Hey folks been really busy over the last couple of weeks and had little time to actually do stuff that's practical in terms of working on a portfolio (full time job with totally wack hours will do that to you), that being said what time I have has been spent thinking about things (plans and stuff).
Trying to think of things to put on the blog :[
It was my birthday earlier this month and rather than enjoying it with friends and family, I was sitting in work :(. The pic below best describes my feelings about my job.
Rather than turn this entry into a negative rant about my job, thought I'd highlight that despite this eating into my time, it has allowed me to doodle and also made me want to get back into animating more.
How I survive work, taking every day with alot of sarcasm (also watching too much Azumanga Daioh does this)
While I'm not a very patriotic "british person", let it never be said that I didn't do anything for the Queen's Jubilee :)
People on the train, unsuspecting that I steal their character likenesses while they go about whatever it is they do
Work collegues during our downtime (we sometimes look happy at our job)
Still find observational drawing fun to do when I have downtime, but really want to start drawing stuff for myself again (character concepts and storyboarding). Stay tuned though, will soon have something in the works to show other than just old uni stuff and frustrated rants (well maybe some new drawings but probably a few more rants)
Monday, 25 June 2012
Well that lasted like... a year?!
Jeez, gonna have to do better than that, alot better. It probably goes without saying that I've left this blog to the wayside for quite some time, in that time I've had alot on my plate, finding a job (not one that I'd like to stay in but it means I have money while I look for one that I'm trained in), getting involved with projects and trying to work on my portfolio, as well as hobbies and other stuff (airsoft being one of the).
But enough excuses! Time for content.
As stated before this was the project that I primarily worked on as part of my final year at my animation course. The story concept was by the awesomly talented Brian Lindsay (who also has a blog http://yodasportrait.blogspot.co.uk/), and originally started out as being based on the same format as classic cartoons such as Tom & Jerry and Looney Tunes. The main story centred around a Scarecrow ("Mawkin" which is another word for Scarecrow) who tries to scare off two crows from a farm. The production blog which we had to do as part of our course is still up and alot more content can be found there http://mawkinsbackfire.blogspot.co.uk/.
These were how alot of my storyboards started out in 3rd & 4th year, drawn on Graph pad paper and inked and coloured
As with Wednesday's Child, I was primarily responsible for the storyboarding for the animation. Brian, myself and a few others (Luke and our lecturers Wayne and Sharon) threw a around ideas back and forth with regards to the story itself and there quite a few drafts of the script.
Scarecorw line drawings for the "Bananna Shot"
There were a lot of brilliant people who worked on this project and we definetly had our share of stress and fun during the whole thing.
From plain pencil sketch...
..to beautiful vista (the work of both Brian and Sarah Dargie)
Despite what the title might say, I don't really consider myself a religious person, but that's not the point of this post. The point is that I'm gonna post an update on this blog once a week and for all intents and purposes, Sunday seems like an ideal day to do it.
So I mentioned in my first post that I was hoping to be a storyboard artist (for film or animation? it matters not) and that I'd put some examples of my storyboard panels up.
Title image, and yes I've already heard that it looks like something out of the Simpsons ]:(
Wednesday's Child was a minute long animated short (written by the talented John Harkins and Freya Hotson) that focused on the character Daniel, a young boy whose family have recently moved house, something that Daniel isn't happy about.
The short was part of our coursework in 3rd Year animation and was an exercise in character animation as well as group production. I found myself with the task of creating the storyboard (which for me is a visual version of the script) and how to make it flow correctly.
Rough Storyboard - Thumbnails of each shot in the short
This is usually how my storyboards start as
This was actually my first proper introduction with the rules behind storyboarding. I say that because when I originally did storyboards for animation, I kinda did them with little to no idea on how scenes were linked visually or the concept of "Crossing the line" (which caused a lot of headaches for my group members when we had prod meeting with our lecturer Wayne Thomas).
I did learn a lot from it and while I struggled with drawing Daniel for the longest time (I actually got so annoyed that when I took my frustration out in a drawing, I actually managed to draw him properly for once, the irony) I definitely enjoyed working on it and it encouraged me to become a better draftsmen if not push me on my way towards storyboarding.
The animation itself was based on the local beaches in the Fife area and as such we did some observational drawing as part of our research. Unfortunately unlike the final film it wasn't a particularly nice day.
While Freya and John did cite Calvin & Hobs as one of their major influences for this film, being a fan of the Peanuts Strips I couldn't help but draw this. Makes me wish I drew Charlie Brown and Snoopy more often.
These were the next set of storyboards I did using watercolours. While they aren't the best example of my use with the medium, they did help in giving us an idea of how the characters would be coloured.
These storyboard panels were made during production and weren't used for the animatic (which was a mix of panels by all members of the group)
These were concept ideas for posters, the first one brought some raised eyebrows my way due to the Manga-esq style that it was drawn in, while the second managed to make it into the credits for the final film.
And the Final film itself:
Well that was Wednesday's Child, next time I'll show you boards from my last project but for now enjoy the rest of the pics.
After much badgering from colleagues and noticing how many professional artists put their work onto sketchblogs, I felt it was time to do the same. First a quick introduction:
Apple juice FTW
My name is Joseph McMahon (my friends call me Joe) and I'm a recent graduate student from Dundee University's animation course at Duncan of Jordanstone art college.
I should point out that this isn't my first foray into the interwebs, as I've posted alot of my older stuff through my Deviant art account (which recently has been left to the wayside a little) http://aquilas.deviantart.com/
And in order to give you a better understanding of the quality of work that was produced by this years graduates at DOJ, I present the link to the DOJ animation website where you can see all the graduate films http://animation2011.com/
I worked primarily on the 2D animation Mawkins Backfire, which you can watch here on youtube.
Also as part of our course, each of our films were to have a blog attached in order for people to have an inside look at how the films were made http://mawkinsbackfire.blogspot.com/
I'm pretty busy at the moment with a temporary job till I can earn enough to afford looking for more suitable work. I'm primarily looking into being a 2D animator, with a particular interest in storyboarding (which I'll upload examples of very soon).
