Keeping It Going

So I might go a month between posts or have the ability to do several back to back to back posts. Look at that! So now that Shot Bar is out I'm going to toss up some of these. These are a collection of some of the favorite head shots of mine that I did for the game. Basically for the game I did just about all of the art assets (bottles, labels, pour animation, expression changes on the characters.) As I noted before it had to be kept to real simple animation but in the end really super animation would have probably distracted from the potential pace of the game. All in all I had to do quite a few characters but they were all bust shots. Some of the above shots were first passes after which corrections had to be made. I learned quite abit on streamlining my own work flow through this project.







I think I'm sold on the whole flatting plugin. I've never been able to get crisp flats like this before. I've gotten the color flat process down of course but this method just really works. If your lines are crisp and tight, this works. There are a few tricks though. First you need to get the line art layer to all black and white or as close as possible. Sometimes you might need to use Image > Adjustments > Threshold to do this but using Levels might work as well. I like using Threshold though but then after awards you may need to go in with the pencil and close in line breaks that might occur. Then you duplicate the line art layer and use the flatting plug in. I just leave it on the default settings suggested on their own site - and it works. It fills in all the closed in areas with their own color and then you just go in with the paint bucket and replace. Between this and still playing around with a cel shading style, I've been able to more quickly do some color pieces and enjoy doing so.

Shot Bar

This past spring I had an opportunity to work for a company in regards to the release of an Iphone app puzzle game named 'Shot-Bar.' I pretty much did all of the major art assets for the game. Character Animation was unfortunately forced to be very limited to subtle expression changes considering the involved budget but I'm pleased with its final look with all of the assets together and running. Check it out. Better yet; try it out! We want these independent game makers and others to do good!

Model Sheet - Updated

I kinda like how this portfolio page looks overall so I'll just post the entire page even though some of this art is new. In particular I did a pass at coloring Kongou's new front face design (which of course -now- the older faces are all off model if I go with this new one. Hah.)

As I may have noted before, his facial features are all much more rounded out now, leading to a much heavier, squashy, chin compared to before. It won't have the chiseled from stone look of Tyr or the 'Hi. Shonen Hero here!' look of Riot but rather much more weighty and massive and should be fun to do squash and stretch and heavy secondary action with. In fact I might just start some tests right after I do a few more mouth shape drawings.

I also stumbled across a plugin for photoshop that makes doing color flats so easy (assuming your lines are really tight). I came across this plugin from this guy's blog This guy is so inspiring and awesome he makes me want to Dropkick and Legsweep him!! I mean, do we honestly need anymore intimidation out there??

Anyway: http://projectwaldo.blogspot.com/ - check him out! But this Flatting plugin can be found http://www.bpelt.com/psplugins/flatting.html - It was tricky to figure out at first but I got such crisp flats on Kongou's head that I almost want to go back and redo some old pieces now - but I'll save giving it a true trial run on a few new ones I'm working out. If someone else tries this out, let me know how it goes and I can try and help.

Tackling Model Sheet's Again

So ARMsmasters is being more seriously and diligently pursued of late. In fact I may be putting a website up related to it, or at least a dedicated blog, to chart the progress that's happening. It's been very cool and quite interesting. Here's an alpha line up of several of the characters as they stand so far.

I recently begun seriously retackling the model sheet process and started with a super familiar character in the form of Kongou. I found that I draw him somewhat differently then I did when I first did those face model sheet's some time back. My real intention was to do what is called a 'construction' test. For character animation, even the most simple characters need constructon breakdowns so that other animators can see the basic shapes involved and learn how to draw the character. Also when you are the designer and the animator and the artist it's easy to not think about things like this because you're doing it all but when you have a 'crew' of people, friends or co-workers, who also have to work on the same project, being able to decipher the what, how and why of a character is very important. It's no longer about your instinct.



A friend of mine tackled doing a construction drawing of Kongou's head and then I did a second pass over his rough sketches. What we found was that Kongou's basic face construction is somewhat egg shaped, though somewhat more bottom heavy much like some caricatures of a gorilla. Alot of his features extend around his head from the ears. There are other things that can be gleaned as well. I'll be doing more of these sketches now and also tackling the finer details of the character's face and then the body.

Moar Animation

I was recently able to complete an updated reel that I'm much happier with compared to my last one. It's much shorter and more condensed with some shots re-timed and some newly tied down shots.

Getting to this reel was abit of an annoyance. I was working on some new animation and spent lots of time doing so but then decided it wasn't going to go into the reel! Let's hear it for wasted time! It's so easy to start with big plans then realize you have no time at all and then run out of time all together.

But working on animation is as much trying things and deciding what doesn't work as much as it is going with something that does so such 'waste of time' isn't really a waste when viewed in light of learning. Or so I tell myself!

I've a slightly longer version of this reel, by about 30 seconds or so, that I'll toss onto youtube soon but for now, have this one.

A Quick Post

It's been awhile since I"ve posted and actually I've been doing lots of art and animation related work I've just neglected to catch my sites up. Here's one of a series of commissions I've been doing, lately. I'll start catching up sketches and other assorted things soon.

Kongou Cel Shade

I'd already uploaded this image but decided to re-tackle it after I talked with some friends and got some ideas - and this time I decided to pay attention to..you know..light direction, volume, etc. Silly unimportant things like that.

More seriously, I'm happier now and when I first tackled it I went into Cel-Shading frenzy, trying this and that without really paying attention to some basic things. Now I think I'm locking in a personal style for this type of coloring. It's still got some creative lighting going on, but hey, I'm an artist - so that's my prerogative (and I'm sticking by that excuse over it being 'a mistake!)

It's been a busy month or so. Lots of things happening that should be fruitful. More posts on this and that soon.

Axis Mundi - Armsmasters

Axis Mundi: - The World Pillar - World Tree - Cosmic Axis, Center Point of Creation -

This is what I'm thinking of calling my Armsmasters 'shonenesque' action fantasy project/pitch as the story points develop more and the character cast solidifies and grows. I started this as a piece as another exercise in cel shading techniques and because I was lacking a good group shot of the most complete of my character designs - and though this is still a WIP - having done this I feel I can mostly let go of these guys and start tackling the next group (about 12 distinct characters total)

I'm on my vacation in about two days so we'll see how much sketching and drawing I get done when out!

Why yes, I am an animator...

I happen to be an animator. This means on occasion I have the luxury of doing animation.
(For this post we are going to try blogger's ability to embed videos and see if it's worth using or no. So far it's getting a B-.)




These pencil tests are part of a work in progress for a client but posting these should be fine. They are rough animation for what would/should end up being a boxing game. Keyword here is 'rough animation' and 'work in progress.' I like to think the little errors and mistakes give it life! (That is until the boss sees them - then they give death!)




I'm starting to key out shots related to my action-fantasy world and story idea - some of which have appeared in recent postings. Here we have another set of keys that are basically a shot of Kongou's foot after making one of his 'Watch out, I'm huge!" entrances. Another few keys should smooth it out a little more in some places. (And of course camera shake and then debris/dust/etc.)



As above, I'm keying out shots and laying out scenes for my action fantasy/morality play. Here's what I like to call a 'Pocahontas' shot wherein I go crazy trying to get some neat looking hair animation. These are just the first pass at the initial keys - wherein I realized I need more keys to properly sell the shot. But the constant 'work in progress' nature of animation is what draws me in. This shot is part of my revisionist efforts for my old senior film/action fantasy/moral tale idea (of which several posts on this blog have also been about) and I hope to have several completed shots by the end of the summer.

Thou Shalt Not Neglect

Things have been somewhat busy of late with a few side projects and some personal projects and some paid projects and family emergencies and just tons of stuff - but here - have some old sketches. Been a little slow on the rendering side these days, but got some plans for that as well, soon!

Color Line Tests

Nothing much to say here except that not long ago I was doing some quick color tests on a few shots. Just beginner ones. I never did plan to take my film all the way to color and even right now I'd rather move forward then backwards. Normally this sorta thing would be the purview of a completely different department but us 'indy' folk and school animators have to be one man studios, so to speak!

Now the color flat tests are self explanatory but I also wanted to try my hand at doing tone. Unfortunately at the time I didn't really know the 'process' for doing tones properly so I sort of winged it! I'm sure to the eye of the FX artist the tone tests aren't all there but it was my first time, at the time and I'm okay with how it looks for a first attempt.

May 2009 Reel Edit

First new pencil test reel I've uploaded here in awhile though I've had a few other ones. The difference being that the other ones I've had, I've not uploaded due to having animations I can't actually show yet due to freelance contract obligations - what's on here I'm comfortable with showing as it's mostly a re-cut of my older reel plus some new personal works and freelance work. I was even too lazy to change the music, hah. But if it was working, it was working.

I like this edit and made some adjustments based on suggestions given to me. It feels more complete now and together as opposed to disjointed and I look forward to adding new animations in.