New painting

I did a new oil painting last night. It looks all right I think. It's got some pretty heavy layers of wax and paint so It will be a while before its dry enough to take out and photograph, and it will never be scannable.
I've noticed a trend when I pick up a panel to do an abstract, I tend to lean towards Greens or Purples. I wonder why that is? It's not really something I see mirrored in all my work, just in abstract.

I wonder who else has little quirky things like that? Do share :D

Galkyd Foo'

So I was painting the first players of my painting for my aunts Christmas present, Andi was trying to be careful to use enough Galkyd to Make it dry fast enough for me to work on it by the next weekend. Well i was good, all until i got to the bright spot. I dont think i used ANY galkyd there. This morning it was still almost as wet as the day I painted it. Very Annoying. It might be okay to paint over tomorrow though. I hope. There is going to be A LOT more to this, but I thought it looked nice as it is as well. and Its something to post about, to keep me motivated.

I have another drawing in mind as well. I might make it a combination of vellum and acetate again, but It might just be markers since I haven't done that in a little while. I think I'll probably play with my Effects for my Fire animation probably and maybe add a few more inbetweens just to smooth out the ending part a bit, but I'm moving onto trying to design the style of my water as well (which prompted my new drawing idea as well).

So there's my news, sorta.
More tomorrow maybe

Fire animation

Watch the HD version on Mytoons

My Fire animation test, As promised !
Its just a rough little test in colour and plain clean up versions of a very basic style. I Don't know how I want to colour it for the final version yet. i'll probably do more colour layers.

Joseph Gilland, The 20 year Disney animation Vet, and The former head of Vancouver Film School's 2d Animation department (and someone I admire) Finally launched his boo Elemental Magic. If you have ANY interest in Effects animation you might want to go to the book launch! Check It out on Facebook I'm going I hope! I want to pick up a copy! he's possibly the best effects animator I've ever seen!

Well, That's all I have in me right now.

More Fire

So I've been playing around with fire a little more. I am tinkering with the idea of not adding effects to the fire animation at all, and getting the desired effects by lighting the scene and characters accordingly. We'll see how easy it is to do batch processing of my animation. If it processes well and easily then well, that would be great, I could add lots .
So ya, here are some of my colour sketches I did in my Claire Fontaine Sketchbook today. Its got really nice soft paper, but I do find I enjoy a little tooth more in my sketch books. Monday I'll hopefully get an animation test done for the Fire. Probably use those torch poses and animate that. I'd like to see if I can have something to show for all this obsessing. Maria said she liked my fire today, and described it as 'leafy' in a good way! I liked that.

I'm getting some Pilot G-Tec pens (yellow, orange, and red) tomorrow as well, so I'll be doing some ink sketches of fire as well. the pens aren't waterproof so i like to add some water and get some nice effects from those pens . I'm also buying some discontinued animation paper reinforcements (slot peg holes) since they're only $5 for a box of 500, its not something I can turn away from.

Well, So I hope I come up with more than doodles soon.

Fire

I obsess on certain subjects. Right now as some people know, I've been trying to come up with some way of doing the fire in my film. After Effects proving to be a huge pain in the ass (especially when no one I know is able/willing to help me on that topic) I've been forced to another option - Photoshop. I'll do all my effects in Photoshop, and then import them in Premiere. Seems to be the only way really. Having said that, I've been trying to come up with a look for the fire and smoke to compliment the style in Conflagration, and I think I've done that. I'm pretty happy with the overall look of that. Of course, that's a design on paper, with pencil crayon. the next step is applying some effects in photoshop in a simple enough way that I can make an action to apply to all the images of the animation. We shall see. Anyways, I'm obsessing. I'm watching every animated movie I know if to see how they've done fire. Sometimes its got lots of glow effects, sometimes there are no effects, its just straight flat colours of animation but the lighting of the characters is used to create the glow, and sometimes its a mix of both. I'll jsut have todecide what I want to do. I've always enjoyed effects animation anyways. This weekend I'll try to do some fire animation and see how applying the effects looks.

Daqueran Mug

Black and white mugs available :) They have black and white Bg's instead of the green, and will wrap around the entire mug. battling his way to your brew :D

After Effects

Having so many friends who use Adobe After Effects, and use them with 2d animation I am shocked at how difficult it is to get any help. Not even any tips or ideas from anyone. Its incredibly frustrating. I just want to know how people import and apply effects to animation. Is that such an extraordinary request? I share my techniques with people, I think its nice to help people.

Well, I'll tell you one thing - If I ever do figure this out, I'm making some video tutorials on it. There is a severe lack of help from anywhere. The tutorials from Adobe are useless. Lots of people say after effects is like photoshop, but its so far off the mark its not even funny.

Well, I've managed very little on my own, but I did manage something! Thats farther along than I was last week!
I set a simple BG behind it and applied a variety of Glow effects to the flame itself.

Candle Text, Click to view (embedd codes didn't work)

The flame was just a couple frames I drew with my mouse quickly so obviously the animation is sub-par but as far as attempting effects, its a demo.

One of my other concerns is exporting these scenes and retaining quality to reimport them into premiere for final composition. I'll need a new computer before this film is complete, with not only Gads of Ram but a decent sized hard drive and a good graphics card.

Well, I hope to make more progress soon!

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Now playing on Winamp: Tracy Chapman - Tell It Like It Is
via FoxyTunes

Planning for 2009

I know 2009 Is already in full gear (Feb already!) but Tax season is also in full gear! I'm compiling all my expenses and income and making spread sheets to claim all my art expenses.
My friend Leah has been helping me out with getting started. I can claim all my art relatd expenses so long as my income increases (art) for the next 5 years. If I dont, I cant keep claiming LOL! So this is incentive to keep my art income increasing!
 Like I mentioned in my last post, I am planning on conventions and galleries. This will also mean paying for memberships to places like the North Vancouver Arts Council, and other artists organizations. I'm going to respond to "calls for artists" and show as much as possible. This includes having art in the Annonymous art show Every year as well.
 I'm understandably excited and motivated by this :)

I've got an 8x24 cradled panel I gessoed the other day. it's going to be a painting for my aunt for next Christmas. I'm painting a humming bird in Oil. Should be neat :)
I hope.
My mums paying for it ;) She'd never pay ful price so I better find out what she WILL pay LOL

Right now I'm working on a sculpture of Tik, that is getting bigger and bigger than I planned haha! I'm hoping to make a mold and cast some copies to sell at some conventions.
we shall see :)

First Posts are the hardest

Well, Here we go. First posts are always a little awkward :p

I'll summarize my intentions :)

Starting this year, I plan to really gear towards being "an artist" as opposed to being a freelancer with small jobs filling spare time.
This year I'm starting to keep better records of my expenses and claiming them, as well as making better receipts and tracking of commissions and freelance work.

I'm also planning on answering more calls for artists and getting my work in local galleries. Decembers Anonymous art show where I sold my painting was pretty awesome, I'd like to do more of that!

Kitty and I are also planning on attending any and all comic conventions we can this year to sell art work and the Daqueran comics. Very exciting!

I spent a few hours modifying a template to make this blog layout so I hope you like the look!

What to Expect here:

• I'll be posting sketches and works in progress for Conflagration and other Projects
• Posts about my achievements and trials of working on the projects
• Status reports of the projects!

Should be a lot of fun I hope :D