PROJECT DUMP

I'm really behind on posting about my projects, so here's a PROJECT DUMP. (Meant to be said in the manliest of voices)

Pita

My sister commissioned me to paint a picture of her friends dog Pita who had recently passed away, to give to her as a birthday present.  She asked that it be done in the same style that I did the three paintings of our dogs.

Kevin 2

I had posted my Kevin costume on a home-made costumes website a few years ago, and in September I received an email asking if I still had it, and if I would be willing to sell it.  I was extremely excited that someone actually wanted to buy something that I had made, and it was someone who wasn't related to me!   The costume was for her young daughter though, and the Kevin head that I had made for myself was very large, awkward and heavy.  I made a new head for the costume that was slightly smaller and made out of lighter materials.  I had learned a lot while making the original head, and was able to improve on the new one quite a bit.

The new head (left) and old head (right)

I painted the beak so that it had more of a natural looking gradient than the older one, and gave it's eye's highlights to give it a bit more life.

I fixed up the body as well.  It originally had a cardboard box inside of it to make it look bigger, but that made it super difficult to move in and almost impossible to ship anywhere.  I luckily had some of the blue fabric left over, and sewed it inside, stuffing it and cutting arms holes to make it into a sort of feathery vest.

DQ Cat

One of our managers had been away for a couple of months, and to welcome him back a friend of mine had suggested that everyone give him the gift of cat pictures.  I luckily had a large picture of a kitten just lying around....so I suited it up in the proper DQ attire and added a lovely cat pun.  I ended up being the only one to bring a cat picture, because no one else was ridiculous enough to take the note seriously...My manager really enjoyed it though! :)

Lucky's Birthday Present

My friend Shawna, the same friend who suggested that we bring my manager cat pictures, also requested that we give her dog Lucky a birthday present.  Shawna is a HUGE Harry Potter fan, so I made a tiny Gryffindor scarf and an owl for her dog.  She was very pleased. 

Birthday gift for my Mom

My mom loves both Tinkerbell and her dog, so I decided to make her a paper piece with both of those things!

You can see our other two dogs in the background as well.  Amigo is chasing his favorite carrot toy.

Giraffe Jousting

It was recently my friend Joe's birthday, and last year for his birthday I drew a picture of him giraffe jousting.  I finally got around to coloring it, and here it is!

 

Happy 2013! Also, CTN!

Happy 2013!  I've really been neglecting my posting lately, and I have a lot of stuff to throw up here!  First of all, I got my Schoolism certificate in the mail!  It's tiny and I love it.

I also went to CTN in November, so here are a bunch of pictures of that.

I got to go to a pre-screening of Rise of the Guardians at Dreamworks Animation Studios!  It was on Thursday Nov 15th and it was incredibly cool to actually see the studio.  I only got to see part of the outside and the lobby/screening room but it was still awesome.

Po and I brushed up on our Kung Fu.

I got to see/meet a bunch of people that I incredibly admire including the super talented Andreas Deja (with the voice of Anita from 101 Dalmations, Lisa Davis).

The lovely Brittany Lee!  She did a demo on her paper cut technique which I was super excited about.

And Ruben Aquino!  I was extremely excited to meet him and to watch him sketch some of the characters that he animated.  He was the lead on Ursula from the Little Mermaid, who is one of my favorite animated characters of all time.

The fabulous Ursula!

Shang from Mulan.

Pleakley from Lilo and Stitch.

Simba!!!

Cheif Powhatan from Pocahontas.

I also got to go to an amazingly inspiring panel with Glen Keane.  He talked about his career and showed us his pencil test of Part of Your World, which is probably my favorite animated scene ever.  It was definitely the highlight of the weekend and a hugely exciting moment for me.  I didn't get to actually meet Glen unfortunately, but I definitely hope to someday!

Another highlight of the weekend was going to a 'creator conversation' with Tom and Tony Bancroft.  They are twin brothers who both worked at Disney during the second golden age of animation.  Tom was the supervising animator on Mushu in Mulan and worked on Young Simba, Iago and Pocahontas among other other characters.  Tony co-directed Mulan and was the supervising animator on Pumbaa and Kronk, as well as working on other characters.  It was really cool to hear their stories about Disney and how they got to where they are today.  I also bought a copy of Tom's book and a sketch from both of them.



There was a ton of cool stuff to see at CTN, I got to go to panels about Hotel Transelvania, meet a ton of great artists and some fellow AM students, get my reel critiques by Jason Ryan and a Disney animator, and spent a lot of money on art prints.

They had the actual Fix it Felix games from Wreck it Ralph there.  It was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

The Pizza Planet Truck also showed up!

And what better way to wrap up an amazing weekend, than breakfast off of the Hobbit menu. :)

Schoolism Week 8

In week 8, our assignment was to combine everything that we had learned over the past few weeks into a full illustration.  We were encouraged to use one of our thumbnails from week 7, but I didn't really like how the backgrounds in my thumbnails turned out.  Instead I decided to do an illustration of an idea that I had last Christmas for a picture for my sister.  She's a big fan of the show Spartacus and anything gladiator related, so I decided to make a slightly more festive version of that by using gingerbread men.  I was a little strapped for time this last week, because I was out of town for CTN but I got as much done as I could.  I generally like how it turned out, but it could still use a lot of polishing.

Schoolism Week 7

For week 7 we had to integrate a character into a background.  We only had to do rough thumbnails of a few different options, mostly to figure out possible colors and lighting.  I wanted to use a new character, so I quickly sketched a french bulldog as a mime.  I like how he turned out, but I still need a lot more practice with lighting.

MAXIMUS.

As seems to be tradition, here is a Halloween post almost 2 months after the fact.  I wasn't sure if I was going to have the time or money to make myself a costume this year, so I didn't start planning one until about a week in advance.  My friend Charli was giving me a bunch of ideas, and she mentioned the 'sassy horse' from Tangled.  Tangled is one of my favorite movies and I decided that 'sassy horse' would be a wonderful costume.

I looked up some reference images of Maximus and did a couple of very rough sketches of the costume, and how it would work.  I look very happy in sketch form.

I built the base of the head out of foam.

And then covered it in felt, made the 'harness' part out of fun foam and found some ping pong balls for the eyes.

So sassy.

The front of the body was made out of white felt and then fun foam for the saddle straps.

I painted all of the embellishments gold.

The saddle was actually the first part of the costume that I made.  I had Murder She Wrote on in the background, which made working on it even more fun!  I made the blanket under the saddle out of felt and then the saddle itself out of fun foam.

I gave Maximus a glorious and luxurious yarn mane.

And painted his eyes.

It was very important that I have a wanted sign for Flynn Rider.

And a little Pascal to keep me company.

I wore it to work and put on my best Maximus face.

It was probably the easiest costume I've worn at work seeing as how it didn't have enormous wings or as 3 foot tall head.  People seemed to enjoy it, even when they didn't know exactly who I was.  I'm pretty sure that a lot of the older customers thought that I was just a very disgruntled horse.

My manager really enjoyed it and whinnied at me throughout the day.