Birds and Bridges

Sketchdump 2: Doodles

2012-02-21T15:00:00.001-08:00

Sketchdump 1: Liiiife

2012-02-21T14:53:00.001-08:00

Holy moly it has been a while. I had quite the fall and winter break, with lots of travel and lots of sketching! There are so many things that I figured I would organize this into two posts - one for the life drawing that happened here and there, and one for doodles that happened all over everywhere. Here goes!

Life drawing at CTNx! Really awesome models:

CTNx folks - Jordan and Kiel:

And Justin!

David Chen, Ashlin, and Lauren Duda:

At the Kosher grocery down the street from where Nate and Alex live:

Wandering around the Venice canals...

...and Venice cafes...

Mr Curtis and company:

Made it home for Thanksgiving with Flannery, my wonderful sister:

And some old family friends:

And this old family friend:

Waiting in airports there's always some interesting people about...

Over Christmas Lauren and Michael and I drove to New Jersey, and stopped at Colonial Williamsburg on the way, where we found this excellent tree:

Lauren and Michael as we waited to hear a speech by Thomas Jefferson:

bird soldier

2011-10-30T08:40:00.001-07:00

Just noodling around!

This is how it ended

2011-10-24T10:10:00.000-07:00

Well, months after the fact, I finally got around to scanning the last of my travel sketches from Annecy and Spain.

Malachi became my model of choice while we traveled through Barcelona and San Sebastian:

In San Sebastian, we hiked up a mountain only to find a secret museum at the top! It was full of old Basque clothing, models of ships, and interesting bits of pieces of history.

A view of one of the beaches in San Sebastian, of which there were many:

And then it was off to Annecy for the animation festival! Annecy was amazing, almost more for spending time with some of my favorite people than for the animation itself. Lane, Nate, and Lauren were amazing travel companions, and we were all sketching all the time.

We stayed in a little apartment hotel outside of town, and got in the habit of making little meals in our little kitchen. In the mornings we'd get a fresh baguette from the bakery down the street, and eat it with brie and fig jam for breakfast. This, though, was in the evening after a long day: Lane and Lauren making couscous.

A view of some of the buildings in Annecy, hemmed in by hills and mountans:

Nate and Lauren were painting the mountains, as I did my creeper duties sitting behind them and painting them:

One chilly day we stopped into a cafe for hot chocolate. We spent a long time there just drawing, and as we were about to leave the lady running the cafe motioned us over and gave us each a shot glass full of some bright vanilla-tasting liquor - Alpine hospitality!

While this didn't actually happen, we were a hair away from disaster attempting to catch our train to Geneva. Thus, what might have been:

This actually did happen! We spent the night in the airport in order to catch our flight back to the States on time. Curled up in chairs, bundled in whatever clothes we could find to keep warm, waiting out the long quiet night.

Mega sketchdump!

2011-10-15T08:10:00.000-07:00

Oh hey! A little bit of life drawing in life :)Mr. Rainiri chilling like a boss at swing:

Some of the SCAD models at a gesture session:

Then Mr Brock, Mr Rainiri, Ms Duda, Ms Sampson, Mr Soman and I kindly modeled for one another, replete with costumes:

And last but not least some of the lovely people I know, just hangin' out!

Leftovers

2011-10-14T14:23:00.000-07:00

Leftover doodles from over the summer, posting them late just for kicks.

oh no lions

2011-10-11T20:48:00.001-07:00

evening painting

2011-10-10T21:01:00.000-07:00

Finishing out the day with a speedpainting of Ms. Duda. It's been a very Monday sort of Monday... We're all a bit tired at this point -_____-

Just things

2011-10-10T10:48:00.001-07:00

A warmup painting based on a cute photo, and a creature design for Josh to ZBrush!

Venerable Pages

2011-09-26T20:46:00.000-07:00

Giant sketchdump time! These are some very overdue pages from my sketchbook way back during my travels in France. A lot has happened since then - internship in Seattle, moving back to Savannah - but before moving on I wanted to get this old stuff out of the way. A few more pages to post after this mess, then I can start updating in earnest. Plenty of good projects going on this quarter, should be a good one :)

Moa

2011-09-09T06:03:00.000-07:00

New reel!

2011-05-14T15:36:00.000-07:00

Just updated my demo reel with animation from last quarter and a pretty fly Swedish swing/rap soundtrack. For your viewing pleasure:

Take two

2011-04-28T01:53:00.000-07:00

Last night I did a quick speedpaint self portrait, and the morning light today was so different that I gave it another shot just to compare. It was good practice! One thing that I think is really hard to avoid in digital painting is using too many colors. Having just started using watercolor this quarter, keeping a unified palette is something Lane taught me about, and it's much easier traditionally. All you have to do is work from light to dark and never clean your brush! In the digital world, you have literally every color ever - where do you even start? Laying out a palette would probably be good... something I'll definitely do next time.

Figs!

2011-04-27T12:17:00.001-07:00

Hopefully there will be more fig-related paintings to come, but this was part of my series for travel portfolio using silhouettes over paintings. There are a good number of fig trees around Lacoste, which I was really excited to find, never having seen a fig tree before!

Cicada Heart

2011-04-17T11:29:00.000-07:00

Last week we visited Roussillon, a village built on ochre mining. These incredible orange cliffs stood out so strongly against the typical greens of the French landscape!

Paris Finale

2011-04-15T14:46:00.000-07:00

And so, on the last day in Paris before leaving, we decided that we should probably swing by the Louvre. There are no words for how overwhelming it was. We almost immediately got absorbed in the classical sculpture gallery, which was a whole lesson in figure drawing by itself. If only we could have stayed for weeks!
One of the highlights at the end of the classical wing was the Winged Victory of Samothrace. At the top of a staircase and surrounded by echoing space, it managed to convey more movement and power than seemed possible in stone. Afterward I got lost for a while, wandering somewhat aimlessly into the Northern European sculpture gallery while trying to find African art. Once we all reunited, we headed up to the Mona Lisa (which was spectacular!) and stood for ages in front of the Raft of the Medusa, which totally blew our minds. In the evening we went back to the Tour Eiffel, this time making it all the way to the top in time to catch the sunset over Paris. Painting in the dark was tricky!
Then soon enough we were back on the train. A little more coffee painting (this time a memory sketch memorializing the gallon-size jars of Nutella that were everywhere in Paris).
It was an amazing trip, but it's good to be back in quiet Lacoste. Although quiet is a relative term, since we've had some pretty crazy adventures in the past week... But that'll be another post :)

Parisian Days

2011-04-14T08:41:00.001-07:00

In Paris we stayed at the Hotel Home Latin, near Notre Dame and the Fontaine Sainte Michel. Lauren's red hair started to become a theme between breakfast and a visit to the fountain...
...and kept on appearing after another visit to Shakespeare and Company, during which the piano was discovered :) Lauren played as I drew. One of the best moments of the trip for sure.

We went back to Shakespeare and Co. later on (for the third time) for a music performance by an expatriate American girl. While waiting for her to start, we got to sit amongst a crowd of interesting people milling about outside the store. The other half of the page was more coffee painting - with the discovery of using cocoa powder for the darks, courtesy of Lauren Duda!

Sainte Chapelle was beautiful, and so so difficult to convey in paint.

After spending the morning at Sainte Chapelle, we took the metro to Gobelins, the famous animation school. After a failed attempt to get in, a kindly student basically snuck us past the desk, and though after talking to the administration we were still unable to get a tour, we did get to walk the corridors and see what their workspace was like. They have these big sunny rooms with tall windows, and each student has a light table and a computer of their own to work at. It was so exciting just to be there! You could feel the energy in the air.

We were all kind of shellshocked by the sheer awesomeness of seeing Gobelins, so after leaving we went to the aquarium to draw some nice calming fish. Instead we got the ugliest and most unsettling horrors the sea could produce. But it was still pretty fun :)

We wrapped up the day with a fancy dinner at the Musee d'Orsay, followed by a visit to the glowing spectacle of the Tour Eiffel. Underneath the arch of the tower were hordes of guys selling cheap junk to tourists. Some were selling these light-up whirligigs which they'd shoot off into the air, creating glowing color trails in the night.

Last of the Paris sketches soon to come!

de mieux en mieux

2011-04-13T17:13:00.001-07:00

Oh, France! These last few weeks have been some of the most inspiring and eye-opening of my life. The countryside here is amazing, and it's a huge challenge to do it justice. I'm not nearly there yet, but I'm hoping that all the painting practice will get me a little closer. The beginnings of my sketchbook have mostly been experiments - with this one I tried out painting with coffee and cocoa powder for the foreground. I drew it near the top of Lacoste, where there's a little path up to the Chateau de Sade, and met a number of fascinating people while working (namely the Irish gardener and a world-traveling French Canadian who regaled me with stories of biking through Romania).

The first Friday in Lacoste, Eleanor (the student coordinator) told us we could hike to the neighboring village of Bonnieux, a forty minute walk of about 3-4 km. It took me, Lauren, Lane, and Rachel over an hour and a lot of wrong turns down in the maze of vinyards that makes up the valley before we made it. Later I went for a run following the main roads, looping around Bonnieux. I had a delicious orange afterwards :)

This one was a later hike to Bonnieux; we went to the top of the hill and looked down on the church below. I liked the delicate trees that blocked the view a bit.

And then...

PARIS.

Even though we hit up a lot of famous monuments and museums, the most magical place by far was this tiny, overflowing English-language bookstore. It was almost indescribable. Crammed with books, full of people from all over the world, creaking with age and babbling with talk and music... If there's one place to make a pilgrimage to in Paris, this is it.

Lots more sketches to come, this is only a bit of what I've done so far! I'm learning so much from watching Lane and Lauren beast it with colors and sketches, and of course Rachel with her amazing draftsmanship, and I get up every day excited to do something new with art or go have an adventure.

Tous les jours, nous devenons de mieux en mieux :)

The Great Wandering

2011-03-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

I'm off on spring travels, studying in France, and have a nice new sketchbook I'm filling up!

During spring break, between Savannah and France, I flew to Seattle for an interview and got to visit the famous Pike's Place market:

Waiting in the Seattle airport, watching the sunset - my last look at the west coast for a long time:

Then seeing the sun rise on the east coast during a layover in Charlotte - followed terrifyingly quickly by a phonecall from the interview I'd just had offering me an internship...!

...leading to decision struggles and cathartic doodling:

Leaving Savannah for France after just a day (strange encounters on Lufthansa flights and practice processing leonine face-markings for my film by using some friend's faces):

Waiting at the airport in Munich for the final flight to Marseilles, I was surrounded by Russians:

And then after flying over the incredible Alps - FRANCE!

3000-year-old Roman bridges and beautiful old houses everywhere:

And we've only been here for a few days! The adventure has just begun. While I still have a good number of commitments to projects back home and am attempting to get Dovecote running again, I'm hoping that this will be a time mostly for thought, writing, and drawing to plan for a number of projects of my own. It's a beautiful, inspiring place, and I'm surrounded by inspiring people - what could be better?

The blogs of the inspiring ladies I'm with:
Lane!
Lauren!

this is it

2011-03-16T22:03:00.000-07:00

This finals was crazy intense, but happily this got at least a little finished. Much love to Malachi Graham for the inspiring song; I can't wait for this music video to be a reality <3

Something old -

2011-03-12T05:46:00.000-08:00

Meant to post this a while ago, but just got around to it: the revised layout for Natalia's film! Looking much better than
the previous version I think :)

Norovirus!

2011-03-10T16:52:00.000-08:00

So in the midst of all the madness of this quarter, I got the opportunity to do a test animation for the amazing Lauren Brown, who is pitching a series idea to Warner Brothers. Norovirus, the main character, is a sentient computer virus on the run from the organization that created her. She was super fun to animate!

Moa

2011-03-02T09:22:00.001-08:00

A poster for what might be a film one day! If I can ever hash out this animatic D8

Concept thing

2011-02-20T22:42:00.000-08:00

Only three weeks til the end of the quarter O____________O HOW DID THIS HAPPEN

Here is some art for a concept I've been toying with for my senior film:

night blooming yet again

2011-01-20T02:31:00.001-08:00

Trying things out

2011-01-17T09:47:00.000-08:00

More Nightblooming, trying to get a visual feel for things.

Nightblooming

2011-01-16T19:27:00.001-08:00

This quarter I'm in a 2D production class with Webber, and finally decided to make good on my promise to make a music video for my very talented musician friend Malachi - I'll be using the class to work out a three shot sequence that will help solidify the visual style and workflow of the film. Here's a little visual development for that:

Old work

2011-01-05T10:29:00.000-08:00

This is something I meant to upload at the end of last quarter - my final for Speed Sketching with Dove. We were given this three-page time-travel-adventure script that left a lot up to the artist. It was tons of fun to draw! I want to go back and perk it up with some color in Photoshop, so hopefully that'll show up here soon :)

Blues

2011-01-05T10:11:00.000-08:00

Leaving Portland is always the saddest time of year. I know I'll get back into the swing of being in Savannah, but for now, I just miss home.

Here's a little digital painting practice I worked on during the break - trying to study value by working with black-and-white photos as reference. Value is one of my major weaknesses, so this was pretty helpful.

Mushroom Collie Beuraucracy

2010-12-19T15:09:00.000-08:00

Whipped up a little illustration to give as a solstice gift this year. Inspired by a beautiful little collie dog I saw while out for a run a few weeks ago, and some photos of mushrooms I took last summer.

Fat Tail Gecko

2010-11-30T00:30:00.000-08:00

Another derivative of the quick visit to House of Reptiles. Still kind of unsure about it as a whole - couldn't quite seem to get the colors where they needed to be. Still fun to play around with!

Sketchy sketchin'

2010-11-27T14:50:00.000-08:00

Some life sketching from the past week!

At the amazing amazing CTN Expo they had a model posing in the foyer for anyone to draw from:

Then after I got back home I drew some people while waiting at the Portland airport for my sister:

(The lizard was not waiting with us, alas. He was hangin' in a box at the House of Reptiles, where a friend of mine was buying mice to feed her snake).

And then at last, back to Hipbone Studio!

Badgering the fam

2010-11-24T17:50:00.000-08:00

I arrived home Sunday night after an amazing weekend at CTN Expo, and just last night my sister flew back to Portland too! Unusually enough, it's snowing a little and the light was beautiful today, so Flannery kindly sat for a speed-paint this morning :) Here's the result!

Ginger monster

2010-11-24T08:11:00.000-08:00

That test animation of a fig warrior I posted a while ago is an outgrowth of a short film idea I'm putting together in the back of my mind while everything else is going on. Now that I'm home and have some time to spend, I'm trying to develop the rest of her little world! This here is a bit of feeling around for the design of her arch-nemesis, a Ginger Monster.

Mighty fine!

2010-11-17T03:26:00.000-08:00

Finals are kicking my butt! In a great way that means I will hopefully come out of it a better artist :)
Here's my character animation final, using a quote from O Brother Where Art Thou and a character from Secret of Kells. This hasn't been critiqued yet, so I'm sure edits are on the way!

Layout adventures

2010-11-14T16:07:00.000-08:00

An unexpected opportunity arose just a week or two ago to do a layout painting for Natalia's senior film, Out of Time. I don't think I ever realized just how much I love love love layout painting until working on this. It's unfinished (much work and polishing to be done over break), but in the meantime here it is so far:

I'm not dead yet!

2010-11-07T14:08:00.000-08:00

From my Vimeo description:
"No girl wants to marry a doctor who can't tell if a man's dead or not."
Thus spoke the fine Mr. Robert Downey Jr. in the recent Sherlock Holmes movie. I built and animated this plague doctor and his corpsey friend as a dialogue exercise in Flash CS5. If you're familiar with the beautiful Secret of Kells, you can probably tell that I was heavily inspired by the aesthetics of that film. I really love that flat, illustrative style they brought to the animation, and Flash provided a good opportunity to experiment with that without having to go though the entire frame-by-frame cleanup/ink-and-paint process that would be the norm for hand drawn animation.

Inspired by...

2010-10-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

...Nico Marlett! Last Saturday I had the wonderful opportunity to go sit at Gallery Espresso and just draw for a few hours. My friend Gui, who was there as well, had brought a Nico Marlett sketchbook which was hugely inspiring to look through. For those who don't know, Marlett was a designer on How to Train Your Dragon, and if you saw the film, those were his drawings in the credits. Amazing, amazing stuff! So after swooning over his sketches for a while, I tried to approach people-drawing in his style. It was really fun!

Look out!

2010-10-18T17:14:00.000-07:00

WOW things are getting pretty crazy there is hardly time to think or any such nonsense but here have a new animation!

It is a reel for demonstration

2010-10-14T18:57:00.000-07:00

So that animation expo at the end of the quarter, where we shall hopefully get a glimpse of future shenanigans in the world of employment... There's a screening process for interviews, and demo reels and portfolios were due today - here's a link to the reel I threw together for the occasion!

It's actually a little unfortunate that it's due now, because what with the classes I'm in this quarter I feel like I'll be producing a lot better animation very soon. Oh well! It is all a process :)

Mushu - The Final Cut!

2010-10-12T13:51:00.000-07:00

It took a lot of edits, but finally I've got a finalized version of my Mushu head turn. It sort of feels like real animation now, I think! At the very least it's a huge improvement over my very first version, and I learned a lot in the process, so what more could I ask?

Gesturama

2010-10-10T17:58:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a ton of gesture drawing lately for speed sketching, and it's been a blast! It's especially handy because at the end of the quarter, a number of other SCAD students and I will be going to Los Angeles for an animation expo, where (we hope!) we'll be able to get some portfolio reviews. These sketches are what I've thrown together so far - it'll probably get pared down for the final portfolio :P

^The sequential drawings in the upper left were from the Jackie Chan flick Wheels on Meals - Jackie takes a spectacular fall and gets up in this neat motion.

^More Jackie Chan in this one - the final battle of Snake in the Eagle's Shadow.

^A few cafe and airport drawings, and then sketches from a trip to the zoo!

Mido Mountain

2010-10-06T13:52:00.001-07:00

Oh yes I have made some Animations in Flash! The second project for Digicel was an abstract music video, which I present for your viewing pleasure:

The music was Mido Mountain, a rendition of a traditional Chinese tune by YoYo Ma. There was just so much great movement in the music that I couldn't turn it down, even though the clip was a bit long. I definitely learned a ton about using Flash by working through this video - it was a great excuse to play around with the program!

Mushu head turn

2010-10-01T04:50:00.000-07:00

First assignment for Character I with Webber: the Mushu head turn! Focusing on breakdowns and overlapping action.

EDIT: updated version with a few new corrections!

The repair shop

2010-09-28T04:18:00.000-07:00

Back to SCAD... And it's a full three studio classes this quarter! Speed sketching, Character Animation 1, and Digital Cel Animation. I'm really excited about all these drawing-intensive classes - hoping I'll improve as much as I can during these ten weeks.

My first Digicel assignment was a background in Flash. It was a little tough to get a hang of thinking in vectors rather than bitmap brushes like Photoshop, but quite fun after a while! So here it is, my little bicycle repair shop by the sea :)

A few summer sketches

2010-08-18T13:49:00.001-07:00

Just got home from my summer internship at Sony, and thought I'd upload a few sketchbook sketches from the past months!

The Los Angeles airport...

Went out to a field to see fireworks on the 4th of July, and this older Asian lady was doing this awesome bouncy little dance, sometimes sitting, sometimes standing and kicking her heels up - it was awesome :)

The Hare Krishna parade down by Venice beach was a fantastic and colorful thing!

Quintessential LA: sunglasses, yoga mat, and rollerskates.

Yum!

2010-08-08T15:10:00.000-07:00

Fig warrior! Cross-posting this with the Vignette Gazette, a summer blog for the SCAD animation community.