Animation – Gust Cat

Hello, got my animation done.

This was done over the course of about 3-4 weeks for my animation course. Created using Photoshop, & features a combination of rotoscoping (of myself), key frame, & frame-by-frame drawn animation.

This is my first animation project using a drawing tablet &, despite not having all the scenes I wanted, I’m happy with how this turned out. Unfortunately I don’t have my workbook so I can’t show my process for this (though I could just edit it into this post later if I can be bothered… hmm).

I can’t remember where the sounds came from, only that they’re free. If given more time I would have liked to come up with my own SFX, but I left audio until the hand-in day (I also would have liked to hand-draw everything frame-by-frame to really give this a more dreamy feel). Maybe I’ll do a redux version later.

Anyway, here’s a dream I had:

This was quite fun to do over my break period (even if frame-by-frame drawing does cause my hand to cramp). Maybe I’ll create more animations based on my dreams.

Now to disappear for about 10 weeks again.

Farewell.

Design: Saharasha Part 2

Hello

I think I have my final design for the bird. I ended up basing it heavily on the Blue Jay. As the etymology behind the made-up name refers to a “young gazelle”, I wanted to integrate gazelle features into the bird as well. I even tried to combine hooves & talons, though I’m dubious the feet bear any resemblance to hooves.

Aside from drawing both views crooked, I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. I had real trouble trying to not smudge the drawings (not sure if I should blame my left hand or the habit of writing left to right for this).

Front View

Top View

Random Art: Yeti + Fanfic

Hello

Whilst watching a flatmate play Spelunky, I spontaneously decided to spend 5 minutes writing a mini fanfic about the yetis in the game, followed by a bit of fan art.

Yeti (I have a scanner now, no more shadowy sketches!)

Actually, I’m not sure if I can regard this as ‘fan’ anything since I barely play the game. I can see the appeal of Spelunky & can see myself enjoying it, but it is a skill-based game & I haven’t felt much drive to get good at it (I rarely play side-scrollers). Besides, I already have my own games that serve a similar role (Diablo 1 for randomization & classic Doom for skill-based mastery) & I’ve seen so much of this game that there’s little to discover.

Doesn’t stop me from liking the yeti’s though.

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I’ve been returning to the idea of doing fiction writing, going so far as installing Twine so I can create my own interactive fiction. As expected, my old writing problems resurfaced, thoughts like “how do I make this good/epic/high quality writing?”, “what is my plan for the plot/story/themes?”, “what are my characters like & how would they interact?”, “I’ve never been a competent/experienced fiction writer”, “is there much point in doing this?”, & more that just leave me paralyzed & retreating to Youtube.

A different flatmate suggested I try free associative writing just to get myself writing anything. Forget structure, grammar, or plot, just write literally anything that comes to mind. I must say its kinda worked. It’s made me care less about what I’m writing & has allowed me to find amusement in the writing process, seeing the random crap I belt out.

As an example of what this lead to, read below:

Design: Saharasha Part 1

Hello, I’ve started a new design project.

Whilst the aim of this project is to create a new design for a mythic bird, its so far devolved into doodling random living birds. This is part of the research into coming up with a design I hope would be fairly unique; believable yet intangible (if that even makes sense). Unfortunately I’m going at a snails pace, averaging one doodle every business day. It’s only now that I’ve finished research & will move onto the concept/development portion of the process.

What is Saharasha? Well, some time in late December I… had a dream? More accurately I awoke & could only remember the flashing image of a great bird (like a Roc) with brown feathers & light blue highlights. A name like “Saharasha” stuck in mind. I’m not sure why, but it inspired an idea for a new mythic creature for me; a sort of Phoenix born not from ashes but the waking from a dream.

Random Art: Nietzsche

Hello, more filler sketches.

A friend brought up an idea of doing a philosophical visual novel & he asked me to draw the main character Nietzsche. One buzzy night whilst doodling I complied.

The idea was to try a cartoonish or anime-style depiction of the philosopher. At first I tried to draw him from memory, resulting in what my friend called “Megaman Nietzsche”.  He then showed me a photo & I tried again.

Bottom-left: “Megaman” Nietzsche. Top-right: Crude Nietzsche.

Sometimes you just got to laugh at your own work…

I tried again later in a sober state & did a better job. He also asked me to do a chibi version so…

Left: Anime Nietzsche. Right: Chibi Nietzsche

I like to think Chibi Nietzsche has been gazing into the abyss too long.

Farewell.

Random Art: Space Highway + Dogs

Hello

Just sharing some rough sketches I made during the Christmas period. Apologies if these are hard to distinguish, I drew these during the drive to & from Te Anau so I had to deal with car motions. Cars aren’t the best environment for drawing:

To keep my mind occupied on long drives, I’ve imagined myself flying through an astral highway… yeah it’s weird.

 

Rough sketches of my parent’s dogs.

Cassie, Kenny, & Calder.

Farewell & Happy New Year

Random Art: Samurai Jack

Hello, I’ve been working towards a design for a ‘phoenix-like’ creature, though I’m going through the process slowly. Until then, I though I’d do something quick & drew fan art.

The samurai.

I know this is kinda late, given the final season ended months ago, but I still wanted to pay some homage to a show that I adored.

Study Confirmed, Now What?

I’ve received confirmation that my application for the Bachelor of Communication Design has been successful. I’m basically set to do study next year & hopefully begin a new direction with my life. In the meantime I’ve been doing some odd doodling & thinking about what to do until study begins.

I’m going to start with the first item on my ‘wish-to-do’ list:

• Make drawing, art, & design work a near daily habit.
• Try my hand at pixel art & perhaps go further with digital art.
• Get myself to write encounter scenarios (for like the 40th time!).
• Return to generic world-building.

I imagine that as I complete each piece I’ll make a post about them – beginning with the first page of a new sketchbook.

Some incomplete doodles. Top-left: Me having no idea what to draw… beside an Eevee. Right: A dragon. Bottom-left: “Hades, the world turtle”.

I just wanted to start with random ideas; I’ll focus on single concepts for later pages. Much of what I plan on drawing will be of characters & creatures (both my own concepts & fan-art of existing media), along with the odd scene from a dream. For these “dream scenes” I’d like to try out a more ‘simple’ & ‘cartoony’ art style as I’m tempted to depict them like a comic strip (I may need to do some research & experimentation towards this). As usual, I have a long list of creative ideas.

In short, continuing the art/design bandwagon with more regular posts to be expected, again.

Farewell.

Mini-Project 2 – Card Design

Hello, I’ve gotten my second mini-project done for my application portfolio – an encounter card for a conceptual boardgame. I created this over the span of about twelve days, whilst I was dog-sitting in Te Anau for my parents. It was nice to hang out with three small dogs for a while, but that’s not what this post is about (there is however a weird story I may post about later). Anyway, the card…

A Gryphon encounter card.

The idea for this card stems from an adventure storytelling game idea I’ve mulled around for a long time, & have only now bothered to create something for. Whilst this is meant to serve as an encounter template, I wanted to treat it as an actual card that may appear in the game, so I chose to do a Gryphon (which might have been too ambitious for me).

Mini-Project 1 – Blog Header

Hello, you may have noticed my profile image is different. I felt it was appropriate to have my first mini-project be an update of this. I finally have something more current for my application portfolio!

Since the portfolio requires evidence of a process for a few items, I’ll touch on it a bit here.

Old Header Image

New Header Image