Back from the dead

This blog has been dead for over a year now. I shouldn't let that happen, but spare time is a rare thing for me, and it's filled with freelance work doing things I'm not passionate about. But, I get to contribute to a group effort at my awesome day job which reminds me that despite the path I chose to take in animation (which I love,) I am still an artist at heart. I'm glad I've been reminded of this through the bi-weekly exercises we take part in. I'm usually the last person to submit an image, and almost always wait until the last bloody minute to do it, but when I get to it, I get lost in it and don't want to stop. I love that. It's what set me on this path in the first place, and I can't forget that.

I have so much to learn, and there's no excuse for me not taking my artistic ability further. I need to do Life Drawing, I need regular artistic exercise and I need to get more serious about improving. I'll just leave these here for now. I'll be posting more soon.

Papercraft!

I've found a new obsession; Papercraft. I've made two models in the past two weeks, and already, I have big plans for my next one. I'm absolutely smitten by this new hobby, so much so that it probably isn't good for me. I don't know why spending hours upon hours cutting tiny little strips of paper and gluing them together brings me so much joy and deep satisfaction, but it does. I guess the payoff is worth it, when you can have a nice looking statue that you can actually touch after you're finished.

That sounded dirty.

Anyway, here are some pics:




Yoda. This little guy's nose was ridiculously tiny. You wouldn't believe how nerve-wracking it was to make all those tiny little folds, using only two x-acto blades. I don't think I'm gonna make a tiny model like this one again. You can see my wife's finger there holding my cellphone up to it to show the tiny scale. The freakin' thing is tiny.




Here's the back view. Did I mention he's tiny?



The pdo for this model can be found here, if you're familiar with Pepakura and papercraft. If not, I suggest you click here. Other Star Wars characters are also available here.



Shadow the hedgehog was my first build, before I did Yoda. I'll probably do Sonic before too long. You don't need Pepakura for these, you can just print out the PDF files and off you go. They're in japanese, though. My wife did the hello kitty one.




More back views...




More to come...

Studies

Well, I finally got around to making some use outta the older Preston Blair books I've had for a while. John K is an inspiring person for me, and he swears by Preston Blair as THE animator to emulate if you want to learn solid drawing skills. So, here I am, taking that advice, even though I've been drawing for the better part of my existence. I can never learn enough. I may not be a traditional hand-drawn animator, but I admire the skill and have a great deal of respect for people who really can do animation by hand. I want to carry as much of that knowledge as I can into what I do on a computer. A strong drawing ability will aid absolutely anything you do that pertains to graphic arts and animation, regardless of the medium and it's frightening for me to think that I might ever let that go.

I'll start with this Porky Pig, that isn't by Preston Blair. This is copied from a frame grab of an old Looney Tunes cartoon that John K posted on his blog a while back.



And below are the Preston Blair studies I've done, from the first few pages of the book.









Not from the original book with the better drawings, but I paid for these, so I might as well use 'em.

Dragon in Flight

Dragon Flight Cycle from Rocktave on Vimeo.

I did this a few months ago, and was playing around with the sound. I still plan to take this dragon into Zbrush and detail the hell out of it. I'll probably go all out on the textures and re-upload the animations.

Work Doodles

These are somewhat inspired by Jim Smith. Pretty wonky, though. I still have so much to learn.

A few more graphite etchings

Or "sketches," as some people like to call them.


He's playing Rock Paper Scissors with his imaginary friend...




This guy's playing his own weird hand game.



Nice view.




An old co-worker of mine.




This is Christina Ricci... well, the two on the right. Back when she was super cute and not a bag o' bones like she is now.




This is Moe's happy face.




This was one o' those random line experiments to see what I could come up with based on a few scribbles to start with. These are fun exercises to do.

Blog Bot

I did this animation last year, after another incredible animator named Tyson Ibele did a tutorial and uploaded the rigged model... I couldn't help myself, so I tried my hand at it. Very simple set-up, but it was so much fun to animate. I just recently added sound to it.