So I don't ever really want to be pegged as that anime/manga girl - but I was reading volume 30 of Eyeshield 21 today and I thought that, from an animation perspective, it was definitely worth sharing.

Yusuke Murata works some serious magic in terms of action sequences and posing. The comic is about American style high school football played in Japan - so 90% of the comic itself is football games - a topic I have no particular interest in, mind you, but this comic makes me love it. :) Check out some of the posing - and if you ever get the chance, flip through a copy of it in the bookstore and see what wisdom you can glean in terms of strong, emotional, action-oriented posing.

NOTE: These pages read from right to left.

Exercise #4 and the last one for this month (just in time!)

Simple sentient ball bounce. Next month I graduate to the human form. ;)

The Basics: Ball with Tail

Exercise number two. I'm still not 100% happy with it - I didn't decide up front if I wanted the ball to rotate or behave more like a creature and remain upright. The result was sort of a mix of the two, where it does stay 'upright' but also has no life to it. I'm not really sure what kind of ball it would take to do that. ;) I might go back into it later.

The Basics!

Exercise One: Bouncing Balls (2 Types of Weight)



This year I wanted to take a lot more of my personal time outside of work to refocus on some simple, clean, polished animation! I'm also teaching one of my friends at work how to animate - so I took this as an opportunity to make a curriculum for myself based off of the one I've created for him. A number of people at work will be joining me as well - I think this will be really great!

In store for January:
X- Bouncing Balls: 2 Types of Weight
- Bouncing Ball with Tail
- Sentient Ball/Simple Object


Also - I did these 2 as quick illustrations of squash & stretch. They don't read too well on youtube though:

From today's figure drawing session at the Arts Center.

Getting around to posting pics from our last VV session (I think Nov. 21), as well as drawings from this Sat. We didn't have a model, so we drew each other. I'm trying to use some different media, since I realized I've been drawing with charcoal on newsprint pretty much all year.

2min





1-2min (crayon!)




5min


10min

Finally got around to posting a link to VV's Thunderdome blog over to the right. It's an extension of the in work Thunderdome weekly sketch topics we have, as well as whatever other art we're doing. Check it out!