Moving on! The Big Jump!

ok! so for the next fun project, I have two ideas.

First one, deadline will be on 2/13/2011.  That project would be for fun.  I can already see how the style for the project should be, but I haven't had a story for it yet.  That one will be in development for another few days over the christmas holidays.

Second one, The Jump!
Tobi is going to make his big leap over the gap! Hahaha, this is going to be fun!

This Christmas holiday is busy!

I will be doing research for my second idea these free days...Blocking should be pretty soon!

one painting with a few sketches!

Dr. Sketchy's drawing session is always so fun and challenging! Since the models always have really interesting costume on, I felt it was a waste not to bring some color in.  Last weekend, the theme was end of the world apocalypse.  I brought my color pencil to try out.  Turned out I really enjoy it! Here's some of the sketches, along with an acrylic painting I did on Sunday nite.

she suppose to be eve?

I have no idea who this is.

acrylic paint, where is my base color! I need to put that in!

TADA!~!

By the name of the great gods! This animation finally comes to an acceptable end.  Of course, I can keep on perfecting it.  But I don't think my eyes can see this animation very clearly now.  So I am going to call this one done for now!  Maybe after a month, I see something that could improve it.  I will come back and revive it.  Tobi!!! Good job!  Moving on to Santa!  Oh! And I forgot to say, critique is very welcome!

12/17  *updated version, after Jo's comments.

Almost almost there

Wow, that animation took me a while! But it's almost there!! Just have to push it a little bit on the face.  I started to use pmframecounter() for my frame count.  So, now I point out the problem on the precise frame it occurs! Awesomeness.

1. In the beginning he seems to look sleepy.  how come it looks different on my own computer?  Gotta look into that.  Tobi should be doing the Garfield face.

2. Around frame 237, when he raised his elbow, its too poppy.

3. the last part where Tobi runs off the camera , 273-end, the smile should be more pronounced.  I can't feel Tobi's excitement.

4. the expression needs ease in ease out.  

5. bat needs animation.

Weekend with pop-up book and figure sketch

Wow, it seemed like all the things just chose to happen in this one weekend, and it doesn't seems like it is slowing down.  Friday evening and Saturday morning, I had a great time with Roger's friends.  Now  fast forward to the art part!

Saturday afternoon we went to Brooklyn Comic and Graphic Festival.  It was very crowded when we got there.  I did not expect so many people going to that festival!  I was there mainly for Paul Pope.  Waiting around for Paul Pope to  show up, I found a really cool artist instead, Sam Ita.  He is an artist now makes pop-up book.  I was instantly attracted by how he elaborately crafted the pop-up with the story.  I bought one of his book, "Moby Dick", as Roger's nephew's Christmas gift.  Sam even drew a cute whale next to his autograph!  As for Paul Pope, he looks way cuter than I thought!  Although, that's all I remembered of him.  Since the autograph has a "suggested donation $5~$20", we decided just to give it up.  Since when autograph requires money?
   

very cool, isn't it?

Sam Ita's autograph!

On sunday, my usual figure sketch meetup,

the indoor got a little bit too cold that the model has to put on her clothes for the last pose.  Still interesting to work with.

Anticipation and Swing touch up.

I touched up the anticipation before he hit the ball and the swing.  The part where he's rotating his bat during anticipation, is not completely finished.  I want to leave that open until the body movements are all done.  Let's see what I need to do to move on to the next part!

[MINOR]  the head movement around 105, it doesn't feel right.  the head movement at 105 and 126 is too even, need to break it up.

[MINOR]  I really like 150s where TOBE lower his head, I want to try accentuate that. 

[MUST DO]  the right hand of course! need to grab the bat as well!
[MUST DO]  Little pop here and there in the hand 167 to 243.
[MUST DO]  Add a freakin ball...
[MUST DO]  at the hit, smooth the body out

That's it for now!  I shall touch up the rest after I finish these!

One of a Kind weekend!

This Sunday, since I got complimentary tickets to the one of a kind show, I thought might as well go take a look.  Well, it turned out to be OK.  Nothing too surprising.  There are some really pretty jewelry, pins, but I don't really wear them.  The price they were selling it at, definitely screamed out they are handmade.  But one booth, just made my whole trip worth it, is the booth at the cafe room.  I probably wouldn't notice it if we didn't sit down and relaxed a little bit.

It was an ornament painting booth! The nice lady saw us walking over and asked us if we want to try paint one.  Of course!  I love doing random things like this!  Best, it was free! Haha!

So we sit down, and the lady gave us two heart-shaped blank glass ornaments.  She started teaching us how to use different kind of paint on glass.  After a short one minute intro, we were off to create our one of a kind ornament!  We even bumped into Roger's old friend who was painting a unicorn right across the table from us!  Small world, lovely Sunday afternoon!

This is mine,

now all I gotta do is find a tree to hang it on!

Nostalgia: Princess Sarah

I can't recall why I pick up this anime again recently.  

I do remember though, when I was around 5 yrs old, my happiest time of the day was at 6 pm.  Not only did I get to devour my grandmom's homemade delicious dinner, I also get to watch cartoons at the same time! And this cartoon, "Princess Sarah", was among my favorite ones.

Princess Sarah

The story is based on a novel called "A Little Princess" written by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  It has 46 episodes.  I am only at episode 7 right now.  When I was a child, watching this animation for the first time, I imagined that I was Sarah.  I figured at that time I would think Sarah is such an adorable little girl, and I want to be like her.  How time has passed! 

Two days ago, when I picked it up again, I remember I was yelling out,  "What a troublesome little bitch!! "  I was amused by how I am watching the animation as a adult now.  Complete different view!  I wonder if my mom ever pray in the dark that the animation ends early, so I would stop copying Sarah.  Nonetheless that doesn't take my love away for this animation now.

This animation was made by Nippon Animation Studio in 1985.  Nippon Animation Studio is famous for taking the literature novels and made them into numerous cartoons.  Their anime series includes, The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Marco From the Apennines to the Andes, etc. They are also the studio that responsible for Chibi Maruko Chan anime, Cooking Master Boy anime.

This studio has created so many good memories for me, make me happy even now when I think back.

This, is the power of animation.

Slowly progressing, I am turning into a snail!!

Here's the new post!  I have refined the body when Johnny is anticipating the ball. (And yes, I gave him a name, and it's because I like Johnny Depp, and it's my blog.)  Added a little hip movement also head movement in the beginning.  But I am not happy with the head movement at all! Also the body when he's anticipating the ball, he seems too stiff...

Things need love tomorrow,
1. defintely smooth out the hand and the bat when Johnny is waiting around for the ball.  Add more obvious body movement so he doesn't seem like a stone.
2. head movement is going to be tricky.  I can only imagine him looking forward waiting for the ball, so i guess the head movement will be subtle. The force that's making the head move I think mainly comes from the body...
3. add a ball flying in.

I had an awesome weekend!

This weekend was especially cool because my art cells felt revived!

This Saturday I went to an awesome event held by Picto Plasma.   Craig Redman, creator of Darcel, was the first speaker.  I like his presentation, and how he works his idea and lead him where he is now.   Blog is seriously a new way to shout out your thoughts.  I am enjoying it too.

Second one is Rilla Alexander.  Rilla recently completed her book, "Her Idea".  Her speech, out of all four, was the most inspiring one for me.  I could really feel a connection with everything she said.  She talked about how she struggled with her idea booms, and how she find what she really wanted to do after 10 yrs of commercial work.  This made me think a lot of myself.  I am in a stage where I feel confused too.  I have so many ideas just like she has.  But like what she said, new ideas always seem better.

"Please don't give up on me," one of her idea sadly lied in the garbage can.  I almost thought that poor thing lying in the garbage was something that I dumped out.  Work with one idea at a time.  Push it, stretch it, believe in it, do whatever I can with it, be loyal to it.  And eventually it will grow.  One more thing she said that was really interesting was that, commercial work seems to push you away from putting your soul into it.  That's why she saved her soul for her book.  But then she realized that she can't just divide herself into two, one does commercial work, the other one does her book.  I really want to find out what she will be doing two years from now.  Will she be fully devoted to her book? or will she be back into commercial world again?

Next is Nathan Jurevicius.  He's the creator for Scary Girl.  I learned one thing from him.  Lawyers are important when I become famous. haha.

The last one, Peter de Seve.  He is the character designer for Blue sky's Ice Age.  He showed a lot of his work in the speech.  I have to say, he's a really nice speaker, grabs my full attention.  He had been in this business for a long time, and the path to get where he is now, is not as smooth and easy as one would think.  And I got this from him!

Sunday I went to a drawing meetup session.  It was really nice to sit in a tea shop and draw on a Sunday afternoon.  Here are some of my work,

I wish next weekend can be this inspiring too!

Do you dare to stay in here?!

Candies for the art brains!  What is called a Unique Hotel?? If you have seen this pictures, you would agree with me!  No doubt!  Propeller Island City Lodge is definitely the winner!  But do you have the guts is the question!

natural feeling!~ Nice..pretty normal though..

Nov 8 Bat rotation is sweet now

Focused on bat rotation, I think it looks way better now.
tomorrow will refine the part where he's anticipating the ball...

Fixing hand rotation.

So, I've been fixing the rotation today, still doesn't look good...Parts that I want to fix later.
  1. Some glitch at the beginning of the second rotation, maybe I have to take out that one frame jump?
  2. The rotation is too flat, not enough contrast, push it more!
  3. When his hands raise up to the shoulder, the speed is kindda too even.
  4. freakin head need some motion too.
These are the notes up to where he put his bat on the shoulder. I haven't touch anything after that.
Comments are more than welcome!

Japanese Anime! Highschool of the Dead!

So some entertainment for the animation brain!  I have been watching Highschool of the Dead recently.  Just finished the whole season.  I love it! The story is about a group of high school kids got stuck in zombie apocalypse.  I can use only three words to describe this anime, zombies, girls, blood.  Sounds perfect? Good!

  

Using the girl's boob as gun tripod?! Which genius comes up with that idea...

naked girl in a kitchen?! in zombie apocalypse!? pure awesomeness! This tells us this animation gotta be funny!

and of course the zombies...and blood...THE THRILL~ yesss

But there are only 12 episodes now.  The story itself is far from finish.  I did hear some people say there will be another season.  Lets really hope that will happen.  This animation is too hilarious too violent and too sexy to end right here!

OK! Serious Business Now! HOME RUN!

This is my first animation that I will do on this blog.  Baseball!
So I thought of all the animation work I have done so far, and realized I have barely done any human body animation!  This would be a fairly simple animation to start with, while still have fun.

So my first pass is just to rough it out.  I haven't done anything too detail yet.  That will be my work tomorrow.  But I am pretty happy with it so far.  Some part the timing is still off, but a little bit more exaggeration would help.

Also the rig I am using is Moom V.4 .  Its fairly easy to find, and the controls are not too bad with simple body animation.
  

Some music for working.

Calming! Not distracting either. I love it.
Shine Radio  http://s-radio.whyza.net:8000/
go to lize, then click the listen button on right corner.