Graduation yet again

Yes, it's graduation time again, only this time I'm the one graduating! Yay! I can't believe I'm finally done after 3 1/2 years I'm done and I couldn't be happier! I'm also a little scared as well! But that comes with the territory of leaving school. I'm leaving behind alot of good friends at that school and I'm going to miss hanging out and talking with them everyday. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do after school (besides try to find a job of course) I've never not been in school before so it's a bit intimidating. I'm graduating with some very good friends of mine as well and I'd love for you guys to have a look at their demo reels.

Here's my demo reel which quite frankly I'm sick of looking at lol but here it is anyway.
www.christascribbles.com



Chelsey Shirahata
www.chemishi.com


Emi! We made it! We're done! And we're gonna kick ass at portfolio show!


Richard Van Sant
www.richardvansant.com


richard, good show dude. You weren't even nervous about review were you? lol

Nicole Ellison
www.nicoleellison.com


We didn't talk all that much but I've always been a real big fan of your work. I was super happy to hear that you passed review. It always irked me when the teachers would get on your case about not doing 3D stuff. Illustration is just a tough as 3D. If you're good at something you'll find a job doing just that. And you're definitely a good illustrator, for sure.

Rub Henao
www.nightmaresherbert.com


We didn't talk all that much either, Ruby but you've got top notch work and it's worth showing off! So that's what I'm doing. Good stuff! I love that snowy town!



A bunch of awesome people graduated last semester as well that I didn't get to blog about so I'll quickly link their demos down below. They've also got some of the best reels I've seen come out of our school so definitely give these guys a look!

Sean Pennock
www.seanpennock.com


Maria Walker
www.dustylantern.com


Ryan Ching
www.chingconcepts.com


Mark Robertson
www.jabberwalky.squarespace.com



That's all folks! Please check out those websites and demo reels, too much work has gone in to them for them to be unseen.

Back from the dead

Well it's been quite a while since I updated this! Alot has been going on especially with school. To break it down I'm very close to graduating. I can only hope the final review panel will be merciful. Below I've added some new animations I did this quarter and all the new things I've done are on my new website. www.christascribbles.com





There's been some mutterings of Wacom's new product out and frankly I'm really, really, reeeally excited for it! It's called the Inkling. Basically it allows you to draw with a pen on real paper. You can then attach the device to the computer and download your sketches and it automatically turns them into vector or bitmap images.
For people like me, who prefer to draw with pen and paper than draw digitally it's a Godsend lol! It's really affordable too. I can't wait! Here's the promo video:

The Animation Workshop

So recently on Vimeo I stumbled on a really cool short called "The Backwater Gospel" and instantly fell in love with it. It's got the most impressive art direction that I've ever seen in a 3D short. A couple days later we watched the short in class and watched a few more videos by the team that created "The Backwater Gospel" and all of their shorts were plain amazing. They're called The Animation Workshop on vimeo and I highly recommend you go and check them out. They've got some awesome awesome work.

Here's some of my favorites from their channel:

The Backwater Gospel:
Alittle violent but it's well worth the watch trust me.






Mighty Antlers:Very very well done fight scene in this one




The Saga of Biorn: Love the simplistic style to this one





Captain Awesome: HILARIOUS

Graduation 2!

Alright, so another graduation has come and gone and again I had a bunch of really close friends graduating this quarter whom I'll miss seeing everyday very much :< Here's their websites and their demo reels. Give them a look! :]



http://zsa2.com/

Zsazsalyn Deocampo 2010 Demo Reel from Zsazsalyn Deocampo on Vimeo.

ZsaZsa my bff! Major huge ginormous congrats on getting best in show! I was stoked when I heard the news. Good job! I'm definitely gonna miss talking to you everyday in school and setting up the orientation kits over the break will be less fun now D:


http://www.abpositivedesign.com/

Arnel, I'm so happy for you! And you finally got to leave AI lol You've always had really impressive design choices and compositions I'm so jealous! I'm actually really PO'd at whoever decided that you shouldn't get the blue ribbon this show. You totally deserved it, oh well. Keep drawing awesome, keep designing awesome, and just keep being awesome in general!

http://curtisperry.net/

C Perry Demo from Curtis Perry on Vimeo.

Curtis, man I think you've been at that school longer than all of us. I was thinking "Jeez, I don't think I'd ever be able to stick around as long as he has." But you did it and you came out with a sweet reel and now you can move on to other things! All that hard work paid off!


http://www.brandonlinconcepts.com/

Graduation demo reel Portfolio review corrections from Brandon Lin on Vimeo.

Hey Brandon, you're reel was kick ass you did some awesome work and it always made me super envious of your epic skillz! You winning best in show for Game Art was a no brainer you totally deserved it. I'm gonna be looking for your name in the credits of future games! Didn't know you as well as the three above but you still had really badass work so I couldn't help but give you some spot light as well :]

Well that's it! Again make sure to step by these guy's sites and watch their reels!

Salesman Pete

My 3D visual effects teacher showed us this awesome animated short the other day. I thought I'd share it. I love the fact that it's so stylized and it has an almost seamless blend of 2D and 3D. Check it out.

Salesman Pete from Salesman Pete on Vimeo.

Crows concept art and Brainstorm Logos

I've decided that I want to do a short moving illustration animation for my demo reel. If you don't know what a moving illustration is well it's a bit hard to describe so instead I'll show you an example.



Pretty neat right? Well my little animation is going to be called "Crows" I've not yet settled on a definite story and for all I know the title might change as well but I can tell you that it will involve a little boy and a scarecrow. Here's some sketches I did today. I'm trying to get a style for it down. I think I want it alittle grittier and a bit more obscure as far as stylizing goes but we'll see.



I've also been working on some logos for my pre-production team. Our "studio" is called Brainstorm Animation which we all decided on last week. So here are some of logos I did. We'll find out tomorrow if one of these gets picked for the logo or if we go with another teammates design. They're alittle rough I'll probably go back and edit them digitally.




And finally just something I sketched while watching the movie "White Out"

The Monk and the Monkey

So I found this fantastic little animated short while browsing around YouTube today. It's called "The Monk and the Monkey" it's a very well put together short with some superb animation. The backgrounds for this are just breathtaking and it has a very heart warming story to it. It's definitely worth checking out!



Here are some stills!






And the scene breakdown

The Monk & The Monkey breakdown from Brendan Carroll on Vimeo.

Graduation

A couple good friends of mine are graduating this quarter and I just wanted to give them some spotlight here because their demo reels really rocked the portfolio reviews last week. One of them will definitely get best in show I'm not sure which one because that's really a close call but it will almost undoubtly be one of these badass folks. Check out their sites and demo reels if you get the chance you won't regret it.


Minapaulos.com

SMALL -HD from mina s paulos on Vimeo.

Mina! Who's gonna keep me from going AWOL on 3D stuff now? Whooo? I'm gonna miss you, go out there in the real world and kickass and take names.



Rickquemado.me

Demo Reel 2010 from Rick Quemado on Vimeo.

Hey Rick! You definitely showed the school that 3D animation was not the be all and end all of the animation industry. You have some really slick stop mo pieces. I am jealous!




One last epic artist who is graduating this quarter. I didn't know him too well I've really only passed him in the halls on occasion but his demo reel impressed the hell out of me and should really be seen by more people.
Alimination.com

Ali Minaian Website Demo Reel from Ali Minaian on Vimeo.

Suuuper impressive stuff. I think this is one of the best reels I've seen come out of the school in the Game Art program.


Again if you get the chance check out these guys' websites and demo reels. They really have some impressive work :]

3CH

Yo, I was recently introduced to this neat program called 3CH. What it does is generate sentences for illustration/story ideas. It's pretty handy especially when you're having a block or if you're just in the mood to see really random sentences lol XD It gives you a set of 4 themes you can generate ideas from Darwin,Fantasy, Hollywood action, and Urban. It's neat check it out if you're in a block and can't think of anything to draw/write. Here's the link

Here are some themes that came up for me when I was playing with it:

"a meditating serial killer observes a woman in a factory."
"a hairy man with a hat fights with a young gangsta with headphones in a loft." this one makes me lol I don't know why.
"a crying lemur embraces a voodoo wizard in a shipyard."
"a gigantic spider strikes a gladiator in hell." Epic

Gobelins

For a while now I've been very inspired by the work of the students from Gobelins. It is a school in France dedicated to animation and film making. The work that has come out of that school is nothing short of amazing. There is always a fantastic sense of style in each animation they produce and often full of vibrancy with their color choice and fluid animation. They focus on 2D and 3D animation but I have to say that their 2D work is by far my favorite. They are really able to bring their characters to life with very subtle movements. Visit their website or their Youtube channel and watch the awesome unfold. Their animations are definitely worth the time to watch.

Here is my personal favorite it's called Fenrir




And here are some amazing screenshots from some of their shorts.

Alchemy

So I recently came upon this pretty neat program called Alchemy. It allows you to lay down quick shapes without having to dilly dally around with selections or marquee tools. It's essentially a program just for brainstorming. It's not meant for finishing a project in any way it doesn't even allow you to ctrl-z, which at first was a bit annoying but now it's a fun challenge. This is a great program to use at the first stages of conceptualizing.

It's a very simple program. The tool bar only appears if you mouse over it which gives you plenty of space to draw. It's not a hard program to understand in fact as soon as you open it you can pretty much pick it up immediately. What's cool is that it incorporates a sound effect which you can hook your mic up to and experiment with. I haven't tried that one yet but I thought that was a pretty clever way of dealing with a concept.It also has a mirror effect which comes in super handy and is fun to mess around with. I love that fact that once you get in to it, it restricts you from doing your usual work and allows you to play with shapes and forces you to step outside of the box creativity wise.

Overall, if you're a big fan of just sketching and conceptualizing (which you should be if you're an artist) this is an excellent program to play with. Check out the website Al.chemy.org if you want to download it or just get more info and such.




Some stuff I did real quick in Alchemy.

Pocket Watch

Tonight's sketch is...well I don't usually have alot of explanation behind bedtime sketches. They're mostly just random scenes from nothing in particular and this is no exception. Just a girl holding a pocket watch. Why she's blushing I dunno. I'll leave it up to you.










Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

Ooooh this video is adorable beyond words.




This game is going to be so ground breaking and full of awesome that your face with probably explode quite violently.




All joking aside, this man has some very valid points about copyright and remixing different media. I watch this video whenever I find a video on youtube that has been taken down because of "copyright infringement" when clearly no harm was done to the original artist.

Crash Course

Well yup I decided to make a sketchblog for all my pointless song based or otherwise lame sketches. Here's my newest one of some pilot who has crash landed somewhere ambiguous and scribbly.




















I found this demo reel through one of my teachers at school. This guy, Marek denko...holy crap this guy know how to model. I want to have his babies. Click that play button. Do it now!




Last but not least, Laundry Day. This is one of my all time favorite animated shorts. Not just because it's super fluid for a 2D student film but...well...I wouldn't want to give away the surprise. Have at it.