more 8 bit

Its been a while....again. And so once again I try to get started on doing some of my own stuff - and what better way to do just that than to follow a tutorial.....
- I used the tutorial as a starting point, went a little off road and just had a little fun with it. It's not entirely what I had in mind, so I might continue to work on this later on.

If interested in After Effects and motion graphics you really should check out Mikey's youtube channel. There is a lot of nice tutorials, great learning opportunity you can find it here; https://www.youtube.com/user/LongLiveMikey

I'm back & 8-bit fun

So it has been a while since I last got around to post, or create anything for that matter. I got a job and had to relocate, so as the summer passed by I spend my time looking for an apartment and putting things in boxes. Now I am getting more settled but the last of the boxes still haven't been unpacked....as I have no better place to put all of my stuff, but I'll get there. Eventually.
At the same time I had to adjust to my new life, going from more than a year of unemployment to getting to work eery day, quite the change. It's a good change but especially in the beginning I had little to no energy when I got home, so  I haven't gotten around to work on any of my own things just yet.
It seems there is always dinner to work and dishes to do....Ohhhhh the dishes how they haunt me. No sooner have I cleared the kitchen counter before they start piling up again, evil little things.

So today it is just a little After Effects 8 bit fun, hopefully I'll be back soon, and more frequent.

motion graphics

So for some reason I am on a major After Effects trip at the moment. Not sure what has brought this on, but I've been going through loads of tutorials. As always I am working on lots of different projects at the same time, but here is a couple of the more "finished" products. I quite liked the motion graphics - and that is something I would like to explore further.

peeing dog

Fox

- Sneaky Mr. FireFox -

snail

 

The Easter Bunny

So....The Easter Bunny, and a - let's call it a poem or maybe a nursery rhyme made by myself and my sister many many years ago...

Easter, Dracula and Brütus

- Brütus, Dracula's pet rat -

So because Easter is coming up I decided to make another Dracula....makes sense right?
Na' the Robot I've been working on will probably be another week or two before I'll have something finished, cleaning up the project before moving on became a little boring - and I really like to procrastinate so I needed a tiny break. Basically I wanted to finish something - and so it had to be in 2D.

So this is my starting point, a quick sketch I did on paper before bringing it into the computer through the magic of my smartphone camera. And like I said; Easter is coming up so naturally I thought; Dracula - there were no real master plan, I found some inspiration in the graphics from Plants vs. Zombies and wanted to try to play with light/shadow in this very flat or graphic style. For starters I was only planning on doing his head but before I knew it he had a pet rat and some sort of body.

Now he turned out a little more effeminate than I planned, but I do think that he rocks that nail polish.
And as always I can never decide on a final-final image, there are just to many opportunities, so naturally I had to do more than one version. I quite like the all clean look - no background just the crisp character, but at the same time I am a sucker for adding textures.
- Maybe I should make an Easter bunny.....hmmmm

Robot wip

A robot I have been working on. The character is pretty much done, a couple of minor details and a lot of clean up and UVs is all there is left. Next up is texturing and shading. I am also thinking about adding a rig - at least for posing purpose. And then hopefully creating a fully rendered picture. And so - onwards and upwards....

Birdie

- another little sketchy birdie, instead of using Illustrator as I have become accustomed to I tried to utilize some brushes in Photoshop, but I couldn't quite let go of my Vector-addiction so the main shape is made with the pen tool. And then I went crazy with colors and different types of layers. I am semi-pleased with the result, but mainly it served as another little exercise for me to try out new workflow and tools I am not that familiar with.
- Next one I'll have to do entirely freehand....no vectors!

head sculpt

I found this really nice zbrush sculpting tutorial, ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRzSE4_Xipw ) and so this is my attempt into something more realistic looking. I am pretty pleased with the result although I do feel I have a tendency to stretch, squash and exaggerate proportions just a little bit, so not really real proportion wise. Maybe I'll take it out for another spin later on, see if I can tone it down a bit, but for a first attempt and for now - pretty pleased.

and the award goes to...

So "Porcelain" the bachelor project I've worked on has  just won its first award - the student animation category at the "Stoke Your Fires" festival, not exactly the Oscars, but for a student project with a limited audience it is still pretty sweet. Povl is very happy....:)

http://www.stokeyourfires.co.uk/awards-2014/

more kitty Cats

more cats - hand drawn sketches cleaned in Illustrator...

Tank

- a little tank I have been working on. It was intended to be quite simple but suddenly it got fun adding more guns etc., I am thinking about texturing and rigging it - just for the fun of it....but can't decide if it is worth the effort, or I should just get on to other ideas and projects I have floating around in my head....time will tell.