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

Grisaille Digital Painting: Learned Phobias

For this project we were challenged to create a digital grisaille still life painting. I chose to use my own objects and used an antique clown doll that used to belong to my dad, and an origami that my friend made for me.

Journal 3: 1/30/17 Gotten Up From The Sickness

Guess who got a really bad cold and spent a few days dying? This gal! Had to to take a weekend to rest up (and play Resident Evil 7). But in all seriousness, yes I was very sick. I even tried to go to work on Thursday, and I nearly vomited at the end of my shift and had to lay still in bed the rest of the night, So I can't say I didn't try! But man, Resident Evil 7 is incredible. I invested in the Collectors Edition. You see, I don't buy new games often, but when I do, I usually get the collectors edition, especially if it comes with an art book, (this one didn't to my dismay, nor did it come with a season pass) but it did come with a wondrous music box sculpted like the main house, which is quite wonderful. A game like Resident Evil 7 is just the kind of game I dream one day to create or work on. Truly disgusting and disturbing elements to make it the perfect horror game. Hopefully one day soon I'll be able to enjoy it on Playstation VR if I ever get the money. Before I had to go to work on Saturday, I threw together a quick sketch (soon to be gouache painting) of Lucas. I quite enjoy his sense of humor.

I can't wait to add in the shine of his pale rotting skin to really give off the intensely creepy vibe he gives off. It's gonna be fantastic.

Before I got sick however, I did finally apply to all my internships and I am anxiously checking my email every day, job posting every day as well. I've convinced myself that whatever is supposed to happen, will happen and it will be the right thing. I know if I don't get one this year, I will get one when I transfer to a university. Universities have been on my mind a lot lately. I've been having dreams about it, I've been staring at my Champlain College Poster endlessly and thinking about all the wonderful people I'll meet and opportunities I'll get. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a small taste this summer with an internship. 

As far as my progress with my 3 minute film, "Beyond The Sea", it's going great! I've finished the turnaround drawings for the Evil Siren  and I've even finished sculpting Michael without his jacket!

Tomorrow, I'm gonna spruce him up a bit more and sculpt him with his rain jacket for when he goes outside. Hopefully I will be able to begin the siren tomorrow as well. I've set a goal for myself that I'm going to have these characters completely modeled, rigged, skinned, and textured by the end of February. I think its a reasonable goal. I'm excited to bring my characters to life

-Katlynn 

Journal 2: 1/19/17: Weekend is Here!

I got through my first week of my fourth semester and I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I am so excited! I finished my storyboard animatic and I'm incredibly proud of it. I'm going to spend this weekend applying to a ton of internships and work on my character turn around's for my 3 minute film. 

I'm very excited to start sculpting my characters and bringing them to life. Today in Digital Painting, we did an exercise from ctrl paint on shading in black and white (Brushes 2). This was mine. 

We are going to be creating a Grisaille Still Life, I've chosen to do the clown doll that used to belong to my father

I got the idea when we were talking about clown phobias in psychology today; and I'm very sick of cups and wooden cubes from my oil painting class. This weekend is going to wonderful, I'm looking forward to getting lots of work done and dying my hair back to brown. The pink isn't working out for me, I'm getting to old and stressed to dye my hair efficiently. I'll just make some paintings of girls with colored hair that I aspire to become....

-Katlynn

"Beyond The Sea" Storyboard Animatic

My storyboard for my 3 minute film that will be created this semester has been brought to life in a storyboard animatic! I will be using this animation as reference when creating my film this semester. I did the voice acting and all the sound effects were downloaded from sound bible. The video can be viewed here. 

Journal Entry 1: 1/18/17: New Semester

Well I got through the first day of my fourth semester pretty beautifully, I should say. This semester on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have class from 8 am to 5 pm, starting with Professional Practices for the Animator (This class is all about creating our 3 minute film, to be finished by the end of the semester), followed by Psychology 101, ending the day with Digital Painting. In my 8 am animation class, we were informed that we will be presenting our stories for our 3 minute films to the class on Thursday. So today I will be finishing up my storyboard animatic, cleaning up the drawings, as well as recording and adding sound along with finding the right music. It will be posted in my portfolio when it is finished, but here are some of the drawings I have so far

I'm also celebrating that I have finally finished all the coding and creation of this blog! Yes, everything is finally in its place and coded to the greatest of my abilities. I have also finished my resume as well. Right now I have pink dye sitting in my hair to celebrate the occasion, and while it sets in, I will be applying to as many internships as I possibly can hoping that one will see all the amazing potential I have to offer, so I can finally spend a summer doing what I love most, and learning under the masters. I'm so excited to start this new chapter in my life! 

-Katlynn

Old West Storyboard.

For this project we were given a script and told to create a storyboard for said script along with a shot list. The process and full storyboard can be viewed here

No. 7 My One Minute Film

My 3 minute film, "No. 7", all props, environments and characters and animation created by me, including all rigging and modeling. The video can be viewed here

Make Me Move Animation Project

For this project in my animation class we were assigned to animate this character acting out the voice clip we were given. No voice acting obviously. I took many reference videos of me acting out the clip and then animated it as I saw fit. This video can be viewed here

Final Sequential Art 2 Works

I greatly and deeply enjoyed my sequential art 2 class. As students, we were pushed to our most full learning potential, and I learned so much and am so happy with my final project. For our final project, we were instructed to create a 2 paged black and white comic and create 2 environment paintings that were from said comic. I am creating a 3 minute digitally animated film of this story for my fourth semester. My process notebook can be seen here with all the character design, sketches and process.

This is the basic line art for the two pages

These are the final pages, shaded.

This is a gouache painting of the view from underneath the water in the lake

This is a gouache painting of the forest 

Figure Drawing 2

I enjoyed my final semester with Figure Drawing, I worked mostly with toned paper, using graphite and white charcoal.

This is a class long profile portrait 

This is a quick study we had as a homework assignment

Oil Paintings from Painting 1

I particularly struggled with oil paints. They are quite expensive, not to mention very messy and strongly scented. I would not mind doing it again though and moving on to a second painting class provided the chance. But, here are a few of my favorite paintings from that class.

                                                     This was painted from a photograph

These two were painted from still lifes

Sequential Art- Gouache Studies

In my Sequential Art 2 Class, each week were assigned 4 gouache painting studies. It enabled us to work at our hardest and highest potential, getting a lot of practicing time in. Each week we were given 4 photos to paint as a study. These are my favorites

Storyboard: The Exchange

For this project, we were assigned to create a storyboard for a short scene. Two people meet each other in the street and exchange something, leaving either together or apart. Cuteness ahead!

You can view the whole process, and the whole storyboard, here

Story boarding: Color Shot Practice

 For this project we had to recreate scenes from movies/ tv shows/or games to show how the colors work together to create a certain mood. The digital painting is shown above each example

Rock Bar: Rube Goldberg Machine

For this short film of a Rube Goldberg machine, I modeled out every prop and essential parts of the environment in 3ds max and animated the entire short film, all in my first year of the animation program. I decided to create a Rube Goldberg machine out of an entire Rock and Roll bar.  I have a special place in my heart for classic rock, and the aesthetic of these bars have always been very appealing to me. The film can be viewed here 

Here are some close ups of some of the props 

Car Texture Project: Jokermobile

For this project in digital apps. for the animator, we had to create a texture for a pre-made low poly car using photoshop and 3ds max. I was quite excited about the upcoming Suicide Squad movie, so I decided to create my own version of the Jokers Purple Lamborghini.  You can see the process notebook here

Steve Sleeping

Figure Drawing 1, Our model, Steve laying down

More Women of Figure Drawing 1

(this one not being a real woman)