the black dogs

in Celtic folklore, the Black Dogs appear as physical manifestations of the spirits of the dead or as portents of death. they’re basically a constant reminder of the grave.

SO. BAD. ASS.

some new sketches

some recent sketches i just got around to scanning :)

Jack Frost's Forest (1979 Redesign)

The final project for my Sketching for Environment class was to redesign a space from the 1979 Rankin & Bass Jack Frost stop motion animation. I got Jack Frost's Forest, which is where he first meets Elisa, his love interest and main motivation throughout the film.

The villain of the film, Kubla Krauss, is said by the very poor and unfortunate townspeople to own everything in the land; down to the last brick and tree. His army and servants are all mechanical, coal burning robots he's manufactured. With that in mind, I thought this forest could have been partially destroyed and Jack Frost takes it upon himself to transform it into a beautiful place for the townspeople and children to visit during the harshest, most miserable time of the year.

CDA Sketching for Environment Work

Recently finished a class up at the fabulous CDA once again called Sketching for Environment with Ed Li and Zane Yarbrough. We basically learned key concepts to keep in mind while drawing spaces and went to some awesome locations around Los Angeles to practice them. While simultaneously learning tons, a fairly equal amount of hair was also pulled, hahaha! If anything, it's wonderful to learn to what my weaknesses are and how I can improve on them.

Here are some compilations of the sketches done in that class:

fire bunny!

in the chinese zodiac, i'm a fire rabbit.

so here's a fire rabbit sketch.

red deer sketch studies

now that i post so often about it, i think i should take a break from watching so many Miyazaki movies.

i really love Yakul from 'Princess Mononoke'. i know this isn't a red elk, but red deer are just as awesome looking.

Hourglass Concept Design

did an hourglass design for a friend's animation, very stoked to see it all animated and stuff :D had a lot of fun figuring this design out and even more fun getting back into the painting saddle!

crits and comments welcome! :D

pom poko = raccoooooooons!

pom poko pom poko! taaaaaaa-nuuuuuuuu-kiiiiiii! :D

CDA: Vis Comm 1 (wrap up!)

compilation of sketches from my CDA Vis Comm class!

CDA: Vis Comm 1 (Part 5)

drawing hard surfaces. it was incredibly frustrating at first because i love looking at these objects (tanks and cars and the like) but i couldn't draw them at all!! trying to draw ellipses without using a pencil or eraser is the surest way to feel like you're not worth a damn.

as anxiety attack inducing as it was though, it was fun, and i got to look at pretty objects all day ^_^


learning how to approach hard surface objects:

side view proportion studies:

3/4 view proportion studies:

eventually sinking into just studying whatever i was looking at and re-drawing the same object until i got closer to what it should be:

pushing them towards more finished studies and renders: