Land of Lucy! Hellen Concept and Design

Hellen is always undergoing constant redesign, so I could always use feedback on what people do or do not like about these sketches. So yeah, comment box wink wink hint hint.

Here, she develops freckles. I got an opinion on her from a friend, and she demanded that Hellen have bigger boobs. I complied.

Land of Lucy! Character concept and design, part one!

Here's a bit of the cast from my long-developing Land of Lucy series. The logo is a temp job, even though I kinda like it. Let me know what you guys think of the characters. They even have descriptions below!

From left to right we have...no, that's too overused. We're going asian style on this reading format.

So from right to left, we have:

Lucy - Short for Lucius Malicious Fur, he is the prince of darkness, the embodiment of all evil and sin, the ruler of the most horrible place in the cosmos. Also, he is the hero of our story.

Evan (from Heaven) - What he's doing in the Land of Lucy is a mystery, and how he previously got into heaven is an even larger one. Evan is a first class greasy no-good dastardly little angel, who revels in making Lucy's life a living hell...which isn't too much of a stretch but he tries. Despite his faults, Evan is a proud ladies man. With the help of his melodic hand-made Harpsitar, his harmonics can have even the most timid girl swooning over him...save for one...(continued in part two!)

Bluecy - Another Lucy from an alternate dimension. What he's doing here is yet another mystery, but the residents don't seem to mind. An all-around nice guy with good business knowledge and a firm handshake. Everybody loves him. Except of course for Lucy, who is convinced that Bluecy is an evil two-timing usurper who wants Lucy's kingdom for himself.


Update - Another Evan sketch.

February's been slow on this blog. The winter's got to the bones in me drawin' wrist, I tells ya! Here's a few loose sketches to bridge the gap.

I like drawing legs and feet. Yet...

So let's counterbalance this tomfoolery with a walk cycle I did a few months back.

See you in March.

Update: here's an ugly baby.

Time to silence the jumpers.

Still January.

Lower left is a copy of a frame from a Bob Clampette cartoon (A Bob Clampette CartoooooOOOOON!) Lower right is the start of my new artistic movement. Tough guys beating up timid girls. It may very well be my least popular style. Whatever, I thought it was funny.

January's been a pretty cool month for this here...this here web log. We had some laughs...got the video thing working, so I feel a little less internet-challenged. Intarded if you will. Anyway I didn't want the month to end on nothing so here's some bits o'sketches. Maybe february will be more productive, but I wouldn't count on it. It's a short month. On the plus side it's a leap year. Fingers crossed.The text is a quote from comedian Todd Barry. I had no idea what he looked like when I heard that or drew this.

Jono Doiron made a rat run. You should see it, it's adorable.
Even so, I found it a little mechanical, so I did one of my own up. I'm not trying to compete with him or any such nonsense. Just telling him what I know about a little something that's evaded a lot of us college guys: inbetweening.



This rat isn't nearly as adorable, nor as well fed. But it's motion is stronger, and took about the same number of drawings as Jono's did. The key is...well, not the keys, but the drawing that drag them from one key to another. If you pause and play the animation, you'll see that I put the keys in blue, breakdowns in green and inbetweens in red.

The keys are all about the posing, information, and all that other crap I was talking about two posts back. In this, I used the breakdowns to set where my animation was moving the fastest. In other words, my breakdown drawings should be the hardest ones to see, because they're the most seperated in motion.

Now the inbetweens are what make the animation seem longer than it actually is (13 drawings looped, basically). each red drawing is leaning more towards the blue drawing, the key. that way, the main pose becomes the most noticeable. That's why keys are important. They should have the strongest pose, because normally the inbetweens bend into them. This is the system that gives animation its fluency.

Televised animation normally has less of this to save time and money, but to an individual animator, it's not that hard to do. After a while, it doesn't even require that much time and effort. Suffice to say is that because of that, schools tend to teach very little about inbetweening, as though it weren't important at all. I struggled all through my second year to try and put fluency into my animation because no one really told me about it. It's all over Richard Williams' book and I didn't even really see it. I had to figure it out by tweening symbols in flash cartoons and taking a second to wonder what the slow-in/slow-out options of tweening might have to do with traditional animation. Well now I know, and anyone who doesn't, I hope you find this helpful in some way.

I might want to point out that this is the usual inbetween system for Disney, and feature stuff. Inbetweens have different uses in other types of cartoons, many of which are out of my own grasp, but I'm always studying to find out. Anyone out there who knows other methods of inbetween, pleeease educate me.

Is it weird if the thing I liked the most about this drawing was her right foot?

On another note, I didn't know Derek Murphy had his own blog. And now I do.

So go.

Hothead effects animation test

I have a really long way to go in terms of effects. This stuff is out of my league right now.

Keys carry a lot of information with them. The posing, natch. The motion and arcs, the antic, action, and rest. All the real knowledge of animation should be in them. When I was at school, I knew this, but I still thought there was a lot about actions in animation that keys didn't have to worry about. Sometimes I'd just leave huge gaps in my stuff and figure the inbetweens will fix how choppy this looks. -_- We all have to learn sometime, I guess.

Inbetweens carry the keys along and, done right, smooths out the animation and gives it fluidity. They have knowledge, but normally only a fraction of it compared to what keys have to carry. I'd done a lot of animations only a few months ago that didn't have enough information in its keys, and had even less in its inbetweens. Most of those you can still find on my website. Seems I've a way to go yet.

While I also have to work on my timing, a lot of the choppiness on those videos are Youtube's fault. Honest.

Galvatron, were he in the 2007 Transformers film.

This was based off of a movie Megatron toy that was custom painted by Jin Saotome. You can check it out here. Check his other stuff too, the guy is amazing.

Italian Spiderman Trailer

The 60's were a fickle batch of years to produce this. Holy wow.

Hey, it's tonight-ish now! Here's a few painted sketches.

In the event that I might not update for another month and a half, I'd like to take a moment to point out a few new(er) links on my site in the sidebar to your left.

Third one from the bottom is Adam Arsenault, former college buddy turned Fatkat animator turned former Fatkat animator turned Ontario resident and employee to an animation studio I can't remember the name of. Dang.

Beneath him is the reason he went there in the first place, his wonderful fiance and animation student at Sheridan, Melanie Daigle. There's a little accent above the first 'e' in her name, and I don't know the keyboard alt numpad thingamajigger for it, so please try to imagine it.

The third I only added today. Nuclear Raptor is a joint venture between three ridiculously talented individuals. Derek Murphy, Justin Lee, and Tyler Noiles make up the band, each one with his own diverse approach to the pencil and each one equally commited and amazing at what they do.

All three of these links are worth visiting, so if you haven't done so already, check these people out, or as God as my witness, I shall never Hyperlink again. Maybe.

New Drawings! A big one to make up for lost time. Sowwy.

Pink is the new hip...?

Bugs and Fudd are drawings copied from frames of old Loonies cartoons. Both frames can be found at John K's place.

You might have noticed Lucy's looking a tad redesigned. New horns and much rounder features. Let me know how you feel about this new Lucy. This Newcy, if you will.

More coming tonight!
-ish.

Design for an animation thing, currently in progress. I'll be sure to put it on here when it's done.

There we be, a nice big sketch post, just like Ma used to make.

Forget the whales. Those flesh-eating jerks take priority!

Abandoned concept design. Welllll, more like on hiatus. It'd be a shame to abandon him so quickly, handsome devil that he is.
Original concept for this character by Katelyn, a friend of mine. Fun to draw. I may even finish it some day.
The first thing that went through my head when I drew this guy was 'Timecop'. Odd since I've never seen Timecop before. I didn't even know what Timecop looked like. Only just now did I actually google Timecop to see if I was anywhere near the mark. Wow, I was way off. Even so, he shall remain a Timecop.
David Cross. Drawn whilst listening to David Cross. He's a comedian, and he's adorable.
Concept art for a writing RPG me and some pals online are working on. The guy on the left is a character one of them came up with. The girl on the right is mine.A character I was asked to design.

I did this one up as a practice run for a painting. I've never been too hot with acrylic paints, so I did this up in Photoshop to get a fuller understanding of color application. The end result was featured at the SPCA for the 'Kats on Cats' art auction. It's current fate is unknown.


Next up is the robot section. I'm nuts for robots these days. Might have something to do with the recent movie with all the robots in it. The ones that turned into vehicles and stuff. Robotech, I think it was called... Two heads and a torso. Coming soon to NBC.

I want to send this in to Hasbro. He turns into a freakin' Moose. And dammit, I want the toy!

I expect a lot of people will think this is a tribute to G.I.Joe/The Transformers. But really, the people who know me better might think it's more a tribute to this. They thought right.

I don't even know what this guy turns into. Something ridiculous. Like a toothpick. The last place you'd expect to find a living war machine would be in your mouth, picking extra food stuff out of your teeth.

Gotta stay positive when doomsday's approachin'.

Goodnight everybody.

A character I used to draw back in the olden high school days. Lotta nostalgia went into this one.

He really should be ashamed.

Gives a whole new meaning to Jolly Green Giant, dun'it?

Haha I'm going to hell.