Back to Schoolism! Caricature with Jason Seiler

Bonjour!

I'm now in my third week of Jason Seiler's schoolism course (www.schoolism.com).  I've braved something quite different for me, as this course is quite technical and has quite a big painting element.  I'm learning loads already, especially about keeping the likeness there in conjunction to pushing those proportions.  Here's my Tom Hanks, my first assignment after Jason's suggestions.  He was a really difficult character to draw especially getting that touch of anxiety in his eyes.  Anyone looking for a discount at schoolism can pop in this Promo code:  c8z7w.  It'll give me a bit of credit for my next course too ;-).

In other news, a film I worked on last year has been released and has done the cinema run in most countries already.  We worked on the bird and bee chase sequence which was an absolute hoot.  Check out my updated reel to see some of the shots I worked on:  http://vimeo.com/23622337.  There was some interesting new challenges here for me as I'd never actually animated characters in conjunction with live action plates before.  If you see the second shot on my reel, it's actually got digital doubles of the actors, that swap to a live action plate and then back to digi doubles again in the same shot - quite tough!

Expect an update on my short film soon!  I'm just touching up the shader work on my frog character and I've also started animation.  Exciting times!!!

Adieu!
-Dan

Life drawing level up!

Howdy people of the interwebs!  Ah my first post of the year, I've got a good feeling about 2012, big things will happen.  Not in an apocalyptic way either - good stuff, bound to happen.  Just wait and see ;-).

Well, better late than never, here's my last 7 "Art Workouts" for 2011 ;-)

Art workout 2011, Week 46 of 52

Art workout 2011, Week 47 of 52

Art workout 2011, Week 48 of 52

I did a two day life drawing workshop at the Maleny Arts Retreat which was fantastic.  Here you can see a bit of my progress - particularly in relation to lighting with charcoal.  The first one I've really emphasized getting a thicker, stronger outline on the contours that should be in shadow, also trying to keep a good amount of contrast around a specific focal point (the head).  The second pic I was really working on getting a nice tonal range overall and concentrating on matching shadow tones through the drawing.  The third one I've focused on getting my flat tone strokes to roll around the "tubes" of her body to get more of a sense of 3D volume.

Art workout 2011, Week 49 of 52

Here's my first ever watercolour painting!  Lot's of experimenting and feeling my way around here, but enjoyed the medium none the less.  There's some parts of this painting I like, but overall you can see my tentative approach hasn't quite worked.  I can tell a key aspect of learning water colours is to generate a lot of free flowing confidence and be open to the accidental randomness that occurs.  Defo will be playing with a lot more watercolour in the future!

 

Art workout 2011, Week 50 of 52

Popped out the old SLR for bit of a play after spotting this guy jumping around my herb garden pots.  I think maybe the pots are a great refuge for these little guys as the little frogs tend to get eaten by the great big toads we have around here :-(.

Art workout 2011, Week 51 of 52

Art workout 2011, Week 52 of 52

And last off here's some doodles I threw together at the WoodFord Folk festival at the end of last year.  Random inspirations from the many interesting characters wandering around.  Drawn with a Biro and I added a little bit of tone in Photoshop.  I usually stay away from most photoshop filters, but I have to say I quite like the "Splatter" filter - I find myself using it often to break up that CG look of many brushes, looks quite nice like colour leaping through the texture of paper.  Right on!

Adieu!

-Dan

End of 2011, what a year!

Evening folks!

I hope everyone had a fantabulous Christmas and rearing up for a rip roaring goodbye to 2011!  I'm off to the Woodford Folk festival over the next week to hang with some smelly hippies and soak up some awesome vibes :-D.  Here's some quick samples of what I've been up to these last few weeks:

Some Look development for my short "A Grey Matter":

Art Workout 2011, Week 42 of 52.

Art Workout 2011, Week 43 of 52.

Storyboarding storyboarding storyboarding.  I've been working hard on really nailing the telling of my short's story and I've been experimenting with loads of different ideas.  Here you can find some recent boards (just some random samples, these aren't consecutive panels).  I'm making great improvements with each iteration, progress is being made!  :-D

Art workout 2011, week 44 of 52

Here's a digital portrait of my good friend Jim, who unfortunately passed away several years ago.  For me, the time of mourning has passed, and I wanted to paint a picture celebrating the lovely energy in which he lived his life :-).

http://www.kineticdan.com/wiki/index.php?title=Idea%27s_for_the_animated_short_-_notes
Art workout 2011, week 45 of 52

More notes!  "Ideas for the animated short" is a great book I absorbed to keep myself thinking about all the elements that come together to form a really great short.  Defo worth a read!

Well I've still got 7 workout's to do by the end of the year :-S.  Ah well, the folk festival well surely inspire many a drawings to share first thing in the new year ;-).

Adios amigos! 
-Dan

The old man is a com'n

Howdy!

Here's some more of this year's art workout and some development of my short film!  Firstly, I've been working hard on the new model for my short film's main character - check out some turnarounds with pose tests here:

Art workout 2011, week 37 of 52

Also, I've finalized the design of my second character, a cute little dumbfounded frog:

 Art Workout 2011, Week 38 of 52

Art Workout 2011, Week 39 of 52

And also, for the occasional break away from my short - here's a few random doodles:

A bizarre long necked frog:

Art Workout 2011, Week 40 of 52

The lizard captain!  He's a salty veteran sailing endlessly across the soft sandy desert of the vulture isles.

Art Workout 2011, Week 41 of 52

Cheers captains!
-Dan

A Grey Matter concept work

Yoyo!

As I'm devoting myself fully for the time being, all my time of late is spent developing "A Grey Matter".  Exciting times!

Art workout 2011, week 33 of 52.

Here's a photoshop painted concept for the frog character in my short, whom I have affectionately named "Wibby".  This one was created with photoshop's "natural" brushes set.  Not quite the look I think I'll go for, but defo worth the experiment.

Art workout 2011, week 34 of 52.

So here I'm starting to nail down a final design for my main character.  I must have drawn this guy 1000 times, so I got together all the best drawings, my favourite nose/hair/head shape, and amalgamated them all into this design you see here.  The linework/rendering style is inspired from the very excellent short "The Backwater Gospel".

Art workout 2011, week 35 of 52.

I've been very busy boarding for my short.  Exploring as many ideas as I can, grabbing feedback from peeps, then hitting the boards again.  Boarding is redoarding they say eh?  I'm revealing a few panels here but still keeping most of my cards hidden ;-).

The creative habit notes - by Twyla Tharp

Art Workout 2011, week 36 of 52.

As I'm sailing under my own guidance and self discipline, I thought I'd go over my notes when I read this great book by Twyla Tharp.  She doesn't sugar coat anything, just giving clear and practical ideas about generating ideas, keeping organized, inspired and focused in whatever creative path you're heading on.  I'd recommend any creative characters out there to give it a read!

Power on comrades!
-Dan

short film character development

G'day fellas and Sheila's!

D'oh, been a while since my last post.  I've been on the most amazing adventure humanly possible on 2 wheels!  My wife and I rode our BMW Rockster all the way from Adelaide to Brisbane via the great ocean road.  So between packing up in Adelaide, the 2 week trip and resettling in QLD, my lack of posts can be forgiven methinks!  Well anyway, got my paintbrush and sweat band - check out what I've been up to keeping fit with my "art workouts":

Art Workout 2011, Week 31 of 52.

Art Workout 2011, Week 32 of 52.

What's with this recurring old man?  Am I seeing double?  Why is he so grumpy?  Who wears a monocle... really?  WHAT'S HAPPENING!?!

This is some development for my short film I'm creating.  I'm taking the dive and committing the next 3 months to really fleshing out the pre-production and base assets.  Gonna be a long haul, but hey, can't be a cog my whole career, every artist should have a baby that can really call their own.  This old man, combined with an idiotic frog are indeed my babies, which sounds wrong and confusing, but get used to it, if you're following this blog you'll see a lot more of them :-D.

*Top secret* "A Grey Matter" Script revision  *Top secret*

Art Workout 2011, Week 33 of 52

Yeah I'm an arsehole and hiding my cards.  I've been working hard on revising the script for this short's story, but I'm not keen to share it online, you'll have to wait a couple years until the film is finished :-P.

hugs (yes even it you are a stranger, sorry about the B.O.)

-Dan

A winter Ride!

Yo!

Art workout 2011, week 29 of 52.

Well this week I've really delved into something quite different :-D. I borrowed Sam Baker's GoPro camera (basically a tiny camera with an attachment, in this case a giant suction cap with pivoting arm), and spent half a day with it and my trusty motorbike out in the Adelaide Hills. I really had a blast experimenting with different ways I could put the camera and stage shots, I had about 1.5 hours of footage by the end. The next big step was editing it all down to a few minutes, choosing what to keep or kill, linking with some suitable audio and doing some shaky cam Stabilization too. Lot's of firsts which is probably what made it so much fun! I'm really happy with how it turned out and I feel I really captured the way I love to ride, cruising around twisted mountain roads :-D.

For those interested, the bike is a 2003 BMW R1150R Rockster being ridden around the Adelaide Hills in South Australia. It's filmed with a HD Hero Go Pro, motorsports edition and edited with Sony Vegas. The music is the song "From the morning" by Nick Drake.

Art Workout 2011, Week 30 of 52.

And here's a doodle from my sketchbook. Getting into production on a short film has been playing around in my head quite a lot of late, and here's me playing around with a little bit of character development for it.

-Dan