Life Drawings

Some of my better life drawing done while at VFS (terms 2 & 3). I've definitely seen a lot of artistic improvement while at VFS, not just drawing, but as as artist in general.

Classical Animation for Term 2

Just thought I would post all my term 2 classical assignments at once. The requirements for these assignments were quite simple, just make the actions work (cape jump, swing, box lift, reaction). I always added extra imagination to my animations just to make the assignments more interesting to do. As you can see, I put in a cameo of my killer rabbit for assignment 4.


Assignment 4: Reaction


Assignment 3: Box Lift


Assignment 2: Swing


Assignment 1: Cape Jump

Photoshop: Editing & Compositing

Our last photoshop assignment with 2D compositing opened up a complete new realm to me in terms of 2D, because I did not know this was possible before.

Basically we start with a rendered image of a 3Dmodeled room. We take that into Photoshop and layered "textures" on top according to the room's perspective, with very very flat lighting. Then we take pre-rendered lighting "passes" and use that as a base for lighting. The resulting image looks to have the illusion of 3D and looks very realistic.

Below is a breakdown of the different stages:


This is just another assignment for our photoshop class where we had to remove the background from a photo and do color adjustments. Was a piece of cake for me since I used to do image editing all the time, so I went a little stylistic with it:

Composition: Mood, Movement & Meaning

These are the last 3 composition assignments and the description paragraphs the drawings are based on. For previous assignments, I was always unconsciously drawing everything covered in the paragraphs, making a more complicated yet unfocused composition. As a new challenge to myself, I tried to pick only a few elements to focus on, in order to make a more focused and compelling composition.

The private office was everything a private office should be. It was long and dim and quiet and air-conditioned and its windows were shut and its gray venetian blinds half-closed to keep out the July glare. Gray drapes matched the gray carpeting. There was a large black and silver safe in the corner and a low row of low filing cases that exactly matched it. On the wall there was a huge tinted photograph of an elderly party with a chiselled beak and whiskers and a wing collar. The Adam's apple that edged through his wing collar looked harder than most people's chins. The plate underneath the photograph read: Mr. Matthew Gillerlain 1860-1934.
Derace Kingsley marched briskly behind about eight hundred dollars' worth of executive desk and planted his backside in a tall leather chair. He reached himself a panatela out of a copper and mahogany box and trimmed it and lit it with a fat copper desk lighter. He took his time about it. It didn't matter about my time. When he had finished this, he leaned back and blew a little smoke and said:
"I'm a business man. I don't fool around. You're a licensed detective your card says. Show me something to prove it."

"Don't you know a police siren when you hear one? Get out of that car!"
I got out of the car and stood beside it in the moonlight. The fat man had a gun in his hand.
"Gimme our license!" he barked in a voice as hard as the blade of a shovel.
I took it out and held it out. The other cop in the car slid out from under the wheel and came around beside me and took what I was holding out. He put a flash on it and read.
"Name of Marlowe," he said. "Hell, the guy's a shamus. Just think of that, Cooney."

The first blister popped, bled.
The soil lay rock-like beneath the heavy frost, and his shovel worked scarcely better than a child's toy. Still he kept digging, pausing only when his hands grew too cold to grip the handle, or when a fit of coughing took him, doubling him over to spit thickly on the ground.
His foot brushed against the gunnysack lying next to him, producing a muffled thud. Take a breath, man - don't kill yourself in the doing.
He sat down on the small pile of fresh-dug dirt, pulling the sack closer to him. Gentle, now, his trembling hands doing their best to forget the cold, forget the strain of digging.

Character Design: Challenge

This is only a challenge given to us in character design, is to try and draw in someone else's style. Drawing in someone else's style is commonplace in the work environment, and as a challenge to myself I decided to draw Terry Lennox again in the styles below:

Character Design: Creature Design

The last character design assignment is to design a creature or an animal. I chose the Kirin/Qilin because I've always wanted to do my own version of it. I did some research and apparently chinese Qilin versions are more ox-bodied, while japanese Kirin are more deer-bodied. Seeing as the Qilin is good creature I figure that the deer body would better resemble the kindness factor.

Photoshop: Toy Box Textures (New & Old)

Our last photoshop assignment for the term is to make UV textures for a new and an old toy box. We started by cleaning up some scans of each side of an existing toy box, and then putting them together to make the new box UV. Afterwards we destroyed the image to make the old box UV.

Classical Animation: More Line Tests

This is the rest of the classical animation assignments we did for term 1. The walk cycles look simple, but both of them posed as two of the biggest challenges in term 1. I learned a lot from these assignments.


Week 4 - Whip Cracking


Week 5 - Walk Cycle (Side View)


Week 6 - Walk Cycle (Front View)

Sculpture: Morpheus (Primer'ed)

I was expecting to paint the sculpture today in class, but unfortunately the instructor's paints disappeared. All I got done during the class time was filling in the cracks with gray epoxy putty, and spraying the sculpture over with a layer of gray primer.

I thought some of the porous skin texture was lost during the bake, but spraying the primer brought all the details back out. Looking forward to painting it and maybe make some plastic sunglasses for him if I have time during the break.




A closeup on the details of the face

Sculpture: Morpheus (Baked)

I finally finished sculpting my Morpheus and added the final details for the face and skin texture, and BAKED it.

I don't know if I baked it for long enough but it looks fine except for a crack along the side of his head. The instructor says all cracks can be fixed and no scars left behind, I will take his word for it. I'm going to start painting it today .

Character Design: Concept Design

The 5th character design assignment is to draw a character from the paragraph provided to us below. I tried to go for a more cartoony style since this is a cartoon character design class.

It was about three blocks from my office building that I saw a cop car double-parked and the two buttons in it staring at something over by a shop window on the sidewalk. The something was Terry Lennox - or what was left of him - and that little was not too attractive.
He was leaning against a store front. He had to lean against something. His shirt was dirty and open at the neck and partly outside his jacket and partly not. He hadn't shaved for four or five days. His nose was pinched. His skin was so pale that the long thin scars hardly showed. And his eyes were like holes poked in a snowbank. It was pretty obvious that the buttons in the prowl car were about ready to drop the hook on him, so I went over there fast and took hold of his arm.

We also have to show concept-in-development drawings that lead to the final drawing of this character. I did lots of development drawings of him to get a better feel of his character and I deliberately added in some sober drawings of him too. I started off by drawing a more realistic version and then shrinking him down to a small cartoony version:

Photoshop: Wasp

Our first Photoshop class started on Week 5, I guess it is there to compliment our first texturing class that also started on Week 5. Photoshop class is pretty easy since I know my way around it very well. Our first assignment is to complete 1 of 2 matte painting tutorials : painting a wasp or painting clouds. I chose the wasp one since I am always more fascinated with living things than... say... clouds.

Character Design: Cast of Characters & Faces

The 3rd assignment for Character Design is to design a cast of at least 5 characters portraying different archetypes, and using only primitive shapes to show poses, emotions, and silhouettes (as we did in the last 2 assignments).

I used the same wrestler character from my last 2 assignments as the "hero", and added the "damsel in distress", "sidekick", "henchman", and "villain". See if you can tell which is which .





The 4th assignment is drawing 5 totally different faces of characters from different universes, and then picking 1 of them and draw 5 different emotions. Again, we have to use the same technique of drawing with only basic primitive shapes as the basic structure.

I just did some faces randomly and the old man just feels more interesting to me so I picked him for the emotions. He feels like a drunk old man so I made sure to exaggerate that quality.

Composition: Appeal & Clarity

For the composition classes, we are always given descriptive paragraphs to base our drawings on. Below is my week 3 and 4 assignments, topics are appeal and clarity:

A dimly lit interrogation room. The atmosphere is heavy and oppressive. It is a small room with a table and two chairs. There is a ceiling lamp hanging over the table and the windows are recessed, giving the impression of a bunker. A soldier is sitting at the table facing the door, expressionless. A man in a gray suit and square glasses enters the room carrying a brief case. The man silently crosses the room and sits down. The two figures sit looking at each other, each waiting for the other to begin.

But Bobby had this thing for girls, like they were his private tarot or something, the way he'd get himself moving. We never talked about it, but when it started to look like he was losing his touch that summer, he started to spend more time in the Gentleman Loser. He'd sit at a table by the open doors and watch the crowd slide by, nights when the bugs were at the neon and the air smelled of perfume and fast food. You could see his sunglasses scanning those faces as they passed, he must have decided that Rikki's was the one he was waiting for, the wild card and the luck changer. The new one.

Classical Animation: Line Tests

Here are the assignments I did for the first three weeks of Classical Animation class. Animation is probably my weakest link because I haven't done much in the past about studying motion. I faced many problems here and there and everywhere, but if something looks odd I try my best to correct it myself before I go to someone else for help.


Week 1 - Bouncing Ball


Week 2 - Hairball


Week 3 - Jumping Flour Sack

Composition: Shadow & Depth

We have had two assignments for Composition class, the second assignment is to draw any outdoor scene with a clear sense of depth (foreground, mid-ground, and background). My first drawing was from a photo of a church in Macau (taken by my dad) but I was frustrated about the lack of a clear background, so I did a second drawing from a photo of a volcano and lava field.



The first assignment is simply a technical drawing of accurate two-point perspective and shadows.

Character Designs: Action & Emotion Poses

The second assignment in Character Design is to draw 10 poses (5 emotions + 5 actions) of the same character using only primitive shapes, thereby conveying feelings only with body gestures and not with props or facial expressions.

I actually had a lot of fun with this assignment, because as I was drawing I started to feel the personality of this character - which came from the Wrestler I drew for the 1st assignment. I wanted the wrestler to be buff yet a cowardy and soft character, as seen from a few of the poses.

Sculpture: Morpheus

I haven't posted anything for 2 weeks since I spent the whole time with a cold and lots of assignments, the great thing is I survived and have a lot of work to show . I have decided to post each assignment as a separate entry so they can be tracked back easily, so the next few posts will all be assignments completed or in-progress for the last 2 weeks.

The first assignment in sculpture class is to sculpt the head/bust of any existing or imaginary character, and I chose Morpheus from The Matrix. We started by sketching the front and profile views of the head, followed by tracing the lines onto a sheet of acetate, then finally starting on the sculpture with a modeling clay called "Super Sculpy". Here are some pics of what I have so far.

Character Designs

The first assignment in character design is to draw 10 essentially different characters using only primitive shapes (namely circles, triangles, and rectangles), and this is what I came up with. I know some of the posing and anatomy is wrong here, but it was even worse originally and I have already made many changes, I'll just have to keep working on it.

I have some vague description of each character, here it is from left-to-right, top-to-bottom:
Stout Lady, Plantoid, Gorilla Man, Retarded-Alien-Thing, Elephant Man,
Bear Man, Daddy Long Legs, WWF Wrestler, Baby, An Ass.