Small part of a piece in progress.--CKL--
Monday, March 7, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Impossible
Just dropping in with the finished animation that I previewed a couple of stills from in my last entry. So check out the brand new Least of Creatures video for "Impossible"
--CKL--
Impossible from The Least of Creatures on Vimeo.
--CKL--
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Seeing Red
Just dropping in with some images from a new animation I'm working on at the moment.
--CKL--
--CKL--
Monday, December 20, 2010
Do or do not...there is no try
So this giant blank canvas has been just sitting in my apartment for the past six months since my roommate Bryan found it on the street. When he first brought it back to the apartment, he, our other roommate Jonathan and I fooled around with the idea of painting a portrait of the three of us in a full out Frank Frazetta tableau, naturally musclebound and kicking goblins in the face and wrestling giant serpents. However, it just never ended up happening, mostly out of my fear of not being able to really paint anything even close to Frazetta.
It wasn't until yesterday when Bryan and I were cleaning the place that he suggested simply writing "Do or do not - there is no try" in honor of Yoda. I replied by suggesting just painting Yoda himself. Thus began my epic nerd day project.
Out of all of the absolutely amazing moments in the original Star Wars trilogy, one moment has always stood out for me. When Luke leaves Dagobah in Episode V and Yoda looks up at the red glow of his X-Wing and says "no, there is another."
It's really incredible and I feel like I'm doing a disservice by simply describing it, but I can't find any video of it. Anyway, it's a profound and foreboding little moment that hugely expands the potential of the story and the mythical nature of the Force.
In summary, I really wanted to paint this image of Yoda. I put on John Williams' soundtracks for the trilogy and started by finding a screencap of the scene and gridding it in order to make the transfer to the 3x4' canvas easier.
I decided to use the paint that we used in the apartment for some accent walls to tie the place together a bit. I had already finished the drawing and begun painting by the time Bryan checked in and said that I should be documenting the painting as it goes. I'm very happy I did.
I'm extremely happy with the painting as it was a challenge working from a computer screen and a medium I rarely use. Hopefully, this giant portrait of the Jedi Master will make it very clear to visitors exactly what kind of apartment they're in. I suspect I might try a couple more of Star Wars portraits in this style.
Well, that's all for today and 2010! I hope to be posting some very interesting work in here next year.
Happy holidays from Yoda and I and may the Force be with you!
--CKL--
It wasn't until yesterday when Bryan and I were cleaning the place that he suggested simply writing "Do or do not - there is no try" in honor of Yoda. I replied by suggesting just painting Yoda himself. Thus began my epic nerd day project.
Out of all of the absolutely amazing moments in the original Star Wars trilogy, one moment has always stood out for me. When Luke leaves Dagobah in Episode V and Yoda looks up at the red glow of his X-Wing and says "no, there is another."
It's really incredible and I feel like I'm doing a disservice by simply describing it, but I can't find any video of it. Anyway, it's a profound and foreboding little moment that hugely expands the potential of the story and the mythical nature of the Force.
In summary, I really wanted to paint this image of Yoda. I put on John Williams' soundtracks for the trilogy and started by finding a screencap of the scene and gridding it in order to make the transfer to the 3x4' canvas easier.
I decided to use the paint that we used in the apartment for some accent walls to tie the place together a bit. I had already finished the drawing and begun painting by the time Bryan checked in and said that I should be documenting the painting as it goes. I'm very happy I did.
I'm extremely happy with the painting as it was a challenge working from a computer screen and a medium I rarely use. Hopefully, this giant portrait of the Jedi Master will make it very clear to visitors exactly what kind of apartment they're in. I suspect I might try a couple more of Star Wars portraits in this style.
Well, that's all for today and 2010! I hope to be posting some very interesting work in here next year.
Happy holidays from Yoda and I and may the Force be with you!--CKL--
Monday, December 6, 2010
Get Real Get Right
I've been using personal pieces as an opportunity to experiment with new techniques. So while I was at home in Michigan for Thanksgiving, without my usual ink or 21" computer monitor, I decided to challenge myself. After numerous listens while house painting, I settled on the idea of a piece about Sufjan Stevens and his new heavily-electronic album "The Age of Adz" (which is f*cking fantastic, by the way) I opted to do a straight portrait with neon facepaint, the trademark fake wings and a background of circuitry sort of emanating from his head.
After I had finished inking and brought the image into Photoshop to adjust the color of the lines, I was really unhappy with the background and the way it flattened the whole piece, no matter how many different ways I tried to solve it.
So I promptly found some great reference photos of circuit boards to work from and began drawing a much more complex background of circuitry on some onionskin.
Upon adding the new circuitry background, which certainly took a while to draw, I was instantly happy with the effect it had. You can also see the face paint layer I had inked on onionskin.
In approaching the color, I wanted to use the colors I shy away from - very saturated pinks and greens. These seemed to make sense with the new neon-heavy image Sufjan has crafted to accompany the new sound. I was also glad that the background could afford to be pretty simple and solid green given the complexity of the circuitry lines over it.
The layers of the image in Photoshop. It can be quite hard to keep track of!
Overall, I had a blast problem-solving this piece with tackling some new colors and some complicated drawing and inking.
--CKL--
After I had finished inking and brought the image into Photoshop to adjust the color of the lines, I was really unhappy with the background and the way it flattened the whole piece, no matter how many different ways I tried to solve it.
So I promptly found some great reference photos of circuit boards to work from and began drawing a much more complex background of circuitry on some onionskin.
Upon adding the new circuitry background, which certainly took a while to draw, I was instantly happy with the effect it had. You can also see the face paint layer I had inked on onionskin.
In approaching the color, I wanted to use the colors I shy away from - very saturated pinks and greens. These seemed to make sense with the new neon-heavy image Sufjan has crafted to accompany the new sound. I was also glad that the background could afford to be pretty simple and solid green given the complexity of the circuitry lines over it.
The layers of the image in Photoshop. It can be quite hard to keep track of!
Overall, I had a blast problem-solving this piece with tackling some new colors and some complicated drawing and inking.
--CKL--
Friday, November 19, 2010
Harry Potter!
So there's this small little film coming out today, not a whole lot of hype or anything, called Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows.
I almost hate to admit it, but I'm really excited about this film, although I didn't go last night at midnight. Whoops. I remember sitting on my couch and devouring Deathly Hallows from start to finish the day it came out. And it's been really quite interesting to watch how both the films and the cast of the HP films have matured and consistently gotten better and better. It's really quite an achievement for a movie franchise.
Anyway, from the dark, melancholic look of the trailers and the rave reviews I've read thus far, its shaping up to be the best of the franchise, like The Empire Strikes Back of the HP films.
In order to celebrate this cinematic event, I decided to do an illustration about the film featuring a bloodied Harry in a dork forest using his wand to light the way while three Death-Eaters lurk in the background. I went through all of the trailers and clips from the film to get reference for Daniel Radcliffe, as he and the rest of the cast have definitely grown up. In looking up the Death-Eaters, I found a great picture of all of the masks, which are really quite ornate and beautiful.
I also used Photobooth for some quick reference. Despite what I've been told and how easy it would be, I still haven't ever been Harry Potter for Halloween. Maybe I can pull off the Pagemaster.
Below is a gif of my process from pencils to the final illustration.
I had a lot of fun throughout the entirety of this piece in trying to convey the darker and grittier tone the HP films have taken on as they draw to a close.
I'll definitely be doing a follow-up piece when the second film is released next summer!
--CKL--
I almost hate to admit it, but I'm really excited about this film, although I didn't go last night at midnight. Whoops. I remember sitting on my couch and devouring Deathly Hallows from start to finish the day it came out. And it's been really quite interesting to watch how both the films and the cast of the HP films have matured and consistently gotten better and better. It's really quite an achievement for a movie franchise.
Anyway, from the dark, melancholic look of the trailers and the rave reviews I've read thus far, its shaping up to be the best of the franchise, like The Empire Strikes Back of the HP films.
In order to celebrate this cinematic event, I decided to do an illustration about the film featuring a bloodied Harry in a dork forest using his wand to light the way while three Death-Eaters lurk in the background. I went through all of the trailers and clips from the film to get reference for Daniel Radcliffe, as he and the rest of the cast have definitely grown up. In looking up the Death-Eaters, I found a great picture of all of the masks, which are really quite ornate and beautiful.
I also used Photobooth for some quick reference. Despite what I've been told and how easy it would be, I still haven't ever been Harry Potter for Halloween. Maybe I can pull off the Pagemaster.
Below is a gif of my process from pencils to the final illustration.I had a lot of fun throughout the entirety of this piece in trying to convey the darker and grittier tone the HP films have taken on as they draw to a close.
I'll definitely be doing a follow-up piece when the second film is released next summer!--CKL--
Thursday, November 4, 2010
The Liars & the Fakes
Back! Apologies for the lack of posting recently, but I've been relatively swamped. I'll try to get some more posts coming in the upcoming weeks. For now, I wanted to stop in and do a quick blog about my newest Least of Creatures video for "The Liars & the Fakes"
I did a blog entry about "Arrow" back in June and ended up not doing one about the second video for "Compass" as that animation came together after a couple different versions.
"The Liars & the Fakes" is a song that I wrote and recorded in the summer of 2009 and was never terribly happy with in terms of the quality of the recording, lyrics and pace. So when I came across the song on my iTunes shuffle, I felt as though I could do it better now that I've (hopefully) gotten to be a better musician. Well, that and I always like a good stomp and clap song.
As I was starting to think about the video, I wanted to do something flat and graphic so I decided on a very simple color scheme that would repeat throughout the video.
To make this video less like the one for "Arrow" I decided to design less with the text and settle on one bold font that would occupy just one side of the frame, but still appear in-tempo with the music, while an animated image would move on the other side of the frame. I managed this by creating images that are only the text and then images that are only frames of the animation because when it comes time to edit, I simply put one sequence of images on top of the other. This way, both the text and animation sequences have different paces within the same frame.
In the sections of the song without any vocals, I decided to put myself into the video as the "band" playing the song. And since the Least of Creatures is just me, its a silhouetted me playing guitar, bass and stomping and clapping along.
In having prepared the images to fit together in Final Cut, the editing only took about one day, with some occasional tweaks here and there.
I'm extremely happy with how the song and video came out. Its catchy and graphic and straight-to-the-point and feels like a real advancement in how I'm learning to animate. Since I put it up online, its quickly become the most viewed Least of Creatures video!
Enjoy!
I did a blog entry about "Arrow" back in June and ended up not doing one about the second video for "Compass" as that animation came together after a couple different versions.
"The Liars & the Fakes" is a song that I wrote and recorded in the summer of 2009 and was never terribly happy with in terms of the quality of the recording, lyrics and pace. So when I came across the song on my iTunes shuffle, I felt as though I could do it better now that I've (hopefully) gotten to be a better musician. Well, that and I always like a good stomp and clap song.
As I was starting to think about the video, I wanted to do something flat and graphic so I decided on a very simple color scheme that would repeat throughout the video.
To make this video less like the one for "Arrow" I decided to design less with the text and settle on one bold font that would occupy just one side of the frame, but still appear in-tempo with the music, while an animated image would move on the other side of the frame. I managed this by creating images that are only the text and then images that are only frames of the animation because when it comes time to edit, I simply put one sequence of images on top of the other. This way, both the text and animation sequences have different paces within the same frame.
In the sections of the song without any vocals, I decided to put myself into the video as the "band" playing the song. And since the Least of Creatures is just me, its a silhouetted me playing guitar, bass and stomping and clapping along.
In having prepared the images to fit together in Final Cut, the editing only took about one day, with some occasional tweaks here and there.
I'm extremely happy with how the song and video came out. Its catchy and graphic and straight-to-the-point and feels like a real advancement in how I'm learning to animate. Since I put it up online, its quickly become the most viewed Least of Creatures video!Enjoy!
The Liars and the Fakes from The Least of Creatures on Vimeo.
--CKL--
(P.S. These full size images make for some pretty cool wallpapers!)
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