HOW DO I ART? THIS IS HOW I ART.

Sex is okay, but hAVE YOU EVER ANIMATED SOMETHING BY HAND AND WATCHED IT MOVE ON THE SCREEN, AFTER HAVING NOT DONE ANY ANIMATION FOR SO MANY YEARS????

...I really hadn't done any 2D animation since graduating in 2015, so animating this for a hw assignment was just pure ecstasy to me. Like rediscovering that spark I somehow lost after graduation. 3D doesn't even hold a candle to the feeling of holding a pencil or even a stylus pen, and being able to watch your digital drawing move~

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaha--It looks like I can't do comics. I can do the characters, story, and maybe dialogue, but...I have no idea what layouts to use to tell the story. Storyboards are definitely easier because the layouts are just a bunch of rectangles.

I've been relying on that "This is Fine" dog meme for the past 2+ years as that perfectly sums up my feels. But lately, I've had this image in my head of Amy bundled up in a weighted blanket and trying to cope with all the crap going on in the world that she's seeing from inside my head.

I really relate to that feeling of wanting to crawl into a quiet corner somewhere, huddle under a blanket, and just wait until the world stops being stupid and f *cked up....Almost like I want to join her.

I feel accomplished tonight, ‘cuz I built a model! :D

Last night was frustrating, trying to practice in Maya and Mudbox because TOO MANY BUTTONS AND MENUS AND TOOLS~ And I wasn’t in the mood to start reading the “comprehensive guide” eBook I bought either. My ADHD-brain doesn’t like absorbing too much information. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ 

Maya is a bitch to use/learn. Of all the software I’ve had to use in this industry, it’s the most difficult for me. ಥ_ಥ Srsly, wtf are isoparms? I used NURBS to make this model...And I don’t even remember what that stands for. ಠ_ಠ

But I’m happy with myself now because once the guidebook reminded me how to rotate the view while working, it triggered a few extra memories from my college classes, years ago. :D

I really loved what the Origins update did to the scorched planet in my starter system. It changed the environment’s color scheme and even the atmosphere changed to this gorgeous complimentary palette of purples and yellows. When I landed to set up this shot, I loved the combination of reds in the foreground and the purple-yellow backgrounds. My eyes were bleeding rainbows, it was so pretty~ (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

This was the main reason I wanted this game, after all. :D Because SPACE! And pretty colors make Worldy a very happy space-nerd~ 

And my lip-sync guide is done. @__@

The reason it takes a bit for each page is because I have to stay focused on how my mouth is moving when I’m sounding out the words. That’s the trick; don’t get distracted by the spelling. You might notice that a lot of my mouths look very similar to another (the “a’s”)...That’s fine, since I’ll be making adjustments during the actual drawing process anyway. This is just to help me get a general idea as to what the mouth-shape should be.

First page of the most painfully tedious part of the animation process for my Ludey lip-sync thingy. This is part of what is known as the “pre-production” of a film.

Do I like drawing these little tiny mouths? No. ب_ب But it must be done anyway...And at least it’s better than doing backgrounds. (Srsly, fuck backgrounds. ¬_¬)

A quick doodle before work.

Amy and I shared the same reactions to GoT S8E4 last night.

I DID IT~ I finally have a working storyboard for my bf’s tongue-tied audio clip.

Technically, my sketches should be much rougher and simpler. o_o But I’ve always had this kinda bad habit of making them too sketchy like this. And to be honest, Ludey’s hard to simplify, even in sketches. This is the best I can do with him.

I decided to make it funnier by adding Amy into the background. Just have her randomly peek into the frame when he gets tongue-tied, like “WTF?,” then smother a giggle, and disappear again, all without him noticing...Until the last 2 frames. She peeks back in, and the camera pans to the left to focus on her...He glares at her, and Amy avoids eye contact, like “WHAT? I’M NOT DOING ANYTHING. I TOTALLY WASN’T LAUGHING~”

(I would record some lines for her, but...I’m not really good at voice-acting. I can only do her voice in a whisper. It also sounds better in my head, and I don’t know how to get it to sound that way IRL. o_o

Late doodle for Earth Day. :D

Doodled this on my new XP-Pen display tablet, after upgrading to Mojave OS and Adobe CC 2019 apps. c:

So nice to be able to draw directly onto a screen, just like I did on the Cintiqs in college~

Minibot and Maggie are done. :D

Minibot’s looking much more simplified (I think) and I made Maggie look more androgynous. She’s kinda leaning toward being that way anyway; she’s based off of an old friend of mine, whose stocky build, “boyish” clothing-style (only times I ever seen her wear a skirt was when it was mandatory on certain school-days), and cropped hair made her frequently mistaken for a boy. She was also the first person I shared my story with, just after I started writing. Over the years, her character stuck around and developed with the revisions. :T

I like the gradient effects I did with her shadowy stuff; I wanted a purply-black. Her element is actually called “Dark” (as opposed to the opposite “Light” element), but it’s basically shadow-manipulation. Her main career is a ninja/warrior anyway, so it fits well. (And instead of her color being just black, it’s more of a very deep violet.)