This Ain't Baseball

Just in case you were wondering.







But they do make for cute trading cards, no?

ブルースマン町田謙介

Japanese Bluesman, Machida Kensuke.

Click here for a sampling of his diggable sounds.

Game Time

Working inside all day makes me want to go out and play.

Happy Halloween!

I hadn't touched anything on the Izzy project for a long time, but there's a strangeness in the air on Halloween so I thought I'd carve up a little treat.

Mr. Chung

Look out behind you.

Testing...

Just trying a few things out.

Autumn

Colored pencils on paper.

Recent Gestures

So, I've been spending most of my time animating my senior film. Sitting for so many hours in front of a Cintiq, I started getting pretty rusty at observational gestures so I skipped on down to the open drawing session and loosened up some.

I usually like to mix it up by doing some quick poses that are less anatomically based,


and other poses that focus more on anatomy.


Since it is a student-run open drawing session (not an actual class with a professor), sometimes I end up waiting around for a little while if the model doesn't change poses frequently enough. After drawing a pose 2 or 3 times what do I do if I'm still waiting for the model to change?
Why, draw students drawing, of course!


Some animation or backgrounds from my film soon, hopefully!
Thanks for stopping by!

More doodling

Some more experimenting with the acrylic inks, this time with color pencils layered on top. The edges are a little loose, but when you're experimenting sometimes unexpected things happen.

Doodles

I got some new acrylic inks last week, and took them out to see what they could do (or rather what I could do with them). Some successes and some not-so-successes later, here we are.
And still growing.

Some Simple Math

Given the fact that I haven't done math in an academic sense for well over a decade now, this calculation may be slightly inaccurate...but I think the principle is correct.


I don't know what to tell Allison.

Click the image to enlarge. Bonus points to anyone who can name all of the celebrities (and their best starring roles).

School and Sketches

Some sketches from the beginning of school. Mostly, I animate all day...sometimes I go to other classes. When that happens, I draw people--you know, to stay loose for animating.
With any luck I'll be able to put up some stuff from the film I'm working on soon. For now, on to the sketches! Hope you enjoy!

A military dude from a Japanese class.

Ben Jensen is a super stud (see above).
Some dudette from a class I'm in.


When I doodle in Japanese class, sometimes I try different things like this below. Perhaps this is because I'm paying more attention to the analysis of syntax and morphology, which takes my mind off the technical aspects of drawing and allows my brush to wander. Anyway, I thought this one was pretty fun.

Also, I found an acorn today. It had a cool shell thingy too. Below, I've attempted to diagram the acorn cycle (like the water cycle, but only with acorns). PS, if you're wondering why the girl below has too many eyes, it's because I messed up, but I still liked the drawring...which is okay. sometimes we mess up.

PCC Animation

It's not very often that I am allowed to post work-related stuff here (or even that I'd want to post some of what I do for pay), but this is a cool opportunity to share something.
A few months ago I was hired as an animator to help create a handful of animated short pieces to be played in conjunction with a live stage show at the Polynesian Cultural Center in O'ahu, Hawaii. The new show is called Ha, Breath of Life, and plays nightly (excluding Sundays) at the Center. (Click on the link to learn more about the show.) It's kind of cool to have been part of a project like this that gets such frequent and comparatively broad exposure.
The link above is, from what I can tell, taken (likely unauthorized) from the handheld of a tourist who went to see the show. You can watch quite a bit of the show, but the animation starts at around 1:15 in to the clip. Unfortunately, the coolest animation is further in to the show, and I haven't seen any of it surface on the web yet, so I guess this gives everyone an excuse to go to Hawaii! (You should be thanking me.)

Also, as with all work of this sort, a number of drafts were gone through before we got to a final product, so I can post here some of my animation that was rejected in favor of stuff that was less fun. Alas.

While we're at it

This was a sketch that began, I think, in January and then promptly got lost somewhere inside my computer. While I was doing some spring cleaning (I know I'm a little late), I found it and finished it.
If you're curious, it happens to be of a professor of mine, Darl Larsen, who (among other things) teaches a History of Animation course at Brigham Young University (where I attend school). We had a running contest wherein every week a number of students would decide on a topic and draw Darl according to the confines we set. The image above is from "Cap'n Darl" week; I will spare you the results of "Darl-ene" week. If you're really curious (and of a steady constitution), you can ask Jake.
Okay. Now I'm really off for vacation...seriously. Before we miss our flight.
Be well!

Pre-vacation

Our family is off to do a little summer vacationing in Washington to visit my wife's parents. But before we go, I thought I'd leave a few sketches and the like--in case you wanted new stuff to look at until we get back. I'm scheduled to go backpacking with my father in law for a few days, but apparently Seattle area is having record heat right now so it will hardly be a respite from Utah. Oh well, I'm excited to see some new terrain and, with any luck, do some wilderness sketching while we're out.
Have a great week, everyone, and be safe!