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

As I'm pretty much done this semester, this will be my last art/work dump for a bit. This semester has been a mix of good & bad. I've learned quite a bit and feel I've gotten better in some areas, but alas I still feel I need to improve a lot to be up to par with what the programme demands. Definitely something I want to work on over my winter break.

This is my Christmas card for the year; It's a lino print I carved a few weeks back. I still haven't gotten the whole 'printing' process mastered, so I keep having lots of little 'speckles' in each print.


My final assignment in 'literature' was to illustrate a scene from The Yellow Wallpaper.
This assignment was familiar, as I've done this before. However that was 3 years ago and it was absolutely dreadful. If you're into bad art, you can see it here.


For my last layout assignment, we were to take five sequential scenes from our storyboard/leica and build these boards into proper layouts.



This project also overlapped into painting, where we took one of these layouts and painted it. Watercolour pencils, watercolours, markers & Photoshop.


The beatboards were also another painting assignment. Watercolours, watercolour pencils, markers & a hell of a lot of Photoshop.


Over the semester we were required to keep a sketchbook of caricatures. We were allowed to draw from video, so, I drew a lot of my favourite people from television. There are some friends & family mixed in here, but there are definitely more Doctor Who people.



This is the end result for that storyboard I posted the beat boards & character line up for (IT KEEPS HAPPENING). A lot got changed since then & I'm unsure how I feel about it. It definitely keeps the integrity to my morbid personality.


To end this off, this is the final animation I did for the semester. It was a character's expression change whilst interacting with something/someone. I chose to use my old character 'Hecate' & have her with a spider.



That's all for now. I have a few more assignments to finish up & I'll be heading home for the next three weeks. See you in the new year.

Cheers
-Max

I've been meaning to update here, but the last few weeks have been really rough (with lots of assignments & life).

Not really art related, but last Tuesday I got the opportunity of a lifetime: to attend Tim Burton's masterclass in Toronto! It was being held to promote/commemorate the Tim Burton art exhibit at the TIFF building, so they invited several animation colleges to attend. I've been majorly inspired by Burton for the past ten years, so there was no way I'd pass up this chance!

I even managed to get tickets in his actual lecture (instead of watching it in the overflow live-feed theatre) because I signed up early enough! So I sat for 2hrs, about 100 feet away, listening to Tim Burton talk about animation, Hollywood, and whatnot. It was beyond words!

Lawlzy, Me & Aunt Jamila

Back to posting art...

Here is my latest character design assignment; it was to draw a boy & girl in the assigned expressions from the waist up. They had to be based on caricatures we've done over the semester- it was an exercise in breaking away from 'generic' characters.

I was an idiot and put this off. Wish I would have given myself more time. Some bits I like, others I'd love to have fixed.

Transgender Day of Remembrance.

This is a cause very close to my heart. I wish I could have gone to pay my respects at one of the events being held worldwide. Official site.

I'll try & update with some school work next week.

-Max

During reading week, I bought a set of watercolours & I really wanted to try them out. It was close to Halloween, so I drew some skeletons having a party (definitely my favourite subject matter). It turned out alright, I actually still like it!


These are my contrasting characters for my last project in character design. I chose to do Jack the Ripper & one of the prostitutes he murdered, Dark Annie. This assignment had a lot of fun points... but some bits made me want to bash my head against a desk. Overall it was a great learning experience.... You can really tell I was watching WAYYY too much Sweeney Todd (the 1982 broadway recording)- kind of regret that.



For my current storyboard project we were given the prompt "It keeps happening!". Somehow I construed that to a story where a kid's cat keeps getting killed. I have no idea. I love cats. This is my character line up & beat boards.


Last weekend I slacked off and decided I'd carve lino (for printmaking) instead of doing assignments. I made a plague doctor :D


Finally, here's one of my longer studies from the Royal Winter Fair. I really need to improve on drawing animals. I say that every time...

Cheers
-Max

I made it to reading week! That means I'm halfway done the fall semester. I'm so thankful for these breaks, I'm not sure I could function without them.

To end off the first half of this semester, here is an art dump of things I've doodled or done for coursework.

Here's a new doodle in •the sad days•.


I haven't posted my first painting assignment. Probably because I wasn't happy with it at all. I actually liked the lineart and original sketch, but alas, my marker-work is still lacking. Still learning!


This is my first layout assignment. I'm so dreadful at layout work. Perspective & I rarely get along. Hoping to improve this year though (must stay positive).


In my spare time I've been doodling monsters.

And as always, I'm doodling personal pieces in Photoshop. Not sure if I'll finish either, but they were good practice to break away from 'pen tool' lineart (much faster as well).



On my birthday, I was fortune enough to have my favourite life model for class. Ron is one of the best models in my opinion, he's just so much fun. Got some alright drawings done of him- might use a few in the portfolio I'm to assemble soon.

10 mins

30 sec

1min

2min

2min

5min

To finish this off, I finished my second animation this afternoon. I struggled with the 2 week deadline, and since it was my first attempt at character animation, it's pretty miserable. Oh well, learning experience. Need to keep remembering that. I'm here to learn, not do perfect work every time.

I'll make up for its crappiness with my next assignment (the walk run). I need to make it up to myself.

Now I'm off to rest up & draw more personal pieces. Real work starts next week.
Cheers,
-Max

Here's my lift & toss model sheets for my first character design project. We needed to do a rotation and three poses of the character lifting something heavy.

I chose to redesign Emily; I'm really thankful to have a library of characters created over the past five years- makes life easier.

Structure got killed by my scanner, but it's there. Blue col-erase & cleaned up in a 5B pencil. Not used to pencil clean up & I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm used to cleaning up in ink.



This is a quick doodle I did in character design class. Trying to explore facial structure more.


For life drawing we were to draw a horse from life. They actually brought in some horses, so it was pretty cool. I've never drawn horses & I really wish I had some prior experience. This is my best study, took about an hour.


The other night I started a new sketchbook.
I try to make sure all my sketchbooks have a 'theme'- whether it be the mood in which the drawings were conceived or the quality of the art. So, here are some of the first drawings in •the sad days•

The style is a little underdeveloped, but I like it.
Rapidograph pens filled with Windsor & Newton black ink.
First one was coloured with Lyra water-soluble pencils.
Black backgrounds were done with a dead prismacolour marker & white gel-pen accents.

Now I'm between classes & should get back to work. I need to finish so many more assignments before I take off for Thanksgiving.

Cheers
-Max