Wednesday 28 December 2016

RIP Carrie Fisher! (Princess Leia)

2016 takes another. My humble tribute to Carrie Fisher, who played one of the most badass princesses in Star Wars history. You will be sorely missed!

One with the force.

Monday 7 November 2016

Schoolism Assignment 1!

 Hi guys!

I've finally signed up for Schoolism! What a kickass education platform! I'm taking the Painting with Colour and Light course with Dice Tsutsumi and Robert Kondo! :) I hardly get the time to work on the assignments at a stretch with Totem, but here's no. 1 and no. 2.

Please note that the colours in the photo may be different because of my phone camera settings. These are live paintings, not done with the use of the reference photos. Critiques are welcome! 


Assignment1_1

Assignment1_1

This week, I have to study diffused lighting. I started with this challenging view of our office exterior in the monsoons - too many details! Took about an hour and a half for this one.


Assignment1_2
Assignment1_2
After the previous painting, I realized I should pick a simpler subject and focus on the 3 details they mentioned - Contact Shadow, Soft Shadows and Local Colour. Definitely helped.



Saturday 3 September 2016

Rusty Gestures (live)

02-09-16

Some super rusty gestures after what feels like a year! From my experience, I know it's easy to start something, but it's not easy to maintain it. I hope atleast for Sept, I manage with Totem!
All critique is welcome! 





Sunday 21 August 2016

Revisiting an old friend (DeviantArt)

21st Aug 2016

Old Logo VS New Logo
I can’t remember after how long I actually opened DeviantArt. It had been years. They've even changed their logo! DeviantArt is that great community of artists, novices, beginners, enthusiasts, professionals all sorts of people who come together to broadly share, discuss and learn art. I don’t know how I forgot about it. I had eve forgotten my password! When I remembered it and logged in, I noticed the 1999 notifications.

It gives me such a warm fuzzy feeling to go through that site today.

With all the instant platforms like Facebook and Instagram, people don’t maintain their blogs or Deviantart profiles anymore. But here’s the thing – Deviantart, CG Society, ConceptArt.org and Vimeo is where the real art community lies. Where you get love, critique and help from people within that community. I remember using Sketchaholic too, I wonder if that still functions.
These platforms were exciting and inspirational! Besides professionals, it’s where I found people who were on the same level as I was. Some grew faster, some slower, and it was so motivating to know and see that there are artists like me out there. I’m going to try making it a point to keep my Deviantart updated. I hope to see you guys there too! 

It's good to move with the times, but it's important to not forget the roots. I’m glad it still exists!

P.S: Sketchaholic is alive too!! :D




Monday 4 July 2016

Punk Girl

4th July 2014
This just happened while I prepared my artboard for another project. O_O



Monday 13 June 2016

Kill Bill Study Boards #1

13th June 2016

Study boards from Kill Bill Volume I - the first chapter. Learnt so much about cutting and anticipation in this scene! It's still not complete. I intend to go on a full film study board mission, as suggested by Emma Coats (Story artist). She has some incredibly challenging but useful story assignments on her blog - http://storyshots.tumblr.com/

Thanks to Tanveer Singh for the nomination! Better late than never no?





Monday 18 April 2016

Be the change you want to see.

18th April 2016

This is not an art post, but since I need as many people to read this as possible, I am sharing it here as well!

Arvind and I recently read about the 19 year old who is solving the world’s ocean pollution crisis. Boyan Slat is a Dutch engineering student single handedly developing the gyers (floating booms and processing platforms) which would potentially clean up 20 billion tonnes of plastic from the world's oceans; the plastic which kills millions of animals and damages thousands of cargo vessels every year. Arvind stressed on the fact that he was 19 – he was exceptionally impressed by a kid who showed that much drive, determination and hard work at such a young age.

For me, regardless of his age, this was so commendable. The age didn’t matter to me, infact I disagreed with Arvind, and mentioned how adults have it harder to do something for the greater good. Not only are they in a pathetic zone (they have full time jobs!), they also have responsibilities towards their families and are less imaginative and courageous than the youth since they are aware of the hindrances like the corruption of the government and lack of support from other bodies.
Arvind called these ‘excuses’. It hurt me quite deeply, as I felt like I was defending myself along with the other lazy adults. He mentioned how we are trying to change the animation industry in India by starting Totem – since it was something that everyone complains about, and it was something that mattered to us deeply. But we always think of things beyond Totem – things which need immediate attention like global warming, rising carbon levels, animal cruelty and abuse, poverty, failure of forest conservation and all kinds of waste and pollution caused by man.

After much thought and contemplation in solitude, I realized I really was making excuses. There’s no excuse for not fighting for things you truly believe in. There's no relative morality. For nature, for animals, for the welfare of all kinds. I need to take a drastic step to changing the way I live and how I contribute to these severe life threatening and destructive issues. We all do.

I started my research and found some truly inspirational people who I think we all need to listen to and help in their efforts to change the world for the better. These people have truly motivated me to change and take out the time and effort to improve. Here are some of those admirable people.

Lauren Singer - Environmentalist living a zero-waste lifestyle in NY


Boyan Slat - Engineer solving ocean-pollution
Tshering Tobgay - Prime Minister of the ONLY carbon negative country in the world (Bhutan)
Daily Dump - an Indian (Bangalore-based) oranganization promoting and educating about responsible garbage segregation and disposal, and it's benefits to individuals and the world.


There are many other inspirational people working towards such global causes, but these are the few who have deeply inspired me to do something!


Daily Dump's lovely terracotta compost-ers. 
I am taking the first few steps to solving the pollution and garbage segregation and disposal issue in our country, especially the cities which generate the maximum waste. A majority of people are aware, but not conscious of the waste situation. I am going to start waste segregation, composting of wet waste, recycling of dry waste and minimize my consumption of packaged products to discourage plastic use.

Through this initiative, I would like to influence and urge you all to make these tiny steps that would help in a big way. I am going to share my progress and relevant helpful info regarding the same. I would love to hear if and how these efforts are working for you guys as well! Let’s be more responsible and try to undo the shit we’ve already done, one step at a time.

Follow me on falling-coconuts.blogspot.in for my journey and for info and help to start your own!

With lots of love,
Nikhita

Saturday 6 February 2016

Detective chic

6th Feb 2016

So my wacom driver wasn't functioning properly. I decided to use this to my advantage and came up with this cut out lookin style. Tried to use a different pallet than my usual too! If any of u graphic designers/illustrators have a good tutorial on colour usage please send!

Just realized how bad by anatomy and proportion has gotten without practice! Although I was just messing around :P


Monday 4 January 2016

NY start on gestures

4th Jan 2016

Been a really long time since I did some live sketching. You'll see how the first page has pretty horrid lines and gestures, but as it goes to the later pages my hand is loosening up. On the later pages, I did less number of drawings and spent more time on my drawings. Have hope with your work y'all! :D

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The Greedy Pencil

This blog is a collection of (some of) my work, the art I do for fun, my inspirations and the sweat that goes into making animated films. Enjoy!