Sketch on a napkin

Blog is moved

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:39:00 +0000

To janvanderzee.com
Got myself a website!

Maybe poster

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Fri, 08 May 2009 00:04:00 +0000

Well, just maybe. Haven't decided if it is finished just yet.

somethin else

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Sun, 03 May 2009 14:13:00 +0000

Yesterday I spent some time painting again at a friends workspace/studio. He had a pretty cool picture of Theo van Gogh hanging on one of the walls. It was a black and white picture, so I stayed monochromatic as well. I'm quite happy with the result. I should do this more often.

Cheers!

'nother scene coloured

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:23:00 +0000

Hey,

Still doing bits and pieces here and there. Some scenes need more inbetweens and eventually colour. The colouring does not dissapoint me in terms of time. Per scene, a day or two. Animating and planning takes more time.
The following scene only had a "backbone", no facial expressions and there would be a silhouet sliding along in the forground.
In this scene the boy is in the house, ready to free his pluche friend from the pit he was thrown in. There is something/somebody in the house and the boy does not want to get caught. Glued to the wall he waits to start his rescue-mission, as a shadow slides over him.

New scene

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:16:00 +0000

The following scene has undergone a continuity-make over.

The old situation was this:

Following his pluche friend up in the air.

From

To

I was having doubts about the continuity: fast up in the air to slow down immediately. The clip below shows/feels better: fast up, a little more and then slow down.

And I just love these kind of perspectives :)
Thanks for watching!

See ya

Train keeps a rollin

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 13:08:00 +0000

It has been a month already? Don't worry I've been busy. I have uploaded a rough version of the entire animation. Some bits missing, some bits flashing here and there.

Please tell me it's flowing or blowing.
I also have started posting on the conceptart forums, where I got good critisism. I posted this coloured part

Following this part, the characters pluche friend is rocketing into the air in a nice (my opinion) panning shot. Someone mentioned the part being not visually engaging enough which has me reviewing all of the scene's. Just to check i I am able to spot visual un-enaging shots. I must admit that I'm not yet fully trained in this and can't say I can spot them easily. Probably because I'm biased.
That's why it's so good to ask others than yourself. I've been working on this for months and was in need of some fresh eyes on the animated short.
I am in doubt wether or not to shake the whole thing up and make the suggested correction.
Someone suggested to have a point-of-view of the pluche animal, whilst being swayed around. I like that, but that's breaking the whole thing up. Should I do it now or first graduate and then do it? Should I do it at all.. Doubt, doubt, doubt...
Until next time!

New ruff

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 10:10:00 +0000

Sssshhhhh....there he goes.. sneaking in ......but oh noes!

Character sheet and a ruff test

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:12:00 +0000

Hi,
Working hard at animating, so took no time to post. Here's an update:
I needed to design the "threat-turning-into-comfort" figure that appears in the storyboard. It's the boy's lovely old neighbour.
Fat and happy, as they need to be :d I had been having trouble finding the right face for her. Some really awful attempts..
Luckily I came in harmony with the style chosen for the boy, so in that length I went on and came up with these:

Ruff test of a flying scene:

Onto my digital pegs, again! See ya!

And some more!

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:20:00 +0000

Hey,

Been pretty busy with the backgrounds. Here's another bunch of them.
I have a couple of backgrounds left to make, but I'm kinda stuck on them. From the storyboardframes where the toy-boat and pluche are taking off to the skies. I'd like them to be dreamy so maybe I'll try some pastellish stuff. Don't know yet.
The majority of backgrounds are finished so it's time to put them behind eachother and time the animation, trying to act out the scenes. No there won't be any videomaterial available of that. :-)

In the meantime I'm improving my drafting skills so I'm doing figure drawings. Haven't taken the time yet to scan them in, but I will. I'm really determined to get the skills down, cause there's so much room for improvement. Soon a figure drawing course will start in my hometown, which I will be attending. Looking forward to that!

More backgrounds

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:05:00 +0000

Here's two more I created after my last blogdump.

The size of the last one is 3200 pixels wide and 1800 high. I'm using it for a zoom-out shot, as seen in the moving storyboard. In Toon Boom I can make use of the 3d camerasystem and have this image pull back from the lift-off-to-flight-character in the foreground. This image took most of my time, because of the scenery. It has to look like people are living their lives in it, so I kept adding details. I'm letting it go for now, cause I've been starig at it too much!
Time for a different palet now, as we go indoors and slightly creepy. Stay tuned! Oh and dear readers: please kick me in the head with corrections, comments or other useful things!

Lay out

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:13:00 +0000

So the story is taking place in a normal Dutch middle class neighbourhood. It's about a little boy, playing and imagining he can fly with his pluche friend. Pluche gets kidnapped by a strange creature and is thrown in a dark pit. The boy tries to save him. The dark pit turns out less imaginative: it's the washing machine and it starts to move. A threathening shadow looms over the boy and he starts to make a run for it. The nearest closet looks like the perfect hideaway, but the evil shadow follows and is getting very close to the little boy. Screeching and scratching noises are shaking him with fear which gives him away to the dark figure. CLICK!! On switches the light! As the hands before his eyes lower to see what this is all about, he is happily surprised to find out that the dark figure is the sweet old babysitter from across the street, holding a jar of candy.

Google Sketchup helps me make the background lay-outs. In photoshop I use a mix of Paths, colours and brushes to create the right mood or picture actually, provided by my storyboard. I'm doing it this way so the shapes and forms stay sharp. Painting sharp like that is not something i'm capable of and I think it has a nice aesthetic. The inspiration for this style comes from everything really, but more notably from the golden gems. I'm trying to create something of my own based on what is done before. I think that you have to respect what is done before and learn from that. First learn, then play with it.

I have already shown the intro-panning-shot. Here are the rest of the backgrounds/layouts i've produced so far.

Now I'm not really happy with the last one.. I'm trying to show more than the storyboard panel suggests and I thought that was for better clarity. I'm not sure anymore. Maybe I'll just crop it like the storyboard. Suggestions?

Pan-shot

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:50:00 +0000

As of now I've begun animating the scenes. I'm thinking of starting the animation with this panning-shot. Google's SketchUp was used to help me with perspective.

Storyboard

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:36:00 +0000

This is my latest and probably final moving storyboard. I'm working on layouts now, so maybe some camera angles will be changed. I don't think it will affect the timing.

Storyboard

Now the old story didn't really tell anything. Maybe just an observation of a child and it's imagination. So I took the interesting bits and twisted and shifted and added some new drawings to make up a story from beginning to end.
I think the new story flows much better and actully tells something.

Concept speedy

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 09:33:00 +0000

Continuing the search for a nice mood, I came up with this speedpainting. Just trying :-) Now back to the storyboard for my animation. It needs some serious clarifying. Sigh... me and my sketchyness.

Character

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:54:00 +0000

Today I've been playing around with the main character for my upcoming animation. Here's some style exploration. I might go for a combination of drawn and vector. Can't decide yet :)

Illustrationlike

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:16:00 +0000

I wanted to try something different. The following image conjured itself. Some James Jean influences (lightyears behind his finesse, ofcourse) swam in my head and a guy I know that plays flamenco style guitar.. yes then you could get something like this. Anyhoo, it was a fun ride.

Style exploration

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:03:00 +0000

Here is some style-exploration for my graduanimation. I kinda like the vector work. Simplistic but powerful when your colors are working. Some earlier attempts with gouache failed miserably. Very muddy and time consuming.

More soon, 'cause I've also been working on the storyboard. Hopefully I can finish and show some later this week.
Cheers.

Gouache doodle

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:40:00 +0000

Recently I bought some Gouache from the kid's section of Ikea. As cheap as it comes :) but that doesn't matter. Paint is paint.
Today I wanted to doodle around with the stuff. I tried to do a version of the character Nobody Owens, from "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman. Ofcourse it isn't badass like Dave mcKean's but for the sake of doodlin... it's ok I guess.
Doodlidoo:

Tim

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:53:00 +0000

Turned uncle again this year! My brother and his girlfriend got the beautiful Tim and this is him in acrylics on cardboard.
Wonderful, you guys!

Character doodles

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 08:54:00 +0000

I've been thinking of doing an animation for graduation. I think it can bring lots of elements of picture making together. You've got backgrounds, characters, story, composition, color, timing, action etc. Lot's of cool stuff to get into.
This way I hope to find strengths and weaknesses and focus on those points. Hopefully I will find my way to go after graduation and into the world of the working class. Here's practising cute design and poses and such:

Which evolved into:

Some extra poses:

I will come back to the design because there is not a lot of design going on: generic clothes, proportions. It would be interesting to change the figure according to personality, age and environment and so on to try and get a decent design.

Walk cycle test

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:57:00 +0000

Hey,

Been caught up in school demands. To be able to graduate I must complete the task of research and statistics..
My favorites....
Well, I haven't sat still because of it and tried my hand on some animation. Two years ago I bought "The animators survival kit" which is a great book written by Richard Williams. Yeah the one who directed the animation on "Who framed Roger Rabbit".
I drew a somewhat generic ghostlike character a while ago and decided to let him walk on my screen. Now i'm not the cleanest when it comes to drawing, so forgive me for the sloppiness, but it walks! I've never done a fully drawn walkcycle before. I'm sure it's lacking in a lot of ways: the planning of the walk (one step = 7 frames, 12 fps), it could be cleaner etc., but it's a humble test.

Basics

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:06:00 +0000

On to some Loomis studies. I had the pdf right in front of me and still manage to fuck up the first drawings by putting the crotch too low so the legs are too short :-)

Later on I had some fun with the stick figures and weight distribution. Pure excercise.

Valente

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:22:00 +0000

Welcome!

She was born yesterday morning at 5.50 am. She's healthy, weighing 7.5 pounds and has already got more hair than me!

Beautiful.

(gefeliciteerd Wytske en Bernard)

Watercolor sketches

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:00:00 +0000

I've got a yogi-man for a present wich makes a pretty cool object to paint from. It's certainly not my best, but hey it's a sketch. I might come back to it from multiple angles.

Next is my kitchen.

Goddess of mail

noreply@blogger.com (Jan van der Zee) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 18:21:00 +0000

She makes sure the mail arrives safely on your doormat. To get painted on..

Aquarel on envelope.