EXTREMELY ORIGINAL LOOKING PHOTOGRAPH

How many times have you seen a picture that looked like this?

I needed a picture for SVA's Dusty's program book. Luckily, Zach was around to bail me out. (Thanks again, man!)

I thought it would also make a good photo ID for the various places I'm found all over the internet. Blogger, Twitter, Facebook... all that crapioca.

Even More From the Bird's Point of View...

I did a bit more work on that "Birds in a Creepy Tomb" picture in Photoshop. I added color, some highlights, shadows, textures.... & stuff like that.

So it started like this...

Then I inked them digitally, while changing a few things. Started coloring...

Finished coloring the characters...

Added some effects (fire, textures, gradients)...

& then some shadows & highlights. The characters are starting to look a bit more dimensional now.

There's still a few things I want to add to the picture, including a background & maybe some cobwebs & creepy-crawlies around the tomb. I'm really starting to get used to Photoshop. It took me a few years, but I'm getting there.

(By the way, the names & dates on the tomb have historical significance)

More from the Bird's Point of View...

I sketched out this picture the other day, thinking about an offshoot story from the one I'm currently working on. I'm really having a lot of fun drawing these characters in these little scenes. They're like little story panels, or something out of a children's book.

I'd like to take this (along with the one in the post before this) & color them up nice in Photoshop.

Back in the Saddle & an Adventure of a Lifetime

Kind of branching off of what I said a few days ago, I dropped out of about half the things that were racking my mind & body for the last few months now. Some of them I'm glad to get off my back, & some of them were really hard to let go. Some of these people are friends of mine, & I never want to let any of them down, but I think it's better now that I'm in a much more healthy state of body & mind, & can finally breath a little again. Now that my to-do list has been shrunken down to a much more manageable size, I'm thinking hell of a lot more clearly & can now focus on the things that are really important to me.

*Also, I'd like to thank all the people who have been thinking about my well-being & have been cheering me up. You guys are awesome friends, & now that I'm not as tapped, I have a bit more free time to chill with you guys.

During the past few months, I never really had time for myself or my own interests. There would be a break here & there, but they were small, few & far inbetween. One of the things that I've put off for a good long time was a book I was working on. I may have briefly mentioned it here before, but I never really went into great detail on it. I've been working on it on & off for about the last 2 years. At this point, I've got about 50 pages roughed out, which I would like to go back & tweak a little when I get some more free time. I pretty much have the complete story all in my head & ready to go, but there's a few small chunks strewn throughout that need some story revision. I've actually spoken to a few comic folk & a to a few publishers who seem very interested, but I decided to wait a little while longer before I jump the gun.

Although this thing means a lot to me, I've put it off because getting my SVA stuff done means just as much to me (& that it's far more important right now anyway). At this point, it's not the most imperative thing on my plate. It's not like it's a carton of milk; it's not going to expire or go away any time soon. It can wait. I've even thought about scraping the book entirely & just using my panels as a rough storyboard & turning it into a film. I think of the story being more cinematic anyway. Still, it's something that I'd REALLY like to finish someday, even if it takes me 20 years to do it.

A few weeks ago, while taking break from some other work, I opened up Photoshop & just started sketching out a little picture of the characters from my story. Compared to some of the other stuff I tried doing in Photoshop, this was actually very relaxing to me. My friend Mike showed me where I could get some really nice custom brushes & since then it's been a lot easier & more fun to draw in the program.

Lately, I like to draw with an inverted adjustment layer on top. It helps me see the lines much clearer, & it's a hell of a lot less taxing on my eyes.

Here's a rough outline of the story in case you're interested: Randy & Steve Owen (known as Steve-O) make a bet against a wealthy aristocratic swan (Reginald Codbottom III) to see who can find & retrieve a legendary gem, known as the 'Phoenix-Eye Ruby', from the deep jungles of Central America. Randy & Steve-O, along with the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in their community, race against Codbottom to find the gem first. They encounter shipwrecks, pygmies, & enemies who try to thwart them. Hilarity, drama & character development ensue, etc. etc. etc.

I know, it sounds a lot like Carl Barks (& it probably is a lot like his work), but I think I'm getting a bit deeper than he did in his Scrooge stories, at least as far as character & emotion goes.

Like I said, it's still in the rough stages, & I know this will take a good long time to complete, but I don't care. It's one of the few things that really make me excited about drawing again.

Business Cards

It was pretty embarrassing giving out those stupid, cheap 'flyer' things at Comic-Con last year. So this year I made sure to get myself some decent business cards.

No more pointy crescent-moon heads for me! I've upgraded to tin cans now.

& I think this is the first time I've drawn anyone with 5 fingers. Took me 15 years to do so...

I think I'll incorporate this into my next banner. It's better than 'Scraggles McGee" up there now.

& here's the final card image:

If you're goin' to Comic-Con & you run into me, don't be afraid if I suddenly force one of these suckers into your pocket. Or maybe I'll tape it to the back of your shirt/dress/Darth Vader costume when you're not looking. Ooh, I got it!... every time you say a certain word, I'll throw one right at your face! Perfect strategy!

Oh, & apparently I'm 20 now. I forgot it was my birthday. You have to be a pretty preoccupied person to forget your own birthday.

Damn...

For those of you who didn't notice, I finally changed the headline banner for the blog. I just realized that Fall was over. Why doesn't anyone TELL me these things?!

I originally planned to change the banner for every season. I did one for last summer & did one for the fall, but because of college & other more pressing matters, I never got around to making a new banner. So the fall banner sat all through winter & spring, 'til yesterday when I finally got fed up & scribbled this out in 20 minutes, just to change things around.

I'll keep this one up 'til the end of the summer (or when I better idea for a design comes along). 'Til then, enjoy me & my tarantula-leg eyebrows for a few months.

By the way, here's the old model, just in case some of you miss it already:

The Woods are Filled with CUCKOOS!!!

30 days, has September,

April, June & Montana,

all the rest have cold weather,

except in the summer,

which isn't often!

Woo hoo! Woo hoo!

For the Birds Goes to the Dogs

Uh oh... here it comes...

This year, us second year animation students have been in the process of creating our own little animated films. & I, being one of those eager beaver animators, is completely ecstatic over the it. Back at the beginning of the semester, I was all set to get this production running at full throttle. I had my story down pat, my characters all designed & I was just about to start animating shots. Everything was going alright.

Then my heart nearly stopped.

Since my little heart scare back in February, I haven't felt quite the same. I've been considerably weaker, my sleeping & eating tracks have been knocked off kilter & I've become a bit more moody & emotional, which to me is very uncommon. I've even had a good amount of nightmares since I got out of the hospital. But worst of all, due to my lack of energy (emotional, mental & physical), I've neglected my little film (as well as some of my other projects for school). Work has slowed down to a crawl & I've actually gotten to the point where I've lost almost complete interest in it. Long story short, I won't be able to complete my film by the end of the school year. I'll be lucky if I get at least a minute out of the intended 2-3 minutes completed by then. 

I don't know what part of my heart hurts more, the physical or the metaphorical.

Yet, there's a little flame in me that still has emotional backing in this project, & I still want to go ahead & finish it, deadline or not. One of the few things that I could never let myself do is quit. I wouldn't be able to live it down if I did. So no matter what, even if I'm nearly struck dead by an act of some unspeakable force, I'm gonna finish this film. I've decided that I'm gonna make this a little summer project, something to keep my hands & mind busy the four months I'm away from school.

It was decided pretty late in the game that I was going to animate the whole thing in Flash. I already had about 3 or 4 scenes already animated on paper, ready to be shot. But when I began to think of all the trouble I'd have to go through to complete a shot, I had second thoughts. For a scene, each drawing would have to be 

1) animated & tested until it looks just right

2) cleaned up 

3) scanned into the computer

4) colored in Photoshop

5) composited into After Effects

& repeat until the whole film is complete. 

& for someone like me, who just happens to enjoy animating on ones, this would take an incomprehensible amount of time & effort to tackle. In Flash, you kill about 4 birds with one stone, all in one program. So, I threw al my completed scenes in the trash & started over.

For me, my use of Flash is a love-hate relationship. While you can accomplish basically the same exact things in Flash as you could traditionally drawing on paper, the program still doesn't suite me right. It almost feels like I'm cheating. Besides, I don't want to be solely attached to the computer. I want to have a thorough grounding in doing it the traditional way with good ol' pencil n' paper. Starting next year, I'm gonna stay as far away from the computer as I possibly can. 

But for now I got a film that needs finishing, so Flash is my last resort. & so far, I'm pretty satisfied with what I've animated. If I can spend at least 3 hours a day working on this cartoon, I may have something decent to show off. 'Til then, I'll be working my ass off (or at least whatever's left of it)

Earlier today, I animated in the Cintiq lab for about 5 hours straight. & of course, I had to have a doodle break:

It's almost like a sneak peek, but it's not. 

& so, I'm off to draw more doggies!

Ciao!

Guess what I got?

I am currently a happy (yet empty-pocketed) camper.

If I could, I probably would. 

& often, too.