This post will be tying up the loose ends from first year. I'm done, I'm home and all is going well. I managed to complete first year without going completely mental and only having a few break downs.

Here is my final painting project. It's a COPIC marker BG with a character on a cel overlay. The cel was painted with acrylica gouache. I worked really hard on this, trying to re-familiarize myself with my markers (I didn't get to use them all year for anything serious)- Yeah, I got a 60-something (as usual. FML.). Oh well, at least I like it.


For my final layout assignment, we were to do a diagonal panned background. Of course I misunderstood most of the directions and tried to vomit it out the night before... But I learned where I went wrong and my prof was really awesome about it.


Now here are some animations I haven't posted here:

Firstly, an animal walk cycle. I can't draw animals very well so this was a pain. Oh well, got an 88 on it.




Here is my flour sack animation, interacting with a puddle. Out of stupidity, I put it off until the day before and shat this out. There's problems I'd love to fix, but oh well.



Finally, here is a fun animation done in Animate Pro during digital tools. There were some bugs with the software, so the patches misaligned. It was excused because of the circumstances (the technical difficulties).



That's all for now; I'm off to sleep for the next week or so.

Cheers!
-Max

I've added a Twitter feed to this page. Dunno why it took me so long to do so, I'll just write it off as being lazy. It means I had to unlock my tweets, so now the world can read my rambling stupidity. Oh well, wasn't that what Twitter was invented for?

Anyways, the workload is really intense at the moment, so my updates are rather sporadic.

Here is that blue Col-Erase doodle I was working on in the last update. I finished it, but it's a little too 'anime' for my liking.

Here's a quick (10min) doodle I did for my sister. She was originally going to use it in a type poster, but changed ideas.
This is a reproduction background from Disney's "Mickey's Christmas Carol" I did for painting class. We were to take an existing animation BG and copy it completely. It's been a while since I watched this, but I believe it's outside Fezzywig's party.


Here's a random page in my sketchbook I did a few weeks back during layout. Prof was going on about style, so I doodled in pen.


That's all for now. There's so much work left to do before the year's over and I only have two more weeks to do it. Hopefully I'll post more though.

Cheers!
-Max

I've been trying to justify a posting here, but I guess it's just an excuse to not do anything productive. 'Suppose I just like keeping an archive of the drawings I've done; it works well as a timeline to improvement.

S0, here are some sketches I've done over the weekend. They are just that, sketches. They're rough and shite. Mostly Col-Erase but some are pen.

This is pretty much every page in my sketchbook. Nothing real, just scribbling for the hell of it.


I doodle a lot when I can't be bothered to do actual work; Here's a (mentally disabled) Hand-Turkey I drew yesterday while talking on Skype to my sister.
Figure/life drawing is kicking my arse right now. Here's some practice I did Saturday night. It's from a photograph. 15mins.


I'll probably finish this sketch throughout the week. I hate how impossible Col-Erase is to actually ERASE. The real drawing is done in a light blue, so it's not really that messy, I just fiddled in Photoshop so the lines were visible.


Drew this one while talking to my mum on the phone. I re-used the head in the banner for this website on this. Pen & white ink. There's stuff I'd love to change, however, that's the nature of pen: you can't.



That's all from me. I'm off to doodle some more.
-Max

Last week I was on reading week and got quite a bit done.

Here is a painting assignment I did of a still life. We could use whatever media we wanted so I decided to use my watercolour cake set that was ridiculously cheap. It's intended for children or something, but I like it alright.

I find watercolours easier to use that gouache- I'd much rather be able to use them instead.


This is a birthday present I did for my mum. It's a caricature portrait of our pets. Watercolours & Copic markers. Each is 4x6'' and I framed them all nice in a faux-antique frame. She loved it.


Now this is a bit of fanart I did for Doctor Who. It started off as a painting, but I managed to balls it up so badly that I had no choice but to redo it. At least digitally I had the opportunity to play around with some new effects/techniques.

Rendering Gallifrey & Earth (the planets) in the background was really fun. I didn't know how simple it would be to create something like that without the aid of clipart.



And I'll leave off with a rough sketch from a project I'm currently working on. It's for character design!Cheers!
-Max

I have two new animations to post!

This was a learning exercise in ToonBoom Animate Pro. We took the Pink Panther walk that we previously animated and coloured it within the software. The multiplane (it's very slight, so the dimension isn't over-obvious) background was done in Photoshop. SUPER MARIO WORLD THEME.



Now this animation killed my soul. I'm dead emotionally. It could be way better, but alas, I ran out of time and drive. It's a head rotation of Kuzco from the Emperor's New Groove. He also grows ears, meows, and changes expression.





Cheers
-Max

I'm short for time, so I'll just leave these here.
I have to start my storyboarding and animation assignments which are due next week. Totally swamped and trying to keep some composure.

This is a marker piece I've been chipping away at for the past few weeks. Not getting too far on it.



Here's my character design sequence I did. It's crap, I can't draw animals- hopefully I'll get better this semester. It's animated for your convenience. Click to embiggen.


That's all from me.

Cheers!
Max

I've been animating all weekend. Not as fun as it sounds, really, it's not.
Trying to keep things on model and looking right has killed the part of me that judges whether things are 'technically' right (ie: mechanics of animation). Oh well, it looks like it should. I guess. It just has to be shot & the dope sheet filled in.

Here's a shot of my animation desk (as it was last night). My mum & dad gave it to me for Christmas and it's brilliant. Of course I covered it with as many Doctor Who stickers that I own... Over the next four years it's going to get very, very 'decorated'.


Now, here's some art.

I finished the revamp of Dante and it doesn't look all that bad.

For character design we have to create an animal character and draw them in a sequence of action. Kind of like the keyframes of an animation. Since I'm absolutely rubbish at drawing animals, I've decided to use an early 90s minimalistic style (like Ren & Stimpy, Rocko's Modern Life, The Angry Beavers, etc). Here's a rough design of my lemur:
Here's also a doodle I've been working on (mainly while I'm on the phone or watching television). Methinks it'll turn into Romana II from Doctor Who, but who knows at this point:


Finally, here's the lineart for a painting project I have to do. We're to design our own 'planet' and paint it in both warm & cool tones (so, two different paintings). Being a complete Doctor Who junkie, it somehow managed to unconsciously recreate a mash-up of Mars (from The Waters of Mars), The Impossible Planet (from the serial of the same name), and Skaro (from The Destiny of the Daleks).

I call this planet "Kasterborous" (5 points if you get the reference):


Well I'm off to do laundry & more assignments.
Cheers!

-Max

I'm so glad it's the weekend right now. Nine-AM classes are really messing me up (I'm not a morning person).

So here's some new arts to push those crappy doodles down. c:

Methinks 2010 is going to be the year where I redesign all my characters. My style keeps fluctuating and I'd really like to change some of their backstories.

Here's a doodle I did of my one character Olivia after class and then finished. I've given her a larger figure because I've learned 'rounder' people are more fun to draw (thanks to life drawing). I think it suits her and it isn't negative at all.


This is my character 'Dante' who is getting a complete overhaul this year. He was originally a pirate (not the most original idea, I know) but now he's a doctor from the Italian plague.

Now here's a meme that's been infectious all over deviantART. I don't like uploading memes there, but here it is filled out (BIG FILE ALERT):


The fact that I was so bad bothers me for some reason. Yes, completely irrational because everyone starts off somewhere... But even back in 2007 I was quite shit. I guess it just reminds me how hard I worked to get where I am now.

Cheers
-Max

I haven't forgotten about this place! I was just home for the holidays without access to my blogger for the past three weeks- and for that last little bit of semester one I never really drew anything of value.

Here's a sketchdump, and it is very much a sketchdump... Nothing is really good here. I'm honestly in the worst art-block of my life and it's been this way for the last month or so. Eep.

These are some of the quick drawings I did on my last life drawing class. It was a costume free-for-all and we could use whatever media we wanted. These are roughed with Copic markers then drawn with a black pen. Apparently I can't do much in 3mins.


Now these are some sketches I did over my holiday. They were an attempt for me to get out of my block but didn't work.


That's it for now. Fuck. I really need to start drawing things of substance and that don't have mutant appendages or just overall bad anatomy.

Cheers
-Max

I'll just leave these here......

My character expression sheet from Character Design. This was my last assignment in the class and hopefully I do well. Used Thomas.

My final test/exam/assignment in storyboarding is to storyboard a scenario given to us. A character is carrying a small box, finds a bigger box, struggles with the bigger box, leaves with the smaller one. Being bitten by the Holiday bug (for the first time in a long, long while. I'm no fan of Christmas), I decided to do a child with a present.

We had to do a model sheet for this character and do all the rough storyboarding in a week (Yikes!). Then we have to bring that in and in two hours (in class) produce a real storyboard. That's why the character is so simple, so I can easily draw him 20 times in the timeframe. :)

Finally, here are my bones. I /LOVE/ bones. So this assignment was really enjoyable for me. Some people love drawing animals, some like drawing people... and for some inexplicable reason, I love drawing skeletons and bones. Honestly, if I could make a living out of it, I totally would draw bones for the rest of my life.

That's all for now. I have a few more assignments to finish.

Cheers!
-Max