The Binding of Fenrir

Hello again! I'm back, and much sooner than you expected, no?

The past few posts here on the Roost have been very much life-updatey, which is totally fine. There is a lot of life stuff going on right now that I feel a great need to set down on digital paper. But I claim to be the proprietor of an art blog, so I think it's time to talk about some art as well! To be honest, talking about the art/philosophy side of things scares me a little bit more, cause it takes more thought and preparation to write, and sometimes I just don't want to put in that kind of effort :P

But today is different. Cause today I have something to show! So let me give you the pitch and origin story for this piece I'm calling The Binding of Fenrir -

It's a little bit more grim than your average Daniel Haycox piece, and perhaps not as grim as it should be (I'm aware of my limitations, somewhat) but I'm pleased to present it to you and to have made a substantial piece of personal work despite being home with the ever-present temptation of the Nintendo Switch. For those wondering, it took about four days of sporadic work.

This piece is my entry in March's Character Design Challenge. For those unfamiliar, the Challenge is an international contest/facebook group where everyone can contribute one design a month based on a particular theme. Although I don't anticipate becoming a character designer someday (many others are much more gifted for that task) the Challenge provides some helpful structure to my personal work and a reason to create other than "just making something cool." Which, ironically, was essentially my motivation for making this piece. I've given up the idea of winning the challenge - I have no idea how they judge this thing, winners are sometimes far better and other times about as good as what I can produce (I'm aware of my limitations, somewhat). But the Challenge nevertheless provides an arena where I can display work in a community, and that is still worthwhile in my book :)

The Challenge theme for this month was Norse Gods - which I was excited to try. Despite my familiarity with the myths, I don't think I've ever actually drawn one. Due to my recent study of Anna Scott's work and canines (seriously, I'm working on an uncommon amount of dog projects right now) you probably could have guessed that I wanted to do a take on Fenrir, the monstrous wolf doomed to gobble up Odin and be A Pretty Big Deal In General during Ragnarok. But I wanted to depict him at his lowest moment, when he's finally bound by the gods using the magic ribbon Gleipnir. It's this really cool contrast between a delicate, unassuming ribbon that's holding back the strongest, baddest monster. And although that's where I began, the emotional element of the piece started to become about betrayal. Even though Fenrir probably would have eaten Odin anyways (that's the problem with prophecies) I imagine that the gods' betrayal and treachery is actually what cemented the badness in Fenrir's heart. This idea runs through Neil Gaiman's telling of the myth, which I referenced a lot while making this piece. Although the story should be a moment of triumph over a monster, Gaiman's telling is pervaded by sadness, especially because he builds up a friendship between the god Tyr and Fenrir. (That's Tyr's hand in Fenrir's mouth btw. Hard to recover from something like that.)

There were several things about Gaiman's telling that I could not use, and I took significant artistic license in general when concepting the piece. For one, Gaiman describes the ribbon as nearly invisible, which would obviously not be a great pick for a visual representation. I chose a light pink ribbon instead because it more directly communicated the delicate idea I was going for. Also, Fenrir should have been bound into the ground, not hung, but I felt like the hanging symbolized Fenrir's helplessness in this moment a bit better.

And from there I was off to the races! And by that I mean the incredibly daunting task that is Making the Thing. I tried to find some sad music to listen to while I drew, but my music taste is so incredibly upbeat that the closest thing I could find in any of my playlists was Jess Ray's "Humble Heart." So I listened to that a couple times and then just tried to make do with other stuff.

I've been in an interesting place with regards to style recently, and I wanted this piece to be a real step forward into something new. I've been most influenced by Saira Vargas recently which has been a huge help to my art, but also leaves me feeling like I ought to branch out and do more detailed, rendered work. So I've been studying Anna Scott, who has such a natural sense of detail and texture without losing simplicity. In particular she has these glorious wolf characters with such rich and subtle hair textures - which you may very likely see some callbacks to in this piece.

The problem is that rendering terrifies me. I don't really know how to do it, and I'm worried about over-doing it. I also like knowing if the piece is going to work pretty early into the process, which is actually doable when working very simply. But rendering pushes that "yes, we're not gonna die" moment later into the process which is very uncomfy. But I can't stay in the boiled down, simplified zone forever. Time to move. So this piece ended up becoming a fusion of Kole, Vargas, and Scott influences, which hopefully produced something very Haycox by the end - but you'll be the best judge of that. I've prepared a couple graphs to show what I mean:

It also does this:

Which maaay prove a problem as I try to enter the industry. I just love the simplicity of TV and the richness of feature design! And perhaps in personal work like this I don't need to try to fit myself into one of the two hirable boxes, but just explore a little and figure out what the Haycox style should look like. And draw some wolves with dude's hands in their mouths. Cause I guess that's what I do now. That's my brand. 

Just kidding. Style's a weird thing, and the best metaphor I've found for it comes from a Nicholas Kole interview in Character Design Quarterly:

"I like to think of artistic style in the same way as dress-sense: with clothes, you give yourself permission to go through phases. You might try new looks as your tastes change, and shed old age-inappropriate items as you grow. All the while there will be colors, cuts, and looks that you continually gravitate towards even as things change, things you just know feel 'like you.'"

I think about this a lot when it comes to discussions of my style or others', and hopefully it's a helpful metaphor for you too! A lot of people stress about style but if you see it as something natural and already a part of you, then you can focus more on nurturing and growing it without a big sense of urgency. Also, Nicholas, if you read this blog, let me know and I'll try to avoid so many fanboy moments in the future :P That's one of the problems with writing for the internet... you just have no idea where this stuff lands! 

Hope this post finds you well, weathering these times with grace, courage, and creativity.

-dh

P.S. Comments should be working now on this blog, let me know if y'all run into more issues. 

Experimenting with Leisure

Hello from NC! How's quarantine treating you, bloggerfolk? 

As for me, I have not left the house for over a week now (not counting walks/runs). A fact that I only realized today. After 9 days. And while I'm still sorting through what this means about my general lifestyle, I figured now was as good a time as any to describe and vivid and thrilling detail everything I've been doing while I've been sitting on my butt at home. 

Before I had given my days entirely over to Instagram and Animal Crossing (more on that later) I was fortunate to come across Joshua Gibbs' series of coronavirus writings which have proved a helpful guide to figure out what to do with all this time. As an enthusiastic planner as well as a social media glutton, I tend to alternate between two lifestyles while on break - full busy-ness or total slothfulness. Gibbs suggests something different for these differing times: "to experiment with leisure." By this he refers to leisure in the classical sense, i.e. anything that doesn't directly relate to our human survival. It's a wide category, including some things we may think of as work: challenging reading, making pastries, understanding classical music. Not all leisure activities are created equal - it's easy to see how some activities waste time while others are genuinely profitable without actually being "work." Usually I (and I would assume many others) are too tired from long workdays to care about the profitability of leisure time. But now with such an excess, we have space to experiment, and to find some sort of sound investment while we're banned from monetary work. 

I for sure haven't been doing this perfectly - I've spent more time more time on Twitter than I care to relate (mostly due to Animal Crossing, more on that later). But I have been making good headway into The Two Towers and even dabbling in a bit of coding in addition to personal art pieces. Being house-bound makes me even more excited to go walk or run, or sit in the sunny front lawn. And unlike times of pure business or abject slothfulness, the days pass by slowly. I think this has been the longest week I have experienced in a long while, and I mean that in a good way. 

And then there's been Animal Crossing. After seeing what a phenomena it's become amongst nearly all my friendgroups, circles, and the nerd/animation world in general, I had to join in. A perceptive Twitter user has pointed out that it's basically the reverse of the Pokemon Go trend from a few years ago: instead of everyone going out to play together, now everyone's staying in to play "together." I've never played an Animal Crossing game before, but I feel like New Horizons has been a great place to start. And the game could not have come out at a better time. The game has a huge multiplayer element and visiting friends is easy and well integrated into the game. Meanwhile, visiting friends in real life is practically illegal. Even though going to visit a friend's AC island pales in comparison to the experience of visiting a friend's physical house, it feels somehow similar. There's even an element of hospitality, at least to me. I'm excited to prepare my island to be a fun and welcoming space for visitors, and even fell a bit embarrassed when visitors come before I've tidied up.

blathers, the adorable, yet bug despising animal crossing villager

It's been a nice opportunity to practice hospitality in a time when I don't own a house (not to mention the state of the world). I also love how the game is like a tiny little garden that I can tend and grow, all in its own little space. My main hesitancy with giving this game too much praise is that it is not nearly as worthwhile, or difficult, as real gardening or hospitality, but I do enjoy being able to do both in a low-cost and simplified setting. So could it be a way to be faithful in little, faithful in much? Or did I just take that scripture way out of context by applying it to a Nintendo game? I'll leave that for you to decide ;) 

Before I go, I wanted to take the opportunity to post a few pictures of my trip to Black Mountain from way back when I still thought I would be returning to campus after break ... ah, those sweet, ignorant times... I was wanting to make a full post out of it but I'm not sure I'd have enough to say. It was a good trip with great people, staying in a beautiful place and hiking everyday. But as the purpose was primarily restful and leisurely, I don't think I have much in the way of epiphany to report here. But I do have these photos, so you are going to see these photos, and you are going to like these photos, cause this is the ROOST and you didn't come hear to learn about the stock market, you came here to see these photos!

 from left-ish to bottom-ish: aedan peterson, sam abner, joel guthrie

 tried not to feel too much like smeagol as i scampered behind this waterfall

lookout vista views

I think that's about it for now - I should have a new post coming soon with this month's Character Design Challenge, but I need to obsessively check it a few more times to make sure it's perfect. Hope you all are weathering this time with grace and kindness and courage. 

Thanks for reading :)

-dh

So Long, Junior Year

hello, summer? weird spring?

So they announced it today - school is cancelled. And not only that, but I've got to move out! And soon! I've been using my RA powers to hide out in my room over break, but Lipscomb's really taking a strict stance (warranted) and they want everybody outta here. And since I don't want to drive 7 hours back to Nash to get my stuff later, I'm just taking it all now.

It's all kinda ironic cause I just got back from a trip with some friends (related blog post coming shortly), had just bought some groceries and was ready to hunker down with some Zelda for the remainder of our Super Break. But this has just been the craziest time and twists like these are probably gonna keep happening until this virus gets the heck outta here.

Of course, school isn't really cancelled - we'll still have online classes. And junior year isn't really over.

But it does kinda feel that way.

I won't have access to lab equipment and software for the rest of the semester, so I don't know how much work I can be asked/expected to do... And I won't be able to hang out with college friends, or perhaps friends in general cause we will all be social distancing. And this will be my last night in my cozy little dorm room underneath my Princess Mononoke poster. I've really liked having a room to myself this year and I'll be very sad to leave this homely place...

But tonight we feast! Eat frozen pizza and drink copious amounts of marble soda! And make mug-cakes! As of now I have packed exactly one box and have already started procrastinating by writing this Roost post and taking pictures of my room. (sorry mom) I'm definitely bummed by the way things have turned out, but I've slowly been making peace and finding moments of joy along the way... Plus this turn of events should give me plenty of time to finish The Two Towers and Breath of the Wild.

Hope to talk to you guys again once I'm back in NC. Also hope Coronavirus will take the hint and realize that we don't want it to stick around anymore.

Stay strong, bloggerfolk -
dh

Calm(?) before the Storm

As promised - my submission to the Character Design Challenge for February! Hope it was worth the wait. The theme was Carnival of Brazil and I just really didn't want to draw mostly naked ladies, so I drew a mostly naked animal instead :P This is perhaps my favorite thing I've drawn all year, all bubbly and happy, which is all the more strange cause...

This is such a weird time. And if you're reading this near the time of me writing it then I'm sure you know why. Coronavirus is sweeping through the world and although I've held off writing about it here on the Roost, I think it's time. And I kinda hate to talk about it, because the virus has been in LITERALLY EVERY conversation I've had or overheard for the past week. We had the first few cases here in Nashville about a week ago, back when we were talking in hushed GroupMe messages about a possible outbreak at Vanderbilt. And now Tennessee's in a state of emergency, the whole country's in a state of emergency, and I'm just waiting for the wave that's been building for the past few weeks and months to come crashing down in full force. But it hasn't yet. And so for this and many other reasons I've been living in a state of dread. Not fun.

But I think I need to talk about Coronavirus, or at least log it here in a historical fashion, because it's now affecting my art journey (a topic that I may talk about from time to time here at the Roost).

Lipscomb just extended Spring Break, and could likely move to online classes for the rest of the semester. Which would be a nice break if I weren't working on a short film. But, for the first time ever, I AM. And our premiere date, the Five Minute Film Festival, just got postponed, and likely cancelled. And most of our team of artists are forced to head back home, away from the lab and software. So less than two weeks from our film's completion, the floor has just been cut out from under us. And now we're just falling into uncertainty. I've tried to keep my head down, to keep working, but it's hard. For so long, I've been looking toward that finish line, that festival, the finished film, but now the finish line is gone. Not moved, just straight up vanished. It's hard to relax anymore. I don't know what to work on. I don't know if I should be working. And with all this, I don't even know if the summer internships I applied for will even happen. This was supposed to be 2020, my big chance to get ready for a career next year. But the cracks are starting to show.

All this kinda pales in comparison to what our seniors here at Lipscomb must be feeling - they're being robbed of their last semester at college, and (for animators) the hope of getting an LA job must be getting immensely complicated. It's a time of laments, mourning the death sentence of a semester that we'll watch bleed away (remotely, with WiFi!) over the next few weeks.

These are dark days.

And even darker for those that could be harshly affected by the disease, whether financially or physically. Maybe that's you, bloggerfolk. Stay strong. And know that there are so many people out there who care about you. One of whom is me. So let me know if there's anything I can do.

This is the first pandemic I can remember living through, and I wish it wasn't happening now, or ever. And in this way I feel like Frodo. 

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

I'm almost near the end of reading The Fellowship of the Ring and I'm glad it's brought lines like this to the forefront of my mind. For these are dark days. Disappointing, frustrating, scary days. But they are still our days, and we get the gift of deciding how to use them. We can act from a place of hope. The good news of Christ means that what is broken can be mended. That joy will come from sadness. That resurrection is real, and is coming for us. From broken earth springs new life. From these broken plans will come God's promise. I'll admit that that's even hard for me to see. Those who know me know that I am a planner, but perhaps I need moments like these to break me out of my own ambition and put me in a spot where I need to ... trust. Not comfortable. Not easy. Yet the perfect soil to cultivate a humble heart.

So know the facts, and be grateful, bloggerfolk. Mourn, and be joyful. The storm will pass. And I will keep blogging right through it (Lord willing.)

blessings to u

-dh

spring

THE MARCH 4 ROUNDUP: yee haw

Hey bloggerfolk! 

Been a while since I visited the Roost. Looks like I'm going to average about a post a month this year, and that's ok. As long as that pace is due a good kind of busy-ness rather than just slothfulness. And boy have I been busy! But since the functional animation lab on campus is currently an asbestos danger zone (one of the not-fun parts of sharing space in a 50+ year-old science building) and the cintiqs in the other lab (yes, we now have two labs!) are more buggy than an ant farm, it seems as good a time as any to stay in my room and write. Since last post was a nice venture into the philosophical, this one will probably be more life update-y and art share-y! 

First - I may have mentioned before that I'm directing a short film now?! So exciting. It's based on my storyboarding final from last semester which you can check over on that Storyboard Portfolio tab. Since my end goal dream job would be showrunning for TV, it's been a great experience to lead a team and make some cartoons. While learning to cope with a TV-length production schedule! And by that I mean that it is SHORT. We're going from storyboards to final film in about 2.5 months, to meet our nearly divine mandate to finish it for the 5 Minute Film Festival here on campus. It's been great to see the team really rally and make some amazing stuff: Aedan Peterson crushed it on the background art, and Jon/Joel/Hayley E./Lorna have been making some incredible animation. It's the first time I've seen my boards transformed into something bigger and better and it's amazing to watch! It's also incredibly humbling because I feel like most of my non-directorial contributions aren't measuring up at the moment. I've been trying to animate this one shot for the past couple weeks and am feeling super rusty :( I think this whole thing is also causing me a lot of background anxiety?? I just get this gross feeling in my stomach sometimes and I don't really know why. But I think it's because I want to make this film really good and really on time and those things don't always go hand in hand. But we will do it! And I will recover my animation mojo! And you will see this film on March 26th! I'll probably tease it on Instagram pretty soon but since you guys read the blog you're getting this info first!

Overall the semester has been really frontloaded and March is the time when things will finally start to wrap up. I already wrapped on a month long comic coloring gig (I'm doing freelance now! Yay :D) I'm nearing the end of internship applications - really hoping/praying for the best this summer. And as I mentioned earlier the short film will be complete by the end of the month too. I'm looking forward to having time for my other classes again and actually being able to do some meaningful work on my senior film independent study. I've discovered that one man cannot serve two short film masters and so my senior film has been unfortunately pushed to the backburner... 

Over the past few months I've gone into survival/going through the motions zone to get stuff done and it's not been particularly fun. I'm not opposed to a solid routine, but it's hard to make those special college memories when your weekends are filled with internship apps and long hours in the lab... But perhaps this is a season of preparation so that I can have some really cool experiences this April and beyond. Cause I can't get an internship without applying. And I can't get a short film without months of work :P And perhaps this glum pre-spring time is the perfect opportunity to get that kinda stuff knocked out. And the end of the tunnel will be here soon enough. 

Some good news - I'll doing some official stuff for Zeldathon! (That's a dream list item, in case you forgot). They put out a call for artists a few weeks ago and they like my stuff, so I'll be making a few pieces for them that you can win if you donate! I'm very excited. 

I'm now an official "Featherhead" which means I'm officially approved to talk to anyone and everyone about the upcoming re-release of The Wingfeather Saga. The new edition of the book series features the work of two of my favorite illustrators (Joe Sutphin and Nicholas Kole) supporting the epic tale told by Andrew Peterson. My feathers were initially a little ruffled by having a childhood favorite get such a significant update (I'm rather nostalgic for the old look) but after seeing the new books in person I think it's for the best! So if you like fantasy, fangs, and getting emotionally invested in the lives of characters then check it out! It's a great read aloud book if you've got a family or another group of people that you read to. And it's a great brothers story! Which means I CRY.

Also this past weekend was our big guest speaker weekend for the semester, featuring animator/showrunner Bruce W. Smith! His Friday night talk was very lively and full of great stories - he kept having to censor them due to there being "kids in the audience" which made the stories even more mysterious since we couldn't have all the details... As animation director on Space Jam he had a lot of fascinating stories about the basketball players who were on set and his infamous match with Michael Jordan. 

bruce smith

A couple days before Bruce's visit, Professor Tom had offered us the chance to get our drawings critiqued by Bruce if we did a character design based on a certain prompt. The prompt was something about a 35-year-old bartender who was losing his edge but still thought he's "got it." This was a kinda awkward prompt since I don't think 35 is really that old and also because Lipscomb students shouldn't be very familiar with bartenders (no student is supposed to drink here. No matter your age.) But I still wanted to get my drawing in front of Bruce. So I gave it a shot! ;) I tried to do a human at first but was getting frustrated with the design/pose. And I wasn't having fun. So I hopped back into my fun comfort zone and drew an animal character! I was looking a lot a James Wood's stuff here, and his spontaneous sense of linework - something I've been trying to work on since my final lines often look very dead. 

At the Saturday workshop this drawing was on screen for approximately 20 seconds. :( Most of the drawings did not get a critique (not really sure why). And mine was one of those drawings. BUT when it was flashed on screen the crowd reaction was great! And Bruce commented that he liked it. So critique accomplished? Regardless, it's given me more courage to do these kind of quick designs for the Character Design Challenge (CDC) and really get some non-fanart work out into the world. On Sunday night I was even able to get jammin' and finish a piece for Februrary's CDC which I'm really proud of! But I'm not going to post it here yet - sorry for the tease :P

Nashville actually just got hit by a major tornado two nights ago and it feels weird posting my stock of light-hearted fun-times art when social media is appropriately mourning the destruction that's happened across our fair city. I'm ok, Lipscomb's fine, and today was a beautiful spring day. But there's a lot of photos on the news that are quite sobering - including the damage to a favorite hangout spot, the Soda Parlor. And one of our dear animation professors, Eric Stars, was near the worst of the storm and while his house is ok, he's still having to sort through a lot of other details. It's just not something you ever expect to happen, even though we usually have at least one tornado warning each spring. 

So stay safe, bloggerfolk! And stay inspired! I'll be back soon with that Character Design Challenge post I promised, but until then I wish you strength for your daily struggles and victories. 

-dh



Music Rec: 
Louie Zong just released his jazz album which I've been looking forward to for a long time. I don't know enough about music to really say what it's about but... it's got all the good and complex jazz stuff with the unique Louie instrumentation that updates it for a geek like me. Hope that makes sense :P