2011

2011 continued with some turmoil, but kept things in check when I was in the studio working. School was the place to be....

 And Snoggle got a revamp

Working a different set of proportions, I thought Snoggle would work better from an animating standpoint, if his legs were longer. This meant lengthening the rest of his body as well. His shield was shrunk to the size of a buckler and his mismatched armor carried into this version as well. That's an example of what I was saying before with making a revision, and having the characteristics  keep the toon's continuity. 

Comparison

 I also researched cosmonauts and astronauts uniforms. I then fitted Snoggle into a blending of the two in the pose that he had been known for. Of course in this case, he would be holding a flag, not a spear.

 And further refined in Adobe Illustrator with vector weighted lines..which is a great toolset by-the-way.

The school was also using a program called Animation Master. It uses spline/patch modeling to create the objects. Not my first choice for animation work, but it was an interesting trial, working out the rabbit's head.

 The Demon girl with Pet started out as my usual blue pencil wash and was refined with the previously described technique. Then a layer of tracing paper was put down to work through the folds of the dress. It was all based on goth clothing from reference. We'll see the finish in the 2012 update.

The Flyer

                 

 The Flyer combined color pencil wash with color pencil dry and some Photoshop cleanup. While not entirely successful, it's a good example of finding the form within the mass, such as the mechanical bits in the center of the vehicle.

                                 Took a little break from characters and worked on some vehicles. This one, based on the lead character's car in the film  Mad Max Roadwarrior, has been 'toonized'. It's kind of like ordering a supersized meal at the local fast food joint. Certain elements are enlarged (in this case the tires and rims) and the rest is squashed/stretched, or enlarged/shrunken depending on the look you are going for.

 Sketched with a Marvy Calligraphy Pen . These pens are excellent for sketching because they offer a broad and chiseled tip which allows for quick transition between thick and thin lines as well as fills. It also works well with the angled line/smooth corner style of drawing that I am showing here and went on to work with...such as in these pieces....

^ Just a showing of stylistic approach here, nothing more than that.

The next piece is a 3D work named Greeble. The tris count (or number of triangles allowed to build the model) was quite low. The idea was to create a Knight who wore a mechanical backpack. Attached to the sides of the pack were two arms, one holding a sword, the other a shield.

Unfortunately the count was too low to pull this off without sacrificing important shapes, so I was forced to refine it to this final version.

I was quite happy with the end result and worked in a rig for a walking test. You can read the description on the presentation sheet for more detail.

Some of the exercises I do is to sketch animated flour sacks....this is really an old Disney trick as the saying goes "If you can animate a flour sack, you can animate anything.". I've probably done a few hundred of these guys in various approaches, but felt they need more personality, hence the props. There's also an orthographic for a 3D model I was working on. The color ones in this case are color pencil.

     My development work is continuous and  never-ending. An artist needs to carry a sketchbook whereever they go and draw everyday if they can. Even 15-20 minutes a day (not unlike physical exercise...which is also vital) will keep things sharp and lessen the amount of time required for 'warming up' before getting into the work at hand.

   The difference in the life of an artist as opposed to non artists, is that we are driven not from the point of money, but from an innate desire to create. Yes we all have bills to pay and certainly want our art to take care of that, but at the end of the day, you'll know that the worlds you are building or have built, can be enjoyed by everyone....I don't think any other field offers that outcome.

Keep tooning!

Chris