Spring Break Update

It's been a while! I've been very busy with school, work, health, and home life. I got to go to New York City to see my favorite singer, Ed Sheeran! But I've been working very hard at school as far as juggling my gen ed classes and my animation and illustration classes. I also was able to get my hands on a Nintendo Switch and let me tell you, "The Breath of the Wild" is a beautifully perfect and inspiring game. I was also stuck inside my house for a couple days with that enormous snow storm! A lot has been going on, but when spring break ends, I have to kick into maximum overdrive! I've finished modeling and texturing my characters as well as giving them skeletons. Right now I'm in the skinning process (which I'll admit is my least favorite part), but nothing is more rewarding than seeing your character that you created move like it's supposed to! While it is a painful process, it will be very worth it in the end. Here are some quick renders of my characters from my 3 minute film, "Beyond the Sea".

Here is Michael with his sweater and his jacket. His face and eyes were hand painted in Photoshop. When the models are completely rigged I'm going to upload the topology and texture sheets. 

This is the Siren, shes completely painted in Photoshop. I will upload topology and texture sheets when she is finished as well. 

In my digital painting class, we've finally finished up learning basic exercises and still life's, so now we are moving to our first real project which I am extremely excited about.  Environment design! I absolutely love environment design almost as much as I love character design. I had a few ideas for my painting but I finally came to a decision that I wanted to include my best friend Maddy in it. Maddy is a psychic, so I wanted to make a sort of realistic yet mystical environment. I came up with a nice value thumbnail for what I wanted, then spent this morning figuring out what colors I wanted to use. 

I'm very excited to start the actual painting, and start blocking in the colors. I'm currently waiting for advice and the stamp of approval from my professor so I can get started. I absolutely love the design aspect of illustration. I would give anything to be a lead concept artist, character or environment artist. That is the dream. This semester is going great and I'm super excited to create some great work to finish it with!

-Katlynn