New Years Resolution?

I've been reading Force:  Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators.  I'm still on chapter 1.. cause that's how distracted by absolutely nothing I am.  It's a really nice book.. and I think it certainly has helped me even when I've only read the first chapter.  It doesn't hurt that the Author, Michael D. Mattesi, has a youtube channel where he uploads free videos like once a week.  http://www.youtube.com/drawingforce




The first chapter tells you what you should be thinking about while drawing these figures.. and I may or may not be actually thinking about these things as I go. lol

FORCE POINTERS

1. Skate the page. Close your eyes and imagine the paper as ice and you as the world’s best figure skater. You are performing your best routine.  As you skate, feel the fluidity and speed of your movement. Notice how the blades cut into the ice as you move through tight and open curves. Your marks should indicate the change in force and pressure that your body would feel on the ice.
2. Find the ribcage to hip relationship first. Keep seeing how their relationship is asymmetrical and falls into one of the four previously discussed scenarios.
3. Stand and mimic the model’s pose. Start with the biggest ideas of the pose and work down to the small detail. Close your eyes and feel your body in that pose. Notice the stretches, torques, pressures, and gravity on yourself. Then push the pose and feel where it wants to go. Put those experiences into your drawing.
4. Watch the model move into a pose. Look at the directions their body swept into to take the pose. There lies answers to force.
5. Draw with a clear directional force for each part of the figure.
6. Be passionate about the aliveness of the model and the pose. Draw your excitement.
7. Write what you are achieving in a drawing. Bring a thesaurus to increase your vocabulary about your ideas. Write verb first then noun it affects.
8. Pay attention to your internal dialog. Don’t be self defeating.
9. Explain what you see, don’t just copy it.
10. Get out of your own way. Don’t worry about the drawing.
11. Always have something to say.
12. Draw to feel what the model is feeling.

Other than that, I've been horribly distracted by Steam's recent sale/giftpile objectives.  I really shouldn't be so easily coerced into playing numerous games.. Why do I have to play games to win games anyway?  Where is this objective set? lol

SUPER AWESOME AMAZING HALLOWEEN AWESOMENESS OF STORYBOARDING EPIC COOL TUBULAR

I thought it might be a good idea to make an animation before the 31st.  Problem is, I'm not sure what qualifies as funny.  Are my ideas just inside-jokes?  I drew up some storyboards in hopes of getting some answers.. posted them on my facebook and google+.  Now I wait to see if anyone replies.

Here is what I pictured.  It's a true story. lol

Adventures of a Green Screen Noob! Live action & Animation LOLS!

I wasted some time.  I'm not proud of it.  Somewhere along the way I just forgot about my long term goals and drifted off into lazy mode.  Also, did I mention I was in outer space?

I ordered a green screen.. something I've wanted since last year when I bought my Canon T2i.  When it got here, I spent a good day or three trying to find a spot to hang it up.  And here I thought 9'x15' was going to be too small.. I can barely find a room big enough to accommodate it's size.. let alone the Canon 550d's default lens.
But I made it work last night, and surprisingly it worked out pretty well.

I plan to make a live action + animation video.. like Who Framed Roger Rabbit.  I figure it could be hilarious.

My first test was just an animation made in the program TVPaint and placed onto a video of me.



And this is my first test of the green screen and movie mode.  Premiere Pro almost did all the work itself.. I can barely take credit.  Premiere Pro cs4 did have a problem with 550d footage and preview stuttering.  It made it extremely difficult to time things.. so hopefully I find a solution soon.  BUT, even with the severe stuttering.. I was cracking up while editing it.  Maybe it's cause I'm in it.. but it just looks so silly!  Hopefully I can make something really entertaining next!



I played TF2 a week or two ago with a few friends and frapsed a ton of videos.  Posted those to my youtube page too. I don't get as much satisfaction out of making 'funny' gaming videos as I use to.  It's fun and all.. but nothing beats bringing a character you drew to life in a video.  Heres one of the six or so I edited and plopped on my channel!  Tell me what you think!

Sexual Edumucation

So this week has been all about fighting my bad habits and urges.  Trying to eat healthy, wake up early, try to not play games or waste a whole lot of time doing unproductive things, and draw every day.   I'm also trying to piece together some animations that I want to do. It's gone half good, half bad.

I've been doing a lot of gesture drawings and following along with some Michael D Mattesi videos and the FORCE books. It's helping a lot I think.

My friend also showed up one day and in a rather short amount of time we managed to randomly record some stuff out of boredom.  I think it was a productive use of my time.   I'm not sure if I think it's funny because we're in it, or if it's actually funny.. so you should tell me!






I made this random creepy screen to go with it too.  It was my friends idea to have that sex ed stuff in.. In a way I think its funny, but I also think its creepy.  lol

Recently installed TF2, it's taken 2 days of my life already.  Give me a productivity pill please.

I attempted some game playthroughs for some views on youtube.  While doing it was fun, I'm not entirely sure its  worth not reading/animating in that time.  Plus it took a lot of space up on my computer extremely fast.. and fraps is starting to lag out games to 1 fps. lol

Do these seem funny? lol  I liked the commentary at the beginning, but in the second video it begins to drag along.

I've been drawing/animating on paper with a lightbox.. so eventually I'll have something interesting to put up here.. hopefully.

In the meantime, enjoy my flash drawing/painting for 4 seconds in this popular youtube channels video. lol

What direction should I go?

I've always had the idea for a digital comic about a hobo who is always trying to scheme for money and failing.. the problem with this is it doesn't relate well to Youtube.  BUT, a digital comic is closer to animation than gaming or vlogging.. therefor I'll be getting better at animating more frequently.

I've also had trouble with designing the character.  I'm just not confident of any of the hobo characters I've designed.

          I could do some kind of interactive comic.. you choose what the character does.

This is from 2009.  Hobo Hopkins finds a chicken mascot suit and a dildo in a dumpster.. he decides to become the vigilante super hero, THE GOLDEN COCK.  

Gettin some fatty wobble all up in dis beach!

Most of the time I'm distracted by something called youtube.  I seem to have ditched the idea of playing video games for now.. but I'm substituting that with watching videos of games I wouldve played.  I watched a Fable 3 video from The Yogscast (BlueXephos) today.  The whole video just revolved around Simon being glitched and stuck inside of a tree.. so, uh, heres what I pictured:

I'm going extremely slow with the animation progress.. BUT I HAVE A GOOD REASON!  The reason I don't have a whole lot of animations this week.. is, uh.. I was fighting tornadoes.  One tried to come to my city, and I flying karate kicked it in the gibblets.

• A bit of wobbly fat walk cycle from the Animator's Survival Kit.

I ordered quite a few animation/drawing books recently too.

Animator's Survival Kit
Creating Characters with Personality: For Film, TV, Animation, Video Games, and Graphic Novels
Force: Character Design from Life Drawing
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes: Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures


I was going to order The Illusion of Life, but I figured I already had the PDF, and the book was 42 dollars.. could afford to get another book if I didn't buy it.  :(


I also ordered a cheap lightbox, some tracing paper, and some drawing pencils.  I'm ready to get away from the computer a bit.

• I want to do a ton more studies.  Figure drawing, head studies, still lifes.  I WILL DO THIS!  I WILL!

Alright, it's almost 5am.  Should I stay awake and work on some stuff?  ...We'll see.  We'll see!

Can't have success without a bit of SUCK.

April 21st?  DOOMSDAY?  DOOMSDAY SCHMOOMSDAY!  I've survived TWO apocalypses now!  Y2K COULDN'T TAKE ME OUT WITH  FALLING PLANES EITHER!

Anyways.

I've been following along with the Animator's Survival Kit and the dvd's.

I'm feeling really stiff while drawing with Flash and my drawing tablet.  As soon as I get my tax check, I'm going to order a cheap light table and some paper.  Hopefully get away from the computer.

• Breaking some joints.  I'm quickly learning that I need to stop with my sketchy sketcherson style of drawing in Flash.  I don't think it's going to work terribly well for animation. lol  These actually require quite a few inbetweens.. some of which I had, but flash keeps crashing on certain undos.  What gives, yo?

I think one thing I've really been fighting this week is distraction.. and by fighting, I mean it's beating the hell out of me and I'm getting tired of it.  I'm not working on animating nearly as much as I should be, even though I am really excited when I think of having my own animations finished.  So, I think I just need to take the time to shut off the internet each day and force myself to finish something.

• Now if you don't mind.. I'm going to shrink some of these Double Bounce attempts down so no one can see just how horrible they actually are!  A double bounce is when a character goes up twice in one step.  Usually you only go up or down once.. I think.

• This is from the chapter in the book where they start creating their own walk animations by adjusting certain things.  Shoulders and hips oppose each other.  Chest is arched out.. the legs have broken joints.

Dear Diary: I is ANIMATE!

I've been attempting animation for a few weeks now.  Something about thinking of animating a funny little 2 minute cartoon just gets me all excited.  Seeing characters come to life as you animate them isn't bad either, and I haven't even gotten into the juicy bits of creating my own character, with his own little traits and quirks.

I got the Animator's Survival Kit book, and I've been reading it a lot.  The videos have been quite useful too.

• Started with the bouncing ball.  Squash and stretch!  Timing and spacing!  Easing in, easing out?  The ball bouncing off into the distance maybe should have slowed down, but I really really wanted it to bounce off into the distance!

It'll be nice to be able to animate silly little things I think of. Countless times I've been listening to a conversation when someone would say something completely normal, and I'd just burst out laughing.  My verbal skills aren't up to par, so it was impossible to explain just exactly why I was laughing randomly.  I'm not insane. This is how my mind works. You talk about bumping into your friend down the street, and I picture you actually bumping into some guy in a street and knocking him over.

• Next I moved onto overlapping action, as suggested by some friends.  I struggled with it a bit, and maybe it could be better.  Practice practice practice!

Also, animation just seems like the best way to go about making some kind of living as an artist.  Animation can help with game development, web cartoons, storyboarding/drawing comics.  And it's about time I focus on just one thing, even though I feel everything I've worked on to now has strengthened a skill I needed to get to this point.

• There was a point where I was working on another animation and I wasn't sure how to go about coloring it.  Really put a damper on my mood, but in the meantime I attempted some sketches of flour sacks with emotion. Then I did this sack falling off a window sill.

• Decided to work on some head turns and a running animation loop!  Lots of Ren and Stimpy, and remembering how the dumb Ed from Ed, Edd, and Eddy ran with his back bending and his tongue waving in the wind. lol  Plan to add a little bobbing at some point.

• The last few days I've been watching the Animation Survival Kit dvds and taking notes. I'm up to the inventing walks section. This animation is basically one straight out of the book.

• One day during all of these exercises, I randomly started sketching easter bunny poses.. and I decided to make a quick easter animation. lol  Maybe a bit grotesque.. but this is how life works!  Easter bunnies fart, eggs come out, chocolate is born.

I'm hoping I can make content like the video above for my youtube channel. Except longer, and better.   A series of funny shorts, something consistent.  One to two minutes long.  It could be purely animation, or I could even do a live action Roger Rabbit style cartoon with my Canon T2i.

Up to this point I've just uploaded videos of me painting over the years, maybe a few "funny" videos with some friends, and a game or two.

If you want to subscribe, I'd appreciate it! I'm really going to try to get some interesting content up in the future.

http://www.youtube.com/joshb81959

I recently organized all of my videos into playlists because they were so scatterbrained, and while I was at it, I piled all of my favorite animations into a playlist too:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8A97B57C65213226

This could be just an excuse to watch all of these old and new cartoons without feeling like an overgrown child.. but I'm enjoying it so much so far.

What are your favorite cartoons?  Ren and Stimpy, the George Liquor program, Adventure Time?  If anyone actually reads this blog, or in the future when I look back at this to see how much I've progressed, what animations do you like? :o  New, old, it doesn't matter!

Sheep eating snakes, or snake eating sheep.

Witches, Cowboys, and Turtles in Buckets.

Won a minecraft code in an art contest.  Who wants to buy it from me and help me pay for more books/learnings/supplies?!  You know you want to!

This first image's reference is actually taken from a video my friend made.  She was making a bunch of silly faces and said the video would only stay up for 5 minutes.. so I grabbed a screenshot.  

I struggled quite a bit with the face, ended up giving up for the night. But! I recorded my struggle for you guys!  And I also recorded some silly video of me.. to keep it interesting. lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN-pUNbVNNk

Minecraft Creepers On a Boat. On a boat.

We had to postpone our little rampage project.  We've decided to work on something else for now.  I've still got some of the assets to use if and/or when we go back to the rampage project, but who knows if I'll be a better artist by then and can do something even better.

This is what I had by the time we had finished.  I suppose i could continue working on this in the meantime.  I ended up cutting these buildings up into equal segments so we could just stack the segments and create new buildings.. also switch out segments when they were damaged.  Ignore the street.  I was just testing some brick I painted in corel painter.. but it wasn't working.

I got a little distracted by Minecraft and youtube videos.  The other day I stumbled across one Minecraft video that asked for fanart.   I don't like the phrase FAN ART.  Its too.. uh.. fanatical.  But the winner gets a free Minecraft code.. and I get off of my unproductive streak.  I already own minecraft, but I could technically give it out to someone who doesn't.

The guy holding the contest is always yelling PENIS when creepers show up... because.. well.. they look like green penii.  So, I did this.

Also recorded most of the time.  I didn't fully know how to use Camtasia properly so I lost one or two clips in the process. :(  I posted the video last night, and it already has 100 views.  Crazy.  Minecraft peoples come out of nowhere.

I also posted on a photography contest thread over at 3DBuzz.com.

http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/showthread.php?186632-Photography-Contest-Mark-XIV&p=1527603#post1527603

MAMM, could I have some rice pudding?

PLOP THESE IN HERE RIGHT QUICK!

We're making this game in Unity.  Trying to fix up these models and damage these buildings like they've been punched by some behemoths!

At some point, I really have to plop myself down and learn about lighting and rendering.  Just randomly turning knobs isn't working out for me.

Off to a slow start!

Off to a slow start on my new years resolution.. which was to work on something every single day.

All I've gotten done so far is this:

The guy on top of the building was me getting carried away in zbrush.  I did exactly what I hated about some games I played earlier in the week.. too much unneeded detail.  I think I'll stick to animating a 2D version of the monster.

Heres a profile of the model.

Took a photograph a while ago with my new 50mm lens too.