That'll do, blog. That'll do.

New blog at Emma Friel: Doodlebug!

Click the link above to follow my current and future projects.

Well, I think it's time to close the curtain on this blog.

It's kind of sad as I've had this one for about three or four years now. But to be honest, a lot of the work I have on it kind of makes me wince now. To be honest, this was basically a blog to document my progress in animation and illustration throughout my college courses and it's basically done the trick by now. Besides, it was starting to get a tad cluttered up in here.

But not to worry, to those who actually have a fondness for this old thing. 'Lets Emmanimate' is most certainly NOT going anywhere. I'm keeping it up for... well, posterity, I suppose. It's kind of nice to be able to look back on my old projects and see how my skills have developed. Kind of like when you find an old school notebook under the bed only with less dust and those cool 'S' shape things that everyone drew in their books in middle school.

You know the ones I'm talking about.

The main reason I'm moving blogs is because I have very recently started professional self employment and become part of a children's book project (which I'll be telling you about very soon), basically beginning to make more of a name for myself. And while I love this blog to pieces and bits, I think it's best I have a clean start in terms of documenting my professional progress.

I'll still be sharing artwork and still be discussing my progress. I'll still Emmanimate. Hurrhurr. And yes, I'll still be updating Crumbs. But it's mainly gonna be somewhere else, is all.

Specifically, RIGHT HERE. Aw yis.

I won't be deleting this blog. It'll be staying up so I can look back on it fondly (or not so fondly if we consider some of the rougher projects) and maybe have it help me answer some questions people have regarding working in animation or early Crumbs development. And also cos I simply don't want to delete it. It's been a good friend to me, if you'll forgive the sappiness. What started as a module I needed to pass (no seriously, blogging was the easiest pass ever, goddamn) became somewhere I could share all sorts of artwork and properly evaluate why I found different animations and techniques helpful and inspiring for my work.

And hell, maybe it can help out future students, assuming they can wrap their heads around the word salads I call evaluation. Or at the very least, it'll show them what not to do. Either way, I'll have helped somehow. Hopefully.

Well, it's been real and it's been fun... and it's been real fun too. And now, onwards and upwards to doodlebuggery!

... That uh... that sounded a lot... better in my head... yeah... heh...

OK YEAH BYE NOW Way to leave an inspiring legacy Emma, goddiggitydamn...

... Oh and don't worry. There will still be pigeons. Oho boy, will there be pigeons.

New blog at Emma Friel: Doodlebug!

Click the link above to follow my current and future projects.

Reasons for No Updates, Pug and Crumbs 2000 Rap Cover

Good to see my lack of creativity for title's still hasn't changed.

Yikes, it's been a little while since I last updated this blog. I remember when I did a couple of updates a week and kept it constantly fed. I'm a terrible blog mother. Then again, this blog must be about... blimey, 4 years old now. Where does the time go?

It's not without good reason, however. I aim to only really update when I have artwork to present and as most of my work has been based on either Crumbs (which is already hosted at its web page) and projects that are still in progress, I haven't been able to share anything as of yet. It's mainly been business planning, comic pages and illustration projects.

Speaking of the later, I'm hoping to be able to share something exciting with everyone in the next few weeks. I'm not entirely sure when but it'll be up ASAP once I get the green light. Only a very small handful of people know about it so far, which will hopefully change as I will be doing more work for this project. Sorry to be so vague at the moment.

On the Crumbs front, the comic is going well, still quite quiet and still only once a week. But I'm aiming to start uploading twice a week as I organise my work better and properly plan out a buffer. Tomorrow I will only be sharing a Halloween image on the site, which should bide me some time to create a collection of pages in the meantime.

Oh yeah, no surprise to anyone, there's a pug character in Crumbs. Her name is Tita. She's adorable. I'm gonna colour this eventually, I sketched this over a month ago.

Now, I don't know how many people will be aware of this picture. I saw it on tumblr earlier this week and I've had a number of people show it to me. Now, look at this and tell me it's not the most badass thing ever.

So naturally I had to completely recreate this picture using my own pigeon characters. It was kind of a no brainer, especially as it just seemed to fit the whole theme of Crumbs in a way. I could even decide what pigeons could go were pretty much instantly.

Its not finished just yet and it probably won't be for a while. I've already coloured all the pigeons and planned out a background but I need to do shading and textures and details still. And even once its finished, it probably won't be seen until I finish the first story arc. Maybe I'll do a poster design, depending on interest.

So yeah, thats all I can show so far. Fffff, I can't wait to talk about this illustration project, keeping cool things secret is the total pits. In the meantime, read Crumbs HERE!

Crumbs is LIVE!

Yep, you heard right, it's actually online RIGHT NOW! Friggin' finally.

If you remember correctly, the comic will update every day for a week. So don't forget to come back tomorrow for the next page! Not that I'd let you all forget. To keep on top of updates, follow me on twitter and follow the Crumbs site if you have a tumblr account.

Click on the picture below for the page. Hope this is worth the wait!

Crumbs Upload Schedule Change

"Did she even share the original schedule on here?"
"I doubt it, she's not that bright..."

OK, so I have quite a few things to discuss art wise.

I had been planning on uploading Crumbs three times a week on a mon/wed/fri schedule as it seemed, at the time, to be frequent enough without resulting in a burnout. However, circumstances have changed and I am now involved in two quite big projects. One is a short collaborated animation with Ashleigh and Rachel that requires quite a bit of time and learning new techniques, at least in my case. The other I'm not entirely sure if I can go into too terribly much detail about just yet but it's paid work and I'd be a numpty not to prioritise that. I will say this though, pigeon illustrations are involved. Stay tuned for an update on that!

Crumbs is basically a project for myself that, at the risk of sounding all la-di-dah, I am using to explore my artistic capabilities. It's also going to encourage me to stay focused and disciplined on my art work, provide me with a project that I am completely in charge of and allow me to experiment with character development and storytelling. Also I wanted to create something with pigeons because pigeons are boss. But it is essentially a side project I have for myself and, while I hope to spend much more time on it someday depending on how things turned out, I have to have the aforementioned projects take priority.

Which means that the upload schedule for Crumbs has to change.

Here's how it's gonna work: The first seven pages I will upload once a day from the 15th September. Then from page 8, which will upload on the following monday after that week, the comic will upload weekly instead. Turns out I suck at building up buffers and, while I have the pages planned out, they are not ready to upload on a three-times-a-week basis. Also these two projects have been taking up a lot of my time and there's still a while to go before they're complete.

One day in the future, I hope to have the mon/wed/fri schedule back on track but for now, it's just not realistic. Things could change though, we'll need to see how things go but alas I cannot promise anything.

To make up for my crappery, I have a few new drawings to share. They've been on my art/ask blog Where The Crumbs Are Scattered for a while now but Its been a while since I shared anything on this blog. I've been slipping on my blog updates here, blimey.

Some Scarlet and Hope character interaction/designs.
I'm finally happy with how I draw Hope's fantail!

NEW CHARACTER
Dusty the Squab... type... thing. Its complicated.

So yeah, long story short, I have a ton of stuff to do and Crumbs has to take a back seat for the time being. But it will still upload on a regular schedule, just not the one I had planned. Don't worry chums, I'm far from giving up on it!

Crumbs Upload Date

Some overdue news because I've been super crazy busy with super crazy all sorts. I believe some of you have wanted to know this for a while...

That's right, this is actually going to be a thing. Crumbs will begin updating on the 15th September. Now I just need to keep on top of the buffer, I haven't managed to finish as many pages as I would have liked.

You can ask me questions about the project or anything at my tumblr blog, Where the Crumbs are Scattered.

I'm both excited and nervous to get to work on this, I hope I can keep on top of the update schedule...

The Graduate

Well, that's it. Fd Animation and BA Hons Creative Practice graduate right here. I'm officially no longer a student.

Yesterday, I was asked what it felt like to be out of education and honestly, I didn't really have an answer. Well, I did but not really a definite non-rambly one. But for the time being, all I can think of is how weird it'll be to not have to attend school in September. For the longest time, I always had that consistency in my life, whether I enjoyed it or not. But I was familiar with it. Now it's just... gone. S'weird, man.

I dunno, maybe I'm reading too much into this but it's kind of a lot to take in. I think it's because this year I've had a lot of big changes happen in my life and it gets a bit overwhelming. It's not that I want things to stay the same, far from it. I want to face new experiences and see where life takes me. But it's also quite a lot to take in and losing those things you were once familiar and comfortable with can be a bit daunting. 

But at the same time, I'm also excited and looking forward to the next chapter in life. I know for a fact that I'm excited to start working properly on Crumbs. I'll be in Spain for the next week and I'm planning on bringing my sketchbook so that I can get some pigeon sketches and doodles done and maybe even plan some more parts of the story if inspiration strikes. But I'm not going to force it and stress myself out. As well as this, I gotta find me a job as well as work on setting up the company with Ashleigh and Rachel. Ooh, the possibilities! Scary but exciting, as life should be I suppose.

Anyway, now that that's out of the way, here are a couple of photos on graduation day. Apologises in advance for those who faint at seeing my face. Either from lust or disgust, your call.

Pre-robes.
My dress IS greenish, I don't care what Kat says.

Robes acquired. Stupid yellow and blue thing
kept sliding back, ugh

Me seconds away from death
(I got better.)

"My daughter is graduating, DEAL WITH IT."
This is probably the only time I will be as tall as my Mum.
Unless she bullies persuades me to wear heels again...

Dad kept accidentally choking me with the blue and yellow thing. I think
he resents how much my course/graduation cost.
Just wait 'til I earn squillions with my new animated series Dad, it'll pay for itself!

I love you Mum and Dad.

I'll have the actual professional photograph come along in a few weeks, along with a graduation t-shirt. And I now have this years grey alumni hoodie to go with the navy one I got at my Fd Animation graduation. I like hoodies.

Anyway, I'll have to start job hunting and serious comic developing very soon but from now until I get back from Spain, I'll be taking it easy for a while. I've noticed myself getting worked up from lack of ideas and I know forcing it'll just make things even harder. So I'm gonna calm my tits, relax for a while and if I get some new ideas, I'll go with it if or when that happens.

... You clicked on it, didn't you? God, you're shameless.

Have a good week, guys.

Final Show Show Reel

Wow I am literally the worst; I meant to have this entry up like, a few days or so after the last one. I don't have an excuse, I'm just a lazy turd.

Anyway, lets cut to the chase. Since the last entry, a few things have changed. For example, none of us were particularly enamoured with the company name and so that is going through yet another change. We haven't settled on anything definite just yet but aim to do so as soon as humanly possible. I'll be speaking to Ashleigh and Rachel at some point on Skype tonight so maybe this issue will be resolved then. Not making any promises though.

We're making some progress with deciding the exact things we want to achieve and creating business plans, as well as personal goals (in my case, as you all probably know, this will be Crumbs) and we always have more things to add to the list with every discussion we have so as far as I'm concerned, things are going quite well on this front. Of course some things still need to be organised before business can really take off. There's a lot of stuff to consider.

So yeah, over a month later after Final Show, quite a few things have changed. But it occurred to me that I never actually put the Virtual Magic show reel onto the blog. I asked Rachel and Ashleigh if they'd mind me doing this and they said it was fine, considering it's mainly a blend of our individual projects anyway to illustrate our individual animation skills. So while this company name won't be a thing anymore, hopefully you'll still enjoy the show reel. We'll have our own brand new company show reel in the future but until then, there's this.

As for Crumbs, it's getting there. I've been doing more planning and writing than actual comic page creating though. I think I might need to forget working on a chronological order and just create the pages I see clearly in my head and then work around them, if that makes sense.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before but I changed the design and look of the 'site'. It seemed much too busy and distracting before with the bright character filled background. Now, it's a plainer design and looks more like an actual webcomic site would. I'm considering creating a side blog for people with questions about the comic but that's probably something to worry about once the comic starts uploading. Until then, I have the FAQ section although it currently features questions about myself artwise than the comic itself. That'll hopefully change once the comic actually starts.

To see for yourself, click on the 'Crumbs' link right at the top of the blog. You can't miss it.

Well, tomorrow is graduation. Gotta go practice walking in high heels some more. You all look like ants from up here...