Animation, animation, animation

Working on cleans for Draco and my life at the moment is an endless cycle of black line chasing the orange in a vain attempt to keep the animation from jitterbugging right off the screen. Daily routine has vanished and over this week long break I wake at 9am start work at 10am then continue through to usually 12midnight or 2am. The cans of V are taking over the desk, but there is a sense that I am achieving things and making an all out effort to move the Draco production along.

Always time for lols though:

How I feel at 2am when I go to bed and Draco is still on screen

Studio Set Up for Portrait

My studio, complete with old school 'dual screens' lol

Portrait Complete

The finished portrait, I'm pleased with her likeness. Also pleased that was able to digitally paint her in colour rather than simply going with the black and white original.

Sexy

Illustration Portrait: The Process

The original photograph by Milton Greene in black and white only, I used colour photographs of Marilyn as reference for her colouring. 

Done in Photoshop CS3 using Wacom over approx 3 days.

basic sketch

block in shapes

skin tones

reference picture of different pose helps with her colouring

Cigarette and more depth to shadows

lips and teeth- a challenge to avoid tombstone syndrome

eyes and eyebrow with rough sketch for guidance

The cardi- pale blue own choice to compliment her hair and pale complexion

Blocking in hair and tonal values

Softening the hair

Illustration for Design

This week's task was to do very basic storyboards based on the animated film, The Iron Giant.

Games History Essay

In my Games History essay I explored the issue of official/ formal communities within MMORPGs versus the emergent organic communities that are becoming more a part of the online virtual community. To read it please click here.

Toon Boom Tutorial- Flames

Ok, so just had a run through on how to achieve a funky looking cartoon flame effect complete with afterglow casting around it, so I'm going to write it all down before I forget. Going to be so useful for Draco animation to achieve atmosphere:

• Create a basic flame cycle- can be 1-3 colours
• Open network, drag the GLOW module onto the network. 
• Place the GLOW in between the FIRE and the COMPOSITE module. 
• Click on RENDER VIEW to check the changes made to the flame during the adjustment phase. 
• In the network, click on the properties (yellow square) for GLOW module. 
• Settings approximately, radial glow, 7 radius, use source colour
• One adjusted if you find that the shape of the flames are lost, take another network connection from the FIRE module and connect it to the main COMPOSITE module on the left hand side. If you want to over-expose the effect keep taking new connectors from the FIRE to the main COMPOSITE. 
• Open network, from module library choose TRANSPARENCY module. 
• Create a connector from FIRE module to TRANSPARENCY (FIRE module now has two connectors from it, one to GLOW and one to TRANSPARENCY, these both separately join the main COMPOSITE), click on properties to adjust it, ensure you are in render view to check the adjustments. 

Glow of Fire on a Wall or Surrounds: 

• Module Library, select and drag HIGHLIGHT module onto the network. 
• Connect the HIGHLIGHT in between the BACKGROUND module and the main COMPOSITE module. 
• Go to non render screen, create new layer on the timeline on top of background. 
• Go to ELLIPSE tool, tool properties click on AUTO FILL option. 
• Draw ELLIPSE around the flames. 
• Open network, drag the ELLIPSE DRAWING module and put it into the HIGHLIGHT module. 
• Open HIGHLIGHT properties, settings suggested: radial, 14-20, to change the colour click on the alpha bar in properties box. 
• To animate the highlight on the wall, go to the layer where you drew the ELLIPSE and animate a cycle.