Some Animations

This is a short video of the 3D animations I have done that I am most proud of up to this point.

If the video below doesn't work, here is the YouTube link: http://youtu.be/w5RPTVZ7_40

I know I still have a lot to learn, but I'm making progress step by step :)

A Very Long-Overdue Update

It's been quite some time since I last updated my blog. I just thought I should post a little bit of what I worked on recently.

This year, I participated in another art auction for charity. It was a continuation of the Pokemon art auction I painted the Vileplume painting for last year. The theme this year was Nintendo, and my character was Toon Link. I had a lot of fun with this piece, and it taught me a lot about lighting, and I "re-learned" the hard way that you shouldn't throw out your paint palette halfway through a painting...

This semester, I was enrolled in the advanced computer animation class. We focused a lot on character performance, thought processes, dialogue, and lip syncing. This was the first time I animated to sound, and it was a lot of fun! My teacher said one thing that really stuck with me:
"Your character is trying to express himself, but he's stuck in his default pose. It's your job as an animator to free him of his rigidity and help him express his thoughts to the world." Hopefully I did a decent job. I still have a very long way to go, but I learned so much in this class this year. I'm proud of the progress I made :)

Again, there are poses, then quick studies, then animation projects.

Two Artists, One Painting

Back in September, a friend and I worked on a digital painting together. It was a little warm-up to our semester, and we figured a little extra practice would do us both good. As we passed the file back and forth, we had one just rule: we weren't allowed to ask each other what the other was painting.

First, I painted a red balloon and tossed in some color for a sky:

Next, my friend tied the balloon to a cute little door:

Then, I decided the door should lead to another dimension, and that a tree was a fantastic place for this to happen...

Lastly, my friend gave the tree a ground plane to sit on, and filled the sky with clouds.

This was the first time I had shared a digital painting with someone, and it was fun to see what we came up with. Hopefully over the winter break, we will do more of these to keep us from getting too rusty :)

Pokemon for Charity

I just realized I never posted this painting anywhere on any of my pages.

I participated in a gallery organized by Amy Kim and Peter Le, two amazing people from my program. There were 151 artists who were each assigned one of the original 151 Pokemon. They were to illustrate that Pokemon in whatever style they wanted to. These pieces were all auctioned off online, and all the proceeds went to Canines for Disabled Children.

Kotaku got word of us and we were featured on their page, and because of that, our auction got way more views than we ever imagined.

If you want to see all 151 pieces, click here.

My Pokemon was Vileplume.

This was painted with acrylic paint on cold press illustration board. I never thought it would earn more than $15 for the auction, but it ended up going for $250.

I was very humbled by the experience. I learned that although I may hate my work and I think I'm absolutely right to believe it sucks, others may think it is worth much more. I learned that perfection isn't everything.

Speed Painting #16

It's been a while...

This one's not super speedy. It took me about 1.5 to 2 hours, but I really liked how it turned out considering the time I spent on it.

Here's the photo:

And here's the painting:

The painting's got a bunch of flaws, and I wasn't done, but even so, it's got some believability to it. Looking at my past speed paintings, this one definitely shows that I'm improving :)

Day 4 - An animal you think is really cute

I rushed through this one a bit too, but for rushing, it took a little too long :P

I like elephants.

Day 3 - Friends

This one didn't turn out as cute as I wanted it to because I rushed through the paint job (because I'm behind...). My friends did really cute drawings for this one, so I wanted to make mine match... I'll touch it up if I have extra time later. For halloween, my friends and I were the Power Puff Girls and Professor Utonium, so I drew us as the characters we dressed up as.