It happened!

Suddenly the credits got smaller. "It's so small!", my Dad said.

Paint Test

2 of the paint tests I did with the line art provided to me from the Wild Kratt's show! The first shot was drawn by Norm de Repentigny.

Watercolour Red Fox

Getting into watercolours is a good break from staring at a screen all day!

A Gritty Western

An experimental project me Tab, and Brittany worked on as part of the "30 second Challenge". It's way past when I declared it would be finished, but it's done! I talk more about the "30 Second Challenge" here.

The Traveller's Compass

   Firstly, I want to say, I recently got a gig at the Kratt Brothers Productions Inc. in 2D digital animation! First real studio job ever! SO many amazing people at work. And SO many things to learn. Challenging? Oh yeah! It's a constant game of 'beat-the-clock" to reach quota with quality, so I'm throwing in overtime and Saturdays to catch up and to make sure I make it. My goal is to get faster and better before my contract ends. FIGHT ON!!! AARRRGHH!!

   This leads to the main point. Because majority of the time I'm at work and come home tired, I realized I haven't been working on environment stuff! Layout design/ BG design/ BG painting is something I really want to get into. Hopefully it'll lead to colour keys and concept design as well!

  So I've set myself on an ongoing project with a cool and completely original title called "THE TRAVELLER'S COMPASS".  The idea is to create background designs/ layouts based on a little soul-searching story where the traveller of the story goes to different worlds looking a place to belong.  The objective is to keep myself learning about the components to create a believable environment/ world. But most importantly, this project is to find my own 'brand' or 'identity'. Hopefully this project will act as a compass and help me find my identity. Hence... "THE TRAVELLER'S COMPASS".

Cue Hans Zimmer.

2011 Summary of Art

This was fun to put together. Haha, mine's so random. Though I'm starting to think I have a thing for trees...

Art meme is from Deviantart.

Colour Sketchie

Modelling, Lighting and Rendering Excercise

I wanted to make a 3D Pokeball, so here it is! Experimenting with glow, modelling, reflection and shadow. 

Sketch Dump

Layouts, Lighting and Motivational Speaking

   I have a few layouts here from our group film called A Gritty Western. The 3rd and 4th image includes the layout with rough sketches of the characters to check lighting and harmony of the character in the setting.

   So for those of you who don't know: a couple months now, I've been part of a group film called A Gritty Western. It started when Mike Valiquette, who was my business professor at Algonquin College, set up "The 30 second Challenge". 10 of us from the Class of '11 from the Algonquin College Animation Program decided to enter this Challenge. The deadline was 2 months. By now we are a far cry from the deadline that had past. Most of us have studio jobs or part-time jobs now. Schedules conflict and the films we started in the summer is no longer a priority. However, as this group of 10, we decided to see these films to the end. Our prof found work in Toronto, so he's no longer here to egg us one. But we still meet once a week to keep the ball rolling and to see that we stick to our self-made schedules.

   As a group of 3, it's challenging with conflicting schedules and a slow-down in our productivity, but with the schedule we set with ourselves, and with the determination, we will see to it that our film is finished before this year ends.

Modelling Excercise

A quick modelling exercise... well..sorta quick.. in making ceramic look ceramic.

Plant Model Project

Process of a modelling project I did very recently using Maya 2011. From thumbnails and concept to the final product. The first thing I realized when I started creating the tree in 3D space, was the challenge of creating something that would look good in all angles at the same time, if that makes sense. It's slightly harder to cheat than in 2D. It took a lot of time rendering and making a plant look like a plant, with the settings and such. But it's pretty fun. I liked how it turned out for the first go at modelling.

Narrowing down and simplifying.

 Figuring colour combinations

Before composition, shadow and light adjustment.

Flower close-up before adjusting light and shadow.

 Final Composition

Character Sketch

Watercolour Sketchie

A couple of watercolour sketches from the "Secret of Kells" Film and referencing trees from Marie-Louis Gay. And some more sketches studying colour.

Character expressions

Practicing keeping character on model while exploring different expressions.

Princess Doodle

Practicing colour and Corel Painter 11.

Waiting for You 02

Film concept.

Tilt-shift Technique

So yesterday, I went to my old highschool's Art Show featuring work from Photography, Graphic Design, Visual Arts, Communication Technology and Construction Technology. There were a lot of really cool photography stuff showcased. Some of them included this technique called the Tilt-shift Technique, basically using blurs and increased saturation to make a photo that was taken from a distance look like a scale model. When I found out how it was done, I went all crazy and took a bunch of my photographs and tilt-shifted them! Which is fun, in the weirdest way. A bunch of these photos were taken in Ottawa. Some are photos taken by my Dad in Hong Kong.

Lights

Waiting for you Concept

Early concept art of a film idea about a girl who holds onto happiness in the darkess times. Exploring environmental mood and atmosphere