Leo's Art and Animation Blog: Graduated and Unemployed

2011-09-17T22:26:00.002+03:00

I did a big comic:

Sorry about not posting here more often.

More adventures in Flat Painting

2010-06-23T13:04:00.000+03:00

I think that this painting is more flat and two dimensional than the last one. This i did with clean brushes, although I noted that the brushes do get dirty if you add wet paint on top of other, although the fallout is pretty slow. Of course, when you list the pen from the tablet and add more paint, the process repeats itself.

I've also been trying to use the Palette knife to add a bit of shading, by just adding a drop of darker shade of paint to the excising base color.

I'll do more of these later on, when i find the inspiration to do so.

Another Mickey Mouse interpitation

2010-05-31T22:07:00.000+03:00

I was doing some painting again, as i wanted to see what it would be like to use normal brushes with ArtRAge, that auto clean themselves. I like the look of dirty paint and i like how it mixes with the wet paint and creates this new things on the canvas.

I started with the head, thinking i'd just do a silhouette of Mickey's Head, and then leave it at that. Then i started to think "what if i drew the whole body black, and then add colour on top of those painted parts?"

I think that this is pretty scary looking, but there's something about it that i really like

3 Stages: Director's Own

2010-05-25T21:20:00.000+03:00

Thought I'd do One more. This one has the car rasterized, then proved to be a rather enjoyable mask. I like it, even if other people don't.

And if anything else, it makes the 3 STages thing, 3. Heh.

3 Stages: Deluxe edition

2010-05-25T21:00:00.000+03:00

Well, this is the better version...Some might say, the more artistic version of the last one.

Think of the last one as a sketch and this as the finished product.

3 Stages of Traffic Lights

2010-05-25T20:46:00.000+03:00

This idea came to me whilst i was walking around in the city today. I started to think about cars and their relationship with the traffic lights. I know that the lights are designed to allow the cars and the people walking around the equal opportunity to use the roads as they want. but it got me thinking that the cars are always within 3 different stages: Waiting, Anticipating and Going.

As i got home, i thought that it would be pretty neat to do the colours as an oil paint background, and then use the marker pen tool to draw the car. Although this reminds me of something, i'm not really sure what it reminds me of.

Anyway i still think that it's a cool little painting.

Beard Skull

2010-05-07T20:45:00.000+03:00

I got another flash of Inspiration after talking about painting in the previous Post. I fired up ArtRage and started to do something that felt fun doing. The skull is done with a dry brush, with some of the shading inside it done using a really dry brush that got some heft from the surrounding colours.

The crown was done with the uncleanbrush settings, giving in that more blended, dirty look. The beard was done with a glossy brush, with some palette knife used to spread the thing around. Looks ok in my opinion

Trying my hand at painting

2010-05-07T20:22:00.002+03:00

Well life goes on and so does art.

I've bought myself ArtRAge studio, and i must admit, it has rekindled my interest to paint. I might still be using my own style to draw things in, but i feel that the colorus and the technique of the painting really make me feel good.

I love the dirty brush look, and i spent bulk of the time adding just the right ammount of dark green, then spreading it with the brush and with the palette knife. It gives a nice feeling of mixing the colours together.

I do feel that i should at least do the line work on a different layer, but doing so would mean losing some aspects of the dirty colour technique.

i did a comic strip, me

2010-01-08T12:28:00.001+02:00

the original size was something like 3000 times 1000. or vice versa. i think that i scaled it down a bit too much, so it looks wonky. I'll draw another strip and resize the height to 425 pixels. that should be enough to make it clear, and enjoyable to read.

A couple of icons

2010-01-06T12:56:00.001+02:00

I was inspired to paint a few icons for the Facebook and RSS thingies. I did these in artRage, all on one layer. I think that the icons turned out to be pretty good, so good in fact, that you're allowed to use them if you wish to do so, although you'll need to resize them to be a bit smaller yourself.

I do like to use ARtRAge now and again, but i still got to learn to do proper painting with it. I'm angry at myself for not getting the "Yes, this is painted with oils" effect to appear in the pictures i do with artrage. There's been only 1 picture that captured that feel i wanted, but i've also been really really sad to see that i haven't been able to duplicate it...

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T12:33:00.002+02:00

Johnny Smarmy

2009-12-23T22:06:00.001+02:00

I tried to do something, where the facial expression is enlongated and distorted. I realise, that the picture is still really close to my normal rule, but i Think that i managed to create something a bit different. it's actually the last picture of the year!

Off Model Mickey MOuse

2009-11-09T20:31:00.000+02:00

A small thing i did at library, re-draw digitally and coloured. Original Mickey Mouse Copyrighted to Disney.

A small Bear

2009-11-08T21:40:00.000+02:00

John K did a layout picture of Kaspar, the unfriendly bear, to show some princibles behind animation layout, and preparing to do things. This picture is inspired by the layout one, in an effort to see if i could draw something like John K. The head is way too big in proportion to the body, so that's something i need to work on. I should do more construction lessons and layout lessons as John K instructs, which will be made easier after the arrival of the preston blair book

Trying to sketch out the essence of a dog

2009-11-01T16:39:00.003+02:00

I am not a great artist, and it's something i've been meaning to fix. I know that the animators of Disney, who did all the classic shorts and feature lenght stuff, had had training as an artist, be it in art school or somewhere else. These cartoonists had to understand some basic artistic methods, as well as the workings of a human body and ways it could be exaggarated and utilised to make something amusing and funny.

I on the other hand have not had any formal art training. I've been drawing with my own style from the beginning, and i don't really even understand basic things like anatomy, using poses for references, and how the mass of the human body shifts whilst it's in motion.

The picture above is about trying to break down the basic shapes of which eventually should be made into a great looking (abeit a bit cartoony) dog. There are some errors, which I haven't managed to fix, and would greatly appreciate if someone could take that picture and show me where i fail, but also, what things are done correctly. I'd like to become a better artist so i could draw better and eventually do something fantastic looking, either by myself or with some assistance.

Trippy thing

2009-10-27T20:13:00.000+02:00

I've been using Livebrush for a while now, and i've only just begun to start looking at the neat effects brushes that it has. Although i really wish that it would get a zoom tool (yes, it's missing a zoom tool) it's starting to become something i'll really be happy to use, and use even more, once Adobe AIR also supports pressure sensitivity.

So yeah, please enjoy the trippy thing i made.

Trying out Livebrush

2009-10-26T17:42:00.002+02:00

Livebrush is a free Vector Graphics editor built using Flash and Adobe AIR. I've installed it on my mad, and been doing some stuff with it. I really like the fact that the lines get thicker depending on the speed you're drawing with, although some pressure sensitivity would be nice as well.

I really should get Adobe Illustrator, but i hope that Livebrush becomes so good that i won't need it. I'd like to use the Brush tool things in Illustrator to see if i could ink some good things, or not.

Drawin'

2009-10-05T22:23:00.003+03:00

I've been wanting to try to break out from my regular style, with no success. This is one of the more rarer pictures that i'm happy about, that still has that personal flair in it. I've been working in the library, but i still think that i should again devote some time to honing up my skills, maybe take some life drawing classes/books to read, and try to at least draw differently than what i have drawn now...

It's so horrible when you know you should try to improve yourself, but don't know what or how...I'm not a Disney class artist, nor do i want to be, but i still want to be a good animator...

I drew something new

2009-10-01T18:58:00.002+03:00

Today i started work at our local library, where i will be staying for til the rest of the year. I drew this, to glorfy my position, which i thought was funny. Although, i like the idea of people getting roughhanded if they even COUGH at the reading room.

Animatic: On a Boat

2009-09-21T12:57:00.000+03:00

this isn't an animation, per se, but rather, it's an animatic of a sequence that i could animate. I have the original iMovie project saved, although i'd need to find a way to export just the sound from it, splice it up and then try to sync it with drawings using Toon Boom STudio.

The idea came to me whilst walking. I thought that it was funny, and if i wanted to make this, it would've been best to use an animatic a.k.a. Illustrated Radio technique to do it. It was done really quickly, and shared to YouTube via the sharing function built in to th latest version of iMovie.

I am thinking about doing more of these, that always end on doing something surreal on the boat, or just the punchline being on a boat, like a meme. I'll have to wait until the inspiration strikes again though.

i did a STAREDAD.

2009-09-12T14:49:00.001+03:00

Staredad is staring at you.

Inking Practices

2009-09-10T12:37:00.002+03:00

I got the original from Jim Smith's site. It was an image of drawings he had done for Weekend Pussy Hunt, Big House Blues and Fire dogs. I used Pixelmator (raster based) to do the inks, and i got to say that even though the drawings look a little flat, i think that i'm getting better in using my drawing tablet and controlling the ammount of pressure that i put on it. I also asked Jim to give me some feedback from the inks, and i'll try to ink the things again, once i've head what he has to say.

2009-09-06T20:03:00.002+03:00

I THought that i'd revisit that pesky bouncing ball yet again, only this time i'd add the visible spacing chart that would help me determine the spaces between the ball in each frame. As you can see, it looks pretty good, and i'm very pleased with this.

I know that you aren't really supposed to see the paths of action in these kind of things, but i thought that i wanted to illustrate a good method in determening how big the spaces should be. To a greater effect, i also chose to use Twos, where the bouncing ball slowed down to make it appear even more heavier. All done on a mac, and proud of it

A comic strip that i did

2009-09-06T19:38:00.002+03:00

I thought that i'd use Pixelmator to do a small comic. I didn't sketch it out or anything, drawing it straight ahead, keeping the dialogue within my head.

I'm thinking about doing another small animation with the character from the KAAL animation, using him to do simple animation excercises, in order to hone my skills to actually animating something. The thing is that i've spent a lot of time reading about how stuff is animated, but not actually doing any animating. This is an error that i need to fix, and i'm sure will provide to be of great use in order to get a job. I also understand myself that i am really lazy and that i need to shape up and actually get more stuff done, without actually just theorizing about it.

I understand that i've talked about this before, but i'm in the point where i realise that i need to get more stuff done and make myself visible, before i end up leeching on society and not actually doing anything at all, a prospect that i'm really afraid of.

Yeah.

Another thing i did on the mac

2009-09-05T11:58:00.000+03:00

I did this using pixelMator, and a couple of effects that were done on Quartz Composer. Really cool looking, even if there's no actual message