As a way to get ready for my Romeo and Juliet personal project, I started studying how to paint darker skin colors. I first went with copying Childish Gambino's cover from his new album, because the internet, because I've been listening to it recently. Check it out if you have the chance as it really expands beyond the music: he wrote a screenplay (becausetheinter.net), made a short film before the album release, and a bunch of other stuff to make it a more immersive experience.
The semester's finally over! I couldn't be any more proud of myself in finishing my classes and be satisfied of the work I've done throughout.
Along with an amazingly talented crew and a great director, Dave Yee, we finished Dave's short film, Jimmy Loves Juice! Apparently it is the first time that a crew has managed to finish a film within a semester despite doubts that it could not be finished. As one of the background leads, it was definitely an honor and a great learning experience working on this film!!
I've updated this blog a couple of times on my progress within my visual development class. Our last project was Robin Hood set in the California Gold Rush.
For this round, I was set on trying to paint realistically rather than stylized. It's something I never really touched upon digitally, and if I wanted to work for the video games industry (heck, even the film industry), I needed to get my realistic painting skills up. I also set myself the goal on finishing my environments because the last three times, the environments I've done did not get to the level where I could have taken them. Fortunately, we had 2 extra passes for this project and working on my environments taught me various things that I did not pick up on previously.
Over the break, I plan on working on my own personal take of Romeo and Juliet and use my acquired knowledge from this semester to bring out something great!
Third project for class is to create two anthropomorphic animal characters, one captain and one co-pilot for a submarine. I went with ravens, after thinking about different animals that would look out of place underwater, because 1) I never drew anthro birds before, 2) birds would be a great contrast to the underwater setting, and 3) ravens are practically my dad's favorite thing ever so I wanted it to be kind of a homage to him.
Greatest challenge for me was the interior. I had the drawing down but I wish I set in more time than I thought needed to work out the color and lighting. This is something that I hope to fix in the next project and shoot for an actual finish on both the characters and the environment!
Yesterday, I finished my class's second project, Kolkata Food Vendor. I had tons of fun and was definitely challenging. I tried my hand in painting without relying on my line drawing, trying to use edges, saturation, value, and color to get some form. Second lesson I learned is how to push shapes in consideration for character design. I really had a tough time in this part at the first phase but I've come at the end where I just fell in love with drawing my food vendor. There are some issues I still need to fix but they aren't as much compared to my environments! Lastly, biggest lesson of all: I just need to get through developing as fast and as far as I can so I won't have any trouble when it's time to get to the finish.
Here's to the next project, which is super exciting already!!
This semester, I'm taking an intermediate visual development class taught by JP Balmet. Class is super tough and fun, and every minute contains great information. I find it pretty hard to fall asleep in the class even during crits (but we'll see how that goes as the semester rolls on).
We are currently assigned to produce a character design and a final environment painting of one of three Japanese demons: jorogumo (spider woman), raiju (thunder beast), and funayurei (sea ghosts). I chose the raiju. So far, the process for designing this beast made out of lightning has been difficult and caught myself in road blocks many times. That's how it goes, right? After yesterday's class, I can finally see a direction that I can head to, but who knows? There might be detours along the way!
Had a dedicated sketch afternoon today with two friends of mine at a coffee shop. Afterwards, two of us went to a nearby park and did some plein air!!
First is 20 minute black and white study and second is 40 minutes. While painting the last one, I saw a blimp fly by, and later found out it was a Despicable Me Minion blimp. haha
This is the last one I did after two attempts of painting other views (I rushed them and came out bad...)
Just need more and more practice with gouache and painting (digital and traditional). It's never ending lol.
I combined day 8 (do something with your favorite color) and day 9 (draw your favorite cartoon/anime character) together. I like many colors but I went with purple. I like many characters but I went with Vegeta because I was up late and I became nostalgic.
I definitely learned the big difference in edges. I still need more practice under my belt, but that is never-ending. :)
I'm super excited for the stuff lined up during the summer, such as the weekly illustration challenge, a monthly project thing where all areas of the major are being challenged, and the revision of the Three Barking Dachshunds animation.
I knew from the start of this semester that I was going to go in hard by taking both 115 and 117A together, and I mentally prepared myself for a very challenging time. For the first few weeks, I kept my head above water, until spring break (and the weeks afterward) happened, and I found myself trying to get back to the surface.
All in all, I learned and improved so much this semester. Not just about how to tell a story and growing as an artist, but dealing and balancing people.
My 115 Reel, including the final, which was to animate a person sitting.
For 117, our final was a character design project. We had to develop an animal with a food cart. We started the process with doing 100 (or more) thumbnails with just a stream of consciousness and no editing. It's pretty relaxing to do with just a pen, paper, and nothing else to distract you.
In the end, I ended up with a Vietnam War veteran gray wolf selling Asian-Mexican fusion food from his cart that he pulls with a Triumph motorcycle.
I love food and I love to eat it, so I definitely had some fun mixing up different Asian food with Mexican food and what would taste good.
Looking back, there are definitely many things I want to improve on this before I put it on my portfolio, such as redesigning my character so I can have more poses/acting out of him and designing my cart to make it look like it's from the same universe as my character.
Finally getting around to posting most of my 117A Beginning Visual Development projects this semester. Yayyyyy!
This is where I am for now. We're starting a character design project! But first we were assigned to render out a light/street pole that has character on it (like with texture, aging, painted over). I am definitely starting to get how to vary and see my edges in my digital paintings and how it really makes a difference between a hard and soft edge.
A few days ago, my friends and I went to get coffee after an all-nighter. While in line, I noticed that all of us were wearing similar colored pieces of clothing, like some kind of gang. Totally "marooned" on an island of sleep deprivation hahahaha...ha. Later on, I wanted to get a photo of us and the person I kindly asked to take a pic didn't want to because we weren't actually wearing "maroon" lol.
hahaha so I made do and did this instead.
I guess this also counts as Day 8 of the challenge because I consider my A/I friends family. :)
My friend shared a link where there are tons of great shots from various movies posted. I took one shot from Raiders of the Lost Ark and did a study. It took me two hours.
I'm gonna try to at least do a study every day. I'm not gonna make it a resolution but a habit.
