At what point in your career...?

It was mostly a feety day, but we did get some heads in there. I noticed that drawing feet doesnt seem to hold my attention that much. No surprises there...but still, I kept drawing. I mean, its not like I've mastered this stuff. And not everything you get asked to draw is that cool/entertaining/appealing...

Anyhow, I must not be the only one bored by feet, because in the middle of when the model was posing, amidst the dead silence, someone raised their hand and asked  "Karl, at what point in your career did you feel like you could say no to projects?" Karl told her to keep drawing and that this was a talk for later. LOL. but  People were laughing, and Sue, our resident witty comic and coffee provider blurted out, "After you learn to draw feet.."

What an funny question. Anyone want to chime in, or take a stab at it? I know how I feel but its more fun to hear other people's opinions.

 

RU 486 ANIMATIC update

Added more drawings, did some small tweaks, added subtle camera movement. Def learned a lot from this. The next animatic I create will be in Storyboard pro, not After Effects.

RU 486 ANIMATIC

I once had a very good friend and colleague who I respect very much tell me "Never do drama in animation." He was referring to a beautifully rendered out and poignant project they had been working on for many months that was completely conceptualized, and then suddenly canned in the development phase. I think what my friend was getting at, is that Animation is never taken seriously in this country.

So what did I do?

I sold all of my worldly possessions, moved to LA, and tried to do drama in Animation...You might be thinking, I don't get it Stef, where's the punch line here? There is no punch line. I'm actually that foolish. Here is my first RAGGED attempt at an animatic. At least now I have proof that I can do video and editing, and not just drawings...

Structure, Structure, Structure ( I know this is getting boring..)

Karl said these drawings were "strong" ::happydance:: but that I need to focus on simplifying and working on tone. He also told me to make sure I draw the side plane of the nose. For some reason I never draw that, which is bizarre..

LΛDY Designs

Some designs for a show called Lady that I worked on this week..

Zombie Baby Walk

Happy Halloween Folks!

Was being lazy and ran out of paper...

So I started drawing on some old copy paper I had lying around. I'm not sure if I like the results. We'll see if this motivates me to get off my lazy arse and head over to blicks...Anyhow, we drew the model AND our friends today. I always wondered why no other head drawing classes made us do this. IMHO The more variations of people you're forced to draw the better you become. Some folks only like to draw "idealized" portraits and people who are models. I think drawing everyday people is important, if not more important. I feel like models can be boring because their facial proportions are sometimes so normal/boring. I like people who have interesting faces.

More Development Sketches

Will be posting these from time to time. A size comparison chart. A final design for our love interest, Anca. A story moment. Yes this cartoon is rated R...

Lifting Fail...

Oh Shut up Already...

Working in TV Paint with an audio clip from "Cat's Don't Dance" to see how whacked out I can get Darla to look during her freak out moment. One of my first digital animations so go easy!

Briar Rose in betweens

The FINAL "doosey" of an assignment Alex gave us for Traditional Animation. In between Briar Rose from Sleeping Beauty. Yikes...

UPDATE: I noticed a frame that was off, and fixed it here... 

BEAST is BACK!

After 3 months of being stuck on the command shell screen, I finally fixed BEAST! Aka Moro, my desktop computer with the tricked out hardware. Just testing out how everything is running in PS, I had been having some problems with brush lag in PS, but it seems to be related to how hot it is in my apartment....as long as it doesn't hit 100 again outside I think we're ok...

This is me focusing on Structure

Well, I hate to say it, but the class is actually called head, HANDS and feet, so last night was mostly about hands. Last night seemed like such a clusterf*ck for Karl. People kept interrupting him or the drawing session to ask questions about hands. I'll admit hands are intimidating, but in some sense I feel like no amount of talking makes it any easier, at least for me. I think just like anything else you have to throw yourself into it and just do it, and the more hands you draw, the easier it will be... I realized hands are just like bodies in that they  have a gesture to them. They're just like heads in that they have an underlying structure. In my humble opinion, if you can combine those two things while you're drawing, its a bit easier to wrap your head around it.

We had Keith last night. He's great.

More head drawings from Karl's Class

So apparently structure is the biggest thing people miss when drawing the head. Its the difference between a successful drawing, and a not so successful one..

Jumping Fail

Drawing Like an Animator

Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to draw like an animator. I never liked the "stiff" looking poses I saw in comic books and always wondered how animators got that "je ne sais quoi" that made their work really leap off of the page and seem as though it were actually alive.
 It turns out, part of what I've been searching for this whole time is volume, weight, and structure. Its that emphasis and understanding of the underlying structure that really sells a drawing and makes it seem real. Where others might be more concerned with the colors and details, animators are trying to understand volume, weight, structure and the mechanics of how things turn in space.
I'm striving to get more of that in my own personal work. These are some (rough) development sketches for a series I would like to create.