Stars over Orr (Litho class #3)

Lithography stone, (ie that big limestone chunk) before printing on Wednesday. Since I'd never printed a litho stone before, I had no-idea how this would print or if it would even print. 

Ink roll up area w/paper and and timpan.

It took a couple of prints before I got the pressure and amount of ink right, but it was pretty interesting. This is how it printed. I really liked how the marks in the sky (made with a big old bent paintbrush; it's bristles had all separated out) ended up, and that the lines from the dip pen printed also. 

I printed an edition of 5 and then levigated the etch on the stone so I'll be starting a new image next week. So far I've changed my idea about 3 times so I'm going to sit down an plan it out this weekend. The name of this print is "Stars over Orr" because its loosely based on the Guild Wars 2 areas with the ruins and gigantic stone arches.  

As for the series on constellations (I'll decide on a good name soon!), this is my idea for Virgo, though the clothes might change a bit before it makes it to plate.

Finished painting!

Finished the painting a couple of days ago, spent yesterday merging and splitting layers and repainting small sections that only get seen for a few seconds as the camera moves. I've currently got around 30-35 layers  that made it through to aftereffects. As a bonus,  a screengrab of my workspace in Aftereffects, with a nifty 3 quarter-ish view of everything- almost in place. 

Today I'm focusing on the camera's path and getting some of the smaller particle systems in place. 

Master's Project: the last four weeks!

 Last four weeks of work till the submission date,  and I'm making good time with the painted assets,  which I'll arrange separately for the pdf submission aswell as within the composited avi. Something like the page below.

For the initial shot where it begins as lines drawing themselves into ruins, then colour brushes itself over, I've come up with some quick thumbnails; with a focus on space and light. Personally, I've been really trying to keep things loose with visible brushstrokes and blocks of colour. Its quite challenging for me to stop before I overpaint it so this has been a good experience in itself.

The previous blogpost is sparse with information because I was in a hurry and needed work online to show easily; the first few gifs preview the line drawing idea that I mentioned above. Then there are some early city concepts, and a further developed but still loose idea, some early set pieces and a short video clip of everything in 3D space. 

a quick mockup of how I want the upper city and tower to scale to the very detailed lower city. Though the tallest tower should be much more slender in the painted version- closer to the video example below. 

Lower city clip previewing an early camera movement and wave animation with 80% of the lower city assets completed.

A silhouette asset of the meteor strike that destroys the city- resulting in the ruined version you see at the start of the clip. 

Animex Sketchbook scans!

I had intended on posting these sooner. Oh well. 

Up until this point, I'd focused on trying to draw the hands of the various speakers.

Then after being 100% unable to draw Rhianna Pratchett correctly I gave up and drew Barry Meade (Fireproof studios) and shifted my focus to random thumbnail and environment ideas

(Pause in drawing for an excellent anatomy lecture from Stuart Sumida)

I think that next year they should run a thing on twitter called #Animexsketch or something similar, since I was certainly not the only attendee drawing through the lectures.

As for module work for the second semester, I'm working now on a series of teaser ideas for visual story telling and the Excelsior brief from before.