Emma's Constant Christmas Battle

Oh hi, Productivity! Haven't seen you for a bit. Had a nice Christmas? Perhaps today we should do something, you know, productive?

Productivity:

Well, bugger.

Ruby's got SWAAAAG

Today I focused a bit more on Ruby (and NOT on the present wrapping I was supposed to do... I'll get to that after I finish this entry) and not only linearted and coloured a sketch I did quite some time ago (inspired by a My Little Pony episode... the bronyfolk would be able to guess what one) but also did a rather swanky logo for her.

I've always considered her an artist but I think she'd have a much more experimental style than mine. More so the kind you'd put up in galleries and whatnot. Although she's relatively varied, I'd just consider her to lean a bit more toward realism than I would. Or exaggeration. Basically, she'd create art that would grab people's attention and make them think. Personally I just like drawing talking animals but eh, different strokes for different folks.

Anyway, I figured with such a style and goal for life, she'd need a swanky logo to match, one that would look quite spiffy on a business card.

I referenced the rose from a pony's cutiemark (namely this link here: http://nightmaremoons.deviantart.com/art/Roseluck-s-Cutie-mark-216727079). As her name is Ruby Rose (yeah, sounds a tad sue-ish... most likely why she only refers to herself as either Ruby or Red) making the rose shine a bit seems appropriate.

It seems Ruby is undecided about it as of yet... sadly for her, as I am the self proclaimed God of my characters *insert thunderclash here* my say is final. And I like the design. So nyeh.

... yeah, I'll go and wrap presents now.

Now To Discuss Tour Dates...

Blah. Seems that I'm a tad behind in stuff... which I blame entirely on Christmas. Been busy buying/making presents (look at the pretty pictures I drew in the Sketchbooks I got for Ashleigh and Rachel!)

... what? It's my art blog, I'm supposed to show off stuff I've drawn!

Anyway, I've been wrapping presents and whatnot (and I still have many I have to do) so sadly I've been distracted from college work and, worryingly, any art for a while. Not sure why. I suppose I was just in a 'can't be bothered' mood after we all broke up for Christmas, even though I wanted to get a Christmas picture  or two out of the way first. I've got a lot of college work I need to get out of the way in order to be ready for hand in on Jan 13th.

But until then, I've at the very least got my groove back in terms of my Underdog stuff. Not productive for college, sure, but it's a start. I'd sketched this picture of Ginger and Snaps at college quite some time ago, shown on this less than stellar quality photo from my Blackberry.

I can't remember exactly why I drew them in such a cute, or 'chibi' if you will, style. Probably felt like trying something different. The reason I remember quite well however. Both sisters are very musically inclined, Ginger loving to sing and Snaps enjoying DJ-ing and remixing. They both have a varied pallete of music that they enjoy so they often listen to music together and talk about their favourite genres and musicians. They might be quite different in terms of hobbies but this one is one they can both agree on.

I linearted the image in Illustrator and coloured in Photoshop, my good old bread and butter. The final coloured piece of the two I was happy with but I felt I could also do more with it.

Then it hit me.

As I started to develop my characters further, I had this funny idea. I could somehow see these two going into business together after they finished college, making music of their own. Ginger, with quite a varied vocal range, would provide the singing and Snaps would provide the techno tunes in order to create an interesting new sound.

Somehow I knew their amusing duo name would pay off at some point. 

I wanted the text to fit their personalities. The round, bright Cooper Standard font was perfect for Ginger while the sharp 8-bitesque fixedsys suited Snaps to a tee. There's actually a white outline around Ginger's name but as the background of the blog is white you most likely won't see it. It's better shown on the CD cover, shown below.

... I know, I think about these things too much. I'm even working on a tour poster: The Technicolour Tour.

Hey, all my main characters would fit together perfectly here. Ginger and Snaps would have Ruby do the artwork for the CD's and posters and BF would fly their private jet to every concert! Sorted!

If only everything fell together like that... *sigh*

Anyway, I'll be much more more productive over the next few days! Expect to see something Christmassy!

Shenanigans!

Seems that Dave wants me to add knees to my sausage model. Ashleigh, would you be so kind as to do the whole th- er, help me work on the model?

Ash: No.

Don't blame you. Well, I guess this impossible task is up to me! I'll experiment a bit before going to Dave on Tuesday for help. Which will most likely be how I manage to make little Erik's stumps bend. Phooey.

Also while Dave was talking to Ashleigh about her personal statement (which I need to get working on myself), he noticed the Rainbow Dash gifs I used two entries ago and asked if I did them. He also encouraged me to draw the ponies in an extremely grotesque and OOC fashion. Seems that Dave isn't exactly a fan of ponies. Ah well.

However this gave me the opportunity to show Dave the HotDiggedyyDemon videos on youTube which I imagine was along the lines of what he was talking about. He seemed to approve.





I promise I'll update this thing with something more productive soon.

My New Theme Song

Figured I should probably provide a link to the tune my previous group and I used for our Stretch and Scare B-movie. We wanted some sort of happy upbeat tune to add to the silliness of the overall video and this just ticked all the boxes. You might have heard it in a lot of 90's cartoons and I think it was in Spongebob at one point as well.

I need to find a way to get this on my iPod. It would make my strolls feel so much more upbeat and interesting...

Further Ident Progress... Stuff

Or if you like, you can imagine a more impressive title to this entry. I know I am.

Anyway, in the group we've all been working on our characters in Cinema 4D, pretty much all of us running into snags with them in some way from what I can tell. I know for a fact that once we get the characters sorted we'll be able to get right into making the idents. In fact, thats the impression I'm getting. We might feel differently after talking to everyone in the group.

We've also started working on our other assets. Ashleigh and I began work on the 2D flower that will feature on one of the idents. We used the good old traditional method: paper, pencil and pegbar. T'was nice to get back to the classics. We haven't had the chance to use Dragon to see how well the frames work together as of yet but we're hoping to use it today, make any changes that need to be made and colour them asap. We are also going to shoot one of the idents today, specifically the pixellation idea:  the characters are all pulling a person along the floor with a rope, followed by the MTV logo. I volunteered myself to be the person dragged along the floor and I stand by that unless someone else would prefer to do it. Either way though, should be a laugh to be dragged along the floor or watch someone else do it.

Although I suppose I'm just easily amused.

Anyway, as well as this, I should really sort out UCAS stuff and my personal statement. And I really want to draw some Christmas themed pictures with my Underdog characters. So I'll get on doing all of that eventually.

... I like Rainbow Dash, is that obvious?

How Sausages Walk (Apparently)

Hey, I'm no master of Cinema 4D and hell would be more likely to freeze over before I become even remotely competent at it but I at least wanted to make the model move so that poor Ashleigh wasn't left to do everything. So I had a bit of 'fun' with making Erik walk. I never intended to make a detailed, anatomically correct movement (how WOULD a sausage move anyway...) and have given him something of a shuffle. It was a real pain in the rear to get this far, as I had to redo the whole thing (which seems to be a regular trait in the abusive relationship me and C4D have) and change a few key frames but I more or less got a decent movement that resembled shuffling.

I know it's far from perfect but it's suitable for the simplicity of the character. And shows some remote skills in C4D, albeit very remote indeed.

Still need to add the eyes which I will do at a later date.

ALSO. I've finally got a design AND a name for an Underdog character of mine that I have been planning on for literally months. Finally Brandon and I have agreed on Grayson for his name.

Wait, I never linked this?

I'm surprised. I really liked these idents when Dave showed them to us for our ident project last year. Eh, a mere oversight I imagine.

I shall rectify that now.



Also, I've changed Erik's design slightly, giving him darker colour. He looks more like a sausage now. Dave also put the idea in my head to put sauce on his back. I like the idea but I'm not sure if that's easy to design or if Ashleigh would find that too much of a pain to do. I don't want to demand too much after all. I think I should get the file from her when I can and attempt that myself, take the load off of her.

Still tempted to go with Reddick...

Well, I have returned from Tenerife and had a brilliant time. Didn't do much in terms of art though; I was outdoors either sunbathing or seeing the sights and whatnot. I did bring my laptop as we were promised free wi-fi at the villa we stayed at but we were never given a code to access said free wi-fi so any plans to stay in contact with you all went out the window. Ah well, still had a fantastic time.

Anyhow, back to business. The task we have to complete by January is to make three idents for MTV. I am a week behind with the work but have been put in a group of great mates Rachel, Ashleigh, Zoe and Lien. So I'm quite chuffed. And they've been working their friggin socks off, putting me to shame. They already have three solid ideas AND have storyboarded them AND created all their character designs AAAAAND started modeling them in 3D. Yikes.

Ashleigh gave me the task of creating a character, a simple little design, some shape with eyes and other features basically. Looking at the characters everyone in the group made, I got the general idea of what everyone was going for. I decided to create a sausage shaped character with six legs and eyes. And named him Erik.

This is his design so far. However, it might be prone to change as Ashleigh, who is very kindly modeling the character in 3D for me (as the rage I would muster throughout modeling the design could cause buildings to crumble) seems to be hitting snags with making the character bend and threatening my character with death. Erik is being a bad sausage. However, we did have a moment of amusement yesterday when he was standing on his back legs and looked like an amusing replication of male anatomy.

I'm tempted to name him Reddick but I don't think I'd get away with it.

Ashleigh seems determined to make him bend though so he might stay the way he is. However his colours might change as darker colours hide the creases in his body better when he bends. So we'll see on that front.

As for Underdogs, I bet you're wondering- why on earth hasn't she uploaded the character sheets yet? Well, while the character designs and general sheet design is solid, the character descriptions are less so for the most part. Some merely need to be tweaked ever so slightly but BF's in particular I need to discuss with Brandon to make sure he's happy with it. Once that's done, the main four sheets will have their moment of glory.

I did have an idea for an animatic that I want to work on for fun, most likely over Christmas if I get the chance. I came across a funny video called Dog Video Dating. I think I'll let it speak for itself.

As my characters are mainly dogs, I think it's a perfect idea for me to do. It won't feature the main four characters I have (Ruby and BF are in a relationship and video dating would be out of character for Ginger and Snaps) but I do have more characters I can use for the animatic. It's a prospect I'm really looking forward to working on. Here's hoping I get the time to do it!