The Kid From Cranbrook

A Backlog of Transit Sketches

2011-10-13T22:22:00.001-07:00

Where Are They Now?

2011-10-11T22:24:00.000-07:00

The child actor gone sour.

~Chris

Punched By The Bat

2011-09-27T18:05:00.000-07:00

Another one done for the Sketch After Work.

~Chris

Octopus Ass Kicker

2011-09-27T17:48:00.001-07:00

Done for a weekly sketch blog, Sketching After Work, that me and some friends at work are contributing to. The theme for this one was "Martial Arts Animal"!

~Chris

Skipping Thumbnails

2011-09-07T19:12:00.000-07:00

Yikes, seven months without a post. Well, it's not much but here are some thumbnails I did at work today for a character skipping. I haven't animated a skip in some time, so some action analysis was much needed.

I remember when I was a student and finding reference took some effort - nowadays you can find everything on youtube. I like it, but at the same time I think it makes us less appreciative of the reference because it's so easy to come by...

~Chris

Enthusiastic Photographer

2011-02-19T20:01:00.000-08:00

Something possessed me to draw a person enthusiastically taking a picture - Not sure why.

~Chris

HOLY SMOKES DO I EVER LOVE LAUGHS!!

2011-02-17T08:38:00.001-08:00

There was an email thread at work here a little while ago, talking about gathering together and watching something funny. One of my co-animator pals replied with an email saying, "HOLY SMOKES DO I EVER LOVE LAUGHS!!". All in Upper Case like that. I was immediately struck with an image, so I quickly hammered it out in Sketchbook and emailed it to him - he liked it.

~Chris

Sunday Sketches

2011-02-01T22:07:00.000-08:00

Went Downtown on Sunday to do some drawing at the Central Library. The weather was gorgeous and I couldn't pass it up!

~Chris

2010 At A Glance

2010-12-31T19:50:00.000-08:00

Wow. What a year. 2009 closed with a bit of apprehension after a long stint of unemployment which - believe it or not - really stunk. 2010, however, has been jam-packed with all kinds of excitement.

First and foremost, my fiancée became my wife! My Mother and Father-in-law flew in from Japan and we spent a lot of great time together.

Yuka took them around Vancouver for a couple days and then we all went to the Island to visit my Aunt. When we did the long drive from Vancouver to Moyie (about 10 hours) I forgot my wallet at home so we had to turn around about an hour out of the city so I could retrieve it. It's a long drive up through the mountains and we stopped in lots of little towns along the way. We stopped in Osoyoos and thought, in the heat of the moment, that it might be a neat place to live. Looking back, I think that passion has worn off.

The wedding came off without a hitch despite some weather concerns. Asami, Yuka's best friend, was able to make it to the wedding along with her parents. A friend of my Mom agreed to put them up at her place and I know they just loved it.

Yuka was gorgeous in her gown - so much that I started crying, like a big well-dressed baby, up at the alter. As mentioned before, there were some weather concerns when we got into town but the weather on the Wedding Day couldn't have been better. Blue Skies in all directions and plenty of sunshine. The only downside was that Yuka and her parents were badly bitten by Sand Flies. The rest of us were fine. I guess there was something in their blood that those flies liked better than us Canadians.

Afterwards we spent a week and a bit going around Canada: Banff, Jasper, Toronto, Quebec City, and Montreal. It was a super fun trip with all kinds of adventures to be had along the way!

My in-laws were in Love with the Mountains in Banff and Jasper, and my Father-in-Law was really digging that Alberta Beef. We ate one of our dinners at Bumper's Beef House in Banff and it was quite a feast. Every day after that my Father-in-Law would enthusiastically suggest steak and beer for dinner!

In Jasper we saw a double-rainbow, but this was before that stupid video showed up on YouTube so I'm not going to make any comparisons aside from the one I just made.

Banff and Jasper are two beautiful places that I'd love to go back to sometime. Yuka did a great job of planning our accommodations and everything went so smoothly.

So, earlier I mentioned something about 2009 being a little apprehensive. Well, there was the Recession and I hadn't worked in a while but at the end of 2009 I was setting things up for 7 months of solid Freelance work with New Machine Studios out of Calgary. That was a great experience and I learned a lot. It was near the end of that contract that Yuka and I got married, so there was lots of stuff to juggle all at once. On top of it all, I took a small contract on the side for the Space Centre in Vancouver. Then, as the work with New Machine was winding down I got wind of another project, Plant Sheen, which I'm now a Lead Animator on until this coming Summer! The two projects (Raven Tales and Planet Sheen) lined up perfectly and I enjoyed not a single day of downtime between the two. Planet Sheen is reaching full speed now so things are moving along at a good pace.

Yuka spent some time in Japan this year so I was "lucky" enough to get to experience some forced Bachelorhood, something that I have to face a couple times a year when she travels home on her business trips. Let me tell you, after you've been living the good life it's hard to go back to Ramen dinners every night.

Christmas was fun. We had dinner with my brother and his girlfriend. They make a really cute couple and it's cool to see my brother taking kindly to all the little domestic responsibilities. They put on a terrific meal and we had a great time watching Holiday Classics and getting nostalgic with Super Mario.

After that party wrapped we headed to the Island for a few days to visit my aunt. Her boyfriend is busy moving in so our relaxing holiday consisted of a lot more heavy lifting than I was expecting.

I just put in my last two work days of 2010 and now I look forward, eager to see what 2011 is going to throw at me. If it's even half as eventful as 2010 then I'm all for it.

Cheers.

Playing Fetch With Loki

2010-12-30T22:09:00.000-08:00

Work Doodles

2010-11-27T16:29:00.000-08:00

I made a new page of random sketches at work this week. It's a great way to use the downtime that comes with Playblasting my scenes, and any other computer things that suck away the fun and creativity out of the day.

Pencil on paper, and colour in Photoshop. I hope to do more of these.

~Chris

Sketching from the Television

2010-11-06T23:35:00.000-07:00

I managed a page of heads while watching The Midsomer Murders (great show!). Green Col-Erase on paper.

~Chris

My Wife's Feet

2010-10-31T13:27:00.001-07:00

The Page 100 Project: Pulp

2010-07-25T16:02:00.000-07:00

A while ago I stumbled onto something called the Page 100 Project. This is a fun exercise where you turn to page 100 of any novel and adapt it into a comic! I thought to myself, "That sounds like fun!" So I grabbed Charles Bukowski's Pulp off of my shelf and this is what came of it.

~Chris

Those wonderful Operative Words

2010-05-12T20:28:00.000-07:00

I tutor people in animation part-time. I have a pupil at the moment and this Saturday we'll be delving into the deep, dark depths of dialogue animation.

I was thinking of how to present some of the ideas and I looked back through my plethora of Animation Mentor newsletters to see what I could find to spark my brain. Way back when, Shawn Kelly wrote a Tips And Tricks article on Operative Words and I was so happy to re-read it and see how simply I could present this tricky, yet simple, and all-important idea.

I decided to illustrate some of the points (for clarity for my pupil's sake) about how, by simply changing the Operative Word, you dramatically change the performance. The real key here is to choose one idea to drive a scene (if the scene is really long you might be able to get away with two ideas).

Here's the first idea (Emphasis on "I"):

The second idea(Emphasis on "Love"):

And finally the third idea(Emphasis on "You"):

When you see them side by side like this, it's obvious that a short line like "I love you" can only have one main idea driving it. Imagine how awkward this would feel if all three of those ideas were included in the same performance? The performance would be way over the top, and it wouldn't even work unless the line was delivered the same manic, slobbering, over-reaching sort of way. I can easily imagine that the girl's expression in the third panel would be a look of utter fear if the guy did all three of those gestures!

~Chris

10 Second Gestures And Commuter Sketches

2010-05-02T13:33:00.000-07:00

A while ago I posted about a great, resourceful website called posemaniacs.com, and I've been using the site to do 10 second and 30 second gestures every day for the past week. Posted here are a couple pages of 10 second gestures. I like the 10 second gesture drawing because you have to strip away all the superficial details and just focus on the energy of the pose. I read a quote once that said "Don't draw the Nouns, draw the Verbs" and this is really what gesture drawing is all about. It's not important what the individual pieces of the body look like in a 10 second gesture. What matters is how it feels. And it's the same thing in animation. It's all about the feeling.

The third image in this post is a compilation of some of my favourite Commuter Sketches from the past couple weeks. I have tons of these so I'm hoping to post more in the future. I want to sketch in some different areas though. When you're commuting you're limited to only a very specific range of poses and it starts to get a bit monotonous.

~Chris

My 2010 Animation Showreel

2010-04-25T20:10:00.000-07:00

This is my latest animation showreel. You can check out more stuff on my website

~Chris

Posemaniacs

2010-04-19T08:53:00.000-07:00

I stumbled onto an awesome website over the weekend called posemaniacs.com and it should become a part of every artist's toolkit. The site offers 30 second poses to draw from, along with a plethora of other choices. I just did 25 gestures this morning and I'm gonna do another 25 tomorrow... and the next day... and the next.

But don't take my word for it. Check it out for yourself. You'll be glad you did.

~Chris

Annotate Pro takes care of those pesky dull moments.

2010-04-09T17:56:00.001-07:00

isn't that awesome?

I just got a license for this cheap, cheap little annotation program.

It's called Annotate Pro.

If you like drawing and killing time,

you should totally pick it up.

No.

This is not a poem.

OUT WITH THE OLD

2009-12-29T16:46:00.001-08:00

After six years my old tablet finally kicked the bucket. Since it was right around Christmas I decided it was high time to get a new one. I had my eye on Wacom's Intuous and now that I own one... man, is it nice!

I painted this green fellow during a "let's try out the new tablet" session. The Intuous has way more levels of Pressure Sensitivity than my old one did which results in more control (Apparently technology moves forward over a span of six years)! I'm really excited to use this new tablet on future projects.

~Chris

SHAPE BOX

2009-12-24T12:27:00.001-08:00

One exercise I really enjoy doing is creating a box, filling it with random shapes, and then seeing what they evolve into.

~Chris

LINE ART

2009-12-24T12:26:00.000-08:00

11 Second Club, December 2009

2009-12-23T12:46:00.001-08:00

Here's a fun piece I've been working on for the 11 Second Club's Dec. 2009 competition. I've been studying up on storyboarding recently and I wanted to put my knowledge to the test.

I would have just embedded the videos here on the page except they get cut off by my blog's layout and I can't figure out how to modify it. I really like this template, too, so I stubbornly don't want to change it.

~Chris

Just For Laughs: Gags

2009-12-22T14:29:00.000-08:00

Bumpy Ride

2009-12-22T10:22:00.000-08:00

Poor Posture

2009-12-21T15:10:00.000-08:00

Reference is useful

2009-12-21T13:37:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to visualize a character of mine for a while now. He's a young boy and the setting is the late 1800s. I got a book from the Library called "Children's Clothing of the 1800s" which helped out immensely. The image on the left is drawn from the book, and the image on the right is my treatment of the character.

~Chris

A Morning Stroll

2009-12-18T10:13:00.001-08:00

Hey man, remember the 80s?

2009-12-17T11:14:00.000-08:00

HE'S GOT A KNIFE!

2009-12-16T10:21:00.000-08:00

Old favourites revisted

2009-12-02T11:41:00.000-08:00

In my quest to create a new design portfolio I've gone back to some designs I did a few years ago for a game we were working on in India. I really enjoyed drawing the characters back then, but I wanted to see what else I could do with them from a fresh perspective. These are all new drawings. I was watching some great design videos on youtube by a guy named Jason Chan and I really liked how he put three or four characters side by side, all slightly contrasting one another. I still have some rendering work to do on the left-hand side character but I wanted to post this, as I'm pretty happy with it so far.

This is all drawn directly into Photoshop on a Wacom Tablet.

~Chris

Had a less than great day today

2009-10-30T18:25:00.001-07:00

Daily Character Design: Office Fish

2009-10-16T17:58:00.001-07:00

Okay, I cheated today. I already had this character banked away but I hadn't developed him past a certain point.

~Chris

Daily Character Design: Fat Football Player

2009-10-15T19:25:00.001-07:00

PROTECTOR

2009-10-09T11:20:00.001-07:00

More Thin Man Design Exploration

2009-10-02T19:19:00.001-07:00

I realized, after modelling the head of this guy, that I was in the clutches of a wave of excitement and that I was getting ahead of myself. I had to take a step back and remember my priorities so now I'm exploring the construction of this guy and trying to come up with the most appealing combination of shapes. There's still lots more exploration to be done but I like where these are heading.

More to come!

~Chris

Homeless Wizard WIP

2009-10-01T16:59:00.000-07:00

A little further along. I had to play around with some different layer types to be able to see my colours accurately but still have the light values underneath. In the end the Hard Light option was the best.

More to come.

~Chris

Thin Man

2009-10-01T12:36:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to translate this character design into 3D. So far the head has been a fun modeling challenge. Since the energy of the character's face is emenating from the tip of the nose I started there and extruded back to create the rest of the head. It was my first attempt at this method and so far I really like it. The hair is a separate piece of geo. I'm probably going to have to come up with a different name for the character though as the Thin Man is the name of that really creepy and really cool monster from Pan's Labyrinth that has its eyes in its hands.

I hope to post some more progress soon.

~Chris

Another Homeless Wizard

2009-09-30T16:05:00.000-07:00

Pencil and Photoshop.

I'm working on some character designs for my portfolio. Somehow I came upon the idea of, "What if homeless people were actually Wizards?" and am now exploring some possibilities. This guy was my favourite from the first batch so I'm going to paint him up nice and post some WIP's along the way.

~Chris

Don't Remember When I Drew These

2009-09-28T14:38:00.001-07:00

When Boredom Is Fruitful

2009-09-28T14:13:00.001-07:00

Drawing The Festival

2009-09-21T14:39:00.001-07:00

Some drawings I did while attending the presentations at SPARK Animation '09!

~Chris

Zeke's Pad at the Elan Awards

2009-09-14T17:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.animationmagazine.net/article/9950

I was a Lead Animator on Zeke's Pad so I'm really excited to hear that it took home some lofty awards, including Best Animated Television Production!

~Chris

One of those "An Actor Is Talking About Animation" segments

2009-09-14T13:53:00.001-07:00

Except, unlike most of them, this one is actually watchable.

~Chris

Watching James Bond and Doodling

2009-09-13T17:55:00.000-07:00

3 Inches Of Blood Video Pitch

2009-09-11T12:54:00.001-07:00

I contributed some animation to a pitch for a music video for the local Metal band, 3 Inches Of Blood. The animation that I did can be found here. All of the rendering and compositing was done by my pal Angus Wakefield.

~Chris

Wolf and Bulldog

2009-09-10T15:35:00.000-07:00

So I was doing all this crazy action analysis a while ago of a weight lifter and I've since started developing this idea around a weight lifting competition. The character designs are starting down the Anthropomorphised Animal route which has me really excited. I'm envisioning something really wacky with a heavy inspiration from Tom & Jerry and Tex Avery. I'm working on an animatic at the moment and I'll post it once it's in a state that I'm happy to start receiving feedback on.

~Chris

Sergio Walk Cycle WIP

2009-09-04T20:42:00.000-07:00

Started off with a couple quick thumbnails to illustrate the basic mood I wanted to capture in the posing. You can see how the idea was really rough with the thumbnail at the far left, and how I took time to tighten up the pose with the subsequent thumbnails. Also, it's a good idea to draw the pose from profile so that the angle of the character's body is being taken into account.

With my idea fleshed out in thumbnail form I start right in with the blocking. I approach my animation in a very systematic way, first blocking in the Keys, then moving on to Extremes, then Breakdowns. I keep my Tangents set to "Clamped" and "Stepped" while I'm blocking so that I don't get distracted by any fluid movement. All of the attention should be on the poses and their relationship to one another. Once I'm satisfied with my blocking, I change the Tangent settings and my curves in the Graph Editor to "Linear" (I've always gone straight to Spline in the past, but I'm trying something new this time).

So now everything is Linear, with offsets added only to the hands and head (The overlap of the head is bugging me. I need to work on that).

The feet always require the most attention in a walk cycle. The part of the cycle that I think is the most crucial to get right is the push-off from the toe when the foot is extended at the back of the stride. I try to get this working first before touching anything else.

I'll continue working on this cycle because I really like how it's looking so far and I'll update the Work In Progress as I go. I hope that somewhere, somebody is reading this and finding it useful.

~Chris

Posing Exercise #1

2009-08-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

I wanted to practice conveying weight in this pose because I hate seeing poses that lack any sense of gravity and balance and I want to make damn sure that they aren't creeping into my work. This is the Sergio character from Strut Your Reel, I just made some small adjustments somewhere along the way but all copyrights to their respective owners.

I hadn't touched this character in some time but a friend of mine was asking me some questions about the rig which forced me to open it up and poke around. I think I'm going to animate something with this character because I remember really enjoying the rig in the past. But that's going to have to come at another time as I have some other, more pressing fish to fry at the present moment. I have some action analysis notes to post, as well as the current Work In Progress that the aforementioned action analysis has spawned. Not to mention the ongoing search for work. Hoo-ray.

~Chris

The Light Of My Life

2009-08-28T12:54:00.000-07:00

So in case it wasn't obvious enough that I miss my fiance, here's a portrait I'm working on. It's still a work in progress and who knows when I'll actually finish it. The original picture was taken at her best friend's wedding in Japan last month. Look at her. Isn't she just the most beautiful girl you've ever seen? I thought so too.

In fact, this picture of her makes me think of Audrey Hepburn. It must be the hair.

~Chris

LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS

2009-08-28T12:16:00.000-07:00

My fiance has been in Japan sice last April. I was there for six weeks which really helped to break up her away time into a couple more managable chunks. This last stretch has been about two months so far, with one month still to go. I don't know how people managed in long distance relationships before there was all this crazy communication technology. Emails, video chat, you name it. It's like she's just in another room until the chat ends and I'm forced to face the bitter reality of a lonely existence with no one to share all of life's little pleasures with. Only one more month to go. I can do this.

~Chris

New experimental blog

2009-08-27T16:39:00.001-07:00

I just started another blog with a friend of mine called Hot Potatoe Sci-Fi. It's an experiment in storytelling where we each take a turn writing a new passage to continue the story. It started a couple years ago through Facebook and I just decided that it would be fun to make it public. We hadn't updated the story in a while so most of the posts are dated in the early months of 2008. We just got back on track with it this week so check back from time to time to see if the adventure has gotten anywhere!

Cheers,

Chris.

GETTING CAUGHT UP

2009-08-19T13:55:00.000-07:00

I've got lots of new drawings in my sketchbook to post so I'm slowly going to get caught up.

~Chris

ILLUSTRATION GIG

2009-08-19T12:12:00.000-07:00

When I was working in India I started illustrating this children's book. I moved back to Canada in the middle of the book's production and continued illustrating it from my Mom's kitchen table and then from my buddy's place in Vancouver while I looked for my own apartment. Once I had my apartment the illustrations were finished there. So this was really a multi-continental experience. It took up most of my waking hours for several, several months and I'm pleased to see that it's now on its way to bookshelves around the World.

~Chris

NINJAS ARE WAY COOL

2009-08-06T23:36:00.001-07:00

There's a really awesome rig floating around in different animation circles affectionately known as Norman. For my money, Norman is the shizznit.

I've retro-fitted Norman a few times for some 11 Second Club submissions in the past but none of those retro-fittings even come close to this latest one. I put a lot of work into it and I learned a heck of a lot of technical stuff that I wasn't aware of before.

I also got to model a Katana which turned out great! Well, to be honest it's not a true Katana. It's kind of a mix between a Katana and a Ninja-to. Oh man , I've been geeking out over this retro-fitting for like two weeks.

Now that he's all finished I'm going to animate some scenarios because I seriously want to see this guy in action!

~Chris

OBSERVATION TIME: SEA WALL

2009-08-02T18:35:00.000-07:00

Who recognizes this spot?

~Chris

THIS IS COOL

2009-08-01T16:51:00.000-07:00

I just realized that you can embed the saved brush strokes in the form of a movie when you draw something with Facebook's Graffiti application. I drew this little Godzilla-like thing when I was in Japan. Kind of fitting.

~Chris

Dog Walk All Finished

2009-07-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

So that Dog walk is more or less finished. There are still some things that could be tightened up but since it was my project for last week I had to upload it in the state it was in. You can check it out here.

The camera angle is the reverse of what I had in the blocking but it shouldn't make a whole lot of difference.

~Chris

How my brain works for animation

2009-07-20T19:01:00.001-07:00

I'm working on a canine walk cycle right now and a quadruped is something that I haven't animated much of for a while now. There was a dog character in each of the last two shows that I worked on but the shots that I got with the little fuzzballs were few and far between.

I've always been really attracted to quadruped locomotion because it just looks so cool. The perfect balance of movement in the front and hind quarters is so smooth and elegant. More so with some animals, less so with others.

Anyway, I cracked open my Muybridge books to study the phases of the walk and I noticed that if you can understand where the strides come into play and how the energy radiates down the spine from the hips to the head, it gets you a long way towards animating a successful walk. I've seen people animate these things in a really automated, computationally heavy way but that really doesn't work for me. I like to figure out what's happening on each extreme and really push and explore the possibilities in the pose before I start getting into the Graph Editor because it's a completely different part of the brain that goes into that initial building of the performance.

The Graph Editor, awesome though it may be, requires a large amount of resources from your Left Brain and if my Left Brain is working hard my Right Brain tends to not add much to the situation. That's why I have to work in a very systematic way. First this, then this. Okay, now that this is done, move on to this, and so on.

Anyway, I'm just rambling now. Check out the playblast of my blocking for the canine walk and draw your own conclusions.

I'll just finish by saying that this is the work flow that I follow about 99.9% of the time:

Heavy, in-depth blocking of Keys, Extremes, Breakdowns, and sometimes more detailed bits depending on the scenario. Then I switch gears to work in the Graph Editor, which is a pretty painless process due to the extensive blocking. Then I tackle the face with a similar approach and... BAM!... done.

I'll post more videos of this walk cycle as it becomes more complete. It's my project for this week so hopefully you should be able to see it fully animated by Friday or Saturday... schedules permitting.

~Chris

Jibber Jabber: First two episodes

2009-07-08T11:06:00.000-07:00

The first two episodes of Jibber Jabber have been made available online in their entirety!

Check them out here!

~Chris

OFFICE NINJA

2009-07-07T15:14:00.001-07:00

I was telling a buddy of mine about the AWESOME POWER of hand dryers in the washrooms in Japan. These things must be nuclear powered or something because they are so powerful that they dry your hands in about five seconds. The gust, no, the surge of air that comes out of these things actually pushes your hands down with its gale force wind.

Anyway, one thing led to another and the drawing of the hand dryer turned into a chubby office ninja with a cheesy Karate Kid head band, naturally.

~Chris

LOOK WHAT I FOUND

2009-07-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

I just thought I'd take a second to post this. It's the first episode of Jibber Jabber, a cartoon that I worked on a couple years ago except this version is all in French! Now that may seem random, but this is the website for Canal J, a popular cartoon station in France.

Enjoy!

Homemade Birthday Cheer

2009-06-30T15:41:00.001-07:00

So I went into a reputable bookstore that shall remain anonymous to buy a birthday card for my Mom. I had previously intended to make her one, but got lazy/busy. After perusing the card section I settled on one with a creepy little dog straddling a gift in colourful wrapping paper.

The perfect card to profess my sentiments.

I took the card up to the counter to pay for it and the clerk rang it up and said,

"That'll be $10.42 please!"

Ex-squeeze me? Baking Powder? That's not the kind of money I like to throw down for one little card. So my frugal (cheap) nature carried me home to where I made this charming little keepsake.

On the inside it says something like "But I settled on something simple instead". Not very clever, but I feel that all the creative energy that went into the picture should be balanced by an equally unimaginative sentence.

On the back of the card I wrote

"Because I don't want to pay $10.00 for a card"

Happy Birthday Mom!

~Chris

LAME

2009-06-29T20:05:00.000-07:00

So right after I posted that last item I noticed that all of the images for all of my previous posts are GONE! I was doing some house cleaning in my online photo album and one of the albums that I deleted was directly linked to my blog. When I saw the album I thought to myself,"What the hell, I don't need two copies of all the pictures on my blog. I'll just get rid of this redundancy."

WRONG!

Everything... GONE!

Beware, fellow bloggers, beware the pre-emptive decision to remove any albums that look like they might be linked to your blog in any shape, way, or form.

This sucks.

~Chris

Killing Time

2009-06-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

I was teaching at Vanarts today and, inevitably, there are always some bits of downtime when the students don't need a whole lot in the way of feedback. I like to doodle during said downtime because if there's one thing that annoying ads before movies has taught me it's that downtime is BAAAAAD!

Everything was coloured at home.

~Chris

Walking around Kawagoe

2009-05-23T02:08:00.000-07:00

As I may have mentioned before, Kawagoe is the city in Japan where my Fiance grew up so we took to the streets after I arrived to get a look at her old stomping grounds. I should take a moment right now to mention that I'll probably be updating this blog totally out of order, we did this walking tour of Kawagoe before the trip to Okinawa. So please just... bear with me.

There's a section of the city that's been maintained in the Edo-style which is a period in Japan's history that I seem to be rather enraptured with. I just love the architectural style and all the stuff about Samurai is something I totally geek out over. Check out some of these old shops:

Pretty cool huh? There are also no cables running over the streets in this area because they wanted to try, as much as possible, to recreate a "feel". It's strange, but until I saw the streets with no cables running back and forth over them, I didn't realize how lame they really look. Ah well, whaddayagonnado?

Continuing our travels we came across an old Bell Tower which still rings four times a day although I haven't been in the vicinity during any of the ringings to actually hear it, so I'm just going on hearsay for this one.

Then something really strange happened.

From this point on it was a lot faster getting around town. We walked through some markets and saw lots of shops selling all sorts of different things. In Japan there's a really popular sweet called Anko which is made from red Azuki beans. It has a really subtle sweetness to it that takes some time to get accustomed to after becoming conditioned to North America's rather ham-handed approach of things being so obviously sweet that you can do nothing but notice it. At any rate, I really like it.

Eventually we found our way to a museum and took in some of the history of the area, there was also a section with a set of rather humbling children's toys.

There was more walking and checking out temples and shrines and taking in all the cool sites. The day before we had found a shrine that had a foot path leading to it which presented an array of reflexology goodness and we thought we'd go and hit it a second time.

Now, I don't mean to brag or anything, but when it comes to reflexology... I hold a black belt:

Check back soon!

~Chris

OKINAWA: Day 1

2009-05-16T20:16:00.000-07:00

It was a few days in to my time in Japan that we took our scheduled trip to Okinawa, a fascinating place that's borrowed an aesthetic touch from both Chinese and Japanese cultures. We spent four days there learning some of the history of the place, and I'll get to that but first I'm going to talk about snorkeling and tropical beaches.

We left from Tokyo's Haneda Airport which I'm told is the busiest in the World (followed closely by London's Heathrow Airport) with flights landing and taking off every fifteen minutes. During the drive to the airport I realized that in some situations having a GPS system is absolutely essential. Driving in Tokyo is one such situation. Thankfully I wasn't driving though, that task was left to my Father-in-law. Anyhow, one thing led to another and eventually we were on our plane to Okinawa. The view was as you would expect it to be from 30,000 feet but I never get tired of looking down from my ovular window and daydreaming that I am the Grand Puppeteer!

When we arrived in Okinawa it was already getting rather late into the evening so we did our whole check-in routine and then headed out to try and catch the Sunset. We were too late, however, but I really enjoyed the solitary feeling that came with being one of the only people on the white, sandy beach.

The next day was dedicated to a place affectionately known as Croissant Island, Aptly named as you can see.

This was to be my first real experience of a picturesque, tropical beach and it was the perfect place to set the hypothetical ball rolling. This beach was home to about 40 people, and the nature of its shape makes it an attractive spot to Snorkle about because of the wrap-around coral reef which attracts all kinds of colourful creatures. We got ourselves outfitted with the oh-so-necessary floatation devices and then it was off to discover the Wild Blue Yonder.

Due to Legal reason for the tour company we weren't allowed to dive or anything like that so we basically just skimmed about on the surface and played with whatver strange creatures our guide brought up from the ocean floor. I know that Sea Cucumbers are a delicacy and all, but when you wrap your digits around one that's been freshly removed from its natural habitat and it's just sitting there in your hand being all slimy and gross, I don't really see the appeal.

After we were done snorkeling out around the coral reef we spent some time at the beach and did some more snorkeling in shallower waters. We had some bread with us that we had pilfered from our Hotel's continental breakfast buffet that morning which we used to feed the fish. I tried my damndest to at least touch one of them but they're not all that willing to be touched in the first place. We were able to dive and rummage about this time because the only people we were liable to were ourselves. I had a lot of fun singling out certain fish and just following them around, but for some reason I got tired a lot faster than they did. It's almost like they're built for living in the water.

Once we were tired of that we walked around to check out the island a little bit. Getting away from the tropical forefront you get to see that the island is a really modest little place with quirks all its own.

Everywhere you go in Okinawa you'll see two "Shisaa" , Lion-like creatures guarding the front entrances of buildings from evil forces. One has its mouth open wide to ward off evil spirits and the other has its mouth closed to keep good spirits in. It's also believed that one is male and one is female. Most of the Shisaa look relatively the same but there are some alternating styles and interpretations which I came across.

Anyway, that was day one in Okinawa. I also just realized that I forgot to post anything about Kawagoe, where I'm staying. It's my fiance's hometown and it's been a fun place to check out so I'm going to jump backwards in time with the next post perhaps.

~Chris

Japan #1

2009-05-11T03:18:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm in Japan now.

Two aeroplanes and 15 hours of travel time puts me on the other side of the planet. It's funny that just two days ago I spent almost the same amount of time on a bus and managed to cross one province. I guess you had to be there.

In the Vancouver airport I sat and watched all kinds of people coming and going, I bought a new sketchbook for the trip (which is made out of recycled paper and the cover simply has a blank, brownish canvas) and found a great opportunity to draw an image for the cover. There was this one slightly awkward looking girl that walked past and the image of her kind of lasted. I drew her several minutes after she passed, so the sketch is drawing upon my memory for the most part. Pun absolutely intended.

I had quite a lot of time to kill so I just kept my eyes open for more sketching opportunities but I didn't really find anything until I sat down to wait for my boarding call. Looking out across the runway I saw a nice opportunity to practice a Landscape.

Now that I'm actually in Japan I'll be keeping my eyes open and looking for opportunities to commit some images to paper. Failing that, I'll see what I can do in the realm of photography. One more day in Kawagoe, my Fiance's city of birth, and then we head to Okinawa for four days.

Stay tuned!

Cherry blossoms in Vancouver

2009-04-17T17:22:00.000-07:00

I love spring in Vancouver. I'm a total sucker for the Sakura trees that grow in and around the area. I took several pictures while I was downtown today and this was my favourite one of the bunch. However, when I got home and looked at it the colours were really washed out so I brought it into Photoshop to see if I couldn't fix it up a little. I'm a little blown away by the stark difference in tone and texture between the two of them now that I see them together.

Yay me!

~Chris

Brush Pen and Digital

2009-04-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

So I'm working on a Graphic Novel with a buddy of mine and I've been experimenting with different mediums for the artwork. I bought some inking supplies a while back and tried that out. I really liked the result but I was having lots of problems with the pen nibs not performing and it was becoming troublesome.

At that point I decided to try my luck with a digital approach and, much as I like working with my Wacom Tablet, I was having trouble keeping my lines crisp. I find that my hand tends to waver a bit while I work on the tablet and I end up with a quivery line on-screen that looks really unappealing.

Recently I was doing some research into Brush Pens and I was really intrigued by the line quality and the ability to get a range of thickness in one stroke. It was similar to what I was achieving with the inking supplies but looked to carry less of a headache. I just picked some up a few days ago and I've been messing around with them and I have to say that I really love these things! At this point I'm playing with a mixture of the Brush Pens for the line art, and then scanning and painting the colours in Photoshop.

~Chris

Airport Napkin

2009-04-13T17:59:00.000-07:00

So I just got back from the airport where I was seeing off my fiance as she makes her way home to Japan for about 5 months. Being an international flight as it was we got there a couple hours early and had lots of time to chill out after we checked in her suitcase. We spent some time walking around, checking out the shops and laughing at the horrendously overpriced Canada-themed knick knacks. Did you know that a piece of smoked salmon can run you $60.00?

After I escorted her to the gate and bid her farewell I realized that I was pretty hungry and, with the commute home being rather lengthy, decided to grab some lunch. I popped into a little restaurant called Koho that had some nice looking food and went with the Original Prime Rib Burger and a Pint of Granville Island Pale Ale which was most certainly a delicious meal.

When we left in the morning I had forgotten to take a sketchbook with me so I unrolled my napkin from around my utensils and proceeded to sketch passers-by. I remained fairly incognito for the most part but I was spotted by my waitress when she came to inquire as to the quality of the meal and instead found me sitting there, feverishly scribbling gestures of people onto my napkin.

On a slightly unrelated note, there was a kid in the restaurant going around and digging change out of the cushions of the seats while his parents sat motionless, without uttering a single word between one another as they tallied up a string of alcoholic beverages, one after the other.

I guess it struck me as being a little odd.

~Chris

11 Second Club March 2009 Competition

2009-04-09T15:49:00.000-07:00

This audio was such a blast to animate to! I really wanted to convey a situation where one character was clearly in danger. I think I was watching a lot of 24 around the time that I conceived this idea, with lots of scenes of interrogation running around in my head.

I'll be updating my demo reel on my site pretty soon to include this piece but until then at least I've got it showing here!

Be sure to check out the 11 Second Club site (www.11secondclub.com) and see all of the other great entries!

~Chris

The Winds Of Change

2009-04-09T11:07:00.000-07:00

So, I know that I set out to use this as a kind of "doodle and drawing" blog but it's going to start ballooning out and encapsulating more of a typical journal. I'm doing this for my Sweetheart, Yuka, since she'll be heading back to Japan for several months and I won't get to see her for quite a long stretch of time. I thought that, this being the age of technology, we might take advantage of the fact that we each have our own respective blogs going as a means to keep one another informed. Now, I really have no idea how many people even find their way to this blog of mine, but everything that I write from this point onwards is meant first and foremost for Yuka. Every picture, every post, every little snippet of my day to day goings on is meant for her. But, y'know, if you get a kick out reading it, that's cool too. I don't want it to be one of those clubs where only the cool kids can join and you have to go through a series of humiliating hazing rituals in order to be accepted into the fold. No. This is a friendly and warm place where butterflies tell stories of ages long past and gumdrops grow on trees.

I'm hoping that I'll have chance enough to update this blog while I, myself, head to Japan! I will be there, oh yes... I will be there. And since I'll be with Yuka during that time, those particular posts are meant for everyone to enjoy. So have no fear.

Alright, I really have nothing more to add at this particular juncture so I'll be signing off until further notice. Adieu fair reader... adieu.

~Chris

WALKIN' IN THE RAIN

2009-03-03T14:42:00.000-08:00

This is a rough character design that I've been playing with and I really liked this particular pose so what you see here is just some rough colour that I added to it in Photoshop. I'm going to try and get this one to a more finished state eventually.

I know, this is isn't a doodle

2008-12-20T13:03:00.001-08:00

Here's the first shot that I submitted to the Mass Animation project over on Facebook. If you haven't heard of or checked it out yet then you should. You probably won't be able to upload any shots (uploads are limited to the first 10,000 people) but you can still vote and help your friends win stuff, like computers.

Gentleman

2008-09-21T18:48:00.000-07:00

A Host of Characters

2008-08-23T13:27:00.000-07:00

Sad

2008-08-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

Quick Portrait of my fiance

2008-08-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

Happy Little Fella

2008-08-16T17:37:00.000-07:00

Angry new neighbour

2008-08-16T17:36:00.000-07:00

Olympic Interview

2008-08-16T17:33:00.000-07:00

QUICK DRAW!!

2008-01-31T15:34:00.001-08:00

Detective

2008-01-16T14:16:00.001-08:00

Busted!

2008-01-07T14:16:00.000-08:00

Cool Dude on the Skytrain

2007-12-17T17:53:00.001-08:00

Waiting for the laundry to dry

2007-12-11T20:15:00.001-08:00

Creepy self-portrait

2007-12-10T23:55:00.001-08:00

Woman at Bus Stop

2007-12-10T23:54:00.001-08:00

Fun with Angles

2007-12-10T23:52:00.000-08:00

Cartoon Horse

2007-12-09T18:11:00.001-08:00

Getting back to digital painting

2007-11-26T18:41:00.001-08:00

2007-11-23T18:17:00.001-08:00

Parisian Hitman

2007-11-21T23:31:00.000-08:00

White-board Sketching

2007-10-21T08:41:00.001-07:00

I've been experimenting with quick-sketches on the white-board, and I really like the look and feel!

The Thinker

2007-08-27T16:38:00.001-07:00

I went to the art gallery this weekend to see the Monet to Dali exhibit. It was fantastic. I got out my sketchbook and started drawing everything I saw. At the end of the day my favourite drawing was this one of Rodin's sculpture "The Thinker" . After I left the exhibit it was equally exciting to walk out into a horde of zombies that were milling about in front of the gallery.

I love this city.

The dude from Radiohead mixed with a young Rod Stewart

2007-08-23T13:25:00.001-07:00

The Ol' Evil Eye

2007-08-23T13:21:00.001-07:00

This one I drew while watching Peter Pan. You should freeze frame on some of Captain Hook's scenes. There are some beautiful face shapes in there.

Thumbnails are fun

2007-07-12T13:16:00.001-07:00

Inspiration from Bill Plympton's "Hair High"

2007-06-20T18:37:00.001-07:00