The Student Project

Dude looks like a laaaadeee.

2011-03-19T18:19:00.000-07:00

So has been a while, mixture of work being a bit nuts lately and also learning 3D which is a really cool new toy to play around with.

Here is my first stab at the main girl for this fan fiction comic, kinda like the feel, but still not happy with the final result, need to sort out her face shape and I got lazy with the boots, but tis a start.

Another space pirate!Complete with hackneyed Robo hand!

2011-02-13T10:41:00.000-08:00

I'm quite liking this dude, although the colours are perhaps making him look too toony, shall have a think.

Space Pirate!He Can squat!

2011-02-12T12:33:00.001-08:00

Still trying to get a style fixed for these.

Data Clerk

2011-02-06T10:54:00.001-08:00

Not too happy with this bad boy, I need to figure out my colouring style.

Security Bot

2011-02-06T07:06:00.000-08:00

Playing around with different ways of inking.

Comic Book Generic Big Guy!

2011-02-05T15:48:00.000-08:00

This is for the fan fiction comic I'm working out, not sure if I'm ever gonna get around to doing it but tis fun figuring out the design for the characters. think I have this guy down now for what I want.

Annnnnd a quick birdy study from ref.

meh meh meh.

2011-01-30T14:10:00.000-08:00

Had all sorts of plans to do uber drawing this weekend but my office was closed, so instead here are some meh lines of a character, followed by some rushed meh colours thrown beneath and then a meh study of a landscape.

Yay for meh :D!

Mid week meh

2011-01-27T12:18:00.000-08:00

Posting this as a work in progress, there is tons wrong with the actual proportions of the drawing as well as the design of what I want the guy to be. I'll try and do a redraw for me weekend dump.

2011-01-23T12:49:00.000-08:00

Still struggling to find the balance between doing stuff for work and doing my personal shizzle, Not really able to squeeze out as much as I'd like but here are a couple of things anywho.

First another imagination face, really trying to get my values where they should be.

Second is a work in progress of a character for a comic idea thats been bouncing around my head for a while.

Old Men

2011-01-15T16:05:00.000-08:00

So a spluttering, coughing, faultering start, but a start none the less.

A few studies from ref and then one from my imagination.

Watch This Space

2011-01-08T18:51:00.000-08:00

Weeky posts starting next saturday.

Work Journal...work.

2010-06-02T08:12:00.000-07:00

Ok so it has been a while since I have updated this thing but I pinky promise that I have been busy doodling away and desperately trying to get my animation finished. Currently it is all wrapped up as far as what I will submit to get marked and I will try and get the finished video on here as soon as I get myself somewhere with a fast Internet connection.

However for the time being I need to tie up a few loose ends as far as my Production Journal is concerned so bare with me as I outline a few of my inspirations for the project.

One of the first things I stumbled upon at the start of this project was a website called videocopilot.net. It is a fantastic rare resource that offers hours of high quality and completely free tutorials on how to tackle After Effects. Being completely new to After Effects at the time I got slightly over excited at what was possible with the program when coupled with animation. This site coupled with digital 2D work I had seen from studios such as Passion Pictures and Studio AKA resulted in the reason I chose to tackle my animation in the way that I did.

Another source of inspiration along the same lines came from a freelance animator who had previously done work for Passion Pictures by the name of Stephane Coedel.

Relevant Resources
www.videocopilot.net
www.passion-pictures.com
www.studioaka.com
www.vimeo.com/steffromuk

Specific Examples from the above include:
The Beatles Rockband Intro
Space travel animation test- As an example of what is possible using After Effects.
COSMO opening title
BBC OLYMPICS ©2008 Passion Pictures
The Tadpole

Another artist who inspired me is a freelance animator and illustrator called Lois Van Baarle, her use of both colour and shape is something which really interested me.

Specific Examples from the above include:
Trichrome Blue
paperbag parachute
blitsgroup

Another resource that I couldn't have done without was the 'Richard Williams Animators Survival Kit' DVDs. Being completely new to the process of animation these DVDs were really vital when it came to learning how to breakdown movements and whatnot.

I think that is everything, If I think of anything else I shall pop back.

Thanks for looking!

Struggling.

2010-04-26T04:15:00.001-07:00

Still trying to get this pyramid scene to work.

Easter Break Blues.

2010-04-25T15:56:00.000-07:00

I am really struggling to get back into me workflow, as we are now less than four weeks away from our deadline I cant really afford to do that. So I am going to try and make a bit of a night of it, hopefully this shall be the first update of a couple for tonight/tomorrow.

A rough for one of the establishing shots. Still not quite there but I think I am getting closer.

Easter Break.

2010-04-19T03:33:00.000-07:00

Ello!

Since me last update I have had the rather exciting news that I am going to work at Disney as an intern for a year as of June! I have yet to stop bouncing off the walls or hugging random strangers or any and all other general actions of manic happiness.

I had the interview over Easter and only heard I was getting it around a week ago. The result of this meant that I have spent the whole Easter break pacing religiously and have not done a whole lot of work on my project. Time is running out, in order to get the short I want out I am going to need to work reeeeeeaaaallly hard. So here is to a diet of nothing but caffeine for the next month.

Above is what I handed in for the creative brief that was requested with the submission for the internship. The brief was to come up with a concept for an alice in wonderland video game.

thanks for looking!

Alove Work.

2010-03-26T08:20:00.000-07:00

Ok as a quick break from the animation here is some of the commission work I have been doing for Alove. Alove are the guys and gals who gave me my first ever paid job around a year ago, they really are fantastic to work for and I cant thank them enough.

These were done for a hoodie design, the first image was my first attempt but it was decided it was a little too complex to be clear when shrunken down for the hoodie.

I have completed an animatic for my animation but I am having some issues getting it onto the net as my connection is slightly rub. I go back home for three weeks tomorrow though so I shall try it there.

Thanks for looking!

meh.

2010-03-19T19:59:00.000-07:00

Ok its been a bit of a week and to top it all my work has been coming out fairly shocking hence the lack of updates.

This is something that eventually is going to be an animated scene in the short. Still have a lot to do on it, may change the composition completely as I'm not happy with it.

Wow animation is hard...

2010-03-16T08:16:00.000-07:00

I spent way too long on this and it is still clunky and poop. My very first attempt at a walk cycle, although it is more of a run cycle, or perhaps a louping trot cycle.

Anywho here it is!

Thanks for looking!

One Sheet Once

2010-03-11T16:42:00.000-08:00

I put this together whilst watching Once (SUCH a good film).

Tis called a One Sheet, basically a poster to help pitch the short idea. I may revisit it if the shabbiness bugs me too much later but it needs to be done for tomorrow.

Statue meets the dark side.

2010-03-11T14:32:00.000-08:00

This is the statue pre the bambifying of the land. Same deal as the last one, the background was done quickly to get an idea of lighting. Again I plan on revisting both in a couple of weeks to see if they need tweeking.

Need to make a poster now, hopefully should have it up tonight.

Thanks for looking!

Statue Art

2010-03-10T15:49:00.000-08:00

I have been pulling my hair out trying to get this to work. I will probably have to revisit it later when I take a fresh look at it. The statue is the important part as this will be the one I use in my actual animation. The background and the butterflies were rushed as I threw them in more to give me a better Idea of the final look.

Second Pose Sheet

2010-03-08T14:25:00.000-08:00

Some of these have gone a little off model, considering I have designed a glorified stick figure to animate I am finding it surprisingly hard to keep everything looking the same from pose to pose.

Meh, I am done for the night.

thanks for looking!

Butterflies!

2010-03-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

So its not exactly been the manliest hour or so of my life so far, but butterflies have to be drawn and gosh darn it draw them I shall.

Explored some different wing shapes. Out of the two biguns the bottom one was an attempt to be less complex with the design as I am still not sure how jumbled designs will look when it is shrunken down and animated. However as I shall need a few close up shots of the butterfly I wanted to do something a little more fancy. The way I plan on animating the butterfly should mean that I do not have to redraw the design every time, however if that plan fails I may have to rethink having any kind of design on the butterfly at all. In summary, I probably wont settle on a design until the time comes to actually animate the thing.

Pose Sheet...

2010-03-08T08:41:00.000-08:00

...for the robot.

Argh! Panic!

2010-03-08T04:09:00.000-08:00

Ok so I have been doing a commission over the weekend and as a result not a lot has been getting done for this project. So today is my day of panic and hopefully shall be filled with updates. Gonna be focusing on character designs; trying to get them nailed by the time I lose consciousness tonight/tomorrow morning.

First up turnarounds for the robot.

I'm thinking the robots gonna end up living in a land of white.

2010-03-02T10:18:00.000-08:00

Ok so I showed my storyboards and surprisingly got the all clear to go ahead with it, which was swell. It is however slowly starting to dawn on me the crazy amount of work I have gone ahead and set myself.

The last few days have all been about me trying to get my environments up to scratch. They are by far and away my weakest area but as I plan on painting all my own backgrounds for this animation I really need to get them looking purty. After several failed attempts I eventually managed to finish this one. It is still miles away from what is in my head as a place for my robot to live but I learnt a helluva lot doing it.

Thanks for looking!

Mood board, story board, I'm bored. HA! humour.

2010-02-25T17:25:00.000-08:00

Ok so today was all about the storyboard; We were given a lecture on the different processes and options available to us to complete them and this post contains me result. We were also asked to bring in a mood board tomorrow (technically today) showing our inspirations for this project. So I figured I'd lump them on here to show tomorrow/today.

Passion pictures these are the guys and gals behind the gorillas videos and numerous other adverts you will have seen and gone 'ooooo thats cool.' link.
A couple of my faves:

Beatles Rock Band Intro.
2008 BBC Olympics.

I'm digging their use of after effects to animate 2d and that's the direction I'm trying to go with this project. Also check out the sickeningly talented miss lois van baarle.

In terms of artists its a mixture of James Jean (as always) and Calum watt. Both have gorgeous line quality which I would love to be able to duplicate with this animation.

Ok storyboards.

Apologies for the shoddy quality of these but I did them all tonight and wanted to get them finished to show tomorrow. Also it doesn't have an ending yet, I have a few ideas but I'm not sure so I still have to do a couple more panels. Just to note, I got less and less certain about the story as I was doing these. I am reasonably happy that the shots are what I want but I think its a little out of my league, I am pretty sure I am going to be asked to scale it back a smidge.

And the first concept for the pyramid walls:

Thanks for looking!

I'm switching to the moving pictures side of life.

2010-02-23T10:05:00.000-08:00

Hey guys and gals,

So for those of you who don't know I have switched over to an animation module for the last half of this uni year. New people, new building, a bus pass has to get involved, my legs won't cut it anymore, big changes all round. We have only had a week there so far but at the moment I'm loving it in a very Justin Timberlake meets McDonalds kinda way.

However, apparently I have to create a work journal to coincide with my next project (a 1-2 min short animation) and as such for the next few months this blog is going to be hijacked somewhat to that end. So...script ideas!

I started out brainstorming around a song by The XX's called shelter (bit of a gorgeous song) and got some vague visuals in mind just from playing it over and over. The marbles environment picture in the last post as well as the following image were the result.

Aye, I know very rough and weird but I am really just trying to get a general mood at the moment rather than coming up with conceptual images. I'm trying to get a colour system around how the song (seriously, click it!) originally made me feel; thinking a transformation from cold to warm.

Anyway that was the point I was at when we had our first script writing lecture which made me rethink the whole thing slightly. Still want the same sort of feel, just with a little bit of narrative thrown in.

So my thoughts were to have a very barren, cold, blue tinted landscape with a robot chasing a butterfly, (anyone scoffing 'your a girl' at this point can suck my big toe) he chases it in a childlike clumsy sort of fashion tripping over once cracking his little metal head but shaking it off and carrying on.

Early Robot concepts.

Rough butterfly concepts. I Had to find a design that
was plain and simple enough not to look cluttered when
it was shrunk down. Still have to work on it.

A quick experiment to see how the flat colours of the robot would mix
with a more painterly background.
Not loving this as a concept for the landscape though. I'm going to have to work on it.

The butterfly then comes to settle down on what looks to be a tall boulder, the robot pounces on it, clamping his hands down over the butterfly and looks all smug with himself. However as the robot lifts his hands he sees that the butterfly has disappeared, clambering down off the boulder he looks all around him to see where it has gone and finds that he is standing in the center of a square shape on the floor. Looking back towards the boulder he sees that it is in fact not a boulder but a stone version of himself; identical in every way except for the crack on his head which he got from falling over. He tentatively touches the stone face only to find that the whole statue crumbles into rubble. Suddenly out of the four sides of the square, four walls shoot up enclosing the robot in a pyramid. There is a shot of the robot looking scared within the pyramid, only lit by the light on his chest and then slowly his face settles into one of resolution and his eyes/body/haven't truly decided yet, start to light up. Cut to a long shot from the outside of the pyramid and you see that engravings along the pyramid walls begin to light up in a similar fashion. (still have to do some concept images for this, not sure of the look yet) The pyramid explodes outwards to reveal a tornado of butterflies shooting up into the gloomy clouds above and causing them to draw back revealing a blue sky. Simultaneously an aura of light floods out from the base of the pyramid turning the cold barren landscape into one of lush green filled with flowers, trees, Bambi, Thumper and the like ( I jest of course, Bambi shall not be making a guest appearance in my animation). The final shot is a single butterfly (on a backdrop of green fields and numerous other butterflies) coming to rest on a stone statue of a robot, one with a crack in his head.

And that is what I have so far. Its incredibly cheesy but those who know me know that I am all about the cheese. It is also very early days, I have never animated before and more than likely this is going to be far too epic and I may have to scale it down. However for things like the butterfly tornado I have seen a few tools in after effects that may make that fairly simple to pull off.

Thanks for looking!

Oh yeah! I have a blog!

2010-02-14T05:22:00.001-08:00

Aye I know, I know, its been a shamefully long time.

I would love to have an excuse; failed hardrive, I had to donate my kidney to charity, the dog ate my wacom tablet. Alas I have none, but what I do have is a few bits and pieces to show and a promise to be a little more productive with this blog in the future.

At least thats the plan.

Thanks for looking!

Uni Stuff

2009-06-07T11:07:00.001-07:00

Just some doodles for Uni

Four

2009-03-20T16:54:00.000-07:00

...and this may very well be the last of em for now, depending on me deadline.

Three

2009-03-19T09:57:00.000-07:00

Eight more to go...this ones a little more messy than I would have liked...

Two

2009-03-19T09:30:00.001-07:00

9 more to go

One

2009-03-16T09:56:00.000-07:00

Ten more to go.

A New Project

2009-02-18T15:54:00.000-08:00

We have recently had our newest project launch at uni and I thought I would upload some very early brainstorming pages for it.

A look back

2009-02-10T16:34:00.000-08:00

We have been set a project on my course to complete 30 self portraits. I like doing these as it always reminds me of the image below. The first picture in this image was created when I was 16 years old, I found it when hunting through my gcse sketchbooks, needless to say, I received a glorious E for my effort. When I was 18 I did the self portrait beneath it as a comparison.

At the grand old age of 21 this last image is the one I am currently working on, and rapidly losing patience with.

T-Shirt Designs!

2009-02-10T05:07:00.000-08:00

So I am desperately trying to get better at doing some t-shirt designs, some of these are more successful than others, it is a learning curve for me.

Note that some credit for the idea behind the cat one has to lay with my brother and his experiences in babysitting felines!

The West Bush Sketch and a Supervillain!

2008-11-23T09:19:00.000-08:00

So the idea behind this Blog was to try and update, if not daily, then weekly, and if not weekly then at the very least monthly. The way this Blog is shaping up however it seems like an update shall be much more of an annual event, perhaps with the nostalgic, cosy feel that accompanies Christmas. Or perhaps even have an Olympic nature with an artistic dump once every 4 years...

I could even go to different countries each time I wish to update...

...

No no no, enough silliness, I still hold out a small hope that someday this shall be a regularly updated section of the world wide web, and in the spirit of that I have started another Blog! This one is a collaboration between me and a friend of mine on my course. The aim is to enter different artistic competitions and gain lots of first places, and if not that then at least to encourage us to draw all that much more.

The Blog is called 'The West Bush Sketch' and is in its infancy, but we have high hopes. Please do check it out.

Here is the first competition entry I did for it, under the topic of 'supervillain'.

Portrait

2008-10-24T10:19:00.000-07:00

Stole an image from facebook.

Did a digi painting of it.

Should have finished it.

Lazy.

Ah the wonders of the internet.

Brothers Blog

2008-10-16T10:38:00.000-07:00

I have spent the whole day re-designing my brothers Blog, take a look at the innards of his glorious noogin here.

Mini Sketchbook

2008-10-14T08:13:00.001-07:00

One of the things i have always struggled with is drawing from life. In an effort to solve this problem I went ahead and purchased myself a tiny pocket sized sketchbook which I am able to whip out when on the bus, in a lecture or waiting in my best mates room for him to return from his kickboxing class.
Here are some odds and ends from that book from the past month or so.

A Start...

2008-10-13T11:29:00.000-07:00

So I have been in the wonderful land of University now for a little over a month and have decided to keep a record of the artistic ups and downs of my time here.

My hope for this Blog is that it shall serve as an archive for my rather desperate attempts at reaching a professional level and then, eventually, a promotion tool.

So here, as a first update, a snippet of some of the sketchbook work I have done over the past month or so.