Go Figure...Studio

Another casualty of poor student housing lighting and my lack of über cool drawing skills.  I will admit, there are some elements I like--the paper, for example, is of quality...

Jack & the Beanstalk - Composition 2 Progression

As previously posted, I'm currently working on the second of two compositions for "Jack & the Beanstalk" for my Visual Elements of Story class at AAU.  Here's what I had last night:

Today in class, we got to work on the project, so here was about 4 hours of additional work (redid the foreground leaves, started on the characters):

Then my teacher, the brilliant Nicolas Villarreal, made a few [amazing] modifications:

So now I have a ton of clean-up work to do.  But, it's going to look SOOO much better now, once it's finished.  This is definitely why I'm paying the big bucks to go to school. :^)

Jack & the Beanstalk - Compositions 2 & 3 Color Studies

Continuing my work on the next two compositions for Jack & the Beanstalk.  Based on review of my previously posted line art, I made a few changes to the layouts, first.  Then I developed black & white value studies in Photoshop, which were then colored via a "Color" layer on top of the value studies.  It was a nice, quick way to keep my values but add color.  Below are the results:

I like the second one down in both cases.  Really digging that "Red October" sky.  At some point, I'm really going to have to scratch this itch I have to do a night scene with stars...cause stars are just awesome.  Supposed to have about 30-40% of the finals for these done by Tuesday, so check back for progress..

Naked Guy Got Back

Here's this week's Figure Studio drawing; charcoal on colored paper:

Jack & the Beanstalk - Compositions 2 & 3

Next up in my continuing adventures of Jack is the second composition that we'll be taking to color, just like the first.  I've decided, while I'm in the mood, to do two new compositions instead of just a single one.  Not sure if I'll have enough time to finish both for class, but I can always work on the other one during my summer break.  As always, these compositions start in the sketch phase as I flesh-out my ideas, then I have a rough drawing stage where I block everything in (at final size) and add detail, then I throw a piece of tracing vellum over the top of the rough drawing and create a clean drawing, which I will use as my template for the final painting.  The aforementioned steps are visualized below:

Jack & the Beanstalk - Composition in Living Color - FINAL

Well, here it is: the final colored composition for Jack & the Beanstalk!  I still have much to learn about this process, but I think it's alright for a first try.  Now, time to work on the next one...

Figure Studio Drawings

I've been going on and on about my Jack & the Beanstalk project for my Visual Elements of Story class, so I thought it'd be nice to take a look at some of the work I've been doing in my Figure Studio class.  Figure Studio, just as you'd expect, is a class here at the Academy of Art where we draw the nude figure in a studio setting.  Still with me?  The homework assignments have all been to copy Bargue drawings (guy was amazing--be sure to check him out if his name is new to you!), so here are a few of the drawings I've done in class.  Each class is six hours, and we draw one pose the whole duration:

As always, please don't judge me based on these pictures--student housing has atrocious lighting and Photoshop can only do so much.  And yes, the last drawing is on toned paper.

jack & the Beanstalk - Composition in Living Color

As promised, here's my work-in-progress of the final color version of my first Jack & the Beanstalk composition.  Drawing size was 9 x 13", scanned and brought into Photoshop for coloring.  Using a variety of brushes on this one for various textures.  Also keeping the "Flow" of the brush low (at 20, I believe), at the recommendation of our teacher, Nicolas Villarreal.  I assume I'll have this finished tomorrow and will post the final version then.  Still many miles to go, though.  The top version is what I actually have done; the bottom version has a quickly blocked in foreground, just to better define the composition:

Jack & the Beanstalk - Color Studies: Round 2

Up on the docket this week is actually two projects:  First, we are doing the final color version of the first composition.  Luckily, he's letting us go digital now, so that is being done in Photoshop.  Supposed to have about 60% of it finished for Tuesday, so I'll post my progress tomorrow.  The other thing for this week is to create 10 thumbnails for composition #2.  I figure if the first comp was going up the beanstalk, the second one should be coming down.  Below are my color studies for the second composition done in Photoshop:

I'm thinking right column, third one down.  Love that autumn sky..

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno Sketches

One of the benefits of watching my favorite shows on Hulu.com is that I can pause it.  And that's exactly what I did for Friday night's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", which featured Animal Ambassador Julie Scardina with a few of her animals from SeaWorld and Busch Gardens.  Of particular interest was the wombat she brought out!  How cool is that thing?  Australian marsupials, these things are big and (seemingly) cuddly.  In any case, I did a few doodles from it:

Jack & the Beanstalk - Color Studies

Back to my Jack & the Beanstalk project.  This week, we had to take our full composition from last week and apply value to it using four types of lighting: daylight, night light, dramatic light, and a lighting of our choice.  Then, using color theory, we had to create two color schemes for each of the four lighting situations.  And we had to do all of this is gouache paint.  I feel my results are mixed (and the colors not mixed so well), but here they are:

WonderCon 2010, Day 2

Day 2 of WonderCon started off awesome and then kind of fizzled out and we left early.  I won't be attending day 3--guess I was just there for the Disney stuff, which is interesting as I wanted to be a comic book artist but a mere decade ago.  But yes, Day 2 kicked off with Eric Goldberg's "Hand-Drawn Animation Workshop", which needless to say, was freaking suh-weet.  He went through it work on Louis the alligator from "The Princess and the Frog", highlighting the beautiful things one can do in traditional, 2-D animation that 3-D can't.  He also showed the superb new exposure sheets they're using, which has an actual waveform of the dialogue/music of the scene.  Eric explained about Louis's double-bounce that made the dance numbers so lively and informed us that all the trumpet fingering when Louis is playing is 100% authentic--an above and beyond touch that, he believes, is what makes Disney animation so special.  Could this guy be more inspirational?!?  And to top it all off, he ended his segment by letting the audience chime in with the creation of a brand new character!  He would ask a question (like "male or female?") and the audience would respond.  We ended up with a female, anthropomorphic, short, unicorn who is depressed, fat, and is a ballet dancer--check out the final character he drew below:

Also, today I came prepared and got him to sign my copy of his brilliant "Character Animation Crash Course!" book (if you don't own it, click the link and buy it!) and draw a little doodle of the husband from his "Rhapsody in Blue" segment from Fantasia 2000.  Enjoy!

WonderCon 2010, Day 1

WonderCon 2010 has come to San Francisco at the Moscone Center South, and I will be attending the first two days.  Day 1 was pretty fun--getting my feet wet, checking out all the different booths and such.  I went to the "How to Pitch an Animated Cartoon" and the "Nickelodean Animation Studio" events.  Both very informative about the process and what they're looking for in a storyboard artist (someone who can DRAW!).  But, by far the coolest thing [ever] was going to the "Art of The Princess and the Frog" event.  On the panel were John Musker, Ron Clements, Eric Goldberg, Marlon West, and Ian Gooding.   Oh man, was I geeking out!  They basically went over their parts of the movie and told funny stories from the production.  Truly fantastic--oh, to be one of them someday.  As we walked in, we were handed a tarot card with a particular character on the back; I got Mama Odie.  At the end, they announced that everyone with a Mama Odie card (!) should come claim a free prize!  Well, turns out the prize was a free copy of "The Art of The Princess and the Frog" (which I, of course, already own) plus everyone from the panel (except Ron, who had to leave) stayed behind to sign autographs!!!  I know!!!!!  It was a great day.  Here are some pictures from the panel: