Freelance Fun in Flash!

Relient K - Sleigh Ride from gotee on Vimeo.

I recently had the fantastic opportunity to do some freelance Flash animation for the folks at Funnypages Productions (see link at right): former Disney animators Tom Bancroft and Rob Corley, who directed this music video for the Grammy-nominated Christian band Reliant K. Working as part of a small, international production team, we knocked the animation out in about 4 weeks, and it was one of the best projects I've ever worked on: good, clear direction, great team, fun work, and good-lookin' results. I hope everyone enjoys the video as much as we enjoyed making it!

My shots: All of the beginning up until the main bunny's friends first appear, and the later part when he goes PLOP! into the sleigh.

Drawing Dudes

If anyone were to ask me about a particular artistic weak spot, I would have to say drawing dudes is what I find most difficult. The truth is that there just isn't an abundance of male models around, so it can be tricky to get adequate practice drawing a guy's anatomy from life. So much experience drawing women makes my lines too soft and mushy for the the male form, and most of my dudes come out looking like chicks. Based on these recent samples, I still have a long way to go, but at least you can tell it's a guy this time!

New Personal Animation

Work has really picked up (huzzah!), and as it shows no signs of slowing down any time soon, I thought I'd better go ahead and capture this animation, done back in June for the 11-Second Club (but never entered), before I ran out of time. It's got all kinds of fun problems - please ignore the lack of antennae.... I'm going to add the overlapping action later - but I was just excited to finish a fully-animated shot of this length. AND I learned a lot in the process: can't ask for more than that!

More

More gestures and short poses from recent model sessions. All graphite except for the clothed ones. Apparently, I draw slower and a little less fluidly with graphite than with conte. Will probably try a few other media to see how results differ with those - especially ink pen and brush. Any and all feedback or advice is welcome!!!

Some Old Portraits

These are pastel portraits completed in the Fall of 2005, when I was studying in France. They were photographed in less-than-ideal conditions to record the moment rather than the art, and as the originals belong to the sitters and are not available for scanning, the image-quality is pretty iffy. I learned this method of speedy portraiture while working at Hersheypark the preceding Summer. Kinda makes me want to get back into pastels, to see what else they can do.

More Figure Sessions

Please view at least the gestures large. These are all from ASIFA-Atlanta's weekly model session, gestures 30sec-1min and short pose 15min. Enjoy!

Anatomy from Imagination, Take 1

Just a quick image of my first serious attempt to apply all this figure drawing I've been doing, drawing relatively convincing anatomy without any reference. Thing is, I got so caught up in trying to get the anatomy right that I forgot some of my animation training: I only realized after the fact that if she's lunging on her left leg, she would be whipping with her right arm. Whoops. The whip is not meant to denote any particular detail of character, just the prop that came to mind when I was casting about for an action pose. More soon!

New Drawings!


Right. So I sorta fell off the face of the earth. I have no legitimate excuse other than that I simply haven't had a break in work (which is a GOOD THING) since my last post. That, and a lot of my new art got swallowed up by the exquisite abyss that is Deviant Art. For any skeptics out there, it's not just horrid anime drawn by 12-year-olds, there's actually some mind-bogglingly impressive artwork on there. Being a part of the Deviant community is.... humbling, to say the least. Not that I'm on an ego-trip, anyhow - it's taken me this long to start studying art and drawing again, and as I'm extremely rusty, the results have been downright painful. Fortunately, I'm sticking with it, so there has been a bit of improvement. Here are some samples from the latest figure drawing sessions I've attended: