Coming Attractions

Take a trip

2012-01-20T12:43:00.000-08:00

Hi -- long time, no nothing!

2011-10-23T16:14:00.000-07:00

People don't come to me for my pinup ladies. And I'm not saying I want them to. I'm just saying I do have a couple more tricks up my sleeve than you think.

Last of my digi-illustrations this week. Most of them stirred up some useful ideas. I will definitely paint the turtle picture in earnest, in good time :D

Postcard-ish

2011-10-20T15:11:00.001-07:00

Ha! Two in a day --although I spent only minutes on this...

Inspired by the "tree birds" in Marjatta Kurenniemi's kids' books.

Bedtime

2011-10-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

He's afraid of spiders too.

Bananas

2011-10-17T14:39:00.000-07:00

My current portfolio leans heavily towards traditional art. This week (gotta give myself a deadline) I want to digitally refine and colour at least five of my quick ideas from my sketchbook of the last month or so.

She's a little bananas!

Kinda lost my idea of what I was doing with this one in the middle of colouring. I will need to get a colourbase down faster next time. Definitely time to move on...

Underwear ad

2011-10-13T02:41:00.000-07:00

I was recently commissioned to *draw* the press release for a spunky (ahem) local enterprise called STUDbriefs.com! This was fun, not to mention educational.

"21 Journeys" launch party Sept. 10th

2011-09-01T23:35:00.000-07:00

Join Cloudscape in launching the wanderlust-cious comics anthology 21 Journeys (I'm in it ...Oh I already told you that? Ok.)
at Ayden Gallery (International Village mall), Vancouver, on Saturday September 10th 7PM--10PM.

Party foods, comics, cool attractive people. We supply the former, you the latter.

More comicking

2011-08-26T17:30:00.000-07:00

Page 1/4 of my spooky&kooky comic "Revenge of the Ghost Spider" which will appear in Gurukitty Studios' upcoming comics anthology Ghost Tales.
Preorder the anthology here at IndieGogo -- receive adorable perks for your donation and help Gurukitty take their comic-creating sister act to CALGARY EXPO!

Ghostly

2011-08-03T03:14:00.000-07:00

These characters were originated by Bevan Thomas as start-from-scratch "reinventions" of established names from superhero comics (Nox The Dweller in Darkness and Immortal Man, respectively) -- it's part of this character origin&design challenge/excercise/thingamajig called Name Game at Cloudscape.

And "21 Journeys" is out. Order print version here (or get it from me), or buy e-book here.

The "21 Journeys" anthology is here!

2011-07-21T06:04:00.000-07:00

I'm one of the contributors to the fifth and freshest Cloudscape Comics anthology, 21 Journeys, which is finally available to order right here!
Accepting only PayPal, sorry. But if you're in my vicinity, buy it with cash and save on shipping costs.

* * *

...Although with my eCrater shop you're already saving a bit, due to my not bothering to make the accurate rounding up to USD from CAD, and my laziness in calculating weight-based shipping.

The anthology will also soon be available at the Cloudscape site, but that money goes to Cloudscape as a society, whereas the money from my personal shop goes to me. I assure you my shop's not only legal but fair, since it allows me to finally observe rent-paying rewards for this thing I worked on for long nights.

However, obviously "THIS THING" gave me much more than it took from me. I think I'd be happy that you want to read it, wherever you ordered it from.

Buncha knights

2011-06-09T22:28:00.000-07:00

Frog Knight.

I decided to take part in the current 30 Days Project with the peer support of Cloudscape. On a whim I set "Knights" as my theme. (30 Days of Knights, geddit HAAHAA?!!)
I have been (and will be) drawing a knight, or a knight-related illustration, every day this June! These are some of my favourites so far -- if you want to see my every single knight check out my dA & Tumblr.

^Coal Knight -- I think I read about this guy in a creepy kids' book once... I think.

^Um... Jedi Knight

^Marionette Knight with neon accessories

Guess I should have chosen horses as my theme instead of knights. Well, more ideas for next time!

Fired up!

2011-05-25T08:06:00.000-07:00

My scanner was too tiny for these and I had to photograph them: I am HORRIBLE at it. But I'm real happy with the lighting on her form!
(Pastel and conté.)

These characters were originated by Cloudscape member Bevan Thomas as start-from-scratch "reinventions" of established superhero names (The Human Torch and The Sun Emperor, respectively) -- it's the first part of this character origin&design challenge/excercise/thingamajig called Name Game at Cloudscape.

"Creamers" at IndieGoGo

2011-05-02T21:35:00.001-07:00

Donate at IndieGoGo (you will receive goodies for different donation amounts) for a classically animated short film by a wonderful artist, Hilary Moses!

Here's the blog about the development of Creamers.

* * *

Boo, I haven't drawn anything good enough to post. Well, here's a watercolour doodle instead. (Thanks again, VIDF)

I WILL spam you now

2011-04-14T23:38:00.000-07:00

- I'm going to Stumptown this weekend! I'm not selling stuff (but I can draw sketch commissions), just chillin as part of the Cloudscape contingent, table A-24.
- Thank you to everyone who preordered "21 Journeys", donated or sent positive vibes or whatever. The anthology goes to print soon.

Watercolour paper experiments. Traditional funtimes!
I bet you're thinking I traced pictures 3 & 4, but no: I did use my VIDF lifedrws. as references and I have a feeling everyone can tell I was looking at a drawing instead of a live human. But they have a nice screenprint-looking effect.

"Suspicious" + calendar comics

2011-03-28T05:52:00.000-07:00

This is an acrylic painting on a cradled wood panel (8x8 inches) that I did for the "21 Journeys" fundraiser. I was going to write that you can buy this at the Cloudscape Etsy store, but to my colossal surprise, someone has already bought it. Thank you to whoever you are! You have just greatly helped our publishing effort, and I guarantee you will find this painting even cuter in your hands than on your screen.
And thanks to Jayleen (Guru) for getting the word out on Twitter. :D

Check out our Etsy page to see other 8x8 panel paintings by Cloudscape members. Proceeds go towards printing 21 Journeys. (I'm sorry, Japan.) I'm working on another one as well. And again, if paintings don't interest you but you'd like to pre-order the book or donate, you can do that at IndieGoGo.
We also have this 24-hour webcam jam coming up on April 1st that I'm going to take part in. As soon as I find out what the hell that means, I'll let you know.

* * *
Now, here's some more Calendar Comics... This is fun.
(Whoops! PROFANITY WARNING.)

Yet another totally favourite self-portrait:

VIDF lifedrw. and mini me

2011-03-09T04:43:00.000-08:00

Hello! If, like mine, your weekend is situated in the middle of the week (or if you're lucky enough to work in Yaletown and willing to sacrifice your lunchbreak), get your butt to the FREE weekday noon lifedrawing hour at The Roundhouse, through to March 18th, courtesy of Vancouver International Dance Festival. Dancer models -- it's pretty interesting. They have outlandishly toned bodies but also character. The floppy t-shirt's not my favourite clothing choice though but it's okay.

Q: How is it "free" after the transit fare from North Van?
A: That is a legitimate question, but I usually roam the Seawall on my "weekends" anyway, so it fits right into my routine.

I'll be returning to Cap lifedrawing too, at some point. It's too bad -- lifedrawing always makes me forget my troubles, but before I can make my way there I have all this emo ridiculousness to overcome.
Can't stay away from the burlesque session though!

* * *

Here's something else I've been enjoying lately. Trying to do a minidoodle about each day of my riveting life into my 4x2.5" minicalendar. Sort of like super condensed journal comicking. Fast and fun, I recommend it.

(This has to be my best self-portrait ever.)

Want to preorder 21 Journeys?

2011-01-23T09:22:00.001-08:00

(Sorry to repeat myself, but since selling time is now upon us...)
I collaborated on a comic for Cloudscape's fifth anthology 21 Journeys. To give you a taste, here is a page (though not the beginning) of said story:

At the 21 Journeys IndieGoGo page, you can preorder the book itself for $25 (CAD) -- and if you're feeling generous, for more sizable donations you get more and more goodies with your order. For example, a $100 gets you the entire Cloudscape "library" of all the previous anthologies and a few of the members' publications on top of that (including Xeric grant winners "Lotus Root Children" and "Lords of Death and Life"). So if you're interested, check out what all you can get for a donation that suits you.

* * *

Today I venture to work for the first time after being bedridden for an entire week. This is the longest I've been sick since I was two years old. I feel awful for the wasted time but if I could get through this, I guess nothing's really gonna shake me after. Now I'm on a medication for people with ulcers, which is actually kind of -- kiiiiiind of -- hilarious.

"Because you're the only one who could change my mind!"

2011-01-14T08:01:00.000-08:00

I tried to document my trip with sketches (as well as photos -- see previous post) but it kinda fell through...

^ And we're back to talking about TV!!! Loooove TV love it! So yeah, "White Collar" is one of my new favourite shows. (Yeah I only caught on to it over the holidays.)

Now this may seem farfetched, but I feel like I am watching a crime-tastic reincarnation of "Two Guys and a Girl", only without the girl (unfortunately Elizabeth is too nice to be The Girl).
Very similar personalities, and, Peter's name, anyone? Peter Burke, PETE N' BERG, huh? HUH? Caffrey (or Berg) the flake takes the crazy risks and yet it's always the straight guy Pete who gets the shit.

Both shows -- very funny, both sets of costars -- considerable chemistry, and both shows are insanely fun to watch with these certain kind of goggles on if you know what I mean. In case you don't, I mean CAFFREY, HOW GAY EXACTLY ARE YOU FOR THAT FED?! Never mind, you poor lump, you don't have to answer, I'll just go watch the first season finale again. I loved Pete and his Berg and I love Neal and his Pete. This is an awesome show with a lot of very tight pants *| and hilarious dialogue!

[*| Tight pants being actually the one thing sorely lacking from 2GAAG.]

Crazy tangents!

2011-01-14T07:57:00.000-08:00

Due to popular demand (okay, due to like two demands) I'm posting some photos from my most recent trip to snow-laden Finland. I know most of you didn't exactly sign up for trigger-happy snow photos but don't worry, there'll be some sketches in the next post!

Last year all the snow photos were from Jyväskylä -- luckily we visited Ruka ("almost" Lapland) on this trip so I don't think these will be too repetitive. Only that very first photo ^up there^ was from Jyväskylä.

Linkage

2011-01-04T23:22:00.000-08:00

You might like to see these.

"Horribly Adorable", a kids' book concept by Dave G. Derrick I WOULD BUY THIS!

Nathan Fowkes strikes again -- every day.

* * *

Sorry for not posting what I've been drawing. I am scannerless in Finland! But you will get a batch of amateur photos of snow soon, consider yourselves warned.

"MAYBE IT WAS THE TROUSERS!"

2010-12-04T09:04:00.000-08:00

This post has a couple of things...

I have neglected everything lately BECAUSE for the last few weeks I've been slaving over a contribution to Cloudscape's anthology ~~22 Journeys~~ [Edit:] 21 Journeys. The comic's finally done! (Although I'm still working on the speech bubbles, digitally...) Here's a little sneak peek.

I'm not sure what the collective policy is about artists giving sneak peeks about comics that are going to be published and hopefully bought, so for now, I just thought I'd put up this collage of how the art came out. It's like a WIP from pencils to inks to colours. (Omitting a huge amount of thumbnails, sorry... Those were the crucial step.) Although the colours still need some tweaking of curves and levels and whatnot before printing. Anyway, bear with me.

I find inking just nerve-wracking. What is wrong with me that my hands start to sweat incessantly as soon as I've inked a couple of lines?! I never have that problem with animating and definitely not with life drawing. The colouring was a blast, though, and I'll elaborate on that later. There was a theme with the contributions that they had to look like they were done with natural media AND a limited colour palette -- I coloured it with watersoluble markers.

The story was written by another Cloudscape member, Bevan. I felt incredibly lucky that during my very first Cloudscape meeting (wow, it's already been like a year) I ran into a writer looking for an artist. I have such a hard time coming up with stories, that it was staggering to have him hammer out countless scripts and stories in such a short time. Without a writer I simply wouldn't have a story in this anthology, plus he gave me free reign in the visual storytelling side of things --for better or for worse ;)
Still, I have to say I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. And with everything I've taken note of, the next one's going to be ten times better!

I had The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch just on a loop for pretty much the whole time I was working on the comic... Go ****ing figure.

I really love it though (everything except Robin Williams). Jimmy Fallon is actually hilarious there, delivers probably my favourite line reading in the whole thing. Neil Innes is awesomeawesomeawesome. It's less of a sequel than a very eclectic bunch of 00's celebrity interviews, and deleted scenes from the first movie, and Force knows why they were deleted in the first place, because they're equally funny. You can't watch just one Rutle movie, they're a package deal.

* * *

HAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAH SHASHHDHASDFCHFJGKHLJ
CONAN, Thank you for the jeggins

Kind of a funny coincidence considering Conan's "testimonial" in The Rutles 2, about how he buttered his legs to be able to wear women's extra small trousers.
And, I loved the band's expressions. Between this and Broadway-Spidey spraying Green Goblin's crotch, this may be my favourite episode so far ...Who'da thunk it about an episode with the Kardashians as first guests?! :l

* * *

By the way, thanks to all three who voted in the poll :P The public has spoken! The old crap is staying!

A case of the movies

2010-11-12T01:37:00.000-08:00

I can't whine unless I post drawings -- hence, three pre-whine comic strips that I haven't posted before.

(^ Is Stephen peeing or is he not? You decide)

Sooo, I almost want to take back my recommendation of Nowhere Boy. It is a marvellous movie, but it directly started this weeks-long chain of thoughts that left me uncharacteristically depressed. I know, I'm lightyears away from actual clinical depression (I have to make that distinction since I have friends and loved ones who have suffered from it, and, these guys -- talk about not being able to take a joke *|), but the fact remains that for a week now I have not left home for anything other than my part-time job, and to me that's a first. I couldn't even get myself up for life drawing.
In other words, do go see Nowhere Boy, just maybe not if you're at a stage in your life where you have way too much time to think about s**t. I hope it's over now, though. I hope my brain flushes again.

*| :P ♥

Conan, POLL, and Muddy Colors

2010-11-09T19:30:00.000-08:00

Like the title says, three things are on my mind.

CONAAAAAAAANNNNANANANANA! CONANCONANCONANCONANCONANCONAN CONANCONANCONANCONAN! Back for his "2nd Annual First Show" (---heartheartheart)
*INCOHERENT*
I have been thinking about throwing some of my more embarrassing old drawings out of this blog. Should they stay or should they go? If you have an opinion please vote in the poll in the sidebar (below my profile).
I wouldn't be asking if I knew which I wanted, so you truly have a chance to make a difference *srsbsness*
Oh... my god. Look at what these people can do. *speechless*

Surprise, nudes

2010-10-27T14:58:00.000-07:00

Surprise surprise surprise.

I can't make comics club meeting today -- AGAIN :/ and that's sad, but I'm kind of in the middle of something. I'm trying to paint with watercolours and too wrapped up in that to leave the house.

Real Unreal

2010-10-21T03:52:00.000-07:00

"Right -- everyone stop f**king crying, this is supposed to be a rock'n'roll band for chrissakes."

The short post:

I saw Nowhere Boy and then absolutely had to try to draw some early Lennon-McCartney. The suits are not stage garb but funeral garb. Enough spoilers (LOL SPOILERS FOR LENNON'S LIFE), The End.

THE LONG POST (skippable:)

Yay, I finally got to see Nowhere Boy *yeee!* I was eager for this movie because a] like approximately 3/4 of Earthlings I am a Beatles fan, and b] I especially love early Beatles history. Somehow it just can't seem to get old no matter how many times I read about it :) (...Which is a good thing for this movie considering that nothing about it can really surprise the viewer.) They are a unique ...um, myth. A world unto themselves.

Nowhere Boy is more about Lennon's relationship with his mother Julia and his aunt Mimi than forming the band, but that stuff is equally fascinating, and a perfect vehicle for the type of life-affirming drama that the Brits whip up in their sleep. Nowhere Boy didn't disappoint.

Very few movies other than the "actual Beatles-movies" have been made about the band, but the one Nowhere Boy can be compared to -- favourably, I'm glad to say! -- is Backbeat.
What Backbeat has going for it, is that it focuses on Stuart Sutcliffe, whose mannerisms and appearance have not become part of the public consciousness like The Beatles themselves have, so the viewer can enjoy Stephen Dorff's very capable performance without being distracted by an inner voice nagging "this is so far from the real thing."
Since the same is true of Mimi and Julia, who are the two most important characters of Nowhere Boy next to Lennon, and since the script's dramatizations of oft-documented events from Lennon's boyhood are very confident and unflourished, there's hardly anything to make you doubt it could all have happened exactly in the manner that the film portrays.

Inevitably, the kids portraying the young Beatles don't look or sound like the originals, but they are excellent actors -- and if the movie is more about finding your mom than finding your future rock icon buddies, what matters is whether you have the emotional acting chops. In that respect the whole cast delivers. Some reviews had claimed that the other cast members can't keep up with Kristin Scott Thomas, but I thought the performances were amazing throughout. I confess that when I first heard about the film I was confused about why they had cast Aaron Johnson as Lennon, because -- shame on me! -- I mistook him for an American since he'd been chosen for Kick-Ass!
Johnson was actually the film's surprise, because even though it's a little hard to imagine him as Lennon, the compact, charming script combined with his moving performance makes you buy him as simply an (for all intents and purposes) orphaned, insecure kid.

Of course knowing about the future ahead spices up the experience considerably, but still, I'm willing to bet that even if you don't know a thing about The Beatles (in which case, Congratulations on your first day back from cryo-freeze!) or don't find the band interesting, you will still think "What a relatable and captivating story" after watching this. Made me cry a ton too. OK, so I cry at many movies, but this was the biggest cry-fest since Toy Story 3.

In fact the quote at the beginning of this post came right on the heels of a big upheaval in the movie, where a couple of the characters teared up as well (with me leaking silently in the audience). Johnson ordered everybody to "stop f**king crying", which was one of the most characteristic moments about this movie: laughter through tears (oooh dammit I'm sorry about the cliche!) and all such...

I will so see it again and am recommending it to you. :)

Pimpin' Pimentel

2010-10-07T02:47:00.000-07:00

(...not that he needs it)

I love life drawing, but whenever people ask me for tips on it (yeah, it happens, I'm as surprised as you) I'm completely useless.

That's where Dave Pimentel's latest post comes in! I know he's not talking about life drawing per se, more like posing in general, but his post pretty much covers my life drawing approach, if you were wondering. The only tip I feel confident in giving is "you gotta enjoy it!"

Recent Things

2010-09-28T15:21:00.000-07:00

This post has many things!!

Bored to Death is back, I'm glad. I was doubled over during the pay phone sequence.

I couldn't let the little boy on the bus go! I scribbled him an imaginary friend too.

The ruffled-looking bird is imaginary, the ibis I drew at the Aquarium.

If you absolutely have to make a bird movie, by all means, make it about owls and not penguins.
Yes, owls are pretty cool.
Are they cool enough to wield medieval weapons in battle? Yes.
Are they cool enough to withstand Zack Snyder's overuse of slo-mo (which is a parody of itself at this point and actually also much earlier)? Yes.
Are they cool enough to be subjected to both at the same time?
NO THEY FRIKKING ARE NOT.

Check out the owl movie if you want a hearty chuckle.

Mostly done in comics club meet. The knight's not a character of mine, just another fandoodle (for "7 Soldiers of Victory" that I've mentioned somewhere along the way)

shy

2010-09-28T15:15:00.000-07:00

soundbite

2010-09-22T16:55:00.000-07:00

Finally something that isn't lifedrawing ;)

(This conclusion of a long, one-sided Q&A session between a little boy and his grandma that I happened to overhear was permanently inscribed on my mind -- to say nothing of the boy's forlorn face.)

Blim's all right

2010-09-21T23:57:00.000-07:00

HIIII! It's your favourite lifedrawing nerd again! Today I tried Blim lifedrawing for the first time. It's a bit out of the way from North Van so I don't intend to make it a regular thing, but I've been curious about it ever since hearing about it, so I had to give it a go. It's like telling a gourmand about a crazy new restaurant.

Doesn't seem half bad for Downtowners who don't feel like making the trip to the (easily best value for money) Cap lifedrawing club. Especially if all Blim models are as experienced as the one tonight. He knew what he was doing, all angles and rotation.
Unfortunately I'm not doing justice to him here, because I was far from my usual form. I had a long day on the town beforehand, so this time I could only handle traveling with a smallish sketchbook: I felt sort of fenced in when lifedrawing in it, and could not let loose.

One woman's pros are another woman's cons, so rather consider the following a list of things to be aware of if you're thinking of going to Blim.

$ 8-10 for a session of TWO (2) hours (I still find that easier to stomach than Basic Inquiry's fees!)
You'll be drawing at tables
Blim is a store, so there may be customers running in and out; the drawing space is at the back of the store though, and I found the foot traffic surprisingly easy to shut out even without my headphones
The poses were 10-20 minutes, but the model was extremely open to suggestions from the "audience" so gesture sessions probably wouldn't be out of the question (though I felt too much the "new kid" to pipe up this time).
Blim offers lifedrawing approximately once a week. Better check out their schedule at the start of every month!
The only thing that bugged me was the lighting. (I had to use completely imaginary light sources in most of my drawings -- not my forte!) It was just regular store lighting, could have used some clear spotlights (or is it stagelights...? Anyway, you know what I mean). Again, I was a little too shy to mention it to them this time. Besides, Blim was a positive surprise overall, so I didn't mind too much.

Were you ever sponsored?

2010-09-13T04:39:00.000-07:00

By the way, I was incredibly happy with SPARK, as expected! Saturday in particular. I'm grateful to all the presenters for sweet inspiration.
* * *
I just want to make an inquiry, in case any other international students have figured out how to work this situation.
The facts: I have a work permit, a diploma, and I work full time and pay taxes in Canada (though said job is mostly unrelated to my education). But I am not a permanent resident.
That it might actually be more expensive for creative employers to hire me due to my lack of permanent residency is something I didn't realise until recently, because in my current retail job the brass doesn't have any extra expenses from employing me.

So I set about trying to obtain a permanent residency as soon as I can. There is one studio (that I know of - might be more?) that would actually be willing to sponsor its international workers for a BC "Provincial Nominee Program": basically you'd get a speedy treatment by promising to work in BC.
I was wondering -- if it so happens that you are an "international" who's had experience about this Nominee thing or sponsoring in general, I would really appreciate it if you let me know how you like(d) it. I'd appreciate even a brief answer! Thanks and good luck to you all :D

Spaaaaarrrrrk again & "Well-meaning maniacs"

2010-09-07T04:19:00.001-07:00

...So, back in August I did cave in and buy an advance pass to SPARK 2010, but then they suddenly had to toss their whole schedule (no worries, they refunded me). The final schedule was confirmed barely a week ago, and this year, for once, I had the money and the time to register for every bit of it that I want! And you, hurry up and get your tickets. They have good stuff again, so SEE YOU AT SPAAAAARRKK absolutefully!!!

* * *

*sigh* What, fanart again... Whatever.

A fandoodle for Terry Moore's excellent comic Echo. These three scenes are from the most recent trade paperback, "Collider".

Echo is Moore's flirtation with the superhero genre, but in an incredibly... MOORE manner. I can't even begin to describe right now what it's all about -- or I'll run at the mouth about it until people start chucking things at me. But I would recommend it. Rest assured it has all the grounded relationships, subtle humour and inspired draftsmanship of Moore's other works, peppered with a whole bunch of gripping action scenes and even gore.
I follow the comic only in paperbacks, NOT single issues, so please please no spoilers I BEG YOU!!

For some reason I felt these scenes made an interesting trio/summary/"poster" for the latest trade. I didn't redraw panels but posed it from scratch instead, recreating the scenes from memory.
The sketchiness is pretty much intentional, however I will probably make the first two scenes larger at some point because the linework becomes so "cross-hatchy" in an interwebs-optimised image.

Feedback welcome. Colours make you sick? Needs more contrast? Hard to read? Let me know. (Except about Dillon not looking like Dillon, that's something I've tried to fix and it still eludes me. He looks like the lovechild of Johnny Bravo and Tommy Monaghan here. Sure, I call it an improvement, but it's not exactly what I set out to do!)

I dropped my crab puff in the hot tub

2010-08-31T15:36:00.000-07:00

I did this as a pageview gift ("kiriban") for someone on deviantArt. It's Drake, Josh and Helen from Drake and Josh -- the Nickelodeon program to come out of Dan Schneider's warped and dirty mind before his iCarly. Needless to say I love the show.

Doodle dump

2010-08-30T03:19:00.000-07:00

I have gotten into the habit of attending Cloudscape Comics' weekly meet. I find I don't have a terrib' much to say, but I listen to the others and doodle at the same time. Surprisingly, drawing in a group while following other people's conversation can be pretty inspiring. Here's a couple of my Wednesday scribbles.

^Some sort of teenage superhero type

^The amazing Brian and Steve from the obviously amazing The Sarah Silverman Program

^A Slings & Arrows doodle! Poor Geoffrey :]

...I draw quite a bit about TV.

Whoops almost forgot this preliminary marker sketch for a "7 Soldiers of Victory" fanart idea. When will I actually bring it to completion... is another matter entirely. v

Lifedrawing dump

2010-08-30T03:13:00.001-07:00

OK, these next ones are older but whatever.

AE ahoy

2010-08-13T05:31:00.000-07:00

Let's face it, if you set out to find even one similarity between Master and Commander and iCarly, you're completely dished.

In fact the only thing they DO have in common is that neither has any business at an anime-focused convention.
But hey! Neither do I, so it's all good! Anime Evolution in Vancouver is this CONVERGENCE OF THE INEXPLICABLE. M&C and iCarly are both present in the form of my fannish BUTTONS (and some original) that you will be able to buy from the Cloudscape Comics table this weekend!

I mostly just did these because I love making buttons. I mean, I have zero audience or recognisability there but I did want to see if I could make a coupla bucks with something I enjoy. These probably won't sell hugely so even if you want to buy buttons from me after the con, you're in luck ;)

Now take a look at the little cuties, 1.25" diameter, only a dollar each and all illustrated by me.
Button bleed has been taken into consideration in the picture, so this is what's showing on the face of the buttons.

A Curious Bizzle ~ Which they say Doctor Maturin is a total beetlemaniac. Maybe if you present him with this Curious Button that you found on deck, he won't lop off your remaining arm.
iSam (turq. or pink) ~ Out of all the characters enduring the perverted, twisted, unholy and awesome adventures of a so-called kids' show, Sam seems to enjoy them the most. GO SAM.
(I've already explained my fascination with iCarly, but in case you needed another incentive -- Jane Lynch is set to appear as Sam's mom in an upcoming episode.)
Pinstripe Umbrella ~ An oldie-but-goodie original illustration.
Travel Iron ~ "I'm like a rolling stone -- that's why I have a travel iron" (An original.)
Cartoony Me ~ Well, none of my other buttons had either me or my website address on them!! Duhhh.

ONE DOLLAR. EACH.

Anime enough? & Spaaaaarrrrrk

2010-07-15T10:57:00.001-07:00

Bear with me.

Yup. Anime Evolution badge illustrations. Cloudscape Comics is participating in the convention in August and I promised to help man the table for a while. Also, Cloudscapists were asked if we'd like to have our art on different convention day badges. Sure, there's no money in it, but I figured it was exposure for a minimal effort, since I had been planning a watercolour experimentation romp in any case. Now, I don't really watch anime or even play a lot of video games, because I'm a lame person in general, but if anime is in the convention name, I should at least try my hand at a somewhat anime-ish illustration.

Both of these illustrations were actually painted on one large piece of paper (see below), and with my crappy little scanner, I had to piece the final illustrations together in Photoshop.
Like I said I used this as a playground to try out certain techniques. What is missing is actual colour coordination, that would have required some more pre-planning on my part. But luckily I had tremendous newly-resqued-from-a-final-sale Winsor&Newton large pan watercolours that I had never used before, and they are pure power. I was much more "WOW LOOK AT THAT BLUE LOOK AT THAT YELLOW LOOK AT THAT BROWN" than "ngyaaaaare these colours gonna go together?" (Then, of course, my scanner ate the best colours. Oh well.) They're also beautiful to look at - smooth slabs of colour, it took a lot of mental strength not to take a bite out of them. Anyway, their magic qualities made my lack of planning much less evident. (Hmmm. If I DID eat them, would I develop magic powers too..?)

* * *

Speaking of conventions and the like, I'm really considering buying a conference pass for the 2010 SPARK animation fest. Usually (well, I mean, for as long as I've lived in Vancouver, a surprisingly short time actually) I just go to some of their movie screenings. But since SPARK attracts many like-minded people from this industry, and I've always had a blast at SPARK-related screenings, I thought this pass might be a pretty enjoyable way to go out there and at the very least observe how other people network, even if it doesn't come very naturally to me yet. The sad thing is the pass doesn't cover my favourite part of the festival: movie screenings... But since I'm probably going, let me know if you want to hook up or something. (Not like that! ...Unless you're like serious nerd candy :P ) Might be easier for me to get a few words out if there's at least one familiar face.

* * *

Oh I forgot, there's more I wanted to say! I know nobody ever looks at my blogroll, so I'd just like to bring Nathan Fowkes' and Stefan Marjoram's blogs to your special attention, they're mostly environment/layout oriented and very inspiring, especially with interest to watercolour. Fowkes is a concept artist at Dreamworks and his beautiful environment concept art is this close to actually making me want to see Shrek 4.

Gulliverian

2010-07-14T15:26:00.001-07:00

^I heart croqs just as they are! But it's great exercise to finish them without the actual model in front of you. That's what I did back in April for schoolwork with this one. That croq is what's under the man DON'T YOU FIND IT FASCINATING I DO Just realised I hadn't posted the fleshed-out version yet and thought it might be of interest to someone.

^Regular lifedrawings from this week (with a different model from the previous picture, which I really hope I managed to show with the body type). Summer lifedrawing has been awesome! It's my happy place :)

Blast from Ze Past

2010-07-09T00:37:00.000-07:00

If you want to see some of my (and my wonderful Opus colleagues') artwork check out our staff show, in the North Van Opus classroom. Starting... well, starting today, pretty much. It's only up for a couple of days.
Everything that I have there has already been posted on my blog though, because I haven't had time to draw anything new, but just in case you're interested in seeing it in all its lively vibrancy...

I found this when choosing lifedrawings for my bit of show wall and I had COMPLETELY forgotten about drawing it, but I found it pretty cool. This is for an old illustration homework assignment, subject "Crazy Old Zebra". This is what I scrawled in lifedrawing class:

...and here's the homework I actually turned in, which I also quite like:

Back

2010-06-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

...to SUMMER LIFEDRAAWWWIIING! Whee! Mondays, 18:00-21:00, Cap campus, Arbutus building, room 301. (Check the lifedrawing club blog)

I had more pretty good ones than these but my scanner is so tiny, I was just too tired of compiling human body puzzles today.

Confession time

2010-06-12T06:32:00.001-07:00

This post is going to be woooor-dy because I am drunk at the 24-hour Waves on Commercial (after a great double bill at the Rio theatre). I hate this Waves for reasons too numerous to list at the moment. But I'm too cheap to get a taxi home so I must wait till the so called "TRANSIT" system starts running again. And the wireless in this place is the slowest I have ever experienced.

My main confession, however, is that iLove iCarly. *g-daaaaasp!*
[^Above is a sketch of one of my favourite scenes from the first season: Spencer spitting out a live baby chick. Adorable! In the actual scene he was wearing boxers instead of jeans, but I felt like drawing jeans this time.]

Before you grab your pitchforks, though, you should know that I am a pretty inappropriate person. Watching things like grown men spanking each other with brooms while keeping their children locked in plastic tubes and making them watch the spanking (which btw - WARNING - I am definitely going to sketch at some point), and knowing that the show that delivers me these scenes is supposedly a kids' show, makes me very happy.
NO OTHER KIDS' SHOW PROVIDES THESE THINGS. No kid-oriented show in history is this twisted and squickly (not even the creator's previous offering, the wonderful Drake and Josh, also known as "the most heartwrenchingly gay TV show ever").

So all I'm asking is that you watch an episode before you judge me! With this amount of handcuffs, spanking, toe-flossing, swallowing of live pets, "two-foot meat sticks" and four-way "javacuzzi" sessions, I have a feeling a loooot of people I know (who are every bit as inappropriate as me) will not be able to resist the show, despite their best intentions.

* * *

...Plus, you know, obviously, Spencer (Jerry Trainor) is the Soul Brother I never had. (No offense to my actual brother -- you're awse and I love you so much.)

hehe, I liked Legion

2010-05-24T17:52:00.000-07:00

Guys with giant wings will certainly get the urge to cheat at pull-ups every now and then.

(NOTE TO PALS: wanna work at Opus for a day? see previous post)

Bulletin ( & blab)

2010-05-24T01:44:00.000-07:00

Sadly I have no doodle to post right now. Just wanted to tell all y'alls who've been pestering me to get you a job at Opus ;) that North Van Opus' annual inventory count is coming up and if you're interested in a day's wages and a discount coupon (I can't remember how much of a discount off the top of my head), let me know. Here's what the day entails: counting how much stuff we have in store. Here's when: Wednesday, June 30th. The store is closed during the inventory count, so you WON'T have to deal with grumpy customers ( :P ) -- not to mention, if you're applying like half of North Vancouver's youth seems to be doing right now (what's up with that??) you can try and use this opportunity to impress the management with your AWESOMENESS. ...At counting stuff. Or you can just work the one day and walk away.
You feelin' it? Contact me. (...IF I know you IRL. Anyway it seems they need quite a few people so even if you don't feel like letting me forward your info for this, you can probably go ask from the store directly.)

* * *

BLAB ATTACK!
What did I start doing with my time after grad? I read even more than I usually do. I'm going through such a great bunch of comics and books at the moment, I can barely get any sleep from the excitement. ("SAD?" Me? What? Sad in what sense?!) Most importantly I'm trying to make sense of the handwritten pages of the unfinished 21st Aubrey/Maturin novel. In the end notes for the posthumously published manuscript, this one kook says how rewarding it is to have gone through all the trouble of deciphering O'Brian's handwriting to find out what his final pages on this dear subject held. Uhhh... If he already deciphered it, why in BLASTATION couldn't he type it down in legible text, publish that instead of this twiggy crawly insanity?! KOOK! Help your fellow fans out a little! D: I demand instant gratification.

I finally got around to watching Legion, which was a more successful scarefest than I expected. Another thing I really didn't expect: guys with giant wings = hot. Don't try to understand it. I hope this doesn't mean I'm secretly into furries.
Plus, I saw it at the Hollywood Theatre on Broadway, which I really have to start going to more often because I only went there once before and I forgot by now that it has this weird, cool old-fashioned otherworldly atmosphere going on. I felt like I was in a dream sequence about the 30's. Also, their popcorn is really good, they sell cake at the concession stand (I don't know why someone would want a slice of cake to eat in a movie theatre but it's cool) and there are these velvet curtains everywhere, even in the bathrooms.

My cat must be the only cat I know who prefers dry kibble to mmm-mmmoist canned catfood. When my mom was visiting recently, she even bought my cat some of those single-serving treaty meaty catmeals, how fancy is that, and my cat just stared and asked "WHERE'S MY KIBBLE?" (She's the only cat I know that can talk, too. :P)

Doodle dump!

2010-05-20T19:40:00.001-07:00

There's a little bit of eeeverything!
Puppies!

A frog!

A fandoodle of Young Dracula ! (I sure hope I've mentioned this show before, because iiiit roooocks)

A... thing!

And a whole bunch of quickies that I want to flesh out at some point!

Let me tell you something... DOODLES MAKE ME FEEL GOOO-OOD

This time, the umbrella's MAGIC

2010-05-04T02:14:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a funny sentence (funny to me -- rarely to everyone else) gets put together in my head and I get inspired by it. This picture was also more than a little inspired by Lori (one of my amazing classmates) and a Finnish illustrator called Hannu Taina.

It was supposed to be another version of Mayor Poppins, but I gotta think of something else to call these umbrella guys that I keep seeing... I just found out somebody already named their stupid Broadway play or something "Mayor Poppins."
Pfffwh. Fine. My Mayor Poppins would have been totally better - with his twinkly moustache and fancy blue eyes :D

Cloudy Jellyfish

2010-04-28T15:47:00.000-07:00

Guess what - more lifedrawings

2010-04-23T13:49:00.000-07:00

Surpriiisss-suh!

Croq your world

2010-04-21T20:31:00.000-07:00

Lifedrawing today completely hit the spot amidst all my gradshow pandemonium

Overlap and follow through, rough animation

2010-04-20T19:28:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a while since I've wanted to post any of my animation assignments, but this one's pretty cute. Characters are mine, in all their unoriginality - but whatever, I had to come up with something quickly.

Jack and Ianto, etc.

2010-04-08T15:55:00.000-07:00

Jack and Ianto enjoy sharing a post with these nudes.

Cocoa puff salad

2010-04-06T10:16:00.000-07:00

Ok, he's obviously not making salad, but it was a funny snippet of a conversation I heard somewhere and the whole inspiration for this picture, so...

Stuff and more stuff

2010-04-05T17:51:00.000-07:00

I believe the professional term is SKETCHDUMP.
Well, since this is a sketchblog and since I'm having such fun working on these characters, here's what's happening with Jack and Stephen YAY!
I don't know how this whole colouring business will end... It's not my forté. I like the texture though. Wonder how it would come across on my gradpage...

Some not at all bad croquis of Trev and then some female models that I didn't like very much but whateverrrrr

We keep wanting to go to the zoo but keep getting foiled by rain. Here are some marker doodles that I based on quick sketches from my last trip to the zoo, over the summer.

I love to read

2010-04-02T15:10:00.000-07:00

Here are four illustration type of things, first of which is finished and rest I'm still working on. (Includes book-Jack and book-Stephen, holy sh*t I could go on and on about those books.)

How To Train Your Dragon Widget

2010-03-29T09:37:00.001-07:00

Yeah I totally jumped on the BANDDRAGON! Aaahaahaa... Grabbed the widget from Terra's blog (dappled studios) :D
Hatched! My dragon is now called DAFFY NIGHTMARE.

Oh but anyway I saw this movie on Friday and I was very surprised to be that visually stimulated, entertained, and just basically to NOT have to sit through a crappy Burger King toy advert.
Again, it's not Meatballs but it's still easily the best Dreamworks digitally animated movie. (When am I going to stop bringing up Meatballs?!)

The story is extremely simple but at least it made sense - not something like "if you start out as a total loser but you get your ass kicked long and hard enough, you become a kung fu champion." It's just a kid trying to get acceptance, realising that he can't agree to the things he has to do for that acceptance, and it is up to him to do what he believes right - whatever the downside.
On top of it others end up seeing things his way, which is more of a stretch (I would have been pretty happy with the first part of that as a movie plot) but smooth, not grating, and hell who wouldn't want what those lucky, lucky SOB's get for their "happily ever after"?! I have nothing against a good dose of wish-fulfillment in my movies.

Most things on my cons-list are quite inconsequential, and I'm so shocked to have liked this movie this much that I'll let them slide. Except Baruchel's voice acting. I can't really call that inconsequential. It could have been a lot better, but in "serious acting" sequences - in a pivotal argument with his father, threatening situations and so forth - he was great and I totally felt his panic. Everything else was so flat I could have sworn it was a Kaurismäki film :P

Backs are ...back

2010-03-26T13:11:00.000-07:00

We had one of my favourite models in class yesterday, had a wonderful time.

But... Why can't I do ANYTHING except lifedrawing?! OMG yeah that is so going to impress the Pixar people D: NOOOOOTTTT

Although I just realised this is like my 12TH post this month and only 4 (!!) of those posts including this one are lifedrawing! So I'm starting to branch out noticeably!

Return of the Space Kid & some enjoyable influences

2010-03-22T23:48:00.000-07:00

I finally finished painting my first maquette. It's been over a frikkin year!
"Holy crud there is a giant cat outside the window!"

He's laughing at you, not with you.

For better or for worse, I stole the colour combo from Tove Jansson's Moomin picture book "Kuinkas sitten kävikään" ("The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My").

To phrase it diplomatically, Jansson's books have influenced me in artistic, literary and the-devil-knows-what-other ways since ...always. "KSK" had an electrifying color scheme, in which the combination of purple, orange and black played a major part. And which I've often shamelessly copied since then.

That reminds me of another artist without a blog or site to speak of who inspired me as a child: Jean-Jacques Sempé. He's mostly known for his few-worded comics, his work for the New Yorker, and (my particular inspiration) his illustrations for the "Little Nicolas" -books written by another hero of mine, René Goscinny.
Goscinny, for his part, was the writer of the comics "Asterix" (original artist: Uderzo) and "Lucky Luke" (original artist: Morris), two other MASSIVE influences on me.

Did you miss out on childhood? Or did your childhood suck? Good news: it's never too late to get one. A GREAT one.

Don't let the lack of an internet presence discourage you from checking out these people's work if you have a little time to spare for book-searching. Especially if you like good children's books.

Klaus, the first fetching goldfish

2010-03-19T16:42:00.000-07:00

(...at least he was going to be... I won't go into the tragic details of his demise.)

Berg and Klaus in intense training mode.
This is 2GAAG fanart, and I am at this moment being physically restrained from typing - as the only measure to stop me from going on a ramble about my deep, irrational love for that old show.

(Here's the sketchbase for this.)

Life drawing was great this week

2010-03-17T17:28:00.001-07:00

Coloured characters

2010-03-17T16:02:00.000-07:00

...differently. Not perfect, but those previous colours just annoyed me to no end.

Pope-icide

2010-03-11T17:57:00.000-08:00

I GOT A TICKET TO CONAN'S VANCOUVER GIG AND I DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TO ASSASSINATE THE POPE FOR IT
OMFG

Burlesque and nudesque

2010-03-11T17:50:00.000-08:00

* * *

That's right that's right...

2010-03-08T12:50:00.000-08:00

I must be pretty annoying with all the fandoodles... [Edit: slapped some colour on]

A few days ago I finally managed to hunt down the movie All Over The Guy online. It's a romantic comedy about two gay men falling in love when one of them is trying his hardest not to.

AOTG is not spectacular by any means: it is a very typical romantic comedy apart from the main couple being gay. But weirdly, even most of its flaws were kind of endearing and definitely added to the amusement. (Just for one example, the other half of the couplet, Eli, is an X-Files nerd... Who can't use the internet. You really gotta see this to believe it. He's even a reporter, Chrissakes! And it's the 00's! AND ELI DOESN'T USE THE INTERNET!! When I first started peeking around the web - which I seem to remember being middle of the nineties - the first thing I ran into were X-Files nerds.)

Not to mention the nostalgia. The movie came out in 2001, when the world was suffering from a tragic Richard Ruccolo -shortage due to the fact that the once so lean, mean, and (for the nineties) surprisingly obscene "Two Guys and a Girl" had fizzled out into a misshapen "gotta-please-everybody" ending that absolutely nobody watched. Following 2GAAG the world sat up as one and took notice of Ryan Reynolds, who was every bit as funny as Ruccolo and a tad more conventionally handsome. (And good for him - everybody from that show has a special place in my heart.) Leaving Ruccolo to star in indie movies with gay themes, I guess. Anyway my point is he simply isn't in enough movies and TV, not enough at all. Which is why I was trying to find this movie for so long.

So considering the cast, I fully expected to love it and I did. It made me feel really warm and fuzzy, and no matter what any of you say, you KNOW you all like to feel warm and fuzzy. It's in that wonderful group of movies just like In The Bleak Midwinter and Mixed Nuts and stuff; can't be called must-see for everyone I know, but they're personal classics to me.

Lighting...

2010-03-08T11:52:00.000-08:00

Colour studies

2010-03-04T14:36:00.000-08:00

The world deseeerrrves to see these. :P Landscapes first

* * *

This is the HELL EGG! The devil egg, if you will (hah!) Why? Because after all the work I put into getting the colours of my watercolour remake right, the scanner will not make them look the same and even adjusting in Photoshop won't help! Now it appears as if I had no idea what I was painting, even though seen in real life it looks pretty damn close. Argh:

Original photo: National Geographic, by Joel Sartore at University of Nebraska State Museum
So, we had to reproduce a photo three times: once a tonal drawing in pencil, then a monochromatic watercolour (I think the watercolour paper also had something to do with why they all scan with so darn different results) and finally a full-colour copy, once again in watercolour.

The copying was done before the landscape assignment, so I wasn't as in control of my watercolours with the egg.

Coloured layout

2010-03-03T19:15:00.000-08:00

EDIT MARCH 12th: This should be my final version. I spread the lamplight a little bit but that was it.

* * *

[Old post]
I might still change it - I didn't ask around for any feedback on this yet.

I learned so much during this colouring process though. I almost can't wait to tackle another one.

As curiosities, here are my first tonal doodle for the layout and the final tonal sketch I did after some awesome critiques from our teacher:

Attention pls + hasty designs

2010-03-02T09:55:00.000-08:00

I joined deviantart. I'll be adding people I have a special interest in (either IRL or artwise) to my dA watchlist in the near future - so if I know you, at least you have that to look forward to! OR, if I don't know about your presence yet, you can look me up at kelipipo.deviantart.com !

This is supposed to be final project stuff ...ALL I CAN DO IS LAUGH :D

You got it, it's Narnia-related, woot

Pinstripe umbrella

2010-02-26T01:49:00.001-08:00

This could even be Mayor Poppins, I don't really know :]

Really want to work with colour but can't work digitally right now, so I've been watercolour doodling a lot. Deeelightful!

Maudlin photo fest

2010-02-25T07:49:00.000-08:00

If you could see inside my heart...

...IT WOULD BLIND YOU.

(Told you it was gonna be maudlin! :P)

To kick things off: a Finnish poem states, 'when you walk the road, you are imprisoned by the road. The only way to be free is through knee deep snow.' And I am friggin' free!

The only tip you need for surviving winter:
F*** fashion - wear some proper clothes. Even if you can't afford a high-tech insulated ski jacket, no one's going to make fun of you for padding yourself up until you look like the Michelin mascot. Trust me, we've all been there.

(There's my favourite niece. Actually my only niece, actually technically my step-niece, but whatever...)

(Marina in the winter)

...End of fest!

Rainbow canyon giant frogspawn

2010-02-21T13:58:00.000-08:00

That's not frogspawn, just domes of some sort, that's why they don't look like real life frogspawn.

Long explanation: I had a school assignment earlier this year where I had to copy a certain photo in watercolour; it had a ton of gradients and even though I got the colours very close to the original eventually (on my third try - I'll post the assignment later, I don't have it on hand at the moment), I could never... get... the damn gradients! So I started this painting from an old layout sketch with the intention to try out gradients in watercolours. I don't know if I actually figured out much about those, but at least it adds a bit of colour to my sketch-heavy oeuvre.

I'm back home in Finland with no Photoshop no nothing, enjoying the snow, and stumbling a surprising amount over my Finnish. And Vancouver has made me a bit soft when it comes to enduring cold. It's all coming back to me little by little, though. I just love it here!

3 animals and 5 dots

2010-02-17T14:53:00.000-08:00

Posting old stuff while away from civilised computers. By the way, I'll probably post some crappy photography of my snow-buried 'hood in the next couple of days YOU'VE BEEN WARNED

The three animal characters. I coloured this supposedly final version before beginning to wonder why the hell I'd chosen THE most boring options for every single character out of all three keys - argh! So they'll be getting a do-over.
The lineart is final, though... Probably.

Another "5 dots pose". This approach really has given me some much needed digital sketching fuel. Although, weirdly, both of my 5 dots poses so far have turned into some kind of self-portraits... Huh.

Unproductive interlude

2010-02-04T22:11:00.000-08:00

Nobody's going to understand what the holy hell I'm talking about, but it really doesn't matter, it's awesome. There's this loopy British kids' show that I kind of LOVE called "Young Dracula." It's the story of how the Dracula family moves to a modern-day English town, Stokely. (...Not Stokley.)
Somebody went and combined Young Dracula with the title song to a somewhat similarly themed show from back in the day, and all I can say is, IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE.

Crawlage (January life drawings)

2010-01-30T02:22:00.000-08:00

I want to create a character called MAYOR POPPINS. Just like Mary Poppins, except a mayor, so he or she comes to a town and declares themselves mayor for a while and sorts the whole town a-out, and then disappears again without a trace! And there's going to be a lot of singing and chimneysweeping. "But Mayor Poppins, none of us have chimneys in our houses these days--" "Silence! It is townwide chiminy-sweeping weekend!"
* * *

Silly lighting gestures:

As I've mentioned, the reason I keep posting such loads of simplified gesture drawings is that even though I love them, they would be kind of a waste of space in a portfolio, whereas this space is for me to waste as I see fit:

...Okay, those two very last poses go together a little too well, if you catch my drift. But he just did those poses one after the other and they ended up right next to each other in my pad. It was too great a coincidence to ignore!

Silhouetted

2010-01-27T17:12:00.000-08:00

Designing starting with a silhouette in today's class. Just a quick doodle, which inspired me to once again sketch some "Slings & Arrows" characters with the same approach. I'm closing in on them little by little... :)

* * *
(BB and S&A comparison)

Now with more Miguel

2010-01-21T13:52:00.000-08:00

Two posts in as many days!?
The next pass of the Tulio and Miguel assignment. Hey, at least it has both characters now!

Watch at Vimeo.com
Still haven't animated a lot of it, but I have my stuff pretty much mapped out and I like how it's coming along. (You might notice the ending bit I used in the pose test is missing -- I'm still planning to include that, but I didn't have time to draw it for this pass.)

The cartoony bunny

2010-01-20T19:11:00.000-08:00

For digital painting class, we had to have three character designs of our own so we could then do three colour keys (variations) of the package. It feels like it's been ages since I tried designing characters, but I do want to use these guys in something, maybe our next animation assignment:

I got extremely helpful critiques from our teacher today but haven't fixed the designs yet, so consider them a work in progress.
The same goes for these three colour keys!

Never rebuff, never rebuff the local feeling

2010-01-12T21:49:00.000-08:00

Why post this? Okay, well... Why NOT post this? The rough beginnings of an assignment that I feel very enthusiastic about ;)

A thing from the 1st digital painting class

2010-01-06T17:08:00.000-08:00

I was actually a little nervous but it looks like the class is going to be awesome!

Oh and we're using Tulio and Miguel in our first animation assignment of this semester! I am jazzed.

"Backseat director" (WIP)

2010-01-05T21:02:00.000-08:00

What can I say, Slings and Arrows is one of my favourite shows ever, right up there with Spaced. Some day way down the line I really want to animate caricatured versions of them doing their best lines, so I tried to "character design" the main characters. :/ It's gonna get better... later... sometime...

You know what I like

2009-12-22T17:18:00.001-08:00

Here's my final layout assignment (hey, I did return this on time, I'm only posting it now because of busies).

And sketches of some little bird that I'll probably never use.

By the way, Avatar is a massive bore.
But it had its moment... (Not momentS.) When [spoiler] got [spoiler]ed, with that background music all I could think of was Tropic Thunder !

Bumper ROUGH

2009-12-21T08:01:00.000-08:00

The final assignment of digital 2D-animating, a tv-station bumper. AARGH still in progress!! :X If you wanna see, the password's the land I come from (capitalize the first letter) ;]

...Same goes for the version with different music that I have on Vimeo.

Thank you to Rosy and Joe for their voices!

Christ Crispies!

2009-12-15T05:34:00.000-08:00

Here's a "presentation storyboard" (I used fewer panels than I would have used in an actual storyboard - didn't have to illustrate every single action) for a fictional cereal commercial. We had to come up with a brand of cereal ourselves. I was overjoyed by the reactions I got! Thank you, classmates!

^Jesus turns water into milk

^ "SWEET JESUS!"

^ "Now you can get your own set of TINY TEN COMMANDMENTS--"

^ "--in any box of Christ Crispies, Corn Popes and Niblets of Knowledge!"

"That's just weak songwriting."

2009-11-27T22:07:00.000-08:00

Aaagh, I'm post crazy but I couldn't wait, just like I couldn't wait to see Fantastic Mr. Fox tonight. There are two things you need to know about the movie:

-It's different from anything you're EVER likely to see.
...Including Anderson's other movies. The themes that run through most of his work are a whole 'nother trip when it's all puppets and a lot of puppet violence.

-It's not an adaptation. It has even less to do with the book than I expected (and the trailer had already eroded my expectations on that front drastically).

I loved it, not as much as Meatballs, but it's still wonderful. What a year I've had at the movies :D

Looks like it's posting day again

2009-11-27T13:01:00.000-08:00

Research and character sketch for the dreaded bumper for Don's class.
NOTE, I used a John McCrea drawing as the model for the big shark right here but at least I didn't trace it:

Attaching a shark's head to a man's body is not as easy as it looks.
Right now the design is too realistic for my animation considering my time limit, but I'm going to clean him up more stylized...

Hand of glory..?

2009-11-26T13:33:00.000-08:00

First, a working sketch for my final layout. If you have any comments, they're very welcome, I've already had some good suggestions today.

HEY so I'm reading The Hundred Days right now and today in life drawing I fandoodled Stephen contemplating his infamous Hand In A Jar - before it went all bad from lack of spirits, of course. If I'm not mistaken, the lesson is do NOT leave spirits lying around in plain sight in a ship, not even in a jar containing a cut-off hand.
I want to make the character construction (what a noggin!) better and clean this up in Photari some day.

Nonsterdam and Modern City

2009-11-25T06:25:00.001-08:00

Here are the other layout assignments from this semester, an old-timey city-type thing and a modern city-type thing. They're not spectacular but they ARE an obvious improvement from my layouts last year, so I'm happy! Final assignment is in the works. Must - get - back to drawing...

Life drawing trance

2009-11-23T03:20:00.001-08:00

I haven't posted any life drawing from this semester yet!? Here's some of the stuff that I like, all in one happy heap.

I like drawing people's backs:

"Crollages" of particular models:

* * *

Remembrance Day...

2009-11-12T14:19:00.000-08:00

...IS FOR SHOPPING. I shopped the hell out of Lush. If you love baths, you'll love Lush; no two ways about it.
Also went to the Aquarium again, been there a few times this year, so I figured I should just give in and get a membership.
I'd forgotten my favourite sketchbook at school and had to use a tiny one, so I drew less than usual. But it does make my visit seem nicely... "sketch journal-ly".

Tiger salamander had a funny face:

^This little guy looked super evil and super cute at the same time.

^The fish is outraged.

^Scared.

^CAIMANS still my aquarium favourites!

^And the visit concluded with a happy chubby fish.
(Next post: a bangload of lifedrawing.)

Don't jump into heartache

2009-10-14T21:41:00.000-07:00

Dumping!
Here's my first layout of this semester, the house I used to live in (I moved a few of weeks ago when our "my street / my house / my room" assignment was still going on). Obviously I made some alterations for the sake of composition.

And what the heck, I'll post my Alice "acting" assignment too...

And this is a walk cycle with a panning (and loopable!) background. I don't know if it's possible to loop Vimeo vids, but you'll see it pretty well if you hit play right after the video clip ends..? You can go on forever!

Made in TVPaint and I enjoyed it ever so much! Well, I half-a**ed the character design, but you can see a heavy Janosch influence. And unintentionally Garfield.

First animation assignments of 2nd year

2009-09-28T08:06:00.000-07:00

Back in school! In the first animation assignment we did this year, we had to use Pink Panther, standing on a seesaw, picking up a boulder, attempting to catapult himself using the boulder, aaaaand then "something funny happens." The second assignment was to do a pose test using a line reading (and character, obv.) from Disney's Robin Hood. More wanky notes to follow after both videos...

(^Contains dialogue)

WANKY NOTES

PINK PANTHER:

I made a ridiculous foot placement mistake during clean up -- well, not clean up exactly, I should say tiedown. But I'm on to different assignments and it would take a lot to get me to clean any more of this up. For one thing, when I was rough animating (that's pretty much where the magic happens) I was drawing extremely loose, just racing away. Okay, volume I can get somewhat under control during the tie down stage, but this is the least loose character that I can think of off the top of my head -- especially when you're trying to stay on model. So during tiedown I was struggling to turn my "organic" (to use a polite word) drawings into these exhaustingly geometric ones.

For the second thing, I don't like Pink Panther all that much. Admittedly, when I was rough animating, I started to get into it more, because my whole "what happens"- idea emerged out of character. It wasn't about a gag for me, not really that much about being funny, but about trying to present a personality, and connecting/acting with a personality that I previously didn't find very interesting.
Most of the connection that happened at that time between Pink Panther and me was subsequently scrubbed away by the tedium of the tiedown.

Anyways, that whole personality thing was my revelation du jour. My way has never been the story way or the surprise way, unfortunately; I'm a terrible writer. My way is the character study way. For now at least -- who knows, anything can change.

And while this isn't saying much, I've never been more "in control" of my animating, and the bit about stuff "sinking in" during Summer vacation would appear to be true.

ROBIN HOOD:
I'm not very familiar with the character, didn't actually make an effort to match the model sheet, but I tried to let the emotion in the line reading determine the poses. That almost succeeded in the last expression, because to my ears Robin sounded annoyed by the fact that it just wasn't "done that way" and hoped that it would actually be that easy... But now, by explaining it, I obviously admit defeat in trying to make the viewer understand it without the aid of such a disclaimer. Result is meh but I had a BLAST especially during thumbnailing -- this, in all its suckidity, is a page that I doodled while I was listening to the line reading over and over again:

No other notes about the pose test itself (shock ;), but this was a mini-assignment designed to be completed and group-watched by the end of the class, which was all cool and fascinating.

Meatball movie fanart

2009-09-25T21:54:00.001-07:00

I saw Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs yesterday, and I was -- to keep this short -- COMPLETELY BLOWN AWAY by it.
So I TVPoodled this and abused multiple different TVPaint brushes in the process.

Here's a text-free version 'cause everything's always better without text.

(By the way I'm back in school yay!)

SO much!

2009-07-27T01:06:00.001-07:00

First, to make this legit here's a doodle.
I'm reading The Wind in the Willows, for the first time (yeah I know: FOR SHAME), and naturally was compelled to commit some silly sort of Mole and Water Rat to paper. These are only first sketches and I should return to this subject.

-
My birthday's coming up. Few things would have been more glorious than spending it in San Diego visiting HMS Surprise, but that plan was woefully dependant on my finding a summer job. Can't afford it this summer -- I'll leave it for some school holiday!
Wondering what to do... For various reasons I'm not crazy about hosting a soirée at my place. And I can hardly invite people whose situation is no better than mine, as far as I know, to a restaurant. Who's reading this in the Vancouver area and would like to do something like a beach day or a sketchcrawl or another cheap thing this coming weekend? (...Jesus. :[ Some host.) Or a movie -- I love movies. As you can see I am easily amused and persuadable. No gifts. ...Because you would be left to pay for your own refreshments, so.....
Oh wait. Actually I am fascinated by "Altar Boyz". Could be funny. There's a performance almost every day. I hesitate to ask people to pay $38 for one, but would anybody be interested?

Of course, if I get this temp job I've applied for, I'm gonna go to work on my birthday. Not that I mind, and I would welcome a job even if it was friggin Christmas, but I just wish I heard from them soon one way or another, so I could know which days I'm free.

I know this whole post sounds like a cry for attention but I swear it truly is just social awkwardness. :]

-

Oh yeah, by the way, I liked Moon, and Sam Rockwell is just as excellent in it as he can be expected to be. I was much more impressed by the atmosphere than the plot, but I'd like to recommend it anyway. First and foremost for Rockwell's performance, which makes you forget 100% that he is mostly interacting with a special effect.
-
As soon as I read George Clooney was playing Mr. Fox in Fantastic Mr. Fox that I wrote about in the last post, I got this dreadfully unshakable image of Ocean's 11-13 with animal puppets (as avid readers know, the original book revolves around a heist).
On the one hand, like I said: DREAD. On the other, there is something undeniably fabulous about the idea. Now I think Ocean's 11-13 with animal puppets should be done -- at some point, but not at this point, not on this movie!? "Dread", I repeated with a Jerri Blank -voice.
I told myself to calm down, Wes Anderson would not do something like that. ...And then I saw this photo.

I'm hoping it only looks worrying because it's out of context. No way is Anderson sneaking in a single Ocean's reference. By the way, yes, those animals are wearing ski masks. While that is ridiculously unnecessary, at least I can't remember any Oceanites wearing ski masks -- there may yet be hope. :P

I feel kinda write-y

2009-07-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

(I know. SUCH quality. But what am I gonna do, go all the way to school to use a scanner? It's only friggin biro.)

My "new-old" cat -- if the tail looks short, it's because she only has half a tail.

I tried to draw caricatures of the mains of My Life in Film. Obviously failed. It's terrib messy too. But, you know, biro, so there was little chance of correcting myself. Even weirder: although the caricatures are so not and it looks like a bleeding panda fight, I kinda like it! Mostly because I was overjoyed by the mere memory of the show. Anyway, it's the first thing besides life drawing that I've drawn in so many days.
They're all looking somber due to the death of Hugo the fish (in Beth's hand there).

My apologies to Alice Lowe, who's quite possibly the most adorable actress I've ever seen, and to beautiful Andrew Scott, for not doing them justice. Little bit of apology to Kris Marshall as well.

* * *

Two images of Wes Anderson's upcoming Roald Dahl adaptation Fantastic Mr. Fox have popped up on movie sites. I like the look of'em.

I knew it was going to be stop motion animation, but I didn't expect this kind of look, like a dollhouse come to life, instead of ...well, what we've seen in Henry Selick's films or in The Life Aquatic. Not that I didn't love those, but this look corresponds much better with my personal images of the book -- almost perfectly, in fact. So quaint and intricate. I'm swooning over that little badger painting and the realistic-looking miniature books.

There are things that could go wrong but not horribly wrong, I think. No Mark Mothersbaugh and an animation director (Mark Gustafson) whose work I happen to be completely unfamiliar with, but we'll see. George Clooney as the voice of Mr. Fox? I think the whole cast is going to sound American (or, in keeping with tradition, the villainous farmers will have British accents). That's one disappointment. Still, if the Brits never filmed the book during all these years, all can I say is you snooze you lose. Waited since Giant Peach for a Dahl adaptation that looks this promising. I love Tim Burton's take on the Chocolate Factory, it's a darling, funny film but there's an abyss between the book and the movie. More animated Dahl adaptations would be awesome. In my mind I keep seeing Quentin Blake's illustrations of BFG and Witches moving.

* * *

[Oh and since I'm going on about book adaptations... One of the Pitch Party judges this year had a blurb where it said she's currently producing an animated series based on the Little Nicholas -books by Goscinny! FREEEEEEEAKOOOOOUT! :D ]

Pigloo is going to be huge: T/F?

2009-07-07T21:33:00.000-07:00

Good news, I've got the flu! I have no idea if it's swine-y or just regular, I don't know how to tell. Whichever it is, I feel nowhere near death. = Good news. Good in the sense that it gives me a legitimate reason to slack off, so I don't feel as guilty about doing that as I usually feel.

My pitches see dem here!

For readers other than schoolmates, these were my entries to the "preliminaries" determining which six pitches our school would enter to Animation Magazine's annual Pitch Party contest. Obviously I didn't make the six, because Mr Wells' composition sucks, TLB was slapped together in about half a minute (not the idea but the drawing!) and Pigloo probably wasn't original enough (Pigloo is totally my own little bundle of joy, but let's face it cartoons are so overpiggisized even if the pig in question happens to live in an igloo) -- whatever, they have a slewwwwwww of faults besides the ones I've already mentioned -- but even in spite of that, the whole experience was positive and I definitely look forward to pitching again next year.

I wish I had something new to post. I am lazy and my brain is even more muddled than usual. I don't even have the energy to check if muddled is a real English word.

How do I reech tees keeds?!

2009-07-01T15:43:00.000-07:00

Hey alles, come to life drawing club and bring your friends! :D Seriously, we'll even move it to 6:30 so you don't lose as much super fun Summer Sun Time -- or work, if you're lucky enough to be working. Otherwise, the summer LDC may not continue past a couple more weeks because of the money situation. Waaaah

Anyways, this week at LDC I was utterly out of the zone. Which is evident in how unfinished all my drawings from that session are. I do like ^this one though, because I managed a pretty good facial likeness.
I also indulged in some old school shading which I used to do with a pencil; here I used the conté like a pencil. I don't usually do that nowadays because it's slower, but I was all slow this week to begin with, so what the hell. Kinda nostalgic.

Lots of life. And: I would to-tal-ly watch this movie.

2009-06-22T02:35:00.000-07:00

Enjoying myself at life drawing. I had the zen-ningest flow last week, it was just swish, swish swish.
Unshaded croqs are some of my favourite things ever, yet something that probably wouldn't end up in my portfolio, so that's the main reason I always post those here so much.

The Tonight Show with CONAN 's Twitter Tracker is really really making me want to consider actually joining Twitter, OH YEAH OH YEEAAAH! :x I'd probably just tweet about life drawing :P how tewwibly intewesting.
If Carl Hiaasen joins Twitter, somebody alert me so I can join fast as lightning. (As I'm writing this he's not on it yet. I've checked.) I'm on a huge Hiaasen-kick right now - meaning, more so than usual. Is Don Rosa on Twitter? Is Jasper Fforde? I have to do some research on this.

Yes, I would to-tal-ly watch... Milkyrie. Even just for the wigs!!

Aquarium trip

2009-06-06T22:04:00.000-07:00

I think this was the best thing I saw all day. Cardinalfish letting a SUPER TINY baby cardinalfish just hang out in its spacious mouth.

I couldn't manage the kind of sketches I wanted. But it was inspiring, and I love watching animals, so yeah, it was a good day.

"You shouldn't say WOOOOO! every time I say we're committing a crime."

2009-06-03T13:51:00.000-07:00

GUESS WHO'S FINALLY BAAAAACK!

Oh... Something was framed out of the shot during Conan's dead stylish dash across America on Monday...

Missed you, Conan!

* * *

And remember that summer life drawing is on! Mondays, 5:30-8:30 PM all the way to August 31st (note: NO life drawing on Aug. 3rd)! Arbutus building, regular rates. Hope to see yous there.

I'd also like to say --yeah, again-- you'd really be doing yourself a favour by checking out ucbcomedy.com. God, I could post "The Back Room" -video clips all day long! (OH Mr. Chocolate Pudding, you're a gem! <3) But I won't because I have no way of monitoring whether delicate minors view this blog.

ANYWAAYYYY...

2009-05-30T23:48:00.000-07:00

Art later! For now, if I know anything about the kind of people I know, my friends will enjoy this. A character based stand up -bit by Andrew Daly (Reno 911!, Lewis Black's Root of All Evil, Eastbound & Down etc.) appearing as "Bang Bang Ellington."

Vid's in two parts -- if you only have time for one, watch the second one! Oh, and [EXPLICIT]

1/2

2/2

"I wonder if it would have anything to do with that guy that I met PROBABLY NOT"

Obviously UCB has been operational for a long time so you probably know about them already, but I only just got on it, so, just in case: check out their website for further superb weirdertainment :D

Character design package

2009-04-18T14:36:00.000-07:00

This is our scale! Tremble before our lineup!

I'll keep trying to improve them. I know I did a loose job on these. But sometimes when you're about to fail at certain other things -- you must prioritise those certain other things.

Lead character:

Secondary (comic) character:

Not that it's in any way visible, but that secondary character was so inspired by Christopher Guest.

Love interest:

[PEOPLE CAN SKIP THIS] Hoity-toity Commentary:
The suggestion was that these characters would relate to the pan layout that we did earlier. The idea I had for now was of a socially awkward writer or a scientist, moving from a sheltered society to this somewhat seedy port town (no idea why yet...)
His possible love interest is a confident, capable lady who tends the tavern (===WITH THE RED ROOF AND THE CARTWHEELS! :D ); the secondary character is a regular of the tavern, a hot-headed sailor and some kind of con artist. Could be that the two of them set out to con the "city-boy".
Heck, it's not pitch party material but some back story is essential for my own motivation.

"All right. The boss is finally having phones installed."

2009-04-16T22:54:00.000-07:00

Here's my short film from directing class. I just added the end credits that I was set on but didn't have the time to add for class today :]
It's theoretically a spoof on Big Trouble in Little China, but actually more like an excuse for me and my hard-working classmate draftees to have fun and go crazy. I really appreciate you guys being so generous with your free time and acting in this.

Ok, not the greatest video quality but whatever...
If you're wondering what music I used (because I used too much to bother writing it all in the end credits):

The "Oriental theme" in the beginning is from a royalty free wav site, http://www.pacdv.com/sounds/

The "gang fight" song is Mutherfuker by Beck

The "fight with Lo Pan" song is Hocus Pocus by Focus (hee!)

ALL other music is nabbed from the soundtrack of an awesome Britcom called Green Wing.

[EDIT: I got bored of all my technical difficulties trying to get the bloopers presentable, and I don't wanna trek to school again to use editing programs. Sorry, you'll just have to live with the immense disappointment....]