You Win New Yen

Lavender Hanfu

2009-04-02T07:47:00.003-03:00

I recall after making my asian dress paintings, someone noted that the Chinese qipao/cheongsam isn't really a traditional costume - it's fairly modern (according to wiki, it was created in the 1920s). I must've overlooked the true Chinese traditional dress because I probably had the qipao in mind once I started out, and only researched that. Well here's the real deal, the Hanfu - less sexy, but more elegant, and the dress that influenced a whole bunch of other asian costumes like the Korean Hanbok and Japanese Kimono.

I should have referenced Mulan, where she indeed wears a hanfu at the start of the film.

Reflection is probably my favourite Disney animated song that is sung. Here's the French version cause it sounds just as nice, with lyrics that are more interesting than the English version, and it even lip syncs well.

One, Chu

2009-03-15T11:07:00.003-03:00

So here's a pic I started a long while back, and just left in half-painted limbo state....till now. I wanted to try out that cool extreme foreshortening shiz, but not sure I really got what I wanted....it sorta flattened out. And that guitar was a pain - I wanted it angled outwards as well, but I just couldn't make it look right, especially with that messed up shape.

So anyway, this is a pic inspired by the figure of this character, which I have. I don't usually get figures of characters that I don't know, but this one looked pretty cool. Yeah, huge geek alert.

The character is named Chua Churam, from the Japanese eroge game Chu x Chu Idol. Wanting to know more about this character, I also found out that this pop star vampire is a fusion of a vampire girl and human girl in the story, which is initiated with a kiss. Yep.

JIMMMMEEYYYYYY

2009-02-23T04:49:00.007-04:00

Here's some fanart for a show I worked on for a bit - Jimmy Two Shoes. It's a pretty crazy, random series. Hopefully it does well. This is my idea for an Alice in Wonderland-themed Jimmy world. It'd be cool to have a future episode use the Alice story - could have a lot of fun with it.
I never planned on adding the other 2 main characters into this image, but after some encouragement I decided to draw up the 'villain' characters of the show into the Alice world. Using the classic Disney Alice as reference, of course. As for Cerby, the "pet dog" of the series, well he would be Dinah, Alice's cat.
The characters in my images are just cosplaying as the Alice characters, so perhaps it would be good to see the characters as they behave normally in the show (and see how well their Alice roles would fit). Fortunately, one of the [half] episodes has made its way to the internets, so have a look:

Jimmy is now airing on DisneyXD in the states, and it's Canadian premiere on Teletoon will be on March 21st.

Little Red Snow White

2008-12-30T12:04:00.002-04:00

I dunno what's going on...
But it appears to be winter now.

Where did Summer go?

2008-09-06T07:59:00.010-03:00

A few weeks back I suggested that we (my flatmates and I) visit the Montreal Botanical Garden so we would have something a little more interesting to do on the weekends here in Ottawa. Ironic that we have to travel to Montreal for it....I'm sure there's stuff to do in Ottawa....looking forward to skating in the winter....

Anyway here are a few choice pics....if you look at too many it all looks the same.

To see what's so special about this pic, you'll have to full-view it and see what is catching Phil's eye.

Or you can let the reaction guys find it for you:

Phil on the other hand, is not impressed with Dave's usual tricks

It's Geek Tiem

2008-08-21T11:59:00.004-03:00

I haven't posted anything in a while. Been pretty lazy over here. I had to draw/paint up something so I wouldn't feel too guilty, and anime fan art seemed like a good idea. I don't usually draw anime, so this is probably my first ever serious anime fan art. Crazy.

Anyway, I chose Nodame Cantabile since it's one of my faves and the characters are great (though you wouldn't be able to tell from this pic). It revolves around these two students who attend a music university. They are both gifted musicians in very different ways. Chiaki is the hardcore top student since his dream is becoming a composer, and Nodame is a lazier, happy-go-lucky type that aspires to become a kindergarten teacher. But she can actually play a piano piece by simply listening to the music beforehand. The catch is that she plays it cantabile, meaning she plays in a songlike manner, adding her own notes as she sees fit. Anyway. Check it out if you can tolerate anime (and know how locate appropriate torrents for all the downloadin').

If you're an elite artsy type, maybe you might've noticed the familiar composition and posing I used. Well prepare to raise your nose even higher and hmpf as you stride away because I did indeed reference Renoir's Two Young Girls at the Piano. I modified Chiaki's pose and the piano and removed all that fancy background. And then screwed up a bunch of other little things. But there it is.

Persephone's Flight Review: Ewen/10

2008-04-25T16:22:00.009-03:00

It's over!

OR IS IT

------
Full Credits:
Since I wanted my credits to be short and sweet and because I didn't have a lot of space on my credit slides, I kept names to a minimum. So now, I'll try to recognize everyone who helped me get here.

"Written and Directed" is basically the title that accounts for everything I did on my own. That includes initial concept, storyboarding, all the animation, cleanup, colouring, sound editing, compositing, and vocals for the birds.

My mentor, Jason Thompson provided valuable feedback during the early story stages that helped transform my first story reel (which you may have seen earlier on my blog) into the final product that you see now. He was always supportive and encouraging.

Rex Alerta is a close friend who I knew I could count on for the 3d snow effects I wanted.

Susan Beniston was my 3d design teacher in art fundamentals for my 1st year in Sheridan, and if it wasn't for her confidence in my ability, I probably would not be graduating from Sheridan as I am now, for she pushed me to appeal when she discovered that I was initially rejected from the animation program.

Natalie Garceau-Turner was my story teacher in 3rd year that helped us on a path to spark our 4th year film ideas. She helped steer Persephone's Flight in the right direction, along with the initial encouragement I needed to start running with it.

Dave Tran is a good friend whom I asked for help when I knew I wouldn't make the student screening deadline. He helped colour some scenes that made my film more complete for that screening. In this way he should be credited as a Colouring Assistant.

Finally, a large group of people are placed in Family and Friends. My parents, you could say were Funding and support, especially from Mom; and to my 2 sisters, my friends, my mentor group peers, anyone who gave me feedback or complimented me on my work in progress - Thank you!

Software used: Adobe Photoshop CS3, Flash CS3, After Effects CS3, Premiere Pro CS3, and Audition 3.0
The film was almost entirely completed at home on my HP Pavilion notebook with a Wacom Bamboo Fun Medium size tablet.
------

Also, I recently whipped up some designs for the main characters - a distant goal I once had was to have the "real" gods featured in the credits to dispel any misconceptions people no doubt still have about the Demeter bird being the husband to Persephone. Ah well.

Final Thoughts on PF
Overall, I'm happy with the result of my film; for the most part it ended up how I envisioned it from the boards. However I am not without regrets and things I wish I could have done better.

The thing I wish I could have improved the most would be the layouts/BG paintings. I'm happy with this film since nothing really makes me cringe when I watch it, (compared to the dialogue I wrote for The Crane's Lament which pretty much makes me cringe everytime I hear it now), but when I focus on the BGs, like the opening shot, I feel a tinge of embarrassment and wish I had the skill to make the layouts and paintings really shine. The BGs were the first things that I did once production started in the second semester and by that time I already knew I was going to be extremely short on time, so I decided that I'd go for a very vague, lineless "painterly" style to quickly roll through them. I only gave myself a day or two to complete a painting, and for me, one who is not terribly skilled in the art of layout and background painting, this is really rushing it.

The second thing I wish I could've done better is of course animation. Animation is what I'd like to focus on and hopefully some of that shines through in the short. Flash was a huge help in animation this time around since it gave me an easy way to move entire sections of frames, and execute holds much easier. It also allowed instant playback of what I was drawing, and no bloody scanning! Digital all the way ftw!
Even so, I consider most of my scenes to be roughed and cleaned on the first pass, with no significant changes that should have come from a critique. I'm sure Jason would've helped me more in this area, but I only had time to draw it out, make sure it worked well enough, and move to the next scene.

The last thing I'll talk about (because this post is turning into an essay) is my character design. I was pretty stuck on the original concepts of my characters from the very beginning (2 plump birds with extravagant head plumage, a plain snake, and sparrows with bows), and as such they pretty much stayed close to those original ideas. Those birds used to be really fat though! I should have explored more with the character design, especially in making sure that Demeter looked more like a mother rather than a male partner to Persephone, which was one of my biggest story issues from the beginning.
I also slacked off on model sheets, instead refining and defining my characters as I began to work on my rough scenes. I animated my scenes in chronological order - I wonder if a quality progression is noticeable? Even with my simple birds, staying on model was still a big challenge, and in this area, Persephone's "cherries" and Demeter's "feather" on their heads varied greatly from scene to scene (if you pay close attention). And finally, two scenes that I remember having errors I would've liked to smooth out:
1- In Persephone's Spring! scene where Demeter pulls her out of the Den, Demeter actually flies through Persephone when she circles around her. I didn't notice this in my rough, but it was evident in colouring.
2- When Persephone hops back to Hades' Den, the hopping distance and perspective is messed up to me and I wish I could've smoothed it out.

....Yeah. Despite these regrets, as I've said I'm still happy that in the end I have a fully completed "Capstone" film to graduate with, and hearing the comments that I've gotten about it, I'm led to believe that it ain't half-bad! Sweet!

thanks for reading hopefully the last entry on Persephone's Flight!

This Bird Has Flown

2008-04-14T16:04:00.009-03:00

I made it! Finally. No more animation, clean up, or colouring for Persephone's Flight. She's all ready to go. I didn't make the deadline noted in my last post, nor did I make it when they extended it to Monday. But that first deadline was for marks and the student screening, and the majority of my film made it for that, so no worries. The major deadline is for the big Industry Day screening, and I'm happy to say that I'll be in the "fully finished film" group.

Here are some shots from the final product. Uploading to Youtube in the near future.

Hey look it's spring outside. Good thing I spent the entire winter inside, working on this film. A lot of people gain weight over the winter, but for me I think it was the opposite >_>

----------------
Now playing: Electric Light Orchestra - Mr. Blue Sky
via FoxyTunes

10 days...

2008-03-20T17:16:00.003-03:00

....And here I begin cleaning up scene 8 of 24. Yes, I'll have to clean up and colour multiple scenes a day to meet the April 4 deadline.
This is a shot of my Flash workspace as I go into clean up. My character colour palettes are in there for later colouring. Demeter isn't in this scene, but I use her eye green for Persephone's saffron strap.

Even though I didn't exactly do the same type of animation, I'm glad my experience at FatKat got me familiar with Flash. Who knows where I'd be right now if I decided to go traditional with pencil and paper....

ok back to work.

パセフォニスフライト

2008-03-13T05:32:00.005-03:00

If the title doesn't show up properly (should look like Japanese characters), chances are you don't have Japanese text support installed. But I was practicing my basic Japanese skillz and translated Persephone's Flight into Japanese (Katakana is used for loan-words from other languages), which in English would read like 'Pasefonisu Furaito'.
awesomeness.

For the latest "milestone" we had to prep a bunch of "promotional" items for our films, which is sorta awkward when you're "struggling" to finish. But it gives me an option to "throw" more stuff at my blog.

Persephone, I choose you! *throws

A poster and/or postcard. Those 2 birds, I stoned them

A still that gives you an idea of what I'm aiming for with my film. With only 3 weeks left, the cleanup is the area where I've got to cut the most corners, so my animation will be kinda sketchy. But I really want to have the 2 tones to my characters. 3 weeks, eh? wtf. We'll see.

How do I animated Persephone's Flight?

2008-02-23T22:01:00.003-04:00

Hello. It's been a while since August. What have I been doing since I left FatKat and came back to school? Well, I think it was a healthy dose of procrastinating and working on my short film that will cap off my 5 years (includes art fundamentals) at Sheridan.

So, some proof that I haven't been completely dead this whole time - a couple of production shots from PF.

A background with a pose from my story reel

Here's a full scene. This is my first time animating traditionally in Flash, and I'm having a pretty good time with it so far. I believe it's faster than going the pencil and paper route, since I avoid paper, pencils, line testing, and worst of all - scanning. The only drawbacks I've noted is that you can't really get faint guide lines with Flash, the brush size doesn't stay constant when you zoom in, and I'm not doing this on a Cintiq :P

So there it is. I probably won't be back with another worthy post until I start colouring stuff.

Asian Dress #5 - Yukata

2007-08-15T03:20:00.000-03:00

Finally. The Japanese Yukata. The summer kimono.

While kimonos are made of silk, pretty much impossible to put on yourself, and expensive, yukatas are made of cotton, are easier for one to put on themselves, and much cheaper than kimonos, which is part of the reason they are still popular today.

-the word comes from "yu" (bath) and "katabira" (under clothing) -the yukata was originally worn after taking a bath. Today, they are still seen at public baths, summer events, and in the streets as casual wear.

-traditionally, yukatas came only in white, gray or indigo blue. Now.....they are as varied and as colourful as Hawaiian shirts.

"Through the centuries, reams have been written about the whiteness of the neck above the indigo-dyed blue of the yukata collar, the thin cotton almost, but not quite, revealing the outlines of the body. Yukata stood for demure eroticism, and a subtle style of sexiness that belonged only to the Japanese woman."*

....Yay for Yukatas!

------

So this little project that I should have finished way earlier comes to an end. Here's some extra stuff:

A line up of the girls complete with dress names in the native language for extra asian-ness - I hope I got Sari in Devanāgarī script right!

And here are the sketches that hide behind the paint. I don't have the Ao Dai because I accidentally saved over that one as a flattened image.

*Freed from tradition, Japanese dress is sexy and fun : The kimono goes summery [International Herald Tribune]

Asian Dress #4 - Sari / Saree

2007-07-09T06:02:00.001-03:00

A simplified attempt at the Indian Sari.

-The sari is a rectangular piece of cloth ranging from 4-9 metres in length, usually worn over a petticoat, and a midriff-baring blouse known as a 'choli'

-The loose end of the fabric that is often tossed over the left shoulder is known as 'pallu' and usually has extensive designs and embroidery.

-The sari beautifully emphasizes the curves of the female form - bust, waist and hips

-It is very versatile; the pallu can be used as a shawl or scarf in cold weather, and the variety of styles of wearing a sari permit the wearer to perform a great range of activities.

-The sari here is draped in popular Nivi style - the cloth is tucked into the waistband of the petticoat; wrapped around once, pleated a few times, and tucked in at the front. Wrap around again, and up over the left shoulder.

Asian Dress #3 - Hanbok

2007-06-24T20:40:00.000-03:00

Hello. numbah trois is the Korean Hanbok (pronounced "han-bo"), which probably hides the female form the most out of the five dresses I`m painting :(

Though cut from flat cloth, when worn the hanbok takes on a voluminous three-dimensional quality. With its simple form and generous fit, it is flexible enough to accommodate any body shape and comfortable to wear while sitting on the floor, as is usual in a Korean house. Its ample folds impart an air of elegance and refinement to the wearer. For all its simplicity, the way it is worn determines its shape and produces creases that can also become an aesthetic element.

The beauty of hanbok can also be felt in the harmony of straight and curved lines that shows a deep respect for nature.
(source)

Asian Dress #2 - Qipao / Cheongsam

2007-06-17T04:19:00.000-03:00

The popular traditional Chinese dress, Qipao (aka cheongsam).

-Pronounced "chee-pow" / "chongsam"

-Influenced the style of the Vietnamese Áo dài

-Like the Áo dài, the Qipao has a male variant; it adds some pants (Sofie Fatale in Kill Bill vol. 1 wears a male Cheongsam)

-Chun-Li's classic outfit in the Street Fighter video game series is a modified Qipao for greater range of movement. Spinning Bird Kick!

What serves as a worthy testament to the beauty of the Qipao / Cheongsam is, however, it does not require the wearer to pep up the look with accessories like scarves and belts. Designed to show off the natural softness of the female form, it also creates the illusion of slender legs. The overall picture: practical, yet sexy.
(my-qipao.com)

Asian Dress #1 - Áo dài

2007-06-09T21:39:00.000-03:00

As a little painting project, I've decided to paint 5 traditional asian dresses like the Vietnamese ao dai I have right here.
Dresses to follow: Qipao, Hanbok, Sari, and Yukata.

Some interesting tidbits from Wikipedia:

Pronounced 'ao yai' in the south, and 'ao zai' in the north

The costume has faced countless modifications throughout the centuries but its basic form consists of a long flowing gown with a slit on both sides, often with a high fitted collar, worn over long silk pants.

While its cousin the Qipao is a tight fitted dress (in its modern reincarnation), the Áo dài is a looser tunic, which even in its tight-fitting form is still left wide and flowing at the bottom. Furthermore, the slits of the Áo Dài extend above the waistline, revealing a slight glimpse of the sides of the midriff.

The most popular style of the Áo dài as we see it today is tight-fitting around the wearer's upper torso, emphasizing her bust and curves. For this reason, the Áo dài, while it covers the whole body, is said to be provocative, especially when it is made of thin or see-through fabric.

Have a nice day

2007-06-05T01:35:00.001-03:00

A different shot of the stairs leading to French Fort Cove as seen on mah MiramichiKats blog. I made this one a wallpaper for my widescreen laptop to make me feel like the weather is always pleasant, like it was that weekend. It's back to rainy and cold this week.

[edit] It was actually rainy and cold for the first 2 days that week, then it was pretty nice weather. My wallpaper has changed.

A Catbird Seat

2007-06-02T14:18:00.000-03:00

...specifically, something that looks like a diving board. No further questions.

The soundtrack of my life

2007-05-26T23:25:00.000-03:00

Yes, a common blogger post:

If your life was a soundtrack, what would the soundtrack be?

So, here’s how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool…

So I searched around the net and the categories differ a little, but I went and picked the best ones that would describe an epic life.
Also: when doing this, I decided that I would use my favorites playlist (instead of using my main playlist that has lots of non-interesting BG music), and take the test 3 times, and pick the best soundtrack. 3rd time's a charm.

So here's my epic life soundtrack, with links to the songs on youtube, if they are available:

Opening Credits:
Wake Up - Rage Against the Machine

Waking up:
Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) - Green Day

First day of school:
Good Luck - Basement Jaxx

Falling in Love:
Twilight (A. Piano Version) - Densha Otoko soundtrack

Fight song:
Chanto Tsukandemasukara - Densha Otoko soundtrack

Breaking up:
Smack My Bitch Up - The Prodigy

Prom:
Layla - Derek and the Dominoes

Life's Ok:
Sally's Song - The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack

Mental Breakdown:
Dies Irae (Requiem) - Giuseppe Verdi

Driving:
Good, or Don't Be - Neon Genesis Evangelion soundtrack

Flashback:
Champagne Supernova - Oasis

Getting Back Together:
Bran-new Lovesong - the pillows

Wedding:
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - Daft Punk

Birth of Child:
Go the Distance - Disney's Hercules soundtrack

Final Battle:
Twilight - Electric Light Orchestra

Moment of Triumph:
The Legendary Theme (album) - Gitaroo Man soundtrack

Death Scene:
Night Skies - Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire soundtrack

Funeral Scene:
Air - Bach

End Credits:
San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) - Scott McKenzie

I couldn't find online versions of my triumph and death scenes, which is unfortunate since they're 2 nice fitting songs. Legendary theme is an electric guitar duet, and night skies includes the sweet Imperial March and Force themes from Star Wars.

The songs that probably don't fit their categories are my fight, life, and wedding songs. And my mental breakdown song is 37 minutes...

All these songs are favorites of mine (thus in my faves playlist duh), but if I had to pick the songs that fit their categories best, I'd have to say the falling in love, flashback, getting back together, final battle (because I can't get enough of Twilight), and funeral songs.

New and Improved

2007-05-16T00:07:00.000-03:00

I learned how to colour stuff in Flipbook thanks to A Rotten Habit, so I decided to try out the skillz on an old animation. Didn't really feel like making it a complete piece with a panning BG, an object and dust fx, but I'm satisfied with this final version. I had this ready before I came to Miramichi, but since I was putting in sound fx, I thought of getting a voice for her as well, and I just got the final track today. I thought it'd be cool to employ a voice actress from the net, and I knew a big flash submission site like Newgrounds would have plenty of talent.
And 'tis there that I found Rina-chan to be a sweet french maid voice. Check out her demo of the soul calibur girls if you're interested; she has a great range.

Blogging from NB

2007-05-07T21:38:00.000-03:00

So I'm in Miramichi now. Updates will be even less frequent here, and somewhat more frequent at a dedicated blog for the 5 of us down there (4 of us have laptops): http://miramichikats.blogspot.com/
Should be a Flashtastic summer.

Toooooooth Fairy?

2007-04-29T17:18:00.001-03:00

Here 'tis, very likely the one and only work by Studio10:

I whipped up the intro slides and the first three scenes, as well as drawing up and painting a layout:

We had this cool idea to include symbolic objects from everyone's films, so I made sure to get them all. That is until someone from The Buddha Funk group threatened to ruin my animation career since I forgot their film :P

So the objects and groups, starting from top, going left to right:
Electric toothbrush - Studio10
Monster Backpack - The World Changing Scallywags
Camera - Buddha Funk
Scavenger Robot - Soldier Monkey
Bunz the Robot - Aisle-6
Sword - Repo House
Star - 24/7 and Blue Lemon
Paintbrush - Studio REDRUM
Hairy ball-thing - AV8
Spotted Underwear - The Line
Goblin King doll - Black Rabbit
Fish - Rats From The Lab
Leaf - Funeral For A Fern
Spray that kills 99.9% of Germs - The Visual Factory

And the culmination of this year's 3d class, Mr. Postman:

Twilight crawling through my windowpane

2007-04-14T16:16:00.000-03:00

It's been a busy week. As an animation student, I'm no stranger to screwing up my sleep schedule so that I can see night turn to day, but this week I had to capture this orange glow that was flooding the apartment. It was very cool.
Speaking of twilight, here's a closeup pic of the new iPod I got to replace the one that got stolen from me:I know that the dirty thief has to be someone from Art Fundamentals or Animation, possibly in my year (which irritates me the most) since the iPod was stolen while charging at a line testing computer while I was sitting within view (but obviously not paying attention).
Anyway, the stolen iPod had the zen saying "The reverse side also has a reverse side". My new iPod has "Am I awake or do I dream?" Which is a lyric from Twilight by Electric Light Orchestra. Ever since hearing to it as the opening song for Densha Otoko, I can't stop listening to it. It's one of the catchiest songs I've ever heard. Am I wrong?

(this player is from radioblogclub.com, pretty cool site for streaming songs to yer blog)

So, about A Rotten Habit: she's done. I wouldn't say completely done (a possible soundtrack fix and some extra sfx can be added), but all major work has ended. This image comes from the intro sequence, the last thing that I worked on:

Honestly, all through the compositing stage, I was getting really sick of the film and I didn't think it would turn out too well. I didn't even think we'd finish everything. But we did. And once Rye and I started putting sound fx in, and the excellent soundtrack that John Suh composed, the film really came together. It's not awesome, and the story is probably about as effective as our older animatics, but we finished. yay for Studio10!

Here's a Persephone's Flight image that I forgot to post last time. I actually put this one together with the yearbook in mind. I hope we can get them before the end of the year!

So only a few things remain to do in the school year before I can relax for a short while.....and then begin worrying about moving to Miramichi, New Brunswick to intern at FatKat. It should be a fun summer though, since I've never lived so far away from home before, and I'll be going with 4 other talented friends:
Rob Bursey, Stephen Hinds ,Phil Rodrigues , and Dave Tran

Tonight I'm going back to Oshawa, in probably the first time since Xmas to celebrate my grandma's b-day. I think I sketched this one when I was back for the Xmas break:

I call her "ba ngoai" which sounds like "bah why" in English.

Man I wish I was fluent in Vietnamese. As well as Japanese.

ja ne!

The end is nigh. Nigh I say

2007-04-08T04:20:00.000-03:00

Here's a shot of the Fairy in the process of being coloured in Flipbook. This is the final week that we have to work on our films. Much sleep will be lost, unfortunate realizations will be had.

Here's a design I cooked up last year for the animation t-shirt contest, which never went anywhere. So I refined it for this year's contest, and my design got rejected before the voting process even started, which was pretty cool if I say so myself. I don't know the reasons, but perhaps the design is too complex and thus unsuited for t-shirt wear. Maybe it doesn't properly convey the idea of animation. Or maybe it just lacks text that says "40 years of animation at Sheridan! HELLZ YEAH!".
I'd get it printed for myself, but I can't seem to find a place that would print just one shirt for under 25 dollars.

Here's an animatic I did for music class, to the tune of Volière by Camille Saint-Saëns:

Here's the watercolour beatboards for my upcoming 4th year film. A more realized, yet less colourful version of the story is in the previous post.

Here's the end of this post.

And now for something completely different

2007-02-09T03:44:00.000-04:00

I had this old folder of clippings laying around so I decided to post up my faves....

My pal Adam Medley is the creator of these inspiring little pieces of art, and he describes them as "...mini-collages consisting of one part image and one part text, cut from old magazines and fixed together with packing tape. The rule is that the text and the image must come from two seperate contexts and cannot be significantly altered by way of cutting out undesired words, parts of image, etc."
I believe I assembled these in his basement in the summer of 2005...or was it 2004?

J-Drama
My interest in anime has spread to an interest in nearly anything Japanese - so it was only time before I watched a live-action Japanese tv series. I recently watched 2 series that I enjoyed, and that were both based on true stories, so I'm gonna give 'em a small plug here.

Densha Otoko is the story of a heavily exaggerated, clumsy otaku that finds the courage to defend a beautiful woman from an aggressive drunk on a train. From this event, they slowly develop a relationship. The hook is that he is so completely hopeless when dealing with women, that he turns to an anonymous message board for single men for support. I especially liked how they humanized the other posters, giving each a different personality, and even backstories in some cases. This one is a kinda feel-good romance-comedy. And the movie version sucks.

1 Litre of Tears is a sad story of a 15 year-old girl that is diagnosed with Spinocerebellar Ataxia, a disease that progressively atrophies the body, making basic things like walking and talking difficult to impossible, even though the mind is healthy. The series follows the girl as she struggles with the worsening disease while trying to stay optimistic. This is one of those series that can change the way you look at life. And just like the title implies, the series is known for making viewers cry, and I must admit I was no exception ^_^

...so there ya go. If you're interested, check em out, torrent-style.

Persephone's Flight

Here is my top secret 4th year film idea, hiding at the bottom, in a very non-hidden way. Anyway, as the title suggests, the story is based on the Greek myth of Demeter and her daughter Persephone. I want the story to appeal to a universal audience, but I would like that extra kick in there for those who do know the myth. So far I know that the birds need to be designed so that they clearly read as mother and daughter. People may mistake the frolicking and the hearts at the beginning to be the dance of a male and female couple; but I couldn't think of any other way to quickly establish that they were close, and needed each other in that mother-dependent way.
Comments and suggestions very much appreciated.

...And in the evening it's girls

2007-01-14T03:54:00.000-04:00

I sketched this out during the break and half coloured it, and just finished it today. I had been looking at lots of Katsuya Terada (character designer for Blood: The Last Vampire) women at the time.

Studio10: Ever since our Original Reel, many members felt that the story needed more work, myself included. I thought the pacing was much too fast and flat, and it was already 2 and a half minutes! After our first 2nd semester meeting, I decided that I'd quickly reboard the entire story, with my main goal of slicing off as much time as possible, while keeping the story intact. I knew that my ideas would have much more weight if they were presented in a complete, timed out reel that made sense, instead of tossing about words in a meeting.
Now we begin with the viewfinder sequence , which we had been talking about before. This act probably saved the most time.

Here are my tiny rough boards, followed by the animatic:

I did change the magic toothbrush a bit - this time the rotten fairy comes in as the Kid is reaching, but this surprises him and he loses his balance, and the toothbrush comes tumbling down with him. And instead of the deus ex machina floating brush, I went back to the magically enhanced toothbrush. The coloured glow is supposed to indicate that the Tooth Fairy is secretly helping him. It's kinda the same.......but it feels better to me. Maybe the Holy Toothbrush will be changed again....

Finally.....[I had a video but YouTube has been crackin' down....lots of things (tv segments, music vids) are being removed]

Semester's End: Maybe Time For An Update

2006-12-16T23:15:00.000-04:00

Yeah I knew that this would happen when I started by own blog - I would barely update. So sorry. I'm not the type that uploads everything that I do, because 1) I don't do stuff that often and 2) When I do actually produce art, I'm not sure I want to show it to the world, or to the 1 or 2 people that have seen my blog.

So in chronological order, some stuff:

This is my personal variation on the Tooth Fairy Revolt story. Early on (when we switched from the Jack and the Mean Stalk idea), we had each member do a variation on the story and see what we could come up with. Oh how things have changed.....

This is a simple piece I did for layout, and I was being inspired by Tadahiro Uesugi at the time.
It was kinda tough to try to emulate PURE AWESOMENESS.
(soft pastel and coloured pencil)

Next up are 2 layouts that I coloured in about 3 hours (which is fast for me), and my first time using the polygonal tool to block out and colour everything. Kinda fun.

The cool llama that I drew at the royal winter fair.....I kinda messed him up since I was drawing really close:

And some obligatory sheep (I decided to skip pigs this year):

This was my first time using watercolour to add to life drawing, and it was pretty fun.

Now for some animation:
Gangsta walk cycle

Railing Jump

Weee X-Wing

Your Mother Was A Hamster

Volley Dive

If you don't mind waiting to download 25mb, I put a high-quality version of my 1.22 second animation here:
Volley Dive (high-quality)

Thanks for looking if you've gotten this far -

See you next mission

2 more weeks plz

2006-09-10T19:43:00.000-03:00

I said I would animate something before summer's end, and I just finished uploading it to YouTube:

After the Stop Requested business, I had the idea of a character going thru some expressions as she thought over a difficult test. I started to key it, but the more I did the less I liked looking at the character and I was unsure I'd be able to finish it. So that got scrapped, and I moved to the walk cycle + short action. This new project moved a lot faster, probably because the 16 drawing cycle didn't scare me and I had help from the Survival Guide.
I also decided to scan in all my drawings to see how much better they would look. I would have liked to colour it, but cleanup is horribly boring (I drew it pretty clean anyway) and the colour part, which I have no idea how to do, seems like it would have added 2 more days.

The whole thing, from the quick character sketch to today, took 8 days. Some days I was extremely lazy and produced 2-4 drawings. It should also be noted that the design of the abandoned test girl and this french maid were inspired by Shane Glines. If you check his portfolio you'll probably spot the page that inspired my character. He's got a gift for drawing lovely, stylized ladies.

So, school tomorrow. yay!

. . .

Fan Expo 2006

2006-09-07T06:44:00.000-03:00

Went last Saturday with a friend, 3rd year attending. We mainly go for the Anime, but I think it's cool that they squish comics, anime, horror, sci-fi, and gaming (though they could use more of the video gaming instead of the card games and warhammer stuff) into one massive con. This makes for a much more interesting shopping experience in the dealer's area, instead of just anime all over. I wonder if it's like that at Anime North.

Compared to previous years, I did not like the move deeper into the convention centre. It's such a long trek to the actual area......it may be bigger this year, but I liked being able to quickly go outside for a break or to get something to eat. This year it's a trap to make you pay terrible prices for their special convention food. I got fewer pics of cool cosplayers too since they were spread out more over several floors; there didn't seem to be a definite gathering place for them. Plus: no windows = more depressing

Still a fun experience and an easy way to waste lots of money (I could have spent so much more @ The Labyrinth, but I held back). Here are my pictures: Cosplay @ Fan Expo 2006

3 Sweet Game Openings

2006-08-31T19:18:00.000-03:00

I recently picked up a ps2 game called Onimusha 3 for $10 from a bargain bin - the game is pretty fun, but something must be said for the amazing opening cgi. It is definitely the most technically stunning cutscene I've ever seen in a game. If someone knows of a better one, please let me know:

I believe this opening is just a few notches below The Animatrix's Final Flight of the Osiris. I heard it took a year to make, too. This YouTube version does not do it justice at all, so here's a better quality link if you're interested:
Onimusha 3 Opening @ Gametrailers.com

This got me thinking of other notable opening sequences from video games. I immediately thought of Final Fantasy VIII's opening, since it's still my favourite:

This one may pale in comparison to the two others here but 7 years ago when this game first came out, I don't think it had any competition. And 7 years later, the game's cinematics are still attractive.

Took me a bit longer to think of a 3rd awesome opening, but I think Soul Calibur III's opening deserves mention.

Again, a better quality version exists:
Soul Calibur III Opening @ Gametrailers.com

The next-gen consoles (excluding the Wii) can almost imitate these cinematics in real time, so it should be interesting to see what they can come up with.

G2 Exit test

2006-08-29T19:34:00.000-03:00

Yay I passed, I finally have a G license. I waited far too long to take this test, so long that I took my first G2 exit test on the expiry date of my license. And I failed it. Luckily they allowed me to book a following test, and gave me a temporary license until that point. The downside was that if I failed today's test.....I would have had to start over from the beginning - written test, g1, g2, g2 exit. So the pressure was ON, and I passed! ohh man starting over.....it makes me die a little inside thinking about it.

Stop Requested

2006-08-29T00:01:00.000-03:00

Back at the end of last semester, when I was happy about the school year ending and somewhat ambitious for the summer, I thought I'd crack down and make a short animation, with a story, and colour it. BIG project, but I had all summer to do it, right? Well it didn't help that I wasted like the 1st month or so just unwinding and doing nothing, and then it REALLY didn't help when I started working again, 'cause after a 8 hour shift at work, its kinda hard to do anything but laze around.

In those small intervals of time that I wasn't lazing around and playing video games, I was thinking up a story that would be simple enough to animate over the summer. I didn't "work" on the story too much, I was kinda brainstorming in my head for a while, and then one day I sketched this rough storyboard out:

That done, I moved on to designing the characters, trying to keep it simple, as I would have to animate and colour them (lol). I did up model sheets for the two characters (this was a while ago, maybe in June?), so just in case the youtube scribbles don't make sense, try imagining with these:

Some expr essions:

So, around this time (Julyish), I finally realized that the story was too long, and it would be impossible to complete unless I quit work and did nothing but work on this for the rest of the summer. So I kinda dropped the idea, until recently - I decided to at least finalize the idea in animatic form, since I had also done better boards than the first ones. So that's the story.

Finally - I don't think the animatic flows very well....it could use more drawings, perhaps some limited animation to help sell the idea. Instead of doing that, I've included a little "pitch" of the story, so you should have a good idea of what I wanted to see:
------------------
Stop Requested

guy is Sorrel, girl is Mint (named for fun)

Guy sitting on a bus, reading.
flips a page.
cut to medium close up of him reading.
He shifts due to the bus braking to pick up passengers.
He takes a quick glance to see passengers getting on.
Double take - something catches his eye.
POV of 'Sorrel': That thing is a girl. Track her as she sits across from him.
She meets his gaze and smiles.
Cut to Sorrel, stunned.
He nervously returns a stiff smile and averts his eyes back to his book.
He takes quick glances upward with his eyes and can tell that she is still looking at him.
So, he decides to hide. He slowly lifts the book to hide his face, as if all were normal.
POV Sorrel: The book continues to move upwards, covering his face, 'Mint' still smiling in the BG.
The book now covers the screen, shaking nervously.
A finger slips in...
And pulls down the book.....it's her, giving a sultry look.
She bites her lip as she slowly pulls her finger off the book-
The book pops up a bit since he's holding it so tightly.
She then stands up, Sorrel's POV tracking. She moves to his left...
Cut to seats view - she sits down next to him.
She smiles at him again.
He turns his head down to his book, still nervous and stiff.
She snuggles up closer to him, and pokes her head down towards his book with a curious look.
When her head enters Sorrel's view, he pulls back with surprise.
Sorrel's POV again: her head inches towards the book,
and then she turns and looks up at him, with an innocent, wanting look.
Cut to seats view - Sorrel is frozen for a few seconds. Then....
Mint begins to move closer to his face, and Sorrel tries to slowly back out more, but he's reached the limit...
extreme close (eyes) up of Mint moving closer to Sorrel's frightened face....
another extreme close up of their mouths, getting very close, Sorrel's lips trembling...
Cut to black - *Bus bell rings*
Close up of Sorrel sleeping
Quick pan out as he jolts awake from the bell.
He looks around to get his surroundings.
(POV)He sees at the front of the bus the stop requested sign is red, thus someone rang the bell to get off.
Pan right, and Mint walks into view to wait at the side exit. She was the one who pulled it.
She notices that he's looking at her, and innocently smiles back again.
cut back to medium shot of Sorrel as SFX indicate that Mint has disembarked and the bus continues.
As Sorrel continues to look in her direction, he puts together what has happened.
He slowly turns his head forward,
And lets out a big sigh, head hung in shame and embarrassment.
Head still hung low, he reaches up to pull the bell for his stop.
Cut to black on SFX ding
Credits
---------------

Comments/critique welcome, thanks for reading, etc. I want to animate something before summer's out, and I'm working on a new (very short) idea at the moment.

Interesting work note: 95% of the animatic boards and the expressions were done with free time @ work.

Blogorrific

2006-08-27T02:32:00.000-03:00

Here I am, sucked into the blog world. I'm not much of a blogger, and not much of an artist, so my posts will be few and far between. But I will try! To start off, something old: The Crane's Lament, the animatic with animation that I worked on in the last 2 semesters.