Gold's House Interior- Illustrations

Our last assignment for Artificial Environments and Effects: illustrate the interior of the character Gold's house.

Life Drawing Sessions

All of the drawings I created in attending the Life Drawing sessions this year are due tomorrow. So, here they are on the blog!

9-1:




9-8:



9-15:

The skull drawn in the right-hand corner was put there by my instructor to further illustrate to building blocks/components that go into drawing the human skull.


9-22:



9-29:



10-6: Hopefully you'll notice a mark-up in quality. If you do, it's because I started using a different sketchbook with a better quality paper. For anyone that doesn't think money=better drawings, they're dead wrong. If you have crappy materials, you're going to make a crappy drawing. Not to say skills aren't a considerable factor, but a great drawing is poorly rendered on a shitty sketchbook. The previous sketchbook's pages would literally come apart while I was erasing. These drawings are more "crisp" because I could erase without smuding everything up.

I made the mistake of not sketching the entire figure before going into the details. Because of this, his legs taper off because that's where the edge of the paper was. It's a mistake to draw larger than the pad. You will subconsciously alter the proportions to fit more onto the paper.




10-20:





10-27-06: These sessions were faster-paced, with an emphasis on quick sketches upon which you could base the rest of the drawing. For the first drwing I didn't make it past the sketch. For the second, I finished the sketch, but the session ended just as erased the lower-half's sketch so I could add cleaner, darker lines.



11-3:

The beginning of the day's session started with a flurry of fast-paced sketches, where we were to draw the model's figure, emphasizing the "line of action" as quickly as possible. The model would change her pose every 30 seconds. This was the first of 6 pages of sketches. I'm particularly fond of the sketch in the upper-left corner.

To relate back to animation, the instructor had the model change positions in a series of poses meant to resemble an action taking place, so we could practice "thumbnailing" the key parts of an event. In this, the model saw something, walked to it, and gave it a closer look.

Same idea as above. In this, the model is sweeping.

Shake Tracking Assignment

For this assignment, we were given a piece of footage shot by our instructor and we then had to insert something into the footage as seamlessly as possible. For mine, I shot myself in front of a bluescreen and then inserted myself into the footage. I removed the blue background with chromakey, matched my colors with the footage, and then tracked myself using reference points in the footage.

Here's the leveling guide:


I think it was pretty successful, or at least as good as I could get it.



In case you're wondering what I was doing, my original plan was simply to stand in front of the blue screen and do nothing. However, one of my VL colleagues suggested to instead "rub my beard," so I did. Here's a pic:

Walk Cycle Animation

For this assignment, we were to create a walk cycle of a character with a certain "attitude" that corresponded to a loop of music of our own choosing.



I chose "Black History Month," by Death From Above 1979. The loop of music isn't perfect, but the cycle's pretty consistent with the beat, which was important.

Space Pandas... IN SPAAAAAACE!

This isn't really related to my Visual Language track, but I suppose this is also an art blog:

A random favor for a friend. He had to have a graphic for a website class, based on the theme "Pandas in Space." Here's what I came up with:

Final Strip

Final (inked) version of the Comical Strip. Big change in the 4th panel. Before it was a subtle change in the characters demeanor, more of a "lack of reaction" as the reaction. However, the instructor emphasized that the change in expression from one extreme ("high and happy" in the 2nd panel to "low and sad" in the 4th) would produce a more humorous effect.

Floorplan and Elevations

In further deviations from our "The Chain" breakdown, we had to create the floorplan of the character Gold's house, and do the elevations for one room.

Floorplan:


Elevations:

Perspective Shots

For "The Chain," we next had to "zoom in" on our map and create a layout of one of the characters' neighborhoods. Then, we were to show four views of the neighborhood from a ground-level perspective.

Overhead view:


North:


East:


South:


West:

Comical Strip- Rough

Our Visual Story assignments so far have been culminating to this: the Comical Strip. Having studied the visual language (ie, shots, pans, perspective, visual space, etc), we are to create a 4 panel strip using characters of our own design to craft a joke of sorts. I opted to use the ones I created for the class. Here's the rough draft (the final draft is due next week... he'll be critiquing these today):

Map assignment

For The Chain, we had to create a map that fully represents the story and all of the events that take place. A good starting off point is that a dog attack happens where a Colonial House stands n the fringes of a park. Therefore, the "Attack Site" is located close to the edge of a park.

Facial Animation

Facial Animation assignment. From the characters we designed for Visual Storytelling, we were to choose one and animate that character going through a change of expression while dubbing it to sound. Originally, I was going to do my hero character. A peer of mine suggested doing the Old Man, but I was against it then. I thought having to animate the follow-through on the jowels would be too much. However, as soon as I drew the single frame for the Hero character, I realized how much more fun it would be to make the Old Man as jowelly as possible.

Sure enough, it was. I'm very happy with how it came out. I did thumbnails as a preview of the animation, then from the thumbnails I did the keys, then shot the keys. Once I viewed the keys, I in-betweened them and then shot those. After some tweaking, I cleaned up the keys and the in-betweens, shot the whole thing, and then synched up the sound using Final Cut Pro.

So far, it was my favorite animation to do. Took the least amount of paper, too! Only 20 frames!

Flour Sack Animation

Like the standard Disney animator test, we were to give a flour sack "life." However, our assignment differed in that whereas the Disney test asks for a walk cycle, ours was to make the Flour sack do a jump, all the while giving it thought and character in the process. I think I did fairly well. The only part that wasn't well received was the impact on the other side of the gap. If you compare it to my "Bouncing Ball" animation, the flour sack has no contact process; the flour sack is in the air one frame, and in the very next frame has been squashed on the ground, as opposed to making contact with the ground and then squishing. I thought leaving out the moment of contact and instead skipping to the flour sack at its most squashed state would make for a more jarring impact, but our instructor disagreed. Lesson learned.

On the bright side, everyone liked the "flailing kicks" at the end.

Teapot Animation

Teapot animation, due Sept. 20th. We had to either animate an egg cracking to reveal a surprise inside, or a teapot with a "mystery" effect. I waited too long on mine and the result is sloppy animation (quality of line especially). I resorted to using spirals for the effect, which certainly do their job, but certainly aren't very interesting.

Still, I chose the teapot because it seemed like the tougher of the two. And, I feel that I benefitted from it in the long run.

Rough Character Sheets

Here's the rough character sheets that accompanied the facial expressions.

The Bouncing Ball

This was done at the beginning of the semester, on August 29th.



I'm particularly happy with it because mine really shows "easing in" and "easing out," or basically the effects of gravity. It increases speed as it approaches the ground and decreases speed as it nears the top of its apex.

Serial Planes project

Had to recreate an every-day object using "serial planes" (out of foamcore) that showed gradation of size and variation of spacing.



(it's a glue bottle)

Character Design Exercises

In Visual Story, we had to create four character faces based on three shapes: an inverted triangle, a rectangle, and a circle. From those three shapes, we had to come up with four characters: a Villain, a Hero, a Toddler, and an Old Person.



Then, we had to do 8 expressions for each face- Confused, Angry, Happy, Surprised, Love, Disgust, Fear, Sadness:

Commercial Pitch

The next Production Process assignment was to come up with ideas for what would eventually become a real pitch for an intro to a series of local TV shows. Here are my storyboards:








This was for the show "One on One," an interview-format program. I'm happy to say out of 8 possible ideas for the category, mine was given the most votes. So, I've been placed in a group to finalize the pitch for next Wednesday.

Did I mention that if the pitch succeeds we'll then get/have to execute it?

Animation Pitch

(this project might actually have been chronologically before the character/space exrecises, but eh)

In Production Process, we had to create a mock animation pitch to a network. My group and I were assigned Cartoon Network, so we decided to pitch to their subsidiary, "Adult Swim." I was the team leader, art director, and co-character designer. The idea we came up with was "Wasteland University," an animated comedy about college in the post-apocalypse. Here's the show's "Bible," reposted for your viewing/reading pleasure:

Introduction
Only two things are known to have the tenacity to survive an apocalypse: cockroaches and college. In a world devastated by several such society-ending catastrophes, several small colleges are scattered throughout what’s left of the earth. One of these is Wasteland University. From all around the world (or what’s left of it) young adults travel to Wasteland University in hopes of picking up a trade that can lead them to a better life. That, or simply to have a few good years while they can. Regardless of their intention, Wasteland University is a shining beacon of hope and adventure to an exhausted planet.

Characters
Eric: After a nuclear winter set in, no one in Canada really seemed to notice. However, tourists stopped visiting and Canada’s government collapsed. What was left of the citizens took up jobs farming in central communes as a means to scrape by. Eric was part of such a family. After living a basic life for most of teens, Eric was immensely surprised on his 18th birthday to learn that his parents had saved up enough money and resources for him to make the journey to Wasteland University, the closest University to them. After loading the family’s Volvo with his things and then hitching the Volvo to the family’s donkey, Eric promised his parents he’d make a new life for himself and be someone, somebody that could bring sense back to the world. However, Eric hasn’t a clue what he wants to do and is currently undecided, He’ll decide someday, he swears.

Naros: After the ice caps melted, Mexico, Texas, and Southern Florida were completely flooded. However, civilization survived by means of remote floating atolls in which a small community could thrive off the sea. However, after living so long out on a remote island left to themselves, distant cousins soon become immediate cousins and, well, certain irregularities begin to appear. Naros is the latest batch of children born to one such atoll, and is sporting the latest developments. Naros has webbed feet, hands, and gills. Shocked at this state of existence, Naros’ parents cast him out in search of more refreshing waters, namely that of a separate gene pool. Naros swam until he eventually reached the shore of a larger land-mass, and wandered for days. He eventually found himself on the doorstep of Wasteland University. Although he’s enrolled in classes, he has his eyes on other sights: the ladies. However, he’ll need the best of luck in picking them up, as he only speaks Spanish. Chicks dig accents, though. And webbed limbs too, right?

Erma: Erma and her family lived quite peacefully in Melbourne, Australia… that is until a nuclear strike in China caused the tectonic plates to shift, sending the Australian continent in several directions. While they drifted across the ocean to parts unknown, a savage impromptu government was set up by biker gangs, dividing the already-split land-mass into territories. Always in search of the fuel for their motorcycles, wars were commonplace. Erma adapted quickly and fought for her life on a daily basis. After many years of drifting, Erma’s little piece of the ol’ Outback nestled itself onto a larger, unknown landmass. Once the gangs left in search of better things, Erma ventured out herself. Being an orphan, she had little choice. Eventually, she came across Wasteland University. Being the only source of stability in her life, Erma attends WU although she has a hard time adjusting to a schedule of classes, instead sticking to her old ways of patrolling the streets for fuel.

Red/John: Friends since birth, Red and John always looked out for eachother. John, the oversized African-American, and Red, the quick-thinking white kid. As they grow up they grew inseparable, eventually proving themselves on the football field as a phenomenal Quarterback/Block combo that led their local High School to a series of undefeated streaks. After a belated nuclear blast during a football game in an already-post-apocalyptic world, Red and John awoke to find themselves quite literally joined together. However, being BFF’s they just laughed it off and went on their merry way. As anarchy spread across the globe, Red and John’s combined talents of quick-thinking and brute force brought them many a victory in defending their hometown. Hearing of their skills, Wasteland U enlisted them in their own “Football Team,” which is used for protecting the campus’ land from invaders seeking to conquer more territory. Despite their deformity, Red and John are quite happy with their new bond. They’ve found themselves to be quite the success with the ladies… after all, two is better than one, if you catch my drift.

Here's a cast pic, for size reference:



Finally, here's three episodes (out of 10) that we came up with:

101: Pilot "Noobie First Years"
Today is Eric's Orientation. Jostled and pranked on by other students, gaping at all the strange people, unable to find the important places on campus, he's the only "normal" person on campus as well as the only one to seem surprised at the oddities that the Apocalypse has rendered on the world and humanity.

106: “MAH: Mututally Assured Homecoming”
Homecoming. Parade, football game, banquet, everyone has a part (something to do) except Eric. While at the same time Wasteland U Intelligence gives a report that the rival school is planning a covert attack to vandalize their mascot. With this information the school decides to launch a preemptive nuclear attack of their own. Half the school wants to, the other half doesn’t. Eric sees this as his opportunity to play peacemaker.

110: “Spring Breaking Point”
Party at the end of the world! It’s spring break and the whole gang is going to Ft. Lauderdale…or what’s left of it! The Atlantic Ocean is gone; all that’s left is a crater with a diameter from West Palm to Miami. Everyone just wants to have fun, but after a massive earthquake the city is destroyed again and they’ll need the help of Pike (a Snake Plissken wanna-be) to Escape from Spring Break. Along the way Eric falls in love with a replicant (Blade Runner).

... and this was all for a mock animation pitch.

(©Us 2006)