Last Post (?)

Too often, we don't think about the end until it's actually here.

Ha, guess what I'm going through at the moment?

Yep, I'm graduating in less than a week! As glad as I am to be done with school, I'm gonna miss this class a lot. It was always the best two hours of my day. Luckily, the college I'm going to has one of the best Animation programs in my state - the guy who runs it founded the class I've been taking for the past three years, in fact!

If any of my classmates are reading this: I know I didn't talk too often, but I'll miss you like crazy. And to my teacher: thanks again for inspiring me. I'll see you later.

- BB

My Art - 3 (Salamanders and Fish)

Okay, NOW I'll post some original concepts!

Let's start simple - have two fish from a practice we did back in August. I don't have much to say about them, so on to the next thing!

Last year I sat down wanting to draw some sort of giant sad salamander that woke once a millennium to lay judgement on the world. I never figured out what the inside of its mouth looked like, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with this concept! Here's to hoping I find a use for it in the future.

Well, that's everything I cleaned up in the past weeks. Maybe I should look for more sketches to give the Photoshop treatment. Or should I start a new project? Who knows when inspiration will take a hold of me next!

Until then,
                   BB 

My Art - 2 (Aliens and Dinosaurs)

Sorry for going silent again there! I spent the past few weeks cleaning up more of my drawings in Photoshop. You know, I thought I'd be using the patching tools a lot, but I ended up using the eraser more than anything.

Anyway, today I have a few more sketches of video game enemies to share! (I'll get to the original stuff soon, don't worry.)










First up, some tentacled, obviously-B-movie-inspired aliens! I didn't expect myself to fall in love with these guys, but here I am!


And now for something completely different, yet somehow from the same series - dinosaurs! The one in the middle was my attempt to bridge the gap between the baby on the left and the full-grown rex on the right. I really like how it came out, actually; somewhere between cute and awkward, like adolescents tend to be.



Finally, some disgruntled wolves from another type of game altogether. I used to draw canines more realistically, but they never came out to my liking. That being said, I think I'll be sticking to a cartoon-y style from here on out.

Until next time,

                         BB

My Art - 1 (Scary Final Bosses and an Alien)

Hey all!

So I'll be graduating soon, and I'm thinking of taking some art classes in college. I thought I'd start putting some of my better sketches here as a sort of portfolio.

Now, as I'm sure you've figured out by now, I'm a sucker for video games. They tend to be full of great character and enemy designs! I usually end up sketching the ones I really like. I won't say which games these three are from, but believe or not, they're all from the same series.

It took me a week to clean these three up in Photoshop (my erasers aren't the best). I'll see if I can get the job done faster next time.

Until then,

                    BB

Project Drago, pt. 1 (probably)

It's looking like I won't be finishing this thing until after winter break. I was planning on talking about it when it was done, but what the heck!

Here, have the first page of the storyboard. Yes, he's about to bite the ball in that last square.

I'm cleaning up the first twenty frames right now. If I'm still not done with this a while after school starts up again, I might post the second storyboard page. Stay tuned!

Project Simplify, Cont.

So as I was saying...

This was my first time using a light board, so I wasn't expecting to make anything you could consider "long". I only animated half of what I'd storyboarded, in fact.

I hadn't used After Effects in almost a year, so I got some help from my teacher. (You know, I hope there are programs out there that aren't as confusing to budding animators - it would suck if not being computer-savvy was keeping people from getting their stuff out there.)

Oh, that video? It's... it's nothing important to me at all. I'm totally not saving up for a new bike for it, nope.

And now, without further ado: my very first traditionally-drawn animation!

It's funny - when I saw the finished product, I swelled up with joy. I know it's not even three seconds long, but I just wasn't expecting it to come out so smoothly.

I'm probably just being emotional. Welp, on to the next project!

Project Simplify

Long time no post! I'm pretty tired, so I'll make this one short and sweet.

Before I get to the good news, have some concept art. I'd been mulling over ideas for my first project of the year for a week, but I couldn't think of anything I could actually see myself completing. Then one day, I drew two circles and a line connecting them on a whim. A pair of rectangles for legs, and I was in love.

I was thinking of abandoning the tablet and making something the traditional way - you know, paper and a backlight. To make sure I didn't take up the whole first semester, I wanted the simplest muse possible, so this little circle-ostrich thing was a godsend.

My time's almost up. I'll post more tomorrow!