more oldies

a few more old sketches from the past spring/summer:

all these were inspired by a young businesswoman who got on the bus i was riding in -


and these were done at the museum, which had a lovely and surprisingly comprehensive Degas sculptures exhibit:

Ye Olde Doodles

Some sketch-dumping from the past year - gotta let it out sometime :)

In June i visited an amazing glass art exhibition in Litvak Gallery. One of the world-class artists featured was Dante Marioni. His imaginative vases look like something straight out of a modern cartoon, or Disney's Hercules - I absolutely LOVE them!

So i had to sketch them... and turn their shapes and curves into creatures and ladies -


well, it still needs some work, hopefully ill get back to it soon.

more curvy sketches:


and some drawings based on these photos of Marylin and Bette i found on this lovely photo blog:


That's it for tonight ;)

How to Train Your... Pillow?

I just watched "How to Train Your Dragon" 3 times in the past two days!! i'm so happy to own the DVDs, I have to share my feelings... in pillow-form:

Ok, this is a spur of the moment thing, this could use some work.

but i just enjoyed this film so much! I went to see it in theaters with no expectations, and i was so happily surprised! i don't remember the last time a movie made me feel like a kid again. sigh...

Paintings without paint - hooray!

More retro-updates! now meshed together with recent updates.

This is the first painting assignment, where we:
1. develop an exterior layout into three different tonals
2. pick one tonal of the three and develop it into three different color versions
3. pick one color study of the three and go to a final big version with it.

Luckily for brush-o-phobic me, no actual painting had to be involved, just a traditional medium.

i went for color pencils:

final:

... Fast-forwarding one year (during which no painting took place on my end :P), here's the 2010 version of the same assignment.
This time Mike was kind enough to let me develop each tonal into one color study, instead of picking one tonal and coloring it in three variations:

(the big shape in the left lower corner is a tree top! too bad it looks like stylized flames about to devour the poor chair, table and entire scene whole..)

Instead of going back to the comfort zone of color pencils, i tried an ink wash for the first time, to set the tones, and went over that with the pencils afterward:


I found the ink gave the scene a slightly more somber, toned-down atmosphere:


yay! ok, on to the next project...

Story Time 1.0

Retrospective update time!

As some of you may know, i started second year of animation back in fall 2009, but shortly after had to take time off unfortunately. i got to do pretty much only one assignment per class.
It was far from ideal, but I'm back and doing it again, full throttle!

Now with that year behind me, i feel free to update whatever decent work i had done back then.
So today i'll share the final boards for the Nursery Rhyme assignment from Storyboarding class.
At the beginning of school we are assigned two nursery rhymes and start developing them into short stories with original characters. We go to full boards with one rhyme, and this is the result:

(Excerpt from original rhyme by Heinrich Hoffman):
Where is Philip, where is he?
Fairly covered up you see!
Cloth and all are lying on him;
He has pulled down all upon him.
What a terrible to-do!
Dishes, glasses, snapped in two!
Here a knife, and there a fork!
Philip, this is cruel work.
Table all so bare, and ah!
Poor Papa, and poor Mamma
Look quite cross, and wonder how
They shall have their dinner now.












Starting out with beat boards (major story points illustrated on few cards), it was a bit different, since the portrait was just in the background and not a main driving force of the story.
With thanks to helpful input from Nancy Beiman, our teacher, and some friends, a lot changed between the original and final, but that's what i like about story-telling/boarding :)

Hope you enjoyed!

Got meself an original signed Emslie!

Following the long tradition of drawing all second year students' caricatures, our wonderful character design teacher, Pete Emslie, was kind enough to draw mine:


After a year long wait (and a bit of dread) - I'm really happy with the result :)
Thanks, Pete!