THE CREATIONS of LEO

Grey Wolf

2011-11-04T17:52:00.000Z

Sorry for my lack of updates at the moment. I recently started doing some freelance work for a design company which I can't show at present.

Here's a drawing I quickly did up in Illustrator and Photoshop. I realise he has a pretty big tail, but that's just how I decided to draw it :P

I've also been working on a rig for a cute Penguin character I modelled before I began my MA last year. I'm currently in the process of skinning it, in the hope to make a very short animation for christmas. I shall be trying to spend some time on it around my work over the coming weeks.

I'll also try and update here with various bit and pieces as and when I can.

Pumpkins and Other Things

2011-10-18T21:28:00.000+01:00

Updated my Portfolio website today. Jazzed it up with a new autumn layout with some little pumpkins I drew ready for Halloween! Here they are:

I also fixed up a few sections and added in some new artwork.

While I was in 'site design' mode, I also changed this blog up as well just for a change and also for halloween, got my Franken-Cookie design up there heading the blog.

Haven't been able to access my FTP the last week so seen as it seems to be working now. Here's some various bits and pieces from life drawing class:

And a fairy drawing I plan to colour soon:

Some New Characters

2011-10-07T00:28:00.002+01:00

I finally got a new scanner on the weekend so I've started scanning all the work from my sketchbooks over the last year in, along with my recent work.

Here are two characters I did up yesterday:

Smiley Head Girl

Beggar

I realised the smiley girl looks very similar to another character I drew awhile back called 'Gloom', only a lot happier. I've been drawing some new designs for my Gloom character now because I really like the idea of the hair being alive.... it's inspired quite a few new designs actually. More on that soon!

I also did the Viva for the end of my course this week so it's only only a matter of time now before I get my MA result.

Now that everything for the course is over, my current plans for this month in regards to my personal work are:

Finish the animation dialogue piece I've been working on.
Re-design my portfolio website.
Develop more of my personal artwork.
Keep this blog up to date.
Start illustrating the poem I wrote.

The Number Heads

2011-09-21T15:42:00.000+01:00

It's been awhile since I've posted any of my personal work, so here it goes:

When I was doing my MA, I tried to make a bit of time each day to do some drawing and flex my creativity, as animation generally took up most of my time. As a result I have a small sketchbook filled with character heads! Some are made from random shapes, others are caricatures from pictures and some are just random doodles from my head.

This is a set I created from numbers. Took the drawings into Illustrator and Photoshop to jazz them up a bit.

More heads to come!

I also have around 2 sketchbooks full of character designs ideas and drawings so I'll be developing them over the next few weeks as well and re-vamping my portfolio.

I've begun a new animation too, a nice short, one character, dialogue piece. I'll post that when it's near completion.

Pandora's Box Short Film

2011-09-16T14:09:00.000+01:00

It's finally finished and uploaded.

This is the full version with the narrated introduction:

And this one just opens straight into the 3D film:

Handed in my work at the start of this week so my MA is now finished except for the presentation.

In regards to my short film, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Visually I managed to more or less bring the piece to life as I'd imagined it when I drew my initial designs and storyboard. I'm so glad I spent a good amount of time planning the piece at the pre-production stage, developing the story, designing my characters and planning out how to put it across.

I'm also pleased with the animation, though I am aware that it could be better. Some areas caused constant problems for me, but I did the best I could and it's definately my best piece of work of the year. From my earliest animations of the course to this one, the comparison is shocking. I've learnt and developed so much! Also as I was one of the few who had not done the animation BA then I had to work hard to reach the standard of the other members of the class.

I also learnt a great deal just producing the short film, not only in regards to animation and my work flow but also in areas such as rigging, modelling, story/character development, lighting and rendering, I hope to build upon these skills now in my future animations. It was fun to do. I've always wanted to create my own short film.

Despite being made during my MA this piece is also a personal achievement for me as I brought the whole thing to life from scratch based on my own idea and it also captures a lot of things I love by being a dark, creepy animation, with a cute style and also being produced in black and white which is something I'm usually drawn to.

I hope to produce another short film sometime in the future, but for now I'd like to put my skills to use in the working world and just work on some shorter pieces to refine my skills and work flow.

Almost Done!

2011-09-06T19:29:00.000+01:00

Sorry it's been awhile since I've updated. I've been finishing off my short film for the final part of my MA. It's currently in the compositing stage so I'm just waiting on effects and sound now then it'll be done. Should be uploaded by next week :)

Here's a screenshot for now:

I compiled all my concept artwork for it into a book, which I've taken a photo of:

Looks pretty good! I put it together as a .pdf then got it published and printed online, Turned out great! I've got an idea in mind for a few projects when I'm done so I may have to make some books again.

Here's some more life drawing pages I've done over the last few weeks. Got a lot more to scan!:

I'll start uploading more or my personal art after next week when I've got all my work submitted!

Short film Production

2011-06-23T19:55:00.000+01:00

I'm currently in the production stage for my short film, which is why I haven't been posting much here.

I made my storyboard into a animatic of what I wanted to achieve with my short, which you can watch below:

I plan on keeping the illustrated/narrative bit of the animatic as part of the final film.

I've been in the process of bring all my concept work into 3D form so I could begin work on the animation which I began yesterday. The last few weeks have been taken up with modelling all the characters and rigging them, focusing mainly on Pandora. For the Pandora model I also had to build a facial rig which was a new experience for me.

So here's some of the work I've created over the last few weeks:

There's a lot more pre-production design artwork for the film than I've shown here, but I plan to have it all put into a book at the end of the project so until thats all done I'm going to keep some of it back for now.

For more in depth information regarding the production on my short film, please visit my animation blog:

leoanimates.blogspot.com

I've also started attending life drawing again, every Tuesday for a few hours so I'll post some more work soon.

Pandora Concepts

2011-06-02T16:03:00.000+01:00

Here's some more character design work on the main character for my short. This is the design I've settled on for her.

I also did some colour design tests, looking at what colours to have her outfit, but I've decided to produce my piece in black and white now as it suits the style of my piece alot better, think Time Burton's short 'Vincent' for how it will look visually.

However, in regards to colour I kind of picture her in the first version -red,pink and blue :)

Pandora's Box

2011-05-29T22:29:00.001+01:00

I'm currently in the pre-production stage for the final project of my Masters.

I've decided to make an animated short based on the myth of Pandora's box. I'm going to produce an original re-telling of the tale which I've re-written and altered to make my own version of the tale. It's going to be a cute yet creepy, stylised piece with Pandora being a young child. For style(think Tim Burton, Coraline, the Corpse Bride, however I doubt I'm going to succeed in producing something of quite that standard as I only have from now to the start of September to produce it.

I've currently written the script, storyboarded the whole short and am now in the process of producing the animatic, as well as modelling and rigging the characters etc.

Anyway here are my initial sketches for Pandora when I was just brainstorming designs for how she could look. My favourites designs were the one in the middle left and also the drawing to the right of the text, which influenced my final design.

Here are some designs I later doodled in Photoshop when I was starting to get a bit more feel for her appearance.

I'll post some more of my concept work for Pandora and other aspects of my short as I go along.

Poses

2011-05-20T15:41:00.001+01:00

Some fast drawings of various poses with pen and coloured pencil. Just for fun :)

People Drawings

2011-05-18T11:35:00.007+01:00

Some pen sketches of peoples from various places.

Fear Work Progress

2011-05-10T12:53:00.002+01:00

This is the background work for what's probably my favourite animation I've done so far, which I called Fear.

Before I began the piece I did a page of pose drawings expressing fear and then did some further drawings taking into account my plan for the animation, character, scene and story.

These drawings later formed the basis for my rather rough looking storyboard and animatic.

And lastly, my scene colour key, and finished animation:

More Art from Life Drawing Class

2011-05-06T16:32:00.002+01:00

Some more life drawing studies. Once again focusing on capturing the pose in various ways; silhouette, stick figures and various forms of line art. All drawn in black pen like my previous drawings, with one or two in pencil and also some felt pens.

Animation Pose Sketches & Some People

2011-05-05T12:33:00.007+01:00

The following drawings are of random people from various locations. I carry a sketchbook around with my pretty much all the time and tend to get it out and make some fast gesture drawings with my trusty black biro.

These are some drawings I did to figure poses for my animations during the second module of the course, along with a page of scene thumbnails. The first two pages were done using my Wacom and the last page is from my sketchbook.

More Life Drawing Class Studies

2011-05-04T11:20:00.002+01:00

Some more pages I drew during a life drawing class. All in black pen with the odd study in pencil. Different female model this time:

Life Drawing Drawings

2011-05-02T18:52:00.002+01:00

During the last few months I've tried to attend the evening life drawing classes as often as I can. This isn't something that's part of the course but its something I enjoy doing. I find it relaxing and a great way to unwind for a few hours doing what I love... DRAWING woo! Sadly due to intensive coursework and having a job, I haven't been able to make it as often as I would have liked. If only it was part of the course :P

Anyway here are various drawings I drew during one of the sessions! All in pen.

My aim with these drawings was to capture the pose of the figure considering the weight distribution. I also looked at silouette and bipeds. As you can probably tell from my favourite way to sketch is with continuous line. I love it! I've been drawing this way for many years now and I find it fast, fluid and fun and a great way to capture a gesture. I usually draw in pen as I find it alot more freeing as you can't erase. I've also been looking in to simplifying my line drawing as well.

Character Animation Drawings and Poses

2011-05-01T13:40:00.002+01:00

The following pages are sketchbook drawings of the various characters I had to animate during the first module of the course. I find it easier to get a better understanding of a character if I make some sketches of them in various poses, looking at how they'd express their thoughts/feelings and personality through their figure as well as drawing them performing various actions.

Ball with Tail

Character Walk (Sad man)

The following pages are drawings I did to express a given feeling and to find the best pose to communicate a certain feeling or expression. From these I then picked the best feeling and used it to pose a 3D character rig I've been using as part of my course.

Waiting for News

Pleased at the Result

Hmm What to Do

I'm Free!

Dance to Impress

What's in there?

Err Excuse me

I'm Very Angry with you!

Here are the poses I then produced in 3Ds Max, using the Max rig. (This rig was not created by me! You can find it here)

Waiting for News (My favourite pose)

Pleased at the Result

Hmm What to do

I'm Free

Dance to Impress

Angry with you!

A Fresh Start

2011-05-01T09:32:00.000+01:00

I've decided to have a clear out of all my old blog posts and make a fresh start. Since I started my MA in Character animation last September I haven't really made the time to post even though I've made time to draw. So I'm going to change that now and start updating again. Over the next few days I'm going to start posting drawings I've done related to my animations, art from life drawing classes I've attended as well as personal artwork from my various sketchbooks. Let's begin!