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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"Hardcow" Character Development

Animation III In-Class Sketches and Project Keyframes

Our first project - which will go toward our final/30 second short - is to animate an emotion-based action. I chose a scene featuring a pissed pig who challenges the protagonist cow, throwing down the boom-box before their throw-down battle.

Below are drawings from in-class last week, where we watched a Charlie Chaplain short and proposed random feelings/objects for our character to interact with. The drawings in red were done by others during a quick critique.

Amative Lyric Video

For the past month, I have been working on this motion-graphics video for the local band, Amative. This is the second lyric video I've ever made, and I look forward to many more! I will be open for commissions as soon as winter break hits, but until then, I am going to be focusing on school and helping a friend with their senior thesis.

I did all of the movement of the type in Adobe Flash, then I exported a PNG sequence. After that, I brought the PNG sequence into after effects and created a MOV file, which I took into Final Cut Pro - where I added the old-tv-looking effects.

Be sure to check these guys out - celebrate your local music scene!

http://www.facebook.com/Amativeband

Hardcow Finale ?

Behold! I think this design is done, at least for now. I am going to order a tanktop of it after I finish this blog post so that hopefully I can get it within a week. I had the suggestion to change the Ohio to a color instead of a solid outline, as well as take the outline out completely. I updated the Ohio itself to a more solid representation (less wonky), I added whiskers, and I added a few overlays of a striped texture to the fur and Ohio. If I were to do any more to this, I would want to add grime/dirt to the entire design (an ongoing debate) and I would thicken the lines between the eyebrows and the eyes.

I am stoked on it, though - this is a design I want to continuously visit and update to create different versions of. That being said - it's good to finally get it out there and out of my head. Let the games begin.

Hardcow Process II

Today I pushed this a bit harder, with blends, textures, the draw inside option, and opacity levels. My favorite bit would be the plugs - that's a map of Ohio, folks. I think I want to call this done - And I might be slightly worried I already over did it - but I am not sure. I just really want to order it on a tank top via skreened.com. I plan on either taking the texture out of the ears, or adding more texture to the cow itself. Afterwards I might add some "dirt" to the overall design, to give it the worn/vintage feel that everyone (including myself) seems to dig. Also, I have to decide what to do with that text. I think where it is at is the best place to have it - though I am really conscious of the tangent on the top right of Ohio. I might tip the Ohio-outline more to the right.

A few hours in, I added some irises to see what they'd look like - and behold: instant Disney.

The only thing is - despite the smirkingly-serious appeal I want with this design, I really love those Disney eyes. A lot. The inner character-designer/lover in me has a deep need for them.

Hardcow Process I

Finally taking a serious slap at an idea that has been floating through my thoughts and my sketchbook for what feels like more than one year. The idea is that local art and local music, as well as any other passion that anyone has and is in pursuit of - should be celebrated and supported, especially by the community surrounding it. Everyone has to start somewhere, and everyone who's anywhere started somewhere: what are we without our roots?

This design is meant to commemorate and raise awareness of local art forms. Why not go out to a show, why not get to know people - make the most of where you are/whatever community you were born into. Being in Ohio, sometimes we might feel like we're all just cows surrounded by fields of corn and soybeans. But we aren't just any cows. We're hardcow cows. ... haha, puns.