JSG Boggs is Dead, 30 January, 2017

NYTimes article

He's one of my favourite artists- his ideas about money, it's value, and why we trade it (why is it worth anything at all?) were so interesting.  RIP

BSA215, comic character work, 18 July, 2016

The Machine character sketch with basic colouration.  Michael showed us some ways of quickly lining and colouring in our drawings.  Exciting stuff.  Next week, we need to come in with a firm idea of our story arc characters, etc.  I'm going to continue on with my comic from last year.  This is The Machine that they mentioned in the first comic.  Amelia Earhart, Chrono Agent, was trying to go solo on a mission and crashed.  The nanites in her body found ways of keeping her going including "borrowing" parts from her airplane and the Japanese soldiers unfortunate enough to stumble upon the wreckage.  

 in class exercise: Creating characters from simple geometric shapes

BSA215, comic class, 11 July, 2016

15 weeks to make a 20 page comic, so no life drawing, no extraneous lessons.  All will be directed towards the comic!

resources in Y drive

3 hand in dates, all 5 weeks apart.
very tight class which relies on organisation to get it all done

character concept  hand-in Monday 22 August 12 pm
16 pages of story, front and back art 17 and 18, inside cover 19 and 20 (one bio, and one SIT ad page inside covers)

finished pencil hand-in monday 26 September 12 pm

final comic hand in Monday 31 October 12 pm.

story bump up is possible in 4 page increments (20, 24, 28 etc.)

Don't have to follow 3 act structure, but story must be punchy and complete
goal and premise must be clearly understood


Read: Tom Bancroft: Creating characters with personality
character mentor

Stan Lee and John Buscema:  Draw comics the Marvel Way

comic layout is 16.84 cm by 26.01 cm by 5 mm bleed.  template in resource drive

30 minute self-portrait in Photoshop with the tablet.   Something is really OFF here... proportions look good from hips up but below that the legs seem stunted.

Yuck.  This got put up on the board in class with everybody else's.  

That's better: I lengthened the legs in photoshop so it's 7 and not 6 heads high.  

pirates in 45 minutes  She seems proportionally correct- probably because I traced over the reference pic and then manipulated it to change her pose.  Got to keep practicing.

BSA215, drawing statement and end of semester portfolio, 17 June, 2016

Working in the media of black conte’ crayon, white colour pencil, and grey water-soluble pencil, my portfolio is comprised of eighteen pieces selected from my first semester of Drawing 215. 

Tutored work:  As an animation student and as a professionally practicing costume technician, I work to create and refine characters.  The drawings completed during class seek to further my understanding of composition and the dynamics of the figure on the page.  While we did not have many opportunities to work with a dedicated model this semester, the classmates that did pose were interesting subjects.  The focus of in-class work is on quickly capturing form, gesture and contrast so I work with grey newsprint and black conte’. 

 Independent and sequence work:  Inspired by the illustrator Edward Gorey’s book The Gashlycrumb Tinies, I took a series of photographs of 11-year-old schoolgirls lined up on the ornate wooden staircase of an old Victorian boarding house.  In the four studies based on those photos, the children fade in and out of the light thrown out by the stained glass window that dominates the scene.  In the largest drawing, grey water-soluble pencil on heavy white paper, the strokes of the pencil recreate the typically heavy woodwork of the period and lead the eye to the window in the upper right hand corner.  The children are rendered in slight lines with little shading; they appear as both paper-thin apparitions and dark spectres when exposed to the light.  In two of the smaller drawings, white colour pencil on black paper, the children’s ghastly white faces float out of the darkness and detail is scantly rendered.   I treated them like a series of panels in a graphic novel: the scene begins to spin and the apex of the composition, the window, ceases to form a central column and becomes a diagonal anchored to the far right of the page.  In the final image, grey water-soluble pencil on grey paper, the children cluster en masse on the staircase as one ominous figure lurks on the upper staircase, her features “blown out” by the harsh light from the window.  At no point is the viewer left with a feeling of ease or charmed by childhood; their position in life, like on the staircase, is one of being in the middle and on the cusp of going somewhere, or nowhere.

    

To do 10-13 June

film history
write 1000 word essay on german expressionism and tim Burton.   include quote that Burton was influenced by posters  and horror films that were influenced by german expressionism

BSA226
weight Peddler's body so weird crimping stops.  Blend shape on face, mouth and eyes, still possible?

BSA225
blink on Pet
dope sheet to plan shots and movements
start animating!

audio
finish Matrix ADR

Professional practices
critique 4 power point

Drawing
read  handout carefully regarding final assignment
go through drawings for class and choose best 8+

BSA215 Drawing, artist model, 6 June, 2016

I was going for spooky, victorian, children in my pieces and nobody exemplifies that better than Edward Gorey and his Gashlycrumb Tinies.  I have always loved Neville, who died of ennui, his wee little head poking above the window frame.

To Do list, 4-7 June, 2016

Drawing
3 drawings of architectural spaces and people on A2 for Tuesday
print photos of stairs and take paper home

Audio
finish listening to ADR recordings and clean out junk

film history
read all research and take notes for Tim Burton and German Expressionism 1000 word paper

Project
export version to vimeo
confer with Deb Wattes on next steps
take pictures of works in gallery
update blog with evaluation questions and answers

BSA225 and 226
make blend shapes and re-rig character
weight character
up ambient lighting in cantina for safety
finish Pet
begin animating scenes

To do weekend 27 may, 2016

Bsa
Photograph poison pen, press conference, frogs
Digitally finish planting, shadow and 50s woman
Finish animatic and add music
Proofread artist statements
Put up fliers
write artist statement!
print pages, small and large, and make into books
print small pioneer, super dating, 50s woman, and double face, flaming tree, rose tinted
print large double face, 50s woman
email proofread stuff to Johana and Chanel and Lenar

Audio
Record ADR at sit sound with group

Bsa225 and 226
Walk jump cycles
Finish lighting
Pet
Blend shapes- cape, expressions, crowd?
Texture scene with Klimt

Drawing- 3 drawings from girls on stairs.
due 7th June

Film history
Essay due Monday 13th of June

To Do list, 1-4 April

BSA225 3D Animatic
due Tuesday 5 April
timing, camera work, audio
(Muddle through as best as you can with Maya, but get the audio work in and all dialogue, even if it uses subtitles, so people can understand the animatic)

BSA226 3D Character
due Thursday 7 April
put a head on base mesh, get fingers attached
Try Ken's tutorial find from youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LpQd7WcYmY

BSA Professional Practices, Project
due Tuesday 5 April
work out graphic novel story and identify key pieces to connect it all together
write first draft of animation
finish Boxed Up
photograph all existing illustrated journal pieces with Chris MacDonald's help
prepare 5-7 slide presentation (picha kucha?) talk for Tuesday Critique

BSA215 drawing
due Tuesday 5 April
3 drawings on A2 paper that use mirrors, 3 objects, tonal shifts, composition
but really, try to make it work in with illustrated journal project.


3D Speed Dates
set up proper folder system for the project.


Lisa's baby shower 17 april!!!  send gift next week

BMA115, comic, IT'S DONE!!!! 4 November

 It's finished!!  Hooray!!  There's always more to tweak, but if I really want to do that, I can do that over the summer.  She needs freckles.  He probably needs stubble.  William S. Pierce's suit needs stripes!  There's always something.  But I expect that I will be ready to move on to new projects very soon.  Next year, we're supposed to do a 24-page comic.  I think that I spent, conservatively, 11 hours per page on this comic.  Sadly, the cover only got two hours.  But those are the breaks.  Next year, I will have to do everything much sooner.  One hour per page was spent on each of the following: story development, pencils, colour experiment #1 (failure), inking, colour experiment #2 (success), colour (basic), colour (detail), colour (filters), lettering and bubbles, editing, layout.  A second-year told me to start on the new comic as soon as possible.  Good call.  I think that I will carry on with this story (I already have characters, backstory, premise, basic story arc for the 24-pager) and Agent MacIntosh and F. Scott McMurdo can finish their mission to destroy The Machine.   Won't that be nice?  I should take the time and label my colour references now so I don't have to start from scratch next year.

BMA115, comic finish up, 1 November

After 3 hours, I have finished painting up the backgrounds of the sunrise scenes (building top) and the copper and wooden interiors of pages 9-11.

To Do
shade faces x3
colour M3 uniforms
chalkstripe S. Pierce
reflective tape McMurdo
Bubbles and words
box all panels
reformat
run through Illustrator
 We get kicked out of the building at 9 pm. Dammit!  I wouldn't care if I could get in here during the week more than just Friday, when I can stay until 11.

I'll come in early tomorrow and get the wording done.   I might have to "skip" class and work on it when I should be doing professional practices and stop-motion.  I need to figure out how to use my time bettter next year.  I might need to force myself to work for an hour after the kids go to bed each night.  Or choose less ambitious projects...  or take more time off so I use my working time more strategically.  I definitely won't be taking any extra classes.

BMA 115, comic colouring and inking, 31 October

100% colour and ink coverage!!  Yay!!!  Shading and shadows, texturing, words bubbles, WORDS... lots more to do.  Oh, yeah.  And putting everything into the new format, too.

BMA115, comic development, 26 October

I've put in about 10 hours of work on the comic this long weekend.  I've got 3 pages to ink, but I've been dragging my feet and colouring the other 8 pages instead.  That decision is sure to catch up with me.  It was the same story during the penciling process:  lots of time/energy spent on the beginning of the comic, then everything petered out at the end.  As a result, my drawings weren't tight at the end which means I now have to catch up in the inking stage.  It will all come right, I'm sure.  One week until hand in.

And still no covers!!!!