Handsome Man!

Well well who's this?

If you recall I was getting quite frustrated with the thread lock giving out on my old ball and socket armature.  Heck, I even gave it one last chance and cold welded the armature together.  However when I did that one of the balls snapped off and I didn't have a spare.  So I took it as a sign that I should really consider making a wire armature like the ones I used on Beforal Orel and Robot Chicken.  I sooooo enjoyed animating with those so it's not like I'm settling here.  This current armature is made of Apoxie sculpt and aluminum armature wire.  The Apoxie sculpt is great because I can sculpt the shapes into their general form and then when it cures I was able to go back with a dremel and refine the shapes a bit more.  

Already this armature is holding up a lot better than the last one.  During fabrication of the ball and socket things kept coming loose and I'd have to backtrack, cleaning off parts and then setting them again and again.  

So now I'm pretty excited to see if he will last through a walk cycle (another area where the last armature came up short).  Then some movement tests.  I pretty much want to see how far and how long I can push him until he breaks.  This is by no means my final armature, I'm just testing the method.  There are already some modification I know I want to make as far as the placement of the neck and other miscellaneous details.

If I'm able to animate this guys for a while I'll take the next step and cover him with foam and test the movement with that.  Although I know I shouldn't be getting ahead of myself in case he breaks too fast, I can't help but plan our future together!!

Beating Myself With A Rock

Today I did something I've been thinking about doing for about 3 years.  I went outside and painted.  Such a simple act and yet somehow, before, I could never "find the time".  Well today the sun was shining and my brain kept poking me with the words "why not today?".  So I went!  I found a rock in a quiet place and I sat down for about an hour painting it.  I hope to build up to painting complete environments but I wanted to set an attainable goal for today so that I wouldn't get discouraged from going again.  And am I ever glad I did.  We had another lemon situation on our hands today.  I still did not get the rock to a place I am totally happy with but my fingers were starting to freeze so I left it.  I plan on going out again (maybe tomorrow if the weather holds up!) and making that rock my slave.
Anyways I'm super proud of myself for just "showing up".

 FAILURE CHALLENGE POST #6

My first attempts at the rock

My final attempt of the rock.  All in gouache.

Back Baby

I have mostly recovered from my most awful cold.  Being sick caused a lot of my momentum to come screeching to a halt.  So now I'm building it back up again!  I can't believe March is just around the corner.
I've worked on this just a few hours this week.  Looking forward to devoting more time next week and finishing it!  Hurray for moving on!

Breaking Point

I'm sick!  And I have a houseguest for the week!  And there is a long weekend here!  The perfect storm to getting no work done.  So I am taking a blogging break for a week.  I will see you all next week, have a great one :)

From Life

I went life drawing last night.  I realized I hadn't been life drawing since I was in New York.  So that would be... like almost a year and a half!  ICK.  I love life drawing and it was always in the back on my mind to go.  I'm so happy I finally went!!  I had a great time and we had a fantastic model.  We went to Dr. Sketchy which if you are not familiar with uses burlesque performers for models.  This makes for interesting poses and a fun atmosphere.  I haven't used conte in YEARS.  The last time I did life drawing I just used my sketchbook and pen.  I have really missed drawing with my entire arm.  Those first few gesture looked rough.  However I persevered and finally got back into the groove.  In the second half I switched to a blue col erase to see if I could pick up more detail for the longer poses.  Success!  It has inspired me to perhaps take a pen break from cafe sketching and try to work in some tonal values by using a pencil.  I know the blue col erase didn't photograph well (obviously lol) but in person I really like the way it came out.  I'm excited to see what cafe sketching with a pencil will bring me.

FAILURE CHALLENGE POST 5

1 min warm up poses (ROUGH start!!)

5 min in conte

10 min in blue col erase

Filtered

I was feeling pretty disconnected and blah about my digital piece.  I realized it's because I didn't really care about it.  So I decided to take my own advice and find something to love about it.  I decided to redraw it but instead of just drawing what I saw in the photograph I allowed it to filter through my mind and my own perspective.  This is what happened and now I'm actually excited every time I sit down and work on it.  I'm not rushing through it.  I'm exploring and playing and having fun.
This challenge has really helped unblock me mentally and creatively and I'm now working on other ideas.  Ideas that were totally stalled as I was paralyzed by the potential failure they might be.  YAY!  This is working for me.

BEFORE

CURRENT

Anyone want to join in?  What are you afraid of doing because you might fail?