This is a character I designed and pegged myself on Toon Boom.  Then i grabbed a quote (of Bruce Campbell's wonderful voice  from cloudy with a chance of meatballs), and animated some acting to it.

This was our "Take" assignment for semester 3 classical animation.  We had to have a character have an emotion then go down in anticipation, up into an extreme and settle with a new emotion.  (this all happens after scratchy slides over to the bomb lady and settles next to her).  i chose this scenario from an itchy and scratchy episode, where scratchy sees bomb lady and pops into a screaming cycle all of a sudden, and embellished it with these newly learned animation skills.

This is a monster painting from semester 3.  I'm happy with the result because i actually pulled this off in only 2 days.  I was so rushed because i had to restart the project from scratch after the one i had already been working with was having problems. I like the black and white design of him more than the coloured one. I hope to one day blend his tones better, and blend the colour overlays into his tones to give it a more diverse pattern.  

This was our first acting class assignment where we had to make a character that our instructor bought, which meant the character had to have a purpose, a back story, and give us reason to watch.  My guy was a cool hand Luke meets Wild E Coyote character, with movements similar to that of goofy, or a cartoon Kramer.  Tale was never the smartest tool in the wagon, and he knew something was wrong with him so it caused him to rebel! he always had problems obeying the rules, he never understood child hood punishment, and has led a life of crime which eventually led him to a jail cell. The prison guards must have been pretty dumb because Tale here managed to escape (possible intro title sequence), and here's where the fun happens.  Now he attempts to live a successful life of crime, but Karma watches.  He shoplifts at the gas stations, but always winds up with non-alcoholic malted liquor jugs.  He picks pockets, and winds up with rolls of Canadian tire money. He cant even eat a hot dog without being outsmarted by a family of hungry rodents.  Everything he tries, fails.  He is doomed until the day he decides to straighten up his act.

Here 2 random pages taken from my crazy action story board from semester 3.  I really enjoyed story boarding action and found i had a clear understanding of posing things out, and trying to make the suspense timing as realistic as possible.  I hate watching those action scenes in movies where all these bad guys have guns and none of them shoot the good guy when they have a chance for reasons un-shown.  Its so ineffective for me.  You have to show these characters in action when its required, where they are what they're doing, why they're doing it. make it clear and people will feel on edge rather than cheated for a movie ticket.  I think i pulled that off in this board.  My story telling was strong but certain things like clarity of drawing and composition strength were still growing.

This was our rodent assignment done for digital painting this semester (semester3). I chose to do a squirrel in free fall after an experience i had the weekend prior where a squirrel chose certain death and jumped off a tall structure rather than run past my friends and I, I was sad at first, but then intrigued at the cahonies these guys have.  So i made a squirrel in free fall stance with a mouth full of nuts. Hes comming from an above light source at night. It could be a UFO sending him back after studies, or maybe he was clinging to the wheel of a jet and let go right as it was receding into the compartment. Squirrels do end up in the strangest places!

These are a bunch of life drawing related studies done up until last week.  I will hopefully post some progress every so often as i plan to have life drawing as a constant growing skill throughout my life. More to come soon!  

I had a really hard time learning the bones of the human skeleton... Just kidding, i made this during the winter break after semester one, when we were all done learning the skeleton (just about to learn the muscles). 

This was probably the biggest assignment we had to do back in the first year.  It started with a 16 field Layout on animation paper. We had to use lots of reference material to make sure our historical architecture was correct. My ancient civilization was the of course the Mayans, who are experiencing their 4th alien contact in the picture. After we were done drawing we had to bring it into photoshop and paint the sucker.  being only 2 months old in photo shop experience at that time, that was my favourite part.  Then we got to bring it into after effects and pan it with a moving foreground object to give the illusion of depth.

Here i took this picture of the cloverfield monster and figured out what his skeleton might look like inside by relating his joints to certain animals with similar limbs, I considering how his muscles that are visible might work with the skeleton, and deciding what i thought looks like bone under skin. I really enjoyed designing the skeleton.

I was sick in bed with Pneumonia when i made this one. I missed 3 days of the beginning of semester 2 so i was just keeping my  hands busy despite the sickness. 

I wasn't thinking much of colour and composition and focal point (the whole thing is a focal point) I just wanted to make something chaotic. Something like an over exaggerated view of what parents whitness in their kids during rebellious stage #1: when the kid is given the responsibility to choose his own friends.

Personal work:  This is a pickled jar of mutant fetuses.  I took reference photos at this disgusting autopsy museum in Estonia in the summer of 2009, B.A.S. (Before Animation School). These things had distorted proportions, stitched up bellies, multiple limbs or faces, and conjoined twins. Every thing you need to have a great nightmare! I made the fetuses with ink wash and pen, and the rest with water colour.  

2 Character Designs from semester 1.  Jim Graves Said i Shaded like a Computer. Here is (greese monkey) bill who is often poked fun at by his fellow mechanics because he has monkey like characteristics.  They gave him an oversized pair of over-alls and even a name tag with his nickname on it. He oten membles to himself about his schemes of getting back at the others, they just laugh.  The other one is an emo tucan whos wings are in shackles because hes too emo to fly.  I thought it was ironic, tucans being such colourful and fruit loop loving birds, to have an emo tucan. but its not like real life emos have real problems so its satire-esque. 

This is our barbershop layout from first year.  I was really into Stanley Kubrick movies at the time, so when we had to do a barbershop i automatically thought of this design of military hair shaving facility like in the opening scene of Full Metal Jacket. Where the main perpose was to get these guys in, shaved and out as fast as possible.  This is would is not the same design that would have been used for that of a saigon training facility. They used chairs made of 2X4 in Kubricks film. This would be an American officers hair cuttery in WWII. an uncle sam poster watches you at all times, and you got the luxury of mirrors, scissors and brushes.  Theres also a "dud"shell that tore through the roof and smashed a chair into the floor that adds some tension in the neat-and-tidy room.  

This is a story board assignment from first year.  Before we went into actual story board pages, our teacher David Bluestien (who has a background in comic book art), walked us through the same steps he took to become a storyboarder. we studied the timing in comic books. Transforming a short story into a 11 panel page.

This is a segment from one of our first story board assignments from first year.  We had to design a character and walk, run and climb them through a series of scenarios, then break their leg and have show their reactions.  My character was a socially awkawrd nerd equipped with a fully stocked utility belt, which has everything from an asthma inhaler, to a bottomless fanny pack filled with notes, calcualtors, lightly salted snacks and self defense mechanisms to fend of the rabid dogs, disturbed youths and evil girl scouts.  Here he is breaking his leg, which was required after the character climbs a cliff. He demonstrates his

(ner)dedication by having a shattered tibia, but is still not able to put his work down.