Milo, the Firefighter

So for my animation pre-production class, I'll be making the animatic for Milo, the Firefighter. It's about the imaginations of a 4 year old boy who aspires to be a firefighter.

This is my first time doing character sketches. These are just preliminary sketches I'm doing ahead of time. I'm not too satisfied with them, but they're up for comparison with later sketches and model sheets.


The main character is Milo.
The secondary ones are Dan (big bro), Tiffany (big bro's annoying girlfriend), Ella (Mom) and James (Dad). I really like the sketch of James with Milo on his lap. I don't know why, but I just felt like drawing it.

I still feel woozy and flu-y, but it's getting better. Touchwood.

More art stuff to come!

Flu!

I've been sick all of yesterday and most of today :( Now is not the time for it!! Not when I have to do that for homework! I was in the 3D Lab from 10 in the morning to 6.30 in the evening, and it'd have been far more easier had my eyes and ears not been burning and had I not been shivering constantly.

Oh well. The one on top is my final composition, due Tuesday by noon. I think I'm gonna have to tweak it a little Monday night. That's the problem with finishing work early. You want to go back to it and do more.

Anyway, here are the other random snapshots I took to get closer looks of the modeling and texture and all that...




Okay for a beginner right? The glass bowl seems a little...unglassy to me though.

*sigh*

I hate being sick.

Kumbaya!

I'm starting to get the hang of gesture drawing! And even if I can't do it right until a couple of hours into practicing, I love it! And I've actually gained the courage to draw as life happens, instead of wishing to pause life for me.

It's an awesome feeling! I wish I had gesture drawing classes more than once a week.

As for 3D modeling, I'm getting the hang of it too, I think. But it's too soon to say. I modeled a candle on a candle stand (with wax and all!) and then a bowl of fruit. I did the candle twice. First time I did it, I felt satisfied with it. But after days of thinking over it, I realized it probably wasn't the most "efficient" candle. If you clicked on it, you'd get a heart-attack with the number of isoparms and CVs (it feels so good to know what those words are!! >.<

I'm reading The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby. It's... for lack of better words- sad. And the thoughts he has are thoughts I can relate to, even if anything that drastic has never ever happened to me, and hopefully never will. But being able to recognize what he means, the small things that come up in his mind, made me moist-eyed. It's just the way I am- I know emotional complexities without ever experiencing them. My scriptwriting teacher told me I have an "ability of delving into the human condition in a way that is older than my years". I'm not showing off, just saying.

Dog Dilemma

Waaiiiit. I'm starting to doubt my notion that dog's can't scratch themselves with their hind legs without sitting down. I feel like I've seen dogs scratch themselves standing. Anyhow, HOW is this related? (if you don't know what I'm talking about, read the previous post)

Anyway. So courses I'm taking this quarter:

Intro to 3D Modeling: All so new and Greek to me. It's so hard to read instructions for a software when you haven't actually used it. Defies the purpose of instructions. Cause almost all the authors have this background knowledge lurking in their minds when they write the tutorials/instructions. NOW I know how hard it is for my mom to decipher the iTunes tutorials I write out for her, no matter how hard I try to simplify it for her. Anyway. Let's hope I can learn Maya faster than my mom can learn iTunes. =) i miss her.

Gesture Drawing for Animators: Haven't started drawing in class yet, but tried dabbling with it a few days ago (wait, what did I do all of summer??) and I don't think I'll ever feel like I'll get it right. Once again. When you're drawing the scribbles, you KNOW what you're drawing. The knowledge lurks in your mind. But does someone else who wasn't there when you were looking and drawing know what you were looking at? I can tell what action my drawings are doing, but can others? Thank god for school and critiques, although it hasn't started yet. Anyway! I get to read Drawn to Life, for freeee! Except it's not called Drawn to Life.

Fine Arts Visual Arts: A helpful course to have. But erm..

Animation Pre-Production: haven't had the class yet, but Yikes!

Wellness Course- Stress Management: No comment..... Except that it was the only wellness course fitting my schedule!!!! Everything else was either full or conflicting with my classes. I wanted to take Yoga but... See, my logic is this. In this class, I don't just learn Yoga, but also massage therapy and breathing techniques and everything. So it's an all encompassing course. Instead of taking Yoga separately and Massage Therapy separately. It's justified! It's just the course name that makes me uncomfy! Trust me! My stress is not debilitating!

Eh.

Small Things.

First day of classes of sophomore year and I'm already overwhelmed! But it all looks like fun...

What did I learn in school today?

That I should take down notes wherever and whenever I realize something random and obvious yet important for animating. Watching daily life. A seemingly unimportant epiphany!

So here's mine for today:

When dogs scratch themselves with either of their hind legs, they can't do so without sitting down. I think...

Tada!

Posing Paints

So I was practicing quick sketches a few days ago from pictures of people posing, and thought, why not use paint? At first, I wanted them to look like the gesture drawings people do with paint- quick strokes representing so much dynamics.


















But you know what it's like with paint. You may not actually be good at it at all (as in my case), but it won't stop you from painting on and on. So that's what happened here- I didn't want to stop with just lines, although maybe I should've and asked others if I did a satisfactory job with the "gesture drawing". Or "action drawing". I need to fix my definitions. But instead, I wanted to go ahead and do something different with it. It was difficult to stop. And it's so easy to make mistakes with paint, at least for me. I always tried to avoid working with paint, and even in my Foundation Drawing class (which, to be honest, was my first ever proper art course, unless you count the stuff in junior and middle school, where we weren't really taught anything. So, really, my first drawing course was in college. It's a frightening truth, but I wish people would disagree to it)... Anyway, even in the drawing class, when the teacher would ask us to do "loose paintings" of teddy bears and porcelain dolls, I'd be so hesitant. "It's supposed to look loose and quick". But you can never resist concentrating on details, slowing down the brush strokes, keeping a tight grip over your paintbrush. The teacher liked what I did, but I honestly didn't get what was so appealing. Same goes here, I tried loose, but I honestly don't know- is it good? Is it even loose? I probably spent 5 minutes on each.




















And the result is this. Some of them I don't like- especially the ones which are just outlines and colored in, like a coloring book. It didn't start out like that, I had subtle shading and stuff, but again, I was trying to be loose! :S I wish I had viewers to tell me what they think of them, to critique and things. That's why I love school. I want to make the most of it. And once again, the same ol' argument- life is so short! Anyway, I did a few quick action sketches (or maybe not so quick- I need to work on that. Probably took a minute or so, but I'll get better), using reference videos. Mostly random YouTube stuff- Eadward Muybridge videos, sports videos, Charlie Chaplin videos, etc., etc. What I did was pause the video every few frames or so and quickly sketch the motion, and then repeat. Is there a better way? I don't know, I just randomly started doing it. I'll post those later. I don't know if it's a good way of keeping track of my progress or not, but I'll post them anyway.

In Color!

Yay! Finally finished it!! @ 24 fps, on twos. The quality here after uploading is terrible! Grr. I'm not too satisfied with it obviously. It's too stiff...And the head does nothing interesting.But I'm happy with the frills, it's my first time doing details like that in an animation.

I was watching the Dick Van Dyke show yesterday (after I Love Lucy!), and here's a quote I really liked from it: "You can draw a heart with a pen and paper, but you can't measure one"

Hmm.