Lawl. Soz.

Recently i've been investing all my efforts into either my dissertation or my Grad film, so have become rather too relaxed with regards to blogging. I prefer to keep this blog mainly devoted to personal stuff, with bits of film work dotted in, which results in a lack of posts because I have had no time to do anything else...

But, after running myself deep into the ground and having to pick myself back up (or get others to pick me up) I realised I needed a vent on the side as not to get too suffocated with the film. So I've treated myself to a new sketchbook to put everything not Sushi related into. And it's working.

It's not much, but here's an extract of what I've got so far. Bits from a maybe future project:

(Gave this wee guy a colour on my TUMBLR. Check it out.)

And since it wasn't much and I've neglected you all for so long, here's a couple of pages from my observational sketchbook:

Hopefully be seeing you all again much sooner this time.

Wed-Ness-Day

Gah. So tired. Must blog. Why.

Basically just been plodding away with Sushi stuff over the past couple of weeks which is fun, but I feel I've lost my mojo with it a bit. Deadlines tend to drain the inspirational fuel-tanks somewhat. So yes, that's the reason I've not really had anything to blog... And it's no different this week unfortunately. But, I feel kinda content with dropping some Sushi stuff in here. So here. Have some backgroundz (uncoloured):

Sc09

Sc10

Sc28

Sc29

Looking forward to starting to colour these and get the characters onto them. Scenes 28 and 10 both have rough keys so hopefully they'll start to come together as complete scenes by the end of the month (with a little inbetweening/cleaning/colouring help)

If you wanna check out the rest of the production then you can click MY SUPER NIFTY BUTTON AT THE SIDE OF MY BLOG >>>>>>

It took me 3 hours. 1 hour to draw and code, 2 hours to embed.

So worth it.

Ok. I need to sleep now. Was up too late last night working on colourscripts. So let me leave you with some nudity I drew tonight as I got itchy fingers in prep for life drawing tomorrow.

Looseh gooseh.

Needs more line dynamics.

Je veux habiter dans le ciel

Laziness is the only way to describe the recent hiatus on this blog.

"Urgh, I don't know what to post this week... Aw look, it's no longer Wednesday..." *sleep*

I also blame the recommencement of Uni, but that's a cop out.

So, for this post, have some little design experiments for a wee project that's currently bubbling away in the back of my mind...

Une cabane construite dans un arbre

et

Des personnages...

A bit of both worlds.

Once Upon A Time In A Faraway Ireland...

Apologies for the late post this evening. I got on a roll with work and figured it foolish to break it considering the productive stagnation I seem to have adopted as of late. And thanks to a bum week, I've barely got further with Sushi work let alone anything new and fun for blog times.

So, bearing in mind that I've been working on backgrounds recently, I figured this post should continue in this vein. Here I've delved back to a project we started about this time last year, that unfortunately never quite made it to see the light of day... Set in Ireland and based on the Protestant/Catholic divide, the animation told the story of a Catholic schoolgirl who wandered into the Protestant area of town on her way home.

It was going to be magical. 

Despite the fact it never quite came together, I'm quite pleased with some of the work I produced during it. So here are 3 of my favourite backgrounds I produced for the film.

Considering this was my first time doing both backgrounds and digi painting, I don't feel I did too badly...

'Dem Posh Fermer Toypes.

Spent the last weekend avoiding backgrounds and wandering off to a country fair which my family goes to every year. It's the sort of thing that never changes and of which the novelty wears fast but yet we go every year. Mainly for all the dogs. They're fun.

What I've noticed is that these types of events seem to bring out all the posh farmers. The ones that love to hunt and wear the clothing but have probably never done any real manual labour in their lives. I present them thus:

I was planning to have coloured them, but my attention has been slightly diverted with a new addition to the Muir family household...

LOOK HOW TINY SHE IS.

I think my excuse is valid.

Gingers In Paris

Not too long a post this time. Gonna start with a mandatory holiday illustration.

I found that in Paris, as soon as you sit down, it's inevitable that someone is going to come up and try and trick you into giving them money. I kept wondering why it was happening to me but then when I stopped and looked at myself I realised that a pasty, ginger kid on their own in Paris is a blatantly obvious target as an unwitting tourist. Luckily I wasn't scammed, but made this cartoon anyway to show my feels to the situation.

Think I'm going to come in and colour this at some point as I'm pretty pleased with it. Been working on my more dynamic posing too...

In other news, I've been doing some backgrounds for Sushi which you can find my

CLICKING HERE

And finally, I'm currently making a present for one of my friend's 21st Birthday. When we were in Primary 3 (So 7/8 years old) we loved PokéMon. In that class, we were given booklets of blank paper to do what we wished with. So we made our own version PokéMon and I decided to make a draw of us in the middle of in intense battle in commemoration of this.

So here's me. Deeply involved in the intensity of battle...

Really like this style I've somehow come out with here. Definitely want to keep this up.

Shameless Back-Posting

Trying to get myself back into work and a routine this week. Hasn't particularly worked... But I figure that any work after a break is good. Now I've just got to take that energy and plant it into something slightly more productive in terms of Sushi.

Got distracted last night doodling this thing. Like I warned you, reminiscent Séjour comics may well appear from time to time.

This is almost definitely exactly how things went.

I realised through this that I really need to get some more life into my drawings. My poses are pretty dead - as is my mark making... Need to make a conversion to a more ruthless medium I think. And source out some more dynamic life-drawing poses.

Speaking of which, did some stuff to get warmed up. Feel pretty apathetic about most of these but, you know. Stuff.

Return From A Land Down Under

The "Land Down Under" being France.

It's been oh so quiet here on the blog front. Chances are you were thinking (hoping?) that was the end of me. Pecked to death by a flock of angry seagulls on a dark Dundee evening.

But no. I had escaped to France in order to mould the lives of young, impressionable francophones. Then travel. Whilst I was away, I had the very honoroable intention on keeping a sketchbook travel diary and filling it up with wonders and tears and magical moments in which one gets lost in for years to come.

Alas, that never really came to fruition. My intentions were good, but in practise I never had any time to myself whilst barking at French kids to behave and then when I did have time, all I wanted was sleep. And wine. So much wine. However, I did get some pages done which I've added below and the experience has given me much inspiration to get back to drawing now I have nothing to do with my life at the moment, so what was first intended as a travel diary designed to record events as they happened, my travel diary seems to have morphed into a tool in which to indulge my nostalgia...

Or at least that's my excuse.

So expect some kind of little cartoons of my adventures in up and coming weeks, but for now please enjoy a wee selection of what I actually managed to produce and like during my "Séjour en français":

Funky house with a crazy tall roof in Tours. 

My wee friend from the first week, Clément. I shared a room with him and he talked in his sleep. At first in French and then English by the end of the week. Job well done I say. That boy was a real life cartoon.

Drawing in the Rodin museum, Paris. Some American guy's got a picture of me drawing this. He asked me to take the picture of me in such broken English (thinking I was French) that I didn't understand him. When he departed with "Au revoir - merci beaucoup" I realised that he still didn't gather I wasn't actually French...

Italian mother and son chilling in some gardens in Paris. Reminded me of Yzma and Kronk from Emperors New Groove, had Kronk been Yzma's son...

I went to visit Gobelins L'école de l'image in Paris. My reaction was exactly how this describes. 

I MUST GO TO THERE.

Cool structure in Brussels - the Atomium. Pretty dull on the inside however.

Till the next time, France... You've treated me well.

Maya 2012, 2012

I knew this was going to happen... I've become blog unresponsive. I'm busy starting work on my 4th year film which is basically just script writing and very little visual work that I feel ready to parade to the world. So, to combat these dry spells, I had prepared material for times of need.

Not only am I a 2D animator (or learning to be) I also enjoy dipping my toe in the digital world. Here are a couple of models I made last semester in Maya 2012, focusing on realism.

Pure NURBS Modelling

Pure Polygon Modelling

I then went on to texture this model, but as I ran out of time and my lighting is embarrassingly dodgy, I'll save that for a later upload.

Hopefully get some nice personal work up over the weekend or summin'. It'll probably be a lion. Brace yourselves.

Make Your Own Title

Titles can be hard. This one allows you to be creative. This is me giving back.

Just a short post this time I think... I did a wee doodle for a friends 21st last night... But then got a bit carried away...

Hand inked then digi-coloured.

I'm pretty pleased with it actually. But am well aware I greatly need to improve my digi work. Currently in an internal battle with my love of linear work. I love line work, but most of my favourite illustrations that I aspire to don't have it. My goal is trying to find a happy medium. Pffffffffff...

The robot character is from my friend's comic which you can (and definitely should) purchase here:

GALERON AND TEGEN

Whereas the fox is from my comic which you could purchase here, if you so wish...:

THE SUN AND THE FOX

Oh and finally, I uploaded my linetest from a PREVIOUS POST, so have a gander, and please leave any constructive comments you have. Now I've spent some time away from it, I can see a few things I need to tighten up anyway.

Must... Not... Stop...

I tried to do this last Christmas but failed miserably and felt the consequences, but have found it strangely easy this time around. Since it doesn't take long to get rusty, I've been keeping up with my life drawing over the holidays, so I can go back fresh and ready to start next semester. So here's some of what I've done.

All poses are about 2/3 minutes using a brush pen.

Final(ly)

To be honest, I can't really believe I'm saying this... But I started animating...

This never happens.

So, on (probably) my final post of the year, I can show you some key frames. They're really rough, and I'll need to go in and add some more keys for clarity/fix some volume control, but to be honest I don't feel it's too bad for a first pass. I don't know... I'm too close to it to tell now:

Normally, I'd wait until it was further on than this, but unfortunately I've come to the end of my free trial of AfterEffects which was my only source of easy line-testing...

As a bonus here's a wee doodle I did then coloured. It's me in a van with an easily distracted driver...

Happy New Year y'all - see you on the other side...

I Survived Christmas

A bold statement, but a true one. I made it through, managing to avoid the threatening food coma. Just about. And to celebrate today, I decided I felt like getting back into a wee bit o' animation. Using a life drawing pose as inspiration:

I quickly thought up an action, jotted down some key poses and drew this character over the top. Nice and complicated to suit my over-ambitious nature.

Now it's just to start the animation. I'm hoping that by posting this up here, it will stop me from leaving it by the wayside. I'll post y'all the keys once I've got them jotted down. I'd maybe ask for feedback... If there were anyone watching...

*tumbleweed*

To Grinch Or Not To Grinch?

Well... The world didn't end... So I now have no excuse not to blog. My goal was to post something before Christmas, so here we are. My other goal was for it not to be coursework just yet, as the feels like a cop-out, so coursework, this is not.

In my feedback for this semester, I was told I'm not making enough use of my life drawing. Therefore, I'm using it to create small illustrations which is proving to be rather fun. Unfortunately, they're not quite finished yet, but I feel I need to blog them now, otherwise I'll never blog again. You see? I even put them as GIFS so you can see the progression/I'd never done one before.

So here you go. A slightly underwhelming present from a distant relative if you will.

I'm going to come back and get these backgrounds done, but I've got a turkey to demolish first.

End Of The World Resolution

Since it's approaching the end of the world, I feel it's now about time to get round to all those things I've said I would. So, I realise that I should now get about to being more professional, and getting my work out there. Otherwise my only job prospects will be drawing pictures for estranged family members.

Therefore, the blog is coming back into action. I've had a winter clean, and gutted it out so I can start afresh. So, expect to see some sketchbook/work in progress work as I intend to use this to document all those little things that don't really count as professionally finished outcomes, but I would like the world to see, as opposed to sitting in a dusty sketchbook/hard-drive. It should also inspire me to work more.

And work I shall...