Humble beginnings!

I was looking for a file that a friend sent me and stumbled upon a folder of old artwork prior to the Summer of 2008 (around the time I started taking character design classes with Charles Zembillas @ the Animation Academy and animal character design with David Colman).  Considering it’s been almost a year since I embarked on my quest to become a character designer, I like to think that I’ve come a long way in terms of draftsmanship and overall design vocabulary.  I’ve got a long ways to go still, but I’m proud with how far I’ve come since then.

I can honestly see why Charles forbids students from throwing away their drawings: it’s to reflect on your humble beginnings as an artist.  I also like to think it’s to serve as a bookmark/placeholder for a design because the ideas will be there, but sometimes the execution won’t be.

Since tonight is the eve of  The Animation Nation’s “Animation Day,” I thought I would post this up to personally thank Charles Zembillas for opening my eyes with the building blocks and fundamentals of character design.

If you’re in the Burbank area and interested about animation,  come visit the Animation Academy as they will be hosting the Animation Nation Night!  You’ll be able to see some work of the current crop of students of the Animation Academy too.

For more info:
The Animation Academy

Animation Nation

Junkfood Monster – Digital Paint

I tried to fight off a case of the lazy sunday with some digital painting, but I fell asleep around 2pm and didn’t wake up till 8′ish.  Anyways, I completely scrapped the work i did previously and started from scratch.  I think it was for the better as I like results of this render than what I was working with.  I slapped on some paper textures because I hate drawing backgrounds and such.   It looks a lot better than using a plain white background.  Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy it since I had fun trying to render this bastard out.  cheers.

When Insomnia Attacks!!!!

I’m totally wired after having 2 energy drinks today, so I felt it would be a good idea to burn off some energy with some late night sketches.  This was a revision of an old sketch I did over a year ago.  I had no idea what I was thinking when I came up with the original design, and I still have no idea.  All I know is that I had a phase where I wanted to draw like Jon Burgerman and Jason Sho Green.  I’m totally gonna have to rework the feet and whatnot.  I couldn’t decide on making it a graphic/flat style character as opposed to something you’d see in a 3d animated feature.  Anyways, for the 2 or 3 people who read this:  let me know what you think.  -cheers

Photoshop madness

I’ve never considered myself an expert at digital painting.  The reason being that I have little patience for it and my traditional painting skills leave little to be desired.  With that said, I decided to man up and take digital painting more seriously.  I forced myself to actually sit down and do some digital painting tutorails that I’ve had for ages but never bothered reading.  I like to think that the hard work is paying off, but I’ve got a long ways to go before I can consider myself to be a master digital painter like Snakebite.  And  I mean a long ways.

But anyways, the illustration is my most recent assignment for my creature design class at the Concept Design Academy down in Pasadena.  It’s been a real challenge since my style has been geared towards animation as opposed to videogames and live action.  Not a perfect design, but it’s a lot better from when I first started the class.  With that said, time for sleep.  later.

sketchbook dumping

I forgot how much fun people sketching can be.  I haven’t been doing much of it lately just for the fact that I haven set aside some time to do so.  However, I was able to get some drawing in because my vis dev class had some crits/story presentations today.  Basically, this is just a compilation of sketches I mustered up during tonight’s class.  I played with exaggeration a bit.  Some of it successful and some not.  Anyways, it’s something I need to incorporate more often in my drawing regimen.  Hope you enjoy.  Cheers.