My Hovercraft is Full of Eels

Changed my mind

2011-06-02T17:43:00.000-07:00

About Tumblr, that is. I'd heard it's a good place for posting images, so it sounded tailor-made for an art blog.

WRONG!

Yeah, I like the image uploading, but for the sort of thing I'm doing that's about it. As a social media tool, it's great. And it's fine for light blogging. Even better, it's fine for following a whole bunch of cool people in one place, reblogging their stuff with your own comments, etc. It's just not great for doing a dedicated sketch blog, like this one.

So for now, Blogger is where I blog.

In art-related news, I'm beginning to sense a trend. When I tell myself at the beginning of the summer I want to concentrate on developing certain skills, I will be totally off base. I told myself at the beginning of the summer that I wanted to concentrate on gestural animation and maybe go back to doing Vilppu studies.

What I'm actually concentrating on is anatomy (Bridgeman, Hampton) and cartooning. Go figure.

Here's some of the latter:

Wings of Barbecue

2010-11-02T19:12:00.000-07:00

Well, the Xeno thing sort of died at the starting gate, but never mind. I've got enough on my plate at the moment without worrying about non-course related stuff.

Namely, composition. I've got an assignment in Drama class to do a drawing with characters exhibiting joy, sadness and anger as part of a single image that tells a story. So what to do? Well, it starts with clear storytelling, and that means composition first and foremost.

I'd been planning to study film and composition starting over the Xmas holidays, but this pushes my timescale up a bit. Whadda ya gonna do, eh?

Anyhow, I started tonight by doing thumbs based on scenes from the first 15 minutes of Wim Wenders' classic film, "Wings of Desire". Being a story about an angel who walks among humanity, there are a lot of lingering images of people in a variety of emotional states as the angel observes it all, which made it perfect for a bit of practice.

So here's the page I did earlier, before getting started on comps for the Drama assignment. They're a bit on the rough side to start, but toward the bottom two rows I was getting a better idea of where I was going with it.

Xeno 2

2010-09-09T19:55:00.001-07:00

I'm sort of in the mood to redesign the Xeno characters a bit, but I'm not all that great at design. So I figure I'll just try drawing them every day, just post a doodle of one or another of them and post it here, see how it goes. I expect by next summer, they'll have evolved a bit without too much conscious prodding. There's something to be said for sheer volume and time.

Xeno

2010-09-08T20:14:00.001-07:00

I'll just leave this here.

Love hurts when it punches your face

2010-08-17T13:37:00.000-07:00

So yeah, I saw Scott Pilgrim vs The World today. And, honestly, so should you if you haven't seen it already. It's an absolutely fantastic movie, beginning to end, with great action, amazing dialogue, pitch-perfect humour, flawless timing, great music, and pop culture references that not only add the the movie if you know them, but doesn't detract from the movie if you don't. A+ on almost every aspect.

Almost, I said. So why did I say that? Well, let's take a look at the character interaction.

Scott interacts great with his band.

Scott interacts great with his gay roommate.

Scott interacts great with his sister and the foul-mouthed store clerk who seems to work everywhere in Toronto.

Scott interacts fantastic with his opponents, the Seven Evil Exes.

Scott interacts incredibly with Knives.

Everyone mentioned interacts well with each other too.

Hold on, something's missing here.

And that, folks, is the BIG GIANT FLAW in the whole damn movie. Scott interacts really crappy with Ramona, who's supposed to be this great love of his life. Really, it's like they're not a real couple at all, they're just people standing next to each other by chance, who kiss for some reason. I get Scott being fascinated, because she's a good character, hot, etc. I get Ramona being attracted (barely) because he's non-psychotic. But that's it. There's no chemistry, and we're never shown any real reason for them to be together in the first place.

Which is especially baffling, because he's great with Knives, and actually seems to be happy when they're together. Certainly there's chemistry there, which unfortunately highlights how little there seems to be between him and Ramona.

Is it enough to sink the movie? No. Not at all. It's still a fun, fast-paced, seriously geek-friendly movie that earns that A+ rating I gave it above, even if you do have to suspend your disbelief at the Scott/Ramona relationship.

Now, let's see Knives get her own movie, she was AWESOME!

Oh, and here' some sketches.

Sick in the head like Glenn Gould

2010-08-13T08:34:00.000-07:00

More street stuff. I'm really liking the Bridgehead at Bank & Slater. Not for the atmosphere. The atmosphere there sucks, if you want that go to Bank & Gilmour, the Glebe, or the one on Dalhousie. They're all awesome. No, what I like this one for, a lot, is the sight lines. If you get a seat facing the windows near the door, you get a fantastic view of the crosswalks, and if it weren't for the construction there'd be the bus station too. Very nice for someone studying people moving the way I have been.

If I wanted to study people just sitting around, I'd only have to sit facing the other way, and there you go.

In any case, still trying to improve, still hard on myself when I don't. Nothing terribly new there.

Wax Lips Don't Get Kisses

2010-08-10T19:16:00.000-07:00

Back to studying walks and motion in general. Last week was a bit messed up, so I got a bit behind in on location motion studies, but I'm back to it and seem to be making headway. This is what I really want to be able to capture, so it's something of a priority for me.

You won't get better if you don't practice

2010-08-07T17:44:00.000-07:00

What a great day! For one thing, the weather was freakin' perfect! None of this "two billion degrees plus humidex and did I mention rain" nonsense we've been getting lately. Just blue skies, a light breeze, and a mild 22 C. Couldn't ask for better for a trip down to the Market.

Which leads into why I made a trip to the Market (area) in the first place, which was to meet with an artist to get my next tattoo done! W00t! Even better, it's the same artist who did the previous ones, so I'll have consistency.

I've already got two, a petroglyph-style mouse on my tailbone in black, and a set of blue/green flames that encircle my left breast and rise towards my collarbone. So since I've got something that striking on the left, I need to balance that with something on the right, so I'm getting a shoulder piece done for the right side. So my first problem was coming up with the design. Artist I may be, or at least aspiring artist, but designer I'm not. So I enlisted the help of an illustrator friend of mine in Mexico (love the internet) to help me out. Go check out her deviantART page, she's fantastic.

Turned out getting the help was exactly the thing to do. The consult went like a breeze, and the artist is really excited about the prospect of doing this one. She said it's rare to have a client come in with an image so developed as this one, and ready to run with. All it took was discussing a few particulars, getting a measurement of how big an area we're talking about on my body, and that's about it! So I go in on the 16th for my first appointment, and then again on September 1 to finish up with a possible touchup visit in October, and that's the lot. I'll post photos when it's all done, probably sometime in early September, but I don't wanna ruin the surprise before then.

In the meantime, it was such a lovely day, I couldn't resist taking a walk around and sketching as I went. I want to do this a lot through the rest of August, it'll be good to build up the habit of sketching things I see. There are so many cool things out there to record, I doubt I'll run out in a hurry.

Love and hatred must combine

2010-08-02T19:20:00.000-07:00

Busy, busy, busy. Work is winding up, with my last day probably either Thursday or Friday, which leaves me more or less open for the rest of the month to work on my drawing. And believe me, I need it! I've improved, no question, but I'm definitely gonna need that solid month of work to get good enough to keep up in second year.

The other awesome thing this week is my appointment on Saturday to discuss my new tattoo. Can't wait!! I've been wanting a third for a while now, and the draft design my friend did for me is awesome! Hopefully I'll be able to have it done sometime around the middle of the month, so I can show it off when school lets in. It'll be nice to have one that I can actually show people in public, heh.

Anyhow, I'm sure you're tired of my ballpoint "on location" sketches by now, although there are lots more to come. So instead have a few golf studies I did for my summer animation workshop. I'm pretty happy with what's there, I think it's as clear an indication as any that the work I'm putting in is going to pay off.

2010-07-30T17:40:00.000-07:00

More walking. Gimme two weeks, I figure I'll have something worth looking at it by then.

Running tally: 200 gesture drawings this week. 2/3 there!

It's gonna be all right

2010-07-29T18:16:00.000-07:00

More mallstuff today, trying to capture people walking. Not great results yet, but I think I'm going to stick with this a bit, really try to get that motion down. I figure a couple of weeks of this, I'll start to get a rudimentary grasp of it, and I can go from there.

No gestures today, way too tired. Should still manage the 300 target I've set for the week, though.

Every single day of my life

2010-07-28T19:21:00.000-07:00

Another page of mall sketches. Gonna try over near the transit escalators tomorrow, try to get people walking. I need more practice on capturing that sort of motion.

Running tally: 150 gestures so far this week. Halfway there!

Take as directed

2010-07-27T19:43:00.000-07:00

Last summer I was so proud of having done over 300 gesture drawings.

This summer I'm gonna do it in a week. Yesterday and today, I'm a third of the way there already.

Here are the last three pages from today's session, to give a snapshot of where I'm at right now.

If you want me to, I will

2010-07-27T19:40:00.000-07:00

Two posts today, so look out!

First is my usual on-location sketching. I had a day off on Monday, so I need to get back in practice. Not too bad though, I feel like I'm catching the scent of something.

Sepia Coloured World

2010-07-26T14:26:00.001-07:00

I've always wanted to draw like this. I still need practice.

Dorothy Parker made you feel like summer

2010-07-24T13:22:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I'd call this one a success. Sakura brush pen and Prismacolor sepia chisel tip marker on a printout of this sketch. Never done anything like this before, pretty good for going on instinct.

Waiters Gotta Wait

2010-07-24T07:28:00.000-07:00

Forgot to upload this yesterday. More later.

Exotic and Insane

2010-07-22T14:00:00.000-07:00

Working at the hospital today instead of the satellite office, which is good for the art since they have a really good cafeteria on site. Which means loads of good sight lines for drawing.

Certainly beats being bored in a basement.

Drawing at the....Tim's

2010-07-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

So for various reasons I couldn't hang at the mall again, so I hung at the local Tim's instead. That's livin' the high life, baby!

Turned out to be a mistake though, since that particular Tim's has terrible sight lines, so it was pretty much impossible to see anyone at the counter below the mid-back. But I managed well enough in the end, I guess.

Drawing in the Mall: Day Six

2010-07-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

On and on I go! Highlights of today include starting the first of my home-made sketchbooks (thus the pages showing through, this one's just printer paper), the realization that this whole exercise is becoming less difficult and more fun than before (although drawing quality hasn't really improved much), and an amusing moment where I heard a woman's voice nearby saying "Look at what she's doing," clearly referring to me. Altogether, a pretty positive experience.

I'm thinking of doing some experimenting with stuff this weekend, but I'll leave that off until then. You'll see what I mean if I do it.

Drawing in the Mall: Day Five

2010-07-19T16:32:00.000-07:00

Pretty productive day, and more successes than before, although there's still some godawful crap in there. That said, I think I'm starting to understand the difference between the ones that work and the ones that don't. The working ones are the simplest, where I did the least trying. It should be no surprise to anyone that knows me that I think and analyze myself too much, and this really underlines the value of letting that go and letting instinct do the work.

If I can really get a handle on that, the entire summer's worth of drawing will have paid off.

Drawing in the Mall: Day Four

2010-07-16T16:32:00.000-07:00

Apparently Tim Horton's is a great place to find people more or less standing still long enough to sketch. Who knew?

Next weekend should be a great time to go to Rideau Centre and draw all the people at the OC Transpo kiosk.

This makes two hours I've put in on ballpoint drawings in the field. By my calculations, I just need to do this 1000 more times, and I'll be reasonably good at it.

Drawing in the Mall: Day Three

2010-07-15T18:39:00.001-07:00

There's something about drawing in a public place, nice mood music playing in your earphones (Jean-Michel Jarre's Equinoxe, in this case) that puts you in an interesting state of mind afterwards. I did my usual half-hour today, which was fairly productive as you can see, and afterwards it struck me as I walked to the bus that I was noticing the people around me more than I normally would, and in a strangely detached way.

The almost haughty look of the woman at the cosmetics counter. Her co-worker, discreetly rubbing her nose with a surprisingly polished motion. The emphatic man trying to interest passersby in skin cream. People browsing, with different attitudes and postures. The one woman, dressed in white, whose bust seemed oddly disproportionate to her slim frame, hunching forward as if being pulled along by breasts that didn't truly belong to her. Altogether a fascinating and strange parade of fascinating and strange humanity.

That alone makes it worth the trip, I think.

Drawing in the Mall: Day Two

2010-07-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

More of the same. Still crap, but I expected that.

But now it's slightly improved crap! How can you say no?

Extreme Sketchbook Makeover!

2010-07-13T12:32:00.001-07:00

So it occurs to me I haven't posted a photo of my second attempt at making my own sketchbook. So here it is.

Much better results than the first try, that's for sure. The stitching is way better, and the ends of the pages line up better than with Dani Jones' method. I like how she does covers though, so I'm sticking with that part.

Now back at Christmas, my mother sent me a sketchbook as part of the usual shipment of presents, which was very thoughtful, nice, etc. Trouble was, the backing board had creased during shipment, making it harder to use. That, and it's a bit of an awkward size to put on a scanner and so forth. So since then it's been languishing in my art materials drawer, waiting for a good purpose.

Here's what it looks like:

Fast forward to today, finding myself at home due to a bit of...let's call it "gastric distress" this morning leading me to call in sick. So here I am with unexpected time on my hands, so what to do? Why, tear out half the pages and make a custom sketchbook using an old Judy Francesconi calendar, of course!

I think you'll agree, there's been some improvement.

70 pp, 50 gsm paper, 9x5.75" pages, hardcover.

Drawing in the Mall: Day One

2010-07-12T16:43:00.000-07:00

So yeah, just like the title says. I spent a half hour at St. Laurent today on the way home, and I intend to make that a regular part of my afternoon commute if all goes well, drawing people with ballpoint pen. I've got somewhere I want to go with this, and while I'm not very good yet (clearly), I think I can get a lot better.

I've had a lot of good artists tell me I should be doing this, so who am I to argue?

Craftsy not Artsy

2010-07-10T12:14:00.001-07:00

So check me out! I decided to do something I've never one before and made my own sketchbook! It's about 8 1/2 x 5 1/4", just perfect to fit in my purse or whatever, and comes with a stylish hard cover that'll survive a lot of what I'm likely to throw at it. 48 pages.

I used this tutorial, and while I really like the cover setup, I can't say I'm fond of the binding stitch. I wasn't able to make it tight enough for my liking. So I'm probably going to see if I can modify this one instead for my next one.

This book's likely to get filled up with life sketches, since I'm getting interested in that these days.

Kitteh!

2010-07-08T19:46:00.000-07:00

Been trying to draw from life a lot more lately, but between the heat and not getting a seat, I didn't get a chance to do anything on the bus this afternoon. So, well, I've got models right here...

Thinking about going drawabout downtown on Saturday for a bit. Should be fun, and the weather looks a bit less murderous than it has been.

Everything old is, well....still old

2010-07-03T18:44:00.000-07:00

I'm surprised it took me so long to get the connection, but I realized right after I posted last night that what I'm doing now with these head shapes is very much a continuation of what I did last summer with the head tilts. Weird that I'm essentially coming back to what I did a year ago, but I think this is a bit more advanced, and with a firmer foundation behind it than I was working with then. Maybe I'm fooling myself, I dunno, all I want is to get better.

End of the street, end of the day

2010-07-02T16:59:00.000-07:00

No rulers were harmed (or used) in the production of this sketch.

It's largely crap, but not too awful. Best bushes I've ever done, though.

So this is it, we're going to...HAPPY CANADA DAY!

2010-07-01T19:02:00.001-07:00

Odd experience to be listening to music for Canada Day, as broadcast by a radio station in Seattle. Why? I dunno, mostly because I love KEXP's podcasts, and wanted to check out the source. It's good stuff though, so check out their site.

Otherwise, it was mostly drawing, although I did remember to have a grilled cheese sandwich. Everyone should have a grilled cheese sandwich on Canada Day. Make it a national holiday dish, maybe serve it to the Queen. I bet she'd have gouda or something, she seems the type. Me, I had a mixture of extra old cheddar and cheddar with horseradish. Not a bad combination. Sort of like Welsh Red Dragon without the mustard seed.

Art-wise, a bit of extra stuff that targets some weaknesses from last term. My last two assignments for Character Design, head design and character duos, turned out abysmally, and almost cost me my year. I can't allow that to happen this fall, so I've started concentrating on head shapes and gesture, using Ian Jeans' method. This will also help me with the Summer Animation Workshop project, so it's win-win for me if I can really push my skill over the next couple of months. To say nothing of improving my chances at success in second year.

Anyhow, here it all is.

I Know How to Flatline Without Taking a Life

2010-06-29T19:39:00.001-07:00

Nothing too thrilling, just a couple of pages of boxes in blue.

More important, I've started changing my habits with regard to drawing. More and more, I'm sitting down in the evenings with sketchbook in hand, instead of playing games or net-surfing. This is a positive thing, and probably equal parts knowing I have to put in the work to get better and confidence gained from the past few weeks of shape and mass practice. I'm starting to branch out as well, doing gesture studies and basic head shapes on large newsprint and doing life drawing on the bus home after work. I've got a ways to go to be good at either, of course, but I've come to accept that I'm not good at anything right out of the gate. Everything takes practice, and if it takes breaking things down into the most basic of basic steps to really get the idea, then so be it. That's what the summer is for, after all.

What's the big deal about sophisticatin' yo' palate?

2010-06-28T19:15:00.000-07:00

Finally sat myself down and watched Brendan and the Secret of Kells last night, which if you know me is a bit of an achievement. I've had a copy kicking around since the beginning of May, but like most movies I really want to see, I somehow just never got around to actually watching the blasted thing.

In any case, it was worth the wait and then some. The deliberately flat, iconic style echoes the medieval Irish illumination theme perfectly, and the pace of the film is nicely bouncy. Oh, there could be a bit more depth in the characters, but for a straightforward adventure study revolving around artwork, it's still a satisfying romp. Although it does amuse me how they studiously avoid calling the Book of Kells a Bible, despite the fact that's what it was. It's also interesting to note how the English trailer is all about adventure and dark threats, while the French trailer concentrates on joy and wonder. Interesting, no?

Sketches in the key of green today.

Flicker Flicker Flicker Flam Pow Pow

2010-06-27T17:09:00.001-07:00

Not really a lot to say today. Been a relaxing day, much more relating than the insanity in Toronto lately. Mostly chillin', playing games and working on my art. Things are coming, stuff I found tough before are far less tough than they used to be. If I can just keep up the pace for the rest of the summer - and even increase it by a good deal in August - I'll be a much better artist walking out of this summer than I was walking in. Time will tell.

You will hear a nightingale sing, seek me out then

2010-06-26T18:55:00.000-07:00

Finally back to regular drawing, what a relief. Between the animation workshops, the new job, and helping Roomie out on the drywall, it's been hard to devote a lot of time to creative work. But things have calmed down, and I have a much clearer direction than I had before, which is always nice.

So the usual today, a page each of regular boxes, bendy boxes and blobs. Tomorrow, hopefully, I'll get a chance to take some pics of my big newsprint pad to show you the gesture studies I'm doing. It's a new way of thinking about poses for me, so I'm going to be concentrating on it a lot over the next couple of months. In any case, I'm drawing more and more as time goes by, which is where I want to be heading. I've got goals, and this is the only way I'm gonna get there. I don't have talent, so I've gotta get there through hard work instead.

Couple of performers you should be listening to:

Adrien Reju
Will Knox
You Say Party, We Say Die
The Redwood Plan
Amelia Curran

2010-06-20T09:15:00.000-07:00

A bit of figure work today, although technically I did it yesterday. I can't fit this paper (12x18" newsprint) on my little scanner, so I wanted to wait until I had some daylight for digiphotos. Seems to have come out okay, though.

Haven't been doing as much as I'd like this week, which is odd since I've been doing lots of drawing in the Summer Animation Workshop with Ian Jeans. Ian's gesture technique is a lot different from what I'm used to, which is hardly a surprise since the only real instruction I've had on how to do gestures is reading about it in the Vilppu book, and a short description of the same thing from Paul one week in P&P class. In Life Drawing this year, all I got was "here's some examples of gestures, now do it", which was no help at all, so this is pretty handy.

In any case, here's some attempts to put Ian's method into practice, as well as trying to tie it into the Vilppu stuff I've been doing by way of bendy boxes. I must say, I'm finding it appealing and it seems to bypass some problems I've had with the figure in the past. Who knows, maybe this is how I'll settle on doing it in the future. I could do worse.

A Bit Slow

2010-06-14T17:58:00.001-07:00

Not much to show for yesterday and today, I'm afraid. Yesterday, the whole house got up turned upside down with organizing for a charity event happening in the living room, which made it hard to really concentrate. Then last night, due to various unfortunate events, I ended up with almost no sleep (less than 4 hours) before going off to my first day at work. So you can imagine, I'm not braining today.

I am excited about tomorrow, though. The summer animation workshop starts tomorrow evening, and I really have no clue what to expect. I know I was recommended as someone who'd benefit from it, and there will be students from other grades there as well, so I doubt it'll be "one size fits all". Beyond that and the instructor's name, I don't know a thing, so it'll be really interesting to find out.

The World Is Square

2010-06-12T22:28:00.000-07:00

No blobs today, but it's a box jamboree! There's no question now, I'm on the track of something really important with the bendy boxes. Gotta keep working those, and working them hard.

Fish, plankton, sea greens... protein from the sea!

2010-06-11T20:17:00.000-07:00

If you know the significance of that title without looking it up, you're exactly as much a geek as I am. Way to go.

Just boxes today, I was a bit wiped out after life drawing so I didn't get to the blobs. Not to worry, they'll be back. Fact is though, my priority is developing my skill from the ground up, and the fact that I'm finding bendy boxes tough means they're a major priority at the moment.

Also, I hate this sketchbook. Paper's too thin and not really quite, and I prefer a smooth paper to one with tooth to it. Not much I can do about it, though, since the ones I do like are sold out until September from the college bookstore, and Wallack's doesn't carry them. So unless I find them elsewhere, I ain't gettin' any.

And we all know how unpleasant not gettin' any is.

Tougher than it looks

2010-06-10T19:57:00.000-07:00

So the Vilppu train keeps chugging along, no sign of stopping yet. This is about the point where I gave up last time I tried, because I got sidetracked into doing my webcomic, so I'm eager to see what new things I discover from here on out.

One thing I did discover is that the soft, flexible boxes which I started doing today are hard! Seriously, it's the first really challenging part I've come across and it occurs suddenly to me as I type this that it's the exact same thing I found tough about the flour sack!! Holy crap. How did I not see that?

Well, that tells me one thing right off, I need to work on this a lot. It's part of my daily routine now, so the aim is to do a page or two a day for the next little way along with my other regular stuff. The list keeps growing of stuff I do regularly, but the amount that I enjoy it is going up too, so it all works out. Let's see, two pages of spheres (with ellipses), two pages of regular boxes, 1-2 pages of bendy boxes, and 1-2 pages of blobs. If I can just do that until the end of the month, I think I'll be on the track of something big.

In any case, here's today's results.

I don't even know, man

2010-06-09T18:31:00.001-07:00

More boxes and...seriously, I don't know. My blobs are getting WAY outta control.

Audio quality

2010-06-08T19:04:00.000-07:00

Not a lot of art today, just two pages of boxes and one of increasingly disturbing blob creatures. I'm not really sure what it says about my subconscious that I'm tending toward more and more complex, mass-of-writhing-flesh creations, but there you go. I assume it's something about my mother.

In any case, I thought I'd pass on a couple of music podcast recommendations today. Like a lot of artists, I listen to music a lot, but I haven't exactly got a huge budget for CD's. So while I'm not all that morally opposed to downloading albums, it's really way too much of a hassle so I can't be bothered. Besides, how do I find out who the good artists even are? Not a lot of my current circle of friends are into the music I'm into, as far as I know, so I can't rely on them for recommendations.

So enter podcasts. Honestly, I'd been avoiding the whole podcast scene and iTunes in general up until about Christmas. It wasn't something I really wanted to deal with. But then my mother went and got me an iPod for Christmas, and you know how these things go. So I've recently gone looking about at a few random podcasts, and I came up with a couple of gems to share.

KEXP A radio station in Seattle, they've got a bunch of offerings. Most importantly, Music that Matters and the Song of the Day. I've downloaded a bunch of the shows, and found a lot of really amazing stuff that I wouldn't have otherwise. And you owe it to yourself to subscribe to Song of the Day and download the track by The Redwood Plan. It's wicked, really.

Acoustic Long Island They've got an audio and video podcast, the audio generally runs about a half hour, with an hour for the Open Mic nights. All acoustic and folk, which lends itself to not only great performances but great storytelling and banter in between songs, which I personally love. The Princess Peapod show from last October is really awesome, check that out.

TransAtlantic Acoustic Podcast A cool variety show hosted by Sam Salter in the UK and jill no jack in the US, again loads of lively banter and seriously good acoustic music. Pretty wide variety of styles, although not a lot of shows online. Still worth a listen at about a half hour a pop.

The Roadhouse Blues, blues, blues! I'm more of a folk and acoustic fan than a blues fan, but an hour a week of good, solid blues isn't something I'm gonna turn down. Lots of independent and small label stuff as well as bigger acts, and an intelligent host who knows his way around the business. Worth it every time.

The Perfect Beat For those days you really need your blood moving, three hours of solid dance beats from DJ Eros every Wednesday. Loads of variety, great textured mixes and energy galore, I love it!

So yeah, here's some art.

A Bit More Mojo

2010-06-07T21:54:00.000-07:00

So I didn't get as much done today as I'd like to have, since I spent a lot more time out of the house than planned, but it was a good drawing day anyway. For one thing, I moved on to boxes as planned and managed to get a good solid page of the silly things. I'm shooting for two pages of these a day as well as two pages of spheres as my warmup, then moving on to an indeterminate number of pages of blobs and maybe in three or four days start adding soft, bendy boxes. I don't want to rush things though, so it'll happen when it happens.

What's cool here is that I did end up doing a page of blobs today as well, and they turned out WAY better than expected. I think I'm finally starting to internalize the concepts of volume and depth, which is seriously positive if I want to make characters and environments that really grab a viewer. What I need more than anything is to capitalize on that progress and really push the concept as much as I can, even if things get seriously weird in the process.

As a bonus, I've added a couple of pages from last Friday's life drawing session. The group keeps meeting until the end of the month, but my last week is going to be this Friday, sadly. I'm going to be starting the animation workshop on the 15th, and I can only justify so many nights out of the house to myself. As it is, for those first two weeks it'll be Tuesday/Thursday for classes, plus Wednesday for life drawing at Sandy Hill and I gotta fit groceries in there somewhere. So something's gotta give, and it might as well be the thing that's gonna end soon anyway.

In any case, my gestures have really transformed in the past couple of months, which is really amazing. I had no idea there'd be such a change from just using Vilppu's method, but wow. That stuff's seriously powerful.

Brane Ded

2010-06-06T18:18:00.000-07:00

That pretty much describes my day, honestly. Not feeling too hot and totally unable to think coherently. Probably nothing to do with working last night, unless you count coming home in 12C weather with no jacket, but probably a lot to do with hauling drywall yesterday morning. Maybe even more to do with the crappy weather today, who knows.

In any case, two pages today. not terribly pleased with them overall, but at least there's a feeling of form and volume to most of it, and that's really what's important.

Now I'm gonna go watch Iron Man, I haven't seen it yet.

Easy money

2010-06-05T22:03:00.000-07:00

Turns out work was way easier than I thought, giving me some time to putter about in my cute li'l 5x7" purse-sized sketchbook with the Robert Batemen cover (goat!). I probably should have done more, but it's really hard to get into it when you've got interruptions every 10-15 minutes or so.

My output tonight seems to be more on the "disturbingly biological" side than the "impressive megafauna" that I had been doing, but that's how it goes. Tonight seems to have been the night for slippery flukes and gnarled pseudopenii in any case, so that's what y'all get to look at.

Oh, one other thing, it seems I've got something cool to look forward to this summer. I was contacted by Algonquin about a summer animation workshop that's going on, and it seems I was identified as someone who could really benefit from the extra instruction. Well now, it might come off as "remedial" or whatever, but you know what? It tells me there's somebody out there who wants me to succeed, and they're tossing opportunities at my feet, that's what it tells me! And damn if I'm not gonna pick them up. It's 27 hours of class time spread out over the whole summer, starting on the 15th, and you know I'm gonna be there.

I'm pumped about this. So that gives me another week and a half to push my basic drawing ability, so my goal right now is to post new stuff every day until then, at least. Mostly Vilppu, of course, since that's my focus, but if anything else happens to get done, I'll toss that up as well.

Anyhow, blobs. Enjoy!

Still not pen...I mean King

2010-06-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

So more variations on a theme again, will continue a bit longer before moving on to cubic forms (although I'll probably keep doing a page a day of these). I'm noticing a few things though, like what's working and what's not. Mostly those cool large animal-type critters, but some other stuff besides.

Which, I suppose, is exactly what Paul wanted us to do on the final assignment. If you're reading, Paul, this is where you get to feel smug because one of your students belatedly realized you were right all along. I just hadn't gotten to the point where I'd internalized it.

Anyhow, probably nothing tomorrow since I'm hauling drywall in the morning, and I actually have a paid gig in the evening (hotel front desk), so that doesn't leave a lot of drawing time. But who knows how things will shake out. We'll see. In the meantime, enjoy the blobs.

More blobs

2010-06-03T19:06:00.000-07:00

So this week was eventful in a way, in that I failed to get what I thought would be an absolutely perfect job for me, leaving me still jobless. And with 1/4 of my summer holidays already passed, you can imagine I'm rather nervous about the whole state of affairs. Last year I didn't get a job at all, despite having good qualifications for temp work, which I chalk up to a very dry clerical market last year.

However, the outlook is not totally bleak. I have a shift Saturday evening temping at a downtown hotel to work the front desk, which doesn't sound too bad. Especially if there's a chance it could lead to a lot more work at the same location, very easily accessible from my place. Problem is, most of the shifts they offer are 11pm to 7am, which isn't exactly the most preferable in the world. But what can I say, I can't be picky this late in the game. All I want to do is get through the summer to start classes again in September, and maybe build some skill and make a couple of bucks on the way. Not too much to ask, eh?

So blobs, that's what you're really here for. Much better to look at STILL NOT PENISES, I'M NOT LISTENING LA LA LA than to listen to me whine about employment.

Fun fact: This same exercise is what inspired my late, lamented (and it was lamentable, looking back at it now) webcomic, Xeno's Paradise. I think I'm understanding it better this time around, but it's nice to know something good came out of my earlier effort.

Totally not naughty bits

2010-06-02T21:26:00.000-07:00

So a month into summer holidays, I've come to a decision about my short-term goals. They're pretty simple, really. I plan to work my way through The Vilppu Drawing Manual, and complete at least two animation projects. Nothing big, but enough to build on the skills I gained this past year. Even if those two things is all I accomplish in the next three months, I'll still be a far better artist than I am now, so it's something to look forward to.

So here's where I am right now, round forms. Pretty simple, really. First of all, I'm doing two pages of this daily:

Looks simple, right? That's 'cuz it is. Nothing but spheres, or rather circles and crossed ellipses. Couldn't be easier. But as simple as it is, the benefits are huge, helping me build confidence, become more efficient at mark-making, build my spacial sense and get way better at drawing and conceiving rounded forms. That's a lot of stuff just for two pages of circles a day.

The other exercise, which I really started to get serious with yesterday, is taking those round shapes and combining them. So making blobby forms, stretching them, twisting them, piling them one on top of another, making critters out of them, giving them personality. It's tonnes of fun, seriously, and I don't think I could really get into it to this degree without two years of art training under my belt. Here's what I managed to produce today:

Cool beans, huh? And lemme tell ya, it's HARD to put a big blob and a smaller blob together and not have it come out as someone's naughty bits. Dunno if I succeeded 100%, but there's still a lot of cool, funky stuff in there. I'll post more as I get them done, so stay tuned.

From Life

2010-05-22T12:10:00.001-07:00

Clearly it's been too long since I posted. But summer is here, and with it a lot of free drawing time, so hopefully I'll be able to provide some worthwhile work to show you all.

So first things first, I managed to pass first year Animation! Whee! Which doesn't let me off the hook or anything, it was way too close for my taste. That means this summer is going to have a lot to do with bringing my skills a lot closer to where I want them to be. To do that, I've been starting to work my way through the Vilppu Drawing Manual, in an attempt to make my basic drawing skills stronger, as well as doing a lot of life drawing.

That out of the way, here are some selections from this week's sessions at Sandy Hill and the life drawing club that's running at the school until mid-June. I'd love for it to keep running all summer, but we weren't able to get enough sign-ups. Totally disappointing, I was hoping to see a lot more familiar faces.

Not that something like that's gonna stop me.

Off to the races

2010-01-21T16:04:00.000-08:00

So I introduced Wendy to you already. Looks like she's gonna be a part of my life for some time, which is hardly a surprise. She'll be the standard model for the rest of first year, and probably the bulk of second year as well, so you'd better get used to seeing her here a lot. That's a good thing really, since she's such a nice, simple model that I can actually comprehend the mechanics of, which I really need at this point. Working with Wendy will seriously improve my figure drawing, and there's nothing bad about that.

So on the topic of projects, the latest is to animate the character from sitting on a box to standing upright. So to figure out the best way to do that, we've done thumbnails to work out each part of the action. I'm kinda new to thumbnailing characters, so it's really valuable information for me. And I see right away the use of it, it's great stuff. The ones with the stars are the images I picked for my progression from sit to stand.

The order to read them is 1, 3, 2, 5, 4, 7, 8, 9, 6.

In with the new

2010-01-18T20:26:00.000-08:00

Not much to say, since it's late. But here's the first page of sketches of "Wendy", the character we've been given for the sit-to-stand project that we got assigned today, and I suspect we'll be using through the rest of second term. She's fun so far, although I've still got a ways to go to really familiarize myself with her.

Anatomy

2010-01-17T17:44:00.001-08:00

Pretty self-explanatory. I've realized that my anatomy is pretty weak, even though my forms are starting to improve. So what with the rest of the term focusing on walk cycles and similar movements, it's about time I started doing some heavy anatomy studies. All this is from Gottfried Bammes' Der Nackte Mensch, basically a German anatomy for artists book. Can't understand a word of the text, but the illustrations are gold.

Not sitting idle

2010-01-16T17:52:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm still sitting idle more than I should, but I'm trying not to entirely. I'm not gonna get better unless I draw a lot, and I've got a lot better to get. I've seen where animation students can get to by third year, and that's what I've got to shoot for.

New video

2010-01-16T12:04:00.000-08:00

Try to contain your excitement.

Eh

2010-01-04T20:25:00.001-08:00

Couple of pages, but not pleased with them.

Not the same

2010-01-02T17:31:00.000-08:00

Two pages today, although I really should be doing more than that. Technically I'm still on holiday, but just as technically artists don't get holidays. So I'm allowed to feel like I'm not accomplishing much.

In any case, it's a study in how far along I am. The first page is my work, from photo reference. Certainly not my worst work, and just as certainly a damn sight better than what I was doing a year ago, or even six months. Or even two. The other is a page of "master studies" of famed artist Alphonse Mucha.

You can tell one from the other by the MASSIVE DIFFERENCE IN QUALITY.

What this tells me is, as far as I've come, there's a lot further to go yet. If I think I've gone half of half of halfway, I'm fooling myself, and I've got to work a LOT harder.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Wine may be involved

2010-01-01T20:00:00.001-08:00

Two pages:

And so the old year passes

2009-12-31T18:02:00.001-08:00

Not so much with a whimper as a whisper at my place, but that's nothing new. Not a lot to pull me out of the house at the moment, what with most of my life revolving around art and school, which are pretty much the same thing of course, and trying to spend as little money as I can. But it's good, I got to open a lovely bottle of French Merlot that's been aging since July, when we first started going to the bottle-your-own place. Very nice, indeed.

So tonight's the night for resolutions, and usually I don't bother. I perform much better when I don't put specific expectations on myself, but this year I'll make one. Only one, though, I'm not gonna go crazy with this stuff, y'know.

My New Year's Resolution is: draw a hell of a lot more this year than any year in the past.

That's it, really. Just draw a lot. And what with the winter term at school staring me in the face, it's pretty much a given anyway. But hey, I'll take what I can get.

Two pages of sketches today. Hope you like.

Something different

2009-12-30T18:55:00.000-08:00

Didn't get any sketching done today, because I got into the home stretch on my new afghan and wanted to get it out of the way today. For the first crochet project I've done in about three years, I think it turned out pretty damn good.

So next I want to finish up the scarf I started a week or so ago (should only be a one-day project) and do the shawl I want for school this winter, and I'll have my crafts fix for the holidays. Might continue from time to time, depending how much time I get away from my school work. I doubt it'll be much.

On and on

2009-12-29T18:42:00.000-08:00

Little burnt out today, dunno why exactly. Went out for a good supper with friends, so maybe that and the bitter cold on the way made a difference, I dunno. In any case, I'm home, and tomorrow's a new day.

Only one page of simple poses today, from photo ref. It'll have to do until tomorrow.

Ten years, eh?

2009-12-28T20:02:00.000-08:00

This seems like as good a time as any for a decade review. Nothing terribly introspective or anything, just the highlights in point form. Here goes, in no particular order:

Got out of an abusive relationship
Had other, shorter, but much better other relationships
God in and out of BDSM
Had an increasing and then declining interest in Paganism
Moved to an entirely different province
Went to school and started a career
Left same career due to physical issues
Went to school to start another new career
Got tattooed
Twice
Got into photography
Stopped being a photographer and started drawing
Animated something by hand for the first time ever
Was publicly naked
Performed as a drag king (including first king ever at Ottawa Pride)
Took part in putting on a charity burlesque
Volunteered at the Fringe Festival, Folk Festival and Animation Festival
Saw people on the verge of death
Got involved in a complex polyamorous relationship
Experienced the downside of being involved with a sociopath with ADHD
Got into a long distance relationship with a great guy
Was introduced to the online fur community
Got into European comics
Sang in a choir
Learned to crochet
Fell out of love with anime, generally (Ghibli doesn't count)
Lost contact with a number of people
Regained contact with a number of people
Created a webcomic (now defunct)
Gave a guy his first penis as a gift
Worked as a dispatcher for home care personnel
Bought my first tablet (two of them)
Lived with ferrets for the first time
Started Playing WoW
"Played" Second Life a lot
Helped run an online art critique group
Visited Toronto for the first time
Spent two weeks in an 18-wheeler
Ate Vietnamese food for the first time

There's probably more, but that's all I can think of at the moment. All in all, a pretty uneventful decade. Gotta do more this coming ten years, yup!

Two pages today, from photo reference. I think I'm making progress, gotta keep it going.

So yeah, Xmas

2009-12-26T19:35:00.001-08:00

Pretty standard for me these days, really. The only physical presents I got were from my mom, and it was the usual routine of watch I probably won't wear, blouse that's too small and an assortment of little stuff. Some decent earrings, which I appreciate, so that's a start.

The big surprise was she sprung for an iPod Nano. Seriously, I was floored at that one. I was further floored when I tried to set the thing up and found that (a) I had no choice but to use iTunes, and I object to having to install special software just to run an MP3 player, and (b) just how non-intuitive and pain in the ass iTunes is. The whole synchronization thing is an awful way of running things, honestly. The site doesn't explain it very well either, so I pretty much wasted a whole afternoon on all that. Finally managed, so thank heavens for small mercies. It'll come in handy this winter.

So between that, company, and just plain flaking out the past couple of days, I haven't got much to show. Here's a page though, which I'm actually pretty pleased with. More work needed of course, but what else is new?

A pass is a pass

2009-12-24T21:35:00.000-08:00

So the marks came out today, and it turns out I passed! Whee! Not a great showing in Animation Drawing, telling me I have to raise my game by a couple more steps if I want to reach my personal goals and standards. But at least I get the chance to do it in second term now. Of course, beyond that the marks really don't mean much, since employers in this business don't look at them at all. But they're nice to know.

Here's the breakdown:

Animation Design: A+
Practices & Principles: A
Enviro: A-
Life Drawing: B+
Animation Drawing: C+

I would have probably had a straight B in Animation if it weren't for the flour sack and my utter inability to make it work in the time provided. I'm glad it didn't totally sink me though.

Only two pages of sketches today. Hopefully more than that tomorrow.

So about Christmas...

2009-12-23T20:42:00.000-08:00

So it's hardly a secret that I'm not really on board with the whole Christian thing. I mean, it's cool if that's your thing, but it ain't really mine. So for a long while, I haven't been doing Christmas at all. It's been Solstice, if anything, especially when I was a lot deeper into paganism.

But you know, I've been drifting back to neutral again lately, probably since I never really got involved with the pagan community up here. So it's been more the quasi non-religious/Buddhist/vague paganism/animism melange that seems a default state for me. And what with Christmas upon us, I have to ask myself, do I do Christmas?

And yeah, I guess I do. At least to the degree I do any holiday.

See, what really decided me was looking back on being a kid and realizing that religion was never an inherent part of the holiday for me. The closest it ever got was one Christmas service I went to in elementary school (and was bored to tears), and the usual Charlie Brown Christmas and assorted lesser specials of the day. So when it came down to it, religion wasn't part of it. Family was, friends were, general good feeling and happiness was. So in the end, what's keeping me from enjoying this time of year?

Nuttin', dat's what.

Meh

2009-12-22T20:42:00.000-08:00

Today's sketches. They're crap.

Think of it as aversion therapy, I guess. Maybe this'll force me to get better, just out of fear of embarrassing myself.

Holiday Time

2009-12-21T20:16:00.001-08:00

So school finished for the term on Friday, leaving me to my own devices for three solid weeks. Which would make for a nice break, if the last animation assignment hadn't taught me that I have to improve my basic drawing and sketching skills a lot. My instructor says I'm where I'm supposed to be for a first year, and that I have strong draftsmanship skills, but that doesn't mean I'm a good artist, at least in my own eyes. So the next three weeks are going to follow a simple, direct plan:

Draw like crazy, and it doesn't matter what. The sketchier the better, so long as it's got structure.

That's pretty much it. No particular goals, other than sheer volume. Just getting used to drawing all the time, sketching and experimenting and just plain learning through experience. Which I should have been doing last year. But to hell with that, I'll do it now and do well at it.

So here's three pages from today, mostly studies from people I think are pretty damn good and want to emulate. Needless to say, none of them are mine, and if you can identify them all, congratulations. Apparently you're me.

Done like donair

2009-12-17T13:21:00.000-08:00

So that's it. I just put the finishing touches on my last project of the term, which was to design "a room with personality". I decided to go with a 70's designer's living room, and fortunately from the three concepts I submitted as thumbnails (I also submitted carnival ringmaster's bedroom and retro future living room) that's the one that got picked. Turned out pretty decently, although my plan is to set it aside for a few months, then return to it once school is finished in April to try to make it into a portfolio-worthy piece. It's not there yet, of course, but it will be.

So now I just have to go in EARLY tomorrow, pop into the print shop when it opens and get this photocopied onto 11x17, trim it and submit by 9. Easy, except the getting up at 5:30 am part.

Dangit, now I want donairs, Halifax-style. They sell things called donairs here, but lemme tell ya. They ain't donairs.

Such a nice smile

2009-12-13T12:27:00.000-08:00

Well, the craziness that is finals continues, with an exam on Monday morning, an 8-second animation that I've already done more than 200 drawings and re-drawings for due on Tuesday (and I'm not even done yet!!), and a room layout due at the end of the week, and on top of that I get this bit of silliness I have to do. I guess they assumed the rest wasn't enough, they might as well toss in a bit of make-work on top of that. Ironic part is, this would have been loads of fun if it weren't for the timing, I guess they just wanted to mess with us.

In any case, the assignment was to draw a skull, freehand, in 3/4 view and lable to the parts. Then once that's been prettied up a little, do another skull based on the first one, but this time altered to become an alien skull. Surprisingly enough, it was a lot easier than I'd expected.

I've heard a few people in class who were in Pre-animation last year talking about using the skulls they did last year. Obviously they'd be using some of their better skulls. Which they would have had in their portfolios. WHICH THE TEACHERS THIS YEAR HAVE ON FILE!

I dunno. I'm paranoid like that.

Giving you the sack

2009-11-27T07:48:00.001-08:00

I might not be doing anatomy as much at the moment, but that don't mean I'm not drawing! Here's a few pages of sketches getting ready for my term final, the classic flour sack animation.

I need a lot more work to get anywhere near good, but there's definite improvement since the beginning of the year.

Not so bad after all

2009-11-25T18:04:00.000-08:00

Well, somewhere along the line I managed to salvage a wee bit of confidence, and got my assignment done. It turned out far better than expected, honestly. It's mostly familiar stuff, since it's a revision of the Antic Box I posted a few weeks ago, but with the addition of the cape, smoother movement and more detail on the background. All in all, I'm pretty happy with it.

Now to see if the instructor agrees with me.

Oh, and the bad news is my November Project, doing all those Bridgeman studies, is gonna be on hold for a bit while I get my final projects for the term out of the way. Not to worry though, there will be sketches along the way.

Could use a shot of confidence

2009-11-19T20:03:00.001-08:00

Got an assignment I have to get done for Monday, and I feel totally out of my depth. It's basically adding a cape to the bouncing box I did a couple of weeks ago (it's in the archives a little ways back), so in theory it should be easy. But never having studied drapery, I feel like it's way beyond my abilities. Although I feel a little better after doing a couple of pages of actual studies and reading a bunch of tutorials. Guess we'll see by the end of the weekend.

In any case, here's today's Bridgeman, and those drapery studies I mentioned. A mixed bag, there's some good stuff and some not-so-good stuff. Overall, I'm reasonably pleased with it.

Back on the horse

2009-11-18T20:24:00.000-08:00

Sorry about missing the past few days. I got in a procrastination mode and wasn't doing what I should have. I do have an excuse for yesterday, since I spent it all doing school work, right into the evening. But Sunday and Monday, not so much.

Figures seem to be doing well, but those hands. Oy! I have lost my mojo!

Continuation

2009-11-14T18:02:00.000-08:00

And that makes 30 pages. In 10 days. Rather more than I expected, really.

Kick, punch, it's all in the mind

2009-11-12T20:25:00.000-08:00

Pretty productive today for a change. Caught up on my homework, plus three half-hour sketch sessions. So here's the images:

Hubba Jubba

2009-11-11T20:12:00.000-08:00

Sorry I missed yesterday, I had schoolwork I needed to get done. I'll make it up with extra pages tomorrow, promise!

Cigarettes and Coffee Pots

2009-11-09T21:28:00.000-08:00

More Bridgeman, plus a couple of Vilppu-style gesture studies I did in class this morning. Not really happy with tonight's Bridgeman, and I almost didn't get it done. Try to make it up by doing extra tomorrow, we'll see.

Back to the Bridgeman

2009-11-08T18:51:00.000-08:00

And on and on and on. Four pages today, go me!

Even if the last two suck.

Oh, and sketchy nekkid ladeez.

Ran

2009-11-07T21:37:00.000-08:00

I watched this movie back in the 80's, when Wormwoods Dog and Monkey Cinema was still on the corner of Gottingen, right across from the Red Cross. I loved that location, and really didn't think much of the choice to move to the old Rainbow spot, where the place eventually died. Bad move.

In any case, my Enviro instructor, Pops, has been talking a lot about filmmaking and composition, so when I pulled this down and started watching it, I could see a lot more than I was aware of way back when. And, in fact, I was compelled to take a few notes on a handful of scenes that really caught my eye. Sort of like crude storyboards. It's a skill I need to develop, honestly, so I might as well get started on it.

They're not much to look at, but if you know the movie you might recognize the scenes.

Bridgeman, Bridgeman, Bridgeman!

2009-11-07T17:18:00.000-08:00

Huh, he didn't appear. Guess that only works on Tim Burton characters.

23 days to go!

The Bridgeman Train Keeps Rolling

2009-11-06T17:20:00.001-08:00

All I have to say is, inbetweening is HARD!

That said, here's today's Bridgeman studies.

Bridgeman Day Two

2009-11-05T20:23:00.000-08:00

Not as productive a day as I'd hoped, assignment wise. Which sucks, since I really wanted to devote the whole day to working. On the plus side, I ended up doing two half-hour Bridgeman sessions, which can only do me good, yes?

Concentrating on hands at the moment because (1) I need the practice and it's always good to draw hands a lot, and (2) I've got an assignment due in two weeks that involves breaking down hands, so this is relevant. You can guess which of the two is the primary motivator here.

So here's what I got done today:

Not as productive a day as I'd hoped, assignment wise. Which sucks, since I really wanted to devote the whole day to working. On the plus side, I ended up doing two half-hour Bridgeman sessions, which can only do me good, yes?

Here's what I got done today:

The next adventure

2009-11-04T19:18:00.000-08:00

So the past few weeks I've been getting so frustrated in life drawing class that I could GNAW MY OWN FACE OFF! Mostly due to the difficulty in applying Andrew Loomis style mannikin construction to real-life models. Not nearly as easy as it looks, let me tell you!

So in any case, I don't want to be someone who bemoans their fate and never gets off their butt to do something about it, so I've devised a plan to make me better at body construction.

For the rest of this month, I plan to spend at least 1/2 hour each day doing studies from George Bridgeman's Constructive Anatomy and Complete Guide to Drawing From Life. Both have a great emphasis on body construction, and I find the style a bit more accessible than Loomis'. Clearly there's a chance I'll miss the occasional day, but I'll try to stick with it as much as possible and see where it takes me. Certainly it won't do me any harm.

So here's the first day's attempts. A bit rough, but what do you expect on the first day?

Tidy Seconds

2009-10-31T20:35:00.000-07:00

So my first animation with the bouncing ball went over well, so I'm trying to carry that on to my second assignment. Here it is, just as it's getting submitted on Monday morning.

Ottawa Animation Festival Part 4

2009-10-18T19:44:00.000-07:00

And so it ends, today was the last day of the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and the closing party is presumably going on as I type this. However, I've got school in the morning and while it was a great week, it's time to get back to work.

I only ended up going to four screenings instead of five, since the last was just going to be the Best of the Fest, and honestly with the way the buses are on Sundays at this end of town it was better to come back early. So here's what I actually did see:

Short Competition 3 Unfortunately, my day started off with a disappointment in the form of All The Time, a blurry, smudgy mess to the tune of the Tom Waits song by the same name. Now I recognize that it was the hard work of a high school student, but when I can't even see what's going on most of the time, I wouldn't consider it a success, and messing with one of my favourite artists just isn't on. Fortunately this was followed up with the much more interesting (and comprehensible) video for U2's I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight. The other letdown for this screening was the sophomoric and just plain stupid Mak the Horny Mac Daddy. Seriously, this wasn't even a funny gag, how did it get into the festival list? Most of this screening was pretty laclustre really, although if I were to pick a best of the bunch it'd be Please Say Something, about the relationship between an abusive mouse and emotional cat, with occasional rewriting of history along the way. Other decent showings were The Bellows March, Son of Dino-Orange and Shot in the Dark. I dunno. On reflection, there actually were good pieces, but maybe the presence of the two disappointments brought my mood down for the showing.

Short Competition 4 This was a very good competition, from the adorable Did U See that!? and Inukshuk to the mysterious drama of The Drawer and the Crow and the stylish Lebensader. Also worth noting was the presence of Pete Candleland's wonderful Monkey King goes to the Olympics promotion for BBC. Altogether a lovely experience.

Short Competition 5 This was by far the most heavily attended screening I went to all week, which made me a bit nervous since it was the one must-see of the whole festival for me. And why was I so desperate? Was it for the new Wallace and Grommit short? No way! It was for the premiere for Cordell Barker's newest film, Runaway, of course! I've loved Barker and the other Winnipeg studio crew for ages, so this was an incredible treat and totally worth the wait. Hopefully the NFB will have it up on the site once it's finished the film festival rounds and I can see it couple more times. Loads of fun. Oh, and the Wallace and Grommit short was also good. Aside from that, there was a really interesting surreal piece named Kitchen Dimensions, which was really well put together, but I thought it went a bit overlong. After two long surreal sequences, I wasn't really in the mood for a third after that, but what are you gonna do? Also worthy of note in the sheer hard work category was Postalolio, which was entirely animated using postcards which had been sent through the mail back to the studio. Great animation, great concept, and a whole lotta postage.

Canadian Film Showcase This was the last screening I attended, and what a lovely way to wrap up the festival. These films were excellent, from beginning to end, and went a long way to showing why Canada is unquestionably on the map in international animation. I'll let the films speak for themselves: The Vegetation of Zig 5, The Spine, Hazed and The Man Who Slept. There were others I couldn't find video links for, such as Peggy Baker: Four Phrases from the NFB, and Nanu and Animal from Sheridan, but those are enough to give you a good idea of the level of quality.

All told, this year's festival was a fantastic experience. Next year of course my focus will be less on watching the films, and more on making contacts, networking, learning more of the business side of things and trying to attend workshops, so I'll be seeing less new animation. But as a first year student, I still have the luxury of relaxing a bit and just soaking in the creativity.

As a side note, the winners of this year's festival have been announced! And among them, a good number of films I've seen and liked. Good show!

Ottawa Animation Festival Part 3

2009-10-17T21:17:00.001-07:00

Gonna be brief with tonight's update, since I'm a bit on the tired side. But here we go in any case.

Mary and Max Good heavens. Before I say anything else, I just want to say that this was the only thing I've seen so far in the entire festival that made me cry. Seriously, it grabs you that much, and makes you care about the characters. Nevermind the seriously bittersweet ending, the waterworks were on even before that happened. An Australian stop-motion film, Mary and Max is the story of a 21-year long relationship by mail between a lonely little girl, and later a confident woman, in Australia, and a middle-aged man with severe Asperger's Syndrome in New York City. By times ridiculous and deeply moving, this is a film not only worth seeking out, but worth hunting down. Go well out of your way for this one, especially if character-driven movies are your thing.

Short Competition 2 Another mixed bag, as are all compilations of short films. There weren't any show-stoppers in this batch but the clear favourite was Madagascar, A Journey Diary, with its variety of animation styles that showed the beauty of the land and creatures, as well as vivacity and complexity of the people during a Famadihana festival. The other one that caught my eye was a more experimental piece called Twist of Fate, a trio of stories about lying named, appropriately enough, Lies and a charming little Chinese short about the secret world inside a cotton candy machine named The Universe Cotton. The big disappointment for me was Nick Cross & Dave Cooper's music video for Danko Jones' King of Magazines. After all the buzz on the animation blogs, I was expecting something special, but what did I get? Unappealing drawing, action that had no connection to the lyrics or the beat of the song, and characters whose motivations didn't make sense. Personal opinion of course, but a poor showing overall.

20 Years of Studio Film Bilder This was a treat from beginning to end. Film Bilder is the major animation producer in Germany, and has produced a stunning body of work over the past two decades, including surprisingly enough the animated stairs sequences from Run, Lola, Run. Great fun, and sometimes unflinchingly dramatic, it was a joy to watch.

Seven Reasons to Love Animation This was unexpected, really. I went in with the expectation of getting some old NFB shorts, and what I got was a selection of unusual and outstanding films going back to 1957 Denmark. I had to laugh though, since earlier I've mentioned the names Norman McLaren and The Brothers Quay here, and what comes up but Begone Dull Care and The Comb. In fact I'd already seen four of the seven films in the program, which I guess means I'm cultured or something. Aside from the two I mentioned, I've also seen 78 Tours and Balance, both of which I recommend.

Can't Draw Straight: Queer Perspectives in Animation This was an extremely odd program, not the least because several of the selections didn't seem to have anything at all to do with queer perspectives. The most puzzling choice was PES' Roof Sex, which clearly shows a heterosexual tryst. Similarly, Tango Finlandia was a great little film, but I'm at a loss to tell you what was queer about it. There were some nice bits though, particularly the noir animation Beloved Murderer, about a pair of lesbian assassins intended to destroy each other, although it doesn't end up like that. Overall, not the most impressive screening I've gone to this week, but not without its charms.

That's it for tonight. Tomorrow is the last day of the festival, and I intend to fill it with most of the remaining short competitions and the Canadian compilation. Hopefully my luck will hold and none will sell out.

Ottawa Animation Festival Part 2

2009-10-16T21:13:00.000-07:00

Another day, another crop of AniFest reviews! Got to see four screenings today, which is one more than I'd planned, so that's a bonus. Here's the rundown:

$9.99 The first feature I've seen during the festival (out of three planned), $9.99 is an Isreali film about a group of characters all inhabiting the same apartment with interrelated lives to one degree or another, although sometimes the relationship is coincidental at best. An entertaining film, certainly, and the characters have a lot of honesty to them, but I have to question the fantastic elements of the film. The worthless angel that appears to the old, lonely man is good, but what happens to the repo guy is totally jarring, and the hallucinatory drinking buddies of the guy whose fiancee dumped him really doesn't work as well as it should. But despite that, the character development of most of the characters works well, and there's some sense of cohesion. Worth a look, but probably not going too far out of your way for.

International Competition 2 One of the festival's competition screenings, this was a crop of short films from a number of countries, primarily European. There was a very slick French film named French Roast which was quite clever, and a new Pixar short, but honestly what stole the show was L'homme à la Gordini, a wickedly funny short about a society where everyone is pantless and wears only orange tops (enforced by law!), subverted by a man and wife team wearing blue, and a mysterious caped man waging his own subversive war against the customs. So 70's in style it HURTS!, the film is infectious and funny. This one is definitely worth going out of your way to find.

A Stan VanDerBeek Retrospective This was probably the most jarring moment of the festival for me, going from the slick, polished and professional entries in the International Competition to a collection of extremely experimental short films made by the man who later went on to create the vids for Paul Simon's "Boy In the Bubble" and Michael Jackson's "Leave Me Alone". Dissonant, chaotic and confusing, but full of energy and not without humour, VanDerBeek pushed the envelope of collage filmmaking, and even worked with the early pioneers of CG. Not an easy screening to sit through though, and a number of the audience left partway through. I'd say it was worth it, but I grew up watching Norman McLaren stuff, so it's not so new to me. But seriously, what's with all experimental films using this ear-wrenching avant garde dissonant crap for a soundtrack? What, it's not experimental enough if you don't have clashing noise where music should be? I don't get it. At least McLaren had the decency to use jazz.

Edison and Leo This was fun, and a good antidote for the heavy experimentation and dissonant soundtrack of the last screening. The first Canadian stop-motion feature, this is an iconoclastic and unquestionably Canadian story about an amoral inventor, his two sons, and the giant metal effigy of his late wife (his fault). Oh, and his son is charged with electicity (also his fault), and a tribe of female warriors have laid seige to his lab (his fault, yet again...there's a pattern forming here). The story is surprisingly unflinching at sex, violence, and emotion, which helps bring the very obvious models alive as characters. The writing is sharp and witty, the motivations of the characters is clear, and everything comes together in a nice, tidy, but not neat package. The real shame is the deaths of some characters who really don't deserve it, but omlettes and eggs, you know. Honestly, thinking about it after it would have come off as too much of a sell-out if they hadn't, so it's just as well. Another one to look for, I recommend it.

That's it for tonight. I've got five screenings scheduled for tomorrow, hopefully I can get in to all of them. I'll report back after with my impressions.

Ottawa Animation Festival Part 1

2009-10-15T20:55:00.000-07:00

So this week is the Ottawa Animation Festival, and it's a pretty big deal in the animation world as one of the big festivals of it's kind. And as an animation student, I'm tremendously lucky to have this literally on my doorstep. So I've been volunteering like crazy (I've done 14 hours already, and another three tomorrow) in return for a coveted volunteer pass, which gets me into most screenings and workshops. Well worth the effort, although I'm doing twice what's actually required. Next year, I plan to concentrate mostly on the Television Animation Conference, which runs parallel to the festival, and make contacts there.

So over the next few days, instead of presenting art, I'll be giving my impressions of the showings I've seen that day. I'll provide links to as much as I can along the way.

So here's what I went to see today:

The Stereolab at the NFB: Exploring Three Dimensions This was an interesting collection of independent films done using current 3-d processes, funded by the NFB (save for one). As you'd expect, a lot of it was pretty artsy and experimental, although a surprising amount of it was just plain gimmicky, so instead of well crafted visuals, you just got a lot of poorly drawn crap getting thrown at your face. So for at least a third of the program I wasn't impressed. However, there was a 3-d treatment of Bashnie Tatlina Tower Bawher, which was pretty stirring, and the real star of the show was Facing Champlain, which is a wonderful animation/live action hybrid that uses the 3-d format in service of the plot, rather than just a gee-whiz gimmick. Strangely, the other good moment was a non-NFB film out of Winnipeg that went whole-hog with the gimmick, but with such quirky humour that it worked. Goes to show you can salvage just about anything if you got heart.

In the evening, I had the good luck to get a spot in Stevie Vallance's voice acting for animation workshop, and let me tell you that was a serious stroke of good luck. I met Stevie the day before during a shift at the TAC conference, and I was impressed with her then, and I am certainly no less impressed now. She's a brilliant performer, and a great teacher for aspiring voice actors. It's a shame I can't manage to make her all-day workshop on Sunday, but she's been talking about coming back to town to do more in a few months, so there's hope.

Lastly, I managed to catch Québec My Love: Contemporary Indies from Québec. I was initially hesitant, since I don't really speak the language, but it turns out I didn't need to worry. What wasn't subtitled was generally either wordless or non-narrative anyhow, so no big deal. Unlike the largely gimmicky Stereolab presentation, this showing veered sharply into the pure art and experiment realm, with films that in some cases even defied the concept of animation itself. Very edgy, sometimes as far as inaccessable, it was still a fascinating program. Although there were a couple of more orthodox animations, like Pierre M. Trudeau's professional-looking CG short Garbage Angels, the surreal and ligne claire-esque Astronomer's Dream, and the very personal but told with simple linework The Occupant, the one that really made me sit up was a seriously surreal take on relationships, Chromosome X-Y-Z. Compelling and disturbing, full of dark and surreal but sometimes hopeful and beautiful imagery, and owing more than just a little debt to the Brothers Quay with their almost-mechanical, insectlike vibrating elements that never fail to unnerve me, this is the short that really grabbed me. I don't pretend to understand it all, but I doubt that matters.

It's late and time for bed. More tomorrow!

Starting down that road

2009-10-11T21:47:00.000-07:00

Well, I got it done and submitted, my very first animation. Pretty simple, it's the classic bouncing ball that goes all the way back to the early Disney days, and just about every animation student does it at some point. It's a good way to start though, since it boils everything down to basics, and I think mine turned out pretty well.

Background is mine, too. Not my most inspired work, but I like it.

In other news, I just watched the Spanish animated feature Nocturna. Seriously, why does this film not have a North American distributor? It's well drawn, well animated, full of appeal, the story is engaging and doesn't talk down to the audience, full of action and spectacle. All in all, what an exceptional bit of animation should be. There's a musical interlude at one point, midway through that really struck me in its sheer subtlety. The comparison to American features' need to shoehorn songs into every animated feature (I'm looking at you, Disney!), to say nothing of dialogue into every single moment is striking. If you can find a copy, and unfortunately it'll either have to be a download or an import, I highly recommend it. You won't be sorry.

2009-10-04T14:22:00.000-07:00

Haven't posted in a bit, been busy with course work. Hopefully I'll be getting more in the habit of drawing more and more as I learn better practices.

School's been good so far. Loads of new information right off the bat that we're now learning to apply. All fascinating stuff of course, and it's getting me more interested in animation itself than I used to be. Up to now my focus has been more on comics, but honestly I'm getting really into this whole animation concept.

But then, maybe I'm seduced by the fact that several of my classes revolve around watching cartoons and drawing stuff like what I've got below. Although it'll be a long time before I'm animating anything nearly that complex. For now it's the classic bouncing ball, and working our way up to doing the flour sack exercise developed by the early Disney guys by the end of the term.

Today's art is a couple of studies from Jean-David Morvan and Jose-Luis Munuera's fantastic adventure series, Navis. The characters and poses aren't mine, but rather they're exercises in learning how to do solid drawing with underlying construction, and a careful look should reveal a lot of the latter. Our Animation Drawing instructor really stresses this stuff, so it's to my best interest to practice it a lot.

Heads!

2009-09-13T17:46:00.000-07:00

Not really a lot new since yesterday. Just thought I'd post the pages I did today from Preston Blair. I think I'm getting a lot closer to on-model, but with the eggheads it's pretty tough. The complete characters, like the bunnies or squirrels, are a lot easier to get straight.

Tomorrow I start my first full week of classes, which should be interesting. First class of the week has all the first years in the same room, the only time of the week we get to do that. The rest of the time, we're split into groups of less than 20, which I must say makes the learning process a bit easier. It's much less difficult to interact with the instructor when there's less people competing for his attention. In any case, I expect things to pick up very quickly from here. Gonna be a fast ride.

On with the show

2009-09-12T19:53:00.000-07:00

So school has begun, although not exactly a great start. They suddenly changed my schedule, so I ended up missing my first Enviro class. Not to mention, where I didn't have an 8am class before, I've got one now, which means I have to get up at 5:30am on Wednesdays. To go to a 4-hour class. Followed by a 3-hour class. Followed by a 2 1/2 hour life drawing session. Yaaaaay!

But in any case, the rest of the week has been mostly talk-talk with precious little drawing, although at least in Animation Drawing class we've started in on the 12 Principles of Animation. So that's positive. So coming off of that, we've got two main tasks to accomplish, starting right away. Read Illusion of Life, a cornerstone book of animation, and study Preston Blair. And for an artist, "study" means "draw". It's your hands that do the learning.

So here are a couple of pages I did today of Blair's eggheads. I'm getting a bit better at capturing the forms as I go along, but with most simple things it's actually quite difficult. I'll be working them more tomorrow, trying to get closer to what Blair drew on pages like this. Expect to see a lot of this sort of thing over the next few months. And, hopefully, a bit of improvement as I go along.

Wish me luck.

Books & Books & Books!

2009-09-04T11:56:00.000-07:00

FOUR HUNDRED ~~BABIES~~ BOOKS!!

Well, not four hundred, but a lot anyhow. Even though I already had six of them, and even though I bought some used and thus got a discount, I still ended up spending CDN $330 on the things. It's hard to be an art-book-aholic.

Anyhow, here's the rundown, from the top of the pile down:

Perspective Made Easy by Ernest R. Norling
Perspective by William F. Powell
Timing for Animation by Harold Whitaker and John Halas
Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair
Draw the Looney Tunes (no author given)
The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards
The Art of Animal Drawing by Ken Hultgren
Drawing the Head and Figure by Jack Hamm
Creating Characters With Personality by Tom Bancroft
Anatomy A Complete Guide for Artists by Joseph Sheppard
Vilppu Drawing Manual by Glenn Vilppu
Building Construction Illustrated by Francis D.K. Ching
Human Anatomy for Artists by Eliot Goldfinger
Drawn to Life Vol 2 by Walt Stanchfield
The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams
The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson

Whew! And if that weren't enough, that brings my personal library of art books to 76. And goodness knows, I'm probably not done yet.

Oh, and since it's Friday, blogger law requires I post a picture of a cat. Far be it from me to argue with the law.

Wait'll they get a load of me!

The thrill of discovery

2009-09-02T19:03:00.000-07:00

One of the wild things about art is you can be taught and taught and taught, but in the end you gotta figure stuff out yourself. And in the end, when you have this epiphany that totally turns around how you look at things...it's exactly what you've been taught and taught and taught all along.

Case in point. I finally, after a year of school and a summer of pretty constant practice, figured out what I needed to do to make my drawings come alive. Simply put, I needed to stop drawing what characters look like, and start drawing what they're doing.

Now that might not sound earth-shaking, but trust me. To me it is. And then I look around, and it's exactly what I've been reading from some of the big names in the field. Walter Stanchfield. Mike Matessi. Glen Vilppu. Preston Blair. And the list goes on.

So here's tonight's life drawing, trying to put that into practice. I've got a long way to go, but I've already come a long way, so it's cool.

Eight Days

2009-09-01T20:10:00.001-07:00

You know what's wild? I start school on the same day that 9 comes out in theatres. Totally can't wait for that. And the Ottawa Animation festival is coming up soon too, so I might get a chance to see Cordell Barker's new film, Runaway, and the release of the Astroboy movie a week after that.

It's a good time to be into animation.

But school's creeping up fast. Tonight was the last Sketch Night of the summer (they don't happen during the school year), and tomorrow will be my last Wednesday night life drawing for a while. Gonna be a whole new kettle o' Pisces, starting in a little over a week.

Only one pic for you today, a bone beast girl I made up tonight. Her name is Darla, ain't she sweet?

Chop Socky

2009-08-29T18:28:00.000-07:00

Ran across this wonderful post over at Scans Daily today, and got inspired to go look for some of that awesome 70's martial art film action. You know the stuff, awesome fighting, total crap translating and acting, slight pretense at plot. So I wandered over the YouTube in my search, and they had the entirety of Master of the Flying Guillotine. Awesome! Had a blast this afternoon watching it, and I might just do the same thing with Fist of the White Lotus tomorrow.

Because, y'know, embroidery-style martial arts rule.

Only one page today, a bit of fanart of Auhula, apprentice hippogryph master at Forest Song in World of Warcraft (and thus (c) Blizzard Entertainment).

She's not playable. She has no lines. And yet, I'm a fan.

Go figure.

Giving it a miss

2009-08-28T17:40:00.000-07:00

One of the problems with not getting a summer job is having to tighten your belt, so away go a lot of perks you already had. In my case, that meant giving up two things that had been mainstays, comics and quality cheese. Sure, it's a shame to miss out on those things, but I've been poor before and no stranger to sacrificing when I need to.

Well, school is about to start up again, my loan papers (hopefully) will be here next week, and with the low-income grant on top I should be in decent shape financially between now and April. Which means cheese now and again.

But not comics.

Seriously, it's time I took a break from them. I'm gonna have enough to do without getting sidetracked by that stuff, and without spending the money it takes. I'd pretty much pulled back to just getting a handful of manga in any case, and given the price of those volumes I'm better off.

Still gonna miss them all the same, but they're a frill. They can wait until I'm earning money of my own.

For art, the usual Preston Blair studies today, plus a page of trying to apply the concepts to some pics from Cute Overload. Mixed results, but not totally negative. I am heartened.

Much win

2009-08-27T17:37:00.000-07:00

I was able to show my friend, who'd never seen Danny Kaye before, this classic:

I've done my good deed for the whole month!

Only one page today, a bit sketchier than usual. Fun stuff, hopefully I'll have more tomorrow.

This guy are sick

2009-08-26T19:19:00.000-07:00

Not really a lot to say tonight. One more life drawing class at Sandy Hill before school starts again, I'll have enough to do after that. Besides, I'll get a four-hour block of it every Monday afternoon, so I figure I'll be good.

Finally found out when orientation for the Animation program is (Monday), and immediately decided not to go. For one thing, it's largely aimed at students new to the college, and college in general, while I've been at Algonquin a year already and this is my fourth run at post-secondary eduction. So I'm pretty familiar with it all. But the more important factor was that students attending the orientation have to attend two breakout sessions. And on my personal scale, "breakout" and "fun" are at opposite ends. So no thanks.

Anyhow, I'm just hoping for my student loan papers to come tomorrow, so I can run in on Friday and get them signed and otherwise taken care of. I'll need to update my student ID anyhow, and put some food money on it anyhow (if you use it like a cafeteria debit card, you get 5% off everything). So it's worth the trip. I've already got my locker paid for and the lock on it, so at least that's one fiddly little errand taken care of.

So in any case, here's my daily Preston Blair stuff and this week's life drawing. I especially like the attitude in the last one.

Millyuns!

2009-08-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

Nothing really amazing today, but if you want something really interesting, I've been saving this link to PZ Myers doing a brief overview of where the idea of a many million year old Earth came from. Naturally, some Creationist dining room table doesn't care for it, but so what?

Also got to see the open house for Algonquin's first crop of graduates from their new Professional Illustrator course. A mixed bag as you might expect, but some pretty good work there. Some of them are going to go a long way, I'm sure.

As usual, Preston Blair studies and a page from tonight's Sketch Night of some Spirou supporting characters.

BURD!

Endangered Species

2009-08-24T17:54:00.001-07:00

Took the day off yesterday, but it's back on the horse again today. As I'm sure you can see, looking below. One interesting thing though, I went back through my day planner to see just how many pages of just gesture drawings I've done over the summer. That's only the 30 and 60 second speed drawings, a few of which I've posted here and there, but most of which are just disposable practice. Here and gone. What surprised me though, was the volume.

325 pages. Most of those with five to seven drawings each. In less than four months. Holy crap.

I'm beginning to believe it when people say I'm dedicated. The scary part is, I'm going to have to exceed that once I start classes in September. I've made a lot of progress already, now imagine where I'll be after 8 more months of even more intense work.

In the meantime, here's some more Preston Blair studies.

So I play World of Warcraft, and it's a lot of fun. Especially given the improvements that have been made over the years the game has been around (can't wait for Cataclysm!). Anyhow, I saw this awesome Draenei (aka Russian Space Goat) NPC, and I totally felt the need to draw her.

Well, I ended up drawing a totally different Draenei girl. But hey, it's all good!

Draenei are (c) Blizzard Entertainment, in case you're wondering.