!!! One of my class mates, Nathan, got the 24" one as an early Christmas present (lucky sod) and was kind enough to let me have a bash. It was amazing!!!! I know what i drew isn't great (i'll use the fact that i didn't want to hog up Nath's working time as an excuse) but it felt amazing. I found i had more control and worked faster. I have a holiday i need to pay for and when thats done, i am saving for one of these bad boys. But i'm crap with money, so owning one will probably forever remain a dream.......sigh.....

This is something i started a little while ago but never finished. I remember watching all the Hellboys (live action and animated) with a few mates one night and this is one of the doodles i did whilst watching. I just found it randomly today and thought i'd chuck it up. I'll probably not go back to finnish it as i find it hard going back to an image after a long period of time.

And this is an early doodle of the Lovebot from my third year film.

So, for those of you i haven't already wished, Merry Christmas. I'm going to go watch some films and draw.

Ciao.

Theo Colour Tests

Here are two colour tests i whipped up quickly tonight (or this morning, it's 2:10am). Neither of them are great but i was just trying to quickly establish what sort of direction i want to go in with the colour. The one at the top was done in photoshop and the one at the bottom in flash. For some reason the tablet and sensitivity was playing up whilst i was doing the flash one and at the begininning of the photoshop one, but i persisted. I prefer the one in photoshop, but i am going to give things another go in flash (hopefully it'll work correctly this time) and another go in photoshop too, this time laying some flat colours first. I am also going to try doing the line work in flash and then colour in photoshop to see how that looks.

I am really tired now so, night night.

Above are the (pretty much) final designs of the two main characters for the ZUDA ( www.zudacomics.com ) entry i'm working on. It'd be nice to put it in for the January competition but i'm in no major hurry, so it'll probably be entered for the February one. For those of you that don't know what ZUDA is, check out the link above.

More as it comes....

RTL Sketches

Some sketches from a few pages of my sketchbook. Took me longer cleaning these scans up than it did for me to actually draw them! Playing around with shapes within these two characters. Click on the image to see it larger. More to come...

Lizz

She fell asleep on me, so I drew her. MWA HA HA HAAAAA!

I am making Roger Rabbit 2!!!

Here's two tests i've done this week.

Above is 2D over stop motion animation. In my film the book will be a photo album and the pics within the book will be animated too. For the test i used my friend Kenneth Ghann's sketch book (check his blog www.ken3000.blogspot.com ) and, you probably guessed it, but i didn't have a tripod for the test.

Above is me trying to figure out how i want the 'Orientation' video that the robots are brainwashed with before they are sent out into the world. It's just a test. The song is 'West Coast' by Coconut Records.

I couldn't seem to get a better quality export so these will have to do for now.

Ciao

"Oh, How The Mighty Have Fallen..."

Those of you who know me well will know two things about me; a) i ridicule those who read manga and watch anime and b) i go through phases. Lots of phases! Recently i re-read my Scott Pilgrim collection and i don't think i'll ever stop being obsesessed with those books or the books creator, Bryan Lee O'Malley. In the back of Vol.3 he mentioned how he had gotten re-obsessed with manga whilst working on that volume and listed a few. I thought i'd check one out to see what inspires him and picked up one of the books he listed, DeathNote. It was brilliant! I couldn't put it down. And this stuff is cheap too (£3.50 for 200 pages on amazon!). So i've kind of been on a bit of a manga and anime phase lately. It kind of reminds me of my 'Try and read every issue of Uncanny X-Men ever printed' phase which was very short-lived. I've been watching Naruto and Bleach (luckily my house mate has tons of the stuff and knows which cruddy series to avoid) but i am trying to make sure i only read DeathNote before getting into any other manga series (the Bleach one looks amazing and was really tempting on my way home from uni today, but is it worth reading it after watching it?). With manga, i think i like it because it's just kind of nutty and fun and i really admire and respect the process and speed the creators go through to produce them and i'm looking at things that i can take from it to apply to my own work.

I know this shouldn't really be on my blog as my father kindly pointed out on my 'Bustin' Balls' post that it was not Drawed By Moi, but i can't really show the work i am doing at the moment and i miss posting stuff that nobody reads. I have been working on some other stuff too, not for uni, which i am hoping to show you soon, but i want to wait until it's done to avoid talking it up and then not finishing it and having nothing to show. But in the meantime...

....i have a house party yo co-host.

Peace.

A Quicky. . .

Just a quicky. I've been working on my first animatic today and i can't really show it so here's a bit more google sketchup work. I haven't been building any super detailed stuff, but i have been using it to do some quick pre-vis work for certain shots. Here's an example. I got to run, i'm going to see 2012! I know it's going to suck, but effects that big you got to see in the cinema.

Ciao

Board

Above are the first thumbnail story boards i have done for my film (which i have just realised is still nameless). Even though they don't look like much, these are probably the toughest set i've done. I don't mean in drawing skill, these are just quick scribbles that i can barely make sense of myself. They were tough because i had a few scenes of the film planned out from the start and it was really hard to link them altogether and make them gel. In these cases i always find it best to just get any ideas down on paper and power through the boarding, even the scenes that i am not so sure on. This way then i have something tangible to work with rather than trying to figure it all out in my head and get the boards right first time. You're welcome to try and figure out the story from these but they're all jumbled and a lot of it is likely to change. I don't want to give the story away or risk having the idea stolen (i know it seems unlikely, but it could happen) so i doubt i'll be posting the final boards in full. Now it's time for first draft animatics!

Peace

edit: you can zoom in on the image if you click on it. A little magnifying glass appears.

Google Sketchup

I've been using google sketchup today. It's the first time i've used it and it's actually pretty cool. It's very user friendly, but i am still quite bad at it. I think i'll probably be using it to build my sets in and then use these virtual sets to help me frame my film, etc. I've also been thinking about using the models i build in it to paint over in photoshop or flash to use as backgrounds. I did a quick test of this today.

1) Here's a model of a table i made, plain.


2) Here's the same model but with a marble effect applied from google sketchup.



3) Here, i exported the model from Sketchup as a JPEG, opened it in Photoshop and had a quick crack at painting over it just to see how it would look.

Bustin' Balls

Ok, i know this isn't my work, but i just had to post this image. I've been re-reading my Scott Pilgrim collection (by Bryan Lee O'Malley, a God among men) and this image made me laugh just as much as it did the first time. The series is brilliant, unlike anything i've read before. Anyway in this picture Todd the evil vegan is having his twig and berries mashed up by Envy Adams as she finds out he's been cheating on her. I think this is probably the most accurate visual translation of what it feels like to be kicked in the nuts. Clearly O'malley has taking a few wellies to the stones himself, ha ha. It's being made into a movie starring Michael Cera, but you should read it before the movie gets a chance to be your first impression of the franchise. Also check out O'malley's site. Makes really good music under the name Kupek.

More Robots Which Almost All Look The Same But Are Not......*snooze*....

Pretty much what the title says. I'm closer to having the final design of the robot. Settled on the two eyes and big hands (i think) so i have just been pushing them around, changing minor details which i'm not sure you'll be able to make out on the size of the image here, but i am basically trying to decide how much or how little detail to have on the 'bot.

Silhouettes and a Test

So, above are some further character studies. I found a brush i liked in photoshop and just started doing these. These shapes came out naturally which is good because i think i am subconsciously finalising the design. I am pretty confident that i will be going with the robot with two eyes because i think i'll be able to display more emotion with them and get the audience to sympathise the character. And belwo is an After Effects test. I think i mentioned in an older post that i haven't used after effects in about three years and even then i wasn't very good. But basically, it's a test for the orientation video that will be shown to all the little robots before they are sent out into the world and i want it to have this 2D/3D thing going on.

I just remembered i still haven't explained the idea behind the story which i promise to do soon. But in the meantime, it's thursday, which means it's film quiz time at Cineworld! (Nerd!!)

Ciao

More Robots!

To try and help with the character design i decided to draw them side by side as thats how they will be most of the time through the film. I am kinda happy with the boy in this one, but that's not why he hasn't changed in this series of images. I was only changing the robot to see what sort of size he should be compared to the boy. I tried some slightly different shapes and i also did an extremely small bot and then extremely large, just to see if anything would come out from it. I do like the huge robot, but i get some sort of 'Mighty Joe Young/ King Kong' vibes off of him and don't think the design would fit the character's personality. That image kind of gives the impression that he is just there to protect the boy and that's not the story at all. I'm rambling again. I should be putting a similar post soon with the boy varying in size and posture, etc.

Bear Boy helps out...

Yep, more of the boy. I am getting really bored of doing these now, that's why they're quite rough and poor. But on the plus side i've got some ideas to work with now, i've just got to start thinking more about shape. These characters with the animal hats on came from a little character i've been drawing for years called 'bear boy' who is basically a kid with a little bear hat on, so i thought i'd put some elements of him to good use. I've really got to start thinking more about what sort of person the character is aswell. Bear Boy was always quite cutesy but the boy in my film (who is still nameless!!!!) is alot more independant. He can take care of himself and can have fun all by himself in his domain, the woods! I am sort of pushing this 'King of the Woods' thing with him. I think it's a nice contrast to the technological background that the robot comes from. Thats kind of why in the designs the characters are looking quite stern and cheesed off, because the boy didn't ask for and doesn't want this little robot coming along and messing with his life. Robots do not belong in the woods!

Quite a boring paragraph above there, but hey! Struggling with the jedi still, don't be surprised if i give up on it soon (quitting is what i do best) plus i may put up an image of the original Bear Boy soon, complete with cute-factor and his balloon.

hmmmmmmmmmm.....

Well, as you can see i am struggling with the design of the boy. It's harder than designing the robot (who still isn't finished yet) because i had a pretty clear idea of what i wanted him to look like from the start, but with the boy, not so much. I've been in the studio all day, not just working on the boy designs but writing up the script for the film which is going really well and also running some tests in Adobe After Effects. I haven't used the program since college and even then my skills on it were limited, so i am trying to teach myself the ins and outs of it and trying to get to grips with 2D-3D and multi-planing. Done a little work on the jedi, but at the moment that seems less important than my uni work. Anyways......

In the woods...

Howdy y'all. Just popping up a few more designs for my film. These are character designs for the boy who doesn't have a name yet. No prizes for guessing i'm not entirely sure what direction i want to take him yet, but i know i won't be using the top right design as it doesn't suit the character's personality.


Below are two little scenario concept paintings. The first was forced out as i really had no solid idea where i wanted to take the story and it helped me so much as now it seems that i have too many things i want to include in the film! Anyway, i know i haven't explained what the plot is yet, but maybe the second painting will give you a clue. In the meantime, i need a break from film work, so i am going to try and polish off that Jedi!

Peace

Early Character Designs

These are some super early character designs for my third year film, i know they don't look like much but they were banged out pretty quick. I am struggling with ideas this year so i am really just throwing shit at a wall at the moment and hoping some of it sticks. I'll explain the concept of the film on my next post and hopefully will have finished the jedi. In a rush though at the mo.

Ciao

Edit: I've added another row of designs. Please let me know which ones you like.

Jedi so far....

I'm in uni meant to be doing pre-production work on my film but instead i started doing this. I thought i had a solid idea for my film but i've gotten bored of it already and started to doubt it. I'm trying to come up with a new idea but i can't get Star Wars or Hellboy off my mind!

Anyway, this is no where near finished yet, i've spent ages trying to nail the pose, this is probably the 5th one. When it's done i'll post the entire process on here i think in sequential images.

Poor Droid

Hey guys. Been working on this image and decided to post it whilst it's still in progress to try and get some feed back and tips. I am still working on it, but i always seem to get to the point where i feel i've gotten the idea across and then can't be bothered to polish it up, so any help i could get on polishing the image would be great. I didn't have a plan when i started it, just did about 3 or 4 thumbnails and felt this was the strongest, so i just went with it.

Number Three

Let Me Flash You

Howdy all. Was busy this week at uni. For the last three weeks we've been messing around with Flash. I've used it before, to make my second year film, Nunzilla, but i was sort of learning it 'on the fly' back then. This time i've had a chance to actually sit down and explore more of the programs tools and what not and it's given me quite alot of ideas for my third year film which is really cool. Anyways, below are two little short things i did for the project. I hate recording and making sounds for films, i usually prefer someone else to do that, but in this case i had no choice, so they sound uber bad.

This project wasn't so much about the animation itself but more about exploring what flash can do. In the second vid i was pushing textures and masks. In the next post i'll probably put up my second year film, Nunzilla.

Space Ranger!

This is just me practicing drawing straight into photoshop (no paper! i do love paper though). I'm not great at it but i figure a doodle in it a day should fix that. Maybe i'll polish this up and colour it soon. I'd love to write more but i am uber tired.

Too much Sponge Jack and Flap Bob

I spent a good portion of today sat on my ass watching SpongeBob and Flapjack then came up to my room, whacked on a live NOFX album and drew this. Just started out as a doodle but after i scanned it in i thought i might as well add some colour and got quite into it. Really enjoyed this one.

Jurassic Ali

Was sitting around with some mates watching Jurassic Park and doodled this up. It's no where near finished but just thought i'd post it up mid-way. I've never been amazing at digital painting. I always get to a certain level with it and then stop doing it for ages. I'm going to try and keep at it now every day, doing more tutorials and stuff. Fingers crossed i actually live up to my word.

Ta Da!

Howdy. This is my blog. I can't think of much to say right now but, below is an image i painted using a tutorial from an issue of ImagineFX magazine (i can't remember the issue number or name of the guy doing the tutorial, but i think i recall it saying that he worked for Dreamworks). Anyways, my first outing with custom brushes. Let me know what you think.