The face tells all

An amazing reference sheet for animators (or amateur detectives) came across my desk this week:

(click here for the full-size-readable version)

An artist called Cedarseed compiled all of her notes on facial expression to create a "facial map" detailing the differences between emotional expressions! For example: the difference between a "sad expression" and a "blue expression" is that in the blue face the eyebrows are lower and the eyes' irises are partially covered by the eyelids, whereas in the sad face only the pupils touch the eyelids.

Cedarspeed analyzes 60 different expressions in this manner and offers a great starting point for any artist depecting a subtle expression. Of course, facial expressions are not universal (each culture may express the same feeling in different ways) and the accompanying body language can easily change the meaning of an expression. But for a quick facial cheat sheet, they don't get much better than this!

Head House - The frisbee catch

I've been working on a new shot from my short recently. Below you can see my stages:

• planning (sketching ideas)
  
• reference (filming myself doing the actions)
• blocking (ie choosing poses from reference and recreating them in Maya)
• splining (adding the motion in between the poses)

The next week(s) I will be polishing the shot to make it look even better. Those hands before the jump are a little floaty for my taste!

Buccaneer Band logo

Before heading down the animation path, I studied graphic design in college. And occasionally, my friends would come across a project or two that needed the services of a graphic designer. Since many of my friends were musicians, during my college years our band program's fliers became far more interesting. After graduating I focused completely on animation and moved on from graphic design, but recently one of my longtime music friends (and now a head band director) called me up with a new project: all the departments in his school were to design logos which were then scaled and painted on the school's hallways. He gave me the band font, color scheme (I could only use black and the school's blue) and in return I sent him this:


A few weeks later he sent me the final image after it was painted:

I was impressed at how well the painters were able to recreate a 6 foot image on the wall, especially the negative-space-from-hell French Horn and the vanishing-point-parallelograms of the xylophone. Sadly the painting ended up only using one color, but even then it still works.

Yay! And now that I have the graphic design bug out of my system it is time to hit the animation splines again.

Sketches and snakes

A number of employees at my work are artists and enjoy life drawing. As such each month we pool resources and pay for a model for a life drawing session.

This life drawing session was odder than most though: when I walked in the classroom the first question one of my friends asked was "Do you mind snakes?". Immediately I looked at the model and verified it was indeed a woman (I've heard that question before in life drawing, but it was from a sarcastic/overcompensating male model). My curiosity now piqued, I replied "No, why?". Then a 5 foot boa constrictor slithered in front of me and answered my question. The model was a huge snake fan (in the same way some women are cat ladies) and her pet needed some exploration time while "mommy" worked (ie posed nude for people).The rest of the life drawing class went well, but it it was rather distracting watching the (friendly) boa and making sure she didn't surprise you while we were deeply focused on drawing. She spent about 15 minutes crawling up the table behind my chair and then proceeded to investigate my eraser and other pencils before attempting the "jump" to my chair, at which point I scooted further away and let her glide down to the floor to go visit someone else.

As for my drawings, we ended up doing longer poses than my usual favorite quick gesture drawings. So I ended up drawing a quick 2 minute gesture of a 20 minute pose and then slyly drew gestures of the other attendees in the class (which I did by passing off my searching for the snake as really looking at each person's pose).

And, of course, once the session was over I played with the snake, who in the end only wanted to be loved.

Sunny times

Sometimes, the most mundane of environments (such as the concrete parking garage you park in every day) are the best places for photography, especially when lit properly.

And hey, I've included an intentional self-portrait too! That's a first (for this blog at least).

And since I really have no where else to include it, here is another sunny photo taken from my monthly vantage point of seat 17C.

Sketch 2

A few more gesture sketches from this week. Previously, I went to a coffee bar/restaurant a little too often so most of my sketches involved people sitting and drinking/eating. This time I took the sketchbook to a convention where people stood in line so I got a lot of good "shifting weight" poses. Now that it is officially spring, I will be spending more time outdoors where people congregate so more sketches are forthcoming!

Sketch

Sketchin' the leather

One of my favorite possessions is my Signum Italian leather Sketchbook that I found in the back of a small shop in Florence, Italy (and that I couldn't convince myself to buy so someone I deeply cared about bought it for me as a surprise gift).

The sketchbook, along with it's fancy carrying bag, just oozes quality, to the point that I was hesitant to draw in it for fear of my work "not being worthy". Well this weekend that changed.

I am currently working my way through the two volumes of Drawn to Life by the Disney master Walt Stanchfield. One of the emphasis of the books is to focus on quick gesture drawings while in a public place. So I visited the local Barnes and Noble's coffee shop (with a great 2nd story view of the outdoor mall) and drew. I've been out of practice for gesture drawings for about 5 years so there is definitely a learning curve. But I am excited about getting back into it and re-developing my own style! Below you will find my sketches. Note that any sketch with a * is actually a "learning sketch" based on a drawing in the book. During the times that I ran out of subjects, or they were getting wary of a guy with a pencil constantly looking at them (I need to wear sunglasses), I would pass the time by sketching poses from the book. At this point I am better at quick sketching gesture drawings that someone else did than drawing my own from life, but this is only the beginning (and another theme of progression to add to this blog)! Practice, practice, practice!


On a side note, I must say I am really digging this leather book retro-trend. Some of my recent enjoyable nights involve curling up to a nice leather book, drinking Earl Grey (a Picardian influence from my childhood), listening to a nice passacaglia, and letting my imagination fly.

But is it art? pt 2

More photos that may or may not be classified as "artistic". Even more interesting is I actually adjusted one photo using software to give it a more of an artistic look. Yes, I know this is quite common, but for me it is a step backwards and forwards (or sideways?). I earned a degree over five years of college sitting in front of Photoshop manipulating photos into art. But I never took time to care about what the photos looked like before I opened in Photoshop. Whenever I shot photos, I always assumed I would "fix it in post" and therefore didn't bother with composing the photo with the camera. When I got my dSLR a few months ago, I stopped using Photoshop entirely and wanted to create interesting photos with the camera as opposed to manipulation. Now that time has passed, I am ready to (slowly) begin using Photoshop to accent the photos...

But is it art?

Over the past few months I have taken a few thousand photos with my DSLR camera. Most are your traditional family portrait photos, but a few can be considered as something... else.

These are the photos that have no point. I wasn't taking a picture of my friends or family. I was just... someplace. And I pointed the camera at an object and hoped a somewhat decent picture came out. Some are experiments, some are accidents, and some were just being at the right place at the right time: