A life in chaos

Real Painting

2010-08-30T11:46:00.000-07:00

I hadn't picked up a brush to paint for about twenty years and during my recent break from work, decided it was time. The kids were now of an age where things would mostly stay where they were put.

I'd got a few canvases (20" x 15.5"), brushes and acrylic paint from the 99p shop and after setting up a still life, started. The paints were total rubbish, so I nipped out to WHSmith to spend a bit more. I used to paint in oils and haven't used acrylics for over thirty years. From what I remember of those days was that I didn't like them that much. Started with the hogs hair brushes, but soon found that the synthetic ones suited me better.

The light was partially sunlight from the left, an standard lamp on the right and the candle, which I did light all the way through - I went through four candles. The sunlight created the strong shadows, but was only around for a few hours each day and I restricted myself to those.

One thing I had the most problems with was the cast shadow that the mirror made on the wall. Even though I tried to keep the lighting the same, it would still fluctuate between very dark to almost nothing.

I also did some reading on acrylic techniques and hadn't realised that working light to dark was preferable. Also if I wanted to blend I should use some medium. I 'nipped' down to my 'local' art shop, which is an hour away, only to find that they didn't have any in stock. This meant I was restricted to just using water.

Getting food poisoning wasn't on my list of preferred illnesses and only left me yesterday to complete before the fruit was too far gone.

Overall, I'm relatively pleased with the outcome. The mirror horizontal could have been straighter and some of my ovals a bit better, but not to bad for my first attempt after so long.

2010-08-25T13:06:00.000-07:00

Some more backgrounds. I'm trying to make them a more of a human size or my characters will only be seen in the distance, which is not what I want at all. All references are from Google street view as previously. It's amazing what you can see looking down the odd alley. They are also on difference layers so people can jump out if required. I might try to do a couple of whole streets, one upmarket and one down at heel.

Backgrounds

2010-08-11T10:25:00.000-07:00

I've returned to drawing for my animation and here are a few of the backgrounds I've done recently. Again they're all drawn using vectors by Serif's DrawPlus X2. Using Google street view, these are from a place called Kidbrooke in Greenwich. Most of it is boarded up ready for demolition, but there are still people living here and there.

Time Lapse

2010-06-09T14:11:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd put in some time lapse videos to show how I work while you wait until I complete the next picture which is taking some time.

Pencil Portraits

2010-05-08T11:25:00.000-07:00

I don't just work in digital, I've recently been sharpening my pencils as a way to get back into traditional work, which is where I want to be. A small house with messy kids doesn't help in my journey, but as they get older I find myself eyeing bedrooms as a possible studio to stick my easel (currently residing in the attic) up in.

These are drawn from colour photos from a thread at Concept Art where members post pictures of themselves for others to practice on. Each one took about six hours and over a period of a couple of weeks I like to think I improved.

The first one is Ilaekye and was interested in getting the beard right as I'd been having problems with them on other work. The picture was just an ordinary snapshot.

Next up was Stoph. Another beard, but it was from a very nice photo and I hope I did it justice.

This TAS. He posted a huge selection of expressions for everyone. The photo was flooded with flash making it flat. I had tried a number of times over the last year to draw him in different medium, but this is the first time I think I actually caught 'him'. Or maybe I just got better.

Master Studies

2010-05-06T11:09:00.000-07:00

I've been very naughty not updating here. I keep meaning to, but work, family life and actually doing any art sort of distracts me. Sadly my website is in the same position.

Recently, I've been doing some Master Studies to improve my digital painting technique, and I've come a long way from the previous post. I scribble a lot while painting, when everyone tells me to use broad strokes and then refine, well I sort of do in a way, but I like scribbling and I'm getting results from it and that's what counts.

This is the first one I did, the Laughing Cavalier by Hals. I painted it all on one layer to prove to myself that I could. Not so anal with the others.

I have painted this in oils, actually I painted two, for a amateur dramatic production. One had a hole cut in it so it would fit over the head of one of the cast. The other one might still be my attic and I'll try to fish it out one day.

Serif have asked to use it in their promotional material for the next upgrade. They've been good to me and I said, "Yes." They have agreed to credit me, and for a practice piece, I'm happy with that.

Next one was Sweert's Boy in a Turban holding a posy. Not quite so successful, which is a shame as I really like the painting a lot.

Done in two layers, still trying to keep it relatively simple.

Next was a Bouguereau picture of a Shepherdess. I actually enjoyed doing this one a lot. Three layers to start with but became two quite quickly.

Then came the Ingres. This picture was made in hell. I didn't get the expression right, the dress was done about five time before I was reasonably happy with it. He is so precise in his placement which doesn't go down well a scribbler like me.

A classical statue. I first tried to do this with DrawPlus and their nice brushes, but I kept crashing the program due to my rapid scribbling. I like to overlay colour on colour to build up depth.

Water Nymph by Perrault. Totally suited to my method of working. I did this one more to learn to paint flesh. I still have a lot to learn.

Just for fun I thought I'd do a Titian. Didn't finish it as I'd learnt what I wanted from it and parts of the picture are so dark it is difficult to discern what the original colour was.

And finally Godward, another precise painter, so I took liberties with the finish. I could have spent days working on it, but that is not the point of doing Master Studies. Learning what I needed for that look and finding out where it fitted best into my method of working was and still is a voyage of discovery.

I enjoyed painting most of these and will probably do some more in the future. I learnt tons and will continue to learn as that's the only way to go forward.

2009-10-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

Gosh! I haven't been here much. I haven't been working on my animation much as I've trying to improve my drawing skills.

This is from a contest held over at www.conceptart.org The title was Newborn and I did a modern version of The Birth of Venus. The feet leave a lot to be desired and the face lacks form. Not every entry was considered to be up to a professional standard and a number were cut. In the public vote I managed 7 votes, which wasn't bad considering that some pictures didn't get any votes. I knew I wouldn't win, but it was trying the hardest I could at the time and pushing myself. Also I learnt a new program - Serif PhotoPlus X2, which is similar to PhotoShop, but a heck of a lot cheaper. Mine was free due to the power of broccoli.

The I went and entered Battle of the Sexes Part II. This wasn't such a success as my last one, as I thought I had another week. The whole contest wasn't that brilliant as so many people dropped out and failed to complete. Title is A Good Day to Die. My mum posed for me, bless her.

Currently, I'm still working at improving my art skills, but will be returning to the animation soon.

Crowd Scenes

2009-05-18T09:53:00.000-07:00

I've been using Google Street View as reference for my background people. It's great as you can see the natural forms of people as they go about their daily lives. Luckily for me I was already using people with blank faces.

2009-03-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

Still not posting much these days. Most of Feb was taken up with The Battle of the Sexes over on conceptart.org. Us girls were given the title"Brotherhood". I probably spent 30 plus hours on it. It might be as far as I can push vector drawing. I'm just chuffed to bits that I made the final at my first attempt as I'm up against some great stuff.

2009-01-26T08:12:00.000-08:00

Time to update my infrequent blog.

The Broccoli in my previous post won this month’s Serif competition. I’ll be getting their Photo Plus X2, which is bit like Photoshop. I really enjoy using DrawPlus as everything is laid out in a logical manner and I hardly ever have to consult the manual.

Been messing about with Cam Studio and doing performance art!

And here’s a wooden eggcup.

Quiet isn't it?

2008-11-29T12:05:00.000-08:00

Sorry for not updating. I have no idea if anyone reads this stuff or not but I like to think someone does. It's actually more for myself than anyone else. Being on so many forums also takes up a huge chunk of my spare time. I've given up slavishly watching loads, but there are a few art and animation ones I can't tear myself away.

Any hoot, I've been hard at work doing more animation on my main character. He's changed a fair bit since I started. I really need to get started on the other three. The position of the head is not that important at this stage, as I'm only interested in the body movement. The lapels have gone because they jumped around too much.

Since then I've been drawing vegetables. I'm drawing them straight from life. It's fun and I'm learning a lot. I'm rather proud of my broccoli. This was done totally in vector. It was slowing done my computer a lot so when I eventually ungrouped everything to find out how many objects there were and finding it was 44,777, was amazing. I know it took a few hours, but I didn't realise how many little bits I had.

2008-09-27T13:01:00.001-07:00

Boy, has work been tough this month. Deadlines are next Tuesday and then I can relax a bit. I’ve been slodging out reading forums this month and not gone to any life drawing classes or done much in the drawing department because I’ve been too exhausted.

For my animation, I’ve been grinding away at backgrounds and background characters. No work has been done on the main characters and I really need to get back to them soon. I’ve been messing about with Antics to get the low down on some movements. The lead singer is fairly jerky, so using cold, shock and various other expressions; I can cobble together a reasonable dance routine. The Antic dance stuff really does suck, but small bits might be okay. By exporting it frame by frame I can use the movement to animate my characters by using the Antic models as templates. I know it’s not ideal, but I’m still learning loads even if it is the wrong way round. Actually, I learn most things the wrong way round; my brain must be wired up wonky.

Maybe if I had my life in front of me I might do things differently. I have a deadline and if I miss it, I’ll be kicking myself for the rest of my life. The window is fairly large (2010 – 2011), so I won’t be panicking until the end of next year.

Here’s another background. Just another 200 or so to go.

Getting bored with titles

2008-08-30T13:09:00.001-07:00

Well, my husband is back in touch with his old manager. Seems that bygones are bygones, which is a relief for me. It would be nice if he made up with the lead singer’s ex-wife as well. I liked her and I think the whole thing is stupid, but I wasn’t around then.

Things are going slow on animation front. I’m still churning out the backgrounds; I need so many! I’m going to redo the other band members, especially the girls, now that I’ve rediscovered some of my drawing skills.

I forgot to mention that I won the June 2008 contest over on the Serif website with my Gherkin, and because I already had DP8, they offered me X2, the latest version. This has key frames, but I’m happier with stop frames (it looks better) at the moment. There are loads of additional features that I haven’t had time to explore yet.

Update

2008-06-22T11:10:00.001-07:00

I did use biro on my third week, but didn’t restart any pictures. After over scribbling with biro, I mixed biro with pencil and was quite happy with the result (posted below) except for the hands. Then I went back to pencil and found that I had improved a bit.

Tomorrow we have a dancer as the model and there will be a lot of short poses.

Relearning

2008-06-14T12:22:00.000-07:00

I’ve now been to two life drawing classes, and took my middle son to the second. I am very rusty. I look at my sketch book days later and this is what I see: the 30 second and 1 minute sketches are pure gesture - that's good for animation. Big improvement on the 1 minute ones from week 1, but the 30 second ones are lagging behind - looking like stick figures slightly fleshed out.

I really need to learn to draw faster if I’m going to be any good at animation. The five minutes were better but didn’t give much chance for correction of errors. That’s another thing, on the longer poses, I did correct bits but carried on overworking in other areas – I’m going to use biro next week to force me to look and if it’s wrong, I’ll start again. It’s what I used to do at Goldsmith’s – it was always the second sketch that was that much better.

I have to improve drastically, as my son is catching up fast on his first outing and he’s only twelve.

An Exercise

2008-05-25T11:11:00.000-07:00

As I hadn’t put pencil to paper other than for doodles for more years then I care to mention, I thought I’d best refresh my skills. Oh boy, was I rusty! I can draw recognisable things but they were lifeless.

I posted a drawing of my hand that I drew using my tablet on www.animationforum.net. I had greatly overused the pencil tool on Serif DrawPlus8, but I was reasonably pleased with it. Then n00b set me a challenge to do a couple a day and see how I improved over a week.

It was so nice to get some actual criticism, that I did it. The next one was damned with faint praise – the thumb was good. It was true.

I sucked it up and took my anger out on the brambles with my shears and got a huge burst blister bang in the middle of my model. Sore, I dashed off another one just using negative space. This time I was asked if I had traced it – result.

My smugness did not last long. I had a day off and then did two using pencil. The first one was crap. I thought the second wasn’t that deadly, but again it was rightly pulled apart as it didn’t show enough volume.

Next a lecture with diagrams was posted for me to learn. In my heart of hearts I know where and why I’m going wrong, but it is practice, or lack of it, that’s failing me. It didn’t help that every time I moved my hand it would split back open along the same line, even when I was sleeping thus waking me up.

Grumbling, I did another one. I knew it was doing me good, but I was tired from being woken up by my model and after doing my day job, it was a real effort to do anything. Better volume, but then a review showed my third hand was the best – the one I dashed off!

I changed the lighting a bit and my next effort was posted. The pads of my palm looked puffy. That’s me saying it.

Anyhow, I thought I should do some life classes, get my shoulder moving again, so I googled (my favourite occupation). I found www.meetup.com and there are a number of groups in my area. Woot! Signed up for one and might be able to go along tomorrow evening. It’s difficult trying to concentrate on drawing with kids, husband, housework and cooking all calling me. Getting a few hours away to do this would be bliss.

The whole exercise has been very illuminating. The one thing I have learnt is not to put too much thought process into drawing and over kill it. I love Matisse’s line drawings and used to try to emulate them. The ability to create volume without any shading is perfect for animation and I need to get back to where I was once.

2008-05-12T11:54:00.000-07:00

I had a little contretemps with photobucket recently. If you label life drawing as nudes, it doesn’t like it. Funny that it only removed three out of the eight I’d uploaded. As it pissed me off, I deleted the rest and posted them to Deviant Art instead – within 12 hours I had a subscriber. Any how, photobucket replied to my complaint and apologised for removing my life drawings in error. That was nice, but now I’m wary of this “family wholesomeness” that is prevalent in certain sections of the over PC brigade. Woe betide any child that looks on a picture of a nude person regardless of any artistic merit.

To me a body is to be celebrated in all their forms; an object to be drawn. Fat, thin or perfect, I’ll draw the lot. The one thing I have noticed is that pretty, perfect people are the hardest to do. Give me a knobbly, lanky person with all their reference points and I’m in heaven. A pretty person has even features, is smooth and well proportioned; fewer reference points makes an error shriek on the eye.

So here’s the filth (sketches are A5, the pastel is A3)

Slodge

2008-05-03T12:04:00.001-07:00

I haven’t been working on anything much in the last week or so. Work (the type that pays the bills) has been hectic. Coming home all I’ve wanted to is slodge in front of the computer and read about other people’s work.

Just did a cartoon of one of the moderators on www.animationforum.net Hope he likes it.

Frustrating

2008-04-26T12:37:00.000-07:00

I didn’t get round to getting more RAM. Instead I learnt a bit about Quicktime Pro that I was persuaded to buy and download to make uploading my animations a bit better. So I splashed out £20 and got the registration key. Everything was fine and I was rendering my animations so much better than before. Then I had to add sound – what did they mean by saying “add the audio clip and it will stretch to fit, or I can mess about with frame lengths.” Excuse me, I have mapped out the whole video for lip synch – a programme should fit in with me not that other way round. Maybe I haven’t found that magic button yet – I’ll keep looking.

So I went back to my Ulead, and checked out a few more options. I found the render by frame that kept everything sharper (whoopee), but if I want to show it on the net, I still needed the QT Pro. It didn’t like that version of AVI and wouldn’t include the sound. This is now hair tearing out time. Finally I got a version out and uploaded to photobucket that didn’t totally reek. The best version is still on my website (all bits here are orphaned from other links).

Sorry, I've deleted the video.

Computer problem

2008-04-18T10:28:00.000-07:00

I’ve chopped the scene down to nearly 5 seconds (4 18/25ths to be exact). The whole thing is very complicated with loads of vectors and I think I need more RAM on my computer. I only have 1Gb and it sounds as if my computer is struggling to keep up. It was using over 200Mb of memory usage when saving a section just over a second. This is the reason I’ve split the scene into 9 sections with a frame overlap. I will have to split them even further when I start turning the scene around. Maybe a trip down to the computer shop tomorrow is called for. It would be much better if I could get the whole scene on one take.

Some actual animation

2008-04-17T06:07:00.000-07:00

Well, a bit of it. It's not quite right yet. The lip movement on "upside" is not clear enough, the expression as he grows is awful and it looks like he's waddling towards the camera. I haven't put any background people in yet, changed his head position or made him blink.Also, the background needs to be stretched, the flag fluttering and the foreground extended. In the final version the background with all the people except my main character will be turning upside down. This is part of one of the more complicated scenes and will be a whole eight seconds.

Sorry, I've deleted the video

Legal Stuff

2008-04-14T14:32:00.000-07:00

Today I’m more interested in the legality of things. The song I’m animating is one that my husband co-wrote many moons ago. Gosh! He even had a minor hit in 1979 (got to 11 and 3 appearances on TOTP)) and we get about 60p a year from the song, but it might have been £1.20 if he hadn’t signed away 50% of the publishing rights early on – that’s a whole pint of milk!

Now the song I’m interested was a ‘B’ side of their third single that sank even further than their second (43 in the chart), and then the band broke up.

The thing is we don’t know what the publishing rights were on the songs that weren’t a hit, and how long the contract was in force. Paperwork was never a strong point for my husband (read non-existent). I eat legalese for breakfast and still have problems finding out the nitty-gritty. Mechanical rights are fine because we’re using an old demo tape recorded in a flat; it’s not that far off the studio version and needed a bit of cleaning up. The master tapes are lost – the album didn’t include the song after being double baked.

It doesn’t help that my husband won’t talk to his ex-manager, who was also owner of the publishing house. Check out his Youtube account (http://www.youtube.com/user/lovedupbritgit) and you might understand why.

I contacted PRS who told me to contact MPA. I did that on 27 February, and have just reminded them that I haven’t had a reply from them yet.

An eighth may be better than nothing, but I want my husband to get a quarter if I make it a hit. Is it too much to ask?

Today I Posted

2008-04-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

Doesn’t look like I’m going to die from over-blogging soon.

I’ve done a few more illustrations of my colleagues and one of them thinks her hair is too grey. It’s an odd colour, but I thought I’d got it right. I did a more blonde version for her, because I’m nice and I like her and I want to do a better shot of her because she has the most gorgeous eyes.

Work

2008-04-06T13:08:00.000-07:00

Okay I haven’t updated in a couple of days – sorry. Life and actually doing paying work, family, and working on my animation does take a fair bit of my time. Not that I’m complaining. Sometimes a few elements of each can collide.

I persuaded a few colleagues to pose for me. This has meant I’ve been working on rendering them all weekend - so many black trousers being worn. This is a bit of a problem. With lighter stuff, I can change the colour and leave the shading in tact, but when it’s all black, it doesn’t give much room for manoeuvre. Maybe when they’ve seen what I’ve done, some peacocks will want to come out to play.

The small person always says, "But I'm only little!"

Ramblings

2008-03-25T13:50:00.001-07:00

I’m all over the internet. Some days here, others - elsewhere. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the communities I am in, but I’ve been pretty obsessing about my animation and I want to talk 24/7 about it. The ups and downs of the work fascinate me.

One day I’m totally flying, and the next I’ve crash landed with a big thump. Then there are the boring days when I grind out what needs to be done. It’s tedious in places, but the final goal is always sitting there, slightly out of reach and I can feel myself getting closer each day.

There are some days I need to take a break from the work and don’t do any. It doesn’t mean that it’s not there in my mind. My fix is reading about animation.

I came into animation thinking it would be a bit of fun. Working full time in a completely different field and having a young family doesn’t give me loads of time to indulge myself. How was I to know that it would take over my waking days and dreams?

My middle son is also into animation and I encourage him to go even further. We’re both on one forum and studiously ignore each other. It’s funny that he’s sitting next to me and I watch him post his latest attempt.

Back to my project. The song I’m animating is about London and all the major landmarks will be there, plus some minor, random not so famous bits. The backgrounds are drawn from photographs I’ve found on the net. Getting the scenes right is important to me.

This one is of Harrods. I found a number of shots showing the same angle, which was fortunate, because I need to take out the people, cars etc – they will be animated later.

Hello world.

2008-03-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

This is my first post here, and I hope the first of many more. I’ll mainly be writing about my animation projects.

Being a total rank amateur, I have little knowledge to impart, but I’ll let you into the way I’m doing things (right or wrong) and see if I ever get there.

The project I’m working on is a pop video of a song my husband co-wrote nearly thirty years ago. The lead singer is dead, the master tape was double-baked and this song didn’t survive. Never mind, I have a copy of the demo that I’ve cleaned up.

Meet the main character. He was a great guy and I want to show the essence of him, even if in a caricature.