More Coffee!

Being a creature of habit, I usually sketch with a cup of coffee by my side. Usually, that is a small French Vanilla, so when I decided to put some more effort into my sketching, it was a logical step to scale up to a medium size.

The girls at the coffee shop around the corner know about my habit. When I line up before their counter, they usually start up my French Vanilla for me, so that it is ready when it is my turn. Well, they start up my small French Vanilla, that is.

So, recently they gave me this bewildered look of "but I thought a small French Vanilla!" and today they even gave me the now obsolete small one for free, with my medium shot. Bob Dylan already saw it coming: the times, they are a-changing!

The proof of the pudding

It is the time of the year to take stock, and it is not just the time of the year, but also the time of my animation program to evaluate my progress. Believe it or not, but last term was the last full study term: what remains is tying up loose ends, building a portfolio and a demo reel, and doing a final film. However, the nagging feeling that bothered me last year, grew stronger and stronger over last term, and finally made me conclude I am not ready yet for the real world.

I generally feel that my drawing skills are good, but not at a professional level. This holds for life drawing in general, but for anything cartoony in particular. I feel I am missing a native ability to freely draw, for instance, Looney Tunes characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, but I acknowledge this ability is essential to succeed in animation. This feeling is reflected by comments of some of my teachers, who expressed their opinion that I am not strong enough to be competitive yet. Although I do not agree with all of the details, I have to agree with the gist of these: I am not ready yet.

Also, I feel that the overloaded program does not leave a lot of space for students to develop themselves, and to try what works for them, and what not. For instance, I feel I am a strong background painter, but I still have not found time to complete some pieces of my own hand, which is essential for a strong portfolio. In particular, the range of animation exercises completed so far may look impressive, but the majority of these are really too basic to fit a professional reel.

As a result, I will not graduate next Spring, but take one more year to develop as an artist. Next term, I will stick to basic courses, like Life Drawing, and Drawing Heads and Features, and continue to work on animations that eventually may go in a demo reel. Over the next summer, apart from strengthening my skills, I will see if I can do some freelance illustration projects, to test my skills and, most important, to make some money. I have always kept in mind that I may need an extra year, but I do not think it is wise to totally exhaust my resources. For me, the motto for the year 2011 will be "The Proof of the Pudding is in the Eating"

Bones

The Animal Drawing course has entailed the drawing of, mainly, animal skeletons, so far. That is, we have to draw a dog skeleton from three angles, a dog skull from three angles, and one of these has to be worked out as a tonal study. A horse will receive a similar treatment. On two occasions, a live dog will come to pose, and a visit to a horse stable is on the agenda, and we do some miscellaneous exercises with dogs and horses in various forms. I am happy with the tonal study of a dog skeleton, but I am not very thrilled by the idea of having to do the same with a horse. We will see...

The Great Four

This week, Piet Wijn passed away. I read somewhere that Hans G. Kresse, Pieter Kuhn, Marten Toonder and Piet Wijn are considered The Great Four Dutch comic creators, and although I have not found any proof of this claim, it feels true enough to mention it here.

Hans G Kresse (1921-1992) is best remembered as the creator of 'Eric de Noorman' (Eric the Viking). His oeuvre spans a wealth of other comic series, like Vidocq and a series about native North-Americans, and illustrations in books and magazines.

Pieter Kuhn (1910-1966) created 'Kapitein Rob' (Captain Rob), who had a long series of adventures with his dog Skip on his ship 'De Vrijheid' (Freedom), more than once trying to counter the evil genius of Prof. Lupardi.

Marten Toonder (1912-2005) is considered the founding father of Dutch animation and mentor of a whole generation of illustrators and animators. His 'Ollie B. Bommel' and 'Tom Poes' (Mr. Bumble and Tom Puss) were born as main characters in a comic series for children, but ultimately grew up as mature characters, attracting a large audience of adult fans. Marten Toonder enriched the Dutch language with various words and expressions like 'minkukel', 'denkraam' and 'wees een heer in het verkeer'.

Piet Wijn(1910-2010) worked on a variety of comic series, but his most renowned creation is Douwe Dabbert, a happy old character, wandering through a fairy tale universe. He is sometimes referred to as the Mage of Dutch Comics, because of his great liking for magical fairy tale creatures.

Digital Backgrounds

Last week I completed the Digital Background Painting course. To be honest, I had not expected to learn a lot, as I know about digital, about background and about painting, but I was happy to learn how to use Photoshop in a way that does not distract so much from foreground matter.

The first three backgrounds are based on layouts and colour keys provided by my teacher Vladan Ignatovic. The last two are originals.

Update (December 30th): today I learnt I passed this course with honors.

The final countdown

This is my 'piece de resistance' from last year's Background Painting course. For this assignment, both the layout and the colour key were given, so it is really nothing more than an extremely neat copy. Well, it is good to know that, should I fail as an artist, I can still start a career as a fraudster or a xerox machine.

Halfway this summer I finally got my grading chart. I passed Life Drawing, Cartooning and Storyboarding, high passed Animation Basics, but was really surprised to learn that I high passed Layout and passed with honours for Storytelling. To sum it up, I passed my Second Year in Animation.

Next Monday I hope to start my Third Year, with an intensive two week course in Digital Background Painting. The other courses for this term are Life Drawing, Animal Drawing, Character Design, Animation Basics, Drawing Hands and Feet, and Drawing for Animation. Let's see what happens.

Looking back on Noda

It felt like a place of magic, and I was not really surprised that it was hard to shoot pictures there, as it was dimly lit and I could not stand where I had wanted to stand, to get the composition right. Years after, I decided to turn this Atago shrine from Noda, Japan, into an animation background, and I was quite happy with the result. Here you can see the original picture, the rough and clean layout and, finally, the gouache.