Painting - City Wolf - Tonal Study

Final Painting project of the year! I can't believe it's here already...

We were asked simply to create a character in a background. I decided to paint a wolf in an abandoned post-apocalyptic type city. Slightly inspired by wolves that live in Chernobyl, slightly by my Polish experience of being terrified of gates such as this one! ^_^ This is meant to be a vertical pan (if it were an actual animation).

For my tonal study, I used Gouache on Watercolor paper, then India ink with classic pen nib, and white dry pastel on top.

I have two color studies to go - then the final! More to come!

Pinups - Teri

More pinup fun! This is the lovely Teri - such an original! She wanted to be a sexy pirate that showcases her two toned hair, and all her tattoos! :D The rhum, gun, skull and banner were likewise special requests!

Never had this much fun! I love original pinups!

Here is the sexy Teri!

Life Drawing - The Zoo

I've been looking forward to the zoo trip all semester - turns out it was a bit of a disappointment. First of all, it was really cold!!! So most of the animals were inside, and it was crazy getting from one pavilion to the next - from a tropical rainforest, where your large coat is killing you, to suddenly having your sweat freeze to your body outside.

Next, we really didn't have enough time! The mandate was to draw 2 studies, and 12 gestures. I've never been to the Toronto Zoo before, and it's HUGE! It takes a really long time just to get from one place to another, and you never know if the animals on the map will be there, or if they will be close enough for you to draw... So in the end we had something like 2.5hours to finish everything.

Even so, I tried watercolor! The comments I got from my professor was that my studies were too "doughy". Therefore, when I got home, I decided to touch them up with dip pen and ink. I think the result is nice, and I might try this mixed technique for my next animal life studies.

So, these are the animals I found by chance!

Tigers:

Lemurs:

A Chameleon:

Some random birds, turtles and meercat babies:

And finaly, my favorite, this epic beast, called a Red River Hog!

Life Drawing - Caricatures

We had an awesome life drawing session yesterday - we got to draw caricatures of our classmates!

I had a blast! Here are some that I think turned out. All done in conte on newsprint paper.

  

Painting - Novel Interior - Ayla's Place - Final Painting

And here is my final painting of Ayla's Place! :) I like the result! Once again this is Gouache on Watercolor paper.

I wanted to depict a scene from Jean M Auel's "The Valley of Horses", set during the Ice Age.
Here is the quote which I decided to work from:

"The cave was not large but not small either. The walls angled back from the entrance, widening until they came to a fairly straight back wall. The general shape was roughly triangular, with the apex at the mouth and the east wall longer than the west."

If you want to see the rest of the process you can check out my Tonal Study:
http://tinanawrocki.blogspot.ca/2014/03/painting-novel-interior-aylas-place.html

And my Color Comps:
http://tinanawrocki.blogspot.ca/2014/03/painting-novel-interior-aylas-place_16.html

Here it is!

And if anybody is interested, here is what my lineart looked like:

Storyboard - The Ant and the Dove - Character Design

Final project for storyboard this semester! We're taking one of Aesop's Fable's - The Ant and the Dove - and making a storyboard for a short animation.

This week we had to have character designs done, as well as location design. So far I got my characters down! I like the style - I'm trying to keep it geometric and very animatable. :)

Children's Book - What Does it Mean that You Love Me?

A while back, Alan Doucet approached me and my boyfriend Kris Cowan to Illustrate a book that his brother, Jason Doucet had written for his son. The book has an adorable concept. A little boy gets tucked in by his parents every night, and they say "Good night! We love you!" and he asks, what does that mean? So every night the parents let him know what it means by giving examples, and being a kid, he images crazy scenarios for each example.

The book was a really great collaboration and is now published by Alan and available online! A great gift for any new parent!

http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-000913600/What-Does-it-Mean-That-You-Love-Me.aspx

And here is the lovely cover for the book:

Painting - Novel Interior - Ayla's Place - Color Comps

Here is the color exploration for Ayla's Place! As per usual, gouache on watercolor paper.

I decided to go for early morning light, and moonlight.

If you want to see the tonal painting, here is the link:
http://tinanawrocki.blogspot.ca/2014/03/painting-novel-interior-aylas-place.html

Caricatures - Gab & Eric + Mady

Because they be awesome, and because they've been nagging me forever to do this!

Gab and Eric and their Diva Dachshund Mady!

Gab is an fabulous Art Director (in fashion) and Eric is the most amazing hairdresser in the world (in my humble opinion).

xox Love you guys!!!!

Character Design - Life Cycle - Ataru the Shiba Inu

So one more project for Character Design done! This is Ataru, the Shiba Inu - a very traditional Japanese dog breed.

The mandate was to draw an anamorphic character that progresses through the stages of baby, child, teenager, adult and senior.

So Ataru grows up to become a Yakuza mobster. Good on me to pick a character with crazy tattoos - those took a long time to draw!

Here's the result:

And for anybody interested in the tattoo I drew, here it is:

Pinups - Kelsey

It's a small world! I've known Steve for a very long time - he was my sister's friend back in College. He came over for Easter once. Years later my boyfriend, Kris, started practising BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for those of us who are less savvy). Turns out Steve is crazy about it, and Kris would see him there quite often before we moved.

Now Steve commissioned this pinup of his lovely wife Kelsey! She's a children's psychologist (hence the decor). So easy to make pinups of beautiful people! She really liked it and I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

Animation - Animal Walk - Snow Leopard Sketch Dump

I'm taking my Snow Leopard seriously! Here's a sketch dump of studies I've been doing this week to start tackling the roughs of the walk tomorrow!

I found references from Anatomy books and of course good ol' google.

What I've learnt - Snow Leopards are much puffier than all other big cats!

Digital Tools - Flash Maleficent

And finally it's done! Here is my Flash symbol character animated!

It's my sexy version of Disney's Maleficent singing "Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy" by Tata Young. It was interesting learning After Effects to put the whole video together. Can't wait to dive deeper into that software.

I sure had fun with this one! I think I overdid it a bit for a "simple" Flash exercise, but oh well! ^_^

And some of my stills:

*I do not own the rights to the song! 

Character Design - Life Cycle - Shiba Baby

Working on my new Character Design project - the Life Cycle. We have to draw an anamorphic character, from its baby stage to how it develops into an adult. The stages are: baby, kid, teen, adult, senior.

Here is my baby Shiba dog. Any ideas as to what he will grow up to be? :) More to come!

Painting - Novel Interior - Ayla's Place

New project for painting. We have to pick a novel, or a legend or even a poem, and depict an interior location inspired by our chosen work.

I decided to chose my interior from one of my favorite's novels from Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children series: "The Valley of Horses".

This series happens during the ice age. The heroine, Ayla, having been banished from her Clan under the "death curse", is on a long lonely journey to look for "the Others". After a long fruitless voyage, she finds a small cave in a sheltered valley. She ends up living in the valley for several years, eventually joined by a steppe horse and a cave lion which she rescues.

The cave is described in this quote, when Ayla first discovers it:

"The cave was not large but not small either. The walls angled back from the entrance, widening until they came to a fairly straight back wall. The general shape was roughly triangular, with the apex at the mouth and the east wall longer than the west."

And a quick note about the "hole" in the ceiling:

"There was more light in the cave than she expected, and when she moved farther, she saw sunlight through a hole above the entrance and understood why. She also understood a more practical value to the hole. It would allow smoke to get out without filling the upper reaches of the cave, a distinct advantage."

So here is my Tonal Study! Gouache on Watercolor paper. More color studies, and the final painting to come!

Pinups - Jorden

Here is yet another pinup commission! Jorden is starting a beauty blog called "Chubby Cheesecake" and wanted a retro-style pinup, featuring her two French bulldogs for the header.

I think it's really cute! She had a really fun tattoo on her arm which was very fun to include.

And just for fun, here's the initial sketch:

Animation - Miguel - Head Rotation, Expression Change, Lip Sync

More Animation! :D Yay! This was SO much fun! Miguel from Road to El Dorado is one of my favorite characters EVER. He has a great range of quirky expressions, and I just had to pick him. If I can animate the way Miguel was animated before I die - I will die happy.

I think the head rotation is working pretty well, but of course I had the most fun with the expression change/lip sync. I feel I startedto feel more comfortable with his character towards the end.

The "Meow" sound clip was manditory - so the voice is a little wacky, but it did cover most lip shapes, so that's why it's used at Sheridan.

Here it is:

And some of my favorite stills!

Painting - Moodscape - Second one!

And here is the second Moodscape finished! Same scene as the last one, this time in winter at sunset. As always I could nit-pick and change things forever, but I'm stopping myself. For those who know my work on the game Water Hero - I now realize that these are reminiscent of the bgs I did for that project! :)

I just experience the crazy frustration of Gouache! I dropped 1 droplet of water by mistake in the smack middle of this painting... which "melted" a icky looking hole. Took a loooong time to fix.

Gouache on Watercolor paper:

Painting - Moodscape - First one!

And first one finished! No time to talk - must start the second one!

Gouache on Watercolor paper.