Poképeople

A little while ago, I started drawing people I knew as pokémon. (No YOU'RE a nerd.) The rule was the person's name had to sound like the pokémon in question. For instance:

Dave Rigley + Wiggleytuff = Rigleytuff

Alex + Snorlax = Snorlex

Lisa + Hitmonlee = Hitmonleesa

And here are some unfinished sketches of Snorlex, Rigleytuff, Poliroth (Dan Roth + Poliwrath), and Garyados (Gary + Gyarados)

I enjoyed these; they were just the right combination of terrible wordplay and stupid artwork. I may do more.

-alex

Starving Artist Gifts

One of the classic plights of the artist is to be asked for free artwork; the request is innocent enough, but sometimes born of a misconception that drawing isn't really work. This conundrum is turned on its head on gift-giving occasions, when the drawing that was really work didn't result in an abundance of real money. The fallback gift? Free artwork of course!

This one was for my ladyfriend on her birthday not long ago. Yeah, I know. Unbearable.

These were for my sister; the occasion of the first I forget, the second was for her birthday.

This one was a mother's day gift, for my mother. It's a drawing of my siblings and I. The faces came out a little creepy, but she liked it.

-alex

Rigging, part 2

Here are a few videos outlining the functionality of the Dan and Alex rigs. My internet connection being as feeble as it is, I had to reduce the size of the videos by half to ensure they would upload sometime this year.

First up: Dan. This video also contains an introduction to the subject and some anecdotes about the process. Dan was an interesting undertaking; I wanted to build a rig that could do whatever the students wanted. Naturally, this proved daunting, but ultimately very educational.



Next: Alex. Building on the feedback I had received with the Dan rig, I set about building the Alex character; trying to match the style and essential functionality while eliminating features he wouldn't make use of.



Finally: Boot hat. I wanted to include a snippet about this rig because while he uses elements from the previous two, he was designed for very specific purposes; built to be sturdy and work well in my pipeline.



And with that, I bid you good night.

-alex

Rigging, part 1

One of my big responsibilities at the GAIF was teaching Rigging; a task which involved learning a great deal about rigging, for starters. In the process, I recalled a major qualm I had had with my own education; that all students interested in animation were expected to build and rig their own models, or locate such rigs online. While this was good for building generalist skills, it resulted in talented animators working with inconsistent, unreliable rigs; and generally deciding they didn't want to be animators after all.

Enter these guys: Dan and Alex.

Working from a sketch my co-worker Dan Roth drew (he draws himself in a specific style, which I wanted to re-create.) I constructed the model of Dan. Later, loosely based on that style, I built a model of myself. (Note: the huge muscles aren't just a result of an absurdly high self-esteem; the students needed a character with different bodily proportions, and my scarecrow-physique wouldn't have cut it.)

I'll post more about the specifics of their rigs and a little about how they work later.

-alex

Boot Hat, Continued

And I am back! Here are those renders I promised.

I built him a simple but effective rig, for some nefarious, animation-related plans I have for him. More on that later. Also, here's a closer look at his horrific little stabbing implement.

-alex

Boot Hat

Here's Some of my more recent stuff.

This character, for obvious reasons, is named Boot Hat. (Mostly because he hasn't needed a better name yet.)  At the time I was doing workshops at high schools around the maritimes and needed a character to work with.

The tough part was the character had to be interesting enough to capture the attention of an impossible, inattentive group of high school students; but simple enough to model in an hour. That is, of course, impossible; but I came pretty close.

I started with this sketch, which I cleaned up in photoshop.

I modelled the whole character, saving incrementally after completing each major step or section. I cleaned up the files a little, and did the workshop like a cooking show. I would start in an empty scene, and block the character out as a cube. When I had shown enough of one step, I would open up the completed version from the list. This allowed me to jump ahead to a later point of the class was rowdy and inattentive, or jump to a part that was either more interesting or more informative, depending on the attitude of the class.

Eventually I got the hang of it, and when I found the time I polished the character up a bit, and can be seen here.

The story behind this guy, inasmuch as it exists, is that he`s a three-foot-tall warrior armed with elements from human society. He started one insomniac night when I realized, as you only can at 3 AM, what a fantastic hat a boot would make for a tiny little person. Note his pants; a pair of boxer shorts, his tunic; a torn basketball jersey, and his sword; half a pair of hedge shears (Thanks to my co-worker Dave Rigley for helping me come up with that.)

I am putting the finishing touches on a rig for him, which I`ll have a post about next week. At the moment I`m home for the weekend and have no access to my software, or any computers that can run it. Stay tuned for more interesting renders.

-alex

Sketchbook Junk

Here is some stuff that I drew.

I inked this one by hand, actually, and decided to color it in photoshop. Kinda surreal for me. I don't hate it though. 

I once compared 'motion controls' in games to being on a crashing plane with a sedated orangutan, putting him in the pilot's chair, and shouting instructions at hi from across the room. This needed to be illustrated.

Okay, so there's a long-running joke about zebras with a friend of mine. "If you were a zebra, everything would be fine." How do you become a zebra? Easy; just be a zebra. Then you're already a zebra, and everything is fine. We brought some religious arguments to a grinding halt this way.

I like drawing this big-chin guy, you'll see him pop up a lot.