The Attempt on Joss Whedon's Fan Mail pt.2

While I am waiting for an opportunity to download adobe After Effects, I have been working on the image I plan on sending to Joss Whedon. So as usual I did some sketches to practice Joss Whedon's face, and try a new idea for the composition.

     Since this is to JOSS WHEDON, and he is a director that uses storyboard artists (I hope),  I decided to work on my compositions more and did thumbnails.

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       I like the one on the top left the best.  Bottom right is to intense, and this is still just a fun idea to give to somebody.  The bottom right defeats the whole purpose because you cannot even see if it is Joss Whedon, which is the whole point.  Of course form there I went to the tight rough.  

        When blowing this up to 11X17 size I realized something.

I had used the wrong format for the tight rough.  The tight rough template I used was for a side project that is suppose to be 8.5 x 11 size.  The solution to this is quite simple though.  I just trim both the working image and the final image when I send them to him.  Hopefully this will be one that gets sent a lot quicker, since it doesn't involve international shipping charges.

Let's Send Fan Art!

      A long time ago before this post, two members of my favorite Kpop group formed a sub unit called M&N.  These two artists happen to be Miryo and Narsha.  Needless to say, the fan girl in me squealed to very high lengths.  Even better, was when I found out that they had released an English remix of their song.   This made me very happy.  So I decided to send them a drawing as a way of saying thank you, and try to turn it into an attempt to found out information about making Music Videos in South Korea.

So first off I did some practice drawings and sketched out some ideas.

Afterwards I did a "working version" then I scanned and printed off a final version.  In the end I decided to send both versions to them since I would just wind up throwing it away to save space.

 I wrote letters, explaining the images, and asking questions that hopefully they will answer.

Then they got wrapped up and ready to be shipped.  Pretty much in the same way I did the Korra fan art that I sent, to Mike, Bryan, and Bill Rinaldi. So now it is just sitting under my bed waiting until the day that I can afford international shipping charges.

I had to wrap the images in old pillow cases because I had run out of newsprint.

The Critique:

- The idea is to create a cute image that will stand out form all the fan mail the artist already get and makr them want to answer the questions that I asked them.  In which case, I believe that it has the potential. to be successful.

- Artwork:  

            - In one of the images, it looks like I broke on e of the chibi's neck. Even with these being completely unrealistic, that will still look off.  However, I do believe I managed to get a likeness for each artist so that when they see it, they will know who each chibi is supposed to be,

            -  My attempt at hand lettering these was horrible.  It seems that I still haven't learned my lesson about that.

            -  My biggest issue is with the line work.  It is scratchy, and just looks bad.  That is actually because of a tool issue, 

                      These are non-photo blue pens, and boy do I love them!  I started using them while working on assignments while finishing up my degree. I love the fact that they don't erase, because I would always lose all of my structure line when trying to fish an image.  However the also indent the paper, and this causes a big issue with inking over top of them.  They are the reason that my final line art looks so bad.  Therefore they are now delegated to perspective grids and sketching.

                 - Overall I am not entirely dissatisfied with the outcome of this project, except for the inevitable long wait for shipping it.  These are meant to be quick drawings, that are still cute and well-done.  Despite the issues, I can easily live with how these turned out.  Will they reach them? Probably.  Bill Rinaldi got his artwork form and he even posted it on his tumbler page.

The I Don't Have Time For This Pr Bono Project pt.4

       The final images where very quick and not exactly pretty.

        However they are still readable which is the biggest point when storyboarding.  While working on the final boards I remembered how awesome drawing storyboards digitally can be.

      These two boards are the same perspective, shot etc.  The only thing that changes is that the car moves forward a little and that the head turns.  If I was doing this traditionally, I would either have to light board, redraw form scratch, or a number of time consuming options.  Here is what I did instead.

             I copied the under drawing from the first board.

Pasted it down for the other board.

Drew over the under drawing

And did the final drawing over it.

        Honestly, if I could have digital drawings babies, I would.  Do this traditionally and you would understand how much better this is.  Especially on a time limit like mine.   This wasn't the only time I did something like this during the project, and it can definitely become a beautiful magical time saver. 

I really love digital drawing.

             

The I Don't Have Time For This Pr Bono Project pt.3

      Normally I really prefer to do 2 full runs of thumbnails while going in two completely different directions.   I find this really helpful in coming up with better shots and camera pans.  I did not have time for this however so I had to go with my first run.
                       Next I made my storyboard formats for 4:3.  The producer wasn't sure what they were going to use at the time so I went with what he was hoping for.  After making my board pages for the correct format, I went ahead and did some blue line thumbnails from my first run.

 and then saved them as Photoshop files so that I could just open the file and work back into them for the final drawings.  I also saved a JPEG version so that I can make a PDF for the producer.

      I decided to try something new with using the horizon lines on this project.  I found a post on Tumblr about how you can use the horizon line to show which characters point of view the viewer is seeing.   Since the story is about a father and son who lost someone, I used the horizon line to show when it is the father's viewpoint and the son's viewpoint.  

     After I finished with the blue line thumbnails, I combined them into a PDF and sent them to the producer.  The reason I was sending these so much was because of the time limit and the fact that I was working two jobs.  I really had no idea if I would get them to the final stage in time or not.

         The producer happened to be in the lab where I was working so I went over the storyboards with him, and apparently there was a small problem with the steadicam shot that I had planned.  

The problem was that they were not sure if they could get a steadicam operator in time.  So I went back and planned out the sequence using still shots instead.  

I sent the alternate sequence to the producer and started to work on the final drawings.

The Storyboard Animatic Project of Learning pt.19

So I have found myself using blue line a lot more these days.  Like, alot, alot more.

         It started while I was working on this image.  The image was getting overly messy, and parts of the paper were ripping.

      I tried it with the light box and I was very unhappy with it.  It was coming out messier, the facial recognition was off, etc.  So I printed the original image in blue line instead.  Obviously blue line worked better.

     Since then I have been using it a lot.  Like, fuck dealing with a light board, I am just going to print blue line instead.

      Some of the reasons could be that i make more money now, so a $20 dollar ink cartridge is not as stressfull.  However I am still very poor so it  has been somethign I dread having to buy.  Another reason could be that I am jsut getting fed up with this project taking so long.  Blue Line is quicker and better than lightboarding in my opinion, so I am at the point where I will suck it up financially and just print it out.   Also there is the fact I am beginning to see that this project could actually be finished, and I am eager to reach that point,  so it is even more frustrating to have things slowed down making it take even longer to reach the finish line.