Monday, October 29, 2012

Sketches from the Abyss

Keep finding old little sketches and doodles whilst trying to clean my computer. Things which I have long forgotten about... quite nice to find them again.
 Hopefully some current stuff I've been working on soon in and out of uni...










 Some of the drawings below were done when I was about 13 or 14 
so forgive me if they seem crude. Need to keep more diaries like this.
















 

Friday, October 26, 2012

Year 2 - Minor Project

Past couple of projects we've started on in second year.
Storyboarding and a character turnaround to a quick model pack
 First exercise was to storyboard a pre-existing advert. I opted for the Guinness surfer ad. This is 1 page of 15. View the original ad here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueKvBThaqR4

 Second exercise was to storyboard a page from a script for TMNT episode "Monster Dimension X". This is panel 1 of 8


 Lastly we were asked to create a character model pack based upon a randomly drawn sound clip from the 11 second club. We will eventually animate our characters. Personally this character (whom I've dubbed "Ed", a disheveled teddy bear at the end of his tether) hasn't turned out exactly as I've planned. Won't use illustrated to create a turnaround for a hand-drawn character. He's a rough character and I liked how he looked when he was hand-drawn. Looser is a good word to use. Will be fun to get animating again though

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Retrospective before continuing (Part 4)

Finally some small bits to round it off.


These are just unfinished sketches I found time to do last year.






Still not sure what to do with them yet

Retrospective before continuing (Part 3 - FIRST YEAR OF GLAMORGAN)

FIRST YEAR OF ANIMATION IS FUN. TAKE A FRIGGIN' LOOK AT WHAT I DID...




Actually no. First year takes a while to get your head around. After all, there are many things which you have to get used to. Your flat mates, whom you probably haven't chosen, will not be on your course. They will have decidedly less hours than you. They will feel betrayed when you tell them you can't go out drinking because you have to go into Uni early the next day because that bouncing ball of yours JUST WON'T STAY THE SAME SHAPE, NOT THE FIRST TIME, NO WAY, YOUR GONNA GET TO THE END OF THAT SHIT LOOK BACK AND SEE THAT THE BALL LOST HALF IT'S WEIGHT FALLING DOWN THOSE STAIRS AND YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO GO BACK AND DO IT AGAIN... and again.... maybe even once more if you really need to... and don't say that's how it looked in the reference. That doesn't work.

Your first month on the course will involve at least one nervous breakdown in which you resent every person who ever gave you hope about following your dream career, which seems so out of reach by now all you can do to distract yourself is sit under your duvet, openly weeping like a giant man-child whilst singing "Cannonball" by Damien Rice at the top of your lungs into your already tear soaked pillow whilst you rock backwards and forwards glugging away at a litre of tesco value gin whose cheap methylated taste you feel you deserve, because you are at the bottom of the talent pool, looking up. You wake up out of a Gin stupor, half naked, hugging your henry hoover, your flat mates looking at you with a scared face all over their heads. Best not to remember that night...

What am I trying to say? Don't feel like this (or do what I just said... you really don't want to do that). You're here to learn this stuff. You're in safe hands too.

Needless to say with all this, there is plenty out of first year I would like to go back and re do. My final performance  is some of the shoddiest animating you might ever see. Don't even get me started on how my bird takes off and lands.

All you can do is practice though. You will see yourself get better over time. Here's all the uncut finals from first year. See about doing better than me.


It was fun though I must admit :)

 There was also this guy, created for the character exploration. Toothiki I think he's called. I'll post some sketches of this fella with the advanced tech project.


By the end of it all you might have regained a modicum of respect for yourself and your drawing/making abilities. At Glamorgan you will have the intense but overwhelmingly fun experience of preparing for the Glammies. After a year of technical exercises, this will be an absolute breath of fresh air.

With the topical themes of the olympics, the end of the world and the diamond jubilee. I pitched and created this solo (and thankfully it wasn't dropped) 


I was also asked to do a brief intro using After Effects, which is below...

  

 Almost at present day now... just a little more.
 

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Retrospective before continuing (Part 2)

Outside of college I used to like to use found footage (out of necessity due not being able to afford a half decent camcorder) to create music videos for songs I liked. This largely started as a way to learn editing and my way around Premiere and After Effects. Instead of doing mundane internet tutorials I wanted to actually start something that I could enjoy working on. It quickly grew into a bit of an obsession. Mostly also due to my obsessive love of music (current or not). A few examples are below but for all of them either visit www.youtube.com/bigsponduli or www.vimeo.com/petriqor

This was my first attempt. No After Effects here, or any thoughts for copyright infringement either. Done meticulously slowly in iMovie as well, before I had the sweet relief of discovering Adobe Premiere. Ironically, even though it is the lowest quality video I've made, it's still the most popular on the channel. This was due mostly to it being posted by Warp Records to their site and by being recognized by the artist himself. Not had that with anything else. Almost at 200,000 views with this one.

One of the next ones after the Rustie video. Probably my personal favourite. Fits best with the music and was the first time I ever used After Effects (even if it was basic)

Fast forward a good year or so after... done to alleviate concentrating on an essay for Uni, this song is by an artist from my hometown of Chester (check him out www.soundcloud.com/real)  Done with full consideration for copyright (using royalty free footage) and getting better with After Effects...

The last video I've made, and probably will ever make this way for this channel. Again for an artist I like and using royalty free stock footage. It seems I can't take this way of videos any further than I already have and so this project is dead. It served a purpose and was fun to meet people doing similar things online.

For similar videos, and much more creative and regular in posting check out the guys over at synesthesiaefilms www.youtube.com/synesthesiaefilms Hugely encouraging and nice blokes who I think are now doing live visuals for most of the artists they post videos for. 

Retrospective before continuing (Part 1)

Before starting something like this, I think it wise to show how I got up to this point. Starting from the foundation diploma...









The majority of these are from the final major project. This was the genesis of the moniker "Petriqor" which is the pen name I go under for most illustration work I produce outside of university now. Hopefully more from this soon but doing a degree in Animation has proven time consuming, meaning this project has taken a back burner over the past year or so. Still hopefully it will see a rebirth very soon (watch this space)...


This was the short music video to accompany the illustrations. I had a huge love affair with After Effects and Illustrator at the time (and still do) and was learning whilst making. It's rough around the edges now but it taught me a heck of a lot about each program. Seemed to go down well with the tutors... also got me into Glamorgan so can't complain.

Speaking of getting into Glamorgan...

This is everything I took along to the interview. A couple of the sketchbooks were from A-Level, but the majority was created for over my time at Mid-Cheshire College.

Ok that's enough from there...