Stripes - scene 1 sketches

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

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

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

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

Myst - Book of Atrus - Visual Development

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

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

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

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

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

Pen Sketches

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]