September crept(ember) right on up!

No idea if that title makes sense. Here are a few things from recently; two of these I sketched out then scanned in and tried to clean up a bit. Not sure why I haven't done that more recently, certainly good practice.

Definitely lost some energy between the two, not a fan with how the legs came out in the cleaner version as well.

I really liked the head shape in the rough sketch for this one, pretty happy with the cleaner version as well. The pose is pretty awkward in both, and the shapes of the body could follow a more consistent logic (should have finished that arm too). I liked this one though, was good practice! I included a close up as well since it's primarily what I focused on.

August! August! August!

Some wonky stuff in these but I LIKE EM.

Somethineruther

A breeze that finds something cute, an Awwgust

Been practicing drawing/visualizing form lately, here are a few recent attempts (from photos). I think the fire hydrant and the lamp are going in a good direction, but that table didn't go quite as well.

Gonna keep going with these!

Tri July!

Saw this picture of a young Helen Mirren on Reddit's OldSchoolCool subreddit and figured why not, a little value practice. It came out a bit grainy and I had to adjust the contrast a bit (the camera I took it with shoots at a decent resolution but I think my terrible lighting made things tough), but it works well enough. Also some faces from some time semi recently!

ORANGEPINKGREEN

Couldn't think of a good title. Just a scan of a sketch from my sketchbook that I did some quick lines and color over in PS.

And the original sketch.

Gonna keep at it... be back soon!

Napkin

Here's a little sketch I did on a napkin the other night. Nothing crazy but I kinda like it; decided to throw a little blue over it and I feel like the napkin texture worked out in a way.

Pen gestures and sketches

Been a little again since I've updated, gotta get the ball rolling again. I generally don't scan in gestures (can be rather unintelligible) and I'm generally pretty bad at scanning in sketchbook things but, I was pleasantly satisfied with this batch from last night/today so I figured it was worth a scan.

The first couple were a mix of random sketches as well as referenced drawings, and the last two are primarily 30 and 60 second gestures.

Knight, Sphere

Here's a little sketch I did yesterday, sorta like how it came out.



Been looking at Johannes Helgeson's art a bunch lately, feel like I definitely missed out on seeing his work when I went to conceptart.org regularly! Really inspiring work! Yeah though, he recently posted about an old post on CA called the Peer Project that was headed by another great artist, Tom Scholes. It's got some great exercises for improving rendering and color, I figured it's worth a shot! Tried out some sphere's lately, this is the best of the bunch. It's definitely helping, at the very least it's making me consider edges a bunch more.



Pretty lumpy eh? BABY STEPS

Drive, MCA

Couple of things, first up is a sketch that quickly turned into Ryan Gosling in Drive. Had to try my hand at it!



And a picture I drew of MCA from the Beastie Boys in the video for the song Intergalactic. Doesn't look like him but wanted to do something for him. He'll be missed!

Standin on planes

Some photoshop sketches! After looking at some artists and doing some studies, I've started to drop perspective lines to help me ground the character in space a bit better. Not a super complicated idea but it's definitely helping a bunch I think. That's also why they're standing on rectangles in these.






Realized afterwards they are standing at pretty similar angles and are facing the same way. Gotta vary it up!

Caps, Coats, and a Chick

Slight delay in this post, had some things I wanted to put up then got sick. Back with em now though!

First up are some sketches I did in PS looking at the blog The Sartorialist. Some really great photographs of people will all sorts of fashion, great to draw from. Definitely get some interesting shapes I wouldn't have thought up myself. 

I darked out her eye because the image sorta looked sinister, but probably also because I was listening to Nightcall by Kavinsky a bunch. These next ones are some digital studies, pretty loose overall (specifically the second). The first one is actually a little chick towel I have sitting on my desk, second one is from an image.

Walk Angry

...is what the guy at the bottom of this post is doing. Or attempting to at least. Some recent sketches as well!




Aaand the walk cycle, wanted him to look a bit more angry this time. Lots of fun, learned a bunch, and noticed things that could be improved (head bounce seems like it could be retimed?).

Some sketches

That's probably a duplicate title, if it's not then it'll become one soon. Some more random sketches I scanned in, just messing with shape and proportions mostly.










And this one is just a quicker sort of attempt in finish. I don't do enough finished work, something I'd like very much to change; just have to keep experimenting in the end I guess.

Update update update

2012! Last post was once again about 4 months ago if I count correctly, can't make that a trend. I've got a few recent things, figure I should post up something just to get the ball rolling.

Going oldest to newest, here's a sketch I did at work a few weeks ago that I liked. The paper it was on was a bright yellow and had a Soup2Nuts symbol on it, so I shopped it out then changed the background color to white.



These next few are sketches from the last day or so, some sketches out of my head and some studies from a Fred Moore short "All the Cats Join In" 







Last but not least is a walk cycle. Been slowly but surely learning how to animate in Maya, mostly been practicing walk cycles.



Learned recently you could embed quicktime movies with Dropbox, really cool stuff! Yes though I'm going to try and update more frequently, even if the updates are just sketches/studies. So until the next update!

And since the first line fits well: http://youtu.be/kbrS_rTOmDY

In before October

Back with some sketches, a drawing done in flash, and the walk cycle I came up with for that robot.

I tend to forget alot of times that doing some quick sketches from reference is a really good way to get the gears going. I haven't sketched in photoshop (or in a raster/pixel based program for that matter) for a little while up to this point, so these were helpful for getting my hand to steady on the tablet a bit more. The judo throw is from reference, though everything else came after and was from imagination.

This was mostly practice in process; I did a rough sketch, laid in the structure, then started blocking in colors and adding details. As I worked though I quickly began to dislike my color choices, pose, and proportions, so I just wrapped it up so I could move on. It is a full body shot but I feel that this is the only area that came out well. EDIT: Forgot to mention this was done in Flash.

And last but not least, here's an attempted walk cycle for the robot. I was really stubborn about how his feet should move (no bend in the feet themselves) hoping it would add to the character. Unfortunately I went with a more standard walk so it ended up not coming out exactly as I wanted (if I were to go back and do it again I'd make it more stompy I think). Once I finished the legs I just laid in basic motion for the rest of the body, figure I can mess with the timing and spacing later on should I feel like it. Fun practice working with symbols either way.

A long time comin'

So 4 months almost to the day, eh? Been a looooong time; I am back with something though! Been quite a varied 4 months, got my first taste of some freelance work among other things. I learned quite alot and I've been trying to apply those things I learned to my personal work. I HAVE been doing personal art the last 4 months (observational and sketchbook work as usual, as well as working my way through Preston Blair bit by bit) I've just been quite lazy on scanning (plus I figure gestures and studies get boring to look at... not that that doesn't mean I shouldn't dump em all on here every once in a while). ALL GONNA CHANGE THOUGH, got some sketchbook drawings as well as two things I've done in Flash.

Now, assuming you aren't reading this in an RSS reader, you've likely noticed the new BG and banner. I don't have a blue shirt with a fist on it, that grey-brown of pants, nor am I that round in face or smug in expression (and I'm almost positive that sort of swirl in the BG has been done many, many times), but I was pretty happy with it. I'll post up the image by itself shortly.

ENOUGH TALK, TO THE WORK..!

This little grey guy with the glowy eyes is a robot I made in Flash. The thing with him, however, is that he is made up of symbols within Flash and I plan to animate him sooon. Figure it's good practice animating with symbols and it'll be nice seeing what I can do with em.

And the BG image. I kinda like the fast render version in Flash, might export that and put it up later.

MORE TO COME. Also, sorry I apologize if anything is difficult to read, still working out which colors work with this set up.

some doodles in flash

Just some small things I've done here and there (all the little animations were from today) in flash recently. I'm sure I've said it before but I've improved so much from working with other people, specifically 3 or 4 people I've seen a bunch more in the past months. I won't mention names (THIS TIME) but I just wanted to say thanks as always!

All the animations below were done straight ahead, which kinda explains some of the screw ups (no real bounce and the pelvis sinks in the walk, the legs don't perform the same way in the leg jump thing that stick out to me). Also gifs don't seem to support animation done on 1s; really only effects the ball with the green legs this time, but annoying nonetheless. Ahh well, can't really complain in the end.