Sketching

I very much enjoy sketching while watching shows. Whenever I catch a glimpse of a good angle or pose i draw it quickly as the show plays on in the background.

Life Drawing - last of the semester

Very enjoyable class, can't wait for next semester!
I think they were 1 min poses, although it felt faster

Pecha Kucha

After learning about the pecha kucha concept, I have to say that I am very fond of the idea and it is now my favourite way of presenting things. It is not only an efficient way of having a presentation but it is concise and fun - the perfect combination.

In preparation for it I chatted a lot with Molly and we agreed that we are supposed to make it fun as well as informative which I was very glad about. I believe that working hard should be accompanied by a few laughs to keep up motivation and stimulate creative thought.

We each had to prepare 4 slides and research 

My slides ↓

(All the pictures I used were found on google, including the ones I photoshopped Don Bluth's face in: the Don party and Don riding the horse which was originally a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger)

I feel like my part of the presentation didn't go very well which is surprising because public speaking doesn't generally make me nervous. It could have been the stress of not having all members present or the fact that we went first, but I will have to do my best in the future to be more relaxed in unexpected situations.

Life drawing - Reflective written assignment

Due to my fine art background I started life drawing classes with a very classical, preformed approach. My years spent studying sculpture trained my eyes to focus on how light hits different shapes, but the way I've learnt to capture the dynamics of body movements was in a somewhat static way, failing to capture the energy of the characters. The problem with it was that I would envision my models performing just one action. At the beginning of the semester my life drawing skills were rusty and very obviously rigid, as seen in the pictures below:

These were my first human sketches of the semester, at the airport when I had to travel to England and the others made in class. All the people portrayed above have stiff positions and it is difficult to imagine those poses easily transitioning into something dynamic. The pencil I used creates a fairly even line and the curves of these lines develop in a steady way. There are no exaggerated curves or straight edges therefore there is no tension in shapes. The figures seem static and completely lifeless.

When we eventually started drawing life models I was putting too much focus on figuring out the anatomy of our subject and the sculptural aspect of it instead of looking at the overall shape as one object in motion, example below:

  

Given how short the posing time was, the results were not particularly vibrant nor anatomically very correct. It is indeed difficult to break old drawing habits.

Throughout the rest of the session and the ones that followed I struggled with fitting just one full body sketch on each side of the paper. Because of how close we sit to our drawing benches I have felt an inability to work well with the size of the paper. When drawing, it is always challenging to fit in the characters without stepping back to see how the edges frame them, therefore I always end up with figures that are too big to finish on the same side. Considering that there usually isn't enough time to take a step back, I decided to solve the problem by adjusting the size of the figures in relation to the size of the paper, preferring to draw them too small rather that too big. For this reason, I fit more than just one sketch on the same page, to help me see the entire image which makes it easier for quick poses. It is also very helpful to make a quick tiny version of what I am about to work on, as seen below during the session with chairs and in most of my work when time allows it:

 

In order to produce a fast, successful drawing I need to work up from a small version of it. It is generally how I started approaching my homework too (above) so I would become familiar with the overall shape and proportions before committing to it.

Now at the end of the semester, I am still learning how to focus on the intention of a pose before anything else.

The books I always refer back to when I'm in need of practice or guidance are:

"Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters" by Robert Beverly Hale

"Figure Drawing Without a Model" by Ron Tiner

"The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation" by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston

"The Human Figure in Motion" by Eadweard Muybridge

"Gesture Drawing for Animation" by Walt Stanchfield

Life drawing - Hats on heads

I am loving these sessions! The classical music reminds me of my sculpting classes and both Jackie and Robert are great to draw. And perhaps we will get to work with clay at some point this year, that would be nice.

The first thing I look at when meeting people is the shape of their heads and I appreciate a well shaped head. Our models are good examples and since we all still struggle with drawing heads, is good to focus on it every now and then.

Maya funsies

It all started with a silly mountain I did for fun. I added a texture picture that didn't work too well and the long line of failed attempts to make it better led to the discovery of the adding snow option which of course was immediately applied because snow is the best thing in the world!

The scenery looked too empty so I then decided to add a cartoony UFO to brighten up the atmosphere, which led to the addition of a torii gate and (my favourite one:) a Santa Panda!

Following a youtube tutorial on npatricles I learnt how to make it snow - in my opinion, the best thing I've ever learnt! 

❤ Snow is the best

Maya seems very complicated but the challenge of it is exciting and at this point I can't stop myself from working and experimenting in it all the time!

Above : Big Oops! Had to close it and work from the previous save

I used cloud texture for the Santa hats. Still not sure it was the best idea but seemed like a fun thing to do.

Below: I had to make the characters in a different file, as my laptop has difficulties with the bigger Maya files. Characters are made from one object- the cube and only the eyes and hats are independent objects. That's why I hat to group them in order to paste them in the scenery above.

Above: don't know if it was the right thing to do but I copy pasted the eyes and hat from the panda to use on the penguin as well
Below: Using the nPatricle option I made it snow

I intend to add more structures or maybe a building.

Also need to learn how to add lights.

Maya: first contact

1st task - Bouncing 1 ball

2nd task - Bouncing 3 balls 

(squishy ball, tennis ball, bowling ball)

use locators

add stretch

add squash

(below) My squishy ball bounces off the 2 walls which I feel it was a challenge at this point as its trajectory is diagonal instead of straight and my knowledge of Maya is almost non existent. 

Squish was unexpectedly time consuming because I did not place the locator at the edge of the ball and had to change Y each time the ball squashed or stretched.

Note to self: Place locators before anything else

Bowling ball has small bounce, like the one in the video I used as reference

3rd task - Build a piece of furniture

Note to self: figure out how to save the cloth in one position without having to place it again every time I open the scene.

Nuala and Bradley showed me how to use textures - they're both very nice and helpful

Textures I used were found on google

 I made the bed covers using ncloth command

Wanted to try ocean texture on something and I'm loving it. Should find a fun way of using it in the future