Heads!

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

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.

Giving it a miss

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

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

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!

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

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.

Good news, everyone!

Well, just me. My student loan was approved today! Yippee!! I can breathe again! Given school starts on the 9th, I was getting a wee bit concerned. Now all I have to do is wait for the paperwork, take care of things with the school and I'm all set for the fall.

Biiiig relief.

Here, have something cute. More Preston Blair, blah blah.



And as promised, nekkid laydeez! Would you believe these are the same model?

Stick a fork in him

So it looks like Pastor Tom Estes, King of the Martyrs has not only jumped the shark, but dived straight into it's gullet. In short, he's become a ridiculous bore by doing what he thinks is a good idea: banning comments by people who disagree with him (who he collectively calls "atheists").

If you're not familiar with the Creationist propaganda-monger in question, he's the fellow who appeared out of nowhere on PZ Myers' blog (link on the sidebar) right before the big visit to Ken Ham's Hebrew Mythology Theme Park, acting all chummy and offering not only to show PZ around the place, but inviting "atheists" back to his blog to debate.

Well, after soundly getting kicked around the playground by the not-insane, and actively hiding from PZ at the "Museum", he's gotten increasingly passive-aggressive to his commenters finally wrapping up in an orgy of Waaaaaaahhhhh, where he loudly claims he was never interested in PZ in the first place, didn't know he was a "god-hater", and doesn't want these vile, lying atheists dirtying up the place. So while watching Tom's continued descent into madness is fun and all, the main reason for reading his blog was to see the much smarter commenters repeatedly pwn him. So this will be the last he appears here, since in the end he's just another idiot.

So to counteract all that, here's something cute drawn from Preston Blair. Sorry there's no nekkid ladeez, I'll definitely post some tomorrow. Promise!

Off day

This day's been a big bag of blah, honestly. Here, have a page of Preston Blair studies and a failed attempt at drawing a Blood Elf in a pimp hat and belly shirt.



Just so this post isn't totally full of fail, here's a great animated music video. So much going on here, it's amazing. Watch it!




Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at Aniboom

Ponyo!!

So a bunch of us went to see Ponyo tonight, and it was great! As expected of Miyazaki, of course, but it was great to see his work on the (relatively) big screen again. Well worth watching if you like family films at all, although it doesn't have the deeper themes of stuff like Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke. It was more like a fond call-back to the simple, sweet stories he'd done in the past, like My Neighbour Totoro.

It was also the first time the bunch of us who became friends back in Pre-Animation had gotten together since the wrap party at my place. Pity Kris didn't make it, though.


So as usual, Preston Blair studies. Only one page today.


Sketch Night at the school tonight. So I applied my new style to a piece from a Dean Weagle sketchbook and one from another book the artist of which I can't recall. I'm really getting to like this, and I'm learning all sorts of things I didn't expect.



Beware the NUNJA!!

Silently kicking ass for the LORD!

Yeah, someone came up with the name, and I had to draw it. Sue me, why don't'cha?

The meaning of the fast progress

I dunno what it is with me these days, but I've kinda gone a bit crock pot nuts. I guess a big part of that is finding this site with enough slow cooking recipies to keep me going for ages. I've already made shepherd's pie, tamale pie, Spanish rice cassarole, sausage with potatoes and spiced potato wedges, and I've got plans to try baking bread and checking out the rotisserie-style chicken recipe. Certainly I can't fault the quality, it's all been fantastic and no more difficult than any other dish. Less, I suppose, since there's a lot less prep and fussing involved for a lot of dishes. Even better, the energy costs are way less than the oven, and it doesn't heat up the house. Win-win-win, I say.

If you've got a crock in the house you haven't used, pull it out, there's so much you can do with it. Hmmm....a hummus recipie....

Er, yeah. Pictures. That's what you're here for, yes?

So the first couple of pages are more Preston Blair studies, mostly head shapes. I'm still trying to get the hang of drawing an egg shape that's not just an oval, but I guess it'll come in time. Then again, since it's mostly just a guideline it might not be terribly important. We'll see over the next few weeks.

After that, are a page of 60-second gestures I did this morning. I've started to feel like pushing realism away for now and start getting down and dirty with the anatomy. So we're talking bending stuff, twisting it, having all sorts of fun. Did those two sketches at the bottom there tonight, and they were an absolute ton o' fun. More tomorrow, with luck!

Running up that hill

Continuing to slowly work through Cartoon Animation. It's amazing how tough just doing these simple forms is, but there you have it. And if I intend to get to where I want to be, this is a necessary step. So I fumble my way along, doing these studies and practicing what I can, trying to get better. Art is a cumulative process, and while this doesn't really look like much at this stage, as I build upon what I learn today, tomorrow, the next day and so on, it'll develop into some pretty wild stuff.




Probably rude just to leave it at shop talk. So I'll toss in a couple of recommendations.

Evan Dahm, who finished his short, surreal epic Rice Boy a while back (it's all on his site, definitely read it) has been working on another story in the world of Overside, Order of Tales. There's enough of it now to give a coherent storyline with hints of a rich world and well developed characters.

If you're interested in something a bit less surreal, you can't go wrong with Ursula Vernon's Digger. Hyenas, wombats and dead gods, what's not to like? The archives went free not long ago, so you can read the whole, fascinating epic from the start and fall in love with the characters like the rest of us.

For a third option, I'll give extremely high marks to an entry from France, Maliki. A wonderful variety of art, and a mix of everyday adventures, supernatural creatures, random meanderings and cats, with occasional visits by Skeletor. The artist is one of the designers for the wonderful Wakfu TV series, which I really, really wish they'd release an english subtitle of. The series, and the Maliki comic, are both in French, of course, but it's easy to tell what's going on regardless of whether you speak the language.

More later.

Things continue to be fun at Pastor Tom's All Night Whackaloon Warehouse and House of Pancakes, what with him generally melting down and tossing personal insults at anyone who ever looked at him funny, then bragging about how great Christianity is doing. Watching the clowns is always a fun pastime, but sometimes it's interesting to see what the adults are up to.

The adult this time is rather an interesting one. The Thomas Society, one of the rarest of rare breeds, an evangelical Christian who embraces doubt and actually interacts honestly with the world around him. He's well worth a read, so go check him out.

Oh, and Honest Tom hates him, so what better recommendation you gonna get?

Drawing today is a mixed bag. First is a couple of pages from last night's Sketch Night, drawn from any number of sources. The only one I remember for sure is some of the Dan Weagle sketchbooks, but who knows what all else is in there.



Next are studies from a couple of pages from Preston Blair's book, Cartoon Animation. Expect to see a lot like this over the next few days.


And finally, two pages from tonight's life drawing session at Sandy Hill. Haven't drawn a male model in ages, so it was a bit of a treat. I was a bit scared last week's successes were a fluke or something, but apparently I actually am getting better. Who knew?