1 Year L'Anniversary ;)

I supposed to post this on the 20th of May (19th on the states) .. well it's better than never! I drew this during my flight back to Sydney :p It's been a year since i received an e-mail from AM, i still remember that i missed the phone call as well (>,<) .. well, happy 1 year anniversary! Have a pie ;)

one of my favourite scenes from Toy Story hehee :

"you saved our lives, and we are eternally grateful" - Aliens, Toy Story

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Chapter 2.1 - Sketches

Some sketches that i did last week.. i haven't done much sketching lately.. it was good to draw again..

and I've never drawn a scenery in proper way.. so the last drawing here would be my first attempt.. looks like i turned a rock into a giant egg hahah! i had fun though! :)

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Chapter 8 - Physical Strength Poses

Below are my sketches for this week Stu Pose! I try not to over think about it cause I usually make myself confuse by doing that :p My favourite poses are the ones I circled.  I lean towards pose no 9 because there is no props involved in that pose and it is just pure physical strength, and it is a very simple pose. I might have to do a lot of tweaking to make it seems less effortless cause at the moment it looks like he's pulling his legs up easily. The other one is no 10, the reason is simple, rock climbing is cool hahaa. I actually like no 6 and 5 too cause they have strong and long line of actions.

I browsed more basketball slam dunk photos and found Nate Robinson's photos during Sprite Slam Dunk Contest on 2010! (He's still in NY Knicks ^^). I used these photos as reference for my strength pose and I believe lots of physical strength is needed to do a slam dunk. Below is the updated sketches:

I did few more sketches, you could see them on the bottom right of the drawing area. I'd also like to thank my classmates for giving me such an awesome tips for drawing!

Complete Strength Sketches for Week 8!

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Chapter 8 - The Walk!

It's week 8 everybody! This goes too fast! (>w<)
Anyway, this week we're going to do a walk cycle! I went to the park and since there was nobody there, i decided to stay inside my car and observed the crowds. A lot of them were carrying grocery bags, back pack, and other objects, so it was a good chance to observe how the weight effects the body.

My first observation was on this guys who walked across the park. He was quite far away from the place I was sitting down so it's good, i could observe his movement without him noticing. (well.. it will be extremely awkward and embarrassing if the person caught me staring at him -o- ). I notice that there would be always this subtle movement on the chest and the head will follow up. For those who were carrying the backpack on one shoulder, I notice that the shoulder that carried the weight was tilted up and it was stiff. The object also effect on how the person is walking. My further observation also give me some new info that the way the body moves is also effected by the body shape and the personality. It was hard to observe the torso area since it was covered by the person's outfit. I also notice that the hip makes ∞ arc shape when it moves. I also clarify one thing that  always confuse me, this was the hip movement when the foot makes a contact to the ground. The hip will tilt up.
Below is one of the sketch I did today, i think the observation was really helpful.

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Break Time!

I bought Sharpies yesterday, i did some rough sketches and i could not sleep.. and i feel like drawing! i have not drawn something for awhile! (except our lovely Eager Beaver Mascot!) I miss drawing! argh! ^^ anyway.. the idea is about my heroes... It came up in my mind couple months ago and tried to draw it on computer but it did not work out.. i could not start drawing on computer :( i like the traditional pencil and paper approach.. uh well.. i think this drawing could be elaborated in the future.. i have some special plans for this.. but i dare not to plan it cause it usually will not work if I planned it.. ^^'' hope you like the drawing.. i owe AM for all the new drawing techniques they have taught me so far .. :)

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Chapter 5 - Time Flies

Well the theme of this week is.. time flies.. it does ^^' It's week 5 people! :) This week we have to make another Stu pose. The theme is Devastation. I have done some sketches.. I did not sketch as many as the those I did for the excitement pose. This time i want to let my right brain works. I would like to challenge myself whether I could elaborate much from  the pose that I have now. In my previous work I did not manage to apply all the animation principles to my pose. I particularly missed staging. So this time around I want to add some stories for the pose. Wish me luck ^^ ..

Here are the sketches:

Quick Revision on Photoshop:

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Chapter Three - Who's Excited? part 1

So this week we have new assignments which are sketching a pose about excitement and apply that on Stu, and the other one is to animate a ball. I am going to start with the sketch first.
So today i went to the cinema to see Harry Potter TDH Part 2, which was super awesome :). I was hoping to see some actions in the cinema. Sadly, the plan did not go that well..Some of the customers there did not look excited. I even saw a grumpy dad with his kid.. (i was like .. whaa?) .. anyway, in a nut shell.. i did not capture any excited pose.. :( I did sketch few poses while i was waiting for my friends:

Well...they all didn't look excited. I like the one on top right though. I was quite disappointed because i didn't manage to draw the poses, so i decided to switch to plan B, which i actually did not plan ^^''. I unconsciously observed the body language of the people surround me. I still remember there was this kid that looked excited. I did not manage to sketch him because i was filling my drink up -o-. So back to the boy, i kind of feel that the excitement effects the way he walked. I notice there was a lot of energy when he walked. It was shown through the weight shift when his lower body parts moving, which automatically effects the upper body parts movement as well. His head was held high, with wide smiles on his face, and his arms swung beside his body.

That was the only detailed observation I did. I felt I need to do more research so I went to YouTube to browse some footages. During the research, I kind of think that there is a thin line between excited and surprised. I might have think too much about this. However, this footage that i found, this is clearly show excitement. I'm going to use this for my reference :). I'll write more after my sketching session.. i should not spent a lot of time for this one cause i still have to animate the ball. :)

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I sketched more poses:

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Revision:

So I was talking with my friend earlier today, and got some feedback from him. It seems that my poses are not strong enough and some of them did not convey the idea of excitement, which i agree ^^. After the convo, i know what i am missing on my drawing.. it is the background story, the essence. My friend suggested me to put more action, a gesture that convey excitement. I found this very challenging since i dont want it to look cliche :) .. i think i am going to spend some time with my sketchbook :) .. 

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More and more sketches:

I did a new experiment today, i felt so stuck and watching video reference did not do any good to me.. so I record my own! ..and umm i am not going to post the video! ^^''

I continue to draw my pose from my video reference, and the image above is the result. However, I still feel not good about them. My last pose (22) I got that one from google image and i decided to choose that one because the other day I drew a beaver and it used the same pose. I remember the reason I drew the beaver is because i am very happy and always excited to see my friends in eager beaver groups. It is always exciting to visit the group because I always find something new that could learnt! So.. i might have crossing the line about being too attach with my own work, but i think i have to trust my gut this time :)

I think I learnt a lot more about sketching this week, my campus mentor Chris Chua, he gave me tips and trick which were very helpful! I applied the method he gave me and i think it works really well..

So next on my post would be.. posing with Stu!

Eager Beavers! Yeah!

I was taking a break and suddenly i want to draw a beaver ... i spent the last couple of weeks with the most awesome community i have ever met .. so this is kind of a tribute for them :)

To all my eager beavers family :) 

you guys are super awesome .. Cheers!

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Note: i have never observed a beaver before.. i am surprise to find out that they have webbed hind-feet. I found it in this website. 

Chapter Two - The Poses part 4

I have compiled my sketches.. following are the poses I chose.. My favourite is #12

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Chapter Two - The Poses part 3

I sketched more poses, but this time I did it using a different approach. I chatted with Yen-Shih couple days ago and he told me that we are allowed to draw based on a still image. I think that is a really good idea and it did not come across my mind. So I decided to sketch the poses based on image stills from the television series and 2 statues at my home. I found that it was easier for me to draw the pose through this method because it allows me to analyse the body shape and the line of actions thoroughly. One benefit from this method is that I could pause the television whenever I saw a good pose happening. The flaw would be the inability to observe the whole pose due to the scene framing. The solution for this is simply to re-create the pose by yourself and ask someone to take a picture of you... and that would be.. a little bit.. awkward.. ^^

This time I also have an upgrade for my sketches. They are not so stick figure-y now! They have boxes to represent their body parts! and these boxes really help A lot .. :)
Now I am going to pick my poses .. and i might need your help to choose my final ones ..
see you shortly :)

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Chapter Two - The Poses part 1

I went to the park yesterday to sketch up some people. Unfortunately there were only a kid with his bicycle, his dad, me, and my dogs. There were also a lot of people working on the construction site. I found it quite a challenge since i have never done this before. It was so hard to sketch them because they kept moving. At some point i became a little bit upset because i saw them in such a great pose but i was unable to draw it and the poses happened just only in a split second. I decided to record their activities and um ... it appears that i recorded the whole action wrongly, so i pretty much got .. nothing ^^''. Well it was a challenge, i guess i just have to do it more often and get used with the process :)

Some stuff that I learnt from yesterday was I become more aware about the line of actions that happen in the body. As I struggled to draw the pose, I decided to draw the line of actions first and then continue to draw the figure. Somehow it really helped me.. the tricky part would be when I drew the legs and hip. The reason is because when I reviewed the poses I drew.. I got them all mixed up. I confused with which one is the right leg and which one is the left leg and which way the hip is moving..

Here are my best attempts. I should do more drawings from now on..not an ordinary drawing, but a speed drawing.. hehe. Well folks.. Say hi to my stick figures! ^^ .. don't laugh! ^^''

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