Thanks, everyone!  It took some finagling with United, but I have a flight to Pennsylvania!  I really appreciate all your support. It means a lot!  My pay will be slightly cut while I’m away, so I’m going to keep commissions and book sales OPEN from now until June 10, when I return to work.  I will not be attending Fanime or A-kon, so you must buy pieces online,sorry.  Drop a note in my Ask if you are interested.   Prices are per-character. All work done in traditional media unless digital is requested.  FREE US SHIPPING ON $20+!  (Add $5 for international.) I take Paypal, check, and money order.   Re-blogs are appreciated - thanks in advance if you do!  PRIMARY GOAL: $715/$715 - COMPLETE!SECONDARY GOAL: $222/$2,055 (11%!) LIST: (crossed-out commissions are done, but will not be scanned/mailed until I return on 6/10.) Evan - couple waist shaded with background ~celticbard76 - waist shaded `Wen-M - full shaded

Thanks, everyone!  It took some finagling with United, but I have a flight to Pennsylvania!  I really appreciate all your support. It means a lot!  My pay will be slightly cut while I’m away, so I’m going to keep commissions and book sales OPEN from now until June 10, when I return to work.  I will not be attending Fanime or A-kon, so you must buy pieces online,sorry.  Drop a note in my Ask if you are interested.  

Prices are per-character. All work done in traditional media unless digital is requested.  FREE US SHIPPING ON $20+!  (Add $5 for international.) I take Paypal, check, and money order.   Re-blogs are appreciated - thanks in advance if you do! 
 
PRIMARY GOAL: $715/$715 - COMPLETE!
SECONDARY GOAL: $222/$2,055 (11%!)

LIST: (crossed-out commissions are done, but will not be scanned/mailed until I return on 6/10.)

  1. Evan - couple waist shaded with background
  2. ~celticbard76 - waist shaded
  3. `Wen-M - full shaded

Tagged by Xitheta

I’m sorry, I’ve never done a meme on Tumblr before. I hope I’m doing this right!  I’m not super comfortable tagging people, though, but if you want to do it, be my guest. :)

Who Tagged Me: xitheta

This tag is to get to know the person behind the blog better. As with any tagging game there are rules:

The Rules

  • Rule 1 - Post the rules.
  • Rule 2 - Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post and then make 11 new ones.
  • Rule 3 - Tag 11 people and link…

The Answers:

1. What are your top three fandoms at the moment?

It’s hard to say because I am very new to the concept of ‘fandom,’ but if I had to pick: Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire), The Hunger Games, and BBC Sherlock.

2. Do you cosplay? If so, who?

I only had one cosplay: Rukia, from Bleach! Mostly because my hair looks like hers naturally.  I guess, using the same logic, I could also do Terezi from Homestuck.

3. Who is your celebrity crush/obsession of the moment?

So hard to choose! But my undying, infinite, love will always burn for Joseph Gordon-Leviit.  James McAvoy is a close runner-up.

4. When was the last time that you dressed up all posh-like?

Two weekends ago.  We had a dinner party at my place, and someone came who I wanted to impress, haha.  I love dressing up, but haven’t had the chance to (or the money to get new dresses) lately.

5. How do you align (lawful/neutral/chaotic - good/neutral/evil)?

Interesting. I would think neutral good: I believe in that good old saying, “do want you want, but damn well don’t be a dick.”

6. Which book should we read in order to to really understand you?

I’m going to cheat and say “Wrath and Pardon” because my original characters very strongly reflect my view of life (Rivek, in particular).  Otherwise, The Emporer Mage or Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce had the greatest influence on me.

7. What is your favourite meal of all time?

Any Indian curry sampler.  Could eat that all day, every day, every meal for the rest of my life - if it wasn’t so gassy.

8. How do you feel about thunderstorms?

Eh.  They’re nice when you’re indoors.  I miss seasons, though (especially snow). California’s too perfect all the time.

9. What is your guilty pleasure?

Bad television. I have a thing for reality TV and teen drama.  Lately, I’ve been watching Celebrity Apprentice and Pretty Little Liars.  Also Glee, Grimm, and Once Upon a Time.  Same goes for equally mediocre movies.

10. How would you describe your fashion style?

All over the place, but generally pretty plain for the workplace: solid, muted, colors; jeans; layering cardigans; imitation Chuck Taylors, and the ilk.  Most of my jewelry is leather or iron, medeival-inspired.  I would love to have more stand-out pieces, but I’m too lazy to put outfits together on a daily basis.

11. Pirates or Ninjas?

Pirates have cooler outfits.

The Questions:

  1. What was your first fandom?
  2. Do you like spicy food?
  3. What is your favorite fairy tale?
  4. What is your favorite, guilty-pleasure, TV show?
  5. Pick a color to describe yourself, and tell me why.
  6. What is your favorite scientific subject?
  7. You have to spend the rest of your life as an animal.  What would you be?
  8. What Disney princess would you want as your best friend?
  9. What is the first thing you would buy or do if you won the lottery?
  10. If you could change your first name, would you? To what?
  11. Would you rather be killed by a bear or a shark?

Sorry I’m late to answer all these. Things have been obviously hectic: If you stick to the rules too early on, you can end up with a boring piece - so I try not to get bogged down by perspective immediately.  When making an image, the overall feel is more important than the perspective.  Use a thumbnail sketch to define the composition and value.  Then, when you go bigger, do your final piece in accurate perspective.  I use tons of references!  They’re the key to expanding the visual language in your head.  Reference should be drawn, and learned from.  Don’t copy - internalize the shape, structure, color, and texture of the real-life object you are referencing for later application.  You can tell an amateur who doesn’t use reference to its full extent: their work will be too stiff or lifeless or very simple and repetitive.  I don’t print them, though.  I’m stingy with paper. I just keep a million Google Image Search tabs open.  Flow and rhythm in your arm movement will reflect in your drawing.  The best way to flow is to work fast, with very long lines: gesture drawing!  Try to use as few strokes as possible to capture a pose or object in its basic construction.  In 30 seconds.  It may take a hundred hours of practice to get comfortable - (30 x 60 x 100 = 180,000 drawings!) - but flow comes with speed which comes with practice.

Sorry I’m late to answer all these. Things have been obviously hectic:

  1. If you stick to the rules too early on, you can end up with a boring piece - so I try not to get bogged down by perspective immediately.  When making an image, the overall feel is more important than the perspective.  Use a thumbnail sketch to define the composition and value.  Then, when you go bigger, do your final piece in accurate perspective. 
  2. I use tons of references!  They’re the key to expanding the visual language in your head.  Reference should be drawn, and learned from.  Don’t copy - internalize the shape, structure, color, and texture of the real-life object you are referencing for later application.  You can tell an amateur who doesn’t use reference to its full extent: their work will be too stiff or lifeless or very simple and repetitive.  I don’t print them, though.  I’m stingy with paper. I just keep a million Google Image Search tabs open. 
  3. Flow and rhythm in your arm movement will reflect in your drawing.  The best way to flow is to work fast, with very long lines: gesture drawing!  Try to use as few strokes as possible to capture a pose or object in its basic construction.  In 30 seconds.  It may take a hundred hours of practice to get comfortable - (30 x 60 x 100 = 180,000 drawings!) - but flow comes with speed which comes with practice.

I’m a workaholic driven person in general, so I rarely get art block.  There’s only a month or two out of the year when I run out of ideas (usually May-June or August-September).  In that case, I take commissions or draw fan art for prints.  By changing to external motivators and by having designs set out by my clients, I can draw even if I don’t have any purely original ideas at that time.  After about a month, I my creativity will come back. There’s really only one thing that prevents me from drawing: being really tired.  I’m a big believer in “healthy body, healthy mind.”  On bad days, I sit with my sketchbook on my lap and watch TV and telling myself I’m going to work.  But when I realize that I’m too lazy to walk the six feet to my computer, I take a two-hour nap.  And the motivation comes back straight away.

I’m a workaholic driven person in general, so I rarely get art block.  There’s only a month or two out of the year when I run out of ideas (usually May-June or August-September).  In that case, I take commissions or draw fan art for prints.  By changing to external motivators and by having designs set out by my clients, I can draw even if I don’t have any purely original ideas at that time.  After about a month, I my creativity will come back.

There’s really only one thing that prevents me from drawing: being really tired.  I’m a big believer in “healthy body, healthy mind.”  On bad days, I sit with my sketchbook on my lap and watch TV and telling myself I’m going to work.  But when I realize that I’m too lazy to walk the six feet to my computer, I take a two-hour nap.  And the motivation comes back straight away.

I am pretty young into my career, so there’s not much to say.  As an avid reader, I always loved art and storytelling, but taking commissions in high school through the Internet got me interested in it as a career.  However, as a realist and a scientist, I really did NOT want to go to art school.  I chose Computer Science (with a Fine Art and Consumer Behavior minor) at the University of Pennsylvania.  I  focused on becoming an animation programmer. I supported myself by being both a CS teaching assistant and selling my artwork at conventions.  During my senior year there, I was recruited to work at DreamWorks after graduation.  And it worked: I’m now a technical director.  And since the purpose of my department is to service the software wherever it’s needed, I have three credits under my belt after only two years. I honestly recommend you should take the technical route and expand your skill-set generally.  A studio only needs a handful of 2D artists, but they need a wealth of 3D artists.  If you can program (or at least are willing to learn), it sets you head and shoulders above the rest.  I can’t stress enough the importance of selecting the right educational path.  I know people here who never went to formal school, but school provides the education and connections (and discipline!) you need for a set price and time.  Don’t go to a particular school because it’s cheap or close to home - invest in yourself.  Find schools that have alumni working at the place you want to work at. Hope that helps. :)  ((In the future, though, I kind of feel like a broken record when talking about my career, so I might just link to previous FAQs….))

I am pretty young into my career, so there’s not much to say.  As an avid reader, I always loved art and storytelling, but taking commissions in high school through the Internet got me interested in it as a career.  However, as a realist and a scientist, I really did NOT want to go to art school.  I chose Computer Science (with a Fine Art and Consumer Behavior minor) at the University of Pennsylvania. 

I  focused on becoming an animation programmer. I supported myself by being both a CS teaching assistant and selling my artwork at conventions.  During my senior year there, I was recruited to work at DreamWorks after graduation. 

And it worked: I’m now a technical director.  And since the purpose of my department is to service the software wherever it’s needed, I have three credits under my belt after only two years.

I honestly recommend you should take the technical route and expand your skill-set generally.  A studio only needs a handful of 2D artists, but they need a wealth of 3D artists.  If you can program (or at least are willing to learn), it sets you head and shoulders above the rest. 

I can’t stress enough the importance of selecting the right educational path.  I know people here who never went to formal school, but school provides the education and connections (and discipline!) you need for a set price and time.  Don’t go to a particular school because it’s cheap or close to home - invest in yourself.  Find schools that have alumni working at the place you want to work at.

Hope that helps. :) 

((In the future, though, I kind of feel like a broken record when talking about my career, so I might just link to previous FAQs….))

My job title in the movie credits is “technical director” because we do more than tech support!  We don’t just answer questions about our software: we design and write our software.  To write software, I took a lot of computer science courses - to the point where I have two engineering degrees in it. It’s entirely possible to learn programming without taking courses, but it takes a lot of self-motivation. It was very difficult, but being in a program with other like-minded people really helped me get through.  The concepts can be very abstract, dry, and demanding.  If the idea of multi-variable/multi-dimensional calculus is scary, then you might not want to go into this field, haha.  The class average every test was about a 70%, and I certainly didn’t graduate with a 4.0.  I would say I had 20 hours a week of class… and then spent about 20-60 hours a week on homework (more during exam time). It was worth it, though.  I learned a lot, enough to get this job!  And I am still learning.  In my opinion, if you never challenge yourself, you don’t know how far you can go. :)

My job title in the movie credits is “technical director” because we do more than tech support!  We don’t just answer questions about our software: we design and write our software. 

To write software, I took a lot of computer science courses - to the point where I have two engineering degrees in it. It’s entirely possible to learn programming without taking courses, but it takes a lot of self-motivation.

It was very difficult, but being in a program with other like-minded people really helped me get through.  The concepts can be very abstract, dry, and demanding.  If the idea of multi-variable/multi-dimensional calculus is scary, then you might not want to go into this field, haha.  The class average every test was about a 70%, and I certainly didn’t graduate with a 4.0.  I would say I had 20 hours a week of class… and then spent about 20-60 hours a week on homework (more during exam time).

It was worth it, though.  I learned a lot, enough to get this job!  And I am still learning.  In my opinion, if you never challenge yourself, you don’t know how far you can go. :)

Tutorial Requests?

Thanks for coming to my tutorial on Sunday!  PacSet and I are super happy: we didn’t expect nearly that many viewers!  For next time, we’ll have a streaming service with no viewer cap.  I’ll upload the videos soon for you guys that missed it.  I’m in the middle of repaying my sleep debt cutting videos. 

But - since it was such a success: Evan and I are thinking of doing another one in the not-so-near future.  So please deposit in my ask:

  • any questions that I missed answering
  • anything you’d like to see in the future.

Thanks!

Maybe?! I really want to catch the Korra premiere live, but I’m still super tired from moving.  I might not wake up in time. :( But I will watch it on Nickelodeon’s website for sure!  My friend is working on it, and I want to support her. :) Oh god, I would love to cross Harry Potter and Sherlock.  I think the merging of someone so analytical into a totally magical world be incredibly interesting. Thanks! I’ll see if I can do a video tutorial.  Insects are very easy to break down into simple shapes, so they’re good animals to start learning with.  If anything, I’ll stream my process on Sunday afternoon. I’m going to have to admit my favorite video game is Draw Something.  I don’t use my console for more than movie-watching, but if it came down to games I’m obsessed with but have never actually played: Assassin’s Creed.  It’s been a major artistic inspiration.  I’m glad that people are taking hints and creating fiction from history.  I can’t really relate to that Asian MMORPG overly-detailed-no-overall-form color design. My favorite ice cream flavor is birthday cake because it has so many colors (or Superman which was this flavor I can no longer find that they had in my college cafeteria).  I like eating ice cream outside on the green on sunny days. :D clocktock answered: Oscar Wilde or Sigmund Freud? I’m going to have to go with Wilde.  I’m not that familiar with his work, but I don’t find Freud’s pseudoscience well-validated enough.  If you’re going to write fiction, say it’s fiction. isanah answered: what would your ideal vacation be like? My ideal vacation would be visiting all the historic sites in Europe during the day and eating fantastic, diverse food at night.  I really like the stories behind things.  Plus, I’m a glutton.

  1. Maybe?! I really want to catch the Korra premiere live, but I’m still super tired from moving.  I might not wake up in time. :( But I will watch it on Nickelodeon’s website for sure!  My friend is working on it, and I want to support her. :)
  2. Oh god, I would love to cross Harry Potter and Sherlock.  I think the merging of someone so analytical into a totally magical world be incredibly interesting.
  3. Thanks! I’ll see if I can do a video tutorial.  Insects are very easy to break down into simple shapes, so they’re good animals to start learning with.  If anything, I’ll stream my process on Sunday afternoon.
  4. I’m going to have to admit my favorite video game is Draw Something.  I don’t use my console for more than movie-watching, but if it came down to games I’m obsessed with but have never actually played: Assassin’s Creed.  It’s been a major artistic inspiration.  I’m glad that people are taking hints and creating fiction from history.  I can’t really relate to that Asian MMORPG overly-detailed-no-overall-form color design.
  5. My favorite ice cream flavor is birthday cake because it has so many colors (or Superman which was this flavor I can no longer find that they had in my college cafeteria).  I like eating ice cream outside on the green on sunny days. :D

clocktock answered: Oscar Wilde or Sigmund Freud?

I’m going to have to go with Wilde.  I’m not that familiar with his work, but I don’t find Freud’s pseudoscience well-validated enough.  If you’re going to write fiction, say it’s fiction.

isanah answered: what would your ideal vacation be like?

My ideal vacation would be visiting all the historic sites in Europe during the day and eating fantastic, diverse food at night.  I really like the stories behind things.  Plus, I’m a glutton.

Asked by Anonymous Anonymous

it actually got me really excited to know you came from pennsylvania, that's where i'm from and i'm a fan of the things you post, you're so good at what you do.

Damn right I’m good at what I do: because I know all the lyrics to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme.

Asked by flanngo flanngo

Hello! I'll be going to a post-secondary school next year in the field of arts. My goal is to, one day, hopefully be able to work for DreamWorks or Pixar. I'm passionate about animation, but I realized lately that I enjoy designing characters most. I feel like I would be happiest trying to become a concept artist, but i'm not sure how to go about doing so.. Is there anything you can suggest? I'm having trouble deciding between these two but I do know that I want to help make animated movies.

The best thing I can suggest is: learn more, and keep your options open. Try every department because getting a job is easier if you do general animation rather than zero in on concept art.  After all, one person designs a concept but one hundred people make a film.  In addition, learning from the animator standpoint will heavily inform your concept art.

School is the first step.  Pick your school wisely.  Go to a place where students graduate to jobs at the places you want to work at.  There are a lot of for-profit schools who just want to make a buck off starry-eyed kids who want to work in “cool” fields.  But the real people who succeed are the ones with passion - who would do it without the fame, the glamor and without the money.

With the right attitude the the right school, all you have to do is study hard - really hard - so you will be ready for the connections that are in place when you graduate.

Good luck. :)

NEW BLOG: THINGS MY PARENTS MAILED ME. A year ago, I moved from Pennsylvania to California for work. About once a month, my parents send a care package to my workplace. This is a photographic log of their more interesting contents. EDIT: Guys. This is a coconut.

NEW BLOG: THINGS MY PARENTS MAILED ME.

A year ago, I moved from Pennsylvania to California for work. About once a month, my parents send a care package to my workplace. This is a photographic log of their more interesting contents.

EDIT: Guys. This is a coconut.

Asked by billcosby-kun billcosby-kun

Hi! I remember liking a few of your concept drawings for THG awhile back and I've seen you posting but I never really realized that you worked for a company as big as Dreamworks *o* I know you probably get asked about this sort of thing a ton, but I'm interesting in screenwriting and such, and was wondering if you know of any sort of specifics or tips that could help ease the way into maybe writing for an animation company such as Dreamworks, Pixar, and such? Thanks~

It varies from studio to studio, but there aren’t many folks who just do screen-writing.  Scripts are touched by a number of people, mostly storyboarders.  You have to be good at thinking visually, timing, and being funny.  So that’s my main suggestion: take classes and make a portfolio in storyboarding!

NIGHTNIGHT by DEDDY