SPONSORED MESSAGE: 19 Kids & Counting

what watching television does to my sketchbook

BONUS:  Cropped & mirrored versions of the illustration above:

Happy Easter Monday?

© 2014 Mark Phillips

Drawings Inspired by Eleuthera

When you wait until your early 30's to enjoy some snorkeling, it affects your creative output. 

© 2014 Mark Phillips

© 2014 Mark Phillips

© 2014 Mark Phillips

tweet tweet... Happy Friday!

Weeknight Sketchin'

BEEN BUSY.

2013: A Visual Approximation

UGH.  What a year.  2013 was back-to-back busy.  I've got two exciting projects waiting for release in some shape or form which have been hard not to spoil too much.
The first is a stop-motion music video for Locksley which I finished almost a year ago.  It has been kept from release for various reasons which should be resolving themselves sooner than later.  It's a piece I'm very proud of and hope to share with you soon!  It was done on the cheap with the help of some friends and is just waiting for some eyeballs to see it.
My other project from last year was animating & designing for the feature film Lucky Stiff which is currently somewhere between done and being released... that's about all I know.  It was a great project to be a part of and I got to work along side the excellent Emily Hubley who taught me a lot about focusing what I need to communicate visually.  Don't worry!  I still snuck a nipple in there somewhere.

Background for Last Days of Coney Island by Ralph Bakshi

Currently I'm working as an animator on Ralph Bakshi's Last Days of Coney Island.  To me it's what my years of animating have been building towards and it's been a crazy & rewarding experience so far.  It's all paper & pencil & X-sheets and my ten-year-old self couldn't be happier, minus the math.  Updates to follow in some capacity!  At the very least a drawing or two...

Rockin' the New Sketchbook

Something I doodled up on Sunday night.  It's good to be home.

Introducing The Low-Budget Dog Leash™

... ideal for air travel!

How to Add Sex Appeal to Your Animation

Step 1:  Add Robert Pattinson

Step 2:  Watch the Youtube hits pile UP!!!

Step 3:  Retire rich and successful, like all animators do.

Friday Fatty™

work... in progress?

Wishing a great weekend to you and yours.

PEMDAS: The Process, Part 2

Now that my initial brainstorming and animatic is finished, I can finally move into the heavy design stages of production.   For this short in particular, design proved somewhat challenging to me initially.  I know that there was a simplicity that I wanted to achieve but at the same time I wanted to give it my own touch.  Simple can be hard to do without looking bland.  I wanted to incorporate mathematical concepts into the background, but how should I go about doing that?  How 'round' should I make the Land of Pi?  How the hell am I going to design this dragon and get him animated on schedule?  The clock begins counting down...

Some things clicked right away: the Musketeers, the horses, the supporting characters... all transfered from brain to screen, no problem.  Their shapes were easy to communicate and didn't require as much tinkering.

The Musketeers looking mostly enthusiastic.

Early design of Digit Horse (proportions altered further in animation)

Then there was the matter of designing the Digit Dragon.  I needed to make sure that not only was the design appealing; it had to animatable within the time constraints and be able to work within a variety of scenes.

Early design of Puff the Digit Dragon

While elements of the early dragon design made it into the final, he was way too unruly of a beast to animate along with everything else in two weeks' time.  His legs weren't flexible enough to walk and frankly there were just too many numbers to tell what was going on anywhere.  I also realized that the one-tone color scheme wasn't doing me any favors, so I began work on what eventually became the final version.  With a good variety of sizes and shades of numbers coupled with more prominent eyes and an upright posture, I could already sense more personality coming out of this guy...

Close-to-final design of Puff the Digit Dragon

But where in the hell were all of these characters going to live???  I had to figure out how to make this Land of Pi round and full of numbers.  Would they be grounded in backgrounds or float about over colors and textures?  How abstract did I want to get with it?

Various stages in the Land of Pi development.

Above illustrates the progression of how I got from Point A to Point Reasonably Finished over the period of about a week.  The Land of Pi was a lot more difficult for me to conceptualize than I initially imagined, so I kept it simmering on the back-burner while I went ahead on other designs.  When I began production on this project I initially expected everything to be on lined or graph paper to give it that 'doodling in the margins' feel, but as time wore on I realized I needed something more concrete to fit the style of the rest of the design.  Then it was a matter of roundness... what is too round and what is not round enough?  I'm no Antoni Gaudi... my round houses ended up looking more like tiny Hitler faces than something that looked like actual households, so I decided to keep the "kingdom" at a distance and build any extra scenery that might be needed (i.e. The Senate).  I ended up translating the notebook paper into the color scheme and overall feel of the landscape, something I feel I could've pushed more if there were time.

The Land of Pi

Here are a few other misdirections, ghosts of version numbers' past...

The Planet of the Land of Pi -- Nixed idea for opening, complete with golden spiral for The Mathies™

Original Design for "Robot Things" -- Anyone think a pile of old Nintendo Virtual Boys makes for a good joke anymore?  ... Anyone?  Exactly.

Original Tree Design -- back when I was going to go more painterly with the backgrounds... damn you, time allotted! 

NEXT TIME on THE PROCESS, Part 3: Finishing Up, Final Thoughts.

I Hope You Voted Today!

.... or pole-dancing Newt Gingrich will find you.

Are You Like Most People?

... find out soon!  

TED-Ed: The Powers of Ten

I'm a bit busy at the moment to write too much more about it at this time, but check out TED-Ed and my website for more information!  Unfortunately at the moment the great sound people over at Henry Boy went uncredited, but that should be amended shortly.

Stay tuned for more!

TED-Ed: Storyboards VS. Final Product

Here's a side-by-side of some shots from my upcoming animation for TED-Ed.  On the left is the original storyboard accompanied with their final composition.

This scene originally called for more complicated movements by the piano tuner, but in order to meet the deadline I simplified the overall animation in the final.

This character was originally supposed to be a young boy, but given what happens to him I didn't want to have to redo anything... that's why I ended up going with "non-descriptive creepy guy"

There's a lot of text animation in this piece, and I saved laying that out until I was in production mode.

This one turned out pretty similar to the boards.

This scene was modified a bit to take advantage of the screen space... keeping the magnifying glass small on screen for 15 seconds would've looked too awkward. 

I kept his teeth clenched together to save some time... the sacrifices one must make in order to beat the clock!

TIME TO WAKE UP.

I've got an exciting new project coming up, more to follow...

Witch Time

Something I doodled for a friend the other day, I think I was subconsciously channeling a dog from a Don Bluth movie but I can't remember which.  Ah well.

New[t]

www.newtgingricherotica.com

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Rotoscoping a Bodega Apple

A few weeks ago I needed to concept out some rotoscoping using Photoshop.  I used an apple I bought across the street and using a makeshift lazy susan I shot it on my kitchen countertop.  

Almost 30 and this is what I do with my life.

I brought those images into Photoshop and using a palette of about four colors I painted each frame independently and produced this simple but stylish rotoscope sequence.  More to come! 

... something to try with the kids!

Bahck to Blahging

Here we are, almost five months after my last post and what do I have to show for it?  Welcome back to the Marked Animation blog, where I'll return to form posting updates and all that related internet whatnot.  I've also neglected my Twitter recently, something I'm still not sure if I'll get back to doing any time soon.  While I do appreciate it for its networking capabilities and ease of communication, honestly I feel it's just one more thing to worry about in life that's already full of things to worry about.

What I have been up to lately is heading up a few freelance projects which I'll be addressing more in upcoming posts.  

I've been working with a good variety of Wacom products recently, like the still-kinda-brand-new Inkling and the Cintiq.  

If you're looking for something that will revolutionize your sketchbook, don't buy the Inkling -- at least not yet.

There are plenty of things I like about the Inkling, but none of them make me want to use it on a daily basis.  The overall layout of the packaging is great, everything you need is stored in a flip-open carrier that can fit easily into a pencil case.  The easy import of drawings into Photoshop or Illustrator is also a great plus, especially if you're not generally happy with the vector-tracing features in Illustrator.  Lines come in with nice weight variation and ready to edit, bezier-style.  You can also separate your sketches into layers and make adjustments accordingly, a great feature that gives you a lot more flexibility.  

However, there are some issues that Wacom needs to address in the Inkling's design and technology to make it must-have hardware for everyday artisting.  After a couple of weeks of regular wear-and-tear from living inside of a backpack pocket, my Inkling pen no longer wanted to stay inside of its slot.  It hangs loosely inside but no longer "clicks" into place on the spring, meaning that it won't properly charge while plugged in.  To relieve this, I put some electrical tape and a penny over the slot to keep the pen in place.  

Inkling closed.

Inkling open!

I think the technology behind the Inkling is a cool idea that's not quite where it needs to be yet.  While it works great for rough sketches and concepting, the line registration is generally not as accurate as I'd like even when working in ideal conditions.  Drawings can become muddled over minute variables like whether or not you're drawing on your lap or a table and wrinkles that come with physically drawing on paper which seem to interfere with the device's precision.  If you avoid adding too much detail to the image these issues aren't as noticeable, but for someone like me who likes to pile on the crosshatching and body hair, having to adjust or add in those elements separately seems like an unnecessary extra step.   The Inkling works great as a first step to design; a fast way to put your ideas to paper digitally... but ultimately I don't think it's worth the price or time yet.  Here are some side-by-side comparisons of actual drawings (left) vs. Inkling's import (right):

This is probably the best of the bunch, and the loose sketching lends itself well to the Inkling's strengths.

Detailed drawings don't hold up very well.  It's like someone tried to trace your sketch in a moving car.

Again, the overall idea of the image is there, but when you look at details like the collar and face there are discrepancies. 

As sloppy as this sketch is, this import disappointed me.  Even with the loose style you lose what held the original image together.

   

As for the Cintiq, it's the smallest version that Wacom makes and probably not their best but I love it.  There's nothing quite like feeling like you live in the future when you're sitting on the couch next to your girlfriend doing full-color animation on your lap.  Admittedly, the iPad isn't far behind with their upcoming pressure-sensitive stylus coming out in a matter of months and that screen and setup is much better, but for now I'll be more than happy to add my Cintiq to my mobile work station, something I can take with me and animate run cycles like this:

without arms, men are basically scrotums with legs.