Finished Work! Janelle Monae

So I finally got around to finishing this portrait of Janelle Monae. I've been working on this for a while and I finally got it to a point that I'm happy with it. I could probably work on this forever, but its time to move on to other projects now.

I'm working on new material for an updated version of my portfolio, doing a few illustrations as well as animations and character designs. I think it'll show more examples of the kind of work I can create.

Here's the picture:

Life Drawing: Animals

It has been a little crazy for me in the last few months. I got a new job and have been a little focused on that. During all that I did manage to get in some drawing practice:

More toon boom

I've done a little more work on my creature, I think it looks really neat. I also think I may have finally gotten the hang of working in toon boom, after getting my bearings its not as intimidating as it used to be. It is actually a lot easier for me to draw and color my characters. Animating in toon boom is great too, I'm going to play around with that part today and post what I did, but first here's the progress on my character.

I really like the coloring tools. I'm going to see if I can make him into a cut out, I've already made him in segmented pieces, so it would be neat if I could make him move.

Toon Boom Practice

So I'm learning toon boom now. I've downloaded the PLE version from their website, which is a version that lets you get familiar with program, but doesn't offer the licence. It lets you play around with it without spending all your money first.

So far I really like it. It offers a lot more drawing options than flash. I haven't gotten into the animation part quite yet, but I'm excited to use even more tools.

I'm doing a basic project first, which is a walk cycle. It'll give me a chance to use most of the tools I'd be working with without making it complicated. I designed a character based on one that I drew before:

Here's a sketch of the turnaround:

I took the sketch into Toon Boom and fixed a few of the errors that I saw. I think it looks pretty cute!

Today I'm going to look at a few tutorials for coloring tips and continue to work on a walk cycle that I started a few days ago.

Valentine's Finish Project

After working on it for a few days I finished it, complete with a cheesy line. I showed it to my boyfriend and he really liked it, it was really fun making it too.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Valentine's Day Project

My boyfriend and I have sort of a tradition of making gifts for each other for birthdays and valentine's day. This year I decided to do a valentine's day card with a character that he created. My boyfriend is an active D&D player, so I started from there:

This is a sketch of his character "Olenjack the Axe", he's a thief and all around bad ass. I started with sketches of faces first. Its the first real time I've made a male character in a while, so it was a bit of a challenge for me.

I finally settled on a look for him here:

Janelle WIP part 2

So I think I got the hair to look pretty neat so far, probably going to still mess around with it, but I think its time to coloring and tweaking the face. I already know I'm probably going to redo her nose and probably do something new to the eyes.

Here's my progress: