videos

I uploaded 2 new things to my youtube account.

http://youtube.com/user/allumen

It's just the ball and tail, and my animatic. I forgot to put my boxfold on my external hardrive, oops.

model sheets

First real post in a while. These are both model sheets. The first one is Scarfers, for character design class we had to do an expression page.

This second model sheet was for the storyboard test. I actually really like this character, especially the full body drawing in the middle, with him gripping the bars. Not everything is done to what I would consider as on model, but I did this thing in one night.

place holder

I feel bad for not posting for a while. I have stuff to put up but I just have to transfer it from school. but you can settle for these quick character sketches for my storyboard test tomorrow.

There will be a real post before the holidays... Promise.

Fun

Been trying to think of work to do. So I thought I'd relentlessly draw my characters to get a better feel for them. Here's one of the drawings.

Scarf til you barf!

Ok, that title needs some work. Howbout. Kevin is quite the character... designer.

So I've completely thrown myself into doing some character design.  And I've started up my cork-board to put up the drawings I like.

First picture, is of that nice board. Featuring my newly obtained caricature of me from Enzo :D. And the one I did of Dan which I'm proud of. hopefully that thing is a mess by the end of the year.

2nd pic is of 2 characters for my extra piece. Djonar is a really novice monster hunter, and slug boy there's the monster. Hopefully Scarfers (little furried metal eating baby dragon) can help him out. Djon's shield flicks out to be a hover board. I gave him a lance to joust with on the board, but people don't seem to like the idea.

Now some Scarfers drawings. Range of emotions, and a little eye chart.
Aww how cute.
The several ideas I've been working on.
The last drawing is the current final model for the head. Because when you're drawing out expressions you don't want to fixate on having your character be on model all the time, the drawings are never perfect. When I've picked out all the faces I wanna clean up then I'll make sure that they are all on point.

characters

So today's post is all about characters I'm working on. The first 2 drawings are 2 of the 3 characters I'll be using in what I hope to attempt at least a leica reel of an animation short.

This first one is scarfers. who is the little pet of the guy below. He is a furried dragon, which only makes sense in my mind. Essentially the story is in the future, but the characters are supposed to have a medieval touch to them. I know the painting is bad, I did it really quickly, and the drawing/character design of scarfers will probably change by tomorrow, considering how much I changed it today. (why so much purple Kevin???) But at least he's cute. Oh and he's shoulder perching size for your interest.

The second drawings are keyframes I did of Djonar head looking upward. I had wanted to use toonboom for tweening thinking it could do something awesome. I was greatly let down, which is why I doubt I can fully finish my short for the end of this year.

Lastly my character pose sheet. I'm probably gonna story board out that short as my next step, if anything cool comes out of it, I'll drop it up.

Mutant Squirrel

So I finished character posing, but couldn't log into the computers at school, so I won't grab that file til monday, because I'm going home today :D. I'm thinking of starting 1 good short storyboard/segments of animation for fun sometime soon. Probably in flash or toonboom. originally I had an idea using mutant animals, like squirrels (below) and Rhinos, etc.

Wikipedia led me on a wicked tangent, and I think south american animals have become my favorite set. So I might do something with that theme. Anyways enjoy this now useless design.

12 hour power?

This is quite possibly the coolest blog post I will ever do. Why's that you ask? Well this morning I made the stupendous decision of going to school, into the animation room for over 12 hours. Of course I took the occasional break, but I'm pretty sure I pulled at least 12 hours of solid work today. (Something I hope to not have to do again)

Now what are the results of this. Well I am very physically drained, but my spirits have never been higher. 2 animation projects completed to the level of satisfaction I wished for them.

The first one is a real pageturner, probably because it's a page... turning, but then unturning. Ok it's not that cool.

The second vid is the real star. A seaweed, complex, yet sophisticated, with a little surprise at the end that makes the seasoning just right. Oh, and if your one of the people going to be watching this in the class screenings, I expect a thunderous applause by you, and everyone around whom you can inspire. It takes a lot to do these things.

 

The character posing will be posted up whenever I finish all of them, but I decided not to muddle up this post. I'll post up these vids on my youtube account when I get the chance.

Character: What I learned from friends and writing

So instead of accomplishing any work today, I just watched a bunch of movies, and tried to do more posing for Kailo. Although I copied several interesting poses, these attempts didn't really accomplish me anything. Eventually I got some very experienced advice from a friend.

Essentially Kailo is a character with a complete story backing him. And the whole time, I've worked that story to chronologically make sense. So plot twists and other things work out smoothly all the way through. I never really focused all too hard on Kailo as a character though, because he was more of a prop I just moved from scene to scene. I knew about things that happened to him in his life, but I never really focused on his attitude as a self-standing character. This same idea hit me earlier this week in class, when the teacher gave a lesson on good story structure, and explained that all characters need to have a clear objective to motivate them through the story. Which I found almost impossible to nail down with Kailo.

Essentially to complete this posing assignment I needed to be decisive on what my character does. Is he a pirate, a warrior, a baker? When my friend would ask me something like, does he do this or that. I would inevitably end up saying. Yes, he can, but only if the situation called for it. But that really isn't much of a character, if he lets others instigate his actions.

My friend was able to make me realize that I got caught up too much in the character as a plot oriented machine, rather than a living thing.

The best way he described it was. If you were trying to pose Tarzan would you say "oh yes, tarzan, he's a man trying to find out where he really belongs. No of course not, that doesn't explain anything about how he moves or acts."

I went through my entire story again this evening, and looked for every instance Kailo was given a choice, and asked myself, is this consistent to the type of character I want portrayed. Because of the advice I received, I was able to make a few minor changes to the plot, which as a whole make the whole story a lot better, and now I've nailed down Kailo's personality.

Earlier this week, I really wanted him to be upbeat, a pacifist, things like that, which on paper sound like a good person. I realized it was more important for him to progress the story, and be true to himself. I decided on him being a fighter. It doesn't make him bad, as long as he's clonking the right heads. And it's the quirks to how he does this that make him interesting. The form of martial arts he uses, and his wild tendencies from exploring the forests, means his posing can be really unique.

This decision took a while to realize, because in the story, he gives up fighting several times because of other characters persuading him in that direction. I realized it was really his true nature, because if it's something you keep going back to, it's what you really are.

Hopefully this turns out really well. This post was mostly written to help remind me when I revisit this project later this week, but I thought I'd put it online, so I can refer to it in the future if I ever get stuck again. Possibly it can help others in my situation, who have character designs they can't let go of, but don't know what to do with them.

Kailo

This week has been all about extra work for me. starting on the weekend, I've been trying to go to extra life every other day, and I'm working on my extra piece of animation now that my seaweed is finished. This being apparent by the odd fact that I, usually asleep by 10, am somehow still up at 3. But regardless today's post is something much more awesome. So if you scroll back in time through this blog to the beginning of summer, or much earlier if you know me from highschool, I've been working on one character for a long time, revisiting him as I learn more, cause I was never able to make him look like how I felt he should be portrayed. So we got a posing assignment not due for 3 weeks or so, but I'm so driven to do this one cause I'm now using that character. So I'm working out silhouettes, and dynamic anatomy and design. Honestly I want this to be amazing. There is really so much you can learn from silhouetting your character. The third picture really speaks to that, where I did a pose, and then readjusted it to look stronger using the silhouette. I'm really hoping it reads well.

And I should add, that character portrayal has been so hard for me to do. But I've decided I'm going to do all my poses as part of an action sequence, because it's really more of the reaction of a character that shows you their personality. Especially for someone like Kailo, whom I have a whole crazy long story backing his character development.

Oh and I want to start learning to paint with gouache. GL to me on that one, lol.

Animations

These are the animations I should of uploaded last weekend. I have a youtube account that will probably get these kind of updates more frequently ( http://ca.youtube.com/user/Allumen ).  The seaweed for instance now has all 3 strands finished, so I'll upload that and be working on the extra piece soon.

Ball Animations:

Pendulum: World's biggest potato clock

WOG... WART?

The last picture is my finished character turn for class. I know of the obvious smudge on the front view, but I'll only redraw this if I get some spare time. The other drawings are from animation class, when I just couldn't bring myself to start undertaking the balloon project. So I was just doing some key framing with Wog's new model. Look at those forearms.

That's all, Happy talk like a pirate day.

WOGWART!

So school is still very much on its merry way, beating me down with homework, but it's just because there are so many opportunities to draw I just get all swept up and short on time.

I still have no scanner with me, so I took pictures with my cellphone (yes I finally got one like 2 weeks ago).

The drawings go as follows; 

1. Poses for my character turn of Wogwart, due sometime next week. Going to clean him up with the updated character design.

2. Drawings off a dinner table at Montanas, I was out with my family for a wedding. Also look at the stylized chin on Kailo, I'm thinking I might keep it like that.

3. Shapes design for painting class. It's a Whale eating Krill, totally not noticing the Leviathan about to gobble down on it.

4. I got a bunch of new books, but I pulled out John Nevarez's 'Bits and Pieces ~volume 2', which is a book I bought last year at the A&I Roadshow. I got all inspired and redid Wogwarts Character design, which I think is much better now. (hopefully I can switch it for my class).

5. I've been daydreaming a lot. It was just such a nice thought to think about looking up at the stars, I decided to draw it.

when you don't got a scanner...

I drew two circles in class, and somehow it expressed this characters face to me, with the flowing hair. So I drew what came to mind, and coloured it until I got bored.

Another tablet sketch. This one is of a friend of mine playing magic. Just not the one you think, cause he would never do something so uncool ;) I know, I suck so balls at colouring, and should of put in some effort on the background. Well I have all school year to get good at that.

I'm finishing packing for my move today. so if I do anything else it'll get posted. And I still draw with pencil everyday, it's just too tedious to post.

More tablet.

I had a nice long day at work, and went to chill at a bbq, so as bad as it is to fight my urge to sleep, I decided I'd have some more fun with the tablet. I'm still not gonna clean up my work, until after I move out but I thought I'd have some fun with facial expressions on those two clowns. Anything else I do will be edited into this post

Sketching with the tablet

ok so I'm waiting to go to the movies, and decided to play with the tablet some more, and I gotta say I love this thing. Check out this sketch I did of my little brother. took like 6 minutes.

If I do more before my friend comes they'll be edited into this post. Also blogger is being really slow with the uploading today.

oh yah, got another one done, I'm gonna try and work on the scratchiness for now. But check out that picture of my satyr girl talking to some sort of crab mushroom... while Kailo stalks... I mean adores from afar.

Third one... oh yah it's wogwart being all crazed and awesome with his sword. He put it in the ground, cause he wanted to. I know it's not really colouring, but I suck at colouring, at least he looks decent. I don't know why blogger put it first, but whatever.

So... school starts on the second, which means my plans to move out in september and be early got ruined. So I'm gonna be packing when I can this week, and the next. Also, I don't have a scanner when I move out, hopefully I can buy one, but if not I gotta draw on my comp to post it up here. So I took my brothers tablet, and I guess I'll be practicing to get good at that. The above drawing was done completely on the tablet, I know it's not amazing, but it was like maybe 10 min and it was the only way I could show the new design for Kailo's face. That's pretty much it, school starts soon, and I ain't got TV. so this blog may start getting good.

Bloggin

Ok so no posts in 2 weeks is a big, wtf is he trying to pull effort. Well I was busy, doing other things to make my life a little better. I only got a few days off all summer, and the majority of them have been in the last 3 weeks, so I painted the new room I got for college last week, If I post pics they will be edited into this post. And I just got back from my mini-vacation this week.

I completed everything I wanted on that trip, but just barely. It was one of those memories kind of trips where I went up north to the camp grounds I went every year until I became a teenager. We started off in sudbury cause there was no way we were wasting a day pitching and disassembling a tent for a three day vacation, and because it rained we went to science north. Honestly watching Imax movies is a great use of time. They get filmed for just that type of display so the images are so clear and awesome. We watched a film on the sturgeon, and the history of the great lakes, which I learned a lot from, but weirdly didn't make me feel like I should do anything. The movie was about how humans polluted the great lakes, and overfished the sturgeon, but then ended with a, we have done a huge clean up effort, and this scientist we're showcasing found a solution to the sturgeon population problem, so just sit there and enjoy the movie, cause you really don't gotta do jack to help out. The exhibits in Science north are pretty cool, there is this giant porcupine, and the sign outside of his pen says "Don't touch the porcupine, he bites". LOL what an ironic statement. I'm not going to go into any depth about the other ones, just to say that they are pretty cool. Oh, and I found out I have an astigmatism in my left eye. Cause this column turned dark, on a test. I'm really doubting it though, cause I have like 26/20 vision or something like that. So I really don't want to believe it.

The hiking was great. That campground feels like it's my backyard, I know all the trails really well, and pretty much the entire campground area, even though it is huge. I guess going somewhere for 12 years straight does that to you. I didn't see the giant snapping turtle this year, but it's always a fluke to see him, and usually I'm out there 2-3 weeks and miss him anyways. However, I saw herons, and frogs, and turtles, and nothing else there. Honestly so many people going there I'm sure has scared off the wildlife. I was complaining that my trip wouldn't be complete til I saw an actual animal, like a bear, or wolf, or moose, or fox, something big and mammalish. Luckily on the drive home I saw a deer, it was all bright and glowy in the sun, just awesome. It didn't really matter though cause I see them all the time at home. Oh, and we saw a wild turkey, but that's nothing out of the ordinary either

Anyways, this is getting long, so hopefully you've skipped to the end by now to read, that yes, I was drawing on the trip. No I will not be posting up any of my sketches, unless I grab some reference pics off my families cameras to finish them off, cause I was doing like 15 second drawings of turtles, and flowers and such so they aren't worth posting. I have decided I'm gonna draw my little brother and dog, and turn them into some sort of short piece, I'm not sure what yet, but I have a strong desire to do this. And instead of drawing for my series the last 2 weeks, I've been writing it. The entire story has been written out from start to end in a short synopsis form, so I don't forget any of it. Which means nothing to you, cause you can't read it, but at least I'm working on it.

Art post next week???

Cause you deserve it...

I did a little extra drawing, cause there was some stuff about kailo's chin I wanted to fix up. So lucky you get a second post today :D
First pic is the satyr girl all fixed up. She'll probably get a head turn next.
The second pic is her using some of that sweet life essence bending to get some water in a bucket. You'll be glad to know that her grabbing water for her garden is how she gets introduced into the story. And Kailo is all fooly about her.
Third pic is some rough work on kailo's head with me trying to adapt him into that more fleshed out style. Which I think turned out nice, but then I realized I didn't like his chin, it wasn't heroic enough for my taste, so I looked back at some earlier drawings, and that's how the 4th pic got done. I think that angry face is reading so well. Oh, and his hairstyle now has form, instead of just being like generic lines.

Edit: Ok I've relooked this over, and I'm thinking the swan chin on Kailo is best. I don't know why, but it just seems more natural

Working out the Main Characters.

So I have the day off and therefore it is time to update my blog. I've still got several hours to draw today, but I wanted to plan out some stuff, so just incase I didn't finish that I thought I would update what I have to make sure atleast that got done today.
All the drawings today are concept art, because I spend so much time thinking out the story line at work, I thought I should try and catch up on some of the characters, and then maybe start doing some posterlike illustrations of key moments.
The first picture today is some ideas for what Kailo's father is going to look like. Although I really like the look of the bullish one cause he's supposed to look very strong. I'm thinking I'm gonna go with the thinner model cause it just fits better with the story line (which is still a mystery to you, muahahaha). I did a bunch of drawings of kailo in the same style I did those heads, but didn't like the way they turned out, I'll keep working on it though.
The second one is just a rough head turn, which is basically just so I can move kailo into that style, cause I really get lost on how his cheekbones, and jawline are supposed to look.
The third one is a bunch of random things for kailo. Some concepts for what he's gonna look like as a baby (cause it comes up), and his shapeshifted form (which I think looks better like that, rather than making him almost completly a wolf)
The last picture is the main female of the story. She's a satyr, not a demon, don't let the horns confuse you. She's also a druid, and is able to shape aether directly. I'll explain her and the satyr clan more when I do some basic work on them. I will say that I'm horrible at drawing females, however I have tapped into my ultimate art resource. I got so many magic cards laying around the house, I just pick em up and use em as reference. GENIOUS!!!
Don't expect any posts for probably a week, unless I find free time, but I can promise the art is always getting done. Just finding time to scan is a problem.

Intro to Orcs, and more Kailo

Introduction of Kailo, and I found my sketches