alexiss dawn

Aaaand it’s a new term at Animation Mentor. Yesterday the flood gates opened! It was crazy slow on the site as I’m sure almost all of the students were accessing the site. The energy around the site is incredible. I think it’s great to have large groups of new students come in each class - the energy is just boosted. I can’t believe how supportive and friendly the community remains.

So here’s the lowdown on my class 2: my mentor is Justin Barrett. He’s an animator Reel FX Creative Studios in Dallas, Texas. I saw some of his critiques/Q&As last term and he’s pretty funny. So it should be a sweet term. Only 12 students in my class this term - and I’m the only girl. Go figure. I’m starting to see that’s how this industry rolls. Lol.

All in all, I’m pretty excited. MEGA excited. It’ll be fun. The assignments definitely sound challenging but hey, I’m not intimidated. I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with.

Oh yeah, here’s a random painting. (Don’t seem to post anything like this anymore since AM!)

I love mythology of all kind and so I’ve been doing a series of paintings revolving around those Gods and Goddesses. My one rule for these paintings is that they have to be simple. I’m quite the perfectionist, always trying to make things look real life like and perfect. And I’m doing them all on random pieces of wood. This is a fun experiment for me to make things obscure or flat or just, out there. So here’s Anubis, God of embalming from the great Egyptian Gods.

Yet another sketch I did last night…I just didn’t have time to size it and upload it. As I’ve said before, a lot of the time I have no idea what is going on once my pen hits the pad - but I enjoy the randomness.

This guy was actually more creepy in the beginning. I had given him human teeth with a huge grin showing almost all his teeth….it was really creepy. Really creepy. I think now he just looks a little stoned or something. Meh, it’s fun..

Sunday nights are my nights off of AM to just do some random sketch. And I do mean random.

I have lots of ideas about what’s running through his head as he looks at that banana. All of them are quite bizarre though. Heavens are they bizarre. I suppose that’s what makes it so enjoyable…

I like this no outline idea. I can’t say exactly why but I like it. I played a bit more and came up with this:

I dare say this is one of my favorite things I’ve done in a while now. I’m so glad I bought a Wacom - it makes things so much quicker and easer and smoother. I definitely have room to improve, but I like this whole no boundaries idea…

Fact: I am a perfectionist. And in my perfectionist mind, I always have to have outlines on everything. But it doesn’t always fit. So tonight I tried to make something interesting with NO outlines.

I kind of like it. But heavens, believe you me, I wanted to put outlines. I actually did out in photoshop…just made the layer invisible. So what do you think?

In the city I grew up in (which is only an hour away) there’s a restaurant owned by this guy from Mexico. It honestly is the best Mexican food I’ve ever had. We used to go there all the time for birthdays and when you do, they bring you fried ice cream (which is delicious) and a bunch of guys in sombreros sing to you. I think it’s a traditional Mexican birthday song but I always remember the line Despierta mi bien despierta.

Yeah, it makes the ice cream much more enjoyable. But then you have to fight with the trick candle they put in your icecream. Lol.

I figured I better play with my new Wacom tablet before things really get going at AM. Work has been pretty crazy tonight so I haven’t had much time to work on this but it was a first whirl at not using the regular mouse to create digital art. I have to say, it’s a lot different! So I made up a colorful (as colorful as a zombie can be) version and a classic black and white, horror film-esque version.

Think about this: a night shift is called a graveyard and those who work the night shifts often are termed as zombies because of the sleep deprivation. Now compare that to old horror films where in the graveyards you find zombies. Eh? Eh? See the connection?

…I’m thinking that someone just ran off with his sandwich or something.

Of course the reasons for his odd, frantic run are endless…

Update: I put him another place…not sure which one I like better yet.

These Oddities are fairly new to me. I’m such a perfectionist that it’s nice to make something simple that isn’t all the way perfect. The whole style of drawings with photographs is pretty cool I think. I’d like to make them a little more 3d though and make them fit in the “real world.”

The combination of my weird schedule and the sleepiness that comes with it has turned out to be possibly a good thing as these Oddities have come out of it. There’s no explanation - they’re just plain weird. Definitely something I’m going to expand upon.

There a few more that I’ll post later this week. I think so far I like the alien the best.

Just messing around still. Thought I might try out just sticking with straight lines for shading…

I like the blockiness of it but I think I’m going to mess around with it a bit more to make it just work better together. Perfectionism is the devil to an artist.