Concert Life Drawing

Recently had the chance to do what I've always wanted to do since taking Cafe Sketch class:

Bayside Thursday 10-9 @ Skully's

The Contortionist Sunday 10-12 @ Double Happiness

Stray From the Path Wednesday 10-22 @ Skully's

+ Counterparts, Expire, My Ticket Home

GHOSTxSHIP Sunday 11-2 @ Double Happiness

+ Grim State, Push Ahead ...

Bravoartist

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Hardcow - DONE!

It's finally here! It's been a long time coming (the first post about it was September of last year), but this is finally done. Summer has been good to this project (I only had this much done at the end of the semester) - it started out as a few smacked together scenes of cows dancing.

I was able to manipulate a handful of scenes in post-production/After Effects in order to make a better end result (the effect during the dance sequences, the way the cow and the pig are watching the rooster eat the boombox, etc). I could extend frames I needed more time with (for example, the first two frames of the pig were both one 1's, then pulled apart and drawn out into a longer jitter, etc). I used a bunch of fun sounds I found on freesound.org.

The idea behind this short, as mentioned at the end, to "SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL HARDCOW". Listening to a handful of local bands and making it a point to go and see a handful of local shows was one of the most memorable things from my teenage years. I was watching people in my generation essentially express themselves and putting all the time and money they could into it, regardless of their background. I wanted to make this short as a way to remind us all to embrace what type of art is happening in our backyard (or in this case, our barnyard) - everyone has to start somewhere.

The best thing about being even a small part of the local music scene's community was that you got to watch musicians grow. While I was working on this short, a band I had literally watched play in a BARN (how fitting) back when I was a sophomore in high school got signed and went out on a tour. Another crazy thing happened while working on this short: I met a guy at a mutual friend's house who, turns out, had also been a part of the local music scene for a handful of years. I was in need of finding music for my cow to dance to, and the band he was working with had the perfect song. This summer that band landed a spot to play on the Ernie Ball stage at Cleveland's Warped Tour. The way I grew up watching bands play simply because they loved it translated straight to how I want to do my own art for the same exact reason.

What's next? Revisiting my senior thesis plans.

That being said, I hope to make more cows dance in the future.

Halloween Gig Poster

A friend directed me to a friend of his who needed a gig flyer done. I have always wanted to do gig posters (in fact, I did some practice ones here and here), so I was stoked to hear this idea about a hardcore-dancing fat Batman. If you're a local metalhead, be sure to come out to the show, I posted this niice and early so there aren't any excuses!

I'm Still Alive - Pig Turnarounds + Backgrounds

June has been busy with CCAD Orientation-Leading, starting a new part-time job, and drawing.

I made it a goal to finish my HARDCOW short, and I'm sticking to it. Here's a turnaround of the pig that GOES HAM! in my short. The last scene I need to animate is one which involves this fella and our star cow dancing head-to-head: which I gathered some long-awaited reference for, thanks to my boyfriend and another one of our friends who is actually very talented at hardcore dancing!

Ah, why not. Here's a slight bit of proof of reference:

Happy Violence from Jon and Ben!

Here's a handful of the backgrounds I have been creating. When I animated for class, I had basic background layouts that I planned to follow until I finally got around to making backgrounds. I plan on approaching backgrounds very differently (sooner!!) next time around - it's funny that after doing it super-backwards, I have really learned from the challenge of "dealing with what you already have" - they are simple and angular (to contrast VS the organic characters), made in Illustrator.

Soon, I'll be updating with a stupid-big sketch post to catch up with sketches from the last semester (!) as well as the sketchbook I started at the beginning of this summer.

HARDCOW! Boards, Roughs, Clean Pass

Finals week was especially fun animating, cleaning, and coloring this lovely Hardcore-Hardcow idea I have had for awhile now. The project was for Animation III class, and it is something I plan on revamping, finishing, and reworking the rest of the summer. The bit was featured in the End-of-the-year 134th Annual Student Show at CCAD. Music credit go to locals Hollow Like Me (https://www.facebook.com/HollowLikeMe)! There's 32 seconds here of all that I managed to get done; the summer goal is to finish the thought and story to be a little more complete:
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Birthday Mosh! Gig Poster

More practice making gig posters/flyers. I tried to have some fun with this one. I have had this image of my friend hardcore dancing in my head since summer, trying to draw it right... I felt like this was the perfect time to finally nail it down. There are a handful of tiny things here and there I might do differently if this weren't for fun - but overall, I am happy with the way it turned out.

I am mostly happy with getting comfortable and more familiar with the process from paper to photoshop. Huzzah learning!