Animated Icons

Two little avatars that I made yesterday :) I decided to give pixel art a try as I have never tried it and it looks like a lot of fun. I then decided that I also wanted to try some animation on Photoshop CS5 for the first time as well and this was the result!

I decided to go with a Portal theme because they are recognisable and fun to draw. I just sort of guessed my way through this, but it seems to have worked without too many issues so that's good I think.

I may do more if I think of other things to animate and pixelate. :)

That's all for now and thanks for reading! :)

Armageddon Post

Hey all out there! This was the picture that I drew as a sort of demonstration thing over the long weekend. I was there on the Saturday and then I came back on the Monday with my sister to have another look at the goodies that were available. I spent way too much money, but I did get a lot of cool stuff which was really good!

It was a lot of fun drawing this and talking to people about drawing and that sort of thing, though it was a little bit scary at first I sort of got used to it after a few hours. Oh and my favourite part of the weekend was when one guy was saying to his friends that the only reason my picture looked good was because I was using a large tablet- but when one of his friends actually had a look he saw that I was using a very small Wacom Bamboo and then his friends mocked him and laughed at him and it made me crack up laughing so much.

So a good weekend was hopefully had by all!

Right! That's all for now! Thanks for reading :)

Rock Gollum

Done entirely on Photoshop CS5 (as most of my images are these days), this guy was started with a silhouette. I then added varying tonal values, then added colour layers on top. I spent quite a while fiddling around with his colours to get them how I liked, but I don't think the end result is too bad. :)

There should be posters available at the Animation College NZ stall this Labour weekend of him- so if you're interested and going this weekend you should pop around and say 'hi' to all students that are working there! I will be going on the Saturday so if anyone is floating around then it would be awesome to hear from you guys!

Anyway, that's all for now!

Thanks for reading and I hope to see you again soon :)

Entries and a quick 'how-to'

 Two recent pictures that I drew- the top one was A3 traditional (done with blue pencil then outlined in fibre tip pen) and the bottom picture was drawn entirely digitally (CS5). Below is a very rough tutorial that explains the process I used for the guy at the bottom for anyone that is interested. (I do hope that it's big enough!)

Also, as explained I know it's not the best tutorial/ right way to do things, but I just thought if it could possibly help people even a bit, well then it's worth it, right?

Just my logic anyway :)

Four Planets

My last picture from the concept design workshop a set of four different 'planets' or environments. I drew this picture when Robh Ruppel was speaking to us about the way he paints environments and I feel that I gained a lot from listening to him speak and show the way that he worked.

Overall, I found the workshop a really useful thing for me to go to (for those that haven't read any of my previous posts, I was fortunate enough to attend a Concept Design Workshop in Wellington in September) and I felt that I learned a lot, and it gave me the confidence to find my own way of doings things without worrying too much about linear paths in order to get to the job that I want.

It showed me that everyone had a different way of getting into the industry, but the thing that everyone had in common was that they all worked damn hard, and so I am trying to push myself even more now- trying to learn new programmes, techniques and different ways of approaching things in order to further myself as an artist.

So, it was a very good time for me I feel. And even though self doubt is always there, I feel like it's a natural part of it now- so it's not something to be afraid of. It helps me to push myself more and keep striving to be better!

Well, that's all for now!

Thanks for reading,

Hope to see you back soon! :)

Earring crafts

These are a set of earrings that I made during the holidays just past- I was getting a bit bored with the ones I had so I felt that it would be good (and productive) to make some of my own.

I used 'Super Sculpy' for all of the main models and just 'eye-balled' the proportions for them, and once they were finished (and properly baked) I painted them with standard acrylic paints and then sprayed them with a waterproof resin spray to help seal them!

I made the pokeballs first, then the companion cubes, Aang and then finally the Master Sword and Shield. I would have to find another way to make the shield and sword next time because they were so fiddly and time consuming... And tiny! The shield is about the size of my thumb nail (or just marginally bigger) so things got pretty hard to paint/ etc later on.

I really enjoy making these however and coming up with ideas of what to do next! And it's always fun to have some geeky stuff to wear subtly around the place. And it's neat when other people recognise what it's from! :)

More updates tomorrow!

Hey there everybody!

Just letting you all know that I will be updating my blog some more tomorrow as I have quite a lot of stuff that I need to post here. So, check back soon for new pictures and various other things! :)

Thanks for reading; that's all until tomorrow!

Paula :)