Narcissistic bosses require your attention!

Storyboard(ish):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XFQJU98lFtA

I haven't thought about sound design yet.  I have no dialogue planned.  What should I do?  Bad sound design would probably destroy even the best animation.  Should I just do some wah-wah charlie brown noises for when characters talk?  Elephant noises when they yell?  Should I record my own sounds with my DSLR and sticks of celery?  Piano?

The only part of this animation I hadn't really blocked out was the end.. partly cause I've been jumping around trying to figure out what to do. lol  I've decided that he'll snap out of his laborious day dream and come face to face with the furious narcissistic boss who clearly doesn't have his attention.  He'll try to get him to sign the contract again, and while remembering his day dream.. the protagonist will stand up, cause a ruckus, climb on to the desk, rip his interview suit off, push the statue out the window, and jump out into the wilderness in his underwear.  Freeze frame of him jumping out the window.  End.

I had fun just drawing the background for this guys office. lol  I imagined he just had statues of himself everywhere.

Any critiques of how this animation is done would be welcome.  I'm aware of certain things.. like the timing could be better, the character is definitely not the same shape the whole way through, yatta yatta.. but I figured getting a critique now would be beneficial.

Heres a slightly adjusted scene that I've already posted.  I tried to get the timing better and decided not to make any more block cycles (laziness?).  

Any bloody idea how I should do the sound for this? I have no dialogue in mind. Will it be just grunts and groans, wah wah charlie brown noises? The trumpet noise an elephant makes when a character yells? 

Weight, Push, Pull, and Flying.

Working on one of the previously mentioned projects.  I swear, the amount of time i spend being productive is extremely embarrassing.  I need deadlines. 

This is a segment from the animation.  I need to work on timing and.. figure out ways to blend the little block pushing segments together.  I'm glad I'm finally getting some weight practice in.

Various rough ideas and animations.

I've got two projects to finish and I think I like both of them.. but I would like some opinions to see what others think I should do differently.  I'm also currently just reading up on Drawn to Life and The Animator's Survival Kit because I feel like I've forgotten some of the principles of animation.. in regards to animating people in the way that I want to.

I started this before i was sidetracked by the summer.  Heres the original post:  http://www.joshbeswick.com/2012/07/storyboard-and-character-sketches.html

These are just some really rough sketches.. I definitely need to rework some things and I'm struggling to find a way to connect some of the animations toward the end together.  Aside from that I'm loving TVpaint and the camera function.


I scribbled this out the other day.. The idea is that this guy starts working for works sake and eventually finishes a giant statue of his boss.. but in turn he's become old and has spent his life attaining someone elses goals.  I had other images in my head for it, but I really need to practice rotating things in space.. i'm horrible at it. lol



Other than those projects, I've done a Halloween thing and a simple request from a friend.. Even if they're kind of bad, at least I have a better understanding of TVPaint.

This animation exaggerates what I remember about my childhood Halloween.. being forced to go to church and dress as Moses or a lamb and put on plays about the bible.  Being told "Don't come dressed as anything scary!"  lol  I think in the future I'll avoid doing stuff involving religion..
Heres the original post:  http://www.joshbeswick.com/2012/10/fighting-inactivity-with-2-year-old.html



This was the first thing I did in TVPaint.. it's really simple.  A friend asked me to make something involving this tank called the Starship.. and it had to do with that song 'Starships are meant to fly' or some shiz.  I think it's a Katy Perry song, so I certainly wasn't going to use it in the animation.. just pretend it's playing. lol


I really need to look into creating my own sounds for these animations.

Fighting inactivity with 2 year old ideas.

My summer was wasted, yet again.  Many a game was played, many a laugh was had.. but now it's back to business.. fighting off urges to check facebook, youtube, google+, and reddit in a disgusting never ending loop while I work on a Halloween animation that I originally wanted to animate 2 years ago.

Various Daily Drawing Challenge sketches

Storyboard and character sketches.

Been working on an animation.  It's mostly about this hobo character who is always scheming for.... stuff.  I imagine he's sort of like a mythological trickster, always joking around, pissing people off.

I want it to start out with the question "Why do they call you Jungle Buzzard anyway, Hopkins?" and the main character, Hopkins, not really wanting to answer until he spots a pile of items he can steal.. leading to him telling a West African myth, Anansi and the box of stories, purely for distraction purposes.  Each animal Anansi captures in the story correlates to a hobo around the campfire.  The snake gets tied to a stick, and so does a hobo.. the leopard falls in a hole.. etc.

Eventually someone will catch on, like the inch tall fairy at the end of the story will end up being humongous and take Hopkins out of the little dream world he's created to see the big guy just walloping him to the ground and knocking all the supplies he was attempting to steal everywhere.  Then somehow they'll all realize a jungle buzzard is a hobo who preys on other hobos.

Added some temporary audio to a storyboard for timing purposes, and then started designing some characters.  I'd be greatful for any comments on this.. been getting an awful lot of backpedaling from people who are afraid to give an honest opinion.  Comments that actually specifically say what you didn't like are best.  Was it too slow?  Did it make sense at all?  What would you change?

Here are some character thumbnails.

And here are some refined-ish characters.

Day 22: A video game character.

Skull Kid from Majoras Mask

I recently bought Color and Light by James Gurney to learn color theory.. and also read these two articles:  Kecleon Color Theory.  Color theory principles and practice.  Overall, I think they've helped loads.  Though, I haven't started making my own color palettes yet.  Still, I wouldn't be able to do this without these articles.

Hobo Hopkins and the story of the Sky-Bitch.

This was day 18 of the drawing challenge, Comic, but it got out of control.. now I want to make an animation/motion comic type thing.  Heres what I have so far.  Tell me what you think.. any criticism this early on is awesome.

Day 15, 16, 17, and 20 of drawing challenge.

Day 15:  Your Spirit Animal
I chose either the coyote or the fox because they were both represented as tricksters by ancient myths.  I'm not exactly tricking anybody, or even cunning or full of wisdom.. but I do tend to act foolish, funny.. etc.

Day 16:  What you wanted to be when you grew up.

I remember drawing Garfield all the time and people saying "he's the next Jim Davis".  So I somehow got it into my little kid head that I was actually going to replace him. lol

Day 17:  Something sentimental

Day 20:  Boba Fett or Darth Vader

Did a little color study after reading some articles too. Also ordered James Gurney's Color and Light which should get here around Wednesday.  Yesss.

Day 14: Theodore Roosevelt as.. Heavily Armed Teddy Bear on Moose!

Theres clearly something wrong with my color profile or whatever its called.  I just got Photoshop and it's doing the same exact thing Corel Painter does.  Light beige grays turn into pitch black blues when I save them as jpgs.

Day 13: My Dream Job (30 day drawing challenge)

Click to enlarge!

Space is a wide open vacuum thats always expanding.. and I'd feel claustrophobic as hell in space.  Not to mention I almost puked while on a ferris wheel.  I'll stick to drawing astronauts puking in space, thank you.

Day 11 & 12: Reptar and Stephenson

My choices were The Dinosaurs from the TGIF show "Dinosaur", Dino from The Flintstones, Yoshi, or Gozilla

Day 11 - Most Influential Person

Day 11 is below day 12 because I didn't like it as much. lol  I didn't know what to do for this one.  This is hardly someone who changed my life and molded me.. and I honestly feel silly for just drawing him because I only read one book of his.  But the book Snow Crash got me interested in reading about mythology, ancient Mesopotamia, and Christianity/Islam/Judaism a bit more.  It's probably the one thing that has changed most about me recently.

Or it might just be Tenzin from The Legend of Korra.  He taught me how to air bend.


Also used Google+'s Hangouts on Air feature to record a sketching session and send it straight to my youtube account.  Later on I downloaded the clips and edited them in premiere pro.  Was extremely nice.  If you want to see how often I go back and forth and then eventually give up on value/color:

Drawing Challenge Day 10 - Useless Superpower

Look, it's Tea-Time! He's a master of disguise because of his knack for creating royal hats out of thin hair. He can also materialize rather nasty tasting cups of tea. Though, like many heroes and villains, he too has a weakness.. his kryptonite is the fact that he can only use his powers at 5pm in the UK.

Drawing Challenge Day 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Day #4 - Favorite Muppet or Jim Henson character.

I don't have a particular favorite.. so I googled a bunch that had an interesting style to them.  I had a list of Clifford, Pepe, Crazy Harry, and Animal.. but I decided to go with Sweetums.

Day #5 - Favorite Musician or Band.

I went with Bear McCreary.  I don't know if I like the soundtracks because I liked the shows.. but I feel extremely productive when I'm listening to, say, the Battlestar Galactica season 3 ost.

Day #6 - An Idiom Literalized.

Day #7 - Favorite Movie Quote.
I couldn't remember many quotes from my favorite movies.. so I decided to watch one that I thought was funny.  Role models.

Day #8 - Favorite Animated CharacterI was going to go with just Ren and Stimpy, but I also find Adventure Time to be pretty damn hilarious.  I don't know if that makes me immature or not. lol

30 day drawing challenge!

I've been procrastinating.  I'm a molding potato.. and video games have taken over my dreams.   So, I'm going to ween myself back to productivity with this 30 day drawing challenge that some friends of friends of friends have started on Facebook.

Day #1 - Self Portrait

Day #2 - Mythological Creatures.  Frost Giants?  Or just giant vikings?

You can tell I waited till the last minute and just started scribbling.  :(

Day #3 - First Album/Co

If I ignore the Christian albums/hymns I had forced on me as a child, the first real album I remember buying was this WCW soundtrack.  I didn't even watch wrestling that much.. I just remember randomly grabbing Final Fantasy 7 and this off a shelf.  Was the first time I really listened to Metallica or Limp Bizkit.

In A World Where the Internet Doesn't Exist!

I really want to get this topic out of my head.. and what better way than to show a gopher bashing it's own brains out before buying a scammy cable television package that provides him at max 2 hours of quality content a week?

I think it's kind of ridiculous what people pay for when it comes to cable television.  Sometimes I think that the only reason people buy it is to have something to mindlessly flip through after work while saying "1000 channels and theres nothing on!"

The whole package plan thing requires you pay around 100-200 dollars a month.. or less if they pull you into a contract with a bogus discount. That money doesn't even go to a specific channel or program you enjoy. I read somewhere that ESPN/ESPN HD gets 4 dollars of your bill no matter what.  Meanwhile, say you like the SyFy channel, 21 cents goes to SyFy a month. Your 21 cents doesn't pay for specific programs you enjoy.. and the company is more likely to pay for the cheaper project.. like reality TV.  Lets not even go over what happens when your favorite show goes on a 4 month break after 6 episodes.  Reality shows and winter olympics?  Ugh.

You could support your favorite TV shows more by just paying 2.99 on itunes each week (assuming that apple doesn't take some ridiculous amount of profit from selling the episodes).  And you'd save massively.

At this point with the technology we are capable of it's like these cable/satellite companies are really just scamming everyone. I can't even see a younger adult who understands the internet even intelligently paying for a package plan. It's a waste of your hard earned money.

Heres a great link on the topic: http://afrodaddy.com/shelter/cable-tv-overpriced-scam-there-are-other-options

Gopherk yourself cable/satellite providers.  Lets move on to digital media now.

Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones

I've been working on color theory and value.. but I could still use a lot of advice!   The only books, dvds, or sites I've found on the subject are Practical Light and Color with Jeremy Vickery, Color Theory:  The Mechanics of Color with Richard Keyes, and This ImagineFX tutorial.  I also feel like these Force books (Force:  Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators, Force:  Character Design from Life Drawing) have helped me loads in just generally drawing.

Here is Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones.. I personally can't see the likeness at this point, but I've had others say it does look like her. lol  Also recorded the entire process and upload it to youtube.

Help! Landscapes, color theory, and digital painting techniques?

I've been attempting to practice landscape/environment painting, and with that I realize that I need a better understanding of color theory.. and maybe even some digital painting techniques that professionals use.  I'm at the stage where I suck so bad at environments and color that I generally want to quit early on because it's so frustrating.. but I know quitting only leads to NO IMPROVEMENT. lol

Could anyone give me some advice?  Techniques?  Books?  Dvds?  Videos?  ImagineFX articles?  Useful brushes?

I use Corel Painter 12, the scratchboard tool, and a blender.. every once in a while pulling out the oil brush.  I'm sure any kind of brush can be applied to any program.. what would you recommend?  Whats your workflow for painting?

I'm unsure of how to go into great detail on any of my pieces also..

I'm working in black and white first because I'm not confident enough to work with color AND value at the same time.. though I don't want to continue like this for much longer.  If I do continue like this, how can I work on the value and then use layer modes to add color into that? Seems like I use layer modes and the colors don't match at all. Should I just go over the black and white with more saturated colors slowly?

Here are a few of my recent studies.. I kind of feel like I'm hopping around blindly until I get something right, and I hate it.

First environment sketch and some notes from Practical Light and Color by Jeremy Vickery:

My most recent studies:

Some things that have helped me get to this point recently:
Practical Light and Color by Jeremy Vickery (Gnomon dvd)
Color Theory:  The Mechanics of Color with Richard Keyes (Gnomon dvd)
This ImagineFX tutorial from Issue #31 on the subject of colour!
And I've frequently watched these Feng Zhu videos.. lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCmz3XuS6TI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy9MMdzbWcw

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

Environments and doodles.

Working on environment sketches.  I gotta admit, I'm the most unproductive person in the world.. and it feels awful!  I got out of this mode somewhat briefly in January and now I'm right back to it.  I will destroy my desire to waste time! ...but first i'm going to play ME3 multiplayer.

Some things that have helped me get to this point recently:
Practical Light and Color by Jeremy Vickery (Gnomon dvd)
Color Theory:  The Mechanics of Color with Richard Keyes (Gnomon dvd)
Force:  Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators (Figure Drawing book.  EXTREMELY helpful.. two chapters brought my figures to life.
Force:  Character Design from Life Drawing (Second book in the series.. even more amazing.)
This ImagineFX tutorial from Issue #31 on the subject of colour!
http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/index.php
http://lovecastle.org/draw/
http://www.characterdesigns.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCmz3XuS6TI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy9MMdzbWcw

Digital Painting and Color Theory? HELP!

I haven't done a whole lot.  I tried to do some environment sketches and realized I might need to go over this color theory dvd, Theory and Application with Jeremy Vicker, again.  To be sure I got most of the information, I took notes.. and then I tried to use the information in a sketch.  In the sketch, I realized not only do I lack knowledge on color.. I can't seem to get into the details of a digital painting!  

Other than that.. I had a dream that I was lost in a giant house looking for a specific room.. before long I came out of a door to see this large open area with trees, cliffs, and waterfalls.  A sword in a stone 'locked' the path up to a loft on a cliff.  I quickly tried to sketch it out.. but I found trying to make sense of the location didn't.. uhh.. make any sense. lol  The stone felt like it was locking a path in the dream, but it was a wide open area.

"I hear Nebraska is nice."

I was in a rut for a few days.  One bad drawing spun out of control and I couldn't draw anything.. until last Sunday when The Walking Dead came back on.  All I can say is that "I hear Nebraska is nice" scene made me want to draw the characters. lol

I attempted to record everything I drew.. but I was having some serious problems with CamStudio.  One file is 2.2gigs but won't play.  One file is 1.2gigs and displays multiple cursors while flashing to black constantly.

What did I do all week aside from skimming the Force books (Force:  Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators;  Force:  Character Design from Life Drawing)?  I read a few comics that I thought were pretty good.  What I like most about most of these is they aren't the typical comic book character style of drawing.  Most of them have their own style.

1. Blankets is just a story about growing up.
2. The Walking Dead comics are really good so far too!  They don't spoil the show since the show seems to take new directions and twists.. but the whole time you're hoping the show will meet the gruesome expectations of the comic for that extra shock and understanding of what a world like this does to a human being.
3. Pride of Baghdad was about some lions that escaped a zoo in the middle east and attempted to survive in a warzone.  
4. Sky Doll.  Generally I don't like the style of art where characters have obnoxiously big boobs.. but this is set in a cyberpunk-ish world where sex dolls have become sentient and religious miracles are sold off like products and prophets are more like stage performers. 
5. Transmetropolitan ofcourse. :P

Drawing Words & Writing Pictures Study Group?

I'm kind of jumping between books at this point.. but I just got Drawing Words and Writing Pictures in the mail.  The book says it's structured to follow the model of a 15-week college semester course.  (Typically a three to six hour session once a week).. and I love that.  A book that has clear exercises and assignments in it just helps me understand so much quicker.

I've only checked out the first chapter 'Building Blocks'.. and i've only done the first exercise.  Would anyone else be interested in going through this book together?  We could compare our drawings.. etc.  You don't even have to be good.. hell, I started drawing comics this january because I spent so much time sitting on my hands thinking "I'll make an animation/comic when I'm capable of it!" while other artists start out bad and get good from all the experience.

The first exercise was:  Sketch these five moving objects in five separate drawings, each one a single image (not in sequence). 

After that, you're suppose to compare different versions of each object drawn by your colleagues and  figure out which ones were most successful at conveying movement.  Figure out which aren't working and why.. then make a list of each technique used to imply motion.

Gesture Drawings, Feb 1st!

Sketching away a toothache.  I think one of the best things I've learned recently is that when you exaggerate the pose you begin to match the energy of the model.. whereas when you attempt to match the model the pose may fall flat.

I'm not great with color.. I need to pick up a book or two on the subject. lol

Again, most of the knowledge I've gotten on Figure Drawing has recently come from the book Force:  Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators.

These particular references came from the book Art Models 6.. The book has 360 degree shots of each pose.. and I find it useful to see form/shape better.  It's not just a flat image when I can kind of rotate the model and see what's going on from other angles.

There are plenty of other free reference sites like Lovecastle, Pixelovely, and CharacterDesigns.com.  I just found Virtual Pose and Art Models to be pretty damn useful as far as the 360 degree shots go!

(If your adblock is off I'm leaving some links below to all of the books I've been using lately)

Gesture Drawings Jan 29th/30th/31st.

At some point I felt like I had forgotten everything that I had read from Force:  Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators.. but I think I just needed to lay a few strokes down to remember.  While it's not the best, the guy was actually done without a reference.  There might be flaws with it.. but from memory I think that's pretty good, and from here I'll only get better!  Just got to keep it up!  And I have to read the second Force book Force:  Character Design from Life Drawing too!

I found some amazing resources for figure drawing that I'll link after this picture!

I've been using these free websites and they've been extremely helpful: 

http://lovecastle.org/draw/

http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/figuredrawing.php

http://characterdesigns.com/

..but I feel like they lack something by being just flat images.  I might not be seeing the actual form of the body.. and I can't move closer to the subject to get a more dynamic angle.. so I was extremely excited when I found these books:  

Virtual Pose is a series of books that also contain quicktime files of models you can rotate 360 degrees by just panning the image. I personally feel like it helps give you a better understanding of form in the human figure when you can see the other angles so easily.. and it's something I was lacking sitting in front of a flat image trying to sculpt the form of the body.  Now all I need is some drastic angles to go with these! (links:  Virtual Pose Duo, Virtual Pose 4 (more action/motion poses!), Virtual Pose 3.)

Also found the Art Models series of books/cd-roms full of pictures.  These also provide a 360 degree shot of each pose.  I've only seen Art Models 6, but I'm sure the others are just as good.  These have something Virtual Pose doesn't seem to have.. which is facial expressions and some shots of different angles.

(If your adblock is off I'm leaving some links below to all of the books I've been using lately)