Derek Spencer

Bumble the Boy Wonder, and Shego

2011-09-12T20:03:00.001-07:00

Alright, so my "Tell me what to draw" thing on the forum I'm a member of, very quickly filled with requests to draw the other members. Somehow I didn't see that coming. Here's the first, obviously based on their avatars, not them:

Getting My Groove Back

2011-09-11T19:02:00.000-07:00

For me, the difficult search, is for a place to live. It is almost impossible to find a one bedroom/ bachelor apartment that is affordable for one person. I'm looking all over Toronto, Etobicoke, and Mississauga, and my search is turning up next to nothing. What I've found thus far has all been too small for me to so much as fit my bed in without blocking doorways. So for now I'm staying with Vanessa Stefaniuk and her family while I continue my search and commute into work every day by bus. Its different. Luckily her family is very generous and welcoming, but I'm still trying to get out of here as fast as I can. I can't help but feel like I'm a little in the way, and don't want to overstay my welcome.
The job search for me was not actually the hardest part. I'm not animating right now, but I've landed a graphics design job for a company that does Navy tactical simulation training software. I'm actually learning quite a bit of stuff in Photoshop I didn't know about before, but still, its not really drawing.
So I've resolved to do more sketching (My time at home has largely been spent reading).
I've got a few things I want to sketch up, and there's an art jam with some of my friends that will keep me busy if inspiration fails to strike. But I've also challenged members of an online forum I frequent to just straight up tell me what to draw, and I'll draw it. The results are likely going to be odd, but it'll keep me going.

The Transition

2011-05-15T15:28:00.000-07:00

Alright, so... I've got a domain now to host my portfolio and demo reel stuff.
But, that doesn't mean the blog is over. Instead, I'm going to use this space as my own little soapbox. There'll probably be some art here and there, I'll let you know when I update my site, maybe there will even be some sketch dumpage, I don't know, we'll see! And I'll just sort of document my own transition here, from animation student to lord only knows what.

Animation Demo Reel 2011

2011-02-21T09:00:00.000-08:00

Just finished compositing a more recent demo reel for 2011. Got a few things in here that you haven't seen yet!

Life drawings! (Update #2 today)

2010-11-28T20:39:00.001-08:00

Where does the time go?

2010-11-28T20:16:00.000-08:00

So, its been a little while, eh?
Lots has happened in that time. I have my reasons for not updating, but rest assured I HAVE been drawing.

Rather than catch up with everything from over the summer up till now, lets just go with some more recent stuff, shall we?

I've been working on an entirely different film from what I showed on here last year. I don't want to reveal too much during the production stage, but I can't help but get excited so here's a few teaser images:

The film is a pastiche of Spaghetti Westerns, chiefly "The Good the Bad and the Ugly." It stars two shrimp. This idea has been kicking around in my head for years now. Ever since I learned about Pistol Shrimp for the first time:

"Madfish" Gary. Not much to say except that he's the bad guy in the film.

Harry. The town's sheriff. He's the good guy.

This is still not finished, but you can see that I'm going with a different style this time. Its still rather graphic, but calls for a little more use of perspective than my usual UPA/ Maurice Noble inspired layoutsRather than actually paint, I've gathered up a library of royalty-free and fair-use textures, and I'm putting them under heavy line-work. Got the idea after seeing screenshots from "Flapjack".

And, I made myself a wallpaper, because I wanted to:

Dungeons and Dragons Art: Failed Saving Throw, Sucessful Heal Check

2010-06-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

This is the story behind that last one.

Dungeons and Dragons Art: In Mourning

2010-05-31T11:29:00.000-07:00

I sketched this up yesterday and threw some flat colours on it today. There is a story behind it but I won't go into that.

Concept Art

2010-05-06T12:44:00.001-07:00

Concept art for a 4th year film idea that I really am not at all sure I'm still doing. I have no other idea, really, but I think this one is still too complex despite my best efforts to simplify and simplify some more.

Fallout 3 Fanart

2010-03-02T19:37:00.000-08:00

This is me as my character in Fallout 3. I have a very high explosives stat. I use a lot of frag mines.

Animation dump.

2010-03-02T19:33:00.000-08:00

This is a bit of an odd post. I've retouched several of my old videos for demo reel purposes. So here's a bunch of stuff that you kind of haven't seen already, and some new stuff as well!

Now in THREE DIMENSIONS

2010-01-05T20:32:00.000-08:00

Work is underway on my official online portfolio supplied to me by Sheridan, and as such, I've finally been forced to export my very first 3D animation assignment. BEHOLD!

Jump and Grab

2009-12-19T20:14:00.000-08:00

I've still got a few things to fix, and shading to add in on the character, but I'm going to post this anyway:

Animated music videos

2009-12-06T22:15:00.000-08:00

For one reason or another, I have been watching a lot of music videos on youtube as of late, rather than listening to my iTunes like a normal person. But as a bi-product of this practice, and my current 1am caffeine-addled mind, I'm now posting several animated music videos.
Why? Because I can.

A Christmas Carol

2009-11-22T11:49:00.000-08:00

The assignment was a visual representation of "reformed" Scrooge at the end of A Christmas Carol.

Not sure why I went with the UPA/ Maurice Noble style background other than Maurice Noble rules.

More film stuff.

2009-11-01T22:35:00.000-08:00

Interior, character design and various plant designs for our group film, Sun Day.

Group Film stuff.

2009-10-14T23:37:00.000-07:00

Sketchdump

2009-09-22T19:08:00.001-07:00

Hello. It's been a while, hasn't it? Here's an assload of sketches in varying degrees of completion from the summer up till now.

I'm a big fan of the TV show Scrubs. Over the summer I watched the whole series again, and one day decided to sketch while I did so. This is supposed to be Donald Faison(Dr. Turk) and Sarah Chalke (Dr. Elliot Reed).

A group of us went to Dr. Sketchy's, which is always a blast. This particular session was with a male model. Strange how a kids sized yellow raincoat can be more gay than full on nudity.
By the end of the night, the beers were having their way with me, and so I opted to just draw myself rather than the model for the final pose (bottom right).
Nick got Fallout 3 this summer, it has taken over the apartment. Here is a drawing of a ghoul.
Here is sketches of the first two drawings in a series of 3. The first is me as my Fallout 3 character, the second is Drew as his. Guess what number 3 is going to be?
Thumbnails and quick character concepts for my story idea, which it seems we are not doing. Perhaps I'll pull it out and dust it off and use it for my own film next year.
And some sketches, trying to find my action analysis character. He's an Indiana Jones-esque adventurer. He's thinned out a bit now. I didn't want him to have such a similar build to my weight lift character from last year.

Dungeons and Dragons Art- Barrakas

2009-07-25T18:38:00.001-07:00

Barrakas is the group's rogue. He can't take a whole lot of damage, but he charges into battle first anyway, out of stupidity or courage, no one's really sure. He'll lie even when its unnecessary, and takes great pleasure in antagonizing Gung whenever possible.

Dungeons and Dragons Art- Gung

2009-07-11T15:32:00.001-07:00

Gung is the group's dragonborne paladin. He's torn, however, between the powers of his god Bahamut and the powers available from a dark pact he made as a child. Gung views Darrak as a friend and a powerful ally, but a nuisance when it comes to negotiations. He does not trust or respect Barrakas, and the two have formed a heated rivalry.

Dungeons and Dragons Art- Darrak

2009-07-06T19:25:00.001-07:00

Darrak is the group's fighter. He battles in the frontlines, protecting his friends by absorbing blows that could prove fatal to the less hardy, and when he can, dealing damage with his dwarven hammers. He's also consistently drunk, so the other members of the group don't like to let him do the talking when it comes time for diplomacy or negotiations, but he'll always insist on doing it anyway.

(He also carries a shield, but I opted not to draw it.)

My first ever commission

2009-06-30T14:28:00.000-07:00

A member on a forum I frequent commissioned me to draw a scene from a novel he wrote. The money went to my sister to help her and my nephew out.
The piece he got out of the deal is 3X the size and has no watermark, just my signature.
All digital, only thumbnailing done pencil & paper. Still getting used to this.

Nostalgia

2009-05-15T16:46:00.000-07:00

I was missing everyone today and reminiscing about the past year. Thought I'd make a post.

These are the drawings given to me throughout the past year at school by some of my friends...

Nick drew this one. I guess at the time I was struggling to finish an animation on time and getting frustrated.
Vanessa gave me this one. I do give great hugs. Vanessa's not the only one to rank me as number one, what can I say? I'm also really impressed that she remembered I have a tattoo on my right leg. I forget that sometimes.
Apollo did this Sonic Christmas card for me.
In Dungeons and Dragons, dwarves don't take any movement penalty for carrying heavy loads. So Dee decided I could carry all his crap for him.
Yeah... I'm in a different Dungeons and Dragons group now.
Jen drew me this one after I did one of Batman for her. Its in reference to "Baman Piderman" of course.

Final layout/ painting assignments

2009-04-26T12:19:00.000-07:00

Yo-Yo Chicken

2009-04-22T22:10:00.000-07:00

Costume and Creatures.

2009-04-09T21:05:00.000-07:00

Okay so here's some life drawings. First: costume stuff.

Next, some creature creation.

I attempted a cartoony style with this minotaur.
I love reptiles, particularly lizards. When I was told to bring in reference for creature creation, I basically went "WHOOO! I get to draw lizards!". This one is a Green Basilisk man. The one I handed in, which I can't wait to get back, was a Veiled Chameleon man. These are probably my favourite lizards of all (with the notable exception of the gila monster, of course). I'll upload the chameleon one the very day I get it back.

All the creature creation made me want to draw lizard people just for fun, so during one film history class I drew this chameleon, this basilisk, and this anole. I might do a whole series of this type of thing cause these are fun. I had no reference for the anole so he kinda sucks. I've thought it over and realized that as fast as anoles are, the basilisk should probably be the runner guy. They run on water, afterall. Either a gila monster, or some kind of monitor should be th ebig bruiser guy.

Work in progress

2009-04-06T21:54:00.000-07:00

Here's some work in progress. Digital work I'm doing of Nick's, Drew's and my own D&D characters. We have Gung, our Dragonborne paladin, Darrak, our Dwarf fighter and Barrakas, our Tiefling rogue (Aka Mr. T). Each one I'm trying a completely different style of approach to. I'm looking forward to actually having enough free time to finish these up.

And because Jen was bugging me about it the other day....

What would have been

2009-04-06T21:18:00.000-07:00

It seems like the flipbook isn't happening this year. Here's what my page WOULD have looked like:

And here's some random sketch dumping:
I attempted to draw a pretty girl in skimpy clothing. I need the practice if I'm ever going to be as cool as Dean Yeagle. (Not a knock on Dean Yeagle's work. He's awesome.)

Drawings from watching "Singin' in the Rain" Above is me trying to get gestures from the various dance sequences, below is some happy dinosaurs so I wouldn't have to listen to Agnieszka and Nicole Swoon over Gene Kelly's bottom.

This is a marker and watercolour drawing I threw together to appease my layout teacher:

Muscles, muscles and more muscles!

2009-02-03T23:37:00.000-08:00

I finally got to do some work on the painting of Drew, Nick and I. There's a long way to go yet but here's the blocking in of colour:

I haven't been doing that well in life drawing this year, but this new semester seems to have changed that, as I finally got some good marks. This is my muscle test:

And this is a drawing I did of a human leg from an actual humanleg floating in preservatives at the University of Toronto. It was really interesting, and kinda cool, but still hands down the creepiest place I've ever been. I couldn't handle drawing the heads, or the hands, or the pelvises after seeing what was inside them. I stayed in my comfort zone: The legs. And by comfort I mean horrible uneasiness as compared to disgust or terror:

Mr. Burns

2009-01-30T15:38:00.000-08:00

First lip sync for the year. Its definitely stronger towards the end of it.

More drawings from the Zoo

2008-12-20T03:30:00.001-08:00

Here are some of the sketches from the zoo trip I took with Nicole during Reading Week. I went for much more lyrical drawings for the most part this time:

End of the Semester

2008-12-13T12:06:00.000-08:00

The final leica I handed in for storyboarding based on my two Tang obsessed astronauts:

This is one I have lots of plans for the break. Time constraints forced me to cut out a lot of what I wanted to do and now some of it really doesn't read clearly.

And the final assignment of the year. I attempted for the first time to animate an anthropomorphic animal character for my facial expression change:

Holy crap I'm blogging!

2008-12-02T22:02:00.000-08:00

First two painting assignments of the year:
This dungeon was fun. It was the first time I've ever used an airbrush.

A bunch of us have been playing Dungeons and Dragons. I know, I'm a nerd. Here's a cartoony drawing of my original character, a dwarf Warlord (If/when I get around to new D&D art, it'll be more badass, my character's a fighter now). And Johnny's the only other one to post his D&D art, but there's been a bunch of us playing. Hopefully my mentioning of their lack of updates will guilt them into posting their D&D character art and outing themselves as huge nerds. Drawings from the Zoo and from Royal Winter Fair are still coming. I just have to scan them first.

My Walk Run assignment is finished, but I do have some fixes to do over break. I'll post the current version and post again when I finally fix it.

Have you realized how few layout updates there are on my blog? There's a reason for that.

I Should make commercials for Tang

2008-10-30T00:43:00.000-07:00

These aren't even storyboards, these are just the story beats, but so far I'm happy with this story so here you go. The assignment was to create a story based around the theme "I want that".
In other news I found out that I accidentally shot one drawing twice in my last animation. I've since removed the error and it already is looking better. I'll upload the fixed up version eventualy, but don't expect that for a while as I have things I want to do to it over Christmas break as well.

Nicole and I went to the zoo last week as well, I have a few drawings from there I may post up when I get around to scanning them.

Weight Lift and Toss

2008-10-17T06:41:00.000-07:00

This is what I wound up putting in the handins folder. Wish I had had more time, cause I still see some issues with it.

Almost There

2008-10-12T07:26:00.000-07:00

More revisions yet to the keyframes. I've begun inbetweening, but I am actually still seeing a few problems in these keys that I'll hopefully have some time to fix.

Another Caricature!

2008-10-12T01:07:00.001-07:00

To add to my growing collection of caricatures, Our very awesome character design teacher Pete Emslie has now ALSO caricatured me! BEHOLD! Me and my beloved checkered hat!

6 Frames of Glory!

2008-10-11T22:44:00.000-07:00

The Best 6 frame walk cycle you'll ever see.

I goofed around for a bit and drew my room mates and I a few times. Through the use of magic, I've made those drawings come to life.

Progress

2008-10-07T23:56:00.000-07:00

Revised keys for the weight lift and toss. Hopefully I'll be inbetweening by the weekend, but I do have work due on Thursday and Friday that might keep me from doing the work I want to be doing until then.

Another Sketchdump

2008-10-04T08:12:00.000-07:00

To prove I have been drawing things.Drawings from TV. Watching Heroes, Wayne's World, and the Olympics.
Three pages of many in which I tried to design a character for the weight lift and toss. As you can hopefully tell, I was tring to make him look bird like. Final design when I get the drawings back from Pete Emslie.
This is Robin, a life drawing teacher at the school. I have never met him and this sketch is purely from Brad's description. As far as I can tell, it is 100% accurate.
Spider-man can be kind of a jerk. But we still love him.

Work in progress

2008-10-03T21:43:00.000-07:00

This is NO WHERE NEAR being finished, but I'm so excited to be animating my own character now. I'm REALLY bringing drawings to life now, I'm pumped. So I've exported the keyframes I've done so far. For the few people reading this who aren't animators, consider this a look at how this gets done, I guess. I'll try to post videos of the work being done right up until the final animation. Cause this is SO EXCITING!

More moving pictures

2008-10-02T21:44:00.000-07:00

I think if I had to do this again I would make a smaller path of action for the boat, its time in the water goes too fast for my liking. But I am happy with the way the wave and water effects worked out and I think the hangtime is pretty good. Anyway, enough babbling, here it is:

Storyboarding

2008-10-02T01:47:00.000-07:00

We were given a poem about wishing you could dry yourself off the way a dog does, and told to make a story about it. Mine ended up being a boy who's dog keeps getting him dirty so he never gets to leave the bathroom.

Our storyboarding teacher, Nancy Beiman, has really pushed us all and I was surprised by the quality of the whole class' boards this week compared to what we brought in 3 weeks ago. Everyone did such a great job, and some of the pitches were fantastic too.

A Little Overdue

2008-09-22T17:18:00.000-07:00

Here are the last two assignments from year one:

Don't worry

2008-09-09T05:11:00.000-07:00

I'm cooking something up.

It was a bit of a crazy summer for me so unfortunately I wasn't able to do everything I planned, but my Wacom tablet did arrive and I'm having a blast with it. Those quick and dirty flash animations I talked about will have to wait, since I'm back at school doing the traditional stuff. But I do still have a few edits for the site, and some sketch dumping to do. I've also got 3 or 4 different projects on the go for school that will wind up on here when they're done.

In the mean time, check out Deep Fried Life. Nick and I have been up to some shenanigans with the HTML (Mainly Nick, I just bugged him to do it after I couldn't figure out how).

Evolution of a Kratos Sketch

2008-08-23T16:31:00.001-07:00

Haven't coloured it digitally yet, but I sat down with some watercolours for a few minutes and got this.

Kratos Sketch

2008-08-13T21:39:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to do some God of War fanart since first playing the game a year ago. I wanted to do something highly detailed and true to the style of the game, but I just don't feel my skills are there yet. But I couldn't hold out on trying my hand at drawing the most badass warrior in all of Ancient Greece, so I decided instead that it would be fun to try something more stylized. This let me work out a way to both study and simplify the muscles.

I'm going to try to colour it digitally when I get photoshop back. Part of the sword is cut off here but when I do it digitally I'll fix that. And I plan on colouring this one in watercolour as well, but for now I just wanted to share the sketch. I'm pretty excited about doing this. It's quite a bit different from the type of thing I usually draw, and Kratos just kicks ass.

My trip to the zoo...

2008-05-15T19:41:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I couldn't convince anyone to come with me, but dammit I wanted to go to the zoo and draw. I also recently bought a little travel watercolour set that I was anxious to use, so I fooled around with that quite a bit. I don't think I've really used watercolours before since I was 6 or 7.
At the go station, they switched the track number without making an announcement which meant I had half an hour to wait for the train. I wanted to try my watercolour set. The unfortunately chinned gentleman on the right was on my train ride home. (Obviously traced over in photoshop. Scan quality was too poor to post). Most of what I drew on the train will be showing up on Deep Fried Life eventually.
Monkeys have so much personality. I swear those orangutans were making those cocky faces at me. I had to draw them. On the left are two lion tamarins and the bottom right is a mandril (NOT A BABOON).
The Ostrich scared me a bit. I think the female was nesting cause I never saw her get up, and as soon as I approached the barrier the male came over and started posturing, then just stood there staring at me and eventually started hissing. Because he was so up close I tried to draw him as much as I could, but honestly by this time in the trip I was cold, tired and grumpy.
Lessee here... Top left is a green water dragon with a bitchin' battle wound on his lip. bottom left is one sleepy tiger. Its face is all smooshed into the hay. The creepy male ostrich shows up again. Bottom right is a blue crowned motmot. Gorgeous bird. The two pink birds in the top right though, I haven't a clue. Their colour was very vivid, not like a flamingo's. They were why I sat down to paint in that pavillion. And then the motmot tried to kill me and I thought it was way too colourful to not paint too.

All in all, I'm not sure this trip was the most beneficial to my animal anatomy knowledge or my drawing skill. But I spent the day drawing and that's just pure fun.

Sketchdump!

2008-05-14T18:49:00.000-07:00

Have a peak into my sketchbook. Some new stuff, some stuff from before classes ended.

First page in my sketchbook. Just in case anyone is confused at what they're looking at.

Thumbnails for the painting I am going to do.
Ungh. Muscle studying. I should be doing way more of that. Also, a silly drawing of cartoon Kratos. Some day I'll do a good one. Some day.
Two panel strip I did for class when we were supposed to illustrate our fears
A bus. And some guy who was at the bus stop.

Just so you know....

2008-05-03T07:32:00.000-07:00

I'm not abandoning the art blog over the summer. I've got no less than 6 comics in my head now that I'm trying to get down on paper and then up on Deep Fried Life. Then I've got a painting project for myself that I'm actually really looking forward to. You'll see updates soon enough, I hope.

Also, hopefully by July I'll be able to afford one o' them fancy WACOM tablets, and then I'll be updating the blog's appearance and *hopefully* doing some quick and dirty flash animation.

Animation Wall

2008-04-27T10:39:00.000-07:00

All throughout the year we had theme walls in the first year room where all the animation students could tape up some drawings related to this or that. Vanessa and I decided it would be cool to collect them all and make a book, but eventually we realized that all the copyrighted characters would make that near impossible, so we put up a website instead. Here it is:

THE ANIMATION WALL

Thats just an urban legend!

2008-04-17T00:11:00.000-07:00

Character in environment for painting class. I'm still learning.

INCOMING!

2008-04-05T20:44:00.001-07:00

That still life for painting from oh so long ago. I finally got to a scanner big enough to scan it. There are parts of this I like and parts I don't. I know what I need to do to fix it up some, and hopefully I'll get a chance to make those adjustments over the summer. Composition still needs a tonne of work though.

BIRD!

2008-04-05T20:32:00.000-07:00

You'll notice I really like surfboards. I'm not entirely sure why, but I do love the whole surfer/hawaii/tiki thing. I don't surf, I've never been to Hawaii, but yeah. Here's a surfer flamingo:

For this character design, we were instructed to try for something different. I had originally intended to do this in a very realistic style, but it didn't turn out at all so its been re-cartoonified. However, I will point out that I didn't completely cop out, it still has those crazy backwards bird legs.

With each character design this year I've tried to challenge myself, first just by keeping myself from resorting to a fat character, then with women. Animals have always been harder but I think I got the crocodile right. This one was my hardest yet. Never done birds before and I thought I'd give it a shot. Not sure why I didn't pick something less awkward, like a chicken or something. It was difficult enough to wrap my head around wings, feathers, beaks and backwards legs, but a flamingo's got that stupidly long neck and legs, and its got a hooked beak.

I do feel like I learned A LOT doing this one though. There are definitely lots of places I can improve, but I'm happy with it anyway.

Copycat!

2008-04-02T00:12:00.000-07:00

Our newest assignment for painting has two parts. I just finished part one, which is a recreation of an existing painter's work. I chose to recreate some production artwork from the Incredibles that was done by Glenn Kim. I'm pretty proud of it, although I have a REEALLY long way to go before I'm half as good as that guy! Dude can do anything in gouache.I'd post a picture of the original but I don't want to upload it for copyright reasons.

"Night and Day on Planet J"

2008-03-27T20:59:00.000-07:00

During the Day the planet is quiet, peaceful and quaint.
At night, however, the predators come out. In order to stay alive, the inhabitants' occupy cities which can take off and remain airborn, out of harm's reach.

Got my paintings back from Tim today. Here are the Night and Day ones. My still life is too large to scan here at home.

I KEEP Editing this post to scale the images and somehow they can never be the same size. Blogger's doing something weird to them. I'll try to fix it later.

Small update

2008-03-14T18:43:00.001-07:00

I'm starting to get the hang of this digital painting thing. For fun I painted the first part of my fat crocodile and hula hoop story. Hopefully I'll find the time to colour the rest. (But first I should colour those beach pictures of my friends and I from last summer)
The newest theme for the first year wall is zombie portraits. This is a sketch I did of mine. A few issues with it, like one arm being disproportionate to the other, that I'd like to think I fixed in the final drawing. Vanessa and I plan on getting them all scanned and published as a book, so I should get a scan of the finished product by the end of the year. I'll be sure to post it here when I do.

I should be getting three paintings back from Tim next week (including the two I mentioned before).
In other news, Deep Fried Life continues!

Heads up

2008-03-04T21:22:00.000-08:00

Jen and Agnes beat us to the punch by starting up their own webcomic(s) before we did, so out of spite we've launched ours almost immediately afterwards. Steph is going to help us out with the beautification. For now, enjoy
Deep Fried Life.

Fat Crocodiles want to play too!

2008-02-27T20:21:00.000-08:00

Fat Crocodile + hula hoop= hilarity?

And now what you all came here to see...

2008-02-23T11:34:00.000-08:00

...Gratuitous Nudity!
I got my paintings back from Tim but he had a few pointers on things I can fix up still. So I am going to do those and then scan and post them here. But for now, realizing I hadn't yet posted any life drawings and am actually mildly content with this batch, have a peek at some of those!

30seconds:

1 minute:

3 minutes:
5 minutes:

I think the 3s are my strongest.

MEOW

2008-02-20T19:54:00.000-08:00

Hopefully this character is familiar to you. If you weren't already aware, his name is actually Razoul. I don't think they state that at any point in the movie.

This project is one I really enjoyed. I absolutely love animation because I love seeing my drawings come to life. Its amazing. You draw these characters, and they start to move. They speak, they show emotion. It's incredible. Everytime I watch this happen, I'm amazed. Having my drawings actually speak, even if its some arbitrary word like "meow", its just so satisfying to see. I absolutely love this program and this whole process and this industry.

Oh, also here's some layout. I'm not entirely sure of the composition, but basically I think this may be my best drawn tree ever:

I should have paintings tomorrow.

Caricatures!

2008-02-10T08:59:00.000-08:00

Now, I'm not narcissistic or anything, but I do love to be caricatured. I didn't do ANY of these, but I figured I'd plug some people I guess.
This first one is by a friend and classmate named Alistair Perrera. Alistair was actually in my Art Fundamentals Core group two years ago at Sheridan. While I went to the Art Fundamentals Animation stream, Alistair went and did a full year of animation at Seneca before deciding their CGI focus wasn't for him, and now he's back here at Sheridan. I wouldn't hesitate to say he's the best at caricatures in my class. He's taken a few lessons from the very talented Peter Emsley. And as soon as he gets himself a blog, I will link to it. His stuff deserves to be seen.
The next was done by my good friend and roommate Drew Petursson. Drew's got this innate ability to make really ugly, yet still very appealing characters, and it works even in his caricature. He did a set of three this night of him, Nick and I. The fact that we are all growing out our facial hair to show solidarity to Drew until his animation portfolio is done only helps make us look even more disgusting in these caricatures.
The final one here was done by our character design teacher Enzo Avolio. Enzo worked on many of the cartoons I watched growing up that made me decide this was what I wanted to do with my life. This caricature makes me laugh out loud, but it also disgusts me. I cannot wait to shave. Drew, you had better get in!

Think Pink

2008-01-25T11:03:00.000-08:00

We were warned by all the second year students we'd hate the Pink Panther at the end of this. Michelle, the instructor, even told us thats why we do the Pink Panther. Nobody really likes him anyway. But I've actually always liked the Pink Panther. There was a 90s toon I watched a lot growing up. And happily, I can say I honestly like him even more now than before.

I was going to title this post "Green Piece"...

2008-01-18T10:56:00.001-08:00

... You know? Like a play on words. Cause I was going to just post this set of gouache paintings I did which have an environmental theme. I'm clever, laugh!

The painting assigment was to portray utopia and dystopia. I went with this environmental theme (did I say that already?). Obviously I was going for a very cartoony look for the first painting and a somewhat more real look for the second. I don't think the first was very successful, but the second makes me have hope that maybe I can use guoache after all. Even if I can't spell it.

Moving on.... Here I am as Gossamer from the Looney Tunes. I gave it the mutton chops I'm trying to grow and tried to give it something like my hairstyle, I also gave it a confused expression, which I'm pretty sure matches my own expression 99% of the time. But lets not fool ourselves, its the hat and shoes that give it away.And finally, the Rhinocishark. I'm not exactly proud of this. In fact I think its the stupidest thing I've ever drawn. And definitely the worst thing I've drawn in a while. But I laughed so hard at Aga's Dragophant, I felt it was only fair to share:

*slaps self in forehead*

In the Navy

2008-01-15T06:45:00.001-08:00

This was a long time coming...

Sketchdump

2008-01-09T13:13:00.000-08:00

Nothing exciting to post, but I want to keep updating, so here are a couple of rather rough sketches straight out of my sketchbook. Consider this a glimpse into the way my head works... or something.

The first is a sketch I did of a character who you may find familiar, when I was working out my storyboard assignment. I used pretty much this exact pose in the finished boards, and unfortunately I was stupid about it and it interrupted shot continuity. So you aren't going to see those boards. But I like the drawing and the pose is hilarious for this character.

The second is a very unpolished sketch of Drew, Nick and I. It is based on a true story.

Save Now

Art Exchange

2007-12-26T11:17:00.001-08:00

Hey, something that isn't related to school! Finally!
I'm still running Vista, but I can scan things in now anyway. The quality is kind of poor, but at least I have the ability now.
Anyway, the wonderful Vanessa requested an art exchange with me and asked that I draw one of her characters. I spent about a million hours deciding which character and what the pose would be, and all day yesterday coming up with this:
Eventually it will be digitally inked and painted, but since I have limited supplies here at the apartment, that will have to wait until school starts back up again. I'm also terrified of actually doing that, because I have very little faith in my colouring abilities. I wanted to make sure there was some record of this available to Phoo before I manage to wreck it.

'dem bones, 'dem bones

2007-12-18T15:21:00.001-08:00

Some of these are much stronger than others.

An Egyptian Queen and some Chickens walk into a bar...

2007-11-17T17:21:00.001-08:00

First, another character design assignment. I realized I almost never draw women and decided I need to work on that. I also realized I never draw villains. So this is an Egyptian Queen, who happens to be evil and scheming. Think... "if Cruella Deville and Jafar had a love child.. who somehow then became an Egyptian Queen".
Next are some animal drawings from the Royal Winter Fair. I used a bunch of different materials. Conte, brush pen and prismacolour, and good ol' fashioned ebony pencil.

Hands

2007-11-09T22:41:00.001-08:00

There, finally got these uploaded. Apologies if the results of your long, arduous wait are anti-climactic.

Feet

2007-11-09T20:33:00.000-08:00

12 feet, done from my own foot. Some obviously required the use of a mirror.
Due to technical difficulties, my hands will not be posted tonight.

IT MOVES!!

2007-11-08T19:06:00.000-08:00

What devilry is this? Moving pictures? Why, this is pure madness!

Pendulum swing. Some second year students took the disks out of some of the animation desks. I guess I poked some fun out of them for that.

Balloon. Ungh.

Bowling ball. It moves a bit fast toward the end but overall I am certainly happy with it.

Rubber ball. I went a little more catoony on this one with some extreme stretch and squash. I probably should have used a few more frames to transition between the spherical ball and the really stretched ball, but... I guess realizing that means I learned something.

And an original character

2007-10-15T23:39:00.000-07:00

Another school project (If my scanner were working... maybe then I'd have some more stuff that wasn't from school). For character design class, oddly enough, we had to design a character and do a turnaround sheet of them.

I have a tendency to draw fat characters when the desin is left up to me. I am trying to get away from that so I decided to do a mad scientist since they usually aren't designed fat. I ended up really liking this guy. Off the record though, I also designed a fat mad scientist who is awesome.

Digital painting??

2007-10-15T13:38:00.000-07:00

We had to design Name Slates for ourselves. I was inspired by some planet Smashers songs to go with a tiki theme. I definitely need to work on my digital painting, but I am pretty happy with the result.

Portfolio 2007

2007-09-23T08:41:00.001-07:00

Here are two drawings from the portfolio that finally got me where I've been trying to get for the past 14 years. Right now my laptop is running Vista, and it doesn't recognize my scanner, so my updates are only what is immediately available to me (ie whats already been uploaded on the internet from my old computer)
My living room in the old apartment, with a quick drawing of myself in there.
Same room, from my perspective.

TA-DAAA...

2007-09-22T01:02:00.000-07:00

I guess I'll start this off by posting some drawings I did over the summer. These are character sketches I did of my friends and I at the beach. There are a few anatomy issues, I'm aware. I'm working on fixing things up in photoshop.Sean and Larissa
Janice and Kassandra
Myself. I don't know what I was thinking when I drew that arm.

2007-09-21T23:46:00.000-07:00

Oh God what have I done?