G is for Guitar

Coloring Book page # G

This is modeled from a Guitar that Mayari and I bought in LA last year when we attended SIGGRAPH 2010.

This photo was taken at La Plaza park across the street from Union Station in Los Angeles CA. Mayari saw the guitars and had to have it. The guitars for sale all had cool hand painted designs on them.

Where? Here:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=la+train+union+station&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

T is for Truck

The modern day workhorse,wagon,toy. For the coloring book series.

Thanks to DiggerFanJSB for posting the vid on youtube.

P is for Penguin

P is for penguin. Penguins are Iconic.

They have been around for millions of years. Imagine a 5-foot tall 36 million year old penguin. They are examples of elegant design and evolutionary efficiency.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/09/inkayacu-perus-giant-fossil-penguin-and-the-stories-its-feathers-tell/


Making this coloring book page led me to wondering why penguins are so mainstream in animation. They always seem to have a presence in entertainment. I started to think that it is because of their shape may be easier to animate. Their shape and contour is one step more complex than the basic flower sack animators use for practice. Their black and white contrast makes them easier to color. Google could not answer my question.

For example:

Penguins of Madagascar(My personal favorite in terms of style and character attitude)
Happy feet(CG Musical mo-cap of an outcast dancing penguin)
March of the Penguins(Documentary)
321 Penguins (CG space penguins on Qubo cable channel)
The Penguin (Batman Villain)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin_%28comics%29
Surf's Up (CG surfing penguins)
Mr Popper's Penguins Starring Jim Carry
The Linux Icon is a Penguin
NHL Hockey team Mascot
There is a penguin meme
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/socially-awkward-penguin#.TcY9WbKTgbQ

Chilly Willy himself is a Penguin




Bugs bunny gets owned by the skating penguin by bringing him to Antarctica mistakenly in an effort to bring him home only to realize he is from Hoboken NJ.


Full Version(with a cameo of Humphrey Bogart)



Mary Poppins seems to get it right. She gets the penguins to serve her lunch.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin

Thanks to the you tube users who posted these
dotHackNETSLUM,AlexValve,mromro,heliomrdias,GrahamCracker22

L is for Lion and B is for Ball

L is for Lion.

B is for Ball.

Here are two more alphabet coloring pages for you kids out there. I have been using Mayari's toys for reference on a few of these drawings. The Lion toy I used for reference was posed with twinning on the legs. It creates a stiff power pose. Not a very animated pose. It would be tough to change weight from a position like this, making it a very static pose. Probably why it works for a child's toy. It wont tip over. I stuck with it and feel that it went in a romanticized direction of a lion. Reminding me of medieval tapestry. I am trying not to get too stuck to realism. I left behind the details in the mane to create my own. I think a little weight shift of the pose would help this as a 2d drawing. I need to do some life studies of lions. I don't always like the way I draw them.

The ball was tougher to draw than I planned. I erased and erased then redrew the entire thing a few times. It was far more of a draftsmanship exercise.

R is for Ravens J is for Jaguar

At Sticklestad, Fitting to a battle field there are ravens. Huggin and Muggin, Odin's Ravens. Their names mean Thought and Memory. They are made of steel and mounted on a wall outside of the main building.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huginn_and_Muninn

J is for Jaguar

Here is another coloring book page for anyone. Just print this out and fit to page in your printer settings. There are sixteen more letters to create. I have ideas for a few of the 16 remaining letters. I feel working on this project is productive for Mayari's learning how to write. She is writing her name on her own now, and is able to spell a few other words. I have a plan for these when the Alphabet coloring pages are done, I will animate the letters to the alphabet song somehow. I would like to take coloring Mayari has made on them and use that as the color for the animation. Also another end goal for this project is to have a coloring book on 8x11 paper printed on both sides.

R is for Rhino C is for Car N is for Norway

These are Coloring book pages, for you to download and print out. I print these out for Mayari to color them. Use fit to page in your printer settings.

N is for Norway

I am going to Norway this week. I am going to give a presentation about animation in video games. As well as giving a presentation I will be teaching a workshop and reviewing student portfolios. I'm excited! This is my second time in Norway. This time I am going to Nord-Trondelag University College in Steinkjer. As an added bonus there are some Bronze age rock carvings there that I really want to see.

Pre-School Presentation/Coloring Book Pages

Today I gave an presentation to my 3 yr old's pre-school class about "professional artists". The theme at pre-school for this month was careers.

Synopsis:
Three-year-olds need to touch things, they could not contain themselves from touching brushes and objects in the demo. I was planning on this being the case,obviously.

My own daughter was so excited she kept interrupting the entire talk. I had to keep warning her to stop. She eventually did pretty well.

I did not try to explain animation to them. This led one smart girl to asking me what it was I did for my career. Since I am an animator I told her how animators need to draw to show our ideas. Then we can make the pictures look like they move.

I focused on explaining that by looking at objects you can describe it using pencil/pen.I showed them some simple objects like a box and a ball, and I drew them.
I felt a little like Rene Magritte http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Magritte when I explained that a picture of a ball is not a ball. Of course it made total sense to their uncluttered minds.

I have been working on a Alphabet coloring book with Mayari at home. So I used some of those images as examples of objects drawn from life. We colored some printouts of these images.
We worked with different size brushes to see different size brush strokes. We colored the printouts I made, and drew with pencils.

I had a blast.