Tag Archives: wip

Daily… A death knight pinup

-edit- Oh well, I couldn’t figure out the Excerpt feature of WordPress. As this was an experiment in self-censorship anyhow, I don’t much care. Boobs are below, don’t look if you don’t want to see ‘em.
-/edit-

I’ve been interested in doing pinups for a while now, but have held off for a few reasons. The first is my lack of confidence in drawing the human form. The nature of a pinup has more of the figure revealed which brings into focus my issues on drawing the human form. I’ve also hesitated because of this site. I’ve been unsure if I wanted to post images of nude figures, with an erotic overtone, on this blog.

If I imagine doing a study of a master painting in which the figures are completely nude, I’d post it here with no hesitation. I have no issues posting images of zombies with flesh hanging off. I think part of my hesitation has to do with issues of sex and how it’s viewed in the greater social arena of the United States. Mainstream culture seems fine with violence and artistic nudity, but not is otherwise sexually oppressed. I have a very open mind, but I think I’ve been subtly influenced by that trend.

The other side of my hesitation comes from a lack of clarity in regards to my target audience. I have an interest in cute things and have considered illustrating children’s books. That interest makes me hesitate putting ‘questionable’ content here. Once again I take note of some of the works I’ve already put up here that I might consider questionable for a younger audience, but didn’t have the same hesitation in posting.

I still haven’t decided how I want to deal with this subject. If I want to fully post such material here, or partially censor it as I’m going to try and do with this post, or if I want to create a blog elsewhere for such content.

Anyhow, onto the art. I really felt inspired to do fanart of my Death Knight, her name is Ashemadre. She seemed all sexy and badass, so I decided to combine my interest in pinups with the inspiration of my character. I wanted to simplify the drawing to make it as stress-free as possible. That mainly involved hiding the arms and legs within the clothing. I knew that was the easy way out, but I was okay with that for this drawing.

As I’m back-posting this to the appropriate date, I have the opportunity to include an updated version and a critique I received from an artist I admire, Paul Richards.

The work in progress I did for my daily image:

Working on it more a couple days later:

And you can see the critique here. Thanks Paul! His comments were very helpful and I plant to revisit this painting again.


2d Animation test

I went into the lab yesterday to start on my pose test for my final project (Intro to Animation 2d). Two hours and 42 drawings later, I had something to show. I didn’t quite finish the pose test, I still need to draw out the last sequence in which the dog springs to life, frolics around and then runs off screen. There are also some sections where I skipped some drawings, such as elwyn entering screen right and sweeping as well as a few of the walk sections.

Some of that was due to time constraints. I wasn’t sure exactly how to approach those sections or exactly how I wanted him to walk. I’d jump to the next section so I could keep the action moving and then I’d approach the walks later.

The timing definitely still needs work, but I like the overall feel. There are some areas where I wanted to have a pause and I just didn’t space out the drawings enough for that to come through (such as when he first checks on the dog. His hand is supposed to hover above the dog for a moment and then he quickly taps it).

So far this is my favorite part of 2d animation, the really rough figuring things out stage. I only have 13 more days until this is due and I imagine I’ll only be in the lab for a handful of said days. Lots to do! I’m hoping to make it in on Sunday, Monday and maybe Tuesday as well. But of course I need to put time into my other projects as well. I’m looking forward to finishing up this semester and having time for my own projects, but I’m having fun.


Wushu animation update

I opened up my wushu animation for the first time since midterms. I had gotten it about 85% finished by the time it was due. As usual, once I had it turned it, I felt burnt out on the project and didn’t much have the energy to finish it. Our teacher has really been encouraging us to keep bringing him updates each week so he can help us refine and finish the animations.

Today I felt the excitement again and jumped on in. I have some sections I need to refine and polish, but overall I felt something needed to be done about the timing. Where I had left off, both jumps felt the same as far as the beats are concerned. There was variation in height and action, but I felt they didn’t have enough contrast. I started playing with the timing of the first jump to see how it would feel. I really slowed things down going into the jump and then went back to “real time” as he comes out of the apex of the jump.

I really think it’s an improvement. Now when I watch it, I think both jumps stand out. Slowing down the timing of the first jump is going to give me a nice opportunity to play up his expressions in that section (now that you can see them!).

To do:

  • Work on the first pose and anticipation. Possibly a transition A to B pose of him getting ready to move (cracking knuckles, stretching sorta thing).
  • Fix the intro/outro of the second jump. The timing feels off a bit.
  • Work on the last “hop”. Doesn’t feel right yet.
  • Refine expressions and hand poses.
  • Offset keyframes after everything else is done!

Here’s where I left off:
wushu midterm

Adjusting the timing of the first jump:
wushu refinement 01

Hmm, a bit of funkyness with PodPress. I’ll have to get that sorted out.


Workshop Sketch

I felt rather productive at tonight’s workshop, I got a nice start on an environment sketch. I want to clean it up a bit and populate the image more. I also did a quick robot sketch when I got home.


A fairytale painting

Finally had a day off today, it was wonderful. I spent it relaxing, buying coffee, talking with maiki and going to a wacom workshop at school.

I didn’t get any homework done today, but during the workshop I did start a painting. I’ve been hoping to use the wacom workshop as a chance to do some quick speed paintings, but today was the first time I was able to (previously I had too much homework). I was flipping through one of my art books before the workshop and was digging the forest images.

Here’s what I have after two hours. I have lots of ideas on how I want to proceed with it, but regardless I want to keep it loose. At the moment though, mainly I think because of the linework, I think the house stands out a bit.