Day 13 - Leon Sketches

27th Dec '11

Sketched while watching the movie for the second time.. LOVE this film! :) There's a sadass hindi re-make called 'Bichchoo' which means Scorpion. In the Hindi version they replaced Leon's favorite plant with a scorpion and reduced the age difference between Mathilda and Leon. Its damn sad. Anyway here're the sketches. It took a really long time to get Natalie Portman's younger face right. :-s Looks sorta similar by the last sketch.






Sketched while watching the movie for the second time.. LOVE this film! :) There's a sadass hindi re-make called 'Bichchoo' which means Scorpion. In the Hindi version they replaced Leon's favorite plant with a scorpion and reduced the age difference between Mathilda and Leon. Its damn sad. Anyway here're the sketches. It took a really long time to get Natalie Portman's younger face right. :-s Looks sorta similar by the last sketch.

Day 12 - Batman

26th Dec '11


Well I tried to study penciling, using flat colours and simplication of anatomy using a TV based character for reference. One of my favorites is batman, so here's the artwork.


And here's the reference image...
It kinda looks traced, but it's not..I'm pretty happy with it. I got to learn something new. Perfect for Project JH.

Day 11 - Title Image

25th Dec '11

Wooohoooo!!!! Finally I've drawn something for the title bar. I had earlier as well, but I never thought anything was good enough. So much for self-destruction! I'm almost happy with how it turned out! Hope you guys enjoy it.

Incase I change it later on, here's a snapshot.

And here's the initial sketch. :P!

And here's a Bonus: Did a quickie for my writing blog 'what are the odds'.

Chao! :)

Merry Christmas!!

25th Dec '11

Merry Christmas to all!!!

Here in India we don't celebrate much of Christmas - unless we're christian! Being Goan does has its advantages of being part of this festival. Goa is paradise in December. It's lit, people are jolly and exchanging cakes, Bebinka, Dodol and chocolates. You see Christmas trees and cribs around you and the churches have the traditional Konkani midnight mass. Although I didn't do much this Christmas, I think it may have just been the best 2 days of Christmas I've ever celebrated. My family got together and me and my cousins made it through an impromptu plan of Shaami(my elder cousin bro - Abhinav)'s reckless driving (he's gonna kill me if he reads this), a match of beach Frisbee, swimming at Shivani-Soham's place, Rummikub and Pictionary (with Dhanu's innovate drawing skills), ghost stories at the terrace, and more swimming and eating at my place. So much that my body's been ACHING! :'(

BUT here's the thing guys, this post was NOT about Christmas, although I have the gift for gab. This is about Inception - the best part of today!
I was waiting to get a copy of a Bluray print of Inception and had vowed not to watch for the second time until I did. Thanks to Alok and a wonderful Christmas vacation, I could fulfill my long awaited rewatch! :D
Read the rest of this post if your not bored yet.

Day 10 - Run Lola Run Boards

23rd Dec '11

I can almost feel time slipping by. I can' do anything but apologise to you, blog. Project JH went straight downhill since my jury and it's really hard to work here at home. So I've been doodling, but they're not PJH-worthy. So here's the latest. Practiced storyboarding the first few minutes of Run Lola Run..

Day 9 - Panjim Church

17th Dec 2011



2 hours 15 mins - approximately the time I took to make this. I still dunno how to work well with dry pastels.. I mean, the thing smudges over more than I need it too..And its unclear how to get the light and the time of the day into the painting.. Anyway, hopefully it'll come with a little more reading and practice...

Finally something for PJH. It's really been a while and I'm so sorry I haven't done more artwork for a huge gap in between day 9 and today.

Ram-dhara trip

A bunch of us (En, Kitu, Nishit, Anindiya, Pooja, Shekhar, Shaan, Saurabh and Chiru sir) went for a sketching trip at Raam-dhaara). These are some pages from the sketchbook.

Shame!

Hello, Blog.

Yes, I am truly very very disappointed with myself. I haven't even logged in in all the shame. I'm sure noone must be waiting for the next Project JH posts, of-course, but I had my jury on the 8th and my last post seems to have been on the 6th. I don't have anything made for JH since and I feel like I've cheated myself. So, atleast for the blog, by tomorrow I will be uploading some sketches, old as well as new, and start writing down briefs for my Mailbox film which will probably and hopefully be complete by the end of March 2012.

I have been home since the 12th. After my jury I watched a few more, chilled, watched movies, organized all my data and made backups. It seems to be a great idea to keep a backup atleast every 31st of the month. Very nice indeed. Akhil (fellow MITian and Goan) and I drove down on the 11th and reached Goa very late. I should've started work by 12th, but home's getting to me. I'm absorbing the wonderful food and relaxation - almost storing it up for the coming Sem. I'm not gonna be seeing a lot of home then, which is why I wanna make the most of it. En and I have kept it touch with each other to make sure we're working somehow, and my mailbox story started fleshing out after some brain-nibbing! Sometimes I even get a headache coz my mind runs faster than my hands! Did some photography today with Aakash at Fontainhas (the old protected part of Panjim), but it got dark coz we meet a friend Assavari who's a photographer. Had sandwiches with her and heard a lot of stories about photography and how Goa was back in the old days. Learnt a lot and got a few inspirations for my characters. You can check out the photos HERE.

Hopefully you guys will enjoy the coming film. My first real short film!! Until then, small goals, an illustration/sketch or two a day, or short 3D clips to encourage myself will fill me up.

The pencil stays greedy.

Ghach!

Living Lines Library

I feel like I found a HUGE box of treasure!!!!

Tangled STORYBOARDS!!!!!!!

And for the rest of the wonderful Art of, click HERE..!

Thanks Living Lines Library - a wonderful blog that shares wonderful artwork with the rest of us ordinary people. :)!

Day 7 & 8 - Ball Bounce 01

5th n 6th Dec 2011

So basically I'm doing my sem 6 and 7 all over again. I think I need to refresh my basics.. Thanks to the amazing links from the 11 sec club blog like fighting panda and brendon body, I am able to finish this basic ball bounce and I've become a little more confident in doing its timing in 3D now.. So here goes.. Enjoy!



And this was easier! All I had to do was move the keys along the X axis and walla! it was done. The rotation took a little time and maybe I could work a little more on it.. Had to experiment more with the rig I had. In my next experiment I'll be trying different balls without a rig.. Lets see how that one turns out. :P!



© 2011

Day 5 - Light study with dry pastels

2nd Dec 2011

Still experimenting with pastels... Friends in the industry who have seen my work have suggested me to work on my light study, so I decided to learn it using color and using my photos for reference... Here's what I came up with:


This was the first and most sad attempt with dry pastels.. I got frustrated and started again..


Finally I got the hang of the color temperature somehow.. This is En.

This one is a light study of my friend Tapan Agarwal..He's in Product Design..

Day 6 - Solids and more light study

3rd Dec 2011


More light study with dry pastels, using Ron Lemens tutorial..(On the right are sketches of the amazing Nicolas Villarreal's character ) Here's a snapshot:

And so with that I learnt how light falls on these basic objects, which are further used to construct more organic forms such as a human head.

Day 4 - Friend's caricature & Balto sketches

Sketches from the model sheets of Balto.. I really needed to learn the anatomy of dogs, so I went through the archives of the amazing Academy of Art and Character Design Blog for reference, a very helpful site for every aspiring artist/animator.

Caricature of Tapan Aslot, my junior in Animation. Din take much time!

Day 3 - PJH - Kapil Dev's in coll!

30th Nov 2011

Phew.. that was the most jobless and tiring day together! I basically wasted the whole day, (almost), playing adventure world and refreshing the page again and again when my energy got over, waiting for it to refill. (It's a really nice game with great colours and design! Love it. Go zynga!)

Later I went to the canteen (all together I went there 5 times between 10 am and 7pm). Now you might wonder how I'm so jobless so suddenly. Well, basically I am going through the i-hardly-care-phase which happens just before the juries. I'm not tense, infact on the contrary, I really stop caring about all the incomplete work. mind you this happens only at saturation point, and I'd already hit it. I was sick of Maya. And to top it, I hated it. Hated every bit of it.

En went to sleep at 5pm in the old studio and I decided to dig up Red (our plant)'s soil to keep it loose. After it was all loose it felt like meditation to touch it. And we din do gestures, or play frisbee. People don't have time for fun now. Why? Because they're preparing for their juries 1 week prior, something they should have done ages back. My poor friend Alok is having a hard time with modelling. He's on the verge of commiting suicide - and before I got there I had to do something. ANYthing. That's one of the reasons Project JH happened, and happened now, that.

Before I was to leave for hostel en was at the peak of a swing. So I decided to stay and start his rigging for him. Din wanna leave him grumpy. Then I had the worst food EVER ordered from Aswad. Salty uncooked noodles with no vegies and no chicken. The chicken lollypops were like rocks on sticks. Guhh! So after 2 bites I couldn't take it and threw them out. No wonder it was just 50 bucks.

Anisha called, and then Akar. This was just before I left, at 10pm! They urgently needed a caricature done, and they decided to ask me! The amazing cricketer Kapil Dev! He was gonna come to coll. today so they wanted to give him something. I was overexcited. Kapil Dev! Recieving my caricature of him! I could probably get a photo and a signature! Here was the catch - 9:30 am sharp with the dean! and it was to be kept a secret (for some reason)!
Anything to dump maya and do some 2D stuff!! That too with color. Little did I know that I was expecting so much from myself that I took a whole 6 hrs to finish it. 6 HOURS! It's 6 am right now, and I'm finally going to bed. I'm pretty happy with the results, and I hope you all like it too!

Day 2 - PJH - Food study

29th Nov 2011

So I was DYING, literally DYING to go home. So much that I was browsing food and recipes online to make when I get home. And I decided to torture myself and use dry pastels to get the likeliness of the color and lighting of the photograph. I normally suck at dry pastels, which is why I chose the medium. Realised that trying to paint food is a great way to learn color, texture and light! Here's the delicious mouth watering snap:

Day 1 - PJH - Earphone study

28th Nov 2011

My earphones. I tried to see the basic shapes and render it according to the multiple light sources on the lab's ceiling. Turned out okay.

Project JH!

This guy, Jonathan Hardesty , is truly an inspiration. Thanks En for sending me the link on facebook.
I'm overwhelmed so what I'm talking about may not be of perfect sense to anyone reading, so go ahead and read this post:
http://blog.fjasmin.net/2010/12/question-is-how-much-do-you-wanna-try.html


After that, go ahead and see the original thread by Jonathan Hardesty posted on conceptart.org.
Lately I've seen a lot of brilliant work from brilliant people. Another guy named James Benson made some kickass 3D animation. Click HERE to see it. I was so thrilled I had to email him and tell him what an inspiration he was! He's self taught for 8 months and he's already working and the creepiest and most scary part of it is that he's just 22! That's just 2 yrs older! And he's achieved SO much. One day I hope to get somewhere like these indiviuals. All my career role models are online, and here I am, working on my courses, complaining sometimes, when I really.can't.complain!


I've decided on two things:
1) Like Jonathan I am gonna make atleast 1 sketch and 1 painting a day. I will scan it and regularly put it up here, no matter HOW bad it is. There will be a daily post, a daily thread, telling myself how much I've improved. I dunno about forums as such, although it would be great to get feedback.
2) Animation is a part of my life. No matter what kind of blog this is (it started as my 'doodle' blog), I will freely post my thoughts on animation and on my dreams here, whether anyone finds it worky or not. I will also not care about the fact that I'm writing on a keyboard instead of a pen (something I often think of) :P! My mind wanders over a lot of things and I don't always put them down, but I will now, I will out here.

Lets see how this works out. I'm gonna call this - project JH (for my inspiration). Well. I'll start today. It's 10:37, so I'll scan whatever I make by tomorrow.

--

"The only difference between successful people and
unsuccessful people is extraordinary determination."

-- Mary Kay Ash

Gaumuk, Mt. Abu

When we went to Gaumuk (a scenic point in Mt. Abu), it overlooks a lake and its on the top of a mountain. We had nothing much to do but sit, chat, and watch other tourists. So I took my sketchbook out and sketched this.
The day I drew them I wanted to paint them but I didn't have my materials there.. So I painted them digitally last night. Here's the outcome!



Frankly I'm pretty happy with it, but I wanna learn some more of those texture brushes everyone talks about! Enjoy.

DAC November Entry

DAC (Design a character)'s November shape challenge. The above are the shapes. And I made this outta them. Still have to learn a lot about colours, and I'm finding it extremely difficult to detail out anything! I like loose big patches of color, but I wanna break from it and detail the finer things!

Quick Sketch

Had been thinking of coloring this doodle of a scared girl since very long. Finally finished it. My lighting isn't that great yet, and I didn't even correct the drawing, (you'll notice the problems with it if you flip horizontally). Well anyway, here she is!



Yes, I admit!!! I like red heads!!!

Recent Doodles on the new sketchbook

Some stuff I've been sketching in my new bechain nagri sketchbook that looks so good I don't even feel like using it.. Anyway - here they are.

Helicop Dance

We took about 16 hours at a stretch to make this...
It was an interesting assignment! We had to collect some junk that was smaller than our fists, and then make characters out of it. They had to be unique and nonsensical! This was my second attempt at model animation, and its the best I could do with the given time.

The most interesting part was creating music with junk as well! We made instruments and used vocals like acapella - something I'd never explored before. Was a wonderful experience. No need to download anymore!

The last step was storyboarding, creating an animatic, a dope sheet, setting up a green/blue screen and animating it with a synch to the music. And this was the final product! It's not smooth and perfect, but I learnt more about thinking out of the box and about rhythm. :)

Thanks to my batchmate Alok and my junior-friends for helping in with the music!



This is the basic animatics made to show the movement of Helicop. Now all though it looks pretty okay I couldn't manage to put some of the shots in the final video - like the turn around. The camera shook and it looked like an earquake in the picture! Will take better precautions next time. Instead I replaced the bad footage with extra shots like the foo tapping and the closeup of the head.

I learnt how to keep it as basic and readable as possible. Had to add more frames in the end to sync it with our final edited track of 10 seconds.

Mt. Abu sketches

I had a wonderful time at Mt. Abu, at Tapan's place. It was really a well-lit diwali! We went to his school, to Nakki lake, Bikaner Palace, Trevor's Tank, Gurushikhar, Dilwara Jain Temple, Gaumuk and Shiv Temple. We went to the tibetan market and shopped on the last day! There was crowd everywhere, mostly Gujjus.

Luckily I got to sketch at some of the places we visited. Here is some of the stuff outta my sketchbook.






Here's a comic strip I came up with with Dwaj - Tapan's younger cousin in std. 8. He loves Osama - he's obsessed with drawing him. There were a lot of cows in Abu and we had just come back from Chitrakatha '11 - COWfest.. So I made the trip's theme - Osama VS. Cow! Here's the truth.



The last few drawings are for a shortfilm concept I'm working on about a girl who travels and visits her friends over the country and is made to eat by all the moms and aunties.