Chips and Solstice

Animation galore!

2010-01-06T14:34:00.000-08:00

So, here's the project I was working on. There were a LOT of changes made since I last blogged about it. Most noticeably the switch from hand drawn to symbol animation. I'm not a fan of symbol animation, but we had to scrap it half way through and I ended up doing all the character animation myself in 5 days. Do I want a cookie? Sure.

So, my friend Fenia and I are planning to do a stop-motion piece this summer. I've been playing around with it, trying to get a good workflow, and used to the medium in general. This was my first attempt.

Note: Duct-taping the camera to the table does NOT keep it steady....

Funny story. Originally at the end something was going to fall on the coil and kill it (as seen in the next one). My camera decided not to take the last couple pictures and stopped right after the crawl. It didn't ruin it as a study, but it did take away all of the entertainment value. The camera stole my punchline!

I then ordered a tripod. Which Came today!

Here's my second stop-motion experiment. I was testing out a way to use props and remove them in post. It didn't work out that great because the focus was different from picture to picture. Gotta find a way around that.

Anyway, next time I'll probably show some CG animation.

Till then

And by tomorrow I mean next month...

2009-12-03T14:24:00.001-08:00

So, hopefully I'll post some of my stuff more frequently. I have more to show than you'd think

Long time no see...

2009-11-06T18:06:00.000-08:00

What have I been up to?

I'm currently heading up animation on this little project a group of students at my school are putting together. Here's a pencil test of one of my shots. I'm hoping with the cool coloring technique in photoshop this piece is gonna look bangarang.

I'll probably be updating with other stuff I've done recently tomorrow...and the next day....expect a post a day....

We built an Animation Desk

2009-06-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

So, my friend and I built an animation desk! I got the idea to do it after stumbling upon this blog a couple months ago. Of course, with no tools or experience with wood I never thought it's actually happen. That's where my buddy Chris came in. He had both! And...did most of the actual building while I was the one who deciphered the blueprints and dictated the measurements.

Anyway!

Here are some pictures

Here's the finished desk in it's collapsed portable form. It was awesome because a lot of the measurements we did were based on guesses and it worked out perfectly!

We actually had to completely improvise the legs in the back that lock into the dowels, and it turned out to be the most sturdy part of the whole thing. But cutting that hole....was a pain....

The light fixture was really hard to find for cheap. I had just so happened to bring this gooseneck clip-on lamp with me and we decided to give see how well it would work as a backlight and:

SHAZAM!

SHAZAM!!!

So psyched!

Now, here's some technical stuff:

This is the blueprint we used to build it (found at the Hand-Drawn Animation Equipment blog)

One thing I wished it had come with when I was out buying stuff was an actual supply list to build that thing. So, here's what we needed.

24 x 48 (3/4 in. thick) piece of Aspen
From which we cut:

1 24 x 34.5 in. sheet (for the desktop [A])
2 9 x 1.5 in. pieces (for the part that you put the dowels in that the back legs rest on [D])
2 21.75 x 2 in. pieces (for the sides of the bottom structure [C])

3/4 x 6ft x 6 in plank of...I don't remember what kind of wood it was...but it doesn't really matter...it looked similar to the aspen
From which we cut:

2 15.5 x 1.5 in. pieces (for the back legs [B])
1 32.5 x 1.5 in. piece (for the bottom part of the back legs that rests on the dowels [E])
2 34.5 x 2 in. pieces (for the front and back of the bottom structure [F])

1/2 in. dowel rod
2 1.5 in. hinges
2 3 in. hinges
4 corner braces
4 regular braces

Tools, and such
Jigsaw
Table Saw
Wood Glue
Clamps
Drill

That's it, really.

All of the parts cost me $50 in total. As opposed to buying one for $300-$500. The most expensive thing I had to buy was the disk which was $102 (which includes shipping).

The Hardest part, obviously, was cutting the 16.5 in. hole in the desktop. We actually cut it a little too big (...and lumpy...), but the disk fits and spins well. It just has a bit of wiggle room.

Till next time,
Marty

I made a capture station today

2009-06-21T17:03:00.000-07:00

So, I'm roaming the internet trying to find good ideas as to how to rig up a cheap capture station when I stumble upon Sunny's Blog, and his post on how he converted a lightbox into a capture station. Awesome, right?!

So, here's pictures of mine. It's not exactly like Sunny's, but I kept to the same basic idea.

I made it out of a beat up old piece of foamcore that I found lying around, some duct tape. It looks really crooked in this picture....but that's really fixable...

Cut holes in the side and taped pieces of vellum to help distribute the light.

The only part of this I had to buy was this webcam, which worked out nicely because I used parts of its package to mount it snugly to the top.

Here it is with the lights on. I tested the video feed and it works remarkably well!

Problem is I don't seem to have a program to actually capture animation with. TVP animation only seems to want to acquire images from a scanner, and Premiere CS3 doesn't seem to capture anymore. Of course, I don't know my way around those programs very well, so it's possible that I just missed it.

Another Mermaid

2009-06-19T11:58:00.001-07:00

GET IT?! She's acting like a fish! HA!

I started drawing mermaids again. I think this is the last one for a while. I'm still not all that great with Watercolors, but I rather like how this one turned out. Probably the last mermaid for a while.

Lord Bravery

2009-06-14T13:56:00.001-07:00

Playing around with watercolors...

Interrogation

2009-06-09T14:10:00.000-07:00

And with that....I'm done

Just a Sketch

2009-05-16T05:21:00.001-07:00

Coming up with characters for my next animation...

24 Hour Chalenge

2009-04-18T07:28:00.000-07:00

So, I got first place in the 24 hour challenge! Woohoo!

the 24 hour challenge is where the animation majors at my school get together and spend the night at the school. While there they have 24 hours to do any of the specified challenges. One of the challenges was a 12 second traditional animation. I started this around 9 AM on Friday morning, and finished around 5 AM Saturday morning (with very frequent breaks).

Jerry's Fantasic Journey!

2009-04-15T09:41:00.000-07:00

New animation for you guys. First project in Intermediate 2D animation. Just a walk across the screen, pretty simple

Till next time,

Laugh with me, Jocko!

2009-03-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I've been drawing Freakazoid stuff so much. This one was really fun to do; I haven't used charcoal in ages. This is a Gutierrez, one of Freakazoid's enemies.

I couldn't find my digital camera so I had to scan it which is why it seems so cramped. There's about half an inch of drawing that got cut off.

-Marty

Super Teen Extraordinaire

2009-03-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

I was experimenting with a new way to color using markers for the flats and going over them with colored pencils. I kinda like the result.

...Anywho...

Failed my review because I don't have enough final finished pieces, so I guess I'll pull out the bristol more often instead of just drawing in my sketch book all the time. Here's the first of the new era.

-Marty

Flour Sack Final

2009-03-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

Weight test....Now with a hat!

2009-03-11T10:29:00.000-07:00

So, I never got around to cleaning it up, but I did animate the hat. I'm pretty happy with the turnout.

I'll probably update with some sketches soon...

Weight Test Roughs

2009-03-06T11:47:00.000-08:00

The roughs for an animation I'm working on. I'll clean it up over the weekend.

It's been a while

2009-02-22T13:19:00.001-08:00

Playing with Markers

2009-01-19T19:54:00.001-08:00

So, I have an assignment coming up that will require some coloring. I usually handle all of that digitally, but I feel like doing stuff by hand's less of a hassle these days. No printing costs. Just no undo button. I guess it's really a choice between the two.

Anywho, It's been a while since I've posted, so here are a few highlight sketches from this week.

Look! Up in the sky!

2009-01-10T19:05:00.000-08:00

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...

Mr. Incredible's worst fear?

So, Boom Studios is putting out comics based on Pixar movies. The first series will be a story about, you guessed it, The Incredibles! The first issue comes out March 25. Hopefully they'll be awesome.

Trocantor the Malevolent

2009-01-09T18:51:00.000-08:00

The last couple of days all I've really d0ne are studies and gestures, nothing too interesting.

Today I finally did some interesting sketching in a spell of boredom

Oh! And I inked this bad-boy, too:

Edwardsuke Potter

2009-01-05T19:48:00.000-08:00

Edward Cullen. Wearing a Naruto Headband. Killing Voldemort.

This will be inked. This will be colored. This will be posted on my Deviantart. I will get thousands of views

GENIUS!

Oh, and I had jury duty today. Got some life drawing done.

ADVENTURE!

2009-01-04T17:12:00.000-08:00

So, I drew a lot today. I have jury duty tomorrow. I'll probably draw a lot, haha.

Captain Curtain leaping into action!

While at church today I decided to draw the pastor. I was a kinda cramped while drawing it, so it came out a little skewed. I fixed it up a bit, though.

I was reading the Preston Blair animation books about character construction and did the little exercise where you draw one of the characters the way he has it then use that construction to draw the same character in different poses.

The Dog is from the book. Then I got out an old Classic Cartoons VHS and drew the one daffy from it. Then came Captain Hook.

Captain Curtain Revisited

2009-01-03T20:24:00.000-08:00

I was messing around with the Captain's model today after reading some articles on Appeal.

I kinda like it, but he looks a little too young....

I'll probably color that face, though.

EDIT: I did...

The Perilous Adventures of Sire Sackington

2009-01-02T18:20:00.000-08:00

So, I was mega-uninspired today drawing-wise. It's weird though, looking back at how despite how little I felt like drawing I still managed to fill some pages. I really wanted to add a 4th panel to that floursack story, but I ran out of room. Not something I should tell the general public, right? Yeah, I thought so.

And now for somethign completely different:
He'll probably be the last of my monsters...

...maybe...

First Drawings of the Year!

2009-01-01T15:51:00.001-08:00

Not the best I've ever done, but there are parts I like about this drawing. I should get more exclusive with what I put up here. Of course, if I did then I'd be too worried about how awesome the drawing was to post anything at all. Either way, there it is, the second drawing of the year.

Here's the last one from 2008!

And the first of 2009!

Happy New Year!