VICTORY!

That's right! I've finally finished my portfolio!

It was a team effort between me and my character Tina.

She's not very thrilled to have been involved.

Seriously speaking, I owe a lot to my room mate and my 2D design teacher from last year.

I started this thing in January, finished it, took it around, overhauled everything, drew it again, had a melt down when I realized I had no life drawings that would be any use in my portfolio, went to life drawing three hours each on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, sent them off to my room mate, got her opinions, collected twelve of them together, photographed them, collaged them together, printed them off. Paid my portfolio fees, applied to a back up I really don't want to have to rely on, printed off everything else, ran off title pages, table of contents, organized everything, taped my proof of purchase to the cover of my plastic portfolio...

And I'm super relieved. My instinctive reaction to stress or relief is to normally to bawl (much to my embarrassment) so of course, I must mock myself for this. Wish me luck, I'll know towards the end of March if I still have parents or not.

Wooo!!! I'm so hyper.

Canada won the gold in hockey vs the USA!!! We ordered a pizza at the end of the third, and it showed up only minutes after we won the gold. So we got a free soda from the pizza boy.

I never liked hockey before this year.

A Pretty Water Colour

Painted back in December, I never got the chance to post because it's 11x14 and too large to fit in my scanner.

Eventually I took it to school and borrowed one of the schools larger scanners to properly fit it (there were some issues with plate/paper contact, hence blurry areas) but.. here it is!

I'm not in a very talkative mood, I'm having a bit of a freak out over my portfolio as I realized... I have no life drawings to go in. So, tomorrow, saturday, and sunday, I'm going in to schools extra life sessions. I don't need a lot, just three really good drawings. So hopefully, I can fix this... problem.

I was never any good at life drawing...

Anyways, off to actually finish the layout I want to swap out.

"Hello, baby!"

Yeah, I markered over my red lines. Cause I'm cool like that.

Drew and coloured this today as a break from my portfolio work, which is really driving me insane. Not in the sense that I feel like I won't finish (though I guess there's a touch of that) just in the sense of.. "I'm really tired of working on this and want it to be done already,". I still need to redo my layout and finish up my composition, and touch up my hands...

But at the very least, I completely redid my rotation (just a couple things here and there to fix) and my action poses, and my expression sheet.

Woo hoo!

My drawing for today consists of Ainmire and Kara, both traditionally drawn, inked, and rendered. I love my markers. They make me happy. In a very bad way as well as a very good one.

Ainmire hates pet names so much. So of course, Kara never misses a chance to call him one.

I miss drawing these guys, especially Ainmire. I love the relationship they have and they way they act around each other; it makes me smile. Ainmire will never grow accustomed to having a girl who won't leave him be. Not to say he doesn't CARE for Kara, as he does, he's just awkward around people in general. Especially people who actually want something to do with him. Poor baby.

Heh heh, baby...

I'm a jerk.

Ah, I dropped by the school today on the hopes that I could see DQ again and show him my new character rotation and show I took his advice to heart as well as to see if he noticed anything abnormally out of place, but; Due to the fact that I couldn't find him in the directory to call or email, I couldn't tell him ahead of time I wanted to show up, so I was showing up the same time I did last weeks in the hope I'd run into him, and he wasn't there.

Bummer.

So, dejected, I went back to my locker to collect my stuff and walk home, when I ran into Liz. I guess I didn't look that great, because she invited me to join her for coffee, which I gratefully accepted. It was fun, seeing as I haven't had a sit down-go out for coffee-talk thing since last time I was in Orangeville.

Sometimes, I'm homesick. Most of the time I couldn't give a damn.

I can't win.

SECOND character rotation attempt for my animation portfolio. I really can't win, I've started to realize this. I am much happier with this version than the first, because it has all the attitude that I originally wanted in my rotation (before I went with something simple and static) as well as? CURVES.

What is Tina without curves?

An angry skinny chick.

You can check out my much much larger rotation here.

I took DQ's advice to heart and I started from scratch all over again. During the entire process of this piece, all I had going through my head was *sproing* *sproing* *sproing* and the visualization of a giant spring working up and down throughout the entire body.
I discarded two other poses while I was working, because they weren't consistent enough to suit my purposes.

You can take a look at my older, unsuccessful rotation here. You'll notice lovely lovely Tinette has gained some weight, but in all the right ways. She's also gotten taller from my last rotation, which will make my friend Leah happy.

So the BIGGEST inconsistencies I see are during the switch from profile to 3/4 back view, Tinette's eyes drop, as does her nose. She's suddenly looking a bit further down than she was previously, only to be recovered in the next rotation. SO I NEED TO FIX THAT. Another inconsistency I noticed, and noticed while I was working, is that while in her front and 3/4 rotation, her second finger is along the hem of her pants. However, in the profile rotation... Her hand is further up on her hip than previous. The thing is, I'm not totally sure how to fix that, as the hem is consistent from one jump to the other, so is the hand. They just.. don't line up consistently, and I don't know what to do about it.

So that's another thing I need to work on!

I was also doing a lot of staring at the foot placement. As the rotation moves from pose to pose, the feet don't stay rooted in the same position, which would occur naturally, right?

I hope so. It looks natural, and it feels right, but at the same time I'm like.. IS that right? I hope so.

Tomorrow after school I'm going to return to DQs office and wait for him like I did last week. Hopefully he won't mind taking another look, as he invited me to ask him if I had any questions, and I'd like to show him I took his advice to heart and made (impressive) changes to (so far) the character portion of my portfolio. I still plan to take the rest of the advice he gave me to heart as well, and still have a lot of work to do in less than two weeks.

Oh Lord, please lend me strength. Or I will keel over and die.

*panic*

~Annie

11:26

Playing with the Markers

I had to take a break from computer related things because my head was hurting something fierce. I'm not really in a drawing mood, as all I've been drawing lately is portfolio related works (yes, I totally re-did my rotation, and my action poses, and I'm working on my expressions) And I just wanted to do something fun.

In my sketch-folio, I had this drawing of Tina on bristol, that I either wanted to paint or marker, I can't remember; but I wanted to play with my markers.

After months, I've finally come up with a last name for her. I wanted something that sounded french and snobbish, but I was having a hell of a time on the internet. Meaning I didn't like any of the names I found. I sat back in frustration, and checked my email. I got an email from my mother telling me about a Toulouse Lautrec book she'd seen in Stratford and bought for me.

And from there, I found Tinette's last name. I named her after my favourite print maker ever. I like markers, but I really need more practice with them; I have issues rendering things in full colour, digitally OR traditionally.

ISN'T SHE SO SHINEY!? Tinette is indeed very pretty. Jealous.

So yes, today's fun exercise just to get me away from the computer. It was fun.

I am right now watching Beast's magical transformation from Beauty and the Beast. It is one of my most enjoyed Disney scenes in the world!

I spent the night before Valentines at my friend Winters place for a sleepover. I missed the girls from OD very badly, and it was great to see her and Winter again, even if Renee and Stefanie couldn't make it. We watched movies and ate a lot of sugar, because we could. Had a huge amount of giggle fests and kept ourselves up till three in the morning; woke up around lunch, had pancakes and watched more movies.

My two our commute down to her house was a twenty minute drive, can you believe it? I was shocked. But it was worth the two hours.

~Annie

2:39

Artist Frustrations...

Yesterday after class, I went to visit a third year animation teacher known as DQ.

He sat down with me, and patiently, on his own clock, for about forty five minutes, and went through my portfolio, one page at a time.

He offered me a lot of helpful advice, and now I want to redo everything in my portfolio.

I've never in my life been so torn between relief and frustration.

I was told, that as an animator, he liked my art. He liked my style, the visual appeal, my design (I still have no idea wtf that means), my clean up... He liked my art, which was incredibly inspiring and relieving, as everything I drew just for me he liked. All of my spare sketches and especially the one I posted the other day complaining about my bad posture, he liked.

But, the art in my portfolio, my rotation, my character design.. Was stiff, and lifeless. "Body parts stacked on top of each other," "all the pieces are there, but it's like they're not interacting together,". Tinette's design consisted of a lot of sharp points that I have to "watch out for, cause they're difficult to animate," and my drawings were, "Borderline illustrative,"

When I got home... I wanted to throw my portfolio in the air in frustration and tear into it and just.. eat it, really. Two of these I drew right after getting home, the first and the last. I wasn't quite in a drawing mood and was having a bit of an.. "I'm very shaken," funk. They didn't turn out all that amazing, but the one I added today, the middle one, turned out much better.

I would have downloaded better suited fonts... But I can't say I care all that much about this little doodle to do so.

So, at the same time that I'm happy and honoured that DQ liked my art and took time out of his busy work schedule to look at my art and give me his honest opinion, and not only that, he LIKED my art; I'm frustrated to no end with my portfolio.

Today was the premiere of our Artist Trading Card club; and it was great. A lot more people than we expected showed up, our snacks were eaten heartily, we watched a lot of movies, met a few new people, and all made ATC name cards for ourselves, as well as picked our themes for the coming months.

My themes are Persephone, Supernatural, Aliens and... oh yeah, Zombies. So exciting... I'm totally drawing a Sabriel zombie. I like Garth Nix zombies. Well no, they sort of scare me senseless, but I do quite like them.

I'm also doing a personal one on one trade with my friend Ksenia, who is going to paint Suka for me, while I am going to make her a postcard following the theme "Spring". I'm excited. It was wonderful to see her again, she's such a sweetheart and I missed her dearly. I'll be bringing her over for tea some tuesday when things aren't too busy... Which on Tuesdays they typically aren't.

She gave me this beautiful silver ring as a gift, and I was so shocked when it actually fit my finger (rings never fit my fingers); and I'm going to try and wear it as much as I'm able. I'm not much of a ring person due to the fact that I can never fit them over my fat knuckles... Ksenia even mentioned it wasn't much my style, but sometimes occasions (like a date) call for such things. Seeing as I'm not planning on going on dates any time soon... I shall make use of it as a ring so much as I can!

I still have homework to do, so I must go and throw together three stamp designs. Adieu.

~Annie

11:21

Blast it, I missed 11:11 again.

I Have Bad Posture

Business class was boring and productive as usual.

Probably one of the first classes I've had since graduating that made me miss high school. My business leadership course was AWESOME and I had the best teacher ever.

Plus he was a volunteer firefighter, short, and good looking.

I liked him.

Anyways, from a class that was all about team building exercises, fundraisers, and learning about management, to a class where we sit and watch slide shows every week, it really makes me want to beat my face in with a clipboard.

Instead I just drew myself with bad posture in my clipboard. I realized it the other day, that I'm always sitting with my knees up close and my shoulders slouched. I'm going to have major back problems one day.

I'm almost finished my portfolio! In fact, the only thing left is to collect critiques and.. INK LIKE A MOFO. Which is the easy part, really...

Heading back out to see John Parker again tomorrow, who is going to arrange a meeting between myself and this mysterious, infamous, DQ....

Fun times!

~Annie

11:39

A day to just relax.

I painted this quickly for my Interpretive painting class two weeks ago. It was supposed to be a traditional rendering of this picture, because the oringinal I planned was going to be in watercolour, so I made a few changes to it on bristol to make painting easier.

Apparently I forgot how to draw, cause I didn't realize until I finished inking I totally screwed up on Alan's anatomy. I fail, I know.

Anyways, very busy, very long day yesterday, but it was fun. Lots of cupcakes and video games and a dinner at a nice affordable restaurant. As well as having finally received the last commission I ordered at Fan Expo back in August.

It made my day.

Today is going to be very homework, cleaning, relaxing orientated, involving no trips out and about and just remaining very close to home. Aaaaah, nothing like relaxation!

I attempted to reorganize my under bed storage, but I have no idea what to do for my hundreds of scarves. They're taking up far too much room for me to continue storing them the way I am. Until that solution presents itself, I have organized to the best of my abilities.

~Annie

1:40

More trees!

Oops, I seem to have posted my blog before I finished actually writing it..

My bad!

Fifteen minutes to post a post and then I must go to bed because? I'm exhausted and have to go to bed soon. Real soon.

Because of course, I have to always update here first instead of the really easy DA where I don't have to say anything.

I like to talk!

Still working with the subtractive painting, and I really think I like it, but I thiiiink I went about the lighting wrong in this one, haha. In other words, I know I did. Once again the background and the subject were two separate elements painted in two different ways and put together with the magic of photoshop!

I hated this picture once I got to the colouring stage. Why? The anatomy is so bad it makes my eyeballs bleed. However, it was my fourth attempt, and this one stayed looking accurate long enough for me to ink it, SO, it stays.

Suka and Garrett, my character as well as Sarah's character. Suka's having a break down, can you tell? And Garretts trying to cheer her up.

Yeah, I'm tired, I'll edit this tomorrow, haha.

Ooog, headache.

~Annie

12:51

Commissions are open!!

I've decided to open up for commissions! Why? Because college is expensive and leaves little room for the finer things in life, like jet packs, limousines, rent, underwear, socks and toothpaste.

So without further ado, inexpensive sketch commissions! Click for full sizes; or view my gallery through my portfolio, my deviantart account, or just browse my blog.

From a Face you Can Trust!

Information about Commissions:
Please read everything below.
I only accept Paypal.
I take on a commission after I recieve full payment, and then you get a slot..
I need reference images, else I'll take full artistic liberty wherever knowledge is lacking.
Commissions are done in the order they are received.
I'm a busy person, but I will do my best to finish orders as soon as possible.
Digital pieces commissioned are sent to commissioner in a high res file.
Please order through an email!

What I will draw:
Original Characters Concepts
Fanarts
Anything, just try me!

What I won't do:

Sex


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What I'm offering!

Sketches! $10. Doodly, uncleaned line work of whichever character you want to see. Whatever the subject, I'll give it a go. If I can't draw it, I'll let you know and have to refuse your commission.



Yours will be of course, watermark free.
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Inked line arts! 15$. My line arts are crisp and clean and easy to read.


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Background free coloured linearts! 20$. They come in two types and really depend on how I'm feeling; cell shaded or soft shaded. "Background free" just means you'll get an expanse of colour and texture! Extra characters add to the cost of the finished picture.



Due to time restraints, I won't be offering any fully rendered backgrounds, character work only.

___________________

-----------------
|How to order|
-----------------

That's right, it's order form time! Please send this to me as an e-mail, completely filled out.


Step 1:

Order form:

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Commissioner Info
Name:
Email Address:
Paypal addres:
Commission type:

Artwork Info
Image Reference and/or Description:
Age:
Build of characters(s):
Personality:
Additional important features:

Any other comments:
-----------------------



Step 2:
Slot Verification:

Once I receive the order form, I'll clarify all the information. From that point, I need the money e-mailed to my paypal account, and I will begin your commission and finish it as soon as life allows.

Thanks for your time!

Happy ordering. I'm off to pimp my shop.

Annie

Thanks to *Julescion For helping me set up my journal =]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Slots!

1. ~RejectedDreams

This is Mah Sexy Face!

"Am I sexy yet?"

I knew I'd draw something in business class.

I was bored, and sketching very random things in class today, when suddenly, I got the urge to draw Yukio. I flipped to a new page and started; but only a few seconds into my drawing, and my focus shifted.

I had this picture in my head of Ninja attempting a sexy face, and this is quite possibly the pose she'd take. Seeing as Ninja is a sixteen year old who acts like a ten year old... Sexy doesn't really suit her; she's probably busy making fun of someone who IS sexy. Like Tinette.

I decided to retest my experiment from yesterday, and I have to say... this run was much, much more successful. I kinda enjoy this subtractive painting method... I played a lot with the colours on the overlapping shadows, so there's a layer of very very very very dark red underneath a layer of navy blue shadows. The navy blue were my lesser, more intense shadows while the red were the main larger ones.

I also went back and added highlights on a separate layer, and this time, I didn't let any shadow fall on the eyes. I like it much better this way!

The background was something I drew up a couple hours ago, specifically for Ninja. Originally it wasn't going to be another little platform thing, but a pose like this sort of needs a contained background so it doesn't look silly.

I also experimented with a painting technique on this one, where I wanted to try and get a more painterly watercolour-y affect on the background. Suffice to say I failed with getting a watercolour effect, but I do quite like it!

I painted it with a very soft (like, 25%) brush set to pressure sensitivity, and I tried to work really fast and all on one layer. It looks a bit messy, but it stands out well against Ninja. I adore the green and yellow, haha.

The only problem I have with painting this way, is that the colours are never solid, so the background always shows through. That's not normally much of an issue, as it's what would happen if it were painted traditionally, but when I make the file a PNG (you'll notice I didn't) the colour that goes under can effect the over all look of the picture.

But still, it was fun, and I will consider this a successful experiment.

Celebration of February!

Lol, I should stop experimenting.

but, an experiment! I'm not thrilled with the results, so I'm glad I saved the PDF so I can go back and paint it the way I normally do.

I wanted to experiment with different ways of painting lighting, and this time, instead of using the additive method of colour I usually use, I wanted to try something else. Instead of painting shadows and highlights on top of flats, I wanted to try removing shadows to reveal the colours underneath. Subtractive painting, oooo.

So, that being the goal I had in mind.. I painted in the flat colours, duplicated the layer, locked the transparency and filled it completely with a dark blue colour. From there, using a pressure sensitive eraser, I picked where I wanted the light to be strongest, and picked away from those areas. Kinda like how you would use an eraser to pick out the highlights on a conte drawing.

After I picked out my highlights to my satisfaction, I lowered the opacity on the blue layer. I still didn't have all the depth I wanted, so I duplicated the blue layer and repeated the process, so I'd have two levels of shadows, instead of just the one.

I'm not really happy with the results on this particular piece, but I think if I were to use an image with a more direct lightsource (twilight = bad idea) and try it again with just a little more solid understanding of where all the light and dark would be, I'd be much happier with the result. Next time I'm going to aim for some stronger contrast. Perhaps an orange or yellow light, to match the remaining natural light.

So no, not totally happy, but confident enough with the process to give it another spin on a different picture.

Woo! Headed to business class in another twenty minutes or so, so I'm going to have plenty of opportunities to draw.

Funny story about my legal name... Today my phone rang, so I picked it up, assuming it would be my sister. Instead, the caller asked for 'Sarah' which threw me off. I responded that I was Annie, thinking in my head why someone looking for Sarah would have my cell phone number. I asked if she was looking for Sarah Davis, and was informed she was looking for either Sarah Davis or Sarah Hughes. At which point I abruptly remembered my legal name is Sarah and I gave my legal name to the dentist when I booked our appointments.

I'm so smart.

~Annie

2:13