Song of Ice and Fire

Kind of maddening how much I hate/love Game of Thrones/Song of Ice an Fire. Still, it's the only thing in recent memory that I've really wanted to do fan art for. (Excluding a few Rise of the Guardians doodles).

That's a small miracle in itself.

But I have to throw myself at something to get past the sheer wall of stress that's been choking the life out of me.

Anyway, here's my recent work:

Some lame compositions that I've been working with.

This is from the 4th thumbnail in the first set and  process:

"The Great Eagle"

And some Game of Thrones fanart of Jon Snow, Ghost, and Ygritte from the second thumb of the second set:

"You know nothing, Jon Snow."

To be sure, there's a ton of other junk and GoT fanart I've been doodling over, but I'm too lazy to rifle through all my folders or scan them.

Sketch-Dump 12/18/12

So I've got some warm up/ stress doodles that have been piling up for the last week. Thought I'd throw 'em together and drop them here for you guys if you're interested in seeing them.

I'm afraid blogger wont load the whole image, so I'll have to redirect you guys to my deviantart where it posts properly: 

Sketch-Dump 12/18/12

I've been reading a lot of the Game of Thrones books, which are surprisingly good. These are my interpretations of them, not the TV show versions. To be honest, I did watch one episode of the show, but was greatly disappointed. It followed the book pretty closely, but lacks the context that makes the books good. 

That's all for now, I have to get back to work. 

Finding time

That is something I'm learning to do.
(Funny enough, it's easier than time management, but nowhere near as helpful.)


Anyway, I've got a couple of things to share. First is progress on the character designs for my Lost Boy project. I'm happy with Wendy, but the other two still need work.

Second is a collab I did with Savannah Mckendree (Scarlet Static) for a 30 Day Challenge she's been doing. We both did lineart then swapped for coloring. She drew the battle-ready Thorin, and I the contented Jack Frost.

In other news, After Effects sucks. 

That's all for now. 

Clean-Up

Okay, so I've been doing a lot of things I'm not sure I can show you guys until they're all done, but I figure a little sneak peak won't hurt too much. (And I feel bad for being so dead).

I just finished the rough boards for a senior film called Hell Unleashed, and now I'll be doing clean up boards. This is one of them, maybe a little "too" clean, but it's just for presentation's sake now.

Hell Unleashed is a 3D short directed by Jesse Schlobohm, and it's looking fantastic so far. I'm very happy to be working on it. But that's all I'm showing you guys.

I've got stuff from several other films I'd love to show you guys, but now isn't the right time. I haven't been able to do much for my Lost Boy project lately, but when I do have more, you'll see it first.

Hit the ground running.

Since I've gotten back, I've been working non-stop. It's a shame that I can't show you guys most of what I'm  up to. A lot of concept work and layouts and so far some super rough storyboards.

Still, somehow, I manage to find about 20 minutes or so a day to noodle around with my Peter Pan short. I've gone through so many designs for the characters, and I'm not yet satisfied with what I have, but this is the direction their going in.

It's hard when you're trying to reinvent the wheel. Peter is leaning more towards the girlish figure he used to be in his theatre days. As far as Wendy and Tinkerbell, I'm not satisfied with their body shapes, so I think I'll be squishing and stretching those quite a bit. Peter isn't safe from that either. Wendy is too tall, and Tinker needs a hair cut.

After these, I've still got Jon, Michael, a young married couple, and a homeless boy to contend with. Looking forward to it though.


I'll be 21 on Saturday, and my exciting birthday adventure will beeeee.... a Lord of the Ring's marathon on the big screen! Twelve glorious hours of nostalgia.

Saw Rise of the Guardians and it was magical, but the 3D at the theater was completely out of focus so I left with one heck of a headache. I think it might be the first thing I do fanart of in years.

Other than that, there's not much else to report. Hope you guys are doing well!

Where I've been lately...

Where I was:

Not to put too fine a point on it, these last few weeks have been terrible so far as my school work is concerned. There is almost nothing that I'm willing to post here right now, not without some heavy editing.

Things got a little tight after I decided to apply for a job... that needed a custom portfolio, especially since it was finals the next week. And then finals themselves were a bit too much to handle. My chances aren't looking great for the job, but I'll know for sure by tomorrow (later today really), and I'll update you guys on that (sooner if I get it, and later if I don't).

Anyway, I spent the weekend getting settled in, though there's still a fair amount of unpacking to take care of. My dad's birthday is tomorrow, and that'll be fun. I got him some cool things, though since one of them is in French, I'm not sure how he'll take it.

I saw Real Steel a few days ago, I can't recommend it enough! I enjoyed it so much more than a lot of movies recently. From just the trailer, I thought it was going to be terrible, but it was a huge surprise.

Where I am:

I'm currently finishing up one of my finals, since it was largely unfinished. It's a storyboard animatic of Bill Cosby and one of his Noah skits. I won't really be able to put the audio version on Youtube since the sound-clip is copyrighted, but I'll see about putting a captioned version up when I'm finished.

Also, I'm working on storyboarding an original sequence based on J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. I'm not sure about the title at the moment, but it's about Peter finding a lost boy. It's supposed to take place before Peter takes Wendy to Neverland. It should last about two and a half minutes all together, and I'm going to look into getting someone to make a short music track for it.

Other than that, senior films. I got way behind on them during the quarter, the sheer class workload came as a huge surprise. It'll be mostly layouts, background concepts, and I'll be working on clean-up storyboards.

That's about all I have planned for now. My other projects aren't forgotten, they just are more demanding in every respect and I want to get some more manageable projects done before I bother with them. There's almost nothing in my portfolio at the moment, and I'm starting to get concerned.


That about wraps it up. I'll be posting some tentative character designs soon for the Peter Pan shortly, so keep an eye out.

Toodles!

The Pans

I really have no clue what "The Pans" is about. It was extremely late when I picked the title, and it seemed like it had potential. Now it makes very little sense, but I think I'll keep it.

These are prop sheets for Jude Harper, a member of the LockWitch clan. It's a group of evil witches where their magical power is gauged by the length of their hair. She's a traveling witch so for ease of travel her hair isn't as long as the "master" witches.

The props include her broom, her hairbrush, and her wand.

The story will be shelved for a while, until I've figured out a good direction to go with it. I need a main character, and I guess she'll need to cook.

So here's a taste of what could be once I get the ball rolling.

And the crowd goes wild!

Sort of.

Hey, guys! Finished another assignment that I'm sure you all are just aching to look at. (Yes, you sitting in the other room). I ended with twenty characters, if you're not including the animals. I had to take a few out due to time constraints; I might add them in later after painting.

This quarter has been one of my most productive ever as far as school work goes. Other quarters have been just a slurry of mediocre trashliners.

Now it's slightly less so.

It'll be nice when I finally figure out what I'm doing.


In other news, I've been working on Senior Films. So many great ones to choose from this year, it's terrible. I'm having to narrow things down but it gets harder everytime. It would be fabulous to have multiple copies of myself so I could do all these things at once.

I have some other really exciting things I plan to post soon so keep an eye out!

After a long absence...

I have returned.


Well, when I say long absence... I mean a week or so.

It has been a bit of a nightmare as far as workload for the last week and a half. I have literally gotten about... 12 hours of sleep in the last five days. Cumulative. And I had this die-hard fever Friday thru Sunday which was an experience in itself.

That being said, things haven't been that bad. Midterms week is guaranteed to wreck your life most quarters, so it wasn't something I didn't see coming. (The fever did catch me off-guard, I must admit).

I've done several things the last several days, (some I'm much to ashamed of to post) and some things that I don't want to post just for no reason what-so-ever. But! I do have a couple of things to show you guys.

First, Dorian now has a pretty solid color scheme rolling for her, so I thought I'd show you guys.

Not that you'll be seeing her in color for quite a long time, but I still thought it was kind of nice.

Second thing is a field pan I did for a class. There are details I missed that need to be added (wood grain on the nearest stall's poles for one), but all that can wait till later. I think I'll render this at some point and use it as a legitimate layout example, but that might have to wait till winter break.

I'm excited to draw the characters in (the minimum requirement is 12, but I think I might exceed that a bit). Buuut, I am dead tired. I'm going to go take a nap so I'll be decent enough to work on some storyboards tonight. Maybe I'll be able to post those sometime soon! 

I'll keep you all posted!

Munchie Game Video

For the last few months I've been doing some work for a game called Munchie from ScriptG Studios. They recently made a video showing some of the basic gameplay from one of the levels.

I thought I'd show you guys since you can see some of my work floating around in it! Once the game comes out, maybe I'll post a sheet of the images I've done for it. It'll be available on Andriods and Kindles as far as I know.

Still, you can see most of the images I've done if you look at Tricky Ted's Emporium on the official page.

Munchie Official Page

Munchie Gameplay Video

Jim Royal and His Shop of Horrors

Well, not really. But this is his work shed where he makes his boats. It's sort of animated; there's a depth of field change every two seconds, so it might get a little dizzy.

The rendering is terrible, I intend to redo it digitally. (All I had was tracing paper, and that was the worst idea possible). Anyway, I've got another without the window frame if you guys are interested.

I haven't posted much these last few days since I've been so crunched for time, and yesterday I basically did nothing but sleep. Who needs to watch the debate? They always spout out the same drivel anyways. 

I'll be trying to keep with posting something everyday, but sometimes it's not possible. I hope you guys can forgive me. This weekend will be eventful in many ways, so I'll share all the interesting moments (if any). 

Finally!

I have the scans, the environments are FINISHED. (We forget that I'm working on another that's kind of due tomorrow).

I wanted to post these before Tuesday so I'm popping in quickly and dropping them before running back to work.

There are a couple of egregious errors in the perspectives that I'll have to fix before coloring these, but let's ignore them. I'm pretty happy with how these turned out in general. Hope you guys enjoy them, too!

See you tomorrow with something new!

Prepare to grit your teeth.

I've got more phone pictures; didn't make it to the scanner today. My parents stopped by and we went out to dinner, so you guys will have to deal with my beautiful photography.

I've got to fix that hanging boat when I do the final drawing of the first one, it's starting to drive me crazy. And the angle on the boat over the helicopter is bothering me too, so I'll have to fix that too.

The second one is Jim Royal's dock-house/home. I've just found a huge stash of photos in my old stock folder from Lake Lure that are perfect so I've just been flipping through them and pulling out all the things I like and adding them on.

By the end of the day tomorrow, I SHOULD have the finished drawings/scans... that or I'll have wasted my day entirely.

Nothing new but...

Take this amazing livestream drawing I did a month or two back. I like the colors, but Link is looking pretty odd, you have to admit. But you guys can take it, yeah? We're all strong men on the inside at this blog, am I right? 

I would love to give you guys something new, but I spent most of today working on some top secret art that I can't post, so I don't have anything other than this oldie for you all. 

But, this super secret thing is coming out soon and then you guys can check it out since it's really awesome. 

I'll hopefully have some of my exciting new classwork ready to post tomorrow. Scans hopefully, so you all won't have to grind your teeth like you do when looking at my phone pictures. 

Till then!

Terrible Batgirl and Thumbnails

We did a drawing of Batgirl in my character design class today. The professor's daughter loves Batgirl so he had us all draw one for her. Mine is kind of awful, especially compared to all the epic jumping/flying/landing/fighting Batgirls drawn by my classmates. It's also kind of covered with white out (there was this HIDEOUS tangent that I couldn't live with, so I made it worse by whiting it out) but you can't tell so much in this picture since I upped the contrast to kingdom come.

I never draw Batgirl, so cut me a little slack?

Anyways, in that class we're also making some environments for the character we made the five-sided turn around with. So, of course, this is more art focused on my short story comic. It's titled 'Till Death if you guys haven't noticed yet, and it's basically about a Sea Princess who can't ascend to her throne till she's married a King or Prince. It's important that she becomes Queen because she needs to overthrow an evil adviser that assumed the throne after her father's death. It's pretty basic. It's supposed to be an Adventure/Comedy, just something short and fun. 

If you can tell what's going on in these thumbnails at all, I salute you. Somehow professors can read these pretty well; must be one of those super powers they have, I guess. This is only about half of my thumbnails, but I'm not posting the others. They're really awful compositionally and even harder to read than these.

The circled one will be the image I use for my final drawing, plus the window frame from the one the arrow is pointing to.  

If you don't have a clue what's going on, these are backgrounds from the scene where Dorian jumps Jim Royal. In it, he's working in his boat-making studio late at night, and she sneaks in before attacking Jim and threatening him to marry her or else. Sounds like a great couple, right? 

Anyways, I'll keep you guys posted! Crits and suggestions always welcome!

PS. We touched on 4 and 5-point perspective in my Environments class, but I don't think we'll be going in depth, which is a real shame. It's almost never used, I realize, but it would've been such a cool project if we'd been able to do one with them. 

Helichopper Clubhouse

This is another drawing I've been working on for that short story I was telling you guys about. This is the hangout of the main character Dorian Rhodes, the warrior princess of the sea. It's a grounded helicopter on a small island where she and her possy built a club house on top and around it.

This is a really terrible photograph, but it's enough for you all to get the idea. In this I'm working out the structure, but I'll be light-boxing it to clean it up a lot before the end.

It's based off a HH60-Jayhawk, but I've dropped a few elements from it. The Jawhawk is super-long and it's a little unnecessary for my story.

I might post a little synopsis for the story later once I get the big details hashed out. I'm in the middle of paring it down to a reasonable number of pages. It's funny how big little stories end up being.

I made a huge effort not doing some sort of corny Schwarzenegger quote in the title, so I think you guys should give me props for that. 

Need coffee.

Well, last night was rough, but finished what I needed to get done. When I come home I'll be taking a nap... then getting up again for another long night. Such is life here.

Since I really don't have much else to post, I'll show you guys the project I finished. It's not my best work by any measure, but I do like the basic design. I'll probably tweak it some more before I'm really satisfied. Doesn't she kind of look like a pug?

She's from a short story I've been tinkering with on and off. I'm kind of using my current assignments to flesh out the world/characters more. I'll be posting some of the settings/environment pictures soon, once I get them to a halfway decent stage.

For once I lucked out; one of my assignments due tomorrow got pushed back. It would've been a mad rush had it not been. Time around here is weird. One minute you've got two days to work on something, and then you look up at the clock and the deadline is four hours away.

Anyways, I hope you all are doing well! I'll keep you guys updated whether you like it or not.

Building!

Posting some homework from my Props and Environments class today. The first drawing is of the Chicago Theatre in a post-apocalyptic setting, and the second is of the Artemis Temple in Jerash.

Nothing very special, but I plan on finishing the Chicago one. There are so many mistakes that I want to fix.

More Cats

Another little cat study. The more I try to place cat skeletons into cat bodies, the more confusing it gets. Their legs are so strange. No animation today, busy with homework and other things.

Study of the Day:

Here's something else I did while trying to figure out Corel Painter a couple of weeks ago. Just found it and realized I never posted it anywhere.

Nothing special, but it was an fun exercise. It's based on a photo by Kxhara on Deviantart.

Second Cuppa

Some more cat studies today. Cats have such weird bone structures. Something really odd is happening in the back legs of my animation study, but I'll try watching some videos of cats running and try to figure out what's going so wrong.

Studies of the Day:

First Cup O' Cocoa

Bit early to feel like Christmas, but I'm feeling those winter vibes. It's probably this unseasonably cool weather we've been experiencing here in Savannah that's causing it. But it feels like Christmas none the less, and it makes me want a nice warm cup of hot chocolate.

That's the best explanation you'll be getting for my blog's title.

I'll be posting my art here whenever I can. It'll be a miss-mash of finished work, sketches, and wips, just whatever I have lying around. And just for those people out there who care about the intimate details of my day-to-day life (I can count you guys on my hand), I'll be posting every now and then about what's going on in the real world. 

As I start this blog, I am a junior in college, studying at Savannah College of Art and Design. Things are rolling pretty smoothly at the moment; classes are surprisingly manageable and my social life is something that isn't completely dead (a shock, considering the past two years of having nearly none). There are a lot of exciting things that are happening this quarter, so I'm pretty pumped for the coming weeks. I think I'll get to learn 4-point and 5-point perspective in my Environments class! My mind is going to be blown. Not to mention all the cool things I'm learning in Digital Coloring and Character Design. 

Study of the Day: 

Based off photos taken by Eadweard Mybridge. 

Trying to figure out how animals run. It's hard enough just understanding how people run. I plan to do a tighter study of this sometime in the future. My cat anatomy really leaves a lot to be desired, but I learned a ton about the moving parts from this study. 

That's all for now, folks!