animation projects

This class alternates between being super chill and super intense and it's sort of giving me creative whiplash a little bit. Several weeks ago, we did a five-to-seven second rotoscope in which we were supposed to change something to make it more fantastical. I did a home video of Brennie and I beating on each other with foam swords but turned us into Jedi.

The project took about 45 hours over the course of two weeks and was absolutely crazy. I actually made myself sick working on it for seven hours at a stretch multiple days in a row, but that said, I think it turned out pretty sweet.

younglings from Kasha Prinzing on Vimeo.

Then we did a week or two of derpy in-class assignments meant to teach us the basic principles of freehand animation, like staging:

arcs:

and character modelling:

These assignments were meant to only take an hour or two apiece and be super simple. I think I only spent a few hours in the digital lab outside of class that week. It was sooooo chill. But now there's this new hardcore project where we're in groups of three producing ten seconds of film apiece that focus on a common theme. We have, you guessed it, two weeks. 

I really liked that blue-haired girl I drew, who also showed up in one of our first projects, the thaumatrope. See, there she is.

Actually, both of these chicks have showed up in my notes before.

So I decided to use them for this assignment.

I'm definitely learning a lot about Flash with this project. That whole set is one very large very complex symbol, and I have a whole nother one to make for the close-up shots.

So that's where this class is going. It's a great time, and I don't even hate spending that much time drawing - in fact, I love it - but I do wish we had slightly more room in the syllabus for, y'know, sleeping.

Commander Kip
"I roll to wrangle the bantha."
Normal is overrated!

Thing of the Day: A Night to Remember by Betty Who

I just love this. So much. Wow.



I think I've played it like fifty times today. Her voice is one of my favorite kinds of voices and this track has a great groove. Also... she's coming to Olaf on Friday and I'm sooo pumped.

Thank you, Mads, for turning me on to this awesome artist. You always have the best taste in music.

Commander Kip
"We must have seen them when they were new and weird." "No, they're still weird."
Normal is overrated!

so this star wars roleplay

is quite a time.

Leth is a blast to play.

After we got surrounded by some mercenaries in the last session, Leth was forced to finally use her lightsaber in public and do some leaping around and she cleaved some guys in half and it was epic.

Oops what.

So after taking a shot to the shoulder while they were escaping the Separatist base a few weeks ago (and seducing Hippolyta on the way back to Coruscant), Leth had some real talk with Hip while getting patched up. I finally got her to tell most of her tragic backstory and why she has such a what-if-I-can't-protect-you complex, hooray.

Also help they're cute.

This was right after they managed to defuse the bomb on the Separatist escape shuttle and very narrowly avoided certain obliteration.

Hip.

And this is Ssussexx, Matt's Trandoshan noble. He's very fancy, very small, and almost entirely useless at everything except first aid, at which he is an actual genius and can basically reanimate corpses.

And finally Moss, Riley's Bothan scout.

I'll do my best to draw Connor and Josh's characters at some point as well.

Commander Kip
"I'm pretty sure Great Con gives you +10 to bluff."
Normal is overrated!

sweet quarian princess child

Been doing my best to develop a less humanoid face for Tali.

I think the top right one there might be my favorite.

This animation project is kickin' my butt. I'll be sure to put it up here once it's done (hopefully by the due date, Wednesday. Fingers crossed).

Commander Kip
"She went to bed early because she got up at stupid."
Normal is overrated!

happy vday have some trash

More Jack and Miranda, surprise! Wow, some of these have been lying around unfinished since before Italy. I was up until like 2am on a school night earlier this week, finishing them so I could post them all at once. Life choices. Yeah.

Yes, those are most of the lyrics of the Amanda Palmer song "I Want You But I Don't Need You" because it's painfully accurate for Jack and Miranda and I couldn't resist.

And there they are flying Haven, the ship they're currently living in together. Because they're so grossly adorable it's ridiculous.

Real life was nice yesterday. Matt and I went and got Japanese food and saw the school production of Cymbeline because real dates woo! And then we played Star Wars DnD and broke Matt's useless Trandoshan Noble out of the Separatist base and Leth and Hippolyta kissed during a firefight and it was magnificent. All in all, not half bad for a Valentine's Day.

Commander Kip
"All right, Bok, it's your turn. What do you do?" *machine gun hands* "Brrrrap!"
Normal is overrated!

sheps sheps and more sheps

It was Cloor's birthday last week, so I drew her engineer Shep! 

And Anna's Shep! Even though it wasn't her birthday! (Because Wren Shepard is really hot.) And coloring with ArtRage is a truly fantastic experience.

And my own Rain Shepard, because I can't not. Apparently.

Suit liner? Suit liner.

Oh jeez, I am out of practice at drawing Garrus. Yeesh.

I also made a half-assed attempt at Major Alenko. Because his hair is ridiculous.

And a random unmasked quarian. Because.

I have many drawings of Jack and Miranda to upload still. I apologize in advance. (No I don't. I'm not sorry. I will never be sorry.)

Commander Kip
"Voltage and Fireball is not a bad drink!"
Normal is overrated!

in which KP knows how to draw one thing and one thing only

And that thing is Suvoi Emana. Surprise.

Modeled using the facial features of Claudia Black.

Elijah, "Doctor" Enoch, Suvoi, and Erik, in their mining jumpsuits.

Honestly that whole storyline was an excuse for me to draw Suvoi in a tank top, not gonna lie.

Well, there might have been character development too. Hard to avoid when you lock your characters in an underground medical facility while subterranean horrors rage through the rest of the complex causing death, terror and power outages. What else is there to do but find out some things about each other?

I mean, who knew Erik could sing? Or be comforting, for that matter?

Will ye go, lassie, go

And we'll all go together

To pluck wild mountain thyme

From among the bloomin' heather

Giddy and I have had some truly spectacular roleplaying sessions with these two. We refer to this one, in which they try to murder each other in a Ratways alley in the rain, as the "Demons incident" after the very apt Imagine Dragons song. (Now, to be fair, he was hired to kill her because she'd become an important leader of the rebellion, and she was just defending herself, but it also ended with both of them losing large amounts of blood and also admitting that they were in love with each other.)

And now, allow me to walk you through the arduous process of using a tablet without a proper painting program, using Suvoi as an example.

Lines done in ArtRage. Nice brush. Pen sensitivity - A+.

Exported and flat-colored in Paint.Net because I didn't know how to do layers in ArtRage.

More layers in Paint.Net. No brushes available. Look at those gross round edges. And how blend?

Cropped, flattened and imported back to ArtRage. Brushes, great, blending knife, awesome, but no layers.

So that took the better part of an afternoon. What I wouldn't give for, say, Photoshop right about now.

Commander Kip
*towing van away* "Be careful, that's my... house."
Normal is overrated!