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.

Fite Scene!! Rough Animation

Some time ago I decided to start putting together a very rough sequence of animation and started to put together a new series of videos using the characters I had created for my world/story/project/whatever it is - Armsmasters. So what we have here are a series of pencil tests + animatics for a sequence that takes place during a tournament between the characters Riot and Kongou. It's simple and incomplete. Very rough animation with a few tied down - but it's a work in progress and an in process exercise and I need to post more of these and experiment more. More to come soon.

More Unposted Art

I've not been totally lax, just bounced back and forth between some freelance projects and teaching and getting my new portfolio and reel together, and new submissions, and etc etc etc.

Some works in progress here.

A New Look - Whoops, Where'd My Links Go....

I've neglected thee, oh art blog, for too long now - and as you are at present my online 'website', I must fix this situation with some new updates....Oops, I deleted my long link list.. Gonna take awhile to get this updated.

In the meantime have some art! The above are some layout drawings from my revisiting of my characters from my senior film last year. The beginnings of this were seen not long ago when I posted the start of some revised model sheets. We'll see how far I go with making this more sophisticated!

Quick Feb Update!

Yeesh, it's already been a month? Yeesh, it's already been a month? - Well not quite. I suppose I last posted on the 25th of Jan, but still, it's already Feb. The year is moving along swiftly. The sudden arrival of freelance animation deadlines plus some other looming things caused me to have to step back from doing personal work. I had wanted to post the rest of Kongou's model-sheets up and his action pose in one go, but I'll settle for bits here and there.




Also, for something unrelated - I'm doing some work on the side for a local gaming event and this was the logo concept for it. So more WiP stuff here. They decided to go another direction with the logo, (they planned on selling t-shirts and so couldn't use copywritten characters which is fine - there was just a little miscommunication at first but thats the nature of the beast) but I figured I'd post mine anyway as I really liked how the silohettes of Ryu, Ken and Chun-Li came out. Fodder for future fan-art rendering.

Quick Jan. Update

In between paid projects and submissions, I've been working on noodling off and on with my own pet story and project as some of my storyboard samples should show, and I've been anticipating amping things up to another level in terms of finished quality and final products. These are just two images of what looks to be the final variation of my cast of characters for my action-fantasy concept. First up is one familiar to friends and visitors; Kongou.





For Kongou I decided to dial the proportions down to something that would be a little more 'animatable' whiel still retaining the trademark Hulk+Juggernaut+King Kong hugeness that the char seems liked for. Although some recent marker renderings had me playing with shorter hair I went back to the longer hair because I felt it helped to contrast the aesthetics of his broad features and I felt brown hair was more 'earthen' like since the characters theme are warm colors and earth tones and elemental abilities as part of both personality and abilities.

I shortened the three strands jutting up from his forhead considerably from what they were like in my senior film of last May but added the grey-streak in there to break up the colors of the face just a little bit. Also the Sumo-Wrestler inspired brush like pony tail contributes to the notion of the character as a super-powered martial artist, sumo-wrestleresque grappler.

I"ve not completed the front-view yet for the body but the goal is to do a front model shot, a front 'pose' shot that's fully rendered, some more facial expressions and some close up of his few accessories (in this case the shows, gloves and bracers, club) and finally an official profile. Then on to the next:

New Sample Boards

I cranked the majority of these out over the course of a day or so in order to book end some older ones I hadn't finished yet, mainly to get some better storyboard samples for my portfolio and I tried to make sure I incorporated some tips I received from a professional board artist I was very fortunante enough to make contact with.

I've had this vision in my head for a long time now of these characters and this world setting and this was just an effort to create some conflict between two characters. I actually timed this out in animatic form and others felt it read just fine, which was a good thing. (Needed a couple of timing tweaks at the time.) I'll get around to posting that animatic at some point soon.

More rendering of older sketches and drawings. A bigger update with some more storyboard drawings is on the way.

Cathak Darius - WIP

This is a Work In Progress of a character named Cathak Darius. It'd been awhile since I tackled photoshop rendering and I felt somewhat rusty with this hence it's WIP status. I sort of just dived in with the intention of trying new things out - so it's still somewhat rough, in my estimate, and obviously unfinished but on its way though I may never actually totally finish it.

Darius is interesting in that he's a Fire-Aspect Exalted (those familiar with the game know what I'm talking about - if you're not then ignore this part.) yet is described as wearing alot of 'cool' colors as opposed to your usual association of warm and hot colors for 'Fire'.

Moar Art

I've had the opportunity to get some nice little projects onto my resume and portfolio but now I'm kicking it up a notch in terms of sending things out there to studios in hopes of looking for more long term work.

Here are some marker renderings plus rough sketches with quick color slapped on them. Recently I started getting into the habit of taking rough sketches and just tossing color on them in photoshop just to see what I got as opposed to feeling like I needed to have super clean line-art to color for 'finished pieces'. Color without fear or care for it being super neat is quite fun, no?

November Art Dump

It's been awhile since I did an update on here. Things have been pretty interesting but in a mostly good way.

These are just some rough designs and sketches and all that. It's self explanatory really. I do have some animations I've been doing as well but I"m not at liberty to show them yet due to them being for actual projects! The last image was for some freelance work, recently done, which was a fun experience.