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.