Ink Drawings

Pippa the Toy Poodle

A Christmas Reindeer - starting to feel slightly festive due to the shops bringing out their christmas stuff already

Love watching 'Strictly Come Dancing' at the weekends!

Ayr Airshow

Travelled through to Ayr to watch the Airshow, I've been to it before and know that thousands of people gather on the beach to watch the aeroplanes. So it's a good opportunity to get in some observational drawing before your hands freeze in the cold beach air!

Safari Day Out!

Had a fun day out at Blair Drummond Safari Park, on what seemed to be the only day of the week that was good weather! Which meant that I could do some outdoor observational sketching :D

I always love watching the sea lion shows and managed to capture the big jump at the end in slow-mo. Forgot I have this option on my phone - great tool for an animator! :)

Bookstore observations...

Was sat in Waterstones with a peppermint tea and one of the new ginger syrup Christmas muffins (yum) and got the sketchbook out to do a bit of observational drawing. The old man reading with the magnifying glass fell asleep for quite a while until the store got more busy - I probably would too in a cosy corner surrounded by books! :p

"Do you know the muffin man?"

Observational Drawing - George Square, Glasgow

Whilst trying to avoid the flock of pigeons that were taking over the square, managed to do a few observational drawings of people sitting on the benches in the Square:

Observational Drawing in Paris

Went on a short trip to Paris this week! Managed to fit in some observational drawing amongst all the sightseeing and gallery viewings.

Place des Vosges was a great place for observational drawing, it was filled with people enjoying the sun and having picnics:

Then I spotted some mischievous small birds who were picking up bits of food left behind from picnics and lunches. I took some video footage of them for reference for the bird character in 'Tug of Biscuit' as the personalities seemed to suit:

When I got home I had a look at the bird footage and decided to do a quick animation test. I really liked the way they hop around from A to B when they aren't flying - their version of a walk cycle - and I think this could work well for our bird character. Here is a rough test I speed-animated on my iPad with the 'Animation Creator' app:

I also found a Digital Tutors tutorial which shows how to animate a hop-step for a bird, which should be useful:

http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/889-Maya-Animation-Reference-Library-Birds#play-22446

Observational Drawing - Animals 2

Took another trip up to Camperdown Wildlife Centre this weekend to do some more observational drawing. Luckily it was a bit warmer this time and goodness that giant tortoise can walk quickly!

Observational Drawing - Animals

Going to do some more sketching of my dog, Pippa, since I'll be animating a canine character for my Masters film project, managed to do this sketch before she got up and wanted to play one-sided fetch...

Yesterday I went up to Camperdown Wildlife Centre to do some observational drawing, my hands froze by the end of this because it was rather cold that day - even some of the animals were huddled together to keep warm!

Masters Semester 1

Here is a summary of my work from Semester 1 on the MSc Animation & Visualisation course, including links to blog posts for each project:

Polygon Model Project
Relevant blog posts at: Shoe Polygon Blog Posts

Modelled and textured shoe, rendered using multi-passes, compositied in Nuke:

Pair of shoes, ambient occlusion render:

Nurbs Model Project:
Relevant blog posts at: Nurbs Environment Blog Posts

Rendered Ambient Occlusion stills of the Nurbs interior environment model:

Rendered camera shot of Nurbs interior model:

Group Project Development Work

Relevant blog posts at: Group Project Development Blog Posts

48hr Film Project
Relevant blog posts at: 48hr Film Project Blog Posts

Life Drawing and Observational Drawing

Relevant blog posts at: Life Drawing Blog Posts and Observational Drawing Blog Posts

Research Skills and Methods module
Relevant blog posts at: Research Skills & Method Module Blog Posts

Final outcome - research poster:

Observational Drawing

 Just a quick selection from my observational drawing sketchbook - drawn in cafe's and on trains:

Meerkats... at an Aquarium?!?

Today I went with my family to St.Andrews Aquarium with the intention of finding and sketching some sea-life crabs, as research for some animation I will be doing as part of a visual effects project with fellow animation student Sarah Rettie: http://poppinsin3d.blogspot.co.uk/
However I only came across one Hermit crab, there were only a few others and they all appeared to be hiding from the world! Nevertheless there were lots of other creatures to draw:

One creature I discovered today was the Axolotl - I didn't even know they existed but turned out to be fascinating! They are a type of salamander and wild axolotl are actually near extinction! What makes them so wonderfully weird to look at is the external gills that branch off the sides of their heads like branches of turquoise coral or feathers. They kind of reminded me of Chinese dragons. Their head shape also is very reminiscent of the dragon character 'Toothless' from 'How to train your dragon'!

One of the most random animals that I was not expecting to come across today were Meerkats! Odd yes, but entertaining most definitely!

I even came across a crocodile! Dangerous research to the max!