Some "Traditional" Animation

I was working on an animated short that centered around an unlikely referee during a hockey game.  I was animating it frame-by-frame on my iPad using the Animation Creator app.  Unfortunately my iPad has died and it was past its warranty date.  So until I have figured out another convenient way to make hand-drawn 2D animation, this project is on hold.

Since it'll probably be some time before I get back to it, I figured I would share what I've done.  The first two videos were just tests to see how long it would take to animate and to play around with the look and shading.  I like the shading and detail in the slapshot better, but it took so long to execute that a full short at that level would take years for me.  In the interest of being able to finish a short in my spare time, I took a stab at a simpler but similar style with the referee's animation.

Enjoy!

Slapshot:

HockeySlapShot from Nathan Dunlap on Vimeo.

Referee Cycle:

Ref Test from Nathan Dunlap on Vimeo.

I spent a bit of time refining the proportions and look of the characters before I started working on the short proper.  I even made model sheets of the hockey player (they'd all look the same) and the referee.  The short starts with the ice rink empty, then a blue blur flashes across, then a red blur, then a few more red and blue blurs, then a huge wave of ice dust (you know, the kind that happens when you stop on ice skates) from either side of the screen meets in the middle and explodes into a giant cloud.  When the dust clears, you would be left with the two players in their face-off positions and then this would follow:

Opening Shot Hockey Short from Nathan Dunlap on Vimeo.

I still want to make it into a 2-4 minute short, but I need to get some better, more reliable animation equipment first.

First Book Cover!

A few months ago the former Head-Chaplain at Thomas Aquinas College (where I went to college) asked me to illustrate the cover of a book that he had just finished writing.  It's called Stephen Larigaudelle Dubuisson, S.J. (1786-1864) and the Reform of the American Jesuits.  He said he wanted a Jesuit on a white expanse running towards the insignia of the Jesuit order carrying an American flag.  This is the final image:

It was a lot of fun to do.  I drew up several small sketches of a Jesuit running in different poses and a couple different flags and showed them to Father Buckley.  He picked out the elements he liked from the different poses, and I drew up a larger version in pencil which set the values.  Then I took a picture of the pencil drawing, loaded it into my iPad and painted over it with the layers set to multiply.  After a couple minor iterations we ended up with the above image that we were both happy with.  I had some great critiques from Imran while working on both the final digital painting and the early roughs.  Thanks to him the actual drawing and painting process was a lot faster.

Preliminary sketches:

(You can see Imran's suggestion sketch in the top right.)

Value pencil drawing in progress:

The most time consuming part was working with the publishers, since they had very strict guidelines and templates that we had to work within.  But it was a great experience and one that I thoroughly enjoyed.

And my art is published on a book cover!  How cool is that?

The book is available here: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780761862321

Trying vs. Not Trying

Sometimes I find that if I don't care about the drawing or the paper I end up with something I really like.  That happened with this ink sketch copied from an ad for the new Wolverine movie.  I was super relaxed and felt more like I was doodling than drawing.  I'm pretty happy with the end result.  Maybe it turned out better because I didn't care much about the end product so I wasn't worrying about every single detail and as a result my pen lines are less feathery and cleaner than they are when I'm trying to follow a pencil under-drawing.  Or maybe I just couldn't be disappointed since I didn't care much about the end product, so when it turned out okay I was pleasantly surprised.

On the other hand, sometimes I find that working minutely and carefully, starting with one area and moving outwards one detail at a time ends up with a drawing which is EXACTLY how I wanted it turn out.  That happened with this life drawing in which the guys were not posing or even aware that I was drawing them.

I tried this method another time while waiting line at the bank.  Instead of blocking out the figure,  I drew the gesture in very lightly (so just a single line each for the spine, arm, legs, and head).  Then I started carefully drawing in the details starting with the shoulder and arm, then the back and then switching back and forth between the head and the pants.

 I'm trying to find a happy medium between these two methods where I can focus on details while at the same time skipping the pencil stage and drawing quickly with clean pen strokes.

Elnora

This is the final 4"x6" watercolor painting of my daughter Elnora.  I ended up using a white China marker to make some of the highlights stand out a bit more, and a couple color pencils for some of the darks and her eyebrows.  Unfortunately, something gets lost when the painting is scanned.  I did my best to get the colors back to the way they are in the painting itself, but it just looks different on the screen than it does in real life.

Here are the steps that the painting went through:

It was at this penultimate step that I was shown a lot of painted portraits by one of my colleagues nearly all of which had dark backgrounds.  So I decided to make the background darker to provide the contrast for her face.

The Ugly and the Beautiful

This is just an orc.  You know, the kind who'd offer you a drink.  The nice kind.  Actually, the cup and hand were an afterthought suggested by a friend.  I originally just drew the face in loosely and started throwing water colors at it right away.  Mostly this was a way for me to get messy with watercolors and find out how easy or difficult it is to make mistakes, fix mistakes, and change direction once I've started.  The first is very easy, the second two not so much.

A quick sketch of my daughter when she wasn't looking!

This is the beginnings of my first "real" watercolor.  By "real," I mean the first one where I'm actually using watercolors as they were meant to be used starting by properly preparing the paper (you can see I have it taped down to a piece of cardboard).  I also put a little time into the pencil under-drawing.  I usually get too attached to a nice pencil drawing to put paint on top and potentially ruin it, but this time will be different!  I'll try to keep track of the different stages as it comes along.