Animation Time! - Fox Rig

Today's Inspiration:
Don't just look at other illustrators for influence. Take influences from all aspects of the arts.

Take what you've learned, apply it to your work, and make it your own.

- Kevin Cross
http://www.kevincross.net/

Monkey Mod
http://monkeymodcomics.tumblr.com/

Program - Maya 2014
http://www.autodesk.com/products/maya/overview

Rig - Fox
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/fox-rig

Animator's Bibles:
Character Animation Crash Course
Animator's Survival Kit
Illusion of Life
12 Principles of Animation
Drawn to Life

http://www.caseyturbos.com
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Simplify and Exaggerate

Finally got around to listening to an episode of the Ghettomation podcast. What a surprise! Not only did it feature the fabulous Kevin Cross of Art and Story and the always entertaining Raul Aguirre Jr of Man vs Art, but they had on the ever inspiring Sherm Cohen of Cartoon Snap. This latest episode is absolutely worth taking the time to listen to. The big take away that I grabbed out of it was something Sherm Cohen said to the effect of, Cartooning: it all comes down to "Simplify and Exaggerate!"

Here's a sneak peak at the theme song for "The Little Hero".
(Oh, and I know I've got to reencode it to have the audio and video perfectly match up, but I thought you might get a kick out of it anyways!)

The strength continues...


A little revision of one of the poses from double devastation week.


This weeks joker themed sketchgroup entry.


(small)

(large)


(wallpaper)

Practice What You Stink At!

After using the Cintiq for a few days now I finally have started to draw quite a bit more freely. Doing my roughs and cleaning them up on a new layer has helped to make my traditional drawing flow smoother and faster. Even my repencils are going quicker finally!

(click to enlarge)

Gilligan suffering from a bit of gas.


Claude and his turtle are at it again!


Pirate a Day


Turns out the second outfit Theodore suggested for our little hero wasn't quite his style either.


Life's been a bit busy the last few days, so I haven't had much time to spend with my usual books, Drawn to Life Vol 1. and the Illusion of Life, but I have caught a few great little tidbits here and there. Kevin Cross and Mark Rudolph have been rather entertaining on Art and Story Extreme this week. I rediscovered the Toon In to Animaion Podcast and every episode seems to be full of rich history, interesting people, and fascinating interviews. I can't wait to get through the backlog. On a side note I really should look into UPA pictures more. They sound fascinating. Anyone have any good recommendations? Finally John K has had a couple of great posts this week on drawing exercises the best little tidbit out of them was "PRACTICE THE THINGS YOU STINK AT." Thanks for the inspiration!

I'm Mr. 10 below

I'm really enjoying these Preston Blair movement cycles. They are challenging and fun, and in the end you can flip them and make them move! I still need to find a balance between my perfectionist mentality and the amount of time I have, but I'm starting to feel the benefits from putting in the time!

Since Rhys loves Unicorns it was only a matter of time until Gilligan visited that land.


Our little hero cowering in the presence of an Gristle the Ice Lord.


Claude and his turtle attend the annual beard festival.


I recently found out about Jerzy Drozd and Kevin Cross' other podcast the Saturday Supercast and wow what a treat. They delve into cartoons like nothing I've ever heard before. The episode I listened to was about Christmas Specials, and mainly A Year Without a Santa Claus. I can't believe I had almost forgot about Rankin and Bass. I used to love their holiday specials. Not only did they have crazy stories and catchy songs, but you instantly fall in love with everyone of their characters. I did some searching and found a couple of artists who had connections with Rankin and Bass mainly Paul Coker, Don Duga, Bob Camp, and Jack Davis. Thanks for the Inspiration!

Good, then Fast, then Good and Fast

Another late night tonight! Albeit, I fell asleep on the couch after work, but hey. Got up early to do a bit of perspective work. Still find some of the angles quite challenging, but I'm enjoying the learning process. I like adding more detail through perspective (ie small characters in the background, characters off to the side and bent in strange positions) it's something I really haven't implemented into my drawing repertoire. I look forward to using this tool more and more.

Messed around on chatroulette again tonight, it's just such a great way to practice for me and I have fun doing it too. Not as many people were receptive tonight, but I still managed to get a few pretty decent sketches out of it.

A couple of great points of inspiration from the various readings and listening I did today. I forget if it was Kevin Cross, Joshua Kemble, or Chris Oatley who said it, but this phrase really stuck with me. Forgive me if it's a little off, but it was something to the effect of "First you get good, then you get fast, then you get good and fast." Definitely something for me to strive for, and keep in mind while I'm trying to master my drawing. (as heard on Chris Oatley's Artcast). The other quote that really stuck out to me today was again from Walt Stanchfield's Drawn to Life Vol 1 "What a horrible fate - to be just a drawing." He was talking about having meaning and feeling behind each and every gesture and drawing you make. I really wanna get to that point some day!

One last thing! I got my first comment on the blog yesterday! Well to be completely honest I got a comment yesterday (thanks anonymous) to try out chathopper in lieu of chatroulette. Which I did. I like the interface a lot better than chatroulette, but it doesn't seem to have as many people on, at least tonight. So I ended up going back. Anyways after I saw I had a comment yesterday I went back through some old posts and saw that I had a comment on an older post! Just wanted to give a shout out to my first commenter S Manor and her blog monoclecomics. Awesome stuff over there, you should really check it out. Thanks for the feedback! I'll have to do another expressions study sometime soon.