Taking "Wing"

 Well, I have noticed that whenever I post a video of some animation I've done, even if it's just an exercise, my traffic goes up. So to all my followers, thank you! I notice I've been getting visitors from everywhere from here in the U.S. to Russia, Belarus, and Venezuela, as well as people from Malaysia. That's only a partial list.  Here is a wing flap cycle, with the individual drawings as well!

Rough layout of "alley" enviornment, 2 pt. perspective

Here's an exerise in 2 point perspective, depicting a city alley like one you might find in a "noir" type of story. It was sort of a "demo" I did for one of the students at the Academy. I  sort of "eyeballed" the horizon line and scale. 

"A Night on the Green Carpet"

"Look who's walking!"

Here it is! The female walk cycle that I promised earlier! I'm trying to encourage the other students at the academy to try this as well, and I want to work on refining my own skills as well.

"Run, Brock, Run!"

Here's a slightly tighter version of the run cycle, still based on "Brock" from "The Venture Brothers". I made good use of model sheets obtained from the blog of Stephen Destefano. http://stephendestefano.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-to-draw-venture-brothers-part-two.html

Thanks, again to Charles, and the rest of the faculty and students of The Animation Academy.

 

See Brock Run!

Walk the Dawg

At the Academy, we've been getting back into the actual craft of animation, which is an important skill to develop as we prepare to hit the big time and actually start going into production and begin telling stories with animation, which is, after all, the ultimate goal of all this. I did this walk cycle based loosely on the "Barnyard Dog (or Dawg)" from the "Looney Tunes". He doesn't have a tail yet. The ears were re-worked by Charles.(there's a link to his blog on the right). I also posted the cycle in motion on YouTube. I'm currently working on a female walk cycle, which, so far, is looking really good. I'll post that soon.

 

Pure Imagination

I can"t take credit for this (early 70s) Oompah Loompah. It is the work of Joel Valdez, another student/instructor at the Animation Academy in Burbank. It's interesting that, even with a 21st century cinematic "reimagining" of the "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" book by Roald Dahl , the 1971 version is still the definitive one, beloved by people like me who remember seeing  it in theatres upon its first release, as well as people far too young to have done that. The Oompah Loompahs from 1971 were performing in "orange face" years before John Boehner got into politics. So, hope you all like this and be sure to visit Joel's blog (there's a link on the right), as well as the blog for the Academy.

"Bear" with me!

A Great, Big, Beautiful To-Car-Oh!!

The title for this post is really a bad pun, and unforgivable. Then again, think of the things Disney does to us. Space Mountain in Florida has a musical score now, which they claim you hear in "Starry-O-Phonic sound!". And who knows, maybe Richard Sherman is following my blog!

Taking matters into my own tentacles!

I did these roughs a couple of nights ago, actually in the main (original) theatre on the Disney lot while waiting for a screening of "Brave" to begin.

And here's the finished rough, followed by the final version with tone. I am putting in a couple of "all nighters" in preperation for the upcoming CTN Animation Expo. I'll give a report and updates as that event is happening.

 

"B" Romantic

So, I'm working on a new cover/contact info page for my portfolio/ashcan book which will take the form of a poster for a vintage, sci-fi "B" movie. I'll post the finished product later, but I noticed that these posters often feature that shot of the hero and the "babe" posed together, looking oh, so intense. That's what I was going for here. I posted some of my references (maybe the original 1982 "Tron" isn't quite a "B" movie), as well as a couple of my "process" pieces.

"The New Formal"

 Last week at the Academy, we were working on designing an elephant in formal attire, like he's going to the opera. I took it a step further and added a walrus. If you look closely at the rough of the Walrus, you can read where I scribbled the note "add monocle", which came from a suggestion, or more like a demand from one of my students. I think it was a good idea, and adds a nice touch. On a side note, blogger has this new feature that lets you pinpoint where your traffic is coming from. It looks like I got a visitor from Taiwan recently, for the first time!

c Robert Gold  2012

c  Robert Gold  2012

c  Robert Gold  2012

"He's coming to get you, Barbara!"

 With Halloween coming, I thought I'd do an "homage" to zombies appearing in movies (or even on cable T.V. shows). I decided to tone it in gray, though not quite 50 shades. Below the final version, you can see an early concept in col-erase blue, and below that, the final pencil rough. I ended up moving the cheerleader down and slightly to the left, for the final, as well as scaling her up a bit.

"What the Fudd?!"

 

"Narf!"-olepsy

 So, the other night in character design class, the subject of "Pinky and the Brain" came up, and I thought I would try my hand at drawing a "Pinky" from memory. I'd never drawn the character before, with or without reference. So here's the original drawing, direct from my sketch book. A "thumb"nail of "Pinky", if you will.
Then I went home, and after looking up the character in Google images, I did the drawing below, based on the pose I came up with earlier.

Then, finally I did a clean-up, and and added some color, which was kind of a no brainer. Uh...no "Brain"-er!? It's late. Thanks for stopping by! Gold, out.

PreViz-Storical!

Summer's Coming!

 So, I go for a couple of months without posting anything, and blogger makes some upgrades that make posting simpler and more versatile, once you can wrap your mind around them. We were doing an assignment in class involving posing two characters and making them relate to each other. I wanted to do a scene with a guy trying to impress a girl, and this is what I came up with. One correction I made from the rough involved the girls legs/feet, and getting them to overlap properly.

When I was drawing the boy, I really felt like I was drawing myself. Like, "Hey, girls!, Check out this drawing!".

Turning and Learning