December 2009 Sketches

A cute girl in her winter coat. I like how she turned out as far as her expression and the colours. You can see the purple shapes I started with underneath.

Odds and ends around my room... Nothing spectacular, just random stuff and junk...

Skull themed soldier... I think he'd be some sort of henchman; he's probably not cool enough to do evil on his own...

Experimenting with some sort of guy with a goat helmet head. He could control the powers of darkness. Like he can shoot a black fireball or turn himself into a shadow so weapons pass through him. That's what's illustrated on the left. Probably the guy in back would be the one used, and the guy in front could be a henchman or something...

This guy can change the DNA in his cells at a very quick rate. He needs DNA to alter it with, though, so one arm he has a polar bear claw (so he can turn his arm into a massive polar bear claw to attack) and the other has crow feathers, so he can make his arm disolve into crows (to annoy his enemies. His head has a wolf's pelt so he can change himself into a wolf to lunch at enemies. I guess this guy would be in some sort of fighting game (or something). I'd like to change him to winter themed (so the crows will have to change to something else - but there aren't many cool annoying winter birds).

This is an earlier sketch of the guy above when he comes on his power to alter his cells. His hand is kind of melting here on him. I had the idea that when he is overworked the cells will just kind of deteriorate like this until he rests.

Another one for the fighting game. I figured out this one's powers a while back. She can basically make quills or spikes out of practically anything in her body. She can shoot poison quills from her fists, create a blade like object for stabbing from her forearm, use her tail and roll up and charge an enemy with all her blades out on her back.

A Christmas themed guy. Actually this is the guy who ruined Christmas. In the full picture he's dragging away a Christmas tree and he's taking the candy cane away!

This brown bear came to visit his cousin, the polar bear. The polar bear has to fish for him, because the brown bear finds the water too cold.

These are based on some poeple I know... Yes, salt is destroying the one guy...

This is some woman who works at a Subway. I usually draw a certain type of girl, so this was just to do something different (with no reference as well).

Another of the evil snowmen who never made it into an animation this year... Maybe next year or another year.

Another girl picture... Her curly hair make her look more "ethnic" than she should, she was a white girl.

Items from around my room (drawn with looking at the page).

November 2009 Sketches

November is another mixed bag of things...

A girl with a weird animal over top of her. The animal is loosely based on a bear (body-wise). I have no idea where his head came from, though. I just sort of drew it and then the body.

Random drawings of things... A weird frog, the moon, some alien thing, some quick Simpsons with no references. This was a day when I couldn't think of what to draw.

An evil snowman. I was planning to make a Christmas animation and part of it was going to have an evil snowman. What actually happened is I had to work most of the time I was supposed to be off. :(

An earlier version and testing of the evil snowman idea...

In a drawing book I was reading, it suggested to draw things wihtout looking at the page and focusing on the outlines. These are all items from my room where I did just that. They're all action figures. Testament to me not looking at the page is the fact that most of the things don't line up on both sides. :( Anyway it was an interesting experiment and I can actually still tell what the things are, you could too if you saw my room. I plan on doing more of this in the future.

Another time when I had no idea what to draw. I had a rubbery kind of green toy that looked like this as a kid. That was what came in my head, so I drew it.

A Mexican guy comes to a fence with a no sombraro and no shakers sign and looses it. He drops his shakers and his hat gets blown off his head (meaning he could now enter).

A motorcycle and a guy with a mask (for no apparent reason).

I hadn't drawn any cartoony animals for a while so I decided to do a tired cliche of cat and mouse. I sometimes draw in pencil crayons. It seems to be easier to get things going that way sometimes.

A girl... I wanted her face to be chubby, but it came out too chubby.

This girl wasn't supposed to be east-asian, but she kind of looks like it to me...

October 2009 Sketches

October had a variety of things...

This is a bag pipe player. It was a really quick sketch I did from a photo. I wanted to get the hang of what bagpipes look like and what a guy playing them does with his mouth. This info was eventually used in the birthday card for my aunt:
http://animation.darkroar.com/swf/20091108.html


Two rabbits. The white/blue/purple one is kind of freaking out and the yellow one is drunk and having a hard time of things and generally ignoring the other one.

A girl...

My cat Kaylee asleep on an office chair she sleeps on in my room.

More rabbits...

Another girl... with a fairly big head for her body.

"Tiny" the elf. I started reading Shamus Calhane's book on animation and one of the exercises was to draw an elf a lot. I only did it a little, though and didn't finish the book yet.

A more final image of the guy I was making for a Hallowe'en animation. As I mentioned I eventually scrapped it, but his head had gone from being very pumpink like to being a lot more like a skull.

A guy who digs graves walks around...

A random monster because I felt like drawing and had nothing to draw...

September 2009 Sketches

Some sketches for September...

A girl standing at a door showing two fingers. Her face is a little deformed, but I like her the way she is, it somehow adds a bit of personality to her...

Here are two sketches of a pumpkin headed guy... He was being worked into a Hallowe'en animation that I eventually scrapped because I didn't like all of how it was going.

Here's some strangeness. A weird backwards dog, a weirder beaver and some other strangeness.

A celtic type guy with a sword standing in front of a stone pillar. At the bottom a guy in spiked shoulders is kind of like Shredder off Ninja Turtles.

August 2009 Sketches

I picked up a set of 3 small sketch books and decided to start using them. Images I put up here are just taken photos of the actual sketches. I could scan them, but it's more work. It's just convenient to snap a shot and post it up.

Some quick sketches to start. The first two are of little cats who screwed up and trying to look sad to say sorry and then happy to say "all better". The third is a girl and sleeping oriental guy in a loud jacket.

Birthday card for Mom

This is a birthday card I made for my mom last week:
http://www.darkroar.com/20090516_big.html

It wasn't overly inspired or anything, and I didn't spend my life on it, but it worked out OK. I got to play with the writing on the screen trick, which was kind of interesting to do. The cat's final pose when he's writing had his head drawn on paper and I traced it with the wacom tablet, which worked better than if I had drawn it directly. As an inbetween to scanning and drawing directly on the tablet I may try to make use of this in the future.

As usual, I started too late and had a lot to do at the last second and didn't do as much as I planned.

There will be quite a few birthdays end of July and early August, so I will have to start working now if I want to do something for everyone... We'll see... I also would like to do a few shorts (6-8 mins), but haven't found the time or energy.

Trinity of Wrestling

Wrestlemania was on the other week. I didn't watch it, I haven't been really into wreslting for a long time now. I used to be a bigger fan; I actually made two computer games about wrestling back in the late 90's. Still, one of the matches did kind of catch my interest: Shawn Michaels vs The Undertaker. Two of my all time favourites locking it up. It kind of got me thinking a bit deeper about wrestling and who I liked and why.

The "Trinity of Wrestling" for me is The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, and Mankind (Mick Foley). Each of them represents something different for me.

I suppose The Undertaker represents the ultimate aspiration. He is the unstoppable and undying deliverer of justice. No matter what happens along the way: betrayl, being buried alive, or whatever else the writers come up with in the long run the Undertaker always comes out on top. He has supernatural powers and is the ultimate judge, jury and executioner of all things in his universe. Immortality and power; the ultimate aspiration.

Next is Shawn Michaels who represents the things that some part of me wishes I was. The "sexy boy" and womanizer with incredible athletic gifts. The guy who puts on an amazing show every time. As cool as the Undertaker is, Shawn Michaels always puts on these amazing wrestling matches. There's just faster action and variety. Age and Christianity may have slowed down the act a bit, but HBK is still gold in the ring. Really this kind of attitude and ego with athletic gifts is also in various other wreslter characters such as the late Mr Perfect, Rick Rude, Owen Hart, and others.

Finally this brings us to Mankind (Mick Foley). For me, Mick represents myself as a wrestler. Mick is who I'd be if I was a wrestler. I'm not the biggest guy in the world, or the fastest or have a muscled body, but I've always had a talent for taking punishment. During my time in karate I was once compared to a tank, because I would just take the hits and hit back. I found it was easier that way than trying to speed around without having the required speed. During my time playing street hockey I once remember someone saying the great thing about me taking a hit was I would always come back smiling. For me the physical parts were the fun parts, although they were sometimes more painful then I let on.

Just as I mentioned that "sexy boy" above as an aspiration, Mick too once dreamed of being that kind of high flying, lover-boy. You can see it in his "Dude Love" character.

The duality of Mick's personality is also visible as is my own. There is the darkness pulled together in his early Mankind interviews. I still remember some of them: "... and on the eighth day, God created Mankind. Why was he having such a bad day? Why did he create all of you normal and forget so many important parts of me? He made the ear that was ripped from my head, a face that no longer exists... Deep inside you are all mirror images of me. The ugliness that exists outside of me, lives inside every one of you". Classic stuff. Then there is the contrast in his cheesy comedy like Mr Socko or seen all through his books.

I think Mick's one of the "good guys" in real life. He didn't live it up on the road, he saved to take care of his family. I have to really respect that and hope if I have a family I'll do the same thing.

So there you have it the three faces of wrestling for me. The immortal power, the egotistical performer, and a good guy.

A Birthday Card for Ken

This is a birthday card I made for Ken... (again with some limited sound effects). It's only about 7-8 seconds long: http://www.darkroar.com/20090328_big.html

A lot of it is kind of "inside".

Ah, memories...

• Ken was into AC\DC (see the poster).
• He's the only person I ever met who made farting noises with his hands (which he's doing when the video starts). It's the same principal as doing it with your underarm; you make some suction and then push it. I can do it as well, but Ken was always the master.
• Ken destroyed my SNES "R" button by doing the Razor's Edge in WWF Raw (see the controller above the window)
• Ken moved to Australia (see the boomerang on the wall and kangaroo in the background).
• Ken was balding and had a goatee when he left here. Somehow he managed to lose both sets of hair in Australia. Now we know it's from an exploding present.

The present exploding is kind of loosely based on Jokey Smurf. I don't know why... Again, this could have been better with more time spent. I didn't spend that much time with this one, but I think it's both personal and captures some tiny bit of funniness with it.

Anyway, hope he enjoys...

A Birthday Card for Lauren

This is the e-card I made for Lauren:
http://www.darkroar.com/20090302_big.html

It is about 45 seconds or so of animation with sound. The idea is that the cat is doing all these "bad/gross" things in the scenes, but it's for a good purpose. The scenes spell out the happy birthday at the end. So the hairball coughed up at the start becomes the "H", etc. The only exception is the double p's in Happy are via the one scratch scene and Lauren's entire name is spelt out with the rat's intestines.

On the one hand I'm happy with the animation for a start and I'm also happy it got done. On the other hand I would have liked to link the letters and scenes more closely. So, a mixed bag, but I didn't have enough time to really think things through properly.

I may post some sketches or scene ideas later that lead up to this.

This was done with Toon Boom Animate. I recently "cross-graded" to it from Toon Boom Studio and like it quite a bit. There were some irritations with it, though.