[Update] Returning to uni / work projects

The dreaded holiday is finally over and it's time to return to the blissful chaos that is university.
Before I talk about my final project, I thought I'd have a catchup of everything I've been working on over the holiday. I've been involved in projects with a variety of styles and methods, while staying close enough to home to apply what I've learned to my own work.

EDDSWORLD (Online show)

As mentioned a few times in the past, I've started working for an online show called Eddsworld. For those not familiar with the show and it's history, please watch the video above. As a new animator, I was told to make my style a hybrid of the show's and my own, my outcome ended up being the character sheet below. As I'm working on a pre-existing show, I need to make sure I stay faithful to the art and characters, while still keeping myself comfortable with the animation work. I'm very happy to be part of this project, and hope I make a good contribution to the fans and the show.

THE CHARM PRINCESS (iOS app)

I worked on a short scene for an upcoming application. This job was interesting as it got me using different techniques to my usual animation style, as well as animating someone's pre-existing models. Once I'd adapted I was fairly happy with the animation style, and learned some new skills and techniques in Flash in the process. Information on the app is in the video below, please note the shots in the video weren't animated by me, I'll link to them when they are made public!

HOW TO DRAW REALLY GOOD (Online show)

I recently started working with YouTuber "Oliver Age 24", who runs a parody series named "How to draw really good" in which he draws intentionally poor pictures in a tutorial fashion, making fun of the online art community. At the end of his videos, he compares to a well drawn picture, and acts overly critical of them. An example can be seen in the video below:

Over the past week or so I've drawn art for some of his upcoming videos, as well as made two music videos with him, done in an intentionally terribly animated style similar to that of Jerry Jackson.
Not all of the videos are out yet, so I'll share the teaser for one of the upcoming music videos, Unicornius:

TOMMY FINTON: THE INSIDE FACT (Documentary)

Most recently, I worked on a short clip for a documentary being made by my cousin, Chris Harrison. This documentary will be focusing on the struggles of a handicapped YouTuber, and his rise to popularity. I animated a short segment explaining the concept of "trolls" using a rough voice track.
I asked Chris to sum up the documentary:

The documentary looks at the life of Tommy Finton, a 24 year old with learning difficulties, who has become an underground stat among the YouTube community. Speaking to friends and enemies of Tommy, Inside Fact covers not only Tommy's story but also how internet culture has formed its own niche form of entertainment, and what issues come with it.

The content of this documentary is also relavent to my dissertation, which will focus on the impact the internet has had on the world of animation. A lot of online animators have come under harsh feedback from trolls and critics alike, which really tests an individuals willpower to push against the face of the anonymous masses.

Nick Basile Radio #3 (Animated podcast)

I completed the third episode of Nick Basile Radio, which I'll link to once it's uploaded!

Solrac Ventures (Online show)

I made a quick overnight video with Carlos Moreno for a fundraiser for his upcoming show, Solrac Ventures, this was followed by a successful IndieGoGo campaign in which we received well over the initial goal, in return we sent out a huge amount of custom artwork to donators. More information in the video below, followed by some of the art I drew for backers.

SMALLER JOBS

I did artwork for aspiring voice actor, Emily Jones.

Which led onto another.

And finally, I had some time for myself, so I finished the opening to Vampire Pixel!

PROJECT LIST - WHERE MAH TOONS AT?

Wellp, this blog has been pretty neglected over the past few weeks. That's been for a couple of reasons, first up I've been settling back home from Uni, so catchups have been happening, and secondly, I've been working on projects with other people, some of which I've been saving until I made a big blog post containing it all. So let's jump right into things, starting with the whats and wheres of my own projects.

VAMPIRE PIXEL IN THE NEON CITY

This project is currently sitting on the sidelines, not due to the fall out I had with it, but because I just want some space to come back to it with a fresh mind, there's a lot I want to add in to this animation now that it's not bound as a University project, and instead of rushing it out, I want to make sure everything is just how I want it, taking the course feedback into the mix as well. At the moment, the animation stands at 8 minutes, with a possibility of exceeding 10 (depending on pacing, it may even end up cut down). I've been going over older scenes and making them look more visually appealing by tweaking lighting, filters, shading and backgrounds. Subtle changes, but they enhance the feel of the shots. Examples below:

ODDBALL CHAPTER 4

I've become increasingly aware that I'm not the best at writing dialogue lately, and Oddball is pretty dialogue driven, so I've brought on board a friend to help write chapters 4-8. We'll be meeting in the holidays to discuss ideas and the Oddball may finally be rolling once again!

The main projects of my holiday are working with other people, it's a nice break from my own work and an excellent opportunity to branch out, the main two projects are below:

SOLRAC VENTURES

A series a friend of mine has been wanting to develop for a while, he is currently writing episodes and bringing people on board, while I'm getting art practice for the drawing style. To help kick off the idea, we started an IndieGoGo campaign, shown below:

The campaign was a success, and I'm almost finished drawing up the designs we were sent, it's also been a huge help to my art as I've been trying to put my own take on the reference files we were sent. I also found a new doodle style I like, which I've begun applying to my own sketches as well:

I'll continue practicing the art until the show is developed further, but until then, my workload for this project has calmed down, all in perfect time for...

EDDSWORLD

Quite possibly the strangest thing to write, but I'm preparing to work on a future episode of Eddsworld, an online show I've been a fan of for quite some time now. I'm keeping this entry short for now as I'll likely elaborate further down the line, but for now, here's a small selection of (spoiler free) art practice I've done so far:

It's an absolute pleasure to be working on this project, and hopefully I can do the show justice and make the fans happy too! Until then, I got projects ta work on!

So hopefully this entry shows that even though the blog has been dead lately, I'm still happily working away! Once I return to uni the blogs will be daily again but until then things will be a tad scattered!

[Animation] Electro-Blitz commission

Seems all my commissions nowdays are MLP related. Either way, pretty happy with how this one turned out, I wanted to try out depth and parralax scrolling and I think it worked well with simple tweens and layering. I also learned a way to make stylised lightning that stands out nicely from the complimentary purple sky.

Various updates

Today's mainly been spent on a few different projects at once, so there's nothing substantial enough to fill an entry of its own. Here's everything that's going on at the moment:

Oddball 4:
I'm rewriting the next episode of Oddball to make it snappier and more tense. The old version of the script felt very dragged out and lost the feel I was going for. I should finally have the animation underway soon.

Vampire Pixel:
I'm slowly chipping away at the animation work for this, at the moment I'm just going over older scenes and tweaking the visuals, and I have plans for the arcade scene to try animating it with bright line art to stylise the dark scene and make the most of the art style.

Commissions:
I've had a few slow days with commissions due to other things happening. I was at a meetup yesterday, so I got no work done then, and I'm still negotiating how one of the animations will go. I'm also working more on the next Nick Basile animation, which will hopefully be out soon. Once we have an agreeable animatic, I can create the rest fairly quickly, hopefully!

[Drawing] Completed Minecraft picture

I finally got round to finishing this joined picture with Gary, Will and Jack. The background on this piece was a lot of fun to do, in a bright, blocky art direction true to the Minecraft style. To avoid making the picture look too dull with all the square shapes, I rounded the perspective, using curved guidelines from the horizon point rather than straights.