pretty lady

I've started animation for Brendan and my thesis, but took a break for a couple hours yesterday to crap this out.

Sorry for the double post for those of you who check my blog too!

Some Witches. Early visualizations.

These are some of the witches I've been drawing lately for a storyboard I'm doing. I'm trying to design 2 of them. These are all visualizations of witch #1, who is supposed to be the villain (the other one is older or fatter, or both.) 

At this stage in my approach to design I have a hard time thinking of overall shapes and silhouettes first; I try to come up with a finalized-looking character and then trying variations of it to conform to shapes and other forms (essentially I try to simplify/cartoon it).

I'm really trying to do the opposite; I want to build up characters and have the shapes and forms come to my aid when I need to design my vision for a character but I haven't been able to summon an understanding of shapes to aid me as effectively as I'd like...

The other day JJ showed me some of the things he's been taught in his character design class and it really helped...(I really appreciate you taking the time to show me those things, thanks JJ!).

Does anyone else have these issues?

I'd love to hear your advice on this, or at least, advice you've heard...

Oh, yea, and please critique these witches! (I need to hear why they suck. Hopefully this will help me make 'em better)  :) 

Let me Give You a Hand! (I swear I couldn't think of anything wittier...)

This one was done with my right hand, and I think it turned out more lively and organic than the ones below (which were done with my "good" hand). I'm sort of considering a switch to the dark side/right hand altogether...lol

So this wasn't exactly an animation entry. Next, I'll post a character or something more to that effect, at least to make up for these here hands o' mine. 

Also, 50 points to whoever can spot the index finger that looks least like a finger and most like male genitalia (didn't do it on purpose, I swear!).

Cheers. 

Flash Reel? Thesis Clip Show?

Yeah so I needed a reel in order to get some testicles for a job. So after going through my severely limited amount of flash work (consisting almost entirely of thesis) this is what i came up with. Just thought Id share since this is the closest my thesis will probably ever make it to the intertubes. Moo.

Deltadromeus agilis!

I just did this quick facial reconstruction of a neato African dinosaur called Deltadromeus. You can check out the high res and bloggy dino-rant at my website: DontMessWithDinosaurs.com

Pencil


Paint underlayers


DontMessWithDinosaurs.com

This is Still Delicious!

this was based on Matt eating a real sandwich the other day.

Self-Cartoon as a Kid

This was my submission for Kalia's Draw Off Challenge (I think that's officially it's name, or rather what I've seen people call it most frequently.)
What sparked it was:
When I was a child, I had a big backpack that I loved because it was both spacious and freakin’ orange! I thought it was so cool because nobody else had one like that. I used to think “heh, Im the only kid with an orange backpack!”, whereas my adult self, through the cultured (conditioned) and maimed filter of our fashion and advertising culture, might probably think "shit, I was the ONLY kid with a giant, orange backpack.”
F*ck that adult. Orange backpacks rock.

(P.S.
Is that backpack even orange? I dunno, I’m not good with these color things...)

Salmon Skies Partly Cloudy

Here it is