Christmas Project

Its been too long. I've been missing drawing and animating, so I'm going to get back at it.

 This project started as a little joke that got started in my family. My mother isn't the biggest fan of the holidays, in fact she's really like a Grinch. I've been wanting to do a Christmas picture or something like that, and drawing my mom as a Grinch was pretty fun. I'll probably end up coloring and inking this picture.

Finished Anniversary Pic

Ok, my life got a bit hectic for a while there, but I managed to finally finish at least one of my projects. I'm really pleased with the way this turned out:

Here are the reference and work in progress pictures:

Update time

I wanted to post an update on something since its been a while. I'm still working on my flapper, the progress is slow because of my lack of time to do it, but its coming along nicely. I'll post an update of that when I make a little more progress. For now I'll post a picture of the logo I'm working on for my website.

I came up with this:

I think it looks neat, but I'm stuck with how I'll actually use it. I think it would look really neat on a business card

Anniversary Pic-WIP part 1

Still slowly working on my flapper project when I have the time. Everyone once in a while I'll work on other things when I get inspired to do something new. I've been wanting to learn more about illustrator. This technique involves taking a picture and tracing over it with a custom brush to give it a more sketch look. I tried it out with a picture from my anniversary:

 Here's the original:

...and here's the work in progress:

I'm going to go in a tweak some of the lines and add a little color later on. I'm really pleased with it so far.

Flapper Dance Update

Not much of an update, but I'm working on the background for my character. I'm going with her performing on a stage. I'm going to add in some characters playing instruments and the background music much later. Now just to finish the animation itself and clean it up.

51 Great Animation Exercises

The last year I've been really anxious to improve my animation, its something I'm always thinking about. I practically jump at any chance I can to get better. I've been discussing how to do that on the ASIFA group on Linked In. Someone suggested this website to me, and so far its going pretty well.

Animator Island- 51 Great Animation Exercises to Master.

This is a great way for me to revisit the principles of animation and a chance for me to understand them a lot better. This is also great because its an opportunity to just practice and not get too caught up in a project that gets too troublesome later one.

I've done the first to exercises on the list already this week:

1. Ball Bouncing in place, no decay (loop)
2. Ball Bouncing across the screen

I did both of the exercises about 3 or 4 times in a row, every time I thought I was done I would look at it again and start over. Paid more attention to timing and archs. I did some squash and stretch because I think it makes everything look a little more interesting. 

Flapper animation update!

I got to animate this scene a little more tonight and finally got to work on the motion of her dress. So far it isn't a complete disaster but it still needs more work:

Still haven't quite worked out what to do with her other arm, I tried animating her hand resting on her hip, but I didn't like it all that much. I'll keep at it until I find something I like.

 I also found background music that I like for this project. I went with Jazz since it fits the time period, here's the link to it: