The Art of Skull Dixon

Recent Daily Doodles.

2012-01-12T11:30:00.000-08:00

I know its been a while since I last posted. I have been busying with my internship at Deep Sky Studios. I learned Toon Boom Studio, which is WAY better than Flash. I have been Character Designing and Story Boarding for the short that Deep Sky has decided to do; which I'll post the link to when final animation is completed.

Her are some kool daily doodles I have done recently.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-25T14:55:00.000-08:00

Here is a Thanksgiving Doodle; Happy Holidays!

Goblins

2011-11-14T11:13:00.000-08:00

I came up with an idea for a Table Top Role Playing Game where the players play Goblins in the employ of a wizard. The game involves cooperative play where the players work together to achieve some goal, but at the same time there will be plenty of back stabbing too. So i have been working on the mechanics of the game and doodling up concepts for the art in the game book. Here is some of the Goblins I doodled up:

HAPPY HALLOWEEN pt2

2011-10-31T05:46:00.000-07:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

2011-10-29T16:28:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween. I for one love this holiday because you get to dress up in costume and no one looks at you like your weird. Not that usually stops me anyway.

Sword Swing Animation part: 3

2011-10-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

Here is the final result of the Sword Swing animation. I'm pretty happy with it. I adjusted the timing for the arms, spent more time working with the left arm to make it look and feel more natural. I added in the facial expression, not my strongest area, but something I will be working on more and more over the next few weeks. I also added some color textures to the Goon's body to make it appear as if he was wearing a little leather underoos and some pieces of armor.

Sword Swing Animation part: 2

2011-10-05T16:38:00.000-07:00

I have smoothed out the tangents and played with the timing. You may also note that I completed changed the character's Left arm. I did this because of the fact that the previous poses for this arm was floating a bit and had an instant where the arm did a 180 flip before grabbing onto the sword.. Which is always fun when that happens. On top of all of this the arm was a little to active, too much movement that was distracting from the overall action.

Now I need to add some slight movement to the fingers on the left hand so they don't appear to be so stiff. I also need to go through and add the facial expressions to finish of this piece.

Sword Swing Animation

2011-10-03T04:51:00.000-07:00

I am currently working on a CG Animation of a the Goon Character model preforming a sword combat. The first steps I took were to study an individual swinging a sword with a purpose. I found Several good references on youtube and in several books. Once I had an idea of the direction I wanted the animation to take, I sketched out the key poses. Once the Key poses looked the way i wanted them I set up the scene in Maya and began to pose Goon in the the poses I had sketched, while keeping the Tangents in the graph Editor as Step Tangents. Once I was done here is what I ended up with:

This didn't look to bad. So i decided to make a few adjustments to the poses I had here and then start to add inbetweens to smooth out the larger motions and adjust the timing.

As you can see the Animation is coming along nicely. Now I need to change the Step Tangents to Spline Tangents and then clean up the tangents and smooth out the motion as we go. I'll post the finished animation when I am finished.

2 hour Digital Paint Copy

2011-09-27T22:33:00.000-07:00

Earlier today I started to do a copy of a photo to strengthen my Photoshop painting skills. The first run of these will be 2 hours long and then later I'll change it to 1 hour paint sessions. So here is todays. The face is still off, but I was not aiming for a final fully detailed piece> I was aiming to capture the reference Image to the best of the ability and then go in and strengthen certain areas as best as i could. I don't spend enough time painting in photoshop and need to improve.

The Digital Copy:

the Original:

The Parts that I like that turned out really awesome; the area under the chin and around the jaw line. There is a really nice reflective light in there thats full of color and life. I like her arm, the direction it was heading, it just is not on the same page as the face. Still to suggestive. The eye still does not look right and part of this has to do with the fact that the eye is too white. It makes her look crazy or evil. The face too is not prefect, she looks to old.

Hopefully, I'll have another one of these up tomorrow night.

Ravenwood Fair

2011-08-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

The other day I applied for a position at Lolapps, which is a social network game company. In an effort to get to know the company and their games more, I started to play one of their facebook games, called "Ravenwood Fair". To tell you the truth I really liked the image that they had up on the Lolapps main site for the game, which is why I decided to try it out. Anything with floating islands only accessible by airship is awesome, in opinion.
Ravenwood Fair is about you living on this floating island that is covered by a dark (haunted) forest and you want to turn the land into a fair. So you cut down trees to make space for your fair and the more stuff you have the more people show up (by airship) to give you money (and experience) to enjoy your fair. These same people will also occasionally give you quests to complete, which is cool. Later you get a mole who shows up and helps you build a mine on the island as well, and you can go down there and mine to your hearts content. You can build mining machines which will bring in more moles to work the mine. These moles operate the same way as the visitors of the fair and you will gain experience and rocks (which you need like wood to build stuff in the mine). However, the mines and the forest are not safe so occasionally you will need to beat down the monsters that live there. Which gives you all kinds of fun experience points and other goodies. I think the best part about it is that you beat them up with a shovel. Anyway, to help protect your visitors and miners you place protectors in your fair/mine. These will comfort the visitor/miner when they are scared and attack monsters. Each protector is different and each has its own area of effect and its own amount of time that they can operate before needing recharged (which is you dancing for them).

I never play facebook games, I think they are addictive and that you end up spending a lot of time on them when you could be working on other stuff. So i try to stay away from them; the same goes for MMORPGs. So I tried the game for 3 days and I have to say that the game play is fun and enjoyable. It is a game that you could jump on to at least 3 times a day and play without ever having to go out of your way to buy anything with real cash. However, The two things I did notice is that 1) if you don't have other people you know who also play- it makes it difficult to build things because of a lack of certain resources, and 2) as far as i could tell there was no way of knowing what all the requirements for any one building/game/etc were before you started to build it (these requirements are ones needed besides cash and wood). You get almost done and be at the last step when you would be told that you needed 3 (or more) different resources other than wood and that you didn't have enough of it yet. Which hey, whatever, I'll just go looking for it, right? Well not all resources are equal. The resources that you get all the time are things like wood, money, and food. Easy to get. Other resources are a bit more hard to get - some maybe even a little to hard to get if you 1) don't have neighbors (friend who are playing) or 2) don't want to spend real money to buy it. I imagine you could just wait it out, but that will slow the game down a bit. However, I imagine most facebook games are setup like this, since they are 1) social network games and 2) free, so the companies who make them need to make money some how. So with all that in mind it is a worth while game to play and the Art work is great! Try it out if your the type to play Facebook games.

Figure drawings 8/17/2011

2011-08-18T01:06:00.000-07:00

I was unable to sleep last night, so after the 3rd time trying to fall asleep I gave up and decided to do some figure drawing instead.

Knight Tale: 3

2011-08-16T20:25:00.000-07:00

So here is today's progress so far. I need to go back and fix both the Tower doorway and Window so that they are large enough for the princess. Plus I need to go back and break the Princess' hair into 4 parts instead of the 3 that it currently is so that her arm does not get lost in her golden locks. Soon we shall see the monster make an appearance then things will really get lively.

Knight Tale: 2

2011-08-15T19:08:00.000-07:00

So I started to animate my wooden horse, that the knight will ride on. The knight is not animated yet, but here is the horse. Enjoy.

One Inch Chef

2011-08-15T09:21:00.000-07:00

I had this idea the other week about a one inch tall chef that had to battle all kinds of food stuff in order to return to his proper size and finish the making Diner. Some of the food items that I think he would fight are things like: Zombie Carrots, Killer Turnips, Ghoulish Spring Onions, Many0eyed Potatoes, Headless Chickens, Menacing Beef, Vengeful Turkeys, Spoiled Grapes, Spiting Pomegranates, etc. Along with Crazied Mice, Evil Rats, and Devious Cockroaches.
The play style of the game would be a side-scroller much like the old Mario Brothers games or Sonic the hedge Hog. The chef would wield a big cleaver as his main weapon, he would have a heath gauge and a spice rack. The spice rack would have a few different spices on it that he could collect as he traveled the kitchen environment. You would have Meat Tenderizer that doubled damage done to meat products, salt to dehydrate veggies, some kind of spice for heath and some other spice as a power up.

So here is the image I saw in my mind; I still need to work up the health bar and spice rack, which I will post up at a later date.

Knight Tale:1

2011-08-12T15:32:00.000-07:00

I am working on a short flash animation of my own devising. Here is the scene layout, which will help reflect the feel I am going for. The flash animation will be much longer than this quick preview.

Here is the Monster that will be with in the scene:

Plein Air Painting

2011-05-20T19:06:00.000-07:00

Today was a nice day to go outside and paint. Usually it rains in Portland during any season that is not summer, so you take the warm none wet days when you can get them.
Since it was nice out I decided to go out and do a quick little Plein Air Painting. I have not done one of these since last summer, so I'm a little rusty. At the same time I haven't used any oils for just as long, since I have been spending the winter getting better at Water Colors. Oil Paints is what I like to think of as "Warm Climate" paints, since It requires either a well ventilated area to use or the outdoors. And since I don't like to be cold the only time I go out to paint is during the spring and summer. Water colors are more of an everyday paint for me, same goes for Acrylics since neither of these require ventilation or fresh air to use safely.
So I spent 3 hours outside and did only one Painting from my front yard. I could tell that I am a little rusty at doing this since it took some time to get anywhere with it at first, and then half ways through i had to remind myself that, "A course it doesn't look right, your standing to close. Take a step back and get some perspective on the scene as a whole". And so thats what i did. once I did this the painting and hard to find core colors started to fall into place. So over all it turned out pretty good. And i even finished the painting too; this is something I am bad at doing some times. I get either bored by the painting towards the end and just want to move on or dislike the progress i have made and just want to start anew.
I will point out that Lee White was correct with replacing my use of Titanium White with Zinc White as a white to mix with other colors. If you mix Titanium White with any other color it tends to make the color look chalky, whereas, the use of Zinc White does not. I don't know why my teacher who taught me how to paint with oil paints did not know this, since she required us to use only Titanium White.

So here is the final result, this was taken with my phone camera, I'll have to wait til it is dry to scan this on my Epson later. When I do this I'll post the better Image here.

Designing Flash Characters and ASIFA.

2011-05-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I went to my first ASIFA Event here in Portland, Oregon. We meet downtown Saturday morning and had a bagel breakfest and chatted a little before the main event. ASIFA Portland had a few speakers come for their second annual unconference, one of which was a woman who worked for RACC. This was the main discussion that I went to. RACC holds these yearly grants that they hand out to artist so that those artist can get their purposed projects done. There are a few specifications that an artist has to meet in order to receive a grant from RACC. The first is that they must write up and hand in a proposal for the project, the breakdown of what the money will be used for, and they have to have something to show as a finished product at the end of the year. if they like your proposal then they give you half the money up front and the other half at the end when the project is completed.
Now, I don't have any projects currently that I need funding for.The knowledge that this is available; however, is great for if I do at some point down the line need money for a project. The only bad thing for those who might be reading this is that this is a Oregon thing. However, I don't doubt that other cities and states have this type of thing available as well. You'll just have to look into it.
The other discussion I sat in was on how to promote yourself. However, I hand to leave before the end of the discussion, because I had to meet up with my wife and Daughter to go to another event that day. It did not look like they were going to get very far with that discussion anyway, since when I left they had something like 10 mins left and were still discussion the use of a Blog as a self promotion tool and how it differs from a personal website. The Unconference lasted until about 2:30 pm and had several other discussions going on.

The other thing that I have been working on these past few weeks is character designing for Flash. When I do this I create everything in Adobe Illustrator and then import that whole ai file into flash. From here the different parts are turned into symbols and saved into a main Flash file. I make any minor adjustments that you cannot do in Illustrator in Flash before I am done, such as remove lines that don't need to be in certain areas like the arms and forearms.
With this Knight character I had to remove the lines that separated the Chest from the Lower Body so that the two pieces looked to be one whole piece.

The next piece I hope to do is a dragon to go with this character.

Tentacle Monster

2011-04-15T21:34:00.000-07:00

Here is a little 2 second sneak peak at something I am working on. Enjoy.

Always Learning Something New.

2011-04-08T17:36:00.000-07:00

I will tell you what, once you become a CG animator it no longer about worrying about make sure you keep up on your animating skills. Nope, its all about keeping up with the new software version that they came out with that year so you can do your bloody job. I mean you'll still be practicing your skills, but your focus will be on learning all the new stuff more so than on the animation as a whole. Traditional Animators in the past had it easy. They didn't have to worry about needing to learn how to use a new pencil every year, they just picked the pencil up and started to draw.

Anyway, I have to now learn to use several different CG animation software. Luckily, they say that if you can learn Maya you can use any of the other software. It comes down to learning all the buttons and going throw the motions- which takes time. Time in which I wish i could use doing something else, like paint.

Dialog

2011-04-04T18:34:00.000-07:00

I was going to do the March 11second club contest, but March was a really busy time for me and as such i put aside 5 days at the end of the month to animate the whole 11 seconds. Unfortunately, I should have given myself more time and only got four seconds done. So i cleaned these 4 seconds up and here they are.

Robber Bridegroom Part 3

2011-04-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

Here we have the Beat Boards for the Robber Bridegroom story.

THE YOUNG GIRL WAVES TO HER FATHER AS SHE HEADS OFF TO COLLECT BERRIES IN A

NEARBY MEADOW.

A RICHLY DRESSED YOUNG MAN SHOWS UP TO THE MILLER’S HOME IN ORDER TO ASK

FOR HIS DAUGHTER’S HAND IN MARRIAGE.

WHILE THE STRANGER IS TALKING TO THE MILLER, A SHADOW PASSES OVER THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER AND CAUSES HER TO FEEL A CHILL DEEP IN HER HEART.

WHEN THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER RETURNS, SHE IS SURPRISED TO SEE A STRANGER IN

HER HOME AND IN HER SHOCK DROPS THE BASKET OF BERRIES. THE CHILL DEEPENS

IN HER HEART.

THE MILLER HAS AGREED TO THE MARRIAGE PROPOSAL. THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER

TAKES THIS NEWS WITH A SAD FACE, THE GROOM ASSUMES IT IS BECAUSE OF HER

NOT KNOWING HIM AND INVITES HER TO VISIT HIS HOME FOR SUNDAY DINNER.

THE BRIDE DECIDES TO TAKE HER GROOM UP ON HIS OFFER AND FOLLOWS THE PATH

HE TOLD HER TO HIS HOME. THE PATH SOON BECOMES UN MAINTAINED AND THE TREES SEEM TO TRY TO HOLD HER BACK, BUT SHE MOVES ONWARD.

THE BRIDE COMES OUT OF THE FOREST AND FINDS AN OLD NEGLECTED DARK HOUSE.

INSIDE SHE FINDS THE ONLY OCCUPANT, AN OLD WOMAN. THE OLD WOMAN TELLS HER THAT EVIL MEN LIVE IN THIS HOUSE. THAT THESE EVIL MEN MARRY WOMAN OF THE VILLAGES AND THEN BRING BACK HERE TO EAT THEM.

THE OLD WOMAN EXPLAINS THAT THE BRIDE SHOULD HIDE, BECAUSE THE EVIL MEN WILL SOON RETURN.

WHEN THE MEN RETURN, WE SEE THE GROOM AND HIS MEN THROW A DEAD WOMAN ON A NEARBY TABLE AND BEGIN TO HACK THE BODY INTO SMALLER PARTS.

DURING THIS PROCESS, THE WOMANS FINGER GETS LOPED OFF AND FLIES INTO

WHERE SHE IS HIDDEN INTO THE BRIDE’S LAP. SHE HOLDS BACK A CRY IN FEAR OF BEING FOUND.

WHEN THE BRIDE RETURNS HOME AFTER SNEAKING AWAY FROM THE HOUSE SHE

TELLS HER FATHER WHAT SHE SAW AND HEARD. HE IS IN DISMAY AT THE FATE HE

HAD ALMOST COSIGNED HIS DAUGHTER TO.

THE MILLER ALLOWS THE WEDDING PROCEED AS PLANNED BY THE GROOM,

BUT BEFORE THE CEREMONY BEGINS THE GROOM IS ARRESTED. THE BRIDE TELLS

EVERYONE IN THE VILLAGE ABOUT THE HORRORS THAT SHE HAD WITNESSED IN

THE ABANDONED HOUSE. THE GROOM AND HIS MEN ARE ROUNDED

UP AND SOON HANGED.

The End

Robber Bridegroom Part 2

2011-03-24T17:21:00.000-07:00

As i had stated previously, I was working on the beat boards to the Brother's Grimm Fairy Tale "The Robber Bridegroom". Here are the character designs that I worked up for this story. There are four characters in this story that are important, The Bride: the miller's Daughter, the Miller, The Robber Bridegroom, and The Old Woman.

The Bride

The Miller

The Robber Bridegroom

The Old Woman

Next time I'll post the beatboards for the story.

The Robber Bridegroom

2011-02-19T12:21:00.000-08:00

One of my current projects that I am getting together for my Graduation at the end of March is The story of "The Robber Bridegroom", which is a Grimm Brothers fairy tale. I am conceptualizing out a few of the key Layouts, as well as the four important characters within the story: The Miller, The Miller's Daughter, The Robber Bridegroom, and The old Woman that lives in the house that the Robber Bridegroom and his men use as a home base. I figure she is his elderly Mother who they use as a house slave.
My hope is to have all of these conceptual drawing done, as well as, the Beat Boards for the story. For those of you who don't know, Beat Boards are Storyboards that cover the main idea of each scene/sequence.

Robber Bridegroom Synopsis:

A miller wished to marry his daughter off, and so when a rich suitor appeared, he betrothed her to him. One day the suitor complained that the daughter never visited him, told her that he lived in the forest, and overrode her reluctance by telling her he would leave a trail of ashes so she could find his home. She filled her pockets with peas and lentils and marked the trail with them as she followed the ashes.

They led her to a dark and silent house. A bird in a cage called out to warn her that she entered a murderer's house. An old woman in a cellar kitchen told her that the people there would kill and eat her unless the old woman protected her and hid her behind a barrel. A band of robbers arrived with a young woman, and they killed her and prepared to eat her. When one chopped off a finger to get at the golden ring on it, the finger and ring flew through the air and landed in the bodice of the hiding woman. The old woman discouraged them from searching, because the finger nor the ring were likely to run away: they'd find it in the morning.

The old woman drugged the robbers' wine. As soon as they fell asleep, the two living women fled. Wind had blown the ashes away, but the peas and lentils had sprung up into seedlings: the two followed the path of plants and reached the young woman's home.

When the wedding day arrived and the guests were telling stories, the young woman said that she would tell a dream she had had, and told of her visit to the robbers' den, her bridegroom punctuating it with "My darling, you only dreamed this." -- or the robber punctuating with exclamations that it was not so in the Mr. Fox variant -- until she produced the finger of the dead girl and showed it to the company.

The robber bridegroom and all his band were put to death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Robber_Bridegroom_(fairy_tale)

Cleaver Fever

2011-02-05T18:38:00.000-08:00

Recently, I started to animate for a video game that is in production at the Portland AI. The first character they gave me to animate was a Spider and my first thought was, "oh, no. A multiple legged creature, dear me." But it turned out easier than I had originally thought it would. Here is the walk and bite animation i did for the game.

Spider Walk

Spider Bite

My Senor Thesis: Design As Story

2010-12-23T19:06:00.000-08:00

I have only one term left of school and recently had to write up my Senior Thesis as part of one of my required classes in order to graduate. The thesis is to be about what design meant to us. I had decided that Design was story to me; here is my thesis - which I got a B+ for.

Story as Design:

The way I view design is augmented by what I design. A designer of furniture would see design as an expression of the designer’s inspiration and the consumer’s want. As an illustrator, as an animator, as a story artist I see design as story. This belief is broken down into several areas, which I will explore in this thesis. As an illustrator and story artist story is important to everything I draw. When creating an illustration for something like a children’s book it is key for each image to communicate the flow of the story on each page and correspond to the written words on those pages. Not only that but each page must draw the reader’s attention to the key element of that page, which in turn is the focus of the illustration. The same goes for storyboards. The storyboard is a visual script for the directors, camera crew, animators, and designers to follow so that everyone is on the same page. The storyboards track the flow and timing of the film, each illustrated page must communicate the mood of the scene as well as make evident the key elements that make up that scene and drive the plot forward. As animator, it is my job to help the animation communicate properly so the audience does not become confused or end up losing what is called “the suspension of disbelief”, which is what is required for the audience to enjoy and feel involved in the film. If the audience is removed from the story and views it from outside, then the story loses that element that makes it enjoyable. An animator helps the audience stay in the story by animating the characters in a believable fashion; this could be as realistic as actual life or as unrealistic as cartoons can be. This all depends on the style of the animation. As long as we set the style at the beginning the audience will follow. However, badly done animation or animation that breaks the chosen style can lose the audience and break them from the needed connection to the story (Williams, 2001). So animators need to know not only the story they are animating for, but the underlying motives and emotions of the characters they are animating within the story. Two of the approaches that animators, illustrators, and story artists use to achieve this is through drawing and acting.

Drawing is the Key Element to Design:

Drawing is the most important aspect to design. This is where your ideas and vision is given form. Draftmenship is the most dynamic creative engine any visual artist can own (Neumeier, 1997). This means that the first step for any project an artist approaches should be to sit down and draw. Drawing is where we wrestle with our own inner demons, our expectations, our vision, and the inherent flaws of our design. This is where we work out our composition, our staging, in order for the project to communicate with its intended viewers. Walt Stanchfield says that we need to draw. We need to draw everything we can see and touch around us. We should draw the common and uncommon elements of our daily life until their every detail can be seen within our minds. It is through this that we are able to add depth to our design and be able to pull out any type of drawing without wasting a lot of time searching for the right reference. Because if you need to stop your creative flow even for a minute so you can find a photo of the right style of chair, you could lose your artistic focus and vision during the lapse in time between searching and working. This stage is important in any career, Laura L. Mays Hoopes writes about her experience in grad school; she says that she couldn’t see past her nose to the possibilities that were out there without first obtaining a wealth of knowledge through studying. She could not make the advancements she has in the field of science if she first did not learn what others had done before her.

Wish you could produce your own storyboard for a short film? Not an artist? Can’t draw a straight line without a ruler? I don’t buy it. If you’re capable of writing you own name, you can draw (Lloyd, November 22 2007). One of my teachers, who has taught me and continues to teach me how to expand my horizons and push myself, was not always an artist. In his twenties he decided to teach himself to draw, he became such a good artist that he worked for Dreamworks for a time and is currently a well known children’s book illustrator, as well as a teacher at the Art Institute of Portland, Oregon. If he could do it, why can no one else? He teaches that in order to fully see your own idea you have to be able to take that idea and draw it a hundred times, in as many possible angles, compositions, styles, etc, until you can see it fully. This is achieved through thumbnails; if drawing is the cornerstone to the foundation of design, then thumbnails are the atoms within that cornerstone that holds in all together. We do this because the first drawing, the top card, is rarely the best drawing or what the final composite will be. We should always push it further. The small, rough composition of a thumbnail is there to get ideas out quickly, without worry of detail and precision. That helps us gauge value and staging before the real art piece is created. This all plays back into story. We cannot create a story without being able to see its structure, its architecture. Thumbnails are the floor plans for that architecture. Daily sketching is the hours of research and the acquired knowledge that we need before we build that structure, because without it the structure will collapse in on itself. The art piece will not communicate to its audience.

Acting is fundamental to Story:

How is it that animators and illustrators are capable of getting so much emotion and intent out of their characters? How is it that an actor is able to portray their character so convincingly? Humans gain so much information from body language and facial movements, the majority of which is noticed subconsciously. Actors use these body hints to communicate the personality, the emotion and the motive of the characters they are playing. Animators are actors as well. However, animators do not themselves get up on stage and act out the scenes of their films, but instead draw the characters into the scenes and use the character’s pose to communicate that character personality, motives, and emotion. Animators have to learn acting so that they can animate believable characters, because without that believability the audience will be removed from the story and be viewing it from outside. However, we do not want to confuse the audience with the amount of information that can be drawn into a pose. Every pose should be the emphasis of a single idea or key word and when these poses are strung together the read as a clear message of the character wants and needs. This is what Dieter Rams would call, omitting the unimportant.

Acting also helps the animator in other way. We often times need to study how much time it takes for a person with a limp to walk across the room, or pick up a spoon, or cough. By acting out the action we not only learn about the character’s motives, but also we gain an understanding on the timing and tempo for the action. Through the control of the tempo and timing we can manipulate the audience’s emotions and how they will react to the character’s actions. The tempo of a story for film is controlled by the story artist, with the assistance of the director. The storyboards tell the whole film crew, from director to animator, how fast or slow the story progresses. Without this stage, this key element to the production phase, the film would take much longer to complete. The other importance of storyboards is to show the artist’s vision to the non-artistic. Businessmen run the whole industry and give the production crew the money they need to make the film; however, these people do not understand scripts and rough sketches and need something more to energize them towards the film. This is when the storyboards come into play. The storyboards are drawn out and timed, and then they are roughly animated into what is called an animatic. This is what the businessman will be shown and gives him the full scope of what the production will be about. What the end result will be. So acting is important for me because it breathes life into my drawings and allows the audience to believe in my art, as well as, fuel the imaginations of the un-artistic so that I can see my vision come to life.

The Magic of Imagination:

The use of story as design helps create greater and more powerful art. Even during the Renaissance this is true. The works that were made during the Renaissance had deeper meaning than just paint on canvas or pretty images to grace a church ceiling. They were created from the artist’s vision to portray the story that the artist want to tell. This would be viewed by the masses, which were illiterate, and they would in turn would be inspired and gain insight into the world around them, beyond what they knew in their everyday lives. The duty of the artist has not changed since the beginning of time. We are all storytellers in our own way; whether that story is one of our own that we create to help us work through our own inner demons, or one of ancient folk lore that helps the audience learn more about itself. It is our moral duty to tell our stories and the stories of the people of the world to progress society as a whole. It is through our designs that we tell these stories, push boundaries, and communicate across generations and cultures. This does not change simply because of the medium used, whether the story is told through animation, an illustrated book, or the written word; art revolves around a story and the story is given impact by its design.

References

Laura L. Mays Hoopes, Through The Spiral Ceiling 2006

Dieter Rams, Omite the unimportant, The Idea of Design, 1989

Marty Neumeier, Draftsmenship, Critique Magazine 1997, Autumn issue.

Walt Stanchfield, Drawn To Life Volume One, 2009

Walt Stanchfield, Drawn To Life Volume Two, 2009

Nancy Beiman, Perpare to Board, 2007

Karen J Lloyd, The Storyboard Blog, http://karenjlloyd.com/blog/home/

Richard Williams, Animator’s Survival Kit, 2001

Figure Drawing for a Month: Part 2 (Late)

2010-12-23T19:00:00.000-08:00

I am a little late, several months, on scanning these Sketches. but here is the last set of sketches for the month of Figure drawing. I think by the end of the month I was a week late on the sketch. I think this happened because of school. it seemed that i wouldn't get around to do any figure drawing on the days that I had classes. Then i would spend the following days trying to catch up with the days I missed. Some times I would catch up, but after a time I got behind. Which is why i am missing 7 days of ketches.

The Ball Bounce: The Cornerstone to all Animation

2010-10-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

Practice, Practice, Practice. Here is a ball bounce using a Squash Deformer.

Figure Drawing for a Month: Part 1

2010-10-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

So i decided to do daily figure drawings this month. I have been terrible about doing daily sketching in the past and need to develop the habit of doing it. So here are the first eleven days of my daily sketches in the following ten images. They are not all perfect by any means, but they all had something to teach me.

Making of the "Journey to the West" Poster

2010-10-02T14:37:00.000-07:00

As an assignment for a class I was to design a poster for a theater. The subject was up to me, so I picked Journey to the West since it is one of my favorite stories.

So the first thing I did was thumb out some ideas and then pick one to go with for the final Poster.
Sketches:

So i picked the one with the Monkey Kings Arm coming down into the scene holding the scrolls. this kept most of the story a mystery, but intrigue the audience enough to want to know more. So i blow this thumbnail up and then traced it onto a new piece of paper. Then i went in and strengthen the composition. Once that was done I painted a Value study of it to get it to the right look. If it worked as a black and white then it would work in color.

Then from there i painted it.

I wanted the whole feel to be Chinese inspired, have a vague Chinese brush paint feel to it. I had to make sure that the scrolls read as rolled up sheet of paper and Instead of just painting the lines in I got a photograph of rolled up paper and Image Manipulated it to work in the illustration. This turned out fairly well.

Animated Slip and Fall

2010-09-10T21:51:00.001-07:00

I have been working off and on on this animation for the pass 4 weeks and here is the final playblast. Enjoy.

Working on a Slip and Fall Animation

2010-09-03T21:43:00.000-07:00

One of the several animations I am working on currently is a slip and fall. The following video shows how far I have gotten in this Animation. So far, I have just finished up with the blocking and I am now looking it over to see what I can improve, remove, and add.

Already, there is a section here at the beginning that I plan to remove, It looks like unnecessary animation that takes away from the rest of the animation.

Animating Weight in Maya

2010-08-30T20:14:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been working to improve my CG animation skills in Maya.

The following is a video that shows what I decided to animate. If you watch there is much left to be desired in this animation.

So once i have looked this over and received some critique from my class, I went back through and cleaned up my Graph editor, changed some of my silhouette choices, changed some of the timing, and added a bit more to it overall. here is what it looks like now.

Now i will go back through this again and play with the timing in sections until I feel its right. This is more of "feel for it" type of thing.

Animating Dialog and a take in Maya Part: 1

2010-08-09T19:40:00.000-07:00

For Class I am suppose to pick a piece of 11 second long dialog and animate it with take happening at some point during the scene. The take does not have to be Tex Avery in style, but can be something much more smaller.
The Dialog I picked is from the Movie "The man who knew too little", which is a spy spoof movie staring Bill Murray.

As the first part of the process I have begun to block out the action that will be taking place in the scene. I decided to place two character at a bar having never meet each other before this moment when the first character begins to act emotionally towards the other.

There are a few parts right away that stick out in my mind that need changed. One being that the right hand character's left hand Sticks to the top of the counter through out most of the scene. I plan to break this up with some movement; to balance this movement I will not have the right hand moving during this time.

Paper Indians

2010-08-03T01:05:00.000-07:00

Last Year I animated on a School 2D Production Called "Paper Indians". The story was about a hard working father who comes home and wants nothing more than to rest; however, his two active and Imaginative sons are running around the house playing, making noises, and pretty much acting like the children they are.

Take a look: Paper Indians.

Out of It

2010-08-02T19:38:00.000-07:00

So I have not posted here for quite some time. This is due to laziness, lack of time, with a mix of "I don't have anything to post about".

However, I will try to get back in to it again.

First off; I am working on several new things currently. I am working to improve my CG animation skills in Maya, I am working with a team to concept a animated commercial for a local Barber shop, and I have just finished up a "Work For Hire" Contract for 12 illustrations which I will place on My website Portfolio when I finally get it made and setup. However, that will be down the road from now. Until then I might show them off here, But we will see.

Review: Princess and the Frog

2010-01-21T09:51:00.001-08:00

I Finally Saw "The Princess and The Frog" with my family on MLK Day. If you had read what I wrote earlier, I was not expecting much from the movie beyond the typical Disney Princess Formula. However, I want to see the movie because It just looked so good from an artistic point of View; which It was. The art of this film is Surpassed, in my opinion, that of the lion King. The backgrounds were beautiful and each one made you want to stay there for a little bit longer. It really made the swampy seem just as "Enchanted" as any other story book world.
I thing I loved best about this is the solid Moral or underlying theme of the story. I wont ruin it for anyone who has not seen it yet, so I wont go into details. I believe that This solid underlying theme is due to the steady hand of "John Lasseter" of the famed "Pixar". A true visionary. Often times the older Disney movies lack a strong theme or moral, something beyond the obvious. For instance, The Lion kings theme was the idea that you can't run from your past and that its selfish to only think of only yourself and not others when they depend on you to do whats right. All good themes to be sure, but nothing hard hitting or something that we all have not seen over and over again.
The only Problem I had with the movie came done to what Disney movies are known for: Musical numbers. It felt, to me, like the story was only there to string together all the musical scenes. Like they were just small stepping stones to get to the flash and the bang, as it were. Now, this is nothing against the music, because I have to say that it was not your typical Disney musical numbers that you see in all the other Disney Princess movie- which has no Soul. And thats one thing you can say about Jazz- it has Soul. The music was an excellent choice beyond that it reflected the time and the setting. It had Life- It had energy that made you want to dance... In fact, my daughter did dance- in her theater seat. But Like i said, Too Much music. I would have removed the first musical number (which in my mind was not needed because we got the point by this point (not to spoil anything) to the main character was trying her hardest to open a restaurant), we didn't need the Musical number to beat it into our heads as well. I would probably have removed 1 or 2 other Musical numbers- But as to which ones I could not say. The movie is an hour and a half long: 20 minutes of story and the rest of it music (I was not actually timing it so that may be off a bit). Thats the worse I can say for the whole film.
There was one character I was worried about when I first saw the Previews of the Movie. This was the Blonde rich girl, Charlotte. typically you would expect to see the rich girl become furious with the poor girl (never mind that she is black and in the south of the the 1930's)stealing her prince in the end of the movie. Charlotte is a breath air from this near dead stereotype. She is an actual friend to the main character and just so darn optimistic. In every scene you feel like you should hate her because she is so soiled, but she is so full of energy, hopes, dreams, and kindness that it makes it all so impossible to do so. Every times she speaks it makes you out of breath while she just keeps on talking. She was just amazing and delightful. i bet it was so much fun Animating her.
The last thing I will say is that If you love Anything about this movie, It would have to be the energy. The Whole movie is ripe with it and it fills you up to you core. I am glad to say that If Disney (with them holding back on how much music they put into the film)continues to make films like this or better they will surely return to the golden age. And for this I think we have John Lasseter to thank. Not because he help on this film, but because Pixar changed the way animated movies were viewed, written, animated, etc. Pixars the top of the heap and everyone wants to work there, but only the best get the chance. and I like to think that the reason for this is because they put so much heart and care into everything they make - just like Disney of the old days (and maybe today as well).

Some Recent Animations

2010-01-21T09:35:00.001-08:00

Animators as of late have become lazy in the TV field. Recently I watched the first Four episodes of “Secret Saturdays” from Cartoon Network. I enjoyed the freshness of the storyline and felt even if the villain was defeated the show could continue on. However, I noticed that the character design style lacked something. In fact, it lacked feet. All the main characters on this show, that were human, all had lazy big booty feet. Why? Did they just figure that the character was only important above the waist? And then there was the fact that if a character did have normal looking feet they were a background "Extra"- usually a female. In fact this has bothered me so much that I couldn't continue watching the show.

Recently, I also watched a few episodes of the “Ironman: Adventures” show and had to wonder about why the characters wore the same clothing every day. I mean, this is a serious styled show, nothing like the Flintstones for example where you would expect the character to wear the same thing day in and day out.The designers seemed to have put a lot of though into the show - which makes me want to see the concept art for it. I bet its all quite lovely. I'm thinking that This is more of a combination of lazy modelers and the producers who don't want to spend the extra money on several sets of clothing for each character. At least they all have normal sized feet and ankles.

By the By, I really like the storyboards off to the left.

The Princess and the Frog: Dud or Boom

2009-12-02T10:28:00.000-08:00

I, myself, like many out there am waiting for Disney’s newest 2D animation feature film to reach theaters. Many even thought at one time that Disney would forever be lost to 3D animation and never make another 2D feature film. I figured this was more paranoia than anything. Sure at the time 3D was the new kid on the block and can do things easier than can be done with 2D, but it does not have the same charm that people like myself love that can be gained from 2D.
But I digress, back to the reason for me to write this. I have been watching all the previews for “the Princess and the Frog” and think everything about it looks great. With that said, however, I must point out that I feel that it may not have the effect that Disney and many animations are expecting. I feel this way for one reason; Disney has done the same thing that it has done to most of its films, with a few exceptions. They have over run the movie with Broadway musical like scenes where the characters break out in song – song that some extent that has nothing to do with the plot other than to explain the obvious or hand the audience a gift wrapped lesson or moral. I think this is Disney’s fatal flaw, the reason why people enjoy Pixar or Studio Ghibli movies over Disney classics like Snow white and Beauty and the Beast. Neither Pixar or Studio Ghibli films need the Musical scenes- they understand that the audience is not idiots.
Some people may feel that I am wrong or too cynical in my observations; however, I would like to point out that the observations that have brought me to feel this way are not mine. The observations that I use are those of my Daughter, the person who these movies are made for. I have had her watch several of the older Disney movies: Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, etc. The ones that she loves and would sit through have not been the Princess classics, which are the most heavily musical, but instead have been movies like 101 Dalmatians, Lilo and Stitch, and many of the Pixar and Studio Ghibli movies. All these movies have one thing in common; they are not over run by pointless plot slowing musical numbers.
This is why I fear that “The princess and the frog” will not do as great as everyone hopes. Sure many people will see it, but I doubt that it will become a classic (except by Disney). The best thing that Disney can do is re-analysis their films to discover what makes one movie more likable for children now compared to 50 years ago. I believe that they will discover that they don’t need the lengthy musical numbers any more.

Steampunk: Wizard of Oz

2009-10-10T10:24:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I was assigned a project that required me to choose a story and design several characters from it in a steampunk style. So for this assignment I chose to go with the Wizard of Oz; which I was informed later on has been steampunked before. This would get some people down but not me, I just figure that, since I am steampunk that whatever I do would look more steampunk than what other people have done before.
For the characters that I chose design I went with our heroine Dorothy, the Tin-man, and the Gate keeper to the Emerald City. Dorothy became a tornadonaut, an explorer and traveler of the dangerous tornado twisted skies. The Tin-man was no longer a metal lumberjack, but a machine that lived in a dense metal forest where he unscrewed the bolts that held up the metallic trees so they could be turned into scrap metal. And the Gate keeper was still the gate keeper with his endless supply of green glasses (goggles) and keys. Here is the end result.
I plan to at some point to make more of these, I had a lot of fun making them; when I get them done I’ll post them here.

Animation Character design

2009-09-02T09:46:00.000-07:00

I am working on designing two characters for my final project in my adv. Animation class. My first step is to figure out the basic shapes that I want to use. This is what we call “Shape Language”. This is because it is much easier to move simple shapes around then complex ones when it comes to animation. So if I have the simple shapes figured out first then half my work is done.

When designing character there are a few things that I have to keep in mind: Shape (which I already talked about), silhouette (which will help the characters read better.), and attitude (this would reflect the character’s personality). These are even more import for the turnaround, if everything is not designed correctly then the turnaround of the character will look weird and then I’ll have to go back and fix the designs and have to do a new turnaround until I get it right. So it is best to get everything looking right the first time.

The child character was not working out right. First time it was because he did not fulfill the one requirement for the project; he is a bit too skinny. So I tried to make him more fat, however, this did not look good either so I ended up going back to my sketches and going with another character that worked better.

Peng Lai

2009-08-24T08:58:00.000-07:00

So i have been working more and more on finishi9ng the game for Jake's awesome Fantasy RPG challenge, since there is only seven days left.
As of now i have the basic rules and the resolution aspects of the system complete. Now i have to work on the hard stuff (in my opinion), the dreadful background on which the game is played. As i had stated in my previous post about the game, the game is about a group of people from all walks of life who were born at a pinnacle time and were in turn blessed to be chosen by the heavens to bring about a new age of man. However, change never comes with out a fight. There are too many people who profit from the world being as it is.
Now a few of the aspects I have to think through in the creation of this mythic world will help the players make the connect with the game. So to start i had to figure out what the land or world was going to look like. So i drew out a large island on a piece of paper and then started to work stuff into the world. I decided that there were going to be eight kingdoms and a set of mountian in the center of the island that have myths and legends behind them. Later i gave the world a name- in which gave the game its name. The name for the land mass came about during my research into Chinese mythology. As i had stated before, the game is a mix of several stories: The Twelve Kingdoms and The mysterious Play are the main two. Both of these have very strong Chinese elements to them. So when i was doing reseach I came upon the name "Peng Lai", which is the name of an island in Chinese mythology. It fit what i was going for in the game so i took that as being the name of this land.
Once i had this all done, it was all pretty much down hill from here. I just had to watch my footing so that i wouldn't trip up somewhere and fall down my proverbial hill. So i had to figure out what was going on in the world that needed to be changed by the player characters. So first i wanted to show that there was corruption in the world, no one likes corruption, and since this was a mythical world I wanted to show it using magically. This was inspired by Twelve Kingdoms to tell the truth. So there are Yaomo that appear in the world, which are pretty much demons, when ever there is corruption of the state/kingdom. So now i have a defined enemy, so to speak, for the players to deal with. Now i have to write out the current situations for each kingdoms, some being in better shape than others. This will help me figure out what characters in the world would be more willing for there to be change in the world than others. This is pretty much were i am at. I'll try to post once more efore i turn this in at the end of the month.

The Dragonwake Project

2009-08-10T16:48:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine asked if i would draw some characters for a websites logo. he at first thought that i would be too busy, but since i am taking an advanced Character design class at school i could do this for him without it getting in the way of my studies (as long as i schedule my homework time).
The character were to be a group of fantasy style cartoon adventurers and a dragon. There is more to the final drawing than this, but i rather keep some of what i am doing for this back for now. So anyway, i started working out the shape language of the characters to see what would work best for what each character represented. What does a cleric look like, are the short and round, some what golly fellows? Or are they thin wisps of a man stooped from years of hand writing text in thick tomes? a golly fellow would consist of more rounded shapes, while a bend scribe would be made of square and triangle shapes. And i thought this through for each character and played with their designs.
I also had to think about what style of "Cartoony" i want to do this in. There are several ways you could classify "Cartoony" This could be iconic (power puff girls), simplistic (the Jetsons), or broad (bugs bunny).
So heres what i came up with:

The first one is the one i like the mostand i think is heading in the direction i want for this project. The second image is of some of the exploration of character i went through.

Fred Gardner: Layout artist

2009-08-09T10:34:00.000-07:00

So this past Friday my teacher the very kool and talented Cris Sasaki had his past co-worker and friend Fred Gardner come in to speak to His (my) Advanced Character Design class at the AI.
Fred is currently working on a Tom and Jerry cartoon that will be coming out for the new Sherlock Holmes movie that has Tom and Jerry living in Mr. Holmes' house. Fred is the led Layout artist on the project and for those of you who don't know, a layout artist creates all the backgrounds for a cartoon. And some would say, "hey, thats easy", but there is a lot more to creating Tom and Jerry backgrounds than i would have thought. For instance, the WB wants the style of this Tom and Jerry cartoon to be more in the style of the Tom and Jerry cartoons made during the 1940's when it was produced by MGM. At the same time Fred uses photos take at the Muesum Sherlock Holmes house in england as a reference when designing the layouts for the cartoon. And if you have never seen the Sherlock Holmes meusum you should check it out; but in this case i will say that it is full of stuff. All kinds of crazy stuff that would make a steampunk pee his/her pants. But that doesn't work for a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The next time you watch a Tom and Jerry cartoon, check out the background at some point. Theres is very little in those backgrounds- no matter who is animating that cartoon. So Fred had to not only make this look ike sherlock Holmes apartment, but also keep the backgrounds becoming overloaded with too much visual information.
He was showing us he's process with a few of the backgrounds and it just amazing to see how someone like him thinks. And how he works out this problems that i spoke about. Unfortinately, i don't have a photos of the project he is working on to show or i would. There just awesome. And there all designed on sheets of paper that measure something like: 4ft x 1ft in length- mostly for pan shots designed to follow Tom and Jerry back and forth across the screen during a chase scene.
he had also showed us some of his past works like some of the backgrounds he did for movies like the Iron Giant and back grounds for the animated Hercules TV show.. Which apparently, was created at the same time as the movie- which seems a bit weird to me.
He also gave us a lot of great advice: such as if you are ever offered a job doing anything- just say yes and figure out how to do it later. So if you are offered a job to animate something and have no animation experience- take the job anyway and figure out how to animate later.

Coraline: Answers found

2009-08-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

I was speaking with a great Layout artist: Fred Gardner, the other day and i had brought up my views of the Coraline movie. I had told him that i felt that there was some kind of disconnection in the movie that held me back from getting involved with it. He said that the problem that i encountered and was having a hard time putting my fingure on was the fact that the movie was to slow at the beginning. Basically, Laika took to long to get the audience involved with the character- to make that emotional connection that usually takes place so that the audience can forget that they are watching a movie and become wrapped up in whats happening to the main character. Laika took to long in get to that wonderful moment and thusly it never happened for me. The end result being that i was more distracted by the stop motion animation than by the emotional content of the story or the story itself.

Awesome Fantasy game

2009-07-29T09:49:00.000-07:00

So currently, i am working on figuring out a few things for the game i am designing for "Jake's Awesome Fantasy Game Contest".
The main characters of this game are the Chosen or children of heaven, and they each have a sign of heaven. These signs or marks are: Chimera, Unicorn, Naga, Satyr, Pegasus, Dragon, Phoenix, Great turtle, and Ogre. Each one of these has a special ability/power. The problem is that i have to figure out what those abilities are, but at the same time keep them balanced. They can't be too overpowering or be used constantly. Plus they have to work with the rest of the system. I have worked out parts of a few of them such as: Unicorn- can heal another character. Make a Heart roll, the number of successes equals the number of boxes (either body or blood) that are healed.
The other thing i am trying to work out is what the benofit of have the characters have friendships. In combat i can see it being important as far as overall morale, but in non-comabt situations i'm having a hard time coming up with a reason or benofit to have them. I don't want the game to be all about combat- i want it to be more about the character interactions. So this stage is really important- i feel.
On top of that i have to work out more stuff for the magic system for the game. One thing i know for sure is that the ability to cast magic will work off a skill for the most part. more on this later.

Laika's First Big Hit

2009-07-26T09:25:00.000-07:00

So i was finally able to see the movie Coraline, Laika studio of portland, OR. first big project. I have to say that i like the story, it mature enough for adults but the right type of story for kids. I wonder how much of the story changed during its transition from book to movie.
How i didn't love the movie. I will not be buying it, mostly because even though the story was good, its not the type of story that I can watch over and over again that I require in order to buy a DVD. Beyond this, i felt that there was something off about the film, or more specifically, off about the animation. Unlike other stop motion movies that have been made in the last 15 years, there were many moments where I as a viewer couldn't help to notice that this was stop motion animation; that the suspension of disbelief was not there. I'm not sure why this was happening. Part of me wants to blame this on the lighting, but since i know nothing about Stop motion i cannot say for sure why this was happening. It was distracting and bothersome. I was not watching the film in 3D since i got my copy from Netflix and they didn't send along any 3D glasses. So i watched it in standard 2D. So if this was a side effect of the lack of 3D then i think Laika should rethink their plan to make all of their future projects in this style.
To tell the truth, i don't see a lot of people keeping hold of their 3D glasses for 20 years just in order to watch their copy of the DVD. i could be wrong, but i see them getting lost quite often. However, its a kool idea for the theater only- its a way to get people to go to the theater more often, over just waiting for the DVD release.

So to end this i will say that Laika did go and experiment with a lot of new stop motion techniques that looked kool and seemed to work and other that didn't work as well as i think they were hoping. It over all a good movie and everyone should see it at least once.

Jake's Awesome Fantasy RPG contest

2009-07-25T19:28:00.000-07:00

So a friend and fellow GOplay PDX member Jake Richman, the creator of indie rpg games such as Ocean and Panty explosion, challenged the members of our community to design a simple Fantasy rpg game in 2 months. The outline of the contest is as follows:
-Must be 48 pages.
-Must include a distinctive core mechanic.
-Must include complete rules for character creation.
-Must include complete rules for magic.
-Must include a flexible skill system.
-May include guidelines for resolving actions during the game.

This game was announced while i was out of town and sick. So my fever induced brain decided to work on the basic story of the Fantasy game that i want to create and came up with an idea. The game would be about characters who were chosen at birth when the stars in the heavens had come into alignment. Each would gain a mark of heaven 20 years later that would prove who they were and dispose upon them a power of heaven. The purpose of these children of heaven, as they will be called, is to herald in a great change in the world. The setting will be inspired by both the anime's The Twelve Kingdoms and The Mysterious Play, as well as the Sukodain video games. I have always liked these settings and how strongly they are tied to anceint Chinese histroy and Culture.

However, i should point out that the purpose of the game will not be like games such as D&D or Warhammer where the focus is Combat and killing. The game will focus more on the roleplaying side of things and will be about the gathering of allies and friends. This will all be mechanicely gauged for maxium benofit. I will post some of the stuff i have been work on for this at a later date.
Jake's Awesome Fantasy rpg Contest

Introduction

2009-07-22T11:49:00.000-07:00

My name is Josh Dixon, but most people call me Skull. I am a student at the AI of Portland, Or. I am currently getting my BFA in media arts and animation. I am married to the love of my life, and we have a little girl named Niko.
The purpose of this blog is for me to talk at length about my many projects that i am working on. The types of projects that i am working on range from anything from TRPG game system design, to illustrations, to animation and storyboarding, to writing. My hope is to help other (and to some extent myself) in understanding how the creative process works. Where do ideas come from? Where does one start? How do ideas evolve over time? Hopefull, this will help inspire other and help orginize my own thoughts so that i can work more proficantly.