EMMAAAAAA!

ALKDJFL:ASJF:ALSJ EMMA IS SO CUTE

MAN, I LOVE MY THESIS CHARACTER SO MUCH.

So, here's the render I'll be showing to the faculty for the crit on Friday/Saturday. Hopefully it'll get them as pumped about my project as I am!

Jordan and Egg, Sitting in A Tree...

So! Two new pictures. These ones involved a bit more than simply scribbling, but they were still really quick. A whole lot of fun to draw. The first picture you see is a female-version Jordan. As you can tell, it still looks just like Jordan, but she's dressed in such a way to show off a bit more form. I still haven't decided on a gender. However, I must admit that female Jordan is flat out hot.

The second picture is Jordan and Egg pairing picture. The recent storyline has had some serious drama-drama (pronounced: DRAAmah-DRAAmah) going on involving these two characters. So fun-fun.

MnM Doodles!

London

Jordan and London

Egg and Mariska

Egg and Jordan

Here's some fun doodles I did today. It's the Mutants and Masterminds characters. London, Egg, and Mariska are my friends' characters and designed by them, and Jordan is my character. Doing these little scribbles are a fun way to refresh myself after I've been animating for too long!

Mariska Morevna

Mariska (ma-RISH-ka) Morevna, another character from Mutants and Masterminds! Mariska is not my character; she was designed and played by my friend Casey. I used one of her reference pictures and converted Mariska into this chibi thing I've got going on. I plan to draw the rest of the party in this style as well.

Mariska has the ability to create illusions and invoke fear in her targets. This is an extremely useful ability at times. However, she doesn't have perfect control over her illusions, which sometimes induces nightmarish existences for her neighbors. Her family is forced to move from place to place due to this, so she has few friends. It doesn't mean she isn't friendly, though. Mariska could save your ass just as easily as she could hand it to you.

Mutants and Masterminds

Heard of that game? Mutants and Masterminds is kinda like DnD, only it's with comic book superheros. My friends and I've started a really super casual campaign, with all mutant high school students (sans one faculty PC.)


My character is Jordan Lank, an "ambiguously gendered" individual. Jordan turned out to be "ambiguous" because I really wanted to play a female character, but then I realized that all of my friends were playing males except for one. We started the "blue harem" joke, and I realized if I created a female character, it would mess up the funny. So, when I brought up the demlima, one of my buddies said "just make your character ambiguously gendered and give them a neutral name. It'll still count!" And thus, Jordan was born.

Jordan leans towards male on first glance. However, take a moment to imagine Jordan in a skirt and with a really small chest. Strike a lady-like pose. Could it work? Possibly. Just enough to make you wonder. Jordan is probably more likely to admit to you the fact that s/he's a mutant than s/he is to discuss "hir" gender. (Mostly because even the players don't know what's under that baggy jacket.)

On a different but relevant note, I've developed this "child-propotion" style thing for character designs that I just like a whole lot. It makes me want to draw a bunch of different characters of mine in this style and see what they look like. Maybe you will see more later.

Doooooodle

Doodle. Just doing some drawing and I liked these.

Days Gone By, Cover Page

Here's a cover page for another story of mine, Days Gone By, that I'm writing with a friend. Rather, I should say, Days Gone By is being "drawn" with a friend of mine. Sometimes we pass the paper back and forth and draw what happens next rather than writing. This is T, a street rat who falls into big money in a strange way. This story involves alternate time streams and challenges the notion of "self."

I'll post up a picture of him that shows his face. Later.

FLAKE_mime

I felt obligated to post something recent. I drew this this past summer just for the heck of it. The image was inspired by the word "Flake." I'm beginning to suspect there's a story behind this one, but I'm not entirely certain. At any rate, here's FLAKE_mime. Drawn in painter.

My Sylvan Weed Characters

So! My Sylvan Weed Characters. Here's Garret and Jasper:

Garret (2008)

Jasper (2008)

Hmm. I'm startin' to feel like I need to get some recent drawings of these guys. Hehe, I'll get to it.

I really need to stop making these...

Seriously...

LAST ONES I SWEAR!

MOOOOORE!

Lucky Moon: Ulrich

Ulrich Oz, the big bad wolf. Ulrich, at the beginning of the story, is best described as a sheep in wolf's clothing. He's played up as the good guy, easily winning over the main characters to his cause of, well, something close to world domination. Ulrich has class- total ease of style. A smooth operator, he wins over the best minds, the most advanced talent, and the biggest wallets. Ulrich breathes ownership over his world, and it isn't until it's too late before the main characters, Raz and Sy, realize that they're in too deep to escape his clutches.

Lucky Moon: Seath

Man, I love doing these short character bios. Peter and Rom's design were handled by my friend, but I did the character designs for Nanne, Seath, and Ulrich. Here's Seath, Ulrich's right-hand man. Seath believes in Ulrich's ideals absolutely, and should something happen to Ulrich, Seath is the only living man Ulrich will trust with handling (or taking completely over, in the event of his death) operations. Seath is quiet, polite, and keenly observant. He's most often found holding close to a wall or near a doorway as if he were part of the room. People have gotten so used to having Seath quietly around, he's often forgotten, which is exactly how he wants it. A person may suspect Ulrich of manipulating them, but they would never suspect Seath. Seath isn't a bad guy at all, he's just really good at doing what he does, which is knowing everything that goes on.

Lucky Moon: Nanne

I think this drawing is actually from 2007, but don't quote me on that. Here's Nanne Radley, a side character from an epic werewolf/vampire adventure (hey, everyone needs one in their repertoire) called "Half-Light" (formally known as "Lucky Moon".) Little hodunk IL towns hold more than corn fields and beans. A normal, modern world by day, a place where creatures of nightmares lurk by night, Half-Light drags out the most frightening aspects of life and turns them upside down. This story explores issues of trust, abuse, possession, and independence.

More related to Nanne: Nanne doesn't get enough love, in my opinion. Hence the picture. He's a hot-headed half-breed who seems to only settle when he's focused on the job. What does he do, you may ask? Well, anything Ulrich tells him to- which often involves scoping out territory and knocking off anyone who gets in the way. He's in no way the brains of the operation, but he can follow orders with such cruel efficiency it can put his leaders to shame.

Durian and Rob IP

This is in-progress work. It shows what my under drawings look like before I do some ink or coloring over them. Mostly just focusing on figuring out where the lines go rather than worrying about line weight or shading quite yet. I'm posting it up for interest sake and also because I don't think I'm going to end up finishing this one. I just don't know what to do with it.

The characters are Durian and Rob (in that order) from the story "Touching Down." I'm writing it with a friend of mine. Lots of fun to be had. The story is a slice of life kind of thing. Two mascots from rival high schools meet across the football field and become friends without ever seeing each other face to face. They decide to meet after the game, and much chaos and fun ensues afterward. "Touching Down" questions what it means to be friends, how much you need to know a person to consider that person a friend, and what happens when lines are drawn and crossed.

Emma Character Update

Here's an update on my thesis work. It's just a screen cap right out of Maya. I've been having a couple render issues that I think I've finally worked out, so I'll post up a turnaround at some point and it'll be cool.

A strange thing happens when converting things from 2D to 3D. Sometimes if something looks good on paper, it might not look good in 3D, so once it's in the computer, you've got to adjust your proportions again to make it feel more natural. Emma's been cutified, in my opinion. I'm satisfied with how she turned out.

In this jpeg, she's hanging out with her many many blendshapes.

Wanted: Pantie Thief

Yeaaaah. Let's try not to ask too many questions, shall we? I swear I had something relevant to say at one point. Oh well, maybe it will come back to me later.

Misc MSW Stuffs

Here's some miscellaneous pictures done for My Sylvan Weed. Mostly just some character exploration things done last year when I was plotting out the idea. Some of this is total crap now that I look back on it, but I guess that just comes with the territory of learning. I'll post it up anyway just for archival and entertainment value. It's not like anyone actually views this stuff anyway. ~_^

Caffeine Induced High

So I have this thing that when I've had a lot of caffeine, I just love to ride the elevator.

No, seriously. All those buttons to look at and the people in the little box with you and the up and down and the little drop you get in your stomach if the speed is just right. It's like weeee and all the while you're talking to someone.

Thirty second conversations. Small talk. I'm only good at it when I've had no sleep and too much caffeine to keep me going. On a normal day, I'm too direct for proper smalltalk. I always feel there has to be a point to communication. Almost as if something in my mind is saying "what is the concept statement of this conversation?" or "What is my subject line?" or "Do I have a thesis statement?" All of which are the same question, but slightly different in their own right.

But with a good amount of caffeine (or a small dose of alcohol) I become very sociable. I love to talk to people and relate to them and all that wonderful human connection stuff; sometimes it just takes a little step forward to get the ball rolling. On a normal day, I'm very focused. Too focused to bother with smalltalk- to the point that even when I want to smalltalk someone in the elevator, I find it overwhelmingly difficult. Not so when on a caffeine high. There's so much in the world to discuss, and not all of it is heavy.

So there was something more relevant I was going to say. This wasn't exactly the point of my post, but by this point I've forgotten the true intention of my being here. I think I had some kind of comment to make about JS Facial or something. If I remember, I'll mention it later.

<3

Latest Animatic and some

Here's my latest animatic. I've already got notes for improvement, so give this five more minutes and it wont look quite the same. Major difference since the last time you saw it though, eh?

I really need to get the rest of my stuffs updated to the blog. I'll work on that over the next couple of days.

On a different note! I have a job at the school. I'm a render wrangler for IT. Basically, I try to solve rendering problems. Helping out my fellow students, etc. I'm not very good at it so far, but what I am good at is doing research and logically thinking my way through problems, so essentially right now I'm writing tutorials and wiki articles for the school wiki. Putting my strengths to good use informing the masses. Good stuff. I tend to spend the money as fast as I make it though. There's nothing in particular that I want to save up for right now, so I've been expanding my graphic novel collection. Extremely satisfying, mmyup!

Lucky Moon: Rom

Rooooom. Romly. Romly Rusco, to be more precise. Rom is another side character from Half-Light who works with Ulrich's team. Ulrich's team consists of Ulrich, Seath, Peter, Rom, and Nanne (ranking in that order.) Rom is a fun-loving, mischief-making, tail-chasing go-to guy. He handles a lot of Ulrich's odd jobs, usually working with Nanne in the field on the dangerous missions. Rom and Peter are best friends who knew each other before they met Ulrich, so when Ulrich won over Rom's heart to the evil side, Peter had no option but to follow afterward. Peter and Rom are a package deal.

Aaaaaand We're Back!

Back in business? Mayhaps. Honestly, I'm a major writer, but not much of a blogger. Probably because I tend to email everyone who's close to me, so there's not much more point to posting up information elsewhere...

And then senior year came.

Blogging positive for job hunting, y/n? Don't know. I'm going to have a website set up n'all, so I guess that'll take care of those needs. Sometimes people link to their blogs. I'm still not certain what I'll be using this particular blog for, but for now, I think I'll just write random stuffs and post up work as it comes along. Links and shiznit.

So, so, not that anyone's reading this, but something exciting happened recently. I was nominated to be a Student Ambassador! A Student Ambassador essentially greets people and gives tours of the campus and all, so it doesn't sound all that wonderful, but (call me a nerd) I actually really like all that kinda stuff. I was a part of Smile Staff sophomore year, and aside from helping everyone move into their dorms, I also got to give tours of the campus and meet a lot of new people. I like people. They're fun.

So yeah, I don't know who nominated me, but I've got a couple suspicions. I'll be going to an informational meeting on Tuesday. Right before CA class- I hope we get out on time.

Aaaanyway, it's official, I'll be working on Emma's Flight for my senior thesis. I noticed that I didn't post up anything for Ocean's 2, which is my other thesis proposal. I'll have to do that because a lot of fun drawings came out of that story. Ocean's 2 features two hungry seagulls that pull off a classic Ocean's 11 heist to get the breadbasket off a restaurant table. It's a comedy, dialog and acting heavy. It passed as well, just sosyaknow, so I got to choose between Emma's Flight and Ocean's 2, and I went with Emma's Flight.

My love for my thesis borders on obsession. It's all about ripping it apart and putting it back together again. Since I've last posted anything anywhere or made mention of it on this blog, I've done... approximately seven more passes? Something like that. And every time it gets better and better. Steve Hickner, a director from Dreamworks, came to our full-faculty critique, and he really liked my story. It was so exciting. I'm so pumped for this year. A LOT of work (oh god, where do I begin?) but I think I can do it. I think I can pull it off. One step at a time.

We've got another full faculty critique coming up in three or four weeks. This is hardly enough time to get everything done. We essentially need to have first pass done for our entire project by then, and a lot of us don't even have sets yet (myself included. But don't worry, I've got that part under control. I've got an ace up my sleeve.)

Oh man, and for Portfolio class we've started work on cover letter stuffs. Tammy said that we should reach for the stars and write a cover letter for our absolute number one job. Anything in the world we wanted. I thought long and hard, and I decided upon writing a cover letter for a Story Artist position at Pixar. Last year I was too chicken to even go for it, but this time around, I'm going to go all out for it. I've got a motto that I apply to life: "If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right." So I'm going to make a story portfolio and brush up all my work really nice so that I have something to show Pixar. The worst that can happen is they say 'no' and I'll just take them up on the challenge and submit again in a year.

So yeah. Good stuff. Fun fun. Much love <3

-TZC

Lifeboat Economics

BAND: Lifeboat Economics

ALBUM: Wisdom Lingers

Man, this is so super fun. I've done a couple others; I'll add those to the end of this post. This one is my favorite though. It's really easy and really fun, here's what you do:

1 - Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.

Brilliant Day Today!!

Many wonderful things are going on. Yesterday I knocked off projects from my list like a hitman. It was awesome. Today I took some time to go to Borders to do a system reset, so now my brain isn't as jumbled and I'm settling down to do a crapload more of work. Things are going very well.

I've been into Fables and Flight. I've got books in the mail coming- I'm so excited.

So, the real point is to give you an update on Emma's Flight! I've just finished rigging/texturing the dragonflies, so I've got some maya screen caps to share with you. Meet Glow, Fly, and Buzz!

Glow

Fly

Buzz

They're Emma's little helpers throughout her story. There aren't any closeups, so they're pretty simple shape/texture/poly. Their primary feature is going to be the dotted line that trails after them, the details of which I still need to work out. But there they are! Super cute.

On a different note, I'm currently taking the Ecology of Water class (require science credit to graduate.) We've got two projects coming up- one is reviewing a movie that has something to do with a water-based event. The other one is a presentation having anything to do with water.

So for my presentation, I'm going to talk about clouds. Because I freakin' love clouds. And for my movie review-

Ponyo anyone?

Haha, I'm excited.

Lipsync

Hey all. I figured I'd post up my LipSync character. The assignment is to make a caricature of yourself and animate to your voice. This is what I look like modeled and rendered.

Good News!!!

This isn't an art post, it's an important update! Great news! Emma's Flight passed! Final critique went pretty well. I got a lot of notes for improvement that I tucked away to return to later. I'm so super excited about passing this project, it takes a world of pressure off my shoulders.

Emma's Dragonfly

ZOMG IT'S THE LAST ONE!

Here's Emma's dragonfly in all its glory. Muwahaha, finally! DONE! I think it turned out pretty cool. At any rate, it's done enough for the crit tomorrow. Or today rather. Whatever, you know how us students roll. ~_^



Process:

Emma's Field

Man, I love how easy Blogspot is to use. The little "new post" button is right up at the top, everything is straight forward and clean. This has got to be the best blog site I've ever used. I really don't see too much of a reason to blog anywhere else- though I would admit that having an easy to use friend's page type thing would be nice. But other than that, we're solid.

Anyway, that's beside the point. Here's Emma's field. I don't have pages of process work for this one, mostly because I yoinked all the elements from other parts of the project that I already did.


That's it for the environment designs! (*finally*) Now I've got to finish up my dragonfly turn around, place it all on my flashdrive, and then I'll be able to sleep. O_o It'll be wonderful.

Emma's World

Emma's dream world! Oh, how I wish I could afford a dream world right now. Any dream world, really, as long as it involved sleep, haha. Nah, nah, I'm running on caffeine right now, so it's all good. Anyway, here's Emma's world, influenced by all her favorite elements from the previous worlds. Thankfully, the way this is designed, I don't think I'll have to do any extra modeling- maybe a couple tweaks here and there, but the idea is that I'll be able to conserve time and energy by pulling in the models from the other worlds.

So, without any further ado, here is Emma's world. One more to go.



Okay, I'll admit that the process looks pretty weak. I will also admit that it is 2am right now. However, please take into consideration that most of the design influences were already thought through via the other environments: