Saturday, November 11, 2017

Reworking the Soul of Hero Triptych Cover

I am working of final portfolio pieces for Graduation at Art Institute of Atlanta. The three part Triptych styled cover will be part of my body of work. I posted this earlier showing my progress. In reviewing the line work there were some anatomical issues.

Reworked line art


Original line art.


The issues are subtle but composition wise they create a much better look. In the original I tried to use composition to cover up my artistic defects and flaws. Such as hands, hair and proportion.

Monday, March 27, 2017

Daysleeper Animatic

Creating the Animatic




I have survived storyboarding class. I enjoyed the class and learned a lot. I think my strong point as an artist is in visual story telling. This semester I learned how to use Adobe After Effects via trial by fire! And the fire was HOT!

I found that when creating storyboards and animatics the process and planning are just as important as the application and execution.  I think that creating a shot list starting with 000 and going to 010, 020,030 ect is the most effective and efficient rout. When translating the script to boards it's easy to miss something and its easy to add it back in if you have at least 10 positions to play with.

Next is setting up the boards. Its best to create each board as an individual Photoshop layered image. Even if the board, is not going to animated or calls for an animatic doing so allows you to add this effect if needed.

Also I learned that SketchUp is your friend. Set design is a snap as well as set animations and walk throughs.


Here is my storyboarding final... enjoy!

Color Study 3/27/17


this is a random color study for facial hue, lighting and shading. I am struggling... I MEAN STRUGGLING with my painting in these areas. I am trying not to sink into a artist depression or block! I look at my classmates and they paint the way I want to be able to. I was able to have a good conversation with my good friend patrick and he let me borrow another book on painting. Patrick is amazing in his understanding of light and shading. I taking some of his concepts, ideas and executing them. I wont quit... Im just a little down right now....

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Ratchet Rapunzel Animatic




It has been a life long dream to make comics, cartoons and animation. I remember times doodling flip books in the corners of my elementary school text books and then making my own flip books. Last year a close childhood friend sent me one he found in storage that I made when I was about 10. I was a cheesy Robotech Mecha fighting off Zentradi Battle pods. But I digress.

I was tasked with creating an story board and Animatic for my StoryBoarding and Animatics class at the Art Institute. The project started with us having to create our own fairy tale with as twist. I chose Rapunzel, not that I particularly liked the story but I thought it would be short and less complicated to tell. Boy was I wrong....

This "Ish" was hard as "uck"! I never made an animated sequence before. I watched enough cartoons and documentaries to understand the concept. And am a supporter of Don Bluth's Dragon's Lair movie so I got a lot of good perks that teach animation techniques. But as for using Adobe AfterEffects... the Art Institute said pretty much "Watch this 5 min You Tube tutorial made by some other student who really cant teach that well but has a good grasp on the concept" After watching said video about 10 times I was both frustrated and discouraged. But Darth Maffett does not quit! so I did what I do... put my nose to the grid stone, pour be a few shots of Whiskey and started at it.

Another challenge was after we got our final story boards approved, the final assignment in A rough Animatic was due 72 hours later. Luckily the instructor gave some extensions. But that really didn't benefit me since I have other classes and other deadlines. So I had to push this one out in 72 hours.

I did learn that I can make animatics but that it takes some time.

My plan is to make future mini issues and plot points in Soul of a Hero into animatic / motion comic format.

Shouts out to Jermica, JazMan and Jabbar for being my voice actors and Renee for the moral support!

here are the story board panels