Final animation drop offs. Met deadlines.
Will definitely go back and fix some of the major issues in the new year.

Quick stop-motion test, trying out my first puppet :D



I found that learning how to render things in Maya is somehow more confusing than actually animating in the software. So I might go back and re-render these when I come back to school in January.

First real animation done in Maya. It's a walk cycle using the default pre-rigged character at Sheridan:



Second animation in Maya. A thinking character, lip synced to a Carl Sagan quote (which seems to be a bit out of sync in this render...). Character is the Blake rig.



Finally, this is a biggy. The final reel with my action analysis animation.




I learned a lot through this action analysis project- definitely a LOT more than in my previous two years combined.

• tying down your animation is insanely important
• stupidly complex characters suck to animate (STOP WITH THE SEAMS)
  
• I need to design simpler characters
• clean up takes me forever
• flash really sucks for animating
• After Effects is really fun
• learn to budget time better
  

Overall I'm "okay" with the end result. I definitely want to go back and fix things before I add it to my portfolio.
But, at the end of the day, I got something done and handed in- that was ultimately the goal.

Now I'm off to pack and head home for the holidays.
Survived the first semester of year 3. HUZZAH.

This guy will have relevance soon. I just need to get him out of my head.

His name is tentatively Mr Magpie.

Because I couldn't sleep, I painted this.
I stayed up all night, every night, for a year- waiting to see if she still loved me. Spoiler: she didn't.

I'm going to pass out now.

Royah Wintur Fuurrrr

Every year we go to the Royal Winter Faire to draw the animals. Gosh I love the faire- It smells like a barn. I grew up on a farm, and every year I'm reminded of what hay and animal feces smells like.

This year I decided to set up camp with some llama friends & I actually got some drawings done.

My llama amigos were from a farm close to my house- I've driven by them a hundred times. Sure, it's like 30km away- but by the code of the farmer, it means we're practically neighbours.

I swear, every time I got into what I was drawing...
I'd look up and a llama would be staring at me with
their adorable, derpy eyes. Being not one who likes
to be startled, I reacted by jumping a foot off my
chair. It's not embarrassing. Stop judging me.

First llama study done with my Copics. First
time using Copic wide markers. They're delicious.

Their derp eyes reminded me of a zombie. A zombie with a
hunger that only artist blood can satisfy.

And that was the Royah Wintur Fuurrrr for 2011.
Spent the evening eating delicious & cheap Chinese food, raiding the Disney store for choice deals, & running to catch GO Train. It was fantastic.

I never really draw animals, so I decided to get some practice. These are a few weeks old, just finished them up tonight.

Concept art for the group film I'm working on. Trying to get this lineless style down- as well as follow the model sheets.

2hrs or so in Photoshop. Textures from the internet somewhere.

Quick drawings of the protagonist in our film. Based off the design by Perin McLean.

Okay, going to catch up with a bit of art here. I have a whole follow-up post for my previous post, but that will wait until another time.

I've been working on my 'Action Analysis'. Here is the first pass of the rough story reel:

(Scratchtrack voice of Squelette was provided by the lovely Jenna)

Workbook for the opening shot. Securing the fact that I never want to be a layout artist:

Heroes & Villains assignment for life drawing. This was hands down the most fun I've ever had with a life drawing assignment (yeah, the life drawing bit is bad- but they weren't for grades. The assignment was to work with life drawings to create characters).


Quick vent doodle because I was missing someone.

Cheers!
-Max

For Steve.

I've been using the same Macbook since 2006. It still works.
I still use it every day.

My iMac has become my main workstation. It works almost the same as when it came out of the box, over 3 years ago.

My second mp3 player was an iPod nano.
It was replaced by an iPod touch (Apple used to give students a free iPod when they bought a computer for school).

My phone was replaced with my first iPhone this summer. It has since replaced my iPod, as well as my camera.

It's not just a brand, it's a series of innovative products that just work. Work well. Right out of the box.
I will never use any other.

Never give me hassle, which in turn gives me more time to focus on my art.

Thank you, Mr. Jobs. Thank you for everything you contributed to the world. You will be missed.

Just a quick doodle I did in storyboarding class yesterday.

I work so rough & rarely do any cleanup traditionally nowadays. Instead, I always scan it and work in Photoshop.

Then with a quick cleanup in Photoshop & some colours;

This is a character design I have had since I was 15 years old. He's changed very little over the years. He's been given a few different names, but Squelette always has fitted best.

Cheers
-Max

At the beginning of every summer, I always plan to achieve much more than I'm capable of doing. I set expectations so high that I only end up disappointing myself. This has been my lesson of the summer.

I had set a goal that was just unrealistic and in the end, it sabotaged everything.

I did, however, manage to practice some basic animations in flash, doodle almost every day, and work on a lot of stories... So I cannot say it was entirely wasted. But the fact of the matter is, not much was finished.

I am refusing to say this was a failure. Art will always be a life-long learning experience for me. No matter how frustrating, I have learned a lot from this. I have finally learned what I can realistically do within a day. I can set my goals a little more realistically, and that will definitely help me through the next semester without disappointment.

Here are some things from last semester
(like always, click to enlarge)

These are some storyboards from my final storyboarding assignment. I cropped out all of the template other than where the actual boards were to conserve space... Hopefully it still reads alright. This assignment was a lot of fun.

Final layout assignment, panning up. First try at to doing that fish-eye effect when something pans upwards.

The same layout, just with a bit of tone.

Here are some of my favourite pieces done in character design last semester. Bits from every assignment.

This is a still my lip sync animation, cleaned up. I added colour & a background this summer. Moreso practice than anything else, really.

Some pieces from my final life drawing portfolio. This semester was more about tone... Eugh.


Now, for things done over the summer!

These are just some of the doodles I did & never finished.

Something I started for Shark Week, but never finished. Might get around to it sometime.

An old sketch I finally got around to finishing.

Reworking old characters. Improving on their designs. (yes, that's the cat from my IT KEEPS HAPPENING storyboard)

Fiddling around with pencils & tone.

I did this for my nan's birthday back in June. Experiment with ink & markers.

In the end, it's not much. But, going into year 3, I've never been so motivated to improve and succeed.
Cheers,
-Max

Well, I've been meaning to post this for few weeks, but I decided to wait until I finished all my assignments.

I've been having issues with my hands for the past few years. There has been lots of pain, hand tremors- basically lots of things making drawing difficult. I dismissed it as arthritis or something hereditary, which obviously was a stupid decision.

I went to the doctor, who told me it was pretty clearly Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. They couldn't explain the tremors, but every other symptom fit. After doing a few tests, they told me to get some arm braces and take it easy.

It took me being up late at night in inexplicable pain whilst downing bottles of pain killers to get help. I was stupid, I had symptoms and ignored them. Pushing through the pain to get assignments in on time. This probably is going to make recovery a bit more difficult and lengthy.

Next post will be art. Just felt like logging this.

Cheers,
-Max

These are my Beak/Muzzle character designs I did a few weeks back. The bird was based off of a plague doctor from the Italian plague and the other was an infected plague rat. I'm only posting the bird.


The last character assignment I did was a huge model pack. The characters were to be chosen from a specific historical point- of course I chose Victorian England (It's my comfort zone). Four model sheets and a line up. Clean up done in ink. Another assignment I wish I had more time for.

The "Skeletal Requiem" logo was done by my sister.



This is a layout we did a few weeks back. It was pretty much to copy the storyboard/layout pack our prof gave us. The wonky perspective was in the layout pack and we were not allowed to really fix it. In painting we were to paint this layout in a 'graphic style' using the pen tool in Photoshop.


Lastly, here's an animation I just finished last night.

I've been having issues with my hands for the past few years and I'm finding it a lot easier to work digitally than on paper. So, I decided that for this animation, I should experiment animating digitally in Flash CS5. It seems the industry (at least television animation) mostly uses Flash nowadays, so experience with it couldn't hurt either.

A major problem I run into when I animate is that I constantly want to keep everything structural and (somewhat) realistic. It's so limiting and gets me really frustrated. For this assignment, I decided I was going to abandon that thought and just go as extreme as I could push it.

Audio is from Invader Zim. I had no idea how many people animate to this until I looked on Youtube. I guess it's a popular clip.



That's all I guess for now.

There has been a ridiculous epidemic of carpal tunnel syndrome in the second year- I think I'm getting it too. I've been dismissing these pains as arthritis and after talking to a friend who has it, it's starting to sound more like CTS than arthritis. Fuck.

Cheers
-Max

Oodles of in-class doodles & art trades.

Trade with Sheldon

Trade with Kaitlynn Ritter

Happy New Year!

This is just going to be a short art dump. I got the expected art-block over the holiday and didn't draw much (the same one I had last year).

Here's a compilation page of some of the things I sketched over the break. The plague-bird I actually finished & painted as a quick Christmas gift for my mum. The rest is pretty much trying to draw through the art block & figure out how to draw animals.


A few nights before I came back to school, I attempted to work with digital painting. Using several references from Pokémon: Best Wishes I came up with this. Yay, new starter Pokémon!


Now some school work.
Here are the beat boards I did for my group assignment.


And these are quick concept sketches I did last night. I need to do a model sheet for a bird and something with a muzzle- I've chosen a doctor from the bubonic plague (the bird) and an rat (one of the carriers of the plague). Definitely need to add some boils & infection to the rat, but it's a start.

That's all for now.
Cheers!
-Max