My giant tabi sock

So here it is. My first attempt at a sock, done in the toe down method. It is massive. Giant! It'll be a Christmas sock of course. But it was fun to make and I can't wait to make a human sized pair.

Belated Halloween Card Sketches

I had sketched out a couple of ideas for a Halloween post that I was unable to clean up. Here they are. Hope you like, and that you all had a great Halloween!

Hidden Danger

A quick animation that I just did. Just trying to remind you that YES I still animate. On occasion. Enjoy.

Hands, Feet, and Batgirl

Took a moment the other day to practice hands and feet (something every artist should do every so often) because I noticed that my "technique" had been lacking. I think I need to keep practicing.

Then I drew Batgirl because.... well cause she's awesome.

Enjoy!

Late Night Sketching

Been trying to loosen up my thoughts and drawings lately and so I've been allowing myself to wander a bit more within my sketches. I want to go back to painting again, but a blank canvas now scares me more than a blank page. So I sketch potential ideas that usually stay as such, but it allows me to be more free. Besides, going to NYCC this year reminded me how much I used love comics and be inspired by them, so I've been flipping through a lot of my old ones. My "themes" almost always seem the same, but sometimes I guess you just have to get it out of your system.

Again sorry for the bad photo, but it being late night, didn't feel like firing up the old compu/scanner to get it done right. Soon though, and more color.

By the by, these were done with my fave new pencils, the Palomino's. They've reminded me why I used to like drawing in pencil again.

In Honor of NY Comicon...

I bring you 4 quick sketches of Harley Quinn in various Japanese incarnations. Vote on your favorite one and I'll clean her up, colorize her, and display her for the world to see.

PS: sorry about the darkness, this is from a quick phone photo.

Enjoy!

Character Animation

I did this with a digital camera and no Stop Motion capturing software. In a way this was old school, like film, where I hoped that my timing was right as I was shooting it since I wouldn't know until after the fact. No onion skinning or toggle cheats for me. As you can see it's still really fast, but even with "mistakes" like this one I can learn a lot.

My latest animation

This is another quick animation that I did a couple of days ago. I used the only 2 puppets that I have finished (the others if you recall are in various stages of creation) and decided that having them fight wold be a lot of fun. Other than that though, I really had no set plan as to what exactly they would do. I love it when puppets decide on their own what they will do and truly come to life. I hope you enjoy it to!

Back to the old standard

Started going to figure drawing again after much time off. Here are some old standards for you to gaze upon.

Do artists read other artists blogs?

Or do they just go to look at the pretty pictures and either marvel at the audacity of amazing talent or mock the un-initiated "to the realities that is ART"?

I was looking at all the blogs I follow, and thinking of all the blogs that I have had recommended to me from friends and I noticed a pattern. Both in me and in their recommendations. They tend to only recommend things in which they believe will help round out, embellish, inspire, and continue my own art, usually with styles either very similar to my or their own work. I, on the other hand, look for weird blogs that don't look a thing like my own work, have a load of writing and usually use materials that are different from my own. I also seem to look for artists that are not from the states, not because I don't like them or think they have nothing to contribute, but more because I see american art everyday. How often can I see what Europe, Asia, or South America (I still haven't found many African or Middle Eastern art blogs, suggestions?) is doing?

Now I am also new to the whole "blogosphere" as well as to virtual connections thing (yes this blog itself is a couple of years old, and I did have another blog before this, but wait for my point) so I have not made many friends online, nor many connections. I am old fashioned that I like to be able to shake someones hand, look them in the eye and spend an evening chatting with them, before trying to be too friendly online. There is a decorum that I do not posses, and my constant annoyance at some peoples inability to use full words and phrases probably doesn't help with my need to connect. That being said I've noticed that there is a shotgun affect going on with your work in the virtual world. Try to get it on as many sites as possible to get more traffic, and thus more connections. What about the quality of those connections? I am not looking to have the highest number of "friends" around, I am looking for a nice thick hand full of fellow artists that I can show with, possibly collaborate with and generally mutually inspire. Is that unheard of in this day and age?

OK so the point of this blog was to question the reason artists blog. Why do they put their work out there? Is it for fame? exposure? inspiration? connections?Are artist inherently both exhibitionistic and voyeuristic? But also to question why artist look at blogs. I've heard of some artists spending the first couple of moments of their day (whether it be minutes or hours) looking at other blog before moving on to create their own art. Is that ow you use your blog time?

But for those of you who only look at the pretty pictures.... here you go:

Puppet Head Take 2

So I kept fiddling with the eyes and the head, and making small modifications to this that and whatever, and when I started making the clothe covering for her head, something kept nagging at me. It took me a week to figure out what that was. What was bothering me and making me feel like something was wrong? Take a look at the picture above and tell me if you can figure it out.

Did you figure it out?

The head is half the size of the body! It is huge and would be really difficult to animate as a full puppet. So I decided she will be my close-up head to practice lip synch. AND I've started on another head, more proportional than the original. Her features are off a little, but I like that. I have a personality already, so now it's more like a sculptor figuring out what the physical being looks like to match that personality. I'm having fun again (is that a requirement? Yes if it's your personal project I think) and it feels like she is really being born. Growing.

I have her first scene decided already in my head, just have to time it out, see where my accents hit and finish her. She will be interacting with the spider from the previous animation, so you can count on a cameo of him.

Oh, and if you say that the 2 heads look completely different its because they are. The bigger head will NOT be the CU of the smaller puppet: more puppets, more people to play with, don't you think?

Some old figure drawings

I was looking through an old sketchbook and came across these. It's
been a while since I did any real figure drawing, but I thought these
were good.

Enjoy!

The body and head con't

Here is the body that I started last year. The reason that that this particular puppet was put aside for so long was because of the way I had wanted to do her eyes. I and now building her hair and will be adding the eyes and eyelids soon. The funny thing is that I can't seem to find the sketchbook that I designed her in, so she is really in a way a redesign. All I remembered where her eyes, which I guess were very important to me. I think originally i was going to give her a movable mouth, but that has been scrapped. I like her being silent and really emoting with her eyes. Hopefully I'll have her finished soon, and you will all be able to see her act soon. Still no suggestions for names? So sad to see a person come to life without a name....

New puppet being born

I started to finish (funny no?) a puppet that I designed over a year ago. Especially since she will now have playmate with my spider. More pictures as she progresses, as well as more animation, coming soon.

This picture is the head and eyes in progress. I think they are sufficiently creepy.

Anyone has suggestions for names?

All 6 Seconds as one Movie!

As promised, here are all 3 dailies in 1 film. A grand total of 6 seconds! Enjoy.

Spider End

So this is the last part of this animation. I may do more next week, depending on my schedule, but either way I will try to splice this together over the weekend. Enjoy!

Spider Nest Take 2

Here is the spider taking the egg (did you get that last time? What with all my lighting and aperture changes and whatnot). The legs again get a little jittery, but I think they sorta work here. So far I'm pretty happy with what's coming out. I can't wait to see this thing all spliced together!

Spider Walk from the Beginning

I started over today. Using the auto-toggle button, and the spider walk cycle research ( I was on the right path, just not quite getting it). It still slides a little (missed a couple of movements with the back legs), but I think it is a vast improvement from yesterday. At the rate I'm going I may have my full scene shot today! I'll post as soon as each 50 frame segment is complete.

Oh, and I fiddled a little with the camera settings through Dragon (nice feature), added some white dry brush and a soft spotlight as well. This way you should be able to tell what the spider is grabbing. Do you know what it is?

Spider Nest

So I switched from shooting on two's over to ones with this one. I thought I had the walk down better, but I think I was wrong. I found the Auto-Toggle button on Dragon and I think my animation improved. Can you tell when I found it?

Dragon Trial is only 50 frames

Why am I telling you this? Because I now have to limit how I shoot, shoot multiple takes and then try to string them together afterward to get proper continuity.

Here is my first 50 frames:

I really didn't know how I was going to make the spider walk. And well I am not 100% happy with said walk, especially not the beginning, but it's movement and animation and I'm finally starting to get things done. I may start over to get proper movement down, and I may have to switch some of the lighting since some details are missing. Hope you enjoy.

Really quick Animatic/Beat Board

So I've been working on a quick practice animation and ended up designing this spider and background. I wanted to start full animation today, but realized that I really had no clue as to what I was gonna make it do. So here is a quick beat board type thing to help me figure out movement, layout and "story". Hope you like it. You'll get full dailies tomorrow.

Enjoy.

Hip shakin' 2

I just noticed how bad that photo was for the original post, dark and not really showing all the colors nor lines. Here is is the way it'd look in my sketchbook. I have a couple more stuff to show a little later this week, so keep your eye out for it!

Hip Shakin'

The other day it was quiet in the studio and so I had time to do this really quick sketch. I've been in this "exotic look" kick recently and so I liked the movement of this quick hip shake. I was playing around with the copic brush markers (of which pink is my new addition) and I threw some watercolor and colored pencils on top of them. I think that she really worked out. I had told myself that I was gonna scan her in so that you can see the colors better than this quick pic on my phone, but I also knew that there was a good chance that by waiting, you may never have the chance to see her at all.

Enjoy everyone.

A Single Bulb....

So with all the changes from last year, one of them had been the Studio's move to a bigger space late last year and the beginning of this year. At one point I stood in the empty old space staring out to the hallway after the sun had gone down and waiting for the movers to grab the last couple of things left. We had left one last lamp without its cover to help illuminate the job.

I was left alone for a while with an image, simple but perfect in its own right. And I tried my best to commit it to memory since I didn't have a camera with me that could capture the subtlies of the light. And as I stood in that empty studio, looking at this perfect moment I was left realizing that I will always be an artist. I may not always see the world as potential images, moments to be captured, but I can see one when it is placed in front of me and then my mind goes wild. all the possibilities all the way that scene could have been used: as inspiration to a written story, a movie, a comic, a lone painting..... I spent almost as much time thinking reasons behind it (other than the real actual reason that had me standing there) that could have been used for it, with it.....

I digress, well not really. That was my point. A non-artist (and I am using artist loosely for all types, styles, forms of creative person) would have just been bored and played sudoku on their phone waiting for the night to end and let them go home.

In hopes that people actually read this blog, I give you a question: Can you tell me of your last perfect artistic moment that made you wish it wouldn't end because you knew the possibilities were endless?

It's the New Year Extravaganza Post!

The last quarter of last year had a lot of changes for me. I think I am only getting used to them now. I started a new job, as you may have guessed. Working in a local NYC animation Studio that does stop-motion. Within that work environment I have seen some well needed changes in me that were a long time over due. For one, I feel more inspired to do my own work. On my daily commute I see things that though they may have been there the entire time, feel more available to me for inspiration.

I have a start of a series of sculptures that I may be posting sketches for soon, but at currently only 2, don't feel like they are enough. Besides I should make small scale mock-ups so that you may better understand what is in my head.

I have also reconnected with an old HS friend that still feverishly creates work. We have been trying to plan an Art Jam (a la music) in which we paint for 1 hole day together and feed off each other's artistic vibes. That still hasn't happened but again it has been pretty hectic.

Interestingly I have been both drawing more and yet less. More in the sense that I will feel compelled to pull out my sketchbook at various times, yet less because with the drawing classes that I had been taking, the number of pages and drawings were greater.

I also realized I neglected to post up pictures of my knitting. Why is this relevant you ask? Because this blog is supposed to be about whatever I make with my hands creatively. Knitting is one of them, as well as I want to incorporate it more into my art and sculpture. Besides this past summer I made this shawl/sweater thing that if I do say so myself looks great. I have to add sleeves and turn it into a proper sweater for me to be able to wear it, but the pattern looks really good.

This turn for more work production in my life makes me think back on the those old HS/College days, in which we had to create everyday and by connecting with classmates you helped each other through the dry spells and rough spots. Even when you felt you got bad critiques from teachers it still helped build this sense of creativity that seems to get lost sometimes when you leave and go out in the big bad world. Though I know not everyone will agree with me, I feel a youthful drive of inspiration that was sorely lacking in the past couple of years, once you had to start worrying about rent, food, and bills. And yet with this pause that I had in my creative life, I feel as if my work has grown more. The themes though similar feel they have a maturity and depth that I was striving for in my younger years that can actually ONLY be brought about through life, experiences, and change.

I hope that everyone that looks at this blog can see the difference, or I may just need to post a HS/College/Now comparison post to see.

Hope the new year has been good to you so far. More pictures to come soon. So keep coming back!