Lark Animation - Blog

Wild Dog Sketches

2012-02-26T20:14:00.000-05:00

King Vulture Sketches

2012-02-25T10:08:00.002-05:00

Flamingo Sketches

2012-02-25T10:05:00.001-05:00

Elephant Sketches

2012-02-25T10:04:00.002-05:00

Seated Lady - Page 20

2012-02-23T20:02:00.002-05:00

Eros Concept Art 12-14

2012-02-22T16:08:00.000-05:00

Eros Color Script 10-11

2012-02-21T08:39:00.000-05:00

Eros Color Scripts 8-9

2012-02-20T20:43:00.002-05:00

Eros Concept Art Shot 7

2012-02-19T20:12:00.001-05:00

On the way to school

2012-02-19T09:49:00.001-05:00

Chimpanzee

2012-02-17T12:22:00.001-05:00

I watched 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' last night. I loved it.

Having the muscle tone and body structure to climb effortlessly through the forest canopy has always been one of my unfulfilled dreams.

Why didn't I draw that instead of this terrifying chimp?

Seated Lady - Page 19

2012-02-16T23:15:00.002-05:00

2012-02-15T17:48:00.002-05:00

More concept art.

Eros Concept Art

2012-02-13T21:56:00.001-05:00

Concept Art for Eros

2012-02-12T23:17:00.000-05:00

Concept art for "Eros" short film I'm working on. More to come!

Seated Lady Page 18

2012-02-09T20:04:00.001-05:00

Concept art for "Eros" short film

2012-02-04T15:14:00.001-05:00

Concept Art for my short film in progress Eros. More to come!

Seated Lady - Page 17

2012-02-02T21:27:00.001-05:00

"Eros" Animatic with Sound

2012-02-02T12:13:00.000-05:00

Animatic with MUSIC and SOUND for my new short film in progress “Eros”.

This is a rough draft of the film. The music is either free or paid for from JewelBeat.com (used with license). I’m going to collaborate with a composer/sound designer for the final sound track.

Recording the sound effects and editing the music was fun. I’m hoping to write up some notes about what I learned.

Next, I’m going to start working on the layout and blocking in some of the key animation poses.

Seated Lady - Concept Art

2012-01-31T23:46:00.001-05:00

Some early character design sketches I did for my comic.

The Seated Lady - Page 16

2012-01-28T19:17:00.002-05:00

New Portfolio Site

2012-01-28T17:53:00.000-05:00

I created a new portfolio site for my work. It's a bit warmer, cheerier than my last one. I got to do a lot of hand drawn elements for it, which I enjoyed. I think this site represents me personally more than others I've had.

I also bought the domain "larkanimation.com". So now they both larkanimation.com and larkinheather.com point to the same place.

www.larkinheather.com (or larkanimation.com)

Seated Lady Page 15 and Panel Composition Notes

2012-01-22T12:59:00.000-05:00

Seated Lady page 15 is complete! yaaaay. Another 12.25 hours for this one.

While I was working on the sketch for this page, I made some notes about my thought process in setting up the panels. Maybe you'll learn something you didn't know!

Here we go:

Before I start any of the pages, I do a bunch of thumbnail sketches to work out the placement of the characters in the panels, and the panels on the page. It's a trial and error process. You can see something of a progression of ideas ...

... to the rough sketch in Photoshop:

(I'd like to mention that those sketch pages above were not the only thumbnails I did for this page. When I was prepping to make Seated Lady into an animated film, I sketched out most of this scene's particulars. I mention it because there's probably twice as much sketch material as I've shown here. It's really a trial and error process - throwing down ideas, slightly changing them, giving rise to new ideas, and so on. And I continued to revise the composition as I work on it.)

How do I decide what to put in the panels? Or how to arrange them?

To make panels that flow, and with energy, the important question: What changes from panel to panel?

I'm going to focus on the changes in the two-dimensional panel. A panel usually consists of some characters standing in 3D space. But that panel is actually a closed rectangular space on a 2D surface. How the eye reads the 2D space makes a big difference to how the action of the panels feels.

Imagine all the panels divided into thirds, horizontally and vertically. In each panel, where is the focal point? Where is the eye drawn within the frame. If it's always in the center, then the eye doesn't have to move around as much, and the page feels static.

On what axis is the action taking place? Meaning: if there are two characters, or focal points, on stage, draw a line between them. That's the axis the action is on. For example, here's the king and the unicorn, and the line of action between them:

Now imagine placing cameras around the characters, for each of the different panels.

Notice that I put all the cameras on one side of the line of action. In film production, that's known as the "180 degree rule" By not crossing the line of action when you change camera angles, you keep the actors on the same side of the screen. For this comic page, this means that the unicorn always stays on the left side of the panel, and the king on the right. See:

Keeping the characters on their respective sides makes it easier for the eye to keep track of them. If you suddenly add a shot with them on switched sides (without any reorienting shot in-between), then it'll mess up the flow. It won't feel right.

Understanding the panel as having a grid, lines of action and focal points ... that's key. Next, I'll talk about some examples.

Here's the script of the action happening on this page:

Figure emerges from under the gate as the unicorn hurdles toward him.
The man looks regal, tough, brave, not to be messed with.
But the unicorn is huge. Threatening.
With pomp, the king figure raises his sword and demands the unicorn to retreat
Before he can finish, the unicorn grabs the sword out of his hand.
Before the king can react, the unicorn reaches for his crown
And steals it off his head
The unicorn mounts the treasure on his own head with glee.

In the first panel to second panel, the camera dollies in toward the characters. The king's position in the grid shifts to the left, and the unicorn's position shifts to the right. The line of action between them gets shorter. The unicorn is advancing on the king.

Also in these two panels, there's a big change in the position of the king. In the first panel, he is in a crouched, submissive position. And in the second panel, he's standing tall, proud, defiant. His eyes go from being in the lower third of the frame to the upper third. We know that in the first panel he isn't really submissive - he's just going under the gate - but the visual change in position makes the second panel all the stronger. It's all about contrast!

For the unicorn, I wanted to have him appear big, threatening (so the last panel of him being silly would be funnier). So in panel 1, the unicorn fills up about a 1/3 of the panel. Then in the second panel, he entirely fills up almost half of the panel. Then in the third panel, he's huge, filling up like 5/6ths of the panel.

For the third panel, I wanted the unicorn's eyes as high up as possible, to lengthen the distance between the unicorn's eyes and the man's. A bigger distance means the audience has to flick their eyes a longer ways between them, emphasizes how much bigger the unicorn is.

There is a temptation to try to fit as much of a character in a space as possible. Like in the above frame, there's a temptation to fit the unicorn's horn in the frame. But it's not important! What's important are his eyes. Those tiny, angry eyes, elevated way up in the panel. If I had tried to fit the horn in, it would have weakened the focus on the eyes.

For panels 4, 5, 6 and 7, there's a few movements in the focal points that strengthen the feel of the action. For example, in panel 4, the king has a sword in his hand. In the next frame, the sword is gone. His hand has also traveled to the left a bit, suggesting that it was tugged that way when the unicorn stole his sword.

In frame 6, the king has his hand in almost the same position, except it lowers a bit. I was tempted to have a wilder position for his hand in this frame. Like more of a clenched, cowering position. But I chose to keep his character's posture closer to the one in frame 5 because I wanted it to seem like they follow each other very closely in time. When you change the actor's position a lot, the mind fills in the intermediate steps. The more intermediate steps, the longer the time between the frame feels.

In frame six, the camera tilts up, following the stolen crown. This shifts the king's eyes down to the lower third of the frame. His eyes start in the upper third in panel 4. This helps reinforce that the unicorn got the better of him.

In these panels, the unicorn fills up most of the left side of the frame. We can't see his eyes. So in frame four, the clenched hand becomes a focal point. If you see the hand as representing the unicorn, and his snout as representing him in panel 7, then the unicorn changes from being in the lower third to the upper third, conversely to the king.

My main point is that contrast is important.

Here's another example using the king's expressions, in order of appearance.

There isn't much difference between expression a and b. He looks tough, angry. Having a sequence of two similar expressions sets up expectations in the audience's mind. It says, this is how the character is. Once you set up that expectation, then you can surprise the audience by revealing a different side of the character. In c, the character is confused. Then timid in d. Then shocked in e.

(I will talk more about acting in another tutorial!)

Some note about arranging the panels.

I chose to do this comic in a horizontal format. I feel that the horizontal format is more cinematic. Closer to storyboarding and film-making, which I love.

One thing I often do is have 'strips' of panels, one stacked on the other (or side by side). In this case, I have two strips, one on top of the other. To separate them mentally, I shift the top strip to the left, and the bottom strip to the right.

Your eyes come in at the extreme top left of the page, and leave at the extreme bottom right. Feels right.

Within those two groups, there are sub-groups. A sub-group tells the audience : read this area first, in standard order, before moving on to the next panel. To set that up, I put thicker gutters between sub-groups. Like the gutter between panels (4,5) and (6,7) is much thicker than the gutter between 4 and 5, or 6 and 7.

It's a tricky business. This page is especially complex because there are eight panels. That's a lot for this format. There's a lot of temptations to arrange the panels according to other criteria - like what's fun to draw, or whether you want a panel to be taller or wider - but checking to see if the eye flows naturally in the right order is important. I don't want to take the audience to get out of the experience of the story because they weren't sure which panel to read next.

Some more random notes:

Size of the panel doesn't have a lot to do with the content
If you are excited to draw a particular thing, there is a temptation to give it a bigger panel. But I find that doesn't give you the nicest flow. For me, the size of the panel is most closely related to TIME. How long doe you want the audience to linger on this frame? Although there is more 'action' happening in the last five panels, the first three panels are the biggest. This is because I wanted the audience to linger on them longer, so they feel longer in time, so they feel more dramatic. The funny bits move fast, so I made them smaller.

Perspective and humor
3D perspective tends to feel more dramatic than a flatter, 2D perspective. So the first three panels, the camera angles reveal the perspective of the landscape. You can imagine where the vanishing points are.

Flatter perspectives are funnier. They make them feel more cartoony, less realistic. In panels 4-8, you're not sure where the vanishing point is. But it doesn't matter. The character's are doing funny things. :)

Reading List
The best book on this subject that I know of is "The Visual Story" by Bruce Block. It's fantastic. It describes all the different dimensions that a 2D frame can change on. It changed my whole outlook on storyboarding and composition.

Bird Statue Painting

2012-01-14T16:20:00.000-05:00

Another Photoshop painting, using the same method as the Iceman painting. Based on an ancient statue from Panama, Nat Geo Jan 2012 issue.

Iceman Painting and Tutorial

2012-01-14T13:40:00.001-05:00

It's the weekend - time for some free play painting in Photoshop. I recently got a subscription to National Geographic. I really wanted to paint this guy from the November issue on an "Iceman," who was murdered thousands of years ago in the Alps. He's a hard core dude.

At first I tried painting without using layer style, but it didn't have the glow of the skin that I was looking for.

So then I decided to experiment with how I could build the skin using layer styles:

1 - layer 1, a plain ball of skin tone
2 - clipping layer above the skin tone, redness blended in, dark red texture splattered on
3 - another clipper layer, set to multiply. Used a red-orange hue, mid saturation (52), and then lowering the brightness three or four times as I created darker and darker shadows
4 - another clipping mask, set to overlay, using the same red-orange color, with high brightness, and very low saturation.

That worked for me. So I did the same buildup for the whole thing.

Base colors laid down

Skin redness blended in

dirtiness texture splattered on

first layer of red tinted shadows placed on a Multiply layer

Another layer of shadows, brightness of the color lowered

And again

Highlights sketched in, on an Overlay layer. Used same color as for shadows, but lower saturation and greater brightness. After that's done, the color sketch is essentially finished. From here I can refine the details more zoomed in.

On a new layer above all that (not a clipping layer), start to refine the painting. Use the color picker and a smaller brush, zoomed in, to try to sculpt the features to be more fine.

More of the same.

My Mind Map

2012-01-13T10:29:00.001-05:00

My Mind Map

I made this mind map a few weeks ago and I'm pretty excited about it. (I made the map using a program called MindNode [link]). It describes all the areas of the work I do as an artist (or want to do). Making a map like this was suggested in "The Profitable Artist."

I divided my work into four main components that are important to me:

Original Content Creation - Writing stories and telling those stories through art. This also includes creating educational material.

Free Play - Learning about the world, practicing, experimenting. Discovering inspiration to fuel the creation of original content.

Marketing and Networking - Dissemination and promotion of my work to the public. Connecting with fans. Connecting with artist communities.

Fundraising - Raising funds necessary to continue the other three components.

Because all of these nodes are important, I try to make sure I'm working on all of them every month. I also made a year calendar with monthly important tasks. I'm just dogging it up with the organization!! >_<

What do you think? I would be very interested to your mind map!

Seated Lady Page 14

2012-01-12T22:31:00.000-05:00

Yay! Another page! This page took 12.75, same as last page.

Then there's this:

"Eros" Storyboard Animatic & production notes

2012-01-10T17:51:00.001-05:00

I'm working on a short minute film called "Eros." I finished a draft of the storyboards (here) and talked about my storyboarding process here.

After finishing the storyboards, I worked on what's called an animatic. It's a video sequence of the storyboard drawings. Here's the animatic I have at this point (no sound):

I'm going to talk a little about my process:

Scan the Storyboards

First, I scan in all my storyboards.

Here's a photo of my pile of boards. There's 212 storyboards (a), and over 150 poop boards (b) that I drew or started to draw and didn't make it into the final cut. In the photo is also a pad of the type of paper I use: a CVS brand 4x6 inch blank paper pad (c). In the background is also a notepad (d) where I record the hours I work on the project (and others) and a coke zero for caffeine (e). :)

And here's my trusty (dusty) little scanner, a Canon LiDE 200.

So I scan all 200+ little pieces of paper in. It's a tedious and boring process.

I want to be able to batch process these images, so I try to scan them so they are all the same position and size. I scan them one at a time, trying to put them in the same place each time (there are little page size markers on the inside of the scanner that help with that)

In the scanning program, I make an outline around the preview image. I leave a little room for variation in where I put the next one. Then I press SCAN, replace the image, scan again, until all are scanned in. I write down the size info so I can use the same size for any revision boards I scan later.

Process Images in Photoshop

The images I scanned need to be rotated and darkened. I created two actions in Photoshop to do just that. Photoshop processes them in a few seconds. No fuss, no muss. Below I show the actions I created and their exact settings.

These two actions take the image above and turns it into this:

Why two actions and not one? I don't know ... I just felt like it.

Assemble Images in Premiere

I do video editing in Adobe Premiere. I import all the images into the program and lay them out in 1920 x 1080 pixel, 24 fps sequence. I start out giving each image about three seconds of screen time. Then I watch the resulting film and see how it flows.

It doesn't flow very well. So I then go back and make some parts shorter and some parts longer. It's a trial and error process. The action is sparse and there are no sounds, so I try to imagine the missing action as it's playing and edit accordingly.

Invariably, there are some boards that don't work or aren't clear, so next I do revisions. I make notes of which areas need work and redo those areas. I can't say how many revision boards I did, but it was a bunch.

It's really nice to see the story come together in this way. I can get a really good sense of what the final film will be like without doing months and months of work.

And that's it! That's what I have right now. Next I want to add some temporary sounds and maybe even music, but I thought I'd share the sound-less version first. If you are curious to know anything else about this process, let me know!

Seated Lady Page 13 & WIP shots

2012-01-05T22:44:00.003-05:00

Yay! Page 13 is finished. This page took 12.75 hours.

I was all over the place with this page. I had trouble with the perspective on the tower, so I prepared a model in Google SketchUp (3D modeling software). In the past I've gotten frustrated with SketchUp because of the unique controls, but this time I managed to pull together something I wanted without pulling my hair out.

I put below a sequence of work-in-progress shots. I spent a lot of time working and reworking the sketches and drawings ... which is usually the part which takes the longest.

At some point, I was really not happy with the second panel and marked my displeasure accordingly.

The following 12 shots show the addition of 4 Multiply and 7 Overlay layers to define the values of the panels.

New Short Film - "Eros" - Storyboards (draft 1)

2011-12-31T20:31:00.000-05:00

I'm working on a new short, short film called "Eros". It's based on the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche.

I've storyboarded a first draft of the story. It needs a lot of work, but I'm generally happy with how it went.
There are 212 individual panels, divided into 86 shots. I drew another 155 panels that didn't make the cut. And probably a lot of these might not make it to the second draft.

I put up some pictures from the storyboarding process here.

Here are the storyboards:

New Short Film Storyboards

2011-12-30T00:06:00.004-05:00

AAARRRGGHHH!!! I'm filled with joy!!

I working on a short, short film. I worked on the storyboards today for 9 hours. I created 83 new storyboards today!! Damn! And about 65 poop boards that didn't make the cut. That's a lot of boards.
I'm pretty darn pleased with myself.

Here's a photocollage of what it looks like near my desk with all these boards:

I use several magnetic whiteboards to display my boards in sequence while I'm working on them. I use a bunch of these little magnets that I got from Staples:

I like the colors :)

I use 4x6 inch notepads from CVS to do the actual boards (although I draw a border along the top and bottom to make it more 16:9 ratio. Which also makes a good space for writing dialogue and sound FX notes).

That's all I wanted to say. I'll have a lot more on this project in the future, so please come back! :D

Seated Lady - Page 12 & Tutorial

2011-12-28T01:01:00.000-05:00

Finally! The holidays really messed me up for getting this done. I'm over two weeks late. Apologies! I hope to be more timely with the next one.

At some point while I was inking this, I really wanted a castle in there somewhere ... but I just didn't have the energy. There's a little voice saying "a better artist would go back and fix it." But that's when you just say "Shut up you! Finishing things is important too!"

For the rest of the Seated Lady pages, click here. or here. Updated weekly (generally).

I decided to throw together a little tutorial about how I did this page. It's mostly just a series of work-in-progress shots, but I'll try to explain a bit more of what I'm doing as well. I probably should have made a tutorial with a page that had more than one panel to it, but oh well. Next time.

I do the following steps for all the Seated Lady pages.

1. Thumbnail Sketches

First I thumbnail the page on paper (very small : 2.5 x1.5 inches).

For a more complicated page with more panels, I'd do more sketches. For this page I mostly knew what I wanted, so I just made one sketch.

2. Rough Guide and Masking

After thumbnailing, everything else is done in Photoshop CS5.

I create a new document, 8.25 x 11 inches, 300 dpi.

The background layer I fill with black. Above that, I make a layer and fill it with this purple. All the pages have this color as the base.

On another layer, I roughly draw in where and how big I want the panel to be.

I use the guides to exactly demarcate the top, bottom, left and right edges of my panel.

Then I use the Rectangular Marquee Tool (with snapping on) to create a selection exactly within the boundaries of the guides.

Next I select my purple layer, and hit the Add Mask button at the bottom of the layer panel. This automatically creates a mask so only the area I had selected is shown. The black of the lower layer shows through.

3. Rough Drawing

Next I do a rough sketch of the whole composition. I try to stay zoomed out as much as possible so I maintain a good sense of the scene as a whole.

I use about a 6 pt brush with pressure determined opacity.

3. Drawing

Next I do the drawing. At this point, I'll start to use separate layers for the different elements, such as the girl or the castle walls. I might also zoom in a little bit. But ultimately, I still try to keep loose and allow for spontaneity so the drawing has energy. If one element is particularly tricky, I might even do another drawing layer before inking.

4. Inking

Next is inking. I use the same brush I used for sketching, but without any opacity change. A solid black line. The brush I use has 85% scattering to give the edge of the line some teeth, like a real pen might.

Unlike most of my other pages, I used a wide variety of brush sizes for the different layers of the composition. I used a 6pt brush for the girl and the foreground, and then went all the way down to a 2 pts for the distant mountains.

I really like the way Shoomlah inked with Photoshop in her Cinderella tutorial. She uses bold, flowing strokes, but separated on different layers, so she can easily erase the excess bits without hurting other lines. So I've gotten into that habit and I like it a lot! It makes for a lot of layers to manage, but I usually collapse them as much as possible as I move on from one area to another.

5. Coloring

Coloring. I roughly throw in colors on the scene using a textured brush. I put all the color layers within a folder beneath the inks layer. I use the same mask on the colors folder as I do on the purple layer (step 1), so that the colors stay within the panel*.

I've already worked out my color scheme for this part of the comic. You can see it on top of the above image. I will try to explain how I come up with my color schemes in another tutorial. I also use the eyedropper to select colors from previous pages.

*an easy way to copy a mask is to right click on the first mask and select Add Mask to Selection. Then select the other layer/folder you want to have a mask and press the Add Mask button at the bottom of the Layers panel.

Once I'm generally satisfied with the color scheme, I zoom in and clean up my coloring work.

At this point, I do not try to think about highlights and shadows. I try to keep the colors as uniform as possibly. I will work on adding values in the next step.

6. Texture and Values

Next I do the texture and values. I create another folder above both the color folder and the inks folder. Again, I mask out anything that's not my panel so it stays nice and tidy.

In this new folder, I import a black and white texture file. Like a paper texture. I set the layer to an opacity of 33% and set the Blending Mode to Multiply.

I also create a mask for this layer. Using the mask, I remove some parts where I don't want the texture to show, such as on the girl, or the sky.

After that, I add a bunch of layers to define the values. I use alternating layers with Blending Modes set to Multiply and Overlay to define the shadows and highlights, respectively.

For this part of the story, I use a desaturated, bright orange (warm) for the shadows and a somewhat mid-value, desaturated cyan for the highlights. For really strong highlights, I will lighten the blue.

For this page I used eight layers total, 5 Multiply, 3 Overlay. I kept adding them back and forth as needed. I didn't make screenshots showing the buildup of value layers, but I'll try to do that for the next tutorial.

7. Color Linework

Next I color the linework. To color linework, you select the layer you want to color, then click the Lock Transparent Pixels button in the Layers panel. With that selected, you can draw anywhere you like and it will only effect where there are already pixels. That way you can take broad strokes and color in the lines very quickly. I found that out not too long ago. Pretty neat eh?

How do you choose what color to do the lines? I like to color the linework after putting in the values because I want to choose colors that will make the lines better blend into the scene. My general principle is for the ink color to be darker and more saturated than the main color. For example, for the horse, I would sample the darkest value on the horse's body, then slightly darken the color and greatly increase its saturation.

8. Add Border

Finally, I add the border. I draw with the guides (from step 1) visible, so the drawing snaps to the guides and the lines are straight.

I also added a few final touches, like the motion lines around the girl, and the mist in the background. Then I call it finished!

I hope this has been helpful! If you have any questions, let me know!

Woman and Parrot

2011-12-25T15:59:00.000-05:00

Seated Lady - Page 11

2011-12-09T22:34:00.001-05:00

Seated Lady - Page 11.

Photoshop, 8 hours.

This page was a lot of fun!

The Seated Lady webpage.

The Seated Lady on SmackJeeves.

Running Critter

2011-12-05T00:43:00.001-05:00

I'm hoping to work on an animated short film in the next few months. I'm trying to experiment with different animation styles. I'm really feeling inspired by Nelson Boles' work on Vimeo [link].

What animal is it? A fox? A cat? A bear? I'm not sure .... :)

The Seated Lady - Page 10

2011-12-04T00:55:00.001-05:00

Oh boy, this one was a big one. I started it before Thanksgiving, but I didn't get to finish it until now, almost two weeks later. So I'm late a week with this one. Oh well. That's going to happen.

I hope you like it! This page took 12.25 hours. I was really struggling to get this page to work, and in the end I felt like it came together. I hope it makes sense!

comic homepage: seatedlady.blogspot.com

"The Profitable Artist"

2011-12-01T19:58:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago I read this book called "The Profitable Artist" which was just put out by the New York Foundation for the Arts.

I'm trying to do more client work, as well as thinking about more art world stuff like grants and residencies and film festivals ... so it felt very relevant. I really liked the book. The writing is really respectful of the drive that artists have and understanding of the struggles we face. It's stressful trying to make your way in the world as an artist and the book really seemed to empathize with that. It was very nice just for that fact alone.

And it's got a lot of cool ideas about promotion, networking, grant writing, contracts, receipts, pricing, etc. It doesn't have all these prescribed answers, and emphasizes that there aren't any. That you make it up as you go along ... and that managing a business can be as exciting a creative challenge as other art you practice.

I just wanted to share that with you guys since I found it helpful. Anyone else reading this trying to do this? ... work outside a company, freelancing or trying to create their own brand/vision? How's it going?

For my part, this is how I see things. There are a few different focus areas ... at any given time I'm doing more of one or the other (a few months ago it was the first two, right now I'm focused on the last two):

1. Building a storyboard portfolio to get hired by an animation studio, preferably feature film.
2. Work on my own art - creating a short film for film festivals. Applying for art grants, residencies to get funding to do more of that
3. Local business as an animator - doing animation for clients
4. Local business as a comic artist - creating original comics to sell at festivals/online, other products too (t-shirts, prints, books). Also doing fun silly animations for the web.

Do you feel like you're on one of these tracks? How's it going? I'm just want to know i'm not alone!

Oh, and I'm also interested in doing more education stuff. I teach Flash at a school locally, and I'm thinking of teaching more classes (like on dynamic drawing, storyboarding, digital painting, animation principles, etc) ... and those lesson plans I hope to put online too.

The Seated Lady - Page 9

2011-11-18T17:30:00.001-05:00

Page 9 of "The Seated Lady." This one took 7 hours.

You can see all the past pages on a brand new site here: http://seatedlady.blogspot.com/

Happy Joggers

2011-11-18T00:48:00.001-05:00

2011-11-16T01:42:00.000-05:00

Atrus and Flame - more Illustrator inking practice

Sun Goddess and Cats

2011-11-15T14:06:00.000-05:00

Experimenting with drawing linework in Illustrator.

Ghosts are Scary

2011-11-01T03:48:00.000-04:00

A little animation for halloween. Enjoy!

Sketches!

2011-10-30T14:22:00.000-04:00

Warm up drawings from this site: [link]

Seated Lady - Page 6

2011-10-30T14:10:00.000-04:00

Seated Lady - Page 5

2011-10-25T06:12:00.000-04:00

For the rest of the comic-in-progress, go here: [link]

The Seated Lady - Pages 1 - 4

2011-10-17T15:31:00.000-04:00

I'm working on a comic book! It's full color, to be updated weekly.

I made a site dedicated to it, so you can subscribe via RSS or email or share it with friends. Here's the site: http://www.larkinheather.com/comics/seatedlady/

Here's the first four pages:

[/caption]

Again, here's the site: http://www.larkinheather.com/comics/seatedlady/ I spent a lot of time making the site! I hope it works for you! >_<

Figure Drawings

2011-08-19T15:23:00.000-04:00

Figure drawings from my last two sessions.

Highlights from Annecy

2011-06-14T05:26:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone! Last week I went to the Annecy International Animation Festival in France. I had a great time. Here are some of the highlights:

* I gave a presentation about my short film "Stripes" to a room full of people. I'm pretty proud of how it came out. I also watched the other six presentations in the short film category.

* I was awarded a free copy of the professional animation software Animate Pro and Storyboard Pro courtesy of the company Toon Boom. It's really great software and I wanted it anyway. The software costs several thousands of dollars, so I'm very happy not to have to buy it!

*As part of winning in the competition, I met with three producers and screenwriters in the animation industry who gave me feedback on the Stripes script. I was really grateful that they read the script carefully and gave great comments. There was a lot of positive feedback and some great suggestions on how to make it better!

*Met with a few different production companies who I could hire to produce Stripes if I get the financing. I learned a lot of things about the animation biz this week. One of the companies was a production company from Iran. The guy I met with laughed out loud when he saw a story idea I had sketched. He said that if I wrote it up, their company would finance and produce it into a short series (4 episodes at 2 minutes each). Exciting!

*I had my storyboard portfolio reviewed by recruiters from Sony Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios.

*I met and connected with other cool creative peers - artists, animators and film music composers. It's really nice to meet other people who love animation!

*I watched a few new animated films: 1. "Tezuka Osamu no Buddha -Akai Sabaku yo! Utsukushiku" - A Japanese film based on Osamu Tezuka's "Buddha" comics. 2. "The Tibetan Dog" - a Japanese and Chinese cooperative project set in Tibet. 3. "The Rabbi's Cat" - French film based on a comic.

*I took a few walks around the beautiful "Lac d'Annecy." I saw a beaver for the first time. And an adorable pair of baby swans!

*Ate lots of pain de chocolat and baguettes and croissants. Mozzarella with heirloom tomatoes and fresh basil. Lots of different kinds of prosciutto. Delicious!

*Learned a smidgeon of French: Bonjour. Au revoir. Voila. Bon a petit. Très bien. etc.

*Overall, I feel very inspired by my trip! I'm excited to get back to lots of writing and drawing :D

Atrus and Anna

2011-06-02T05:21:00.000-04:00

Cheetah

2011-06-02T05:20:00.000-04:00

'Stripes' goes to Annecy Film Festival!

2011-05-09T05:34:00.000-04:00

BIG NEWS for my animated short work-in-progress, "Stripes"!

STRIPES is a winner in the Annecy Animation Festival Call for Projects Competition 2011! Woohoo!

The Call for Projects competition is meant for people STARTING animation projects and could use help getting it off the ground. Back in February, I submitted a package of materials regarding the Stripes projects, including an essay of intent, artwork, storyboards and more.

I recently learned that I am one of five short film winners. We will present our projects at this year's festival and be evaluated for further prizes by a jury. One possible prize is 6500 euros!

The presentations will take place Wednesday June 8th, 2011. 10:00 am - 12:30 pm. If you are going to Annecy, please check it out!

Check out all the winning projects on the Annecy website: here

I'm so excited, I can't tell you! :D Yippee!

To learn more about my Stripes project, check out the production blog.

There is never an end to learning ...

2011-05-02T17:36:00.000-04:00

Zebra

2011-05-02T07:00:00.000-04:00

The stripes and colors got away from me a bit, so now it looks like a tiger! It's supposed to be a Grevy's zebra.

Kitty

2011-05-01T19:25:00.000-04:00

Drawings Galore!

2011-04-13T17:01:00.000-04:00

I've been on fire, drawing up a storm!

Sketches done while watching Arrested Development:

Sketches while watching the film, Agora:

Sketches while watching Dexter. Dexter is so cute!

Sketches from Gladiator:

Random ink and watercolor sketches:
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="620" caption="Ink and Watercolor sketches"]

Kanook sketches

Sketches of lions from the zoo.

Sketches from my trip to Lynchburg, Virginia.

Sketches of me as a kid

Sketches from "Myst the Book of Atrus"

Sketches from pictures on Piccsy.com:

Random sketches:

Sketches done while watching Spartacus: Gods of the Arena and Spartacus: Blood and Sand:

How I spent my time

2011-04-08T14:25:00.000-04:00

This is how I spent most of my time as a kid. Drawing. Surrounded by friends.

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T13:10:00.000-05:00

Expressions and Body Language practice - Arrested Development

2011-01-22T05:29:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to work on being able to draw more "strong, specific acting." I tried doing some drawings from arrested development. This was the result:

"The warden was intrigued. Less about the stunt and more about the prison beatings this brash young magician was sure to receive":

"Gob set about swallowing the key ..."

"Anything for a buck, Michael. You are so materialistic"

Buster: "Mom said you could tie this for me."
Lucille: "Make it long ... so he doesn't seem so ... round."

Marta: "I said ... career is one thing, but family is forever."
Gob: "To prove that no prison can hold me, I will incarcerate myself in the same penitentiary that holds my father. Only to escape 24 hours later ... No shackles can hold these hands!"

Michael: "I bet you don't even know what the auction is for tonight."
Lindsey: "The Wetlands."
Michael: "Yeah ... to do WHAT with them?"
Lindsey: " .... dry them."
Michael: "SAVE them."
Lindsey: "-from drying!"

(It was soon to be midnight and my boyfriend was starting a movie ... so I got a little lazy on the last few panels of the last one ...)

Acting!

2011-01-22T04:53:00.000-05:00

So, yesterday I sent the scene 2 storyboards to a recruiting rep at Disney who I met last April. I said I wanted to re-apply this coming April for their "Talent Development Program" and asked if he could take a look at the boards and see if I was going in the right direction.

He replied pretty quickly and said that the loose drawings and the staging were good and clear. He said I should work on the 'acting', saying that they like to see "strong, specific acting" that would be clear to the animation department further down the pipeline.

This made sense (or at least I think so).

In the scene 2 boards, I tried to make their expressions and body language clear, but I also have a tendency to keep the expressions very simple, using dots for eyes instead of full circles, and pretty vague anatomy. They would be probably be considered "generi-spressions" by *tracyjb. I still have a preference for more Miyazaki-esque design, but I could definitely work on giving the characters more structure and stronger, more specific expressions.

So, I'm making a new plan for getting better at acting:

1. I'm reading this book on acting "Acting A handbook of the Staniskavski Method" (I happened to buy this book at Strand bookstore in NY over the weekend, on a whim. I hope its good!)

2. Watch arrested development (and other shows) study the expressions/body language and make drawings.

3. Design more structured characters and give them different expressions/body language

4. work on a new scene to storyboard. (Doesn't have to be even a full scene ... 1-3 beats is fine.) I want to show that I can clearly show different emotions on different body types, so choose a scene with two characters who are a pretty different from each other.

5. Go to the zoo, draw. Go to the art museum, draw. emphasize shape and form. (While I'm there do some drawings of staging/composition ... I've wanted to do that for a while now ...)

6. Sign up for acting classes (?!) (so expensive!!)

Anyway, that's my update ... I thought this info might be interesting to you ... Also, if you any ideas that have been helpful for you, I'm all ears!

Myst Story Art

2010-12-31T21:37:00.000-05:00

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="620" caption="Anna shows Atrus a D'ni book for the first time"][/caption]

In the Myst script that I'm writing, Anna first exposes Atrus to the D'ni when he shows her an unusual rock that he's found. She hesitates, then decides to show him a big D'ni volume on geology. This book ignites his interest in the D'ni, and goes with him to D'ni when he finally travels there many years later ...

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="prep work for above painting"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="prep work for above painting"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="620" caption="Anna"][/caption]

Sketches from a Bathhouse in San Francisco

2010-12-23T09:51:00.000-05:00

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="620" caption="Sketches from a bathhouse in San Francisco"][/caption]

In Japantown, San Francisco, there is a communal bathhouse called "Kabuki." I desperately wanted to go, since I hadn't been to one since leaving Japan. The hot bath, the cold bath, the sauna, the steam room ... afterwards, you feel like a million dollars!

After an hour's happy bathing, I had curry rice for lunch and did these sketches.

Drawings of Ladies

2010-12-23T09:40:00.000-05:00

... and one dude.

Sketches from San Francisco

2010-12-23T09:36:00.000-05:00

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="620" caption="Sketches from San Francisco"][/caption]

I went to San Francisco for a few days, accompanying my boyfriend for the AGU conference. We stayed at the "Queen Anne" hotel in Japantown. The Queen Anne used to be a school for girls. It was very adorably decorated with Christmas gear. I drew some of the fancy pieces of furniture.

We also went to the Academy of Sciences museum, ergo the wild dog, toad, ibex and the stingray.

Myst Book of Atrus Sketches

2010-12-23T09:13:00.000-05:00

Little sketches based on Myst The Book of Atrus (by Rand and Robyn Miller, with David Wingrove).

First row: Young Atrus and Anna
Second row: Atrus leaves the Cleft
Bottom: "Action" Atrus! Catherine. Atrus and Catherine together.

My favorite book in the whole world! I'm creating a screenplay version as a side project. Hopefully some day I'll get to produce it!

Star Wars Sketches

2010-12-23T08:59:00.000-05:00

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="620" caption="Star Wars Sketches"][/caption]

I recently watched the original star wars trilogy again. These sketches were done while watching.

Sketches from TV and Movies

2010-12-23T08:51:00.000-05:00

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="620" caption="Sketches from TV and Movies"][/caption]

Sketches from watching TV. The line-up from the last few weeks included:

-Arrested Development. (I'm in love with Jason Bateman!!!!)
-The Sting
-Sense and Sensibility
-The Princess Bride ("Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.")
-The Office (UK Version)
-Anastasia
-Planet of the Apes

Oh, and the bottom is just kind of tacked on ... those are sketches from books. They are related in the sense that they were done with the tv on.

Oh, and the zebra that looks like a mouse ... I just threw that in because I liked him. ^__^

Essential Reading List for Animation

2010-11-15T13:01:00.000-05:00

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption=" "][/caption]

My dream has always been to tell stories through animation. As an artist and animator, I've been mostly self-taught. The following are a list of books that I've found particularly helpful to me over the years. Hopefully they will be helpful to you too!

Highly Recommended:

Story
by Robert McKee.
Link: Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting
Of all the literature on story writing, this is the absolute best. Of all the books I recommend, this one I recommend the most. It tells you what goes into writing a great story. And it can't be read just once. I've read it at least three times and each time I feel I have a deeper understanding of story. a MUST-READ!

Drawing the Head and Figure
by Jack Hamm
Link: Drawing the Head and Figure (Perigee)
This is a great book for learning human anatomy better. The drawings are fantastic. I went through cover to cover and copied all (well most) of the examples from the book. This book focus on the overall shapes and outline of the human figure, more than the specific muscles.

Anatomy for the Artist
by Jenö Barcsay
Link: Anatomy For The Artist
This is another great book on anatomy. This book, unlike the previous one, focuses more on bones, muscles, etc. They go great in combination. I've drawn from this book a lot as well. And not just once. Many times!

Dynamic Figure Drawing
By Burne Hogarth
Link:Dynamic Figure Drawing
Another anatomy book. I prefer the other two, but this one is also great. It breaks down the shapes that constitute the human body and manipulates them in all different poses and perspectives.

The Illusion of Life
by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas
Link:The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation
A classic. Fascinating history of the Disney process. Very inspirational and full of great advice. Your animation education is not complete without it.

The Animator's Survival Kit
by Richard Williams
Link: The Animator's Survival Kit--Revised Edition: A Manual of Methods, Principles and Formulas for Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion and Internet Animators
This book breaks down the actual process of animating a character. Another classic. A must-read for animators.

Notes by Walt Stanchfield
Link: available online! Read now!
Walt Stanchfield was called in by Walt Disney to help teach the new animation staff to become better artists and animators. There is a lot of material to go over, but its all wonderful. And it's available online! I highly recommend reading these notes. Walt talks about how to create drawings that tell a story, which is what its all about, right?

Also Wonderful:

Any book of paintings by Oga Kazuo.
Especially: this one.
Oga Kazuo's work is stunning. He has been working for Studio Ghibli doing background art for many years. I learn a lot just by staring at his paintings. I try to replicate his paintings in Painter for practice. I don't know how hard it is to get his books ... I bought mine while I was in Japan.

Starting Point
by Hayao Miyazaki
Link: Starting Point: 1979-1996
This book is a collection of essays by Hayao Miyazaki. He talks about his early experiences in animation, his work and what it means to him. It's very inspirational. He also talks about the animation industry in Japan, which I found very interesting.

Art of Princess Mononoke
by Miramax and Mark Schilling
Link: Princess Mononoke
I saw this book in Barnes and Noble when I was in high school ... and it changed my life! This was before I even heard of Princess Mononoke. I was just blown away by the visuals. It was my first time really seeing something that was so profoundly different from the Disney animation that I had grown up with. The book has a lot of production stills from the movie, but also has tons of watercolor sketches by Miyazaki himself. It also has lots of big pictures of paintings by Oga Kazuo. A great book!

Art of the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Art of the Lion King
I'm having a hard time finding the original, full size versions of these books online. These are also great "art of" books that tell you a lot about the Disney animation process. Great for thinking about how your portfolio should look when applying for a job!

Any book of photographs by Eadweard Muybridge
Link: Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard Muybridge is famous for taking black and white pictures of people and animals in motion. For an animator, these are a great way to study locomotion.

Stripes - Animatic for Scene 1

2010-11-14T12:11:00.000-05:00

The animatic for the first scene is done! Check it out and let me know what you think! To learn more about the Stripes project, head over to the Stripes site.

You can also see it on YoutTube: link

or DeviantArt: link

Stripes - scene 1 sketches

2010-11-14T07:53:00.000-05:00

Here are some sketches I did while working on the animatic for scene 1 of the Stripes story. This is a very biased sample. I did many times this many drawings, and most of them were pretty bad!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="620" caption="Sketch work for Scene 1 animatic"][/caption]

Figure Drawing from Life and Photos

2010-11-09T18:38:00.000-05:00

The following are a mix of drawings from life and from photos. Before going to the figure drawing session, I warmed up by doing 1 minute sketches from the "Artistic Nude" section of Deviantart. I used a timer even! I think it was helpful for staying loose during the figure drawing class.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="620" caption="Figure Drawings"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="620" caption="Figure Drawings"][/caption]

Stripes - Animatic - Opening Credits

2010-10-25T09:15:00.000-04:00

Below is an animatic for the opening credits for the Stripes film. I'm pretty happy with how it came out. Enjoy!

You can also see it on Youtube here: link
Or on DeviantArt here: link

Haiku and Animation

2010-10-24T10:31:00.000-04:00

I think I've learned a lot about storytelling from haikus. They are essentially very tiny stories into themselves.

I think that a good story should be a series of moments. A moment being defined as a coupling of action/perception that then produces an emotional response.

We experience the world through our five senses. We see, hear, taste, touch, smell. Followed by these experiences, is usually a feeling. We feel happy, sad, angry, disgusted, scared, surprised, and the infinite variations therein.

A good haiku captures a single moment. In three lines, it sets up a scene, sometimes a very elaborate one, and triggers a feeling in the reader. The brevity of it makes its all the more powerful. Each important moment of a film should have the same punch.

Of course, a film can't be just a series of moments. That's real life. The moments of a good story should all be connected in a meaningful way that creates one big emotional response at the end.

Anyways, so I wanted to share some of my favorite English haikus with you, so you know what the heck I'm talking about.

These are excerpts from The Haiku Anthology. It's a FANTASTIC book. These are only a very very small sampling of the amazing haikus that are in this book.

(When you read them, try to be aware of the feeling that the poem brings up ... )

I stop to listen;
the cricket
has done the same
---Arizona Zipper

first snow ...
the children's hangers
clatter in the closet
---Michael Dylan Welch

my dead bother ....
hearing his laugh
in my laughter
---Nicholas Virgilio

At dawn remembering her bad grammar
---George Swede

the men on both sides
have taken
my armrests
---George Skane

Trying to forget him
stabbing
the potatoes.
---Alexis Rotella

by the autumn hill
my watercolor box
unopened
---Raymond Roseliep

buzzZ
slaP
buzzZ
---Alan Pizzarelli

neighbor's children leave...
casually the cat slips out
of the hall closet
---Patricia Neubauer

end of the cold spell
i'd forgotten the color
of my under socks
---Marlene Mountain

hearing us argue,
our old dog tiptoes past
her empty water bowl
---Carol Montgomery

Letting my tongue
deeper into the cool
ripe tomato
---Michael Mcclintock

the old album:
not recognizing at first
my own young face
---Elizabeth Searle Lamb

While the guests order,
the table cloth hides his hands--
counting his money
---Clement Hoyt

commercial break--
the cat and I
head for the kitchen
---William J. Higginson

I hear her sew
I hear the rain
I turn back a page
----Leroy Gorman

Weight lifter
slowly lifting
the tea cup
----Garry Gay

how come
whatshisname
never speaks to me
----Dee Evetts <--- he's amazing ... its hard to choose just one...

Shielding his eyes
with his baseball glove...
first geese
--Bernard Lionel Einbond

between the twirlers
and the marching band
the missing child
----Bruce Detrick

Waiting to see
the odometer's big change ...
missed it!
---Tom Clausen

long meeting
I study the pattern
embossed on the napkin
----Miriam Borne

the telephone
rings only once
autumn rain
----Nick Avis

cool eh?

Myst - Book of Atrus - Visual Development

2010-10-22T19:49:00.000-04:00

SOMEDAY, I'd like to make, Myst the Book of Atrus, into film. That's one of my many goals. ^__^

I've been feeling very optimistic about things in general the past few weeks. I decided to work on some drawings of the Myst characters for fun:

Battlestar Galactica Storyboards

2010-10-18T08:02:00.000-04:00

Here's some quick storyboard sketches I did while watching Battlestar Galactica. I used a uni-ball "micro" pen and side of a pencil for shading.

Figure Drawings from life and from DA's 'Artistic Nude' section

2010-10-06T11:29:00.000-04:00

Here are some select drawings from the last few weeks of figure drawing sessions:
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="620" caption="Figure Drawings from Life"][/caption]

Here's some drawings from DeviantArt's 'Artistic Nude' section.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="612" caption="Figure Drawings from Deviantart's Photography > Artistic Nude section"][/caption]

Character design work from Stripes

2010-10-04T16:09:00.000-04:00

Here are some more concept drawings from the Stripes animated short I'm making. I was working on the designs for the main characters. Instead of having one solid, unchanging design, Japanese character designs often straddle between realism and caricature even within the same film. I really like this approach and want to do something similar with Stripes.

Toward the bottom are drawings of kids based on pictures a friend of mine took in Kenya.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="612" caption="Concept art for Stripes"][/caption]

Life Drawings

2010-09-10T10:31:00.000-04:00

An assemblage of drawings from different figure drawing sessions.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Figure Drawings"][/caption]

Pen Sketches

2010-09-10T10:28:00.000-04:00

Various pen sketches. Inspiration sources include a farm in Virginia, the National Art Gallery and Lord of the Rings.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Ink Sketches"][/caption]

Stripes story art

2010-07-13T11:54:00.000-04:00

Some pen and copic marker sketches I did while working on the script for Stripes:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="tortoise"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="413" caption="a man bringing sticks to sell for charcoal"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="496" caption="zebra!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="464" caption="yay!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="a stripes problem"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="fighting"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="lamb and oryx "][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="boys meet zebra"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="new friends"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="uh-oh"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="ostrich"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="no no no"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="lion!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="rolling"][/caption]

Midsummer Twilight

2010-06-28T09:54:00.000-04:00

Painting practice done at the National Gallery of Art. Done in Painter. approx. 2 hours.

More Painting Practice

2010-06-27T14:29:00.000-04:00

Painting practice using National Geographic issues as inspiration. Isn't Nat Geo awesome?

More Zoo Sketches

2010-06-24T16:45:00.000-04:00

Some birds:

Some ungulates:

Some invertebrates:

Komodo Dragon:

Ocelot

2010-06-24T12:26:00.000-04:00

An ocelot.

Blue-Footed Booby

2010-06-24T09:59:00.000-04:00

Quick paint to test out Painter 11 on my new Macbook pro (!).

Muybridge sketches

2010-06-10T17:29:00.000-04:00

More sketches from the Muybridge annals.

Web series? TV? How do I get this story out there? (a history)

2010-06-10T05:17:00.000-04:00

Thanks again for everyone who watched "Kanook" and gave comments. If you haven't seen it, seen the previous post.

I wanted to get out some of my thoughts, ideas, plottings ... so you can tell me if I'm crazy or not ... (warning: long!)

So, I have this story, Kanook, that I've been writing for a long time. I really want to make it into a series. My first thought was to make it into a web series. When I made the Kanook animatic over a year ago, I fully intended to replace the animatic shots with fully rendered animation, like you see in the beginning. The animatic took about a week to make, but fully rendering shots took SO long. I had to do research, paint the backgrounds, rough out the animation, put in the key animation, breakdowns, in-betweens, and then color ... It was taking me about three days per shot. And there are 100+ shots in the 9 minute episode. A year an episode? That won't do ...

So, next I thought about pitching the series for TV. When I went to the Ottawa International Animation Festival in October, I prepared a pitch of the Kanook story. At OAIF they have a pitching session thing called 'FastTrack.' I got to pitch my idea to like 10 different companies, including Disney channel and Fox and Cartoon Network. I learned a LOT about TV animation by going to the OAIF and the TAC (Television Animation Conference, part of OAIF).

My general impression was that networks were looking for shows that were mostly comedies, and cheap to produce ($250-$300,000 per episode)... which mostly means using the 'cutout' or 'puppet' animation style. (There are a lot of great shows that use that style, but personally, I love doing traditional animation and that's what I want 'Kanook' to be in.) I asked someone about the show 'Avatar,' which has really nice animation ... and she told me that Avatar was an 'anomaly.' It's very expensive to produce (most of it being animated in Korea) and was originally pitched by two guys already trusted in the industry, having directed Simpsons and Family Guy episodes. Also, sequential, dramatic storytelling seems to be on the decline overall; there's been talk that shows like 'Lost' and 'FlashForward' will not be greenlit again soon. For animation, series that have long over-arching stories almost never get produced in America.

Moving on! So, I put Kanook on the back burner for a while ... I focused instead on applying for jobs in Animation. I went over to Disney in April and got a lot of great feedback on my portfolio. I'm also planning to apply to Pixar, Dreamworks and BlueSky (as soon as I finish my freakin' cover letter!! Why are they so hard?).

Recently, I started to think that maybe I could go back to the web series idea. I remembered that the Kanook animatic, even though it only took a week to do, was understandable and had emotional impact. I really want to practice cinematic storytelling. And I want get the Kanook story out there. So, I was thinking that I could make a web series in the animatic style.

One concern with that idea is that episodes won't be visually exciting enough to watch for 10 minutes. I want to add more actual animating. I want to make episodes in the animatic style, but with about 10% more animation, 10% more visual energy. (I am very concerned, however, that I won't be able to work quickly and make an animatic-styled animation if I think it's going to be the final product. I'm obsessively judgemental of my work ... I need to work on that.)

I'd also like to add music, sound effects and voices eventually ... which I'll need help on. A few people have already offered their help in various arenas, so I feel hopeful about that. Also, if I can find a way to make the actual animation part more collaborative, that would be great to.

So, that's my idea. I guess the next step is to start production on the next episode. (Which will actually be the first episode, because I've completely rewritten episode 1.) What do you think my plan? Comments? Questions? Concerns?

A side note: I was also wondering if, in addition, I should be working on a short film, something short and polished, that I can show at film festivals. Win awards. Get recognition. I started writing and boarding a story I could do ... but I'm not sure if it's what I want to be doing. In general, I feel torn between my desire to work on writing, storytelling, crafting better and better stories and creating polished artwork, with the painted backgrounds, the animation, the coloring...etc. TORN, I say.

Yet another side note: My computer is getting old. I need new software and hardware. Basically, I need a Macbook Pro, a Wacom Cintiq (21ux) tablet display, Adobe CS5 Master Collection, and Painter, for a grand total of $7100. eep! I'm saving my pennies. Commissions anyone?

Kanook – Episode One (Draft)

2010-06-06T11:55:00.000-04:00

I'm working on a series called Kanook.

This is a draft. I welcome feedback and collaborators.

-Heather

Understanding Evolution – Flash Simulation

2010-06-01T15:18:00.000-04:00

CLICK HERE TO TRY THE FLASH SIMULATION

Intro: I started working on this simulation a few days ago and I'm pretty excited about it. I'm looking for feedback so if you have anything to say about it, please share!

Goal: I think that evolution and natural selection are simple yet powerful concepts that are often misunderstood. The idea for the project is to make a clear and engaging simulation that shows the principles of natural selection in action.

For now, I just want to get this thing out on the web for feedback, so I'm not going to go into a big explanation about it. Here's the basics:

Evolution by natural selection:

Evolution is defined by a change in gene frequency over time. In the blue field in the simulation lives one circular, gray colored animal. The animal has a 6 character, hexidecimal code (e.g. 00FF00) that determines its color. The color code represents the genetic code that determines the structure of organisms.

Evolution happens because of the following four reasons:

1. Individuals vary. The animals in my simulation reproduce asexually, i.e. they clone themselves. But every once in a while a mutation occurs: one of the 6 characters is altered and the cloned critter is a different color from its parent. The different colors represent the genetic variation given in any animal population.

2. Some of that variation is heritable. The critters keep their color and pass it on to their offspring. The critters with mutations will then clone themselves, along with their mutations.

3. Not all of the individuals who are born will survive. Some will die and leave less offspring in the next generation. At the beginning of the simulation, the critters will grow at an exponential rate. But eventually they will start facing more challenges in their environment. Some will not survive these challenges. (Those will say: "challenge failed" and die).

4. Survival and reproduction are not totally random. Individuals with genes that give them advantages in their environment will leave more children than those without those advantages. Those are the genes that will be selected for. The frequency of advantageous genes will increase. That's evolution.

In the simulation, the environment can be either red, green or blue. By default, it's blue. In this simulation, the closer a critter is to the background color, the more likely they are to survive being "challenged." Eventually, less advantageous colors die out. By the time you finish reading this (if you loaded the simulation but didn't change any settings), you may notice that the percentage of blue critters is on the rise. (If not, keep it open, check on it in a few minutes). Eventually the population will change to be mostly blue.

That's it! I'm geeking out, but does anyone else think that's cool?

Please Please Please let me know what you think! :D

Also, you can play with the buttons. You can add more of the critters by clicking the little buttons on the bottom left. You can change the 'environment' by clicking the colored squares. And please click the 'Toggle Population Graph' button. That shows you a graph of the population size, including the number of individuals whose color code is very close to the extremes of either red, green or blue.

“I could buy a LIGHTBOX!”

2010-05-15T12:57:00.000-04:00

For the longest time I've been trying to come up with a process of creating well-rendered art that maintains the spontaneity and liveliness of my sketches (I'm still working on it). One morning, I was really grinding away, thinking about how I could do this, when I had the idea of buying a lightbox, an item I hadn't used since my high school art class. In my sleepy head I was thinking ... "That's it ... I know ... I'll buy a LIGHTBOX!" And immediately I started plotting how I would go to Utrecht and buy it, and plan my whole day around this important event. When I woke up I told my boyfriend about it. It seems really silly now to be so excited about a lightbox, but at the time, my boyfriend said I had the "crazy eyes."

Copic Marker and Colored Pencil Sketches

2010-05-15T12:44:00.000-04:00

More Copic marker sketches, but with a layer of colored pencil on top! I had a lot of fun doing these guys. I'm considering using this kind of thing for my comic.

It feels like a fun process because I'm building the image three ways, making it stronger each time. In the ink drawings I was doing, it's hard to build a cohesive image because I have to think about how all the pieces will work together separately (like the ink linework, the ink shading, and the tones). With these drawings, I start with a rough blue sketch, going for good shapes. Then I block in the values with the warm gray Copic markers. Then I just lightly go over all of it was colored pencil. Because the tones tell most of the story, the color is just spruces it up. And the colored pencil glides right over the marker. Fun!

Copic Marker Sketches

2010-05-15T12:35:00.000-04:00

I'm working on a comic book. I'm trying to figure out what process will work for me ... I'm looking for a good balance of speed and quality. While waiting for my computer to handle working on several 300 dpi 9" x 12" files, I started doodling using an erasable blue pencil and warm gray Copic markers. I liked the process, so I continued and did a few more. These are the better of the lot.

Something about the cool blue of the pencil and the warm gray values felt nice. Complete. More so than the labored black and white inked drawings I was working on.

10,000 Hours of Practice

2010-04-30T06:41:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I was reading Malcolm Gladwell's book: Outliers: The Story of Success. He hypothesizes that in order to really master something, like a sport or instrument, you need at least 10,000 hours of practice (about 10 years of practicing many hours a day).

In the book Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, Geoff Colvin also writes that the hours of practice one puts in is the most important factor determining whether you will succeed. Finally, in this New York Times Article the author says that it takes 10,000 hours of meditation at least to become an adept meditation master.

All these ideas have really resonated with me. I am determined to become a better artist and crafter of stories. In order to reach that goal, I want engage in more concentrated, serious practice intended to make me a better artist/storyteller.

So what kind of practice would be good? Obviously, drawing from life. Drawing people outside, drawing animals at the zoo, drawing at the museum, going to live figure drawing sessions. I want to practice drawing accurately and quickly, but I also want to practice breathing life, story into my drawings. I want to practice drawing moments, drawing characters with appeal. That's very important.

What about telling stories? There's probably plenty of ways to practice telling stories. Just do it! Try making comics or storyboards and tell a story with them. I usually write a script before trying to board or make comic panels ... but I could try just telling a story with drawings without worrying about the script. That way I can really see what my drawings are communicating. I could practice drawing facial expressions, body language from film as well as from life.

Overall the practice has to be directly related to making one better at the thing at what they want to do. And it has to require enough focus, concentration, that it's not something you can do while watching TV. Draw, draw, draw. If the previous drawing doesn't come out how you envisioned, try it again. Just because you didn't get it the first time doesn't mean you can't get it. Rework. Practice.

Ok, that's my rant on practice. Back to work!

Storyboard Study – Troy – Part 1

2010-04-27T09:11:00.000-04:00

After getting a lot of feedback at Disney a few weeks ago, I'm ready to jump back into making storyboards. I wanted to get another look at staging and cinematography in live action, and I started with Troy. Here are four pages of storyboards I did while watching Troy (with a finger on the pause button). If you know the movie, this is the scene where Paris and Hector are being toasted by the king of Sparta, Paris all the while ogling Helen. (If you don't know the movie, then this will all look like chicken scratch).

More to come!

Pen Sketches from Eadweard Muybridge Photos

2010-04-27T08:57:00.000-04:00

I have two out of the three big books of Muybridge's prints. I did these sketches from those books. They're great! If you don't know about his amazing photographs, you can learn about them here.

Pen Sketches – Arrested Development and Stewart & Colbert

2010-04-27T08:46:00.000-04:00

I LOVE Arrested Development. I consider it the funniest thing ever created. Next to In the Loop.

Here are some Precise V5 pen sketches/gestures done while watching AD on Hulu:

Jason Bateman is so adorable! <3 <3

I am also a big fan of The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Here's some quick sketches done while watching:

Inspire Days! – Notes from my trip to Disney

2010-04-14T09:58:00.000-04:00

On April 8th and 9th 2010, I went to Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, California for the third annual Inspire Days. I was invited by the director of the Talent Development Program who I met at the Ottawa Film Festival last October.

During those two days, I heard talks by Disney animators, story artists, visual development artists and many others. I showed my story and character design portfolios to many people and took notes on their suggestions. Needless to say, it was very exciting. I'm posting below notes I took on the general creative process of making a film and comments about my portfolio. Enjoy.

Inspire Days - 3rd Annual - April 8 and 9th 2010

Glen Keane - good animation is about sincerity
John Lasseter - Great Movies: 1. Great Story/Conflict, 2. Appealing Characters, 3. Believable World
John Lasseter rubbing his head means that he's not so into what you're pitching.

Story Team: Director, Writers, Story Artists - Chris Williams (Director)
-It's a very collaborative process.
-Director has to know when to open the conversation, ask for ideas and when to narrow things down.
-The chemistry of the group has to work. People have to feel comfortable to give ideas because you never know where those ideas may lead.
-Must be able to have debate without personal criticism
-Must be able to articulate your vision of what you want
-Thick skin
-Think of the screenings as platforms that take you closer to seeing what a better movie might look like. Always trying to make things better.
-Director - other people are better at what they do, you just make sure they are going in the right direction.
-writing collaboratively

Story Artist: Paul Briggs
-Beat board
-visual and written beats
-Script approved and then story team comes in
Need: strong draftsmanship, speed, and be a writer (fresh ideas, know cinematography)
-What are you passionate about? What kind of story do you want to see?
-must drop ego and just throw up work on the board.
-Different people are good at different sequences
-What is the purpose of this sequence? What is the change in value?

1. Thumbnails
2. first rough pass. really rough. People give lots of notes to make it better
3. 2nd pass. More notes, making it better
4. 3rd pass. More solid. in computer. Sent to editorial who puts it in the film. Whole film screened with these storyboards.

Visual Development: Bill Perkins
-character designs
-environment designs
-stylistic versatility
-Do illustrations of key story beats
Each film/painting should be like it's own universe. It should have its own questions and own answers.
"Blue sky" phase - at the beginning when anything is possible

Editing - Bill Caparella
-puts in the music and the voices and animation
-2-3 months between screenings
-Before giving the scenes to the animators, you have to replace the temp voices with professional voice actors
-continually making changes

Production Department Manager - Nate Massman
-Ask them for work if you don't have enough, or ask for priorities if you have a lot to do

Storyboarding Tutorial w Paul Briggs:
-Storyboard sheets about the size of the CVS unruled notebooks (my observation)
-Simple: Notebook, sharpie, and pencil-side for shading
-Action sequences have a lot of shots: Can have 500 drawings in one week
-You are writing a script with drawings
Remember:
-acting
-strong poses
-strong silhouette
-clear and dynamic staging
-study film
-creative writing

Limit oneself when doing storyboards:
-no more than 5 layers
-2-3 shades of grey
-color only if to make a point
-Avoid getting caught up in making pretty drawings or even starting to animate. You want to try to get at the character with as few drawings as possible.
-first pass: no dialogue. Give life to character before giving it voice.

other hints:
-eavesdrop on people's conversations, learn how people talk
-talk to old people: ask them about the decisions they made that define who they are. They have been on a long journey, and that's what a movie is.

Alison Mann: Requiting
Cover letter: should say: who you are, contact info, what you are signing up for, no spelling errors.
-Life drawing: Mostly gestures are important. A few finished poses to show you know anatomy. Only show the best of the best.
-reel: 2-3 minutes
-Leave them wanting more, don't put too much.
-Show variety
-For animation reels, show a variety of acting: comedy, subtle acting, broad acting, quadruped motion, dramatic ...
-Customize for the industry you are going in to, all are different: Feature film, TV, gaming, internet ... all different
-Test files after uploading them
-Storyboards: quick and loose with appeal.
-Go for the source material, truth: real life. Acting in live action films.
-How would I interview someone who I was interviewing for a job? I want someone who wants to improve.

Visual Development for "Prep and Landing"
-Shapes - triangles and circles versus squares
-Color: red and green versus blue
-shape language. You want the audience to identify the characters immediately.
-If characters have a lot of screen time together, they should look different, contrast

Production Manager:
-Production is about good management. How are you going to get this onscreen? No good if it's great but no one sees it.
-You want everyone on the team to own it. Have meetings to get everyone on board.
-Everything should service the story.
-Create an environment for constant and open communication at every level
-for this job, you need to show management skills, that you managed a project, managed a team, scheduling.

Talent Development Program - Laura Mclaughlin
-One on one mentorship
-See if you fit the culture of the place
-You are given assignments and reviewed
-Focus on your strength so they know where to place you
-Must join animation union guild
-Animation: Start in training program --> apprentice --> journeyman
-Can't stay at one studio forever, not anymore.
-Things constantly changing, staff needs change. Not clear who they are hiring for
-Disney: some period without new blood. 1997, started to get some new young people

Random Notes:

-A film is never "done" - you either run out of time or money.
-You must be curious, hungry for information. Like Lasseter.
-Arthur C Clark: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
-story: Set up/setting, set up problem, conflict, complication, resolution
-Appeal - point of emotional entry. You see the story behind the design
-A lot of "pencil mileage"

Portfolio Reviews:

Wilbert Plijnaar - story:
For storyboards:
-More design/construction to characters (maybe) Not unique enough.
-Push emotions more
-Photoshop looks more professional than watercolor and pencil. Want dark, crisp lines.
-Make the TRIGGERS clear: taking the audience through what the character is thinking. Want the audience to know what the character is thinking when doing an action. Scenes that really take the audience into the mind of the character, those are the scenes directors/animators love.
-Could use some more shots showing where the characters are oriented. not close ups.

-More of the gesture work. Less of the longer worked drawings

Marc: Story
-Don't forget to draw faces and hands when drawing figures. They are important. Faces - indicate personality, what the character is thinking, elaborate on what you see
-Only the best drawings!
-For storyboards: Set up the situation, show the conflict and then the resolution and show them clearly.
-Don't make the pages too tight. Take out things. Make other things bigger.
-1-2 complete storyboards,
-2-3 pages of life drawings
-2-3 pages of animals sketches
-Show camera motion (put as one drawing), only if necessary
-Drawings should be loose and clear

General, vis dev:
-Show variety - show that you can work on many projects
-1 single character drawing should show that character's personality, who they are
-1-2 pages of life drawing, but with personality, story
-Landscape drawings should feel like a story beat
-Test out portfolio on others
-Don't put too much.
-Show consistency in quality

General: Cover Letter:
-To learn about positions at other companies, contact their recruiters, the people listed in the 'mail to' section of an application
-paragraph one: Why you want to work at this company, and what you want to do. (Why Disney, and story)
-paragraph two: My story and what I've done(short resume).
-paragraph three: summary of first two and contact info.

Matt Roberts : recruiting
-More shot variety, not too flat
-watch Mt Rushmore scene in North by Northwest
-It's okay to put a few sequences as long as they show variety
-show storyboards that are more the "3rd pass"
-More appeal to characters, more interesting, emotional. (more disney?)
-For storyboarding, put in simple but expressive gestures from life

Vicki: Vis Dev
-Take out things and make the good stuff bigger. Guide the viewer down the page.
-Add some color to portfolio - just with a multiply layer
-full body sketches better than just heads.

Sheepskin!

2010-04-01T04:27:00.000-04:00

At the farmer's market last weekend, I saw this sheepskin and was instantly smitten. I wanted it very badly. Time was limited and before I knew it, I had bought it.

It's so soft! I think Fuwafuwa is the Japanese word for it. I just keep stroking it and petting it. I think I missing having a pet.

The underside of the pelt is soft too. I like pretending I'm a hunter-gatherer, skilled at skinning and tanning and what-have-you. But mostly I just think that fuzzy things = JOY.

Pen Sketches at the Zoo

2010-03-25T08:23:00.000-04:00

Grevy's zebra and asian elephant

Peccaries (and a mischievous squirrel who tried to raid my bag while I was watching the peccaries)

Clouded leopards 1

Clouded leopards 2

I went to the zoo the other day to get some exercise and drew these sketches. Last time I did this, I found it really helpful to stick to one animal for at least a half hour or hour and really work at it until I felt comfortable drawing it's form. But this time, I did my usual thing of moving from animal to animal fairly quickly.

National Gallery Sketches

2010-03-24T09:53:00.000-04:00

I did these sketches during two trips to the National Gallery in Washington DC. When I went there the first time I thought that a lot of the artwork looked familiar ... and then I realized that I had a giant book of artwork from the National Gallery that I bought at a book sale before I moved to DC.

Gorillas at the National Zoo

2010-03-24T09:13:00.000-04:00

The National Zoo has a really nice Great Apes section. The walls are glass so you can go right up and sit next to the gorillas. I don't know if they care for it though ... Anyway, there's a baby there! It's so cute! You can usually tell if it's visible because there's always a big crowd standing wherever it is.