Long Time No Ramble!

This blog is a little dead, but the kids have all moved on to their Tumblrs and Twitters, as have I!  But I'll always appreciate the ability to go more in depth with art here and try to use it periodically

A lot has changed since the last blog, finished My Pet Shisa, graduated college, moved across the country to California, and became a part time animator for a Youtube group!  And I'm working on a new My Pet Shisa short with the hopes of making it a little series for Youtube.  Meet the newest Shisa addition to the family:

There's really no where yet to include their names, especially because these shorts have no dialogue, but the left one's name is Kyu, and the right one's name is Ryu, if you put them together in the right order, that makes Ryukyu, where Okinawa is!  This whole project started from a love of that place.  Little "easter egg" for any potential blogspot readers out there!  I'm working to promote the new series as much as possible, and as such, I've got some exciting stuff coming

Those prints in the picture are one of those things!  Oh and the plush, good golly, that was such an exciting thing!  Unfortunately he won't be for sale but it was so cool to have a plush of a character I designed made real!!  He was made by Budsies, and I highly recommend them to anyone who wants a plush of their own character/art!  Anyway, I'll have these prints, buttons, and these stickers:

You'd think after working on this as a senior project and devoting a few weeks of my life entirely to it, I'd be sick of it and wanting to move on, but I really enjoy this project and I'm excited to explore new possibilities with it.  I hope audiences will enjoy it too and learn more about the fascinating mythos of the Shisa!

My Pet Shisa Updates

After a busy summer, school has started again, and senior year of all years!  How the time flies... Cool thing is that I'm taking less credit hours than ever before, so I can really focus on my project, and I'm taking a watercolor class!  It's going to be a challenge, but a fun challenge, as I really admire watercolor paintings and I think learning the techniques will be nothing but beneficial!

Anyway, I've been storyboarding my 'lil chicken butt off the past 3-4 weeks and just last night finished off all the boards for My Pet Shisa with a grand total of 210!  I'll be putting the animatic together next week, but in the meantime, here's two sneak peaks of different segments:

I also realized I never posted the character sheets here!  I still don't have the human, I just need to do the action pose, but here's Ryu and the dragon!

So yeah, things are really moving forward!  Next step is backgrounds, then actual animation!  I'm so exciteddd!!

Shisas and Dragons, Oh My!

My senior thesis animation, My Pet Shisa, is really going to get underway for "production" soon.  The "villain" finally has a design and once I settle on one for the human character, I can storyboard and then get going on the actual animation!  It sounds like a long journey, but at the rate I storyboard I can probably get it done in a week or so... Then I'd like to have all the animation done by December, if all goes well!  This is mostly going to be AfterEffects animation, like my Procrastination piece, but with some Flash (and Photoshop-painted-over) bits for when it needs to be more fluid!  

Anyway, the reason for this post was first, to share the image at the top of the post because it's the first really fleshed out promotional piece I've done!  The second is to share some of the design process.  As I mentioned, my dragon "bad guy" recently had his design polished!  So without further ado, some of the journey:

 

The dragon is an evil spirit that manifests from feelings of stress and being overworked, particularly from school work in my story.  Its mane and other "adornments" are made up of the papers and its body is made to look like ink because it first emerges from a desk of books and paper.  Only little Ryukyu, the baby Shisa, can stop it!

I'll certainly be posting more about this story's development and production as it comes!  I'm greatly looking forward to working on this more and I hope that people will find it an enjoyable 'lil animation!

Summer!

Long time no post, yet again!  The past semester was really busy but I also neglected updating here since it's not as active, well, not active at all, but I enjoy the blogging anyway because the tools here are nice haha.  Anyway, it was quite a successful semester I would say!  Three whole animations!  I would specifically like to post about my "Procrastination" project, which, contrary to the name, was the piece I worked the hardest on haha

You can view it above.  It was done mostly with AfterEffects by importing many, many layers of drawings from Photoshop.  A lot of fun and I actually found that this is the way I wanna do my Senior Thesis animation!  But of course, with even more movement and oomph!

 

Anyway, besides that I also did a PSA about my beloved honey bees (along with some classmates, which was a great experience), and a music video for my most favorite musician (it was unofficial of course, but still so cool to work with her music in that way!).  I've also been updating my webcomic Ritzkrieg, had a table at Appleseed Comic Con, and have been developing many other projects for the future!  Not to mention all the doodles along the way!  I can't upload everything I've missed of course, but here are a few of the pieces I've done:

So there's just a brief view of the last few months, and now, onwards to the future! :D  If you want to see my art updates as they happen, check out my Twitter or Tumblr!

Madre D'Agua

In honor of Melody Gardot's birthday, I drew up this little tribute piece inspired by her song "Iemanja" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs2URbQ7k2s ).

Music is so, so, so important to inspiration, and I'm forever grateful I have artists like this I can listen to that inspire me to think and to feel on a deeper level.  I'm still working on it, but someday I wanna make art that can at least come a tiny bit close to being as beautiful as music like Melody's!

Also, since Blogspot allows for a more natural way of posting more pictures and because I know no one will likely see this, I'd like to take a little time to delve into a few of my inspirations between this work, besides the song itself of course!  No piece is created in isolation, research and reference is important!

Unfortunately I couldn't find the full version of the illustration on the left, but this is the general idea.  This is a piece by Chizu Hashii, an artist I've been a fan of for years!  I love the overwhelming purple in this scene and the mood it creates, but also the simplicity.  These are certainly things I had in mind with my illustration, I wanted a limited palette that was simple and quiet in composition.

The gorgeous piece on the right is by Victoria Ying.  I'm fortunate enough to own a print of this, which was an excellent last-minute decision on the last day.  I have it sitting in my room now to be hung up, and since I've done most of my art in my room since we moved, I had it right across from me while I was sketching!  Again there is a simplicity to this and also a brilliant sense of elegance that I was definitely working with on my own illustration.

Other parts of the illustration comes from an instinct about oceanic decor from my many, many trips to Michael's for supplies and general perusing haha! Also, research into the song lyrics...  Iemanja herself is a Goddess in Brazilian culture, she's Queen of the Ocean and the spirit of the moonlight.  This illustration comes both from the factual research and the feeling you get from Melody's lyrics and the mood of the song~ One of the lyrics is "little bitty boats set out on the sea", which is a reference to the offerings the fishermen send out to Iemanja for the New Year.  If you look closely, you might see one :)

Janurary Throwback Thursdays

So I decided earlier on in January to start doing Throwback Thursdays, but instead of posting pictures, I wanted to post old scary artwork!  And instead of just posting the art, I also decided to do quick re-dos of each drawing!  I'm going to try to make this a tradition throughout the whole year and I'll post them by month here on Blogspot (and weekly on Twitter and Tumblr!)

The original is from around 2005-ish I think?  I think it was a fake Pokemon design too

The original on this is likely 2006.  One of my first original characters!  Unfortunately I didn't have much interest in doing original stuff back then!  

The original on this was 2010.  I actually don't like this redraw too much either, humans are still hard for me but I'm much less hesitant to draw them at least!  And I've really really been trying to kick that darn anime style since 2010 basically, I'll get there someday...

Well I'll see you in February!  It's Ritzkrieg's 5th anniversary this year so I'm gonna try to do Ritzkrieg redraws every Thursday if I can!

Benny's Evolution

Well I just made a quick but new reference today for Benny Bantam, my retired 1920s boxing 'toon!  He's going to be modeled and rigged in 3D, which opens up a lot of possibilities if I do it right (my first model and rig was.... interesting to say the least... I'm gonna work really hard to make this one turn out the way I want it)!  Real quick, here's the new ref for me to break up and use with Maya:

But the real reason I wanted to make this post was because doing this got me looking at and thinking about the older pictures of Benny!  While his design is pretty much exactly the same, the stylization has changed quite a bit!  Here's the very first (mildly) "polished" verison of Benny from summer 2013:

By winter 2013, when character sheets were due for this original character tournament, he came to look more like this:

Well lots of doodling later and many, many comic pages, it seems that he has evolved into what he looks like in the very first image!  Sadly I think he has lost some of his 20s cartoon stylization, but drawing him so much has led to me understanding his personality a lot more and drawing him probably more accurate to "who he actually is" as a result!  Seeing those old pieces makes me want to use thicker lines though...

Oh and Happy New Year's by the way!  Whoo 2015!

Christmas Sweater Round-Up!

Ah once again long time no post, I've been on break since about mid-December and, trust me, I've been using that time to almost full advantage (I had a day or two that I just had to sleep, eat, and doodle minimally to be honest ;w; ).  I started an OC sweater project where I designed an ugly Christmas sweater for as many of my original characters as I could, the idea being 1) to have fun and celebrate the holidays, but 2) to design an outfit that says something about the character's personality.  Closer to Christmas, I decided to make it my annual/official big friend gift art too!  It became a photo finish, literally doing the last touches early Christmas day (you know, that 1-4 am time of day that I just love to work the most xD ).  Without further ado, the results!

It was a fun character-exploring project and it always feels wonderful to give back to all my amazing friends this time of year <3  Since I finished this, and a little before actually, I've been working on comic pages for Ritzkrieg chapter 7!  As I type this, I have started page 5, I'm really happy the comic is still going... 

Happy New Year's!  Here's to a year full of art and experience in 2015!

Holly Jolly Silkie

Apologies for the long time with no posting!  It was my intention to make a big 'ole CTN post, probably still will, but school also happened and it was busy... but now I'm off for break so I'll likely be drawing tons and tons more!  First, the illustration this post is titled for:

Because nothing quite says "Merry Christmas" like a silkie chicken right?  Actually, as much as I love chickens myself and might do this anyway, my reason for making this was because my mom is feeling a bit under the weather and she loves silkie chickens, so I thought this might be a nice surprise.

Since the season hit and school started to let up bit by bit, I've been drawing tons, and especially tons of holiday things... Here's a few of those doodles:

If you want to see more recent doodles, head on over to my tumblr http://www.spiffychickenart.tumblr.com or my twitter https://twitter.com/SpiffyChicken1

Happy Holidays!

Hollywood Baby!

Well, CTN sure is getting close!  As I work to build my portfolio up more, I've been working on more concept art for Ritzkrieg.  I may be 6 chapters in, but it's never too late to do visual development!  A lot of the pages were done under a rush and in black and white, so there's a lot of potential for further development and design, which I'm quite excited to explore!

This is the Ritz Theater!  This is the location where our star players, Fredrich and Evalyn, first meet!  It's also a part of the title, so as you can guess, it's a significant location!  The theater itself isn't the biggest in 'ole Hollywood, but it's still a popular choice for premieres.  Its limited seating makes it exclusive for big events, but they happily welcome in 'all the little folks' for regular screenings!  

I got my inspiration from the actual Ritz Theater in Hollywood.  It first opened in 1939 as a newsreel theater (but it wasn't called the "Ritz" until the 80s)!  The version of the Ritz Theater that appears in Ritzkrieg is fictional, so my Ritz is much older, but it just so happens that the story begins in 1939!  Other inspirations for my Ritz come from the Chicago theater and other old movie houses around Los Angeles!  

Next, this is Eva's suitcase and all the non-clothing contents.  This suitcase first appears on the second page of chapter 1, and acts as the physical manifestation of Eva's past.  She hasn't had a consistent home in a long time, so her whole life is right here!  She keeps a frame that holds a picture of her parents, a mysterious locked metal box and key (it looks pretty old too!), and her favorite book that she's had since she was a little girl.  Eva absolutely loves stories, and so she also loves to read!  This particular book is her favorite and was also a gift from her father before he left for Germany.

So that's all for this post!  I have quite a few more environments I want to work through (the bridge, the park, Fredrich's apartment) as well as costume designs (reworking and showing Fred and Eva's outfits from each chapter).  That stuff should be up... soon! :D

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  Try to avoid Gilda though, she's a prankster and you might end up getting your candy stolen or a pumpkin thrown at you!

I've got one more Inktober drawing, then I'll be working to get them scanned in and put together in some form over the following week!

Looks like Chicken!

Whoo, school has been a whirlwind this semester!  Certainly hasn't been much time for those polished digital illustrations, but it's okay because I've been learning a bunch!  First, I'm in a painting class that I absolutely lovee.  I've always wanted to take painting, and I've always needed to!  I'm really learning how to loosen up my art and pay attention to colors and lighting, it's fantastic.  Also, I'm in an advanced computer animation course, so I'm learning to model the characters I make, rig them, then animate 'em.  Also motion graphics!  And outside of classes, a group of us students are still working on the 5 minute animated short we started at the beginning of summer and we hope to have it out there early spring!  Annnddd... Inktober!  I've been keeping up, which makes 21 drawings as of today!  It's been challenging at times because I'm using predetermined themes, some of which push me outside of my comfort zone! This is very, very good, I need that.

The real reason I'm making this blog post is because I wanted to share one of my newest character designs!  This character is potentially for my "senior project" (thankfully still a year away), but I may choose to pursue this project outside of school (in all my free time yanno, hahahaha... ha...)

This is mah girl... She's not really a human, not really a chicken, but based on both things.  Actually, she's a sun drop!  For this short story, the sun sends her to the Earth on a cloudy day to wake up the flowers!  That being said, her personality is bright, cheery, and sweet.  She loves the flowers and everything else the sun touches!  I wanted her design to be like a triangle, so she ended up being an upside down sun ray of sorts!  Everything in the design comes from an abstracted chicken and an abstracted sun!

Here's the full model sheet:

So that's that~  I'll continue to design around this story and we'll see where it goes!