Drawing rehab. one day at a time

While I was in Japan over the summer, I had a cool job at a CG company working as a lighter/compositor for a TV show which will be aired soon in Disney Channel.
That was all great and I learned a whole lot, but the problem was that I stopped drawing almost entirely during that time. Now I am back in school trying to start my own animation realizing how far I had become from drawing.
When we had a first class of figure drawing class with infamous professor Vilppu, he looked at my drawings for 5 seconds and said "You are just copying. Have you ever seen my drawings?" I was super-embarrassed by the fact that one, he didn't remember me from last year at all and two, I was totally copying like he said. It was a loud wake-up call for me.

I have been presenting my storyboards with my colleagues these days and that really stimulate me because everybody draw really well and they each have their own styles.



Anyways, so I am slowly slowly getting back to drawing each day. Here are some sketches I did at Page museum by LACMA. I don't like bones too much because they are just sooo complicated and I always run out of patience before I finish the whole body. That day was better because I had some friends to chat with while doing them and kids came around and entertained us.

And, since I have a new film to focus on, I have been doodling my characters bit by bit. I still don't quite know them yet, so I hope to spend more time with them and get to know them. You can kind of tell that I can't distinguish them yet. They look way too similar when I draw them now.
I have been having a hell of a time modeling them also. It is good to get back to Maya.




The last thing, I did a character sketch and storyboard with Kartika Mediani for a short film script called Terminus. They are trying to get funding for it on Kickstarter. I hope they get the money!!

Saturday Morning Doodle

The school started last week and it has been pretty nice getting back to studying. I presented my first project in one of my classes and I have mixed feelings about it but I feel motivated and creative about going with my initial idea. It is great to meet new artists in and out of school and I hope to meet more of them as I keep studying.

When I woke up today, I started looking around for some animations that students have done in CalArts and I was blown away by their quality works! Damn, I need to learn a lot lot more to get to that level!

And with that inspiration, this is what I drew. How does my brain work???

Old people are interesting.

I was really tired and frustrated last night when I got home and I just started thinking about old people and how interesting they are.

I feel that their wrinkles and steins are almost like delicately crafted artworks created as proof of experience and struggles. They are beautiful and so unique.

And even though old people might be less productive or useful as workers, they could be appreciated for their presence and wisdom they have acquired over the years of their lives.

This country, or maybe just this city I am in, feels too young sometimes.

Old people are looked down upon as slow and stupid, and they are hidden away somewhere. They are much depreciated than young and foolish people. It is very hard to age comfortably.

Anyways, I just did some quick studies of old people's faces and it calmed me down a lot.

Sketch of a cat

So I wasn't able to go to the figure drawing class last night because I went to an event hosted by the academy.
http://www.oscars.org/events-exhibitions/events/2010/acting-digital.html
It was incredible to see how technology has come to the point where people can become completely different creatures and still look so humanistic thru tracking and scanning. It was also very interesting to discover the fact that actors are scared by the new technology. The pamelists kept saying that the technology is there to enhance their performance but not replace it. So anyways... As an animator, I felt like there will be different types of job than the traditional one once this "performance capture" thing gets going for more films. I still don't fully understand how the job will be evolving, but it was definitely something to keep in mind while I start my study.

This is a quick sketch of my kitty. Sorry it's dark.

Settling down, starting over

It has been a long while since I last posted anything online, but I just felt like I needed to make better effort to connect to people more, and also just keep a log on my work. So I'm trying again!

To give you some updates, I've recently moved and I actually have a decent studio space now. I've even decorated the wall with lots of great artworks. hehe!















And also, this is a pretty big news but I've decided to go to grad school to study animation! So I really need to start preparing myself for that. I've been a bit intimidated and anxious about it for a while, but hey, what better opportunity could I have than that now.

Anxiety shows in my doodles.




















I'm planning to go to a figure drawing class tomorrow and am pretty excited about it. Hopefully I could continue to post stuff as I go!!