Experimental Line Art.

Hands & Feet Observations.

Hands & feet are really, really not my strong point...

Life drawings often end up floating on stumps or with claws...

But practice makes proficient! (As my favourite artist Glenn Arthur would say.)

Life Drawing - Three

Third life drawing session!

Session based on the idea of memorising the pose.

Used some techniques such as; 

Flashing up a pose for several seconds, then drawing it from memory.

Describing a pose to a partner who can't see & drawing it.

Quick blind contour drawings.

 

We also played with drawing caricatures & exaggerating features.

A few digital experiments...

A few pieces I've done since being at home for Christmas.

Experimenting with different styles & adding block colour in Photoshop.

Mainly inspired by looking through Pinterest...

Inspired by: Ziv Barbel

Inspired by: 'Red Riding Hood'

Inspired by: Fabio Paiva Corazza

Art Of Alvin

One of my favourite figure artists Alvin Chong aka. ArtOfAlvin.

Love his loose style & his use of line to form the figures.

http://instagram.com/artofalvin

http://artofalvin.tumblr.com/

Walt Disney's & Salvador Dali - Destino 2003 (HD 1080p)

Absolutely beautiful animation. Amazing.

PPB - Female Character Pose Sheet.

So after deciding the character needed further refining I decided to take a different approach.
The approach which frankly I should have taken in the first place.
I took photographic references to draw from!
My model was wearing a corset & flowy skirt to create a similar shape & look to that of my character & the uniform.
Then I drew some basic poses from those, with the aim of drawing more dynamic, exciting poses!

PPB - Final Turnarounds!!

After drawing the female turnaround three times... & the male character twice...

Two sets of reference photographs & what felt like about 10,000 layers in Photoshop...

These are the final turnarounds which were submitted for the bible.

I think in the end the sense of weight & balance is a lot better!!

Which was my main issue. The character look unbalanced & almost as if they were just clothes with a head on top... not a great look.

The most valuable thing I learned, applying this from life drawing, is to look at the angle of the hips!

If the character is standing from the front with the weight on one leg, the hips aren't going to be straight!

Seems like an obvious statement really, but it is something I didn't pick up on straight away!

I've begun to start drawing 'stick' figures, with the hip line & shoulder line being the most important detail to ensure I understand the pose better.

PPB - Bible Design!

The initial bible page design was a little busy & at first those who viewed it didn't quite understand what it had to do with the animation - although it was featured in my concept art - & didn't do much to compliment the pieces on the page.

So I decided to use the props in the page design. Making a more obvious link to the animation.

PPB - Concept Art.

The original concept art was fairly simplistic in comparison, but I used some similar details.

So when creating this inspirational concept art, I used some of my favourite details of the Amazing Stories covers.

The coloured beam of light surrounding the female character, with swirls of different tones & the glow around her. Expressing her sheer joy!

& the comic book style circles surrounding the gun, with coloured overlays creating the more monotone styles of some of the designs.

11 Seconds Club - Character & Setting Design.

After deciding I wanted to animate an animal as oppose to a human for a little bit of a challenge...

I had to decide on whether to add colour etc to my little pigeons.

I think the amount of colour & detail will definitely depend on how the animating stage goes & when evaluating the time scale once I've started the process... Especially as I have little experience with animating in Flash. & lip syncing... I think the performance is the main thing I'd like to get spot on as I haven't animated in a fair amount of time. 

So, I played with using a very simplistic colour palette. Consisting of grey. & white.

Just to break up the character's & add a little more depth to them.

Though I think it looks a little odd in the background, it makes things look like they are different planes. So I'll have to work on that one further...

Then I played with adding basic colours in relatively muted tones & a little shadow. 

Experimenting further with the background than the characters.

11 Seconds Club - Initial Design Ideas

I chose to select the November sound clip of the 11 Seconds Club as I wanted the challenge of a lip sync!

To me it sounds like a female news anchor or something of that nature. However after a few sketches I decided I'd prefer to animate an animal... a little more of a challenge in my opinion!

Particularly with the added detail of a lip sync!

So the first animal I pictured was a pigeon.

Something about the voice & how the movements would transition from one to another.

The motion of wings also came to mind. Big, rounded motions!

So I began to sketch some little pigeons.

First from life to gain some insight into their shape & form.

Then trying to stylise the character, in particularly the expression.

I wanted the female to be a sassy, confident female whereas the male to be mundane & just to be happy to be there.

Life Drawing - Two

Second life drawing session of the term.

Looking mainly at weight & the different techniques that can be used to explore weight & balance effectively.

PPB - First Male Turnaround.

Also missed the refining process out regarding the male character...

I really need to take a step back & actually look at what I'm doing & how it's done. Really look!

Again the balance is off in this design, the male doesn't quite seem as if he's a body & in those clothes... & the faces is just a little odd on the side profile. Too short maybe...

Take two!! Again...

PPB - First Female Turnaround.

Okay, so basically after realising I have 3 or so weeks to create my Pre Production Bible I got stuck in in a massive way & tried to plough through the work at full force!

Only to later realise, I had to re do a lot of it...

I have the problem that once I start something I just need to get it done.

I forget about the refining process.

Which is pretty damn important!

So... After completely this turnaround. I decided to basically re do it...

The balance is off in these characters, the proportions aren't quite right & there is no real sense of character within the poses!

However I now have the technique down at least. Take two!!

PPB - Final Backgrounds

These designs are the final backgrounds for the animation. 

Went through a looooot of processes to get to these stages... the first background I did took a pretty long time...

Though I do like the results.

There's a dark, other worldly sense in textures & lighting creating a dark & unhappy atmosphere.

Just what I was going for!

Regarding Amazing Stories I used colour schemes taken directly from some of the pieces created. Also the use of texture & the wide appearance of brush strokes!

The police station interior is the area where the majority of the action happens!

So I have kept the lighting more simplistic & the space a little clearer allowing the characters to move around the elements.

PPB - Background Line Art

There are four main settings in my animation.

The police station; exterior & interior.

Prison; exterior & interior.

After revising my style, I felt the designs should be more realistic!

Far from what I'd originally imagined, but the challenge has been graciously accepted.

These are the basic digitised line drawings adapted from inked drawings I had done previously!

Slightly more complex & developed as buildings, working from references & other artists interpretations.

References which shall be posted shortly!

PPB - Luma Rouge

Luma Rouge is another pin up artists who's style I'm highly fond of.

Different to the regular pin ups in that she uses more of an exaggerated, squash & stretched character. Elongated limbs in particularly & extremely slender characters.

In an addition to a less traditional, less clean use of line & colour.

PPB - Paul Savulescu

'Amazing Stories' Covers has a cartoon like feeling about them, though not as obvious as the style of Paul Savulescu!

His style is more comic book like, similar to that of the art of Sin City. Mainly black & white, with bursts of colour to draw the viewers eyes to something happening within the scene.

Although too dramatic & comic style in some aspects for the painted, rendered style of Amazing Stories, I love the line art & the buildings he creates.

The use of shadow & the blacked out areas created a dramatic, dark atmosphere which is something needed in the dark - yet mildly amusing - nature of my animation.

The examples of his work here are actually backdrops for walls & buildings of a club for a 'Desperados'  promotion. 

PPB - Male Character Costume Design!

For the male character I went through the same process as the female.

Looking at more historical & interesting uniforms as references & doing simplistic sketches of the main details.

I felt more modern styles, again, wouldn't fit in with the style of the pin up female.

Plus I thoroughly enjoy a double breasted jacket!

Funny In 15 - Dogshite.

This is the final animation for our Funny In 15 project!

Everything has been slightly more exaggerated in the animating...

More violent excrement...

Enjoy!

PPB - Female Facial Design.

 Again the facial design of the female character was needed...

So as a reference I looked at people such as Dita Von Teese, Amber Heard in addition to classic pin up females.

I found that a lot of the characters I seemed to be drawing seemed to appear too... foreign. Whereas the majority of classic pin ups appear as the English Rose. So looking at myself  - a blonde, green eyed, pale female - seemed  to help slightly.  

However I wanted to modernise the character slightly & also give her more interesting, squashable & stretchable features!

But again I seemed to give my character a sense of something I do not want.

In the case of the above sketches, a weird manly look about her...

The drawings below I think work slightly better...

She  appears relatively similar in each of the sketches, holding distinctive features. 

I also think she looks like she could animated & exaggerated, which is what I need!

Plus working in coloured pencil makes everything look better...