Super Rough Animatic

So I'm starting up another little project. I'm planning on doing some rough animations for a trailer-type video of The Nays. I don't really plan on finishing it with color, I just want to practice some animating, since I haven't done it in a really long time.

Here's the super quick animatic I made in a few hours. The "storyboards" are nothing close to being finished, I just wanted to make this for timing purposes, since this is a small little project.

Ronny is a very energetic orphan who loves to have fun. He's very curious and always asking questions, even if it is not the appropriate time to be asking so. He has a lot of fun and makes do with what little resources he has without a home. Flink is a last name that the orphans made up together, since they don't know their actual birth last names.

Some doodles from earlier today. I did these while I was waiting for my parents in the parking lot of a store.

Yesterday's Scribbles

Some more characters and life drawings. I've been focusing on writing a little more these past few days, so I'm kind of splitting my time between writing and drawing.

Wes is a very wise man who possesses the power to read minds. He taught Piko how to fight and later on ends up training Ralphie as well. He is very powerful, but does not enjoy using his powers unless it is completely necessary (which is why he prefers to teach those of the new generation instead). Wes has been around for many years, but is from a species that ages much slower. He is a very relaxed teacher, so he takes his time when he is teaching someone.

Some doodles to try and figure out Director Curry's design. I tried to make his nose a little more like the other Blues, but it didn't quite look right with his design. I may just need to play around with the colors some more.

Sketchbook gestures from the mall last weekend.

Digital Painting Experimenting

A bunch more character drawings! I've been having fun playing with some designs and new techniques.

I decided to try out a new painting style, using the hard round brush only. I just changed around the opacity and flow a bit as needed. It was a really fun way to paint, and I definitely enjoyed it more than my usual way. But by the way, this is Darkitu. It looks a little young, so it may be how he looked when he was younger, but I'm not completely sure yet. I just didn't really have any drawings of him, so I decided this was necessary.

And these are the initial sketches for the piece above.

Refinto is very much the quiet type. The only two friends he really has are Ralphie and Ted. Growing up, he was trained at and lived in a Dojo. After he was killed, Refinto was tricked into signing a contract with Neen saying that he will work for him and follow his orders no matter what. Refinto has turned into a slave of Neen, and follows his every command.

Trying to figure out what shapes work for Pubby's body. Still can't decide on one...

Character Sketching!

I've been doing a lot of character drawings this week! I forgot how much I missed having this much time to draw.

Manny's number one goal is to become a World Leader (and his sole purpose for becoming a Nay in the first place). He is always speaking about "revolutions" and causing uprisings; his catchphrase is "Viva La Revolution!" That umbrella he wields can actually shoot out bullets, and he also uses explosives in battle. He is a natural born leader and is always talking and meeting new people.

Ted is Shaw's imaginary friend who started out as a samurai. Upon coming to The Worlds, he developed his own unique personality and a mind of his own, but he still wields a sword. He is very friendly and nice to everyone he meets. He speaks his mind and makes friends easily. Ted is very energetic and talkative.

This is a part of an old project I did awhile back. It's mostly to serve as a reference for how my characters' clothes have changed over time and what outfits they wear and when. This one is Trekkon. He may or may not have a metal arm by the end, so that's why I didn't even draw it in on the second to last one.

Some character sketches of the Field Ravens.

And some doodles of Rasake.

A bunch of character sketches.

Some re-designs. On the left are the drawings I did back in 2008, and on the right are the current redone versions. I think I improved a bit. :)

Nays Detective Game: Revived!

So I'm FINALLY going to redo an old RPGmaker game I made in high school. It was probably my farthest along and most developed one (since it had about an hour and a half of gameplay so far, along with a planned out story and developed characters). I decided that I am going to finish this game by May of 2015... because it is going to be my Senior Thesis project!

This week I reworked the story and wrote out a sequence of events for the entire game. It is going to have eight chapters plus a prologue. In my original game, I only reached the end of chapter one. So IF I am able to complete the whole thing, it's estimated to have about seven or so hours of gameplay in the end. I planned out all of the major gameplay mechanics already.

Also, this will be my first time creating a game (aside from some test projects) in VX Ace, since I have really only made longer games in 2003 so far. It might take some getting used to at first, but I'm really excited about it. I plan to have a rough draft of the script done by the start of this fall semester, as well as some more doodles and concepts for re-designs of the characters. I've written a few pages of my script so far, and done the sketches below:

Some quick sketches I of some of the main characters. I tried to slightly re-design some of them and make them look their age a little more (they're all in their 20s besides Adrian).

And so this is what the game looked like in RPGmaker 2003. I basically used RTP and other resources I downloaded online. I plan to create all of the art and resources on my own for the VX Ace version of this game.

The game doesn't really have an official title yet, so for now it's just called The Nays Detective Game (although I'm considering naming it Detective Ragger). I started up a tag here for it so you can see future posts related to my thesis!

Nay-A-Day Project

So I decided to start a new little project for myself. Since I have enough characters to draw for an entire year (well I'm about 30 days short, but I'm sure there are some that I'm forgetting), I decided it'd be fun to draw one a day! I plan on drawing each character on their birthday. If more than one character shares that birthday, I'll either choose one, or draw both if I have time. I'm sure I'll slow down during the school year, but even if it's just a little doodle in my sketchbook, I want to try it out to see how long I can keep this going. 

I plan on posting daily to my Instagram at least, and as often as I can on deviantART, but even if I don't have time to post, I still plan on doing a sketch each day. I'm calling this project Nay-a-Day (or NAD)!

My very first one was a not very main Nay. His name is Satsuto Ninku. He's a ninja who befriended Scott at one point, but I honestly can't even remember which Eventure that was on or what purpose he really had. But I made him up awhile back.

This one is Gosigo. See that brace around his neck? That's because he lost his head while playing a game... quite literally. He is a species that looks like humans, but they can actually withstand loss of body parts. Also, when Gosigo first came to TGWTLT World, he discovered this crazy invention: TV. His planet does not have electricity or electronics, so the sight of TV was quite amazing to him. But once he first watched TV, he could not take his eyes off of it. He became obsessed with TV and now cannot live without it. He will mutter "TV..." when he is watching it, because he is so mesmerized. He will have a temper-tantrum when he is separated from his TV though, and will do whatever he can to reunite with it.

Cin is a smart kid who loves being outside. He loves birds and the freedom they have, which is why he commonly will allow his pet bird to fly off on his own. He stays close with his friends usually and loves hiking or camping outside with them. He loses a lot of his self-confidence once he loses one of his closest friends. The loss causes him to become very protective of the friends he has left.

Finally: Summer Break

So my summer break finally started earlier this week; pretty much Monday, since I was at Weddings and parties all weekend. Here's some of the stuff I've been doing in that free time.

I got to do a Commission at the beginning of this week for MrNelson007. It was my very first Tumblr Commission, so that was exciting.

Doodle of Zandra, trying to get back into the habit of drawing digitally.

Some doodles I did at my cousin's pool party.

And a page of sketches from when I was at the mall.

Personal Sketchbook Drawings from Camp

Every once in awhile when I wasn't in the mood for doing observational drawings, but I had my sketchbook around, I would do some doodles of my characters and just anything that popped into my head. So these are a few pages I did while I was at camp.

I started really enjoying doing marker drawings after awhile. I need to purchase some more lighter marker colors so I can do underlying colors not in yellow.

Character sketches.

Some composition studies I did while watching Howl's Moving Castle.

A bunch of character doodles.

Doodles of Eevee I did early on.

Didn't quite finish this one.

Observational Sketch Book & the Perks of Daily Socializing

So even though I was super busy with work, I was always out and about, in public spaces. So that gave me tons of opportunities for life drawings. Whenever I had a free few minutes, I was able to take out my sketchbook and just draw people in the room, or just anything in general. I made a habit of doing at least one page a day of observational drawings, and I've got to say, it helped me out a lot. I cannot recommend that more. It's hard for me to get out of the house every day and draw people when I'm at home, but when I'm pushed into social situations from work, it really forces me to sit down and observe people a lot better. This was another super exciting part of this summer, and I hope to continue doing it as often as I can.

The first few days I really just drew some of the kids in the labs.

 

Eventually, I started to draw the people in the Ohio Union Lobby almost every day.

I drew a bit at my friend, Hillary's house when I would come over every weekend.

 
 
 
 
 
More Ohio Union sketches.

More from Hillary's house.

 
And more Ohio Union sketches!

Some sketches from in the labs one day.

 
Sketches from the Columbus and Chicago airports.

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Sketches from the labs and lounge area of St. Edward's University in Austin, TX.

 
Some more airport sketches. These ones were in Austin and Dallas.

Various sketches from the dorms.

More from Hillary's house.

 

And some more from the dorms.

 
Some sketches while waiting for the kids at check-out. Basically just of OSU campus.

And some sketches from lunch one day.

I scanned 62 pages of my sketchbook. There are about five to ten not included in here, but I'll make a post with those ones soon.