Goodbye Voltron and 2018

I finally finished the season finale of Voltron: Legendary Defender on Netflix. The collaboration between Studio Mir and Dreamworks Animation was fantastic! I need to watch the original but, I love this series. Allura and Lance are sweethearts despite the sad ending. I love them to pieces so, I could not help but draw them. I plan on doing a digital version in color. :) 2018 was not my best year. I had many let downs in my personal life but also exciting opportunities fly my way in my field. I pray that 2019 will be more rewarding than 2018 was. I am considering putting myself out there for more freelance projects. All of my freelance work just sort of flew my way but, I'm excited that I may be able to freelance more soon.  Happy New Years Folks! May you have a wonderful day!

Weiss Fanart Sketch

Ruby Rose - Fanart Sketch

Empherel - Finished

Bought some new courses from Aaron Blaise! :)

I just recently purchased some new video courses from Aaron Blaise. The two new ones that I have purchased are: How to Draw Human Anatomy and the Art of the Storyboard by Lyndon Ruddy.

I am super stoked to begin these new lessons! These will help me in my human anatomy drawing and character design if I know the human anatomy better and the storyboarding course will help me create great compositions for storyboards. I am stoked. These lessons have been great for me! I love the variety of courses! 

Almost there!

We are almost there! I got to add the highlights, glow for the talisman, and make the background yet. I got some new brushes to try out for the background. I am pretty stoked to try them out. :) They are Aaron Blaise's environment brushes. I thought I'd purchase them because I love his work and take courses from him. I also have Sandara's brushes and those are which I am using to create this. They were from a free download. :) I am please with how this is turning out just have a ways to go.

Empherel from Distant Skies

I finally have gotten around to painting my old 2014 sketch of Empherel. She's one of my personal characters from Distant Skies. She is the Light Beast of Empheria. I can't wait to design her brother, Venom, and Jordan who is the main character and her sky guardian form. Here is some progressional photos. I still have a ways to go but were getting there. The brushes I am using are Sandara's brushes. I really like them a lot. I have expanded my brush inventory and she had them for free download and so I checked them out. She is an excellent artist and her art is very charming to me. I am trying to pick up a thing or two from her.

Original Drawing in 2014

Drawing Touch Up 2018

Base Colors Added

Line-less Art currently

Line Art and Color currently 

I can't wait to finish her up! :)

Maya and 3DS Max Tutorials and Practice

I am continuing on brushing up my skills in Maya and 3DS Max. It will be a fun adventure and I am learning a lot of new things. I downloaded the student versions on my computer at home and I plan on making a lot of progress with modeling, animation, and etc. I've been trying to watch a lot of Youtube tutorials which have been very insightful.  I look forward to the future. :) Pssst here's some progress on a model of a character that I am working on in Maya in my free time :)

Brushing up in Maya Continued

I have recently been brushing up my previous skills in Maya so I have been watching a bunch of tutorials since it's been a while. Here is what I have watched tutorials on:

-Combine and Separate
-Using Brush Tools to sculpt meshes
-Setting up reference
-Modeling against reference
-Working with Edge Loops
-Using the Extrude Tool

These tutorials have been definitely insightful!

Brushing Up on Maya Continued...

Tonight I brushed up on these tutorials: These were some awesome tutorials and I am glad I found these on Youtube. The creator does a great job of explaining Maya and It's good to be looking back at it after a while.

-Hiding and Showing Objects
-Creating Layers
-Working with Selection Masks
-Differences between Nurbs and Polygons
-Polygonal Modeling
-Select Polygonal Components
-Using Soft Selection and Symmetry

Brushing up on Maya Continued

I have been brushing up on my Maya skills while working on Fresh Snow. I am coming at Maya with a much fresher perspective than I did in college. Here is some of the ones I have watched recently. I really like the tutorials from iLearn on Youtube. He does a great job of making it easy to understand as he walks through the program. It has been a while so I am definitely brushing up my previous skills. I can't wait to dive into all of his videos there are so many! :) Here are some of the ones that I have watched already.

-Overview of the Maya Interface
-Work with files and Maya Projects
-Navigating in Maya
-Configuring Viewports
-Using the Hotbox and Marking Menus
-Customizing the Interface
-Using Maya workspaces
-Selecting Objects
-Using the Move Tool
-Rotate and Scale Tool
-Manipulate Pivots
-Duplicate Objects
-Understanding the Channel Box
-Working with the Attribute Editor
-Reset and Freeze Transformations

Rough Exploratory Storyboards for Fresh Snow

First Rough Draft- Getting the feels 

2nd Rough Draft: Getting location placements

3rd Draft Boards coming soon! :) 

Revised Character Turnaround for Pavel

Fresh Snow- Concept Sketches

Here are some concept sketches I did traditionally for Fresh Snow. Trying to get in an essence the sense of what it is going to capture and what not. 

Fresh Snow - Half of 2nd Rough Draft Storyboards Completed and Test Story Reel

So, I finally broke in my technically 2nd rough draft but, I will call it my first for now to be more serious about it. Here is my rough storyboards for the first minute and 30 seconds of Fresh Snow. Fresh Snow is a total of 2:58. So it is about 3 minutes total. I have a lot of work to go but, this is just what I worked on today. :3 Lots of work ahead! :) Stay tuned! I have to add some things in between and what not but, it is a start.

Pavel : Revised Character Design

Here is Pavel's revised character design. I am going to be making turnarounds, expression, and pose sheets for him. I am also going to be working on my second draft of storyboards for Fresh Snow. I am going to apply all that I have learned from my new tutorials and hope it goes fantastic :) I will keep you all posted with my progress. I hope you like him! :3 He's a Siberian Roe Deer.

Aaron Blaise's : Fundamentals of Animation - Secondary Action, Exaggeration, and Appeal

The next videos that I watched today were Aaron's videos on Secondary Action, Exaggeration, and Appeal.

In the Secondary Action lesson, Aaron said that it is common for animators to confuse secondary action with follow through and overlapping action. He said they are totally different things! He said follow through and overlapping action happen due to the main action whereas secondary action is an action that is happening separately but is in support of the main action. The example he gave was a character thinking of what to do and the secondary action is that character also scratching their head. It is a second action separate but in support of the main action.  Another example is a ballerina jumping but the motion of her arms is a secondary action that is in support of her main action, jumping.

The next video I watched was about Exaggeration. In this video, Aaron mentioned there is different levels of Exaggeration within the animation world. He said animator's exaggerate animation to clarify what is happening for the viewer. One level of exaggeration is Pocahontas and bear and the hare film where the characters were so lifelike they did not have much exaggeration. But, another different level of exaggeration was Roger Rabbit where exaggeration is taken to the extreme. Aaron said it all depends on what level of exaggeration you want to use to convey your character's world. He said you must ask yourself what world does it fit into? All animation and exaggeration must be consistent for that world otherwise it will not mesh.

The next video that I watched was about Appeal. Appeal in the terms of animation means making something real that your viewer can relate to. We can find appeal in the character's acting, the look of the character, and the design of the character. It doesn't have to be all 3. Aaron said that whenever he tries to design a story character he gives them a backstory to help understand that character. For example his bear character he wanted her to be a mother character with round shapes and soft eyes. His elephant character he wanted to look fun and real chill kind of dude. So he said to ask yourself what kind of person/ character are they and how can you make it something you can draw over and over again? Appealing characters should be real, honest, and interesting Aaron says.

Aaron Blaise's Fundamentals of Animation Course: Anticipation, Follow Through and Overlapping Action, Arcs, and Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose Action

I have been on a tutorial binge been watching a lot of videos. It's been a real treat and it's awesome to see and learn so much.

The next video that I watched from Aaron Blaise was his lesson on Anticipation. He says that anticipation is used a lot! He says that because anticipation is a natural part of physics its used almost constantly in animation or at least he said it should be. Anticipation is the anticipation of a particular motion. For example when a character punches something, we anticipate the build up of the punch as he prepares to punch, before a character gets up they have to hold their hands on a chair, before a character jumps there's them going down to prepare to jump, there is lots of anticipation. He showed a demonstration where a bunny was anticipating his jump and followed through with that animation. You definitely want to feel the physics of your animation. Physics is what we do naturally all the time when we move and react. Drawings tend to be closer together during anticipation before a big move or an action of sorts.

The next video that I watched was Aaron's Follow Through and Overlapping Action Video. I learned what these were. I learned a lot of these in college but, I am stepping back through them again and re learning them from a new perspective. Aaron said things move at different timings than the rest of the animation that animators have to track such as: hair, ears, clothing, etc. Overlapping action is for example: a punch but the rest of the body moves differently than just the arm and fist which we need to take account of and make sure it is moving properly.

Follow Through is momentum follows through after the action is completed and shouldn't just stop. So for example when you are punching your body will continue to move and complete the action not just stop moving once you punch but it will complete the follow through of full action anticipated previously.

Aaron said animation we tend to think no both sides of the brain because we not only have to be creative but we break things down, observe from life, and have to think in a logical position of how physics works and how things move and react in real life. He also says once you understand all the principles of animation, you will use them constantly and sometimes you don't even think about it you will just begin to do it out of habit.

The next lesson that I watched was on Arcs. I have watched some previous videos from Aaron's scene approach videos but in this one, he goes into detail about what arcs are. Aaron says that in nature everything seems to move in an arc. To draw using arcs adds fluidity to your animations. You can use arcs in storyboarding, drawings, animations. It adds realism to how we move, walk, throw, jump, planets move, and etc. By adding arcs of motion in your animation by drawing in a set arc path it adds realism, grace, and life to your animation. It creates a beautiful path of motion for our viewer's eyes to follow. Aaron said he really learned about arcs a lot more when he was working on Disney's animated feature: Mulan.

The next lesson that I watched was on Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose Action. Aaron said that animators can animate in 2 main ways: Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose Action. Straight Ahead  is animating a scene straight on on the timeline without using key poses to guide your animation. Straight Ahead is used in Stop Motion animation where animators animate from beginning to end guiding their character and they really feel out what's happening and just go with the flow of their motion. Straight Ahead can be great just getting the feel of your character and it can be a lot of fun and a faster method however it can cause problems such as: loss of volume in animating characters. It is used a lot less.  He demonstrated an animation where Straight Ahead Action was used.

He then talked about Pose to Pose Animation. Pose to Pose is the most common method for animation. Pose to Pose is where you animate a scene using key poses and move from pose to pose to set up the scene and animation. This method is great for animating a complex character, lots of action, emotion, and dialogue. It tends to be much more accurate but you can get lost in drawings and it can become stiff if you aren't careful. Pose to Pose animators typically make thumbnails of their rough action ideas and then use those to create their key drawings later on. Aaron said that he tends to work this way. Pose to Pose helps you get a sense of direction but it can be often different than your final animation delivery. Be open to change he says.

Aaron Blaise's Fundamentals of Animation Course: Animation Demonstration Video, Slow In and Slow Out Video, and Staging Video

Today, I watched the rest of Aaron Blaise's Animation Demonstration. I watched as he used the squash and stretch method during his inbetweens. He said you can create some awesome squash and stretch during your inbetweens to really push your drawings. He said the magic of animation happens even more once you get all your hard work done and get to your inbetweens. The animation starts coming to life even more than you imagined it. Inbetweens should go pretty quick just get them done fast and accurately as my old huntington professor would say :). Aaron reminded me that be sure your keys are precise and then with your breakdowns should be and then inbetweens are a little more loose and fast. Definitely work loosely he says. He encouraged to push your drawings as much as possible. You want to be able to read your animation well and if it is a lip sync you want to see and read those lips well. Aaron adds inbetweens based on the timeline when he feels there should be one and this is interesting it makes the process seem more focused then just adding drawings. He gives a lot of life to his demonstrations making the process seem more interesting than I used to perceive it to be.
The next fundamental video that I watched today was, the Slow in and Slow out video. In this lesson, Aaron explained in more detail what slow in and slow out is within animation. Aaron said that anytime he is animating a character on the screen whether they are walking or whatever that you want to create a slow start and a slow ending to your animations. This mean that there is a slow beginning and a slow ending to your next pose. This can even apply to film in a sense as well. He says that slow ins and slow outs help it from starting harshly and stopping harshly. This creates a nice soft edge to your animations and this is the term animator's tend to use known as "Fluidity".
He said that when you create your slow ins and slow outs you start with nice tightly spaced drawings and the animation speed picks up then as its slowing down you get more nicely tight spaced drawings to end it. He says out of all the animation fundamentals this is the most used he says. He said the only time he does not use slow ins and slow outs is when a character is fighting, thrown or shot out of a canon and so on. It is not used with abrupt fast actions.

The next fundamental video that I watched was Aaron's Staging video. In this lesson, I learned more about what staging is and approach it properly. Staging is an approach to animation where you focus on how you "stage" or portray your character or scene to your viewer. You can do this in a few ways: your camera location and your character's position in relation to their location. Aaron said that you want to convey your character or scene in the best way possible for your viewer. He gave me a few examples. He explained about having 2 characters on screen, how to portray a dominant character, a desolate background with a character, lonely characters, and compressed backgrounds. The biggest thing you want to ask yourself Aaron says is : What is the action or emotion that needs to be conveyed here? He said the further your character gets on screen -the broader your action has to be. You can exaggerate moments, make things subtle by framing things tighter to get more subtext, and ideas can be more broad by accurate staging. It was a great lesson, short but straight to the key points!

Aaron Blaise's Fundamentals of Animation Course/ Complete Animation Course: Animation Demonstration Video

Today, I watched the next video in Aaron Blaise's lessons that I had purchased. In this lesson, he taught how he approaches his animation process. In this he did a lipsync character body animation. He explained that he likes to create thumbnails in Adobe Photoshop to get ideas of his key frames and it lays the groundwork for the process. Then after you get those poses drawn for the keys, you can then start working on the breakdowns. He mentioned that we need to keep things loose while you are drawing. He said definitely don't get caught up in all the details because that will mess you up. This is something I struggle with as an animator and he mentioned that and I have hope that I can continue to improve as an animator and concept artist. Once you get your keys all mapped out he said while you are working strive to create dynamic framing. Animators need to feel the acting. Acting it out yourself is encouraged he said.

The next step after creating the key drawings is to focus on the breakdowns. This can be intimidating and hard but if you focus all that hard work goes a long way. He said the way he works is after the keys and breakdowns he begins to animate straight ahead. That's just how he does it. He tried to create a slow and deliberate animation that works into an explosion of energy. He said that every shot is important. He said that you don't want to focus too much time on one drawing. That is something that I am working to get better at myself. He said moves can be big but he said you can find it. The further away the drawings, the faster the animation will be.

He said continue to think about arcs often. He said that it really helps you find yourself and your art in the process and helps your animations look pleasing to the eye. He said continue to work loosely and don't get too sloppy. He tends to go back and forth between adjusting poses and drawings. Scrubbing through your drawings is a great idea he says. I stopped at 50:09 for the day and will be continuing my tutorial tomorrow. :) Great process and I feel like I am understanding animation much better this time around than when I was in college. I have matured more and feel more focused internally so these courses are awesome! I highly recommend them! Here are some shots of his tutorial that he was showing me. :)