Hyena Drinks Animation

An animation piece that I worked on during my Internship class on Toon Boom Harmony.

Them's Fightin' Herds Custom Lobby Accessory: M.E.E.P. Mask

Storyboards and Animatics Part 1

It definately takes a detailed Storyboard and well timed Animatics to make a good animated (or live action) video! Who knew that doing both would be such a fun (and time consuming) experience!

I took a Storyboard class Spring 2014 with Michael Swanigan as my professor. He is a Storyboard genius who has worked on so many movies/TV shows, that IMDB has trouble keeping up with him.

From his class I will show you one of my best storyboards!

The midterm: "'Dreamworks' has asked you (well me) to make a storyboard of the Humpty Dumpty story for them. Rules: Do not go outside of the original Humpty Dumpty story and and keep it appropriate for children.".

Sounds easy at first, but when you have over twenty students in your class, it's having your art stand out that's the hard part.

The first part of my assignment was to design a Front, Back, and Side design of:

Humpty Dumpty:

 3 of the King's Horses:

3 of the King's Men (or in this case kids):

And a Line Up of all of them:

 Side Note: I took this class before I  had Character Design, hence why these pictures don't have that boarder around the characters like my previous posts do.

Our second part of our assignment was to make the storyboard using all said characters. Since the scenario was that I was making a storyboard for "Dreamworks", I knew that kids would be the higher demographic for the film. Because of this, I had to find a way to do three things to make this storyboard look great in the eyes of a studio:

1. Make Humpty Dumpty and all the King's Kids likable characters.

2. Make Humpty Dumpty's fall not his fault.

3. Do the storyboard correctly (of course).

The Results:

The red marks are corrections made by Swanigan.

My grade for this assignment was a B. How do you think I did? Comments and critiques are welcome!

More Storyboards on the way, and animatics will soon follow.

My 2D Animations!

Hello everyone! Sorry it has taken me so long to update; school takes up a lot of my time and I often struggle with deciding what is worthy of being posted on here and what could use more work.

I have decided that I would just show what I have (either great or not so great) and make the time to make the "not so great" projects better. Also I have thought about making a Deviant Art and a Facebook account so that I can spread my creations out to more than one website. I'll be sure to provide links when I get to that point.

Now for the real reason why I'm making a post: My 2D Animations!

I have worked on both of these animations for the last two quarters, and it makes me proud to show the public what I'm capable of!

Here we have "See Teddy Run", an assignment from my 2D Animation class that I had Fall 2014. The goal was to make an animation at least 7 seconds long about one of the following:

1. Someone walking their pet.
2. Someone feeding their pet.
3. Someone receiving and opening a gift.
 
Here's what I chose:

I'll admit, this animation can (and will) use some more frames. I love my animations to be as fluid as possible like this animation that I worked on in my Animation Principles class in Summer 2014, "Kiss the Boy":

When I finally made an animation of my own original characters for the first time, that's when I knew that I wanted to make a living out of this. And I can't wait to do more in the future.





~Keep Going~

Families Come in All Shapes and Sizes

I just woke up from my itis (aka my Thanksgiving coma) and I figured what better time to talk about this project that relates to family than the day after Thanksgiving?

....Maybe posting the day of Thanksgiving would've made more sense, but better late than never right?


My second project for my Character Design class was to make a family line up using two different shapes to make up each family member: The father, the mother, the son, the daughter and their pet.

Now going from this:

to this:

Was an assignment that I had no problem working on.
However, making thirty different sets of families as each family member has two different shapes for every single line up?

I admit, that part of my homework was pretty difficult for me.
My teacher stated that I had to use shapes, but wasn't specific on what kind of shapes, which is why some of the line ups are really weird.

These are critique sketches from my teacher on my family line up. He always wants us to redo our projects by the end of the quarter after he critiques our projects. Here are a few things that he expects me to focus on, according to the picture:

• Try to keep their hands out and at their sides.
• Have the hair overlap the head. Make it pop out.
• Make necessary contrast (ex. the shape of the son's head should contrast to the shape of his glasses, or vice versa)

Here we have some critique sketches from Alejandro Lee, who generously gave me some advice when I showed him my portfolio at CTN.  His notes say the following:

• Dominant Shape
•  Complementary Shapes
• Rounds w/ Rounds, Straight w/ Straight
• Opposite/Contrasting Shapes As Smaller/Less Obvious Shapes; Within The Silhouettes 

I have to admit, deciding when I should complement and when I should contrast a characters features is difficult. However I'm still learning, and I can't stop trying; if there is one thing that I've learned throughout my years of drawing is this:

Keep Going

 I hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving and if you're going out shopping today,  Please Be Safe!

Comments and critiques are greatly appreciated!  

Character Design Project 1: Simple Female and Male Character

If I met you at CTN Animation Expo, then chances are you had a look at my Character Design Portfolio. If not, then I would like to introduce to you my first projects from my Character Design class: The Simple Female and Male Character!

Simple Female Character: A hard worker who deals with the finances of the company (which can sometimes stress her out a bit). In her spare time, she works out to stay in shape, for a healthy body means a healthy lifestyle. She always dresses to impress, regardless of the occasion.

Simple Male Character: The recruiter with the perfect pitch! He makes sure that only the ones who are willing to work hard are hired to help the business grow. You are either with him or in his way, and you do not want to get in his way (seriously, he's a pretty intimidating guy). He dresses sharp, but only on the job.

Fun Fact: These characters are actually based off of my Mother and Stepfather. They work together in the same business (http://www.arspromise.com/) and they always look good doing it, hence why I put them in business attire. 

Now I do plan on making a few changes to their design. Thanks to the advice of James Lopez, Alejandro Lee, and many other artists that I met last weekend, I have an idea of how I can complement their shapes better, as well as how I can exaggerate their actions more; make their actions express their personalities better. I hope to have their new designs up before Christmas.

There are more drawings to come!

Comments and critiques are greatly appreciated!

I'm Back! Thank You For Your Patience!

YES!
Finally, FINALLY my Wi-fi is up and running again.

First and foremost I want to thank anyone who has been waiting since Sunday for me to post up my work. I was hoping that I would have the internet running by then but when I got home that night, it still wasn't working. Now a day later, I can start uploading my work. Better late than never right?

I also want to thank each and every one of you who accepted my business card at the CTN Animated Expo, and thank you for your words of wisdom. Never in my years did I think that I would meet such amazing artists! Everyone's advice inspired me to improve, to become a better 2D animator, or a Character Designer. Perhaps even a Storyboard Artist, a Comic Book Artist, an Illustrator! The possibilities are endless! I decided that not only will I show you 2D Animation and Character Design, but anything that I consider to be my best work.

Any comments and critiques are greatly appreciated! It will help me improve, and maybe someday I could work for you or along side you.

So if you have received a card that has this picture-

Then you have come to the right place.

Thank you again, and welcome!