Christmas day doodles

Experiments with mist, colour and light

Snowy Photography

I've been doing nothing this last while and its been LOVELY. It feels like a long time since I've had a holiday where I've actually had time off. Not a holiday where I've been working my socks off constantly.

Between my utter laziness I did venture out with my dad today, to the shop. It took about half an hour to defrost the car. But once we got going it wasn't so bad. The roads are still very slippy here. Every other day it snows.

This was the view from my kitchen window today. Some amazing clouds formations today.

These are the family cars stuck at the bottom of our road, unable to get up the hill.

Along the way to the shop, I had my dad stop various times so I could take some snapshots.

This really is why I miss home so much when I'm living in Dundee. The scenery is just like nothing else. Especially on special days like this. The light was just gorgeous. The sea was warmer than the air and the land, so mist poured off the sea. 

I'm very glad I pinched my mam's camera. My camera doesn't capture colour and light quite like hers does.

All the pictures are in their unaltered state. I haven't bothered tweaking the colours- I don't think they need much, if any tweaking.

This is the old pier at Swartshoul (I hope thats how its spelt)

The nearest building here is my old primary school, caked in icing.

Suspicious bird is suspicious.

This is the Manse in Hillswick. I'm very proud of this picture. Probably one of the best photos - I think - I've ever taken.

Gary the Grey Seal

 

Character sheet for Gary The Grey Seal

Ozzy the Otter sketches

 

Ozzy the Otter characters here.

Tom the Tern, Paul the Puffin, James the Jellyfish, Claire the (yellow) Cod, Maria the (green) Mackerel, Chris the Crab and Gary the Grey Seal

Doodles again

An easy photoshop lineart tutorial

Well- hopefully easy to understand. 

Back home for Christmas now, so hopefully there will be a big burst of art and creative stuff over the next few weeks with my extra time :D

Home for Christmas! Semester 1 work compilation

Finished up my stuff today

Handed it all in to be marked

So pleased that its done

I ran out of time with a few things though-

forwards blockman walk cycle is cringe worthy

 No matter though- I get to go HOME TODAY!

HOME for the first time in 3 months!!! :D

Finished Flour Sack!

Disney film style similarities

 
I've been thinking recently about how incredibly similar looking Disney's stuff is in a lot of its films.

It makes me doubt how I draw cartoons myself. The following pictures are from Glen Keane's blog which is here

Across films with characters from different cultures, different countries,

different species, they all look the same. Look at their face shapes.

Heart/diamond shaped faces with floofy bouncy hair and big round eyes.

Sure, Disney is a company. They make cartoons and characters that will appeal and sell to the masses. Their goal is to make as much money as physically possible. But, is this good? Everything they produce is similar. Without colours and just looking at lines, the characters below could all be from the very same film.  

Aladin

Little Mermaid

Little Mermaid

The Fox and the Hound

Oliver and Company

Tarzan

Tangled

Of course Glen Keane's stuff sells. Its gorgeous. But surely someone along the way had a more original idea for a character. Above are main character roles from 6 different films, all of which he has designed. He has worked on many more besides this- these are just a few I plucked out the air.

I don't know... when I was young, to draw things like Disney was what I always aspired to. Yet, now- it just seems all too samey. Of course, the characters and films are beautiful and there is barely a single one I dislike. But that's not the point. 

It seems that Disney has copyrighted everything, including its style. In the past when I've just been drawing freehand stuff for me- I've been criticized to have copied Disney. I hadn't. 

To be original you have to draw things in a really outlandish way- say Tim Burton's stuff- before that I doubt there had been much in the way of animation quite like his- not that I know much about it, I don't really like his style so much.

But, what if you just want to draw things that are cute, not over-stylized, with plausible anatomy and still appealing? You instantly start walking into Disney territory. Thats what I want to do, without being whinged at that I'm copying Disney, when I haven't even watched a Disney film for weeks :P

Maybe I'm being paranoid but I remembered this short scene from Pochontas earlier and looked at my own little Ozzy and ...

Ozzy the Otter version 3.1

Yaaay... now- time for bed

Lazy background- I know
Need to learn how to make underwater backgrounds
And how to make them interesting

Ozzy the Otter

After a very very long night finishing off my essay and not a lot of sleep- the understatement of the century- I've not done a lot today for feeling a bit, for the lack of a better word- crap.

So I rewatched one of Disney's new 'Tinker-Bell' films.So suddenly I was inspired to try again with Ozzy.

 I still don't have a character design of him that I'm 100% satisfied with.

He is an awkward sod. I want him to be cute, yet still look like an otter, a European otter.

European otters are the least cute ones- well asides giant south american ones... they're just weird. Where Ozzy lives in the story- he would have to be a European otter. Its difficult because in order for him to look right I have to make him look older- yet I want him to appeal to a very young audience.

I also desperately need some good otter anatomy photographs.

None of my own otter photographs are much good. Otters are so rubbery looking, its so difficult to imagine what the muscles are doing underneath their skin. The otters at camperdown had been moved the last time I went up there. Previous to that I only ever saw them when the keepers came around to feed them.

Witch- steps

http://heylorlass.deviantart.com/favourites/#/d2263hn <--- stock used for reference

What a way to not to do my essay...

5 hours work. Photoshp is fun.

Ozzy the Otter

 

I said this last year, but maybe if I post this online it'll give me more motivation and think about it more seriously. For a while now I've wanted to remake 'Ozzy the Otter'. 

The original book that was printed and produced in 2007 was so rushed (I think it was 2007/8?)

A lot of it was so unfinished. The drawings were terrible..

Its pretty embarrassing now to look at it.

Since my new colouring technique 'AHA' moment, I redo it.

I would be able to colour them myself with relative ease on photoshop. 

I did some redesigning of Ozzy the Otter himself a good few months ago.

I was pleased with his new look. But these sketches are also old so.. I could probably rework them again and it still wouldn't look finished to me.

I also did some redesigning of Kirsteen the Killer Whale- whose name I'd probably change.  

I can't find that sketch to show you. I'm sure it was on my computer at one point.

In the original book, everyone who worked on the book had their name incorporated into a character.

Ozzy was his own character. Tom the Tern, Claire the Cod, James the Jellyfish etc etc. 

Maybe I'll actually do it this winter. I doubt it, but I like to hope I would/can. 

Probably the reason I haven't done it before now is because it seems to be a bit of a lonely venture.

After having so much fun the last time with the young enterprise group (and incredible stress, but lets forget that for now) it would be sad to just do it on my own. I think I'll have to call a meeting with anyone from that group - and anyone else besides who might be interested, to help me get some ideas and inspiration for it again. Then I could possibly try and get it properly published by a real publishing company this time- instead of self publishing and earn some royalties. That would be the ideal.

Snow days= Bunny rabbits

Hopefully it'll work this time... I tried uploading a full quality version and it just wouldn't work. So here it is- hopefully, a lower quality version

With the snow day, the uni and the art college were closed. I didn't have any paper or a lightbox or a line tester to do what I was supposed to be doing... so I produced this:

There was a rabbit that had lost its normal fear because it was so hungry and was eating the leaves on the bushes outside my window 9 meters or so away. My flat is on the 3rd floor so I get a perfect view of the cutie

I started filming and just as I thought, meh- I might just be able to put this up on facebook- ANOTHER rabbit appeared. And then a third!
I was like 'wowwww' and got all my flatmates to come see :D

And at one point there were 4 of them all nibbling and hopping around.

So... I filmed them til the light got bad (well... until it got dark- none of the light quality was good...) and then compiled it all with some music that I thought was suitable :D
The music is from the Fable 2 soundtrack. The track is called 'Bowerstone Market'

I'm in the middle of Dundee- so its pretty rare to see stuff like this in a city- very common back home- there are literally hundreds of thousands of rabbits.