Site Update: New comic page, new art

http://www.awgosh.com/gallery.html

A new comic page has been added, along with a new art! Check em out.

Animation assignment: Walk cycle

(PLEASE CLICK TO VIEW ANIMATION)
Pencil test for a walk cycle animation for class. It's just a simple cycle of 10 framed based on a template we were given, and were to draw our own character over it. I decided on Mr. Dentson for some reason. There are lots of errors, but it's the first pencil test I scanned in. The belly spot line needs to be fixed on frame 1 to 2, and other things, but I thought I would show off since it took a while to scan at home.

Storyboard assignment, interactive animation

A storyboard for an "Interactive user interface" for class. We're making a character with an idle animation that changes when a button is pushed, then returns to idle.

I wanted to make something disgustingly cute, because that is how I roll. Hopefully I'll be able to do all three buttons! I might have to reduce it to two if there's not enough time.

Site Update: New comic page, About page image

-I have finished a NEW COMIC PAGE and added to the Gallery, please check it out!! Hopefully more should be coming out very shortly. Looks to be a continuing story! Also, I added a little flower as the placeholder image for when nothing is selected in the gallery, much better than the little white box before.

-The About page finally has an image as well. And after screwing with the code in a few places in both the About page and Gallery, I think, I finally have the site just about done! A big update to how the comics are set up might come in the future, but for now it stays as it is.

Site Update: Index, About Page, Back buttons

Some fairly important site updates!

-There is not an INDEX PAGE. Main.html will still work for a while, but the most updated version of the site's main page is now, as it should be, http://www.awgosh.com/index.html.

-The ABOUT PAGE is now up! There's no image there yet, but I finally got around to changing the main page to index because I want the site to be a bit more "live" now, since I added the about page. It has contact info and boring stuff.

-Also minor update, I added a back button to the gallery page (and respectively, the about page).


Hopefully I won't be lazy and completely finish this stupid site soon. There''s a big update I'd like to make first, but it will involve a server change. Sigh.

Knight Beetle Concept Sketches

Another beetle design, this time, a Hercules Beetle! This is the knight that Squire Adrian works under. I'm most happy with the designs on the middle-left.

He's a little complicated so I might try to simplify him a little. The one dilemma I'm having is about the stripe between his eyes. Hercules beetles have this really cute yellow stripe there, and I like how it looks a lot, but I also want him to have that knight helmet...face-plate...thingy there on his head too. But it covers up the stripe and thus the stripe just clutters the face. I really like the helmet though! But the yellow stripe was going to match his back/wings (which were to be yellow, too). Maybe I'll make the helmet gold, and wings gold too? Decisions.

As for personality, I don't have much right now, except he's a very nice guy, unlike his squire. He will occasionally give Adrian a "Now, now, no need to look down on [X person]" scolding once in a while.

Rotoscope Project with Kuiper

Youtube description (please read!): A rotoscope project I did for my into to animation class. It's my character, Kuiper the frog, drawn over frames from a stock video of a player hitting a baseball. It looks wobbly because the camera on the video was wobbly too. His proportions are also a little off because I matched up his joints to the human ones. But overall I'm happy with it, for working in a short time-frame.

also I think a frame at around 8 to 9 seconds was doubled by accident, oh well.

We had to add the title and ending disclaimer as part of the project. I forgot to edit one part of the "template" disclaimer at the end, so it says my teacher's name in there instead of my own at one part, woops.

Storyboard Project 1

The first storyboarding project for my animation class. The prompt was that your character walks into their "office" and finds someone there that they didn't expect.

In my case, Nicolai walks into his supplies closet to find Mr. Dentson looming above. Making each layout look good was tricky but fun.

Adrian concept sketches

Hey what's this! A character concept page that isn't something old! Doodled these in my notebook at school today, after thinking of a new character.

His name is Squire Adrian, he's a Giant Fijian Longhorn Beetle. He is also, of course, a squire, which are something like a lnight's assistant. He's veeery proud of being a Squire, so much so that he's generally very snooty and up-tight about it.

I was thinking he'd be a great "Rival" for Nicolai, like an antagonist. For one, even upon meeting Nicolai, he is always scoffing at the fact that Nic is a "lowly" butler, and gloating about how his job is so much more important. He insists that he does WAY more for his knight than Nicolai will ever do for the Queen.

Also, of course, being a beetle, he has 4 arms, and is thus even more on a competitive level with Nicolai on who can multi-task the best.

I'm pretty proud of the design so far, I think. His final design for now is the one on the lower right, I am liking the square-tipped antenna for some reason. I still need a design for the knight, who will probably be a Hercules Beetle or something just as cool and tough. Also a good back story for why the Queen has decided to hire a knight. I'm thinking probably some trivial reason. I'm very pleased to have at least one insect character now, though!

Links I used:
-A real life image of a Giant Fijian Longhorn Beetle: http://www.zin.ru/animalia/coleoptera/images/sources/xixherfm.jpg
-A summary on the life and duties of a squire: http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/squires.htm

Plunky Vector Drawing

For a class assignment, I made a Plunky vector drawing in Flash. He's made up of a lot of movable parts, so it was tricky to get all the lines to match up. I'm still learning Flash but I think I did ok, following the process the teacher taught!

I'm not the most keen on animating in Flash with tweens and such, that future assignments will entail, but it'll be good practice for using the program. I'd like to be able to do nice frame-by-frame animation in it some day! If only Flash's vector tools weren't so annoying. We need a program like Flash with all the onion skin and cool time-line features, but with raster drawing tools instead. You either have to annoyingly Pen Tool everything, or bog down the program with way too many paintbrush strokes. I wonder if Toon Boom is any better for that, we'll be using that in class too sometime.

Site Update: Fixed Gallery

http://www.awgosh.com/gallery.html

Fixed up the gallery page, so the thumbnails wouldn't get pushed around or make you scroll down when you load a big image. Much better on the left, I think! All I need now is a back button (lazy) and an image to replace the little white square above "Choose an image on the left".

Sketches: Zooomm

Drawn in class, not so good really, Nic's head is a bit too tall. I think Nic only does the rabbit-like hop when running SUPER fast.

Next posts should be more substantial!

Site Update: New Top Image!

http://www.awgosh.com/main.html

Site update! I finally made a proper top image for the main page, and I am proud of it, so check it! No more cool jpeg artifact placeholder anymore, unfortunately. :(

Now all I need in that darn "About" page, a back-to-index button in the gallery, and I'd say it's about done!

Plunky concept sketches

While designing a platypus character for a friend's commission, I ended up making the character (who is supposed to be able to fight with weapons and wear a suit) WAY too doofy looking. But I really liked the doofy design I came up with, so I decided to use that design for my own character, Plunky Squirkle.

So I worked out a final design for him, and he's super fun to draw! I am very pleased with him.

A size chart of Plunky and a possible koala character (also a character I designed for a commission that I liked enough.) The koala wants to be a tough bear and is a friend of Plunky, who is always crampin' his style. Also a size comparison to Nicolai.

Character Bio: Nicolai C. Buntler

Nicolai C. Buntler

Nicolai (or just "Nic") is a butler bunny who works for Queen Bellebit. Nicolai knows no bounds when it comes to the job of butler-ing, and will do just about anything to please the Queen, sometimes trying a little TOO hard. Nicolai feels Queen Bellebit as an idol and savior. The tufts of fur on Nic's ears can be used as hands, making multitasking and reaching high places easier.

Nicolai is a dutiful and kind little bunny, who cares deeply about every friend. Nicolai also has a strange way of speaking, and will include many old-time phrases ("Aw golly!"), along with self-narration. Nicolai becomes neurotic if anything goes wrong in his job, and has a crippling abandonment complex that only makes it worse.

Nicolai's hobbies include being a butler, collecting bugs, and being an overall nerd. Nic lives in a servant's quarters next to the castle, and works almost every day. Nic's closest friend is Kuiper, whom has known Nicolai since childhood.

Mr. Dentson design

A finished picture I did for Mr. Dentson after sketching up a design for a crocodile character. I don't have my original doodles, but it took a lot of tries to get a good croc face I liked. This one I was pleased enough with to color.

After drawing him a few more times, I decided I needed a good model-sheet, because he was pretty difficult for me to keep drawing him the same way every time. I made this as a reference sheet for his final design.

Queen Bellebit concept sketches

Here is the first sketch page of me working out the final design for Queen Bellebit. I did a LOT of tweaking and changing to the initial sketches, but I tend to erase and re-draw a lot, so you can't really see how many different changes I went through.
On the right I think were proto-type doodles for Penelope the toad. She didn't really go through much of a design phase otherwise, I just sort of winged it in her intro comic.

Turnaround image of the queen's final design. She's grown a little bit since this, but she looks basically the same.

Nicolai concept sketches

These are the first doodles of what soon became the current Nicolai C. Buntler design. The eyebrow-less, glasses-less little bunny near the middle was how the design looked previously. I wanted to give the character a total overhaul, and something that would fit my growing style. The one on the way bottom-right was the first sketch I did with the current triangular head base, and I felt it was perfect!
The tiny drawing on the left solidified a more close-to-final design.

The first character reference sheet I did for Nicolai with the current design.
Nicolai still looks basically like this today! A prototype version of Queen Bellebit can be seen here, along with an unused bunny.

Kuiper concept sketches

Concept design sketches I did when designing Kuiper the frog. He was half-way being made as a cartoon version of a friend of mine, so he helped decide on the final design. He liked the longer legs, otherwise Kuiper would have been stubby like the upper-right!

This image is his final design, and comparing to Nicolai in height.

Here are some even older images in the design process. It took a long time and a lot of sketches for me to be happy with the way I drew frogs.

This was the close to final design, minus scarf!