Watching old movies

I am watching old movies on Hulu Plus as my research for comics and animation- I caught this old serial about Chandu the magician, starring Bela Lugosi- produced in the 30's- this seems to be the the probable influence to Marvels Doctor Strange - the idea seems plausible- but here is my version of Chandu the magician...

quick sketch day

Hanging with my father yesterday- just sketching on the computer- I was into some old movies earlier and watched Mr Wong detective movies by Boris Karloff on Hulu plus- kind of a little stereotypical at the time of using and English actor to play a Chinese-American detective....but I digress- still good cinema--so I recreated a quick sketch I was working on at the time- I did this in Sketchbook Pro- still getting up the nerve to create assets for moving comics

oh well here it is- my version of Mr WONG

I can tell I need to work on clothing better- in the movies Mr Wong was formerly dressed- I may expand in the look in character sketches
peace...

Fan posting

I am really vegging out during the holiday break- I am becoming the ultimate couch potato- except trying to draw everything  I am seeing with my eyes- now watching The Fifth Element for the 20th time and trying to get a feel for the characters in the film- here is my bad attempt at Major Dallas ( aka Bruce Willis)....fan sketching away....

another pose test

Another test with 2d assets- I need to find out how to break or the limit of the 2d mapped object so using a standing pose that is near a t-pose will be a good test- So after creating the image in sketchbook pro 7 such that it has no background - I created a mesh object that has a uv image map consisting of the original image.  I then set up an armature that the mesh object is parented to- making the armature follow the flow of the figure pose give the ability to react well to posing- note the parenting option was with automatic weights. This works good for planar objects.... the ability to rotate limbs, and scale them in normal direction allows for a solution to looking like in perspective- the next test will be with linked meshed object that can more in relation to each other--- looking up

there is even the option of rotating the limb into and out of the image plane- which makes the idea of 2.5 d a cool solution

playing with assets

I am still researching the Comics Nextra directive and am looking at creating assets for motion comics and digital comics- I want to see what will break assets and what will flow well- the first step is to create the 2d asset in either photoshop/ scanned from drawing, or in sketchbook pro. Next will be to create the wireframe plane element that will use the 2d asset . here are two images- one create in sketchbook pro, the other created in blender as the first object as a UV map to a mesh object created in Blender ... this object can be rigged with bone deformers and mesh shape keys for slight movements and  expressions- the image that has different moveable features will be build of several plane objects that can slide in respect to one another creating a false sense of head turning during a motion sequence

the node set up  was done in blender using cycles- a shadeless material set up was used for images

and bones were parented over a planar mesh which can have shape keys set during animation

random quik sketch wednesday

Just trying to get ready for Comics Nextra a pats cool idea of creating a mix of motion comics with 2.5 D animation. So I am working on my image creation and digital puppet creating skills- Just so I don't loose a step on drawing- which I will be doing a ton of in the near term as a work on FX Mulrooney as a first test of the process- I wanted to just park a couple of sketch images I did this week and the past week- so here it is- looks like a lot of heads

sketching again

I started sketching back on computer again after the crash of my computer-I lost some programs but maintained most- and upgraded my OS jammed some of my photoshop that I loved, so I decided to re- purchase sketchbook pro and moved to version 7.

I have to say I am starting to like it- so much so that I will attempt some of my comic work to be done in sketchbook pro. When  I was using version 6, I did not think the program was ready for comic production like photoshop CS5 is- but I will rethink this potential with all the new features I am discovering.  The program definitely works as far concept drawings- but I will find out if it can be crisp and clean as photoshop toward comic production... I will still have to use photoshop for final finishes but will look to sketchbook pro for initial pre production and mid production tasks- fingers crossed.