Walking Mouse

Based off a drawing a classmate of mine did. I asked

if he could design some sort of mouse character

because I wanted to do some performance animation tests featuring a mouse,

a needle, a wheel of cheese and some sorts. Here's the first pass at it.

I definitely had a lot of fun animating his design - he comes up with really appealing characters!

I should scan in the designs once I have more performance tests!

Here are my studies of his designs.

  Ali is a very talented character designer. I wish
I had some sort of character design skills...
Check out his blog!
http://alizartz.blogspot.com/

Just 2 more days til street vendor food!

Stuff I found in my folder and never bothered to touch on!

Moonrise Kingdom Tribute

'

Here is something me and the talented Michael Piazza (The creator of Lost
and Under a Big Tree) worked on! We did a 48 hour film together last year,
and we collaborated again for a school assignment, which was make a little
opening/tribute to a movie in Flash.

more wolf and naive kid

I should be exploring more on this kid's face.

I was told my wolves looked too manly at this point (since I'm aiming for something a bit more motherly) so I took a stab at it again. I was given some notes on how to achieve feminine looking wolves by being more delicate with the straights vs. curves on them. The offset fur on the side of the face resembled mutton chops of a human, and the thick eyebrows I had was too masculine.

So some of the headers I got were to make the legs more skinny and delicate, smaller feet, smaller neck, a more softer shaped body and a softer shaped head (noting bigger craniums - similair to human heads for females)

Up to now I'm still having problems. I don't think I've solved the problem yet - but I feel like I'm heading in a better direction. If it ends up looking too feminine and delicate, I'm afraid I'm going to lose her character. We shall see how this goes! Designing characters and making character statements was never my forte, but I'd love to be stronger at it.

Neverending Story (1)

Atreyu and Falcor...

I tried looking at German folk art like Fraktur and tried implementing it as character design.
The second one was me trying to understand the japonisme art movement, but with
pretty much the same characters. I need to get back into the designing grove.

the same characters.

A Family

An assignment given to us - to imitate another existing character designer. I chose stephen silver! I have a very hard time during the clean up process, something I need to work on if I really want to fines my work.

Logger + Father and son

Here are some character designs I did for Phil Rynda's character design class. I might have to fix some of these drawings so the mistakes don't distract from the image - if I want to put them in a portfolio for something.

And here is a father and son from different time periods! I didn't know what I wanted to do for the 'past' reference, so I loaded Highlander on Netflix and it kind of solved that issue. 

Past

Present

Future

Its always the ballpoint pen

I've been drawing a lot of gestures lately, and its been making me more analytical at the same time. I have been using the ballpoint pen a lot for a lot of these drawings, and its been making me choose boldly with my stroke decisions. I should really get back to drawing more cartoons really - I really need to work on my character design and appeal studies.

Ghost and the rose

Actually, the name of the blog title is from a game I love called "Secret of Mana". Besides that, these are just character designs I'm experimenting for an upcoming pitch. This year is so different because I am clueless in what I want to do for my final short.

I've also been playing around with a Selkie for a film idea too. It's just a thought, but I think girls are so hard to animate and portray, even if they are somewhat animalistic. Still thinking, wondering how my peers will find it when I propose some of these ideas I have in mind.

I can't draw animals to save my life.

And here's a bit of me... A cartoon version of myself for Phil Rynda's character design class. Yeah I don't really wear great clothes anymore since I bike uphill to school nowadays. Man, I need a car pretty badly.

More studies

I have a few ideas I would like to do for a film. Right now I think I'll just experience with the visual aesthetics first so I can get a better grasp of what kind of story I want to tell. I have some, but I can't really say much about it.

...Because as of now, it sucks.

I've always wanted to play more with dramatic values.

Jesutaruuu + 11 Second club

I have been drawing a lot of gestures lately, and it feels great. I have to admit, my motivation of drawing kind of died down when I was in second year, but I think its been very meditating in a way, but still retaining the challenge of getting down what I see as quickly as possible.

The biggest challenge and goal I need to work on for this year is probably solidifying my drawings. It's either I lack the understanding of structuring things, or that I'm a lazy son of a bitch to even fix the drawings. Its good to hear people say I'm the lazy one... Kind of. But in all fairness, I really do need to treat my work a bit more academically- especially when it comes to traditional animating.

I forgot to mention I participated in the August 11 second club.

Click here to see it!

Unamed 3rd year film exploration

Honestly I can't say much

Since things are looking very floaty here.

...I had a lot of sausages just now, and I think someone here is going to destroy the toilet.

Figure Drawing

Back for another year in school! My official first class was actually Film Workshop, but I actually started work within my new figure drawing class. I really enjoy it so far because I think it will give me more time to really enjoy quick poses, at the same time focusing on form! As you can see, I'm very rusty with my life drawing right now, so I really need to teach myself to get back to it properly. I hope this year will be a better year!

Sketchbook aug-early september

Here are some pages from my sketchbook after I returned to LA from a lengthy stay in The Philippines and Indonesia during the summer! I've been using the pen more to become more bold and decisive on my strokes, since I tend to focus too much on tone when I use pencils.

Familiar old friends

Boy Cried Wolf

Been sketching characters for possible third year film idea...
I'm not sure what kind of film I want to make, so I'm still tapping into that. I'm not sure if I want something funny, moody, whimsical like crayon dragon, or action.

I'll give it more thought.