Where has my life gone???

To uni, that's where. And money making activities! 15 hours at work and aaaaaall the rest of my time on a Masters course. Yup. And I recently agreed to talk to some peeps coming to our uni for interviews about the univeristy and the course. I am going to open my talks with this statement: "Do you like the look of this lab? Well GOOD!! CUZ YER GONNA LIVE IN IT!!!!!"

So anyway, I rarely find much time to doodle when it's not for uni but it was my fiance's birthday on 31st October and he's pretty into Dragonball Z at the moment. My birthday doodles to him were relevent to his interests:

He later got me to draw him going 'super saiyan'.

(Dragonball Z and all things Dragonball Z belong to Akira Toriyama - check him out).

Here is some life drawing I did last Monday :)

Sorry for lack of update-age. But this is for the better, as when I am working on this blog, I am not working on the other... And that would be a horrendous waste of money... cuz you know, I paid for the Masters and all... Check out my work blog! See where all my time is going!! Go HERE now!

Masters is busy yo.

Here are some life drawing sketches!!

Haven't posted here in a while but that's because I've been posting elsewhere (I feel like I'm cheating..). Which is why you should check out my Masters blog! Right Here! I have to post there regularly to document my work for my modules and so that my tutors can mark it. There are lots of test animations there at the moment and soon I should be uploading some finished ones so go see!

Why did I disappear for a month?

I will tell you why.

Because I got my part time job back at uni and we are short staffed. And because I have been sorting out everything so I can start my Masters course (which I have done!). So yeah, real life got busy. Therefore I haven't had much time/energy to draw.

That said, I do have a few things that I will upload soon AND I now have a work diary/blog, which will probably see more of me than this here art blog unfortunately. But I encourage you to check it out because hopefully it'll show how I improve with my animation over the year! And I'll be posting everything I'm doing like life drawing sketches and rough animations. Should be interesting :)

Masters' Work Diary

Wish me luck because Masters degrees are crazy busy. It's going to make my third year look like a breeze :S
Peace x

Nothing to Report

Have another sketch. Just the one today. Sorry :p

My excuse; I'm hungry so I'ma going home :)

Lame.

Naked People

Are Great.

For Drawing :)

So yeah, July was a busy month but not for drawing unfortunately. Had fiance's dad over, week after that his mum and her partner, had a free week after that to sort out me being on jobseekers (great stuff, i know...) and then my mum and little brother visited in the last week. Lots of people! Was lovely to see them all :)

But now, portfolio time. Applied for the Masters Course in Digital Character Animation now, I've sent them my portfolio but it still needs a bit more to it. More Animation Specifically. So I'll be putting up some of my older uni work (that's all I've got :( ) and maybe, if I have time (lol) I might put up a couple of line tests of projects I'm trying to start work on. We'll see..
I've been practising some poses, perspective and twisting using the random pose viewer on www.posemaniacs.com. It gave me some crazy poses but I tried most of them (I had difficulty seeing what was going where on a few) and I'm pretty happy with them. Especially some of the perspective ones, perspective is one of my weaker areas. And butts. I used to have trouble drawing butts but now I think I can draw a pretty decent one haha!

All done in photoshop (I forgot my sketchbook today -- Shame on me) and took a good few hours. I was relaxing, taking my time, since it's been about a month I've not drawn much for. Will be trying the 30 second challenge after a couple more go's :)

Busy busy

So eeeer... yeah. Lost a month there...

Honestly though, you haven't missed much. Needed the down time after uni so I haven't actually done much. But!! I've started to pick up the pencil again and play around all sketchy like in my sketchbook. I missed my sketchbook and doodling. I had a mild fall out with drawing since finishing uni because unfortunately drawing for someone else is incredibly subjective. My lecturers (I had two for a particular module) would say two different, and a lot of the time opposing, things about my work. I emailed for feedback a lot and spoke to them a lot but apparently that wasn't enough. I've been told that perhaps I shouldn't have settled for 'yes that's fine' and kept trying to make my work better, and maybe they were right. I trusted the opinions of my lecturers which is why I didn't keep going, that and other modules needed just as much time put into them. So I guess by doing that my work ended up being 'fine' but not great. It's a hard lesson but it's also sometimes hard to know when to stop and when to keep going. Especially when you're working on so many things at once. But that's uni and that's art I suppose. (/rambling -kinda went off on one there)

Anyway, I finished with a 2:1. I will not lie, I was a bit disappointed (I even cried. I knew I would). I was working so hard for a First, it was hard not to feel that way. But after some thought and some chinese food, I feel a bit better. It wasn't what I was aiming for but it's still pretty darn good and I'm proud of it.

So no pictures this time (again - sorry! D:) but in other news I have recently gotten involved with a project. I'm not going to put the details up here just yet but hopefully if I'm allowed, pictures will certainly follow.

Watch this space, peace out and keep aiming for those stars. *thumbs up*

Dear Blog, I haven't forgotten about you...

It's just that I have nothing new to show right now :(

I've finished uni now, very busy at the end which is why I've not updated in a while but it's all complete and handed in now so expect something soon :) I had a right kick in the teeth when my USB was stolen, lost everything. All my W.I.Ps, some uni work and everything I've been collecting over the years I've been at uni. I almost lost my sketchbook too which would have made things much worse and I would have collapsed into a pool of frustration and cry away my life. But luckily I at least found my sketchbook :)

So since I've lost everything, I've decided to take the opportunity to experiment which some art styles and go back to just having fun drawing. I've gotten way to concerned with the finished line art and that's taking the life away from the drawing. I've been told that my finished pieces look stiff or wooden and that the sketchwork and planning looks a lot better. So I'm dropping the mechanical pencil and drawing in coloured pencils and pen.

I've also lost all the work I did for my fiance's bloodbowl club, the trophies, logo's, everything. So that's what I'm working on at the moment! I'll put them up once the current tournaments over and the winners have the trophies.

In other news (and it's pretty good news!), my Dad very very very VERY kindly bought me a new computer. My last one blew up a year ago right at the start of my last year at uni (helpful!) and I've had to live in the labs to work all year. I originally asked him what I needed to run the software I wanted, I told him the specs of the software and he told me he'd get back to me. An hour later he told me I needed to be in the next day because a computer's coming! I felt so so bad because my parents aren't in a great financial position at the moment but my Dad wouldn't let me put money towards it or anything. So I'm very grateful to him right now. Thanks Dad :')

So! tl:dr - Uni's done, lost USB therefore everything, life, pics soon :) kthxbai

So tiring!!!

I've always been told about the workload in third year but nothing could prepared anyone for it!!! Unless they've done it before I guess... But anyway!!

Finally finished my Final Year Project and managed to hand in a COMPLETED animation! Didn't expect to because of how much work I had to do but somehow (probably through sheer will) I managed it! :D Check it out

3 modules to go.

So I've been working on Drawing and Composition 3 and I'm considering reworking this pic that was posted previously:

Here are some alternative sketches:

Colour palette needs reworking but I quite like that pose. Since it's been a while, have more images!

At first, I hated the last one. It was supposed to look like it was coming out of the shadows but then I got stuck and decided to stop. After a while I've grown to like it and my teachers actually liked it from the beginning though I couldn't see why. This was pretty much my first attempt at just straight out painting in Photoshop, no lineart. I'd like to give it another go one day but uni work calls! Only about two months to go D:

Peace out!

DC3 - Sketches

Been working on Drawing and Composition 3 inbetween animating my Final Year Project, this is Thermidor (summer heat) and Frimaire (Frost). The brief was based on the french revolution calendar.
Frimaire is my favourite so far but the one I'm having most trouble with because I want to give him a dynamic pose and I can't really find one I'm happy with. Well, just have to keep trying.
Anyway, just a quick update while I've got a few minutes. Nothing spectacular but that's part of the process :)

The Spider. A dramatic re-enactment: A quick doodle.

So last night while I was talking to my fiance about the idea of getting a new computer, cuz dammit I really need a new one, when suddenly my fiance freaks the f*ck out going "Whoa! Not cool! NOT COOL!!!" I turned to look towards whatever he was freaking out over and there it was. The BIGGEST doozy of a spider I've seen in years. Just walking up the wall from behind the radiator all like "Oh hey, it was getting real warm down there. Did you turn the heating on or something?"

My fiance runs from the sofa to the airlock at the front door and shuts himself in. Leaving me to bring my beast-slaying skills to the rescue. So I prepare. I opened the back window (cuz I don't really like killing them, that just makes a mess :/), grab a tea towel cuz toilet roll was not enough for this job and take position about a metre away from the wall. And then I actually see the mo'fo.

It was friggin' huge. I know I saw that it was pretty big but now that I'm staring at it and taking it in, the little ugly bugger was actually pretty f*cking huge! I stand there analysing it for a few minutes. It's got this horrible brown thing on it's back... I wanted to take a closer look but I found myself too disgusted to move my eyes anywhere near it. I'm not usually bothered by spiders but this one was fugly, really fugly.
Then I realize that this spider's size is very similar to the palm of my hand. Looking between them both I could confirm that it was indeed the same size as my palm... Thus bringing me to the conclusion that I'm going to have to change tactics slightly as this was going to be a two hand situation.

So I position the tea towel in both hands, ready to scoop the thing up and take a few minutes to again look at freakishly huge thing on my wall. Not believing my own discomfort, I braced myself, scooped the spider up and closed my tea towel covered hands over it. I took it quickly to the open window and tipped the tea towel out of it. It was certainly in there, which is good otherwise that would mean I missed, though how you could miss something that size is beyond me. I shook the towel but it was clinging on and evidently a bit p*ssed. So I dropped the whole tea towel out the window. Because it's fine, I can get a new one. It's still outside in the garden now and it has been raining. It's going in the big bins outside which the usual rubbish bags I take out.

True. Effing. Story.

And my fiance wasn't at all pleased, he whinged for a good ten minutes just because it had been inside in the first place.

:/

Just keep drawing, drawing, drawing...

Been working on some DC3 lately for uni (brief was french revolution calendar). This is 'Germinal' or March to you and me. I've been going with the theatrical costume/characters theme with a hint of burlesque, grotesque or whatever's appropriate. I based this on the 'March Hare' and I quite like how it turned out. It's been changed since the sketch after I got some critique of a lecturer but I think it's for the better :)

Been thinking about the summer a lot recently, probably because I'm quite tired of being tired and stressed with Uni work. Third year is certainly hard. I didn't disbelieve it when I was told but I can't say I was prepared for the giant step up in workload. I've still got the motivation and drive but that's not enough to keep the body physically going. But I'm gonna keep going anyway because if I get a First I get to go to DISNEYWORLD!!!!!!! :DDDDDDD

So Busy!!

Oh god there is so much work that needs to be done right now!!! I honestly don't know how I'm going to get it all done. Stress is slowly turning into a panicy sort of dread D:

Been working on pretty much nothing but my Final Year Project. I have 5 scenes roughed out. Check em out! Right here!

Guess who's back?

So! Since I went and accidently deleted my last blog, I've decided to take the opportunity to make a new one from scratch and make the changes I've been thinking of making... mostly the way it looks.

To celebrate, here's some sketchbook pages :)

The last two were from my Fiance asking me to draw him as a dwarf. He was inspired by the 'SkullKickers' comics (which you should read by the way, they're very fun! Written by Jim Zubkavich!) so I tried to use a bit of the drawing style from them.