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.

Ty Carter

I was at CTN the weekend before last and had the chance to go a great workshop with Ty Carter about becoming a professional student.  He's having a Holiday Giveaway contest right now, so if you're interested in art or animation or just awesome stuff in general you should check it out!

Slothy goodness.

I have been slightly obsessed with sloths lately.  I have my good friend Catherine to thank for that.  She sent me a video of a baby sloth, and I was overcome by how incredibly weird and adorable these little creatures were.  It was Catherine's birthday last month, so I decided that I would make her a sloth of her very own!

I started off with a couple of sketches





And then made the body out of felt





And gave it a wire skeleton so that the legs would be posable.



I covered the toes in fun foam and then made the legs out of felt and attached them



I sewed everything together, stuffed him up a little and gave him a friendly little face.







I got my mom to hold up a paper towel roll branch for him to hang off of.  She was also enjoying a caramel apple sucker...

Schoolism Week 6

In Week 6 we learned all about custom brushes and how to make them.  We covered general painting/sketching brushes, photo brushes, texture brushes, effect brushes and stamp brushes.



I had always wondered how people created their own brushes and got certain effects in their work, so I was really glad that we got to learn how to make our own custom brushes. I also really enjoyed seeing all of the different ways that you can use them to get awesome effects.  I think that for where I am right now in my digital painting I will mostly just be using the basic brushes though.