New Wolf Flash Character

 

This is a revised version of the wolf I posted on here before. I've made quite a few changes, including giving him legs and a new tail. I gave him legs for the simple answer of making him easier to animate when he walks, and to overall make it look better when he does. As I had stated, I wasn't too happy with the original tail, so I've given him a new one. I'm still not fully happy, because I wanted it shaggy, to help differentiate him from a dog. The other subtle changes were that I changed the arm in the background so when he walks it can swing and look fairly realistic, and because of that I had to give it claws, because beforehand there wasn't any need to because the arm was hidden. I also made the head bigger to give him a more cuteness factor. Overall I definitely think it's better than the first, and I can see me giving him a few more changes in the future before I begin to animate him. I may make a very short animation with him in it, and include a few more characters.

Flash Wolf

Just fairly quickly made this wolf today in the spare time I had. He's fully symbolised and ready to animate, with movable arms, feet, head, nose, tail, eyes and both ears. I really enjoy creating cartoon style characters in Flash, especially ones with a cuteness factor, so I suppose you could see a character like this in a short childrens animation. He's not fully finished as I only had a little time to make him and I'm not fully happy with the tail. But I just thought I'd post him on here anyway.

This has to be one of my favourite game trailers. Absolutely stunning. I'm a fan of the games, and when I saw this I was litterally blown away. This is definitely something I would want to do in the future. What gets me especially is at the end when the two foes clash. It just gives me the chills. Love it! :D

Maya Leaf

 

This week I learned in Maya lighting and texturing, how to get materials and objects to react to light and shadows/shading and rendering. This leaf (from what I can remember) was created by using a nurbs plane and inserting three images of the leaf  (including one for bump mapping) where the colour and transparency is in the attribute layer. And then ticking the box in attribute editor called chromatic abberation. Obviously there is a lot more to it than that, but I was simply learning and still need to learn. And that is what I can remember at the moment off by heart! But overall I feel I did well and am very much getting the hang of Maya now, and will go over this again to really make it sink in. :)

Life Drawing 8

 

 

This was the same task last week, but instead we had a male model, so the lighting was slightly different due to the body, mainly around the muscles on the arms. Again, I found this enjoyable, and also easier because it wasn't now new to me. I'm fairly happy with it, especially since after all I'm still learning and practicing, and still adjusting to life drawing.

I HAVE A GRAPHICS TABLET! YAY!

Well, I FINALLY got myself a graphics tablet! :D Don't know how on earth I survived without one now haha! I just can't put it down. Since I got it I've been drawing constantly in Photoshop, Flash, Sketchbook, anything like that. I've already become used to it, and now it just feels very natural. Will be very much using it now for future projects and looking forward to doing so. Now if you'll excuse me, me and my graphics tablet have to get back to work! :)

Flash Characters

Just generally messing around on Flash and creating characters. Just made a couple of simple characters and thought I'd post them on here. Didn't take that long to make, and they're fairly simple. I'll make more soon with more detail and with bodies. I love Flash :D

Life Drawing 7

 

For this we used white chalk on black paper and highlight the light on the figure, without trying to draw the outline. I found this very enjoyable and somewhat easier for me, and I liked the fact that you had to look specifically for light and how much there was.

Adobe After Effects

This was my first assigned task in After Effects. Simply put, all we had to do was have two objects/pictures come into contact and bounce off each other. As with Flash, I've used After Effects for many years now but not to animate. Rather I used it to create lightning and other special effects, so it was sort of new to me. But I was familiar with the set-up and how it worked. And again as with Flash, I seem to get on with it very well and look forward to projects set using it.

(Sorry again that it's so long - only lasts around 4-5 seconds)

Lip Syncing

This was our first task in flash using lip syncing. I've sort of had experience with this before so it wasn't new to me. I've used Flash for many years now and really enjoy using it. I feel the project which will eventually be set using Flash will be no problem at all.

(sorry about the quality!)

Life Drawing 6

These are from three different life drawing sessions, one of being just quick one to two minute poses and the others around fifteen each. I experimented with a different chalk/charcoal just to see how my drawings came out.

Back for a new term!

Hello again! Has been a while right? Sorry about that, I had no computer over the holidays and now finally I have bought one! I resorted to mostly laziness of gaming and movie watching, which is always fun! Funnily enough, I played Fable 3 (which was one of the games showcased at Bradford Animation Festival) and I felt I knew the game more because of that, and because I saw how it was made with animation. And when I saw one of the animated fighting sequences I was like "YEAH, I SAW HOW THEY MADE THAT!" Was a very good game overall.

Well, todays the day I start my new term at University! Would like to look back and say I very much enjoyed what I have done so far, but I still need to learn and will need to improve on things! Just looked at the new timetable and there is a 3D Modeling/Environments lesson now up on there! This has really got me excited as 3D modelling is what I want to do!

Anyways, now that I'm back I can start blogging again! So look out for more posts! And if you can please comment or message me. I'd really like to know how I am doing. Thanks!

Sketchbook Drawings - Inspired by Music

These are the results of what I see or feel in my mind when I listened to the song which inspired me to draw them. I'll let you think what songs they were...unless you really want to know, and in that case I will spill the beans. :)

Sketchbook Drawings - Film Characters/Creatures

Drawings of my favourite film characters and creatures (well, dinosaur). As you can see, I have a clear taste of what films I like. 

Sketchbook Drawings - Surreal

Basically, I took items around my room and made them surreal. Including what my old radio would look like if it were alive (pretty evil, due to the fact I was given it around 6 - 7 years ago and have never used it - has just been shoved in a drawer all these years) and a ninja I-Pod (because the headphones look like a weapon they might yield). Found this very fun indeed.

Monkey Walk

Before the walk I made of myself in Maya, this was the first project I did which involved animating a walk. I actually picked it up very quickly. It was quite difficult in some ways though, because his arms are very long while his legs are short, and animating short legs effectively is no easy task. But hopefully you'll see that it's a convincing walk.

Storyboard

These are just a selected few photos from my storyboard project. We were given a task of reading one of three given scripts and turning it into a storyboard, and I chose one about Pirates (unfortunately at the moment I can't for the life of me remember exactly what it was). I've had experience of making storyboards before, so this wasn't new to me. The same goes for scripts and script writing.

Backgrounds

This is one of the backgrounds I created for my one project. It had to be an interior shot with some sort of light source. Because it had to be something from my pirate storyboard, I went for the captains cabin room, and opted for a candle as a light source. This was the first time I had ever used watercolours, so I do need practice with them. But overall I am pleased with the result.

2D and 3D walk of myself

I recorded a walk of myself walking from one side to the other (just my ordinary walk) and had to replicate it in both 2D and 3D. I am actually very pleased with both of them, especially the 2D version. It turned out much better than I imagined. What I find funny in a way is that although it is far more complex than the first walk animation I made, in my opinion it is far more better. But I did learn alot from my first, and the mistakes I made that time were not made for this one. The 3D, on the other hand, I found a little simpler, but unfortunately I couldn't put much time into it as I had other projects to complete, so it is not how I would have liked it. Overall not very happy with it, so I will be having another attempt at it in the future.

Life Drawing 5