Quick Draw: Construction Animal

Quick Draw Episode 2! That squirrel is about to enter a very hard-knocked life.
Today's theme: "Construction animal."
Obviously...I still haven't learned to paint. Or draw. Or pun. (Is that a verb?) But it makes you smile at least a little bit, right? ...Right?
Oh, and Stacey's playing now too! So check out hers and Al's. They're rad.

Quick Draw: Treeman

Al and I are resurrecting the quick draw! Today, our theme was "tree creature."

White as Snow, Black as Ebon, Red as Blood

Snow White was never my favorite princess. She was kind of a sissy. Screaming at the trees? C'mon. Her voice was kind of grating too. Usually I fast-forwarded through her singing in the beginning so I didn't have to listen to that sappy prince-stuff. The dwarfs were much better, anyway. All those roly-poly, bearded, mining men? They were hilarious! Grumpy was especially funny; Doc was my favorite. :) His half-moon glasses were cute. The truly terrifying scene in which her wicked step-mother-sorceress falls off the cliff was an intense part too. Then, when the vultures start circling down with evil glints in their eyes - that creeped me out. But at least th good guys won, right?
Now that I look back on it, I thought of Snow White mostly as a prop. She was just...there. The story followed her, but I didn't. I watched the movie for the dwarfs and the witch.
It wasn't until this year, with a renewed interest the classic fairy tales, that I deigned to look up the real story of Snow White; which is much darker and more powerful than most people give it credit for. When the Brothers Grim compiled their fairy tales from the folk tales they'd collected around the country, they tweaked some of them. Changing Snow White's evil queen nemesis from mother to step-mother was one of those changes. That change completely alters the feel of the story, though ultimate moral(jealousy is bad) stayed the same.
Personally, I really like this older version. It makes Snow White's plight so completely heartbreaking, I can't help but love her! I feel like I have to make up for the love that she's been denied by her own mother so I invest myself in her survival. It's such a small detail of the story, but in my mind it completely changes Snow White's character.
So I found a stylus and devoted a couple hours to honoring Snow White. I'm sorry I never appreciated her when I was little, she really is quite an impressive character.
This is a poem by Delia Sherman that really brought another dimension to Snow White. It's short and sweet, but pretty poignant. I like it.
Snow White to the Prince by Delia Sherman
The Grim Brothers' version.
Really Great Article with some cool Illustrations to boot.

Story stories

Everyone is a little obsessed with story. They swirl around us everywhere in acquaintances, strangers, objects, papers, movies, food - everything has a story!

Some are little more obsessed than others. Everywhere they go, everything they do - there's a magnifying glass in front of their eyes as they dissect the world around them and find the stories that are dripping from every corner of life. It's a talent, it's a gift, it's....really really really cool!!

I haven't reached that level. YET.

But every day I get a little better at it. And this year I am planning a full-scale invasion of story (via an Honor's Thesis)! I want to dissect it: find out what makes stories fly and what makes them flop.
What sends it straight to the heart?
What makes it so compelling that people will sacrifice sleep, food, and human contact to stay inside?
What makes cliffhangers so wonderfully annoying?
How do the stories we absorb change us?
How do some storytellers make even the most mundane things interesting while others make amazing exploits sound drab?
What does it take to make a good story?
How can I do it?
(etc)

To find out, I just shopped way too much on Amazon. hehe. I'm not feeling guilty yet either. :)



REAL stories:
"The PIXAR Touch" is a really awesome book! It tells the story of Pixar's early years. I knew they had hard times in the beginning, but I didn't know there were so many of them! It just makes me love them more.
Anyway, very well done by David A. Price. If you feel like spending some bucks on Amazon too, I'd recommend.


Kites is tantalizingly close to being done! Technical problems keep popping up, but we're rendering hardcore. There are only about five people left to work on it. haha, but it's only a matter of time.
Sorry about no art-posting lately, too. I haven't done anything but render and pitter about with non-artistic stuff on the computer, and I don't feel like scanning in my traditional stuff.

In other news: My friends Jake and Anthony have just finished they're first comic book, Peep Show! They know a LOT about story too. I love watching them observe - it always teaches me something. You go guys.

Lighting C_11

Lighting takes for-officially-EVER.
I blame it on my hideous rendering abilities. If I knew more about it I might be able to speed it up somehow.
In any case, this shot finally made it to the finish line. It hasn't quite crossed that threshold because Jed still needs to approve and the buildings in the background are still having issues, but heck! I wanted to post.

And for general entertainment purposes, and to feel good about how far I've come in lighting knowledge: this is how it USED to look.

Lighting F_8

Well, the never-ending story that was f_8 has finally ENDED! haha! Passed OFF, my stubbornly lit friend. Luckily, I didn't put you through the tedium of the rest of that story, so you just get to see this: The happy ending part.

This is somewhat similar to what it will look like in the final film. The Background will probably be differently placed, and Grandpa's eyes won't be silver slits either, but otherwise -- this is pretty much it!
Voila.


P.S. Huge thanks to Al Bradshaw who helped me a lot! :)

Just Because

I miss posting. Now that I've stopped using the Cintiques as a supplement organ, I hardly ever do traditional stuff! I literally spend a good 10-12 hours a day on the computer. It's valuable time, of course, and I enjoy it. But I'm still homesick for some traditional stuff.

On the other hand, yesterday I found an amazing lighting tutorial! This is it: Amazing Lighting Article. I learned all about diffused lighting and such so could attempt replication. That didn't go especially well...mostly because I was trying force my will upon the wrong lighting rig and it rebelled.
So tomorrow I'm starting again with the RIGHT rig. Hopefully that won't be as insanely frustrating. And if I'm lucky it won't take ten stinking minutes for every render either.

In other news: I'm in love with google reader. It's supplementing my animation education via blogs which is way cool. And also free. :P

An Entire Class in ONE Post.

This is a photo-dump (hmm, that sounds so low-class. How about Photo arrangement?) of everything I did for Photography. Minus the first two assignments because those were done with a real-live film camera and their scanned-in computer quality makes me twitch a little.




Right then, this is:
PORTRAIT ASSIGNMENT
Thanks to my models: Stacey Bethers <3 onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHoTiQ3n9iG1KnoBJB8qBmQ929cf_0PXtjb37hiqFYdrrtrNEpMEjVnV5sHHILucVBlAc4l9_USuHf1Oo18gk8m0-ZhpSUAfRaMizjqOFxuopgOUhSxMNiZfrhRJs8qDnmlW8ejKPXk_hG/s1600-h/stacey.jpg">














NATURE ASSIGNMENT
Not exactly sure what the point of that assignment was. Apparently, I thought the assignment was to utilize sun flares in as many ways as possible. Or maybe that was just my way of bleaching out my shoddy photography skillz.













TAKE THREE PICTURES OF A PENCIL ASSIGNMENT
uh... He was pushing us to be creative? I guess it worked. An hour before they were due, I was exploding with ideas for weird ways to take pictures of pencils. Only about 10% of those ideas were logical/possible though.
Oh! And no joke! Jaren told me this first picture was "so good it looks fake." I think it was a compliment, but I'm still deciding.








The end!

Bad Luck

 This morning in Ryan's class when my USB flipped out and corrupted right before I needed to present my March project! 


Obviously, I just lost all my USB information but the thing that miffed me the most was that I've spent nearly a week of sleepless nights trying to get some good revisions in before our actual presentation. I finally got some good ones last night at approximately 3:00 in the am and saved them immediately to ensure their safety. Little did I know, my USB was plotting their demise behind the scenes only unveiling its nefarious plot a second before their debut!


How annoying.


Still annoyed about that, actually.


I found all the first drafts on my home computer, though. Thank goodness.

About the paintings themselves: I tried to employ a little impressionism into the painting style. Wasn't fully successful, but it's coming! I love painting in Corel, too. So hopefully when I do the revisions (again) they'll be...better.




Overcast/stormy

Winter





Summer

Nighttime

Afternoon

Morning

Noon

Fall

Spring

Sunset/Evening

yay springtime!

this was how I felt today when I found out I could go the entire day without a third layer. :)