First week of uni...

Hey,

It was my first week of Uni this week, so I’ve been quite busy. It’s really good to be back, although the course has changed quite a bit; it has been enjoyable so far.
In our first lesson we started some lip syncing, when I finish that I’ll be sure to upload the vid.

Today we had our first lectures with the fountain of knowledge that is Ron. the theory has been cranked up a few notches; metaphysics, ethics and the polymorphously perverse were some topics touched upon today. I’m looking forward the next lectures.

Also, I made a sketchbook out of all my old photocopies of my larger drawings i did last year.
So here are a few photos of that. (I mostly plan to use it just for doodles and 30/60/90 sec drawings, enjoy!)

Practice...

This is the first time I’ve tried to animate a walk cycle from the front view. I think it turned out ok but I’m not happy with the robotic motion of the arms, to improve this I could add more variation in the motion of the humerus; as it seems very static.

More abstract stuff...

Abstract animation

I haven't done anymore animation so I thought I’d post some old abstract experimentation I did for a VJ set at Festinho festival, which was a laugh. I created this by painting onto blank 16mm film using glass paints, I then edited it on adobe premiere.

Sneak

Heres a rough sneak cycle I’ve been working on today, the pen ran out half way but I think it’s probably better to use pencil anyway. The cycles made up of a mix of doubles and singles, I tried it all on doubles but it felt too floaty. By mixing doubles and singles it gives the character more weight but I feel more frames might be needed to make the motions flow smoother.

Better late than never...

Well, this summer I haven't really done as much animation as I had hoped; but in the last couple of days I decided to do a couple of rough walk cycles. I did them both with pen so that I couldn't rub anything out and tried to spend as little time as possible on each frame. Although not brilliant I was expecting them to turn out far worse.

What have i been doing?

I haven't really been very good at this whole blog lark but heres a little project I’ve been working on.

A mate of mine recently asked me to design him a tattoo so here are the concept designs I’ve come up with and how the piece has been developing. It’s far from finished but it’s been fun and has kept me drawing. It also helped me to draw in different styles to what I’m used to.

Pencil Extender!

A must have for animators and illustration enthusiasts alike. The pencil extender doubles the life of a pencil, and makes you look super cool. Buy one today.

Almost 24hr Comic - Yellow Dimpled Water Rat!

week or so ago me and a couple of friends tried to do a 24hr comic over a few days (due to the opening hours of the space we were using, or at least thats my excuse) although we only manged about 18hrs heres what i produced.

Page 01

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Page 03

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Page 05

Page 06

Page 07

Page 08

Page 09

Page 10

Page 11

Page 12

Page 13 & Page 14

I really enjoyed creating this and, as a first attempt at making a comic, I am pleased with the result; although there is a lot of room for improvement, I learnt a lot in the process. The most difficult aspect to this was in coming up with the story, which is thin at best, but at least it forced me to think more sequentially. I also found that I find it hard to draw dynamic poses and as an aspiring animator this is an area which I will need to improve on.

The idea came from pulling words out of a hat, which was a good way of getting the ball rolling, and the cabal of zombies was a reoccurring theme in all our comics (you had to be there). For some reason at the start I couldn't get Rorschach from the graphic novel 'Watchmen' by Alan Moore (read it if you haven't already) out of my head, hence the serious dialogue. But I soon found it hard to keep up and also the ambitious aesthetic was becoming a bit too precious. Next time I’ll try and keep my drawings simple from the beginning.

Animation!

I've decided to start from the beginning with the exercises we were given to do in uni.

Its not amazing, but at least its practice :)

I need to post more.

Well I haven't been very good at this whole blog malark so far so I thought I’d just post anything, so here is a Pineaple-Cow! Enjoy.

More theme work.

i forgot i did this too....

Theme work!

well as an atempt to keep working over the summer, as i mentioned in the last post, me and a few of my fellow animation students are setting a theme for each week to base our drawings, animations, scripts etc on and give us some direction. the theme for last week was 'technology'. here are the drawings i produced......yeah i know theres not much but i'm also workin on a walk cycle for the robot.......hopefully i'll do more next week.

Blog 01

Hello to all that have made it this far! this is my first post so i guess i should introduce myself, i am an animation student at Southampton university and have just finished my first year which happens to be why i have created this blog; to try and motivate myself to keep drawing and animating over the 5 month summer holiday (i know its a ridiculous amount of time off). So i guess you can expect my next posts to include drawings and animations (hopefully), well thats all for now folks....