Musicians of Bremen

 We had an open assignment this time around for class so I chose to illustrate a scene from one of Grimm's Fairy Tales, The Musicians of Bremen.  I wanted to stay pretty traditional as far as my concept for this image; I chose a memorable scene from the story and tried to stay true to the text rather than rework the story or invent a new scene.  I also had some wonderful inspiration from the Golden Book version of this story which you can read/view here: http://goldengems.blogspot.com/2009/01/musicians-of-bremen.html

This is the final image I came up with, and below it is the version with the gutter and text added.

Thanks for looking :)

sketcheroo

Scanned in some stuff from my sketchbook today, thought I'd throw some of them up on here :)

some dog things and a multi-legged thing

some bear things. bears is fun to draw :3

selection of some figure sketches from last semester, most of these are 30 second poses with a couple longer ones on the left

chinese foo things. the top image became a digital painting that I did in character concept class last semester, but I liked the sketch better, and the bottom ones are variations/development of the design

aaaaaand a quick self portrait doodle wif mah puppy cause I miss her dearly <3 

doggies

Here's some digital work from my past couple assignments at school.  All of these were done entirely in Adobe Illustrator :)

This was a series of icons of a subject matter of our choosing.  Naturally I picked my favorite breed of dog, the shiba inu to be in the spotlight :)  I'd like to do one more for Fall, since that's the only season I'm missing here (the assignment only called for three and time constraints didn't allow me to do a fourth).  My favorite one is the middle dog :)

This one was for an assignment to do a full page editorial illustration from an existing magazine/article of our choosing.  Guess what kind of magazine I picked :P   The article was about research being done on the dog genome and finding the genetic markers for physical traits across different breeds of dogs so I chose to illustrate what I hope are some widely recognizable breeds all tied together with dna strands in place of leashes :)

I forgot I had this thing

...just something else to add to my list of "things I will do better at this semester"

Anyway, here's my final from illustration class last semester.  I was dumb and chose to do three illustrations instead of just the required one, but I like how they turned out.  They were fun to work on and went over really well in my class.  The text are all song lyrics from some of my favorite tunes :)

I also did a outdoor billboard earlier in the semester for the LA Museum of Natural History which was really fun

I have more to post but due to my lack of organizational skills the rest of my work is scattered amongst different computers, usb drives, webshare space, you name it.  Once I track down the rest I'll try posting again.  For now have some figure paintings.  Most of these are two days (4-6 hrs of work depending on my attention span during class) but some of them are just one day.  Oil painting isnt my favorite thing to do ever, but for the most part I enjoy the class.

 Thanks for looking :)

Don Bluth animation master class

Don Bluth has been one of my greatest inspirations as an artist since as long as I've been watching his movies.  Last week I had the amazing opportunity of not only meeting him, but learning traditional animation with him as my teacher.  Don was not only a wonderful teacher, but despite being a living legend and a master of his trade, extremely down to earth and excited about sharing his love of animation with us.  I also got to meet some wonderful people who I now call my friends, and I am so extremely thankful for having this opportunity.

Don usually started each day with a lecture, stories about working with the nine old men, or on his own productions post-Disney, or some piece of inspirational message.  Afterwards we would all get to work on our animations, each of us having a different scene with a bird character named Jake that don drew up for us.

Don critiquing my animation in progress!  Quite surreal at first!  Don would take a look at our animations and then do draw overs or make adjustments to our drawings.  He really stressed doing everything the traditional ways, and taught us how to use x-sheets and the importance of timing our character's movements to a beat with a metronome.

I also got to meet Gary Goldman!  Don got a phonecall on the morning of the second to last day of the workshop, and when he answered "Oh hey Gary" the entire class lifted their heads from their animation tables haha.  Shortly afterwards in walks the great Gary Goldman, with a bunch of signed Banjo dvds and Dragon's Lair posters.  Gary was also extremely personable and took the time to talk with each of us individually and critique our animations.  It was slightly overwhelming to be in the presence of two animation giants and have them encourage me so much to pursue my dreams :')

The whole class.  I was surprised to find out that I was the only person from Arizona in the group!  People came from as far as Japan to attend, and one person in the class, Keith, is even a teacher at Ringling!

The whole week we were lucky to have the help of Dave, Don's assistant at our disposal.   Dave has been working for Don since he was sixteen and when Don was still operating in Ireland at Sullivan-Bluth Studios.  Not only did he put up with our endless questions and screw-ups with shooting our animations all week, but he was nice enough to treat the entire group at his bar/restaurant in Phoenix called the Irish Wolfhound after class ended on the last day.  

On the day after the class ended I took out some of my new friends to see a little more of Arizona than just the hotel space.  I took them to the Phoenix Zoo and then to downtown Scottsdale for sushi at Ra and ice cream at the Sugar Bowl.

In short I just had one of the best weeks of my life, and I am sad to say it's now over, but I encourage anybody who can make it to one of the future master classes to go.  It was truly a once in a lifetime experience; I learned so much in one short week and I feel so lucky to have a piece of animation history passed down to me.

Well my first year of Ringling is officially over, and I can't believe how fast the time has gone.  I'm currently chillin in Miami with some good friends, and on Friday I'll be headed home to Arizona.  Thanks to everyone who has made my first year experience at rcad so wonderful.  I am looking forward to working and playing hard all summer and starting fresh again in the fall!

2 weeks to go

I haven't posted in a while so I thought I'd throw some stuff up on here from the past couple weeks :) just a random assortment from my classes this semester.

 packaging concepts for a fictional candy company, graphic design class

and something on the side I am working on to keep me sane between school projects, here's a teaser :)