Water World!

I've been stuck on the problem of water.  My short film involves a lot of water and although there are many different ways I have seen this achieved in studios (resin with cling wrap, KY, hair gel etc.) I wanted to go a different route.  I don't necessarily want my water to look like just water (clear, glassy, reflective).  I want it to have some extra life and texture.  So I've been experimenting a lot with beads threaded on animatable wires to animate waves of water but it just looked to stringy and not quite what I was going after.

Last night I was experimenting with different textures for another part of the set when I had a brainstorm.  I got a small tupperwear container and filled it with 70% table salt 10% water and 20% different shades of blue beads.

Somehow the sum of these parts created a very animatable substance.  And because it was made out of very small particles it was easy to animate in some of the subtleties of water.  I did a quick test animation last night and was very pleased with the initial results.  I feel that the next round of tests will be even more successful   This is a HUGE step forward since the water solution was really holding me back.

I'm really excited to test some more with this.  Last night I just threw in whatever beads I had but I feel like some of them were just too big.  Next time around I'm going to keep it smaller and work with different tones a bit more.

I Done Did It

Well this was a big one.  I finally redesigned the old blog!  I had really been holding on to that last design for far too long and I'm very happy to have accomplished this change.  This new look is not only for the blog though, I've expanded it to my demo reel and I'm having new business cards printed.  I've been playing around with the idea of a monogram for years.  The past few weeks have been kind of amazing ever since I started my Failure Challenge.  I have finally gotten around to pursuing some interests that I had been putting off due to some sort of manifestation of a fear of failing.  Doing this challenge has really allowed me to face that and I feel like I'm entering into a new creative era of my life.  I'm really excited to see what comes next.

FAILURE CHALLENGE POST # 9

For your comparison:

Previous Blog Design:

Current Blog Design:

I'm working on a website where I can have more of an online portfolio so that I can keep this blog for my ramblings.  I'm excited to incorporate these new design elements into new things!

Blues

FAILURE CHALLENGE POST #8

I went for a walk the other day and came across some awesome busking.  The musicians switched every 20 min and they all sang different genres.  It was amazing how the way they dressed and presented themselves was so cohesive with their genre.  I want to work with the blues guy and flesh out that illustration so I've started with some gouache studies.  Well, thats a lie.  I started in Photoshop but felt so disconnected the I just switched to gouache.

This failure challenge has been really amazing so far.  I'm really pushing myself to do things I was so nervous to try.  I've been painting way more and also drawing a wider variety of things as well as experimenting with the way I draw.

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHEXCITING!

Painterly

So we went to Dr. Sketchy's last night and I failure challenged myself not to use any lines.  Instead I brought my gouache and took the opportunity to paint from life.  At first, I was scared.  But the thought that I already knew how things would look if I just used a pen was so overwhelmingly boring to me that I couldn't bare not to do something different.  At first it was definitely a struggle but the constantly changing poses let me start over and learn from my mistakes every few minutes.  I learned a lot about the optimal texture of gouache for this kind of work and also found a workflow that really worked for me.  I found a thin underpainting to block out the form and then rendering it lengthwise really worked for me.  Ultimately I learned a lot in those three hours and I'm so glad I stared fear in the face and shrugged.

FAILURE CHALLENGE POST # 7

Here is a page from the beginning of the session when I was still trying to get my bearings:

Here is a page from closer to the end of the session when I started to feel more comfortable: 

I LOVE PAINTING!