Days 31 to 44: Melbournians stung by aliens

Another journal at my little blog island! (:
Putting the last two entries of the previous journal here so that the schedule works out better for me.
Changed the header of my blog to a more minimalistic written url of the site.

Let’s go! Journal time!

DAY 31: 20th wed

• train adventures where I finally begin to draw much bigger on my small sketchbook. People move a lot on trains as I only get to draw body parts before they move again.

• Perspective & Composition Painting practice

2 point perspective

Composition Paint over (needs lots of improvement still!) Brendan pointed out that the tent was too bright and some detailing in the campfire is needed. There’s a lot more other things that need fixing.

DAY 32: 21st thurs

• Train adventures; note that I take photos of the same page twice as I draw upside down too.

Body parts mostly as people move and won’t stay still!

Some hands I caught sight of before they headed out of the carriage and the back of a lady.

Newspaper reader taking the space and a random leg growing out of his shoulder.

• NukeX newbie level: interface & keying intro
• Homework: a little behind!!

DAY 33: 22nd fri

• Train adventures; drawing torso muscles from memory…not accurate!

Was sitting next to a middle aged gentleman snoring while I looked very shady.

Striving for likeness not going well: the spectacled males on the right hand side are actually supposed to be the same person. The second one is a closer and better attempt.

• NukeX newbie at greenscreen keying & compositing via projections in Maya

DAY 34: 23rd sat

• BABA week 7 catch up & homework

DAY 35: 24th sun

• Reading over Composition Rules
• Arms anatomy overview

DAY 36: 25th mon

• Legs anatomy overview
• BABA week 8 brief read through

DAY 37: 26th tues

• Legs anatomy overview & homework
• Arms homework

DAY 38: 27th wed

• train adventures

Wrinkly folds and little kid heads. Interesting: there was this little 4 or so year old girl jumping around from seat to seat, kissing the seat, lying across three seats several times, kept checking out a baby boy nearby, sang the alphabet terribly jumbled aloud–let’s just say she was really active (she couldn’t stay still) and alert.

A mini creepy, totally-not-suspiciously-drawing-people self portrait at the lower right (No I’m not a dislocated foot wearing sandals). Caught myself reflected in a train window and just quickly sketched my reflection before the tunnels pass. Also random knees, feet and faces.

So far it’s: oh it’s a hand to draw! A head! A hairstyle! An arm! Some clothing folds! A face!

Just had to draw Madeline from the top of my head because the cartoon series’ jingle got stuck in my head; especially that line about being big does not mean you are tough. learning about Photoshop for 3D texturing and Ndo2

DAY 39: 28th thur

• train adventures

Melbourne random features. The big foot also resides there. People flock to it from all parts of the world to experience its exceptional fragrance.

Suspicious-of-me grumpy man who quickly got off to his station before I could draw him any longer, intent novel reader in his own world, newspaper reader and a sleeper.

Hair, tree branches and a man with very feminine looking lips.

• played with the wonders of GanttProject freeware; Gantt charts aren’t new to me but useful
• vague short film storyboards (that got scrapped) for a 4/5 week project & working out bottom up camera angle and perspective for myself

Rudimentary version of Melbourne. Figured that I needed to pump things more quickly so I stopped drawing and 3D modeled (greyboxed) buildings instead.

Alien invasion imminent. Dead bird idea (kudos to whoever in my team who thought up the idea) idea was scrapped as a realistically modeled bird would take beyond 4 weeks.

• short film concepts for alien motherships, drop ships and fighter ships; this is an area I never thought would be doing as I haven’t designed sci-fi things before. People telling me I should reference movies & classics I haven’t watched before and I was supposed to be ashamed for not watching the popular disaster films and action films to begin with.

The lower right one looks ridiculous. It’s basically wearing “eat me, I’m a lobster” sign. Did some shrimp studies to get used to drawing the critters.

At first it was really out of my comfort zone but drawing a mix of real creatures and designs it helped me ease into it a lot more and figuring out what the group wants. Brendan rightly pointed out that the last one looked like a predator. And I didn’t even watch those films; was just playing with shapes.

Apparently I made people hungry for shrimps and lobster. By them saying this, I felt hungry too.

The tiny one at the lower left is too cutesy to be menancing, fast and scary. I need to go towards a more harsher approach perhaps. Some more frustrated drawings.

DAY 40: March 1st fri

• no train adventures: too sleep deprived to focus due to working on thumbs above
• Film composition & Team management intro

• Alien invasion film project continued: rough design of main cannon below and concept feedback I received included requiring more guns, fast/scary/menacing designs and more iterations. Now designing the fighter ships instead as Steph Pryor has better mother-ship concepts. I have learned I need to space out my thumbs out as it was too packed and people didn’t realise some of the range of variations I’ve done as they skip over many things. Next time!! Next time, gadget!

Concepted out Steph Pryor’s (fellow concept artist on the project) idea of a charmeleon eye mechanised laser cannon as the main weapon of choice for the mothership.

• too sleep deprived & brain-dead (and NukeX refused to work) to learn about camera tracking in NukeX unfortunately

DAY 41: 2nd sat

• BABA week 8 forums catchup
• Alien invasion project concepts continued: research & more iterations and variations

DAY 42: 3rd sun

•  Alien invasion project concepts continued: research & more iterations and variations

DAY 43: 4th mon

• Alien invasion 2nd iteration finished and turned in for approval:

Based on what my leader Sam Lennox and I liked, I did another round of iterations. Was increasingly frustrated because I didn’t like what I was doing so far yet I wanted to portray speed and deadly at the same time so I had to cut out protruding weaponry all together. No more fun thumbnailing anymore as one has to nail down a final design.

• • Modo 601 seminar attended. Why modo? Is still a question in mind despite reading about what it
    does. Though ILM and Pixar use it, I’m not sure how well it does everything it says, which is why I went. And it turns out it’s pretty sweet. $1500 is relatively cheap but…too expensive for me! It is very intuitive and easier compared to Maya as it keeps things within the one program! Not a must get however, at least, not yet.
  • got some train adventures going but..this post is too long as it is! Will post them next Friday.
  • Anatomy legs & feet overview

DAY 44: 5th tues

• Anatomy legs and feet overview & homework

Other thoughts lately

VFX/CG industry in Hollywood not doing too well. Something needs to be sorted out with an agreement between the film and VFX industries rather than hounding on the inevitable globalised playing field and outsourcing for cheap work. Or based on what I’ve read, VFX companies could make their own films and IP by partnering exclusively with a few producers/directors/etc (easier said than done). Still the same can be said about almost all industries from graphic design, illustration, programming, manufacturing and so on in regards to globalisation/outsourcing. The world is changing!

I hope to do my research project (and will have to blog about it) on the gruesome details of facial anatomy from the skull, muscle, skin, colouration, expressions and fat on the face (and perhaps neck). Squirmish at looking at cut up real bodies but…I’ll get over it. What should I tag it as? Facial Anatomy investigations? FAI? FA?

I’m juggling and juggling with so many things to learn; exciting. (: I just hope I don’t crash, burn and shut down like I did on Day 40; sleep deprivation (it varies from 1.5 to 4 hours sleep) is turning out to be a once/twice a week thing now but I hope to keep it minimal as I can help it. I can’t function and be productive as I want to be if I completely zombify myself!
It feels horrible doing that to my health!

And this post is becoming TOO long. 
Going to now make it weekly, even at the risk of making it too short!

Thanks for looking! (:
Connecting with me, commenting and/or constructive feedback would be welcomed and appreciated! Until next time,
Leonie aka UUUinfinity aka Triple U infinity