Chucking Rigging out a 13th Story Window With as Much Force as Possible.

So, Google Chrome no longer works on my laptop because my Mac OS is old.  My desktop PC, within the span of 2 weeks, has gone from dust collector to primary computer.

And consistent readers will remember my rant about wallpaper.  Thus, this:

My attempt to take adorable up to 11 while maintaining realistic proportions.

I love Photoshop CS6.

In other news, yesterday I reached an epiphany.  I am not a rigger.  I can model, UV map, and put a bone system in place -- heck, I can even paint weights if I must -- but once I reach setting up a control system for it all, it's grinding hours of frustration.  FK/IK, pole vectors, splines, face rigs, locators, handles... dislike.  Dislike it all with a passion.

And as of yesterday, I am completely ok with that.

So in light of that epiphany, here's what's going to happen.

1. I am going to make a simple skeletal rig for both Butterfly of Doom and Dripbird so I can place them in some other position than a t-pose.  Nothing more.  They will not be animated... in 3D.  (Dripbird lives in 2D now.  He's finally getting to stretch his wings.)
2. I will finish UV mapping the fossa skull.
3. I will finish coloring Butterfly of Doom, Dripbird, and the skull.
4. I will render a video each of charater/object posed on a turntable in both color and occlusion passes.
5. I will post the 3 videos and accompanying stills to my portfolio/vimeo/blog/gallery.
6. All of the above will be completed one at a time so I can get my homework done.
7. I will celebrate when all three are done, take a week off, then go model something new.  Maybe a ninja hamster.

Earworm of the Day: Elements by Lindsey Stirling because you can never have enough dub-step violin. (To be fair, it is a narrow category.  Reaching saturation would be highly unlikely.)

Hands-On

I totally forgot to upload this Monday.  Wow.  I'm scatter-brained.

Matt Owl asks "Am I in the right century?"

In other news, today I applied for my degree conference (did I spell that right?).  If all my records are filled out correctly, and everything administration wise goes right, then an official paper that says "B.A. in Animation" should come by Christmas.  (I hope.)

In the mean time, I have the supreme hilarity of having a Motion Capture class and a Hand-Drawn Animation class back-to-back.  Yes, I go from the most automated form of animation to the most hand-crafted form of animation within the span of 3 hours.  I love my life.

I also love traditional animation.  Here's a bird jumping for an apple:

Earworm of the Day:  Due to my rule of not repeating earworms, I've officially got nothing.  Pick your own catchy tune and jam out to.  Heck, let's make it interactive.  Post your own earworm in the comments (video link is optional).

'Tis My Birthday! Hooray!

Another year older, and life is moving at a pretty fast clip.  Today I worked on a 2D animation of Dripbird jumping for an apple, which I hope to have refined and posted by Wednesday.  I also, finally, purchased an Adobe CS6 package for my PC.  Two weeks from now, I will be creating awesomeness from my own desktop!

Also, my roommate and I teamed up and made cupcakes (from scratch!) and decorated them with icing and chocolate (from the store).

Yay, cupcakes!

 In other news, I was helpful!  I got to help make a prayer network board Willow Chicago is using for its kids' program. I designed the swirly background and mapped out where the colors would go.  The painting and string was by some other super talented person.  I think it turned out great!

It's also upside-down.  But I kind of like it better this way.

Earworm of the Day:  We Got a Dollar (or I Got a Pickle in some versions) from The Little Rascals.  Of course, thanks to NATSU I now have an entirely different (equally catchy) song stuck in my head, but I'll let them have the glory for that.

"I got a birthday.  I got a birthday.  I got a birthday, hey hey hey hey..."

Whatever.

I'm tired.

I was tired enough yesterday morning that I actually tried to use caffeine (in the form of tea) to wake up.  It didn't work.  I was totally off my game for figure drawing class; couldn't hold an image in my head to draw the construction lines.

Despite getting to bed late, I got up early this morning to get to school and accomplish more homework.  I had no energy for heavy brain-work and my philosophy homework is covering skepticism.  I spent ten minutes today scribbling down a poem about how I know I'm not dreaming right now because my dream world is a lot darker and weirder than real-life in mid-day.  If the sky is bright blue, I'm unable to read with my eyes closed, and the architecture of the building hasn't spontaneously changed in the last 15 minutes, odds are good that I'm awake.

Yes, I was making arguments for being awake.  Philosophical Skepticism is twisted enough to make me do that just to keep my sanity.

So I've been cranking out critical thoughts all day with an already exhausted brain, and I can't find anyone to model for my drawing assignment due tomorrow.  It's 7:30pm.  I'm done.  I give up.  I'm going to sit here and do nothing of any importance for the rest of the night and take the late grade for art.  Whatever.  I don't care anymore.

I don't care.

Earworm of the Day: Good Times by Manic Drive because it's been stuck in my head the last couple of days.

And So It Continues...

Fleet the Super Gerbil, boldly running into battle with his trusty... kitchen broom?

I know I said this would be the last "digital sticker style" character I'd make.

But...

Then a friend of suggested I do these guys next...

Galleon and Jacobson: critters from another dimension

Which got me thinking again of characters and poses, and so then I drew this...

A chrono-drive is not nearly as good at telling time as a normal watch.

And it would be a shame not to color it in... .  So it appears I'll be making these for a little while yet.  Hope nobody minds.

Earworm of the Day: The One (I'm Fighting For) by Article One.  I consider this song to be Fleets "theme song".

Wands and Light-boxes: No, This Isn't Hogwarts

I said I'd get it done, and I got it done:

Spitfire:  always a bad idea to get him mad.  Especially when he's armed (or decaffeinated...).

Next I'll do Fleet the Super Gerbil, but after that I'll give this style a rest.  My schedule's filling up now so I better turn my focus back to art projects that will have a grade tacked on.

Today was the first day of the last quarter of school for me.  I'm giddy with excitement; I'm cringing with fear; and I'm all-out stressed about my future and its scheduling.

But it's better than 80% of this summer has been, so I'll take it.

The two classes that met today were Motion Capture and Hand-Drawn Animation.  In motion capture we learned how to calibrate the mocap studio and how sensitive the cameras are to anything reflective.  Like glasses, belt buckles, reflective running shoes.  I swear at one point it was picking up the spiral binding of my notebook; there was a cluster of dots that moved when I did.  It was weird.  But not as weird as calibrating looks.  It involves a reflective ball on the end of a pole and you walk around the stage waving it in figure 8's.  How the computer makes sense of all this, I have no idea.

Hand-Drawn Animation started with the revelation that I already own most of what I need for this class.  Pegbar?  Check.  Hole-punch?  Check.  Stack of paper?  Check.  Richard William's Animator's Survival Kit?  Check.

Light box?

Uh...

So there's always one thing.  But that's nothing compared to my supply list for figure drawing.

Earworm of the Day:  I've had Winter Wrap-Up stuck in my head again, and I hate to repeat myself.  Ooh!  How about the Korra's Main Theme?  Now that's some beautiful background music!

Digital Stickers

So there's this style of drawing/coloring characters, usually chibi versions of characters, that I've been noticing on deviantArt; it involves solid outlines, sharp two-toned shading, and often some sort of flat border around the whole thing to make it look like a sticker.  Often the coloring is textured or water-color-like in some way.  Examples of what I'm babbling about can be found here, here, and here.

Now I rarely attempt to emulate other people's styles.  Sure, I'll gradually incorporate specific techniques as I learn the reasons for them, but going all-out and trying to copy a complete style is not something I try very often.  And really I should because to copy a style one must first understand what goes into the style.  This requires a close examination of another person's artwork.  The end result is learning techniques that were too subtle to notice at first glance.  Coolness comes from the details.

You know how in art class, your teacher always made you stare at master works for, like, ten whole minutes trying to pick apart the color scheme.  Or made you re-draw a da Vinci sketch line-by line?  Or had you try to emulate any other artist's style. This. Is. Why.

I repeat: Coolness is derived from the details you never noticed.

And yes, I only just realized this yesterday.  My apologies; I will now end my rant.

But yeah, that style I mentioned?  I tried it out on Beth:

A sketch, a scanner, a high-texture piece of paper, and 2 ^1/2 hours in Photoshop.  Yup. 

Then I wondered what other characters I could do in this style.  So I drew Spitfire...

My roommate's scanner, have I complained about it enough?  I'm not sure I have.

... and I'm currently in the process of sticker-fying him too.  Maybe I'll be done tonight.  Hard to say.

Earworm of the Day: Shooting Star by Owl City which I listened to while drawing these two images.  Wait, does this mean... *Gasp* I'm turning into an Owl City fan!  Nooooooooooooo!

On second thought, I don't really think there's any way to make me more dorky than I already am... so... I'm immune by virtue of saturation!  That's possible, right?  Right?