Louie 13-14-15

The story is starting to take off.


You can read the whole story here.

Old Omega Videos

Louie 10-11-12

Oops I forgot to post these guys here when I updated my website.


You can read the whole story here.

I'm young at heart

One way to look at this is a I'm younger than I look (which is a little dis concerning) . Or that my virtual age matches my maturity. Either way unless I get randomly mauled by a land narwhal I should live a long time.

Find your virtual age here.

Morning Sketches

Don't tell anyone but I haven't done any sketching this week. But here's some sketches from last week that I didn't post. I did my usual life drawing and then tried to do a more cartoony version as well.

Louie 7 - 8 - 9

It was a busy week this week but I still managed to get in three new Louie panels.





Read the entire story here.

Vikings

I like vikings and there is nothing is better than dinosaur vikings.

Louie

Here's the next three pages of Louie. I created a page on my website that will be the home of Louie. I'll be updating that page as I post the panels here. That way it will be easier to follow the story.



Read the entire story here.

Morning Sketches

I have to admit that two of these morning sketches weren't done in the morning. Can you tell which ones?

Louie

I've been talking about it and planning for it long enough. Here is the first three pages of my comic Louie. I've drawn and ink enough pages to give me a small head start and I'm planing to post three panels a week till it's finished.

The story itself was inspired by a bunch of different things. Growth as an storyteller is my main goal and the best way to grow is to start telling stories. I've already found myself stretching as an artist because I'm forced to draw things I would never do if I just doodled in my sketch book. I also want to tell a story that my niece and nephew can enjoy since I know they check my blog regularly. I hope you all enjoy Louie because so far it has been a fun creation process.

Randy Pausch

Professor Randy Pausch gives this super inspirational "Last Lecture" at Carnegie Mellon. It's over an hour long so this first one is a five minute version of the talk. My only disappointment with the talk is his early dismissal of religion. It's a little sad that such a smart inspirational guy is missing out on something that huge.


5 minute version



hour plus version

The virtual reality video he shows with the pink bunnies about 40 minutes into the talk is about the scariest thing I ever seen.

Morning Sketches

I got nothing to say!

Animation Goodness

Fellow Animation Mentor Class 4 graduate and all around cool guy Martin Kirkhaug is posting some awesome links on his blog. My favorite post has to be the stuff on James Baxter. Baxter's animation is as good as it can get. His blog is becoming a regular goldmine of animation history, knowledge and pure fun! Go check it out right now!


You should also checkout his short Forever Young while your over there too. Great stuff.

More Morning Sketches

Here's some more of my morning warm up life drawing sketches. I try to spend no more that a couple of minutes sketching each figure out. Sometimes I admit that I get lost in the drawing and keep on doodling away.

I Got The Sketch Card Crazies

I found out about sketch cards a little while ago and have been itching to try making some on my own. I first tried painting them in acrylics but that took forever. Then I tried watercolors and I wasn't satisfied with my results. Next I tried color pencils, and well let's just say that approach didn't work out. For the last couple of months every time I walk into an art store I have been scoping out the Prismacolor markers. I broken down recently and purchase a set 48 and have been having a lot of fun with them. Color is still a weakness in my artistic armor but these Prismacolor markers are a great way to learn and explore.

For those of you who don't know who the sketch card characters are, (starting at the top left and moving clockwise around) that's Marvin the vegetarian dragon, Hubert the duck with the magical sword and belt, and Bermaw the pink thing and eats everything from Lewis Trondhiem and Joann Sfar's Dungeon series, lastly that's Katara from Avatar.

My Animation Links

I've been following a bunch of animation blogs in my reader for sometime now. It seems like recently a lot of great stuff is being posted on these sites. Here's a list of some blogs that I think are putting out the best stuff.

http://bobbyboom.blogspot.com
http://fliponline.blogspot.com
http://handdrawnnomadzone.blogspot.com
http://www.keithlango.com
http://drstepheng.splinedoctors.com/blog_pat.html
http://splinedoctors.blogspot.com
http://www.synchrolux.com
http://sevencamels.blogspot.com
http://www.navone.org/blogger/

I follow a few more but these guys are my favorites. These links don't just cover CG character animation, although most of them focus on that. Mark Kennedy's Temple of the Seven Golden Camels mainly focuses on storyboarding or drawing. Keith Lango's blog often trails off into discussing storytelling and trends in animation. But each of these links is a treasure chest full of animation secretes. I also added an animation links section to my blog to the right. Enjoy!

Morning Sketches

Here's a page out of one of my sketch books. I've been warming up every morning with 10 minutes of life drawing. It's a slow process but I've notice that my drawing skills are getting better.

I've noticed that my sketch book habits are a lot like my reading habits. At any given time I'll be reading 4 or 5 books. Right now I'm reading G.K. Chesterson's Orthodoxy, Lewis Trondheim and Joann Sfar's Dungeon Volume 1: Duck Heart, J.R.R. Tolkien's Two Towers, and Gary Faigin's The Artist Complete Guide to Facial Expressions. When it comes to sketch books I got a 3.5"x5.5" Moleskine that I use to record story ideas in, a spiral bound 5.5"x8.5" Strathmore Sketch that use as my portable go anywhere sketch pad, a hard cover book bound 8.5"x11" Utrecht that I think of as "my sketch book" where most of my doodling go, and a spiral bound 9"x12" Strathmore Drawing that I do most of my life drawing and "practicing" in. Of course that isn't counting the sketch pad the paper I'm using to draw Louie comes from. (I'm on page 47 out 200 now!) Or the 9"x12" Utrecht Sketch pad that I mistakenly purchased, I thought was book bound but it wasn't. I use that one as scratch paper.

I guess I'm the type of person that likes to have a lot of projects going at one time. It helps me stay interested and see the projects I'm working on with a fresh eye. At least that's my excuse. What's yours?

Hot Dog Walk

I was working on an overlap exercise but I got a little distracted when I saw that many companies are looking for animators with experiencing animating animals. I know that in theory the amount of legs a creature has doesn't affect the principles of animation. But adding an extra pair of legs to the equation just adds for more things to go wrong. I hope you like my little doggy walk.

A Lazy Sunday

I had a rare relaxed Sunday. It was great. They don't happen too often any more so I made sure to take full advantage of it. I took a nap, surfed the web, watched some Youtube painting tutorials, and I did some painting.

I've recently discovered sketch cards. Sketch cards are original art non sport trading cards. Topps with their line of Star Wars trading cards commissions a bunch of artist to draw their own version of the popular Star Wars characters on trading card size paper. Then they insert one of those drawings (not a copy or a reprint but the original art) in 1 out of every 25 or so trading card packs. So when the lucky collector opens up his pack, surprise! He is the proud owner of an original piece of art. I thought it would be fun to do some of my own sketch cards.

I decided to start out with Aang the main character from the cartoon series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Avatar is my favorite TV show going right now. It is so well written, smart, and the attention to detail is amazing for a "kids" show or any TV show. If you like Samuri Jack or Martial Arts or just quality animation you'll probably really enjoy Avatar.

For my next sketch card I'll probably take a slightly different approach to help speed up the process, but I'm happy how it turned out. I did this one in acrylic and I did another version in watercolor. The watercolor version was a disaster. I hated how the colors came out. I still have some learning to do with watercolors.

AMer Short

Ales Mav, a former classmate of mine at Animation Mentor, just finished his short. Check it out. It's a lot of fun.

http://www.alesmav.com/DaphnesNewBroom/

Monster Fight!

Don't ask me why but monsters fight all the time.

Narnia

I'm in the middle of watching The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe here's some images from my sketch book.

Victorious Viking and boogers

I needed to get some more of my animation in a presentable format so I thought I'd show that off here. It's all stuff that I've shown before at various stages of the creation process. But most of it is at least six months old. Searching through my school stuff I've discovered that a lot of it isn't useful because I've learned and grown a lot since I finished it. I guess it is a good problem to have.

Louie Progress 29 / 200ish

Here's page 29 of my Epic comic adventure Louie! OK so maybe it isn't so epic but it's an epic undertaking for me to finish it. It is coming along nicely if not a little slowly, but that's ok it isn't my highest priority for now.

Figure Drawing

I haven't had as much time as I would like but I've managed to get some figure drawing in. I'm building that wall one brick at a time.

A Few Pictures

I've been working and playing hard over the last couple of weeks. Here's some pictures from my adventures. I should have another animation workout posted up soon.

But Don't Talk Back To Darth Vader

Faces

I have taken some contract work with Walsh Family Media on a short which is a lot of fun. The contract sort of fell into my lap and I had it before I realized it. So with my new status as a professional animator, finishing up at Eden Bicycles, racing my mountain bike last Sunday (I felt like I raced well but I finished pretty low in my category), and life in general I haven't made progress on Louie. So far I've got 22 pages of 200. Here's a page from my sketch book that I doodled in yesterday while Lisa and I babysat my niece and nephew.

Animation Work Out 3

Things are moving along with the job search but until I have any news on that front I show you this test I've been working on. Spacing has been a difficult thing for me to really understand. A lot of times my spacing suffers from being a bit two harsh. Especially my transitions from pose to pose pop a little too much. It's something I've been trying to improve and something I've been trying to remedy during my 2D practice time. I recently had a revelation when looking over my notes from AM when I saw this...


I found this neat spacing trick on some animators blog but I can't remember where it was from. If somebody knows who did this let me know so I can credit them. Anyways I believe my spacing problem might be occurring during the blocking stage and not during the transition from blocking to splines. So I pulled out the old wacom tablet and did this test. For those non animators out there the bottom circle/ball thingie has slightly different spacing when it starts and stops which feels much smoother to me. And if these drawings where cleaned up you could see and feel the difference even more.

Louie Progress 16 / 200ish

To prove to you all that I'm making progress on my first graphic novella here's page 5 of Louie the Space Rancher. I call it a graphic novella cause it's over 48 pages which you could still call a comic or a floppy but it is under 100 pages so it isn't at graphic novel length. Although I have to say graphic novella sounds pretty snotty. I got 16 pages drawn and inked so far and it has been a lot of fun and a great learning experience so far. I'd like to start posting the story by June, but who knows what my schedule is going to look like this year.

Ape Lad: Pappy and the Cryptids.

I wish I had a Pappy with a robotic hand.

Animation Workout 2

Here is my next animation workout. It is still on 2's and I'm more trying to focus on the principles than getting a polished piece of animation to show off. I love the way 2D doesn't allow you to be lazy. It forces me to think before I draw and not just start moving things around like can be done in 3D.

Animation Workout

I'm finally at a place where polishing my demo reel isn't consuming my life so I thought I would get back to working on my animation skills. Ever since I seen the Jason Ryan tutorials I've been wanting to work on some 2D animation. Actually this is something that I've been interested in since I saw the famous Jason Ryan work flow video at Animation Mentor. I love his work flow and how he uses 2D animation to plan out his 3D work. Computers are great and they do some awesome things but sometimes they just get in the way. Like my grandpa taught me you gotta use the right tool for the right job.

The funny thing is that it is easier to do a bouncing ball in 3D than in 2D! But I got to learn 2D somehow and the classic bouncing ball exercise is a great way to do that. I'm still using the demo version of Plastic Animation Paper which is a great free program but it is difficult to get smooth lines with my current set up. So enjoy my scratchy/rough bouncing ball.

Drawing, Drawing, Drawing

Here's some practice drawing that I've been doing. I've been trying to do more of this stuff to improve my drawing, rendering, and perspective skills. I didn't get to do much of this stuff when I was at CSUH. If I remember right they only required us to take two or three drawing classes. Which was a shame, I remember trying to take more but I could never fit it into my schedule. I'm planning on taking more drawing class in the future at Chabot or online or something. For now I'll keep on doing this sort of stuff.

New Drawing Table!

I'm super excited about my new drawing table. I got it as a Christmas gift from my parents (thanks Mom and Dad) and I just finished putting it together today. Ok, I know this image is pretty crumby but I can't find my camera so I had to use my web cam. There is a bit of a story behind this table. My parents bought me different table that while it was great it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. I'll admitt I'm pretty fussy when it comes to things like this. If I'm going to spend hours at a time drawing on this thing I don't want a table that I'm not happy with. So I returned the original table and did a bit more research. I found a couple of tables I really liked but they were way too expensive. I could only spend around $200 but I didn't want something cheaply made. After a lot of debate I decided on the Alvin CraftMaster II Deluxe Hobby and Drawing Station from Utrecht for $179.

Before I made that purchase I wanted to see the table in person just to make sure it was a solidly built table. I didn't want another wobbler. You can only buy the CraftMaster II online but Utrecht had the slightly smaller CraftMaster I in there store. I decided test driving the Craftmaster I would be good enough so yesterday Lisa and I took a trip to Berkley to check it out. But fortune had another plan for us.

As we drove up University Avenue in Berkley we decided to drop by Dick Blick and see what they had. We ended up buying a totally different table at Dick Blick and Utrecht didn't have the CraftMaster in stock. I'm really happy how things turned out. My new table, the Alvin Workmaster Drafting Table, has a large drawing surface and is sturdy too. I love it!

Stan The Man

Check this out.

http://www.1988stantheman.blogspot.com/

Here are some of my favorites.

"Louie: Space Rancher" Character Roll Call

(Click to view larger)

Here's most all of the character's from my up coming comic titled "Louie: Space Rancher". It's a working title for now but it is one that I like. I've been fiddling with this story on and off for over a year and I think I finally got all the bugs ironed out. There are a couple more characters that appear but these guys carry most of the action. That is Louie on the far left and his nemesis the pirate on the far right. I'm planning to first publish "Louie: Space Rancher" on the web and then try Ka-Blam the print on demand printing house to publish a book. But it will probably be awhile before you I start posting the first pages. I want all the pages to come out in a quick and organized fashion with no breaks in the action. I'm thinking of this a learning project so I'll be testing out a bunch of things. It's already been a lot of fun.

Demo Reel and Stuff

Hey there true believers!

I thought I'd post my in progress demo reel. It is the same thing that is under the My Work link to the right but after talking to a couple of you people I don't think anyone ever clicks on the link to check it out. I understand completely. So I thought I'd save you some work and show off my reel. This is the practically the final reel! As soon as I hear back from AM this reel will be sent out to fend for it's self in the big bad world that is the animation industry.

Excelsior!

Editors Note: I just noticed that I left out the credit to Animation Mentor for the creation of the rigs. Oops!

Louie Practice

Here's some practice sketches of Louie the main character in my next comic. I've been practicing inking and just getting a hang of drawing Louie. Some of these sketches are more successful than other but I learned from each one.

Updated walk

Here's the latest on my walk cycle. I really haven't worked on it that much since I last posted it up here. I've been sick and have been working on my other demo reel pieces. I've also been doing some drawing. I'll post some of that sometime soon.

Happy New Year

And a belated Merry Christmas.

I've realized I forgot to post my progress on my walk cycle. This isn't done yet but it's getting there. Some of my favorite people from my animation mentor days gave me some critiques that I haven't addressed because of the busy holiday season. I hope you like it!



Otis Frampton the author of the Oddly Normal series of graphic novels has just started auctioning of some sketch cards on ebay. The first auction if for a pretty sweet King Leonidas card. I like it.