It’s been a while since my last Bluey fanart, but you can only stay away so long, ya know? Since my last fanart, Bluey’s become a worldwide phenomenon and is quoted frequently by my cadre of friends, only two of whom are parents and none of whom are preschoolers. Finally, people don’t give me strange looks when I say “I’m Busting!” as part of casual conversation. One of my fanarts (ironically, my oldest one) was recently featured on Disney Junior’s Instagram, which may be the highest honor I’ve yet received as an artist, and a Bluey fan? Let me tell you, you are NEVER prepared for the moment when Disney Junior slides into your DMs. Thanks DJ!
I’m loathe to take time away from Curio but wanted to jump back into the Bluey scene and try some new things with the characters. As usual, I love drawing these guys with a weighted, plush feel. But I wanted to try something new with a tighter lineart pass plus a Anna-Scott-meets-The-Mitchells-vs-The-Machines color pass.
sketch
Doing some fanart ended up being a good change of pace from all the non-digital, non-character work I’ve been doing for Curio recently. And somehow it only took 2.5 hours? Which may be the fastest I’ve EVER drawn something on the iPad. I think it’s because I had years worth of fanart to reference, but also because Bandit reminds me a lot of my own dad, and I found myself thinking back on the days we shared at his work (which usually didn’t include a yoga ball. My desk at home though, did.) Good times.
Hope y’all are having a good weekend and a happy Eastertide!
-dh
PS: To my many friends who are also parents, for example, my own parents - that line above is more about my college friends and is a joke, not a reflection of our personal friend status, sorry for the confusion
What a crazy past two weeks these have been... Bearpuncher premiered, the Wingfeather Saga premiered and with that I feel like I've entered a new chapter of my life. It all makes me ready to sit down and write a cozy, short(?) recap of what all's been going on. It's something I hope to do more often in the post-Bearpuncher era... I've been particularly inspired by Coleen Baik's The Line Between newsletter, which captures moments across the creative process and publishes every two weeks. I don't want to promise that kind of consistency, but I do want to post more around here, since there's been plenty going on...
Bearpuncher Update
It's been two weeks since Bearpuncher was published to YouTube. In the event that I've done a severely poor job of advertising and you missed the announcement, you can watch it here! For free!
It's been thrilling and satisfying to see its audience evolve: from just me, viewer #1, as it premiered at 8AM, to friends and family throughout the opening weekend, and to the wider world over the following weeks. My main hope, as an unknown channel, was for it to surpass the 4K views of my previous film, Good Boy Richard. And based on Bearpuncher's initial performance, that goal seemed a bit ambitious. I was preparing to hustle and submit this film to dozens of festivals just so that it would be SEEN. By SOMEBODY.
But as of today, it's sitting at 83K views, which is just bonkers. My reaction to that news is all over the place - pride in the film's success and the quality of the artifact, confusion when I see other videos that are much more deserving of such numbers, fear that my next video may not do as well as this one, and gratitude toward the people who made this moment possible. It's that final mood that I've tried to settle into. I do genuinely believe that Bearpuncher's success on the internet is due to real people (most of whom read this blog) who took the time to recommend Bearpuncher, and get the ball rolling. People across the country and the world have seen it not because of me, but because of our community. Thank you so much.
I've prayed for months that God will prosper this film, and it's exciting to see that prayer answered. Perhaps the coolest thing so far has been a highlight on the Animation Obsessive newsletter, where it was mentioned in the same section as Worthikids and Cartoon Saloon... WOW. I just don't think any accolade could be better than that.
One other thing I'm learning - high viewership does NOT correlate with merch sales... in fact, I haven't sold ANY merch since opening weekend! I'm saying this not to guilt you into buying merch but as a word of warning to any other indie creator who hopes to fund their film that way... it's not easy!
But for all the talk of numbers and views and crap like that, I think my favorite part of the whole release experience was our little premiere party, where the local crew and friends got together to watch it on a big screen (which was SO COOL!) It was a fitting capstone to the whole experience, and a reminder that films are made and watched by real people - and that's who I want to make movies for.
Circling back to the topic of Cartoon Saloon, my dad and I got to watch their newest movie together (as part of our unofficial watchthrough of their filmography) and it's a very sweet movie! It's as visually ambitious as ever, though thematically much simpler than their earlier work. It's very earnest and childlike and endearing, which was enough to get me sufficiently weepy at parts. And that kind of emotional investment means FANART! Which I now have time for! So weird!
Still on the fence about whether the magic effect is Too Much but I need to move on and not dally so long on this particular piece...
So... What's Next?
I've been trying to pump the breaks, turn on the reverse thrusters, and activate several more mechanical metaphors as I adjust to making art and living life without the burden of animating a short film. Turns out, I really DO like drawing (surprise) and drawing for a film helps orient my process and create clear goals. Already I've been diving into the next project, which is shaping up to be an '80s inspired reimagining of a favorite character from my childhood. I want to do something MUCH shorter than Bearpuncher, something nostalgic, something with more traditional mediums, and something attached to an existing property. Less than a week after Bearpuncher released, I was already back at it again, doing a bunch of sketches and trying to absorb an entirely new style.
It's strange because I don't feel spent. I thought I would be EXHAUSTED after Bearpuncher, but instead I'm hungry to make a new, different thing. Yet it feels a little too soon to again submit my life to the tyranny of another creative project. I had barely begun to indulge my non-art hobbies before I found myself putting them back on the shelf... and I think my next project will be better served by an extended period of exploration, marination, and play. Maybe I shouldn't be so anxious to return my life to the same state it's been in for the past 14 months. I've mentioned before on this blog that I felt like working on Bearpuncher was holding me back from the travel and adventure I had hoped to have post-college. But despite that, I've come to like the comfort of routine and the satisfaction of measurable progress. I still feel guilty to take a night off and watch Seinfeld. And I'm now scared to change things up, travel somewhere new, or advance my career. It's these concerns that I want to try to address in the (probably brief) time when I'm not going full-speed-ahead on another project.
I think it's fortunate that this season of rest is coinciding so nicely with the holidays, which is a natural time for reflection, and for watching a bunch of movies without feeling guilty... I'm already very much looking forward to Christmas and the new Ryan Reynolds musical looks intriguing!
There's still more to report - I've barely touched on the Wingfeather premiere or my recent fascination with Back to the Future (for some reason) but in the interest of time I will just say that the Wingfeather premiere was LEGIT - I was pretty starstruck seeing the cast and EPs on the red carpet, and Kevin McNally even walked past me! Twice! And my dad came all the way from North Carolina to see the show (and my first screen credit, technically) which meant a lot. Thanks dad :)
dad not pictured here, unfortunately.
friends are pictured here, fortunately
I hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving and are eagerly anticipating the arrival of Bluey in this year's parade!! I SURE AM!
Long time no blog! I can't say this year has been an especially prolific one for the Roost (although my main resolution for this year was to "be prolific," I've applied that more to my drawing than my writing.) But to fill the gap between this and the next post, I am happy to share that I did a recent interview for the Nashville Voyager which you can read here! - https://nashvillevoyager.com/interview/check-out-daniel-haycoxs-story/
It's a fun little summary of my journey in animation (familiar territory for this blog) but now that I'm almost a year out of college (wowie) I'm able to look back with some perspective on my time there and how it shaped me as an artist. The main thing I wanted to convey is that as long as you have a genuine love for the product AND the process I think it's really just a matter of time spent practicing before you gain proficiency, and maybe even a career making what you love. Talking about that did make me a little homesick for the days when my primary work was drawing - I now have to cram art in around the edges between working my job and sleeping. But I'm still trying to make it work, building momentum back on Bearpuncher (only 12 shots left to animate!) and even doing some fanart yesterday!
say cheese, 4townies!
I've been looking forward to Pixar's new movie, Turning Red, for a while - can't say I was initially wowed by the first announcement, but once I saw more trailers and learned that Domee Shi was directing I was totally on board. It also just happened to coincide VERY NICELY with a 2000s nostalgia phase I've been experiencing for the past couple months. Not that I actually remember a lot of the 2000s, but I do enjoy the music of the time and an era where the internet wasn't so invasive... In the movie the kids were taking pictures with the panda and I thought "how is that not going to end up on social media???" Then I realized they didn't HAVE social media. What a concept.
Anyways, I think the movie nailed a lot of very specific niche interests of mine - animal movies, 2000s jams, hip-hop/asian fusion music, cartoony expressions in feature films, movies set in uncommon locales - and so I was never not gonna like it. And I haven't seen a movie really tackle puberty the way they did (usually movies stick to portraying "coming of age" as only a mental and emotional transition, something much more marketable...) But I'm glad they risked it here, as it reminded me of how confusing and even panic-inducing that age was for me, which I've never seen represented in a movie before.
Turning Red is one of my first reviews on my new Letterboxd account - anybody else using that site? I was a begrudging convert at first, but my reviews have steadily been getting longer and longer... If you read this blog you probably can guess I like sharing my opinions, so it's no surprise that I have become an avid user of a site that lets you pretend to be a movie critic. Hah!
Anyways, I hope all y'all are well. We got a freak snow here in Nashville a couple days ago but the cherry blossoms have been blooming nonetheless. I'm looking forward to watching some Ghibli movies and dreaming about summer! (Trying not to do that too much until Lent is over, but still...)
You guys have any spring plans? Or thoughts on Turning Red? I've found people have a wide range of opinions on that movie so I'd be interested to hear 'em.
I'm back! And the semester is over! Thank goodness!
Or in particular, Philosophy of Religion is over! The day I turned in my final paper was one of much rejoicing, ice cream, and dancing. I also got very close to burning all my class handouts in our dorm's firepit. Then I realized that a student burning academic papers in broad daylight would probably not be a great look for the university. So I decided to refrain from that. Anyways, in an act of God's grace I somehow got a 93 on the paper, and my thoughts were able to turn toward more pleasant activities. Like gift exchanges! And smoking pipes with friends! And drawing tigers at the zoo!
When drawing at the zoo it often comes down to finding the right combination of materials that feel comfortable that day. I usually juggle pencils and pens and the Pad until something feels right, and then the drawings typically end up better. Fortunately, I can usually figure that out by the time I get to the tiger exhibit, and extra fortunately the tiger was right next to the glass both times I visited! I don't know exactly what inspired it, but this time I felt drawn to thick ink lines with a limited selection of colors underneath. I would begin by scratching the surface lightly with the brush for the undersketch, then build up to thicker lines as more of the drawing was completed. Even though this was all done with an ink brush (Jingsketch's Thin Ink), I made full use of the eraser (a big reason why I enjoy digital "inks" more than traditional ones). Anyways, these were fun to do and it was fun to be so close to a big cat while drawing.
But enough about tertiary stuff. You've read the title, and you've put up with my excessively long introduction for too long. It's time for Frog Lady.
I actually made this piece a few weeks back but didn't post it because Instragram crippled their hashtag system for a frustratingly long time following the election. But now that hashtags are back to normal (as probably the only thing that will be "back to normal" during 2020) I've started to resume my usual posting schedule to get some art back out there! This happened to coincide nicely with the season finale of The Mandalorian, and so I wrote up my best attempt at a humorous caption and sent my version of the froggy lady out into the world. And as it turns out, there are a lot of frog lady fans out there! I had assumed this was a pretty niche favorite character to have (and she is my favorite Star Wars character, honestly) but I guess her charming practical effects, adorable little gestures, and irrepressible commitment to her family have universal appeal. So far, she is my most popular post and the closest I've come to "trending" or "viral." She reached the #2 spot on #starwars (screenshotted that for the scrapbook) and received sustained attention for about 2 whole days (much longer than the typical 8 hour life cycle for an Insta post). And the greatest honor was that Frog Lady herself (well, the actress who played her) saw the post and had kind things to say about it!
With a post doing this well, it gave me a lot to think about. When you post art online, this is the sort of thing you always hope will happen. I spend hours, often days on pieces that end up feeling like they had very little impact at all, and are barely seen even by my core audience. I use Instagram too, and I know how fast people zoom by incredible pieces of art because I do it myself, often. So when a post makes a slightly larger splash than usual, it can be really exciting. Every new follower is a jolt of dopamine. You watch the numbers tick up and hope the ball keeps rolling. I didn't even touch the post for a couple days for fear of messing up the algorithm.
Is this what being a "big artist" feels like?
Cause I'm not so sure I like it. I treat Instagram pretty personally, and I care about the people who follow me. That means I try to respond to every comment I can think of an interesting reply to. When I get new followers, I want to welcome them and give them a chance to get to know me and my art. This takes time, usually a manageable amount, but when a post reaches this level it can take more time than I really want to give. If my posts were to do this well consistently, then I fear I would be forced to decide to engage less overall or spend even more time doing things that are not-art. When it came to followers, I've only been thinking about quantity. But now I'm starting to see the value of quality.
I appreciate that so many of my followers are people who care. People who comment on nearly every one of my posts. People who put up with weeks of inactivity on my part. I see you guys, and I'm thankful for you. It seems much more optimal to have a community like this, who is real and engaged and understanding, than a huge community that is largely apathetic towards what I seek to make. This post also comes in the wake of Instagram making some greedy algorithmic decisions, which have been weighing on me as Instagram is my main way of interacting with my online community. It seems more challenging than ever to be seen by potential new followers or even the ones you already have. And in addition to pleasing the masses, you must also please the developers/algorithm who somehow manage to be even more fickle. The path they promise to social media popularity seems ever changing, and ultimately detrimental to both creators and consumers. It trends toward frequent, short-lived, and banal content that tends to waste people's time.
That is not what I want to make. I want to make things that are good and beautiful. And if it comes at the cost of a smaller community who also cares about what is good and beautiful, I think that is a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
Anyways that's what I felt after posting Frog Lady haha! Always in for a fun time at the Roost, aren't ya? This was a long one, and likely one of the final posts of the year unless I return for my customary Christmas Eve post. We aren't doing our usual double church service marathon with a Jason's Deli stop in the middle (it's gonna be a strange Eve for sure) so I'll probably have more time to write something up. I've also started working on my usual year-end post but since I can barely remember February, it may take a while to finish it. Hope to see you then! And on Instagram, despite it all.
Thanks for being a part of this community with me. :)
So I got the chance to see Wolfwalkers the other night, and (to quote the film) it was flippin' great. I've been looking forward to this film for a while now, worried that it wouldn't come to US theatres or that they wouldn't be open if it did. But the skies parted, our local art-house cinema reopened the very weekend Wolfwalkers debuted, and I got to see the film on the big screen in a theatre filled only by me and my friends. (Filled being a slight exaggeration - there were only about 6 of us, socially distanced across the entire room.) Yet it was SO FUN - the movie is so well crafted and a joy to watch. Rarely do you get to see a movie that truly develops animation as a medium but this is one of them. I loved how the animation and background style changes depending on whether we're in the town or the wild. I geeked out about how sometimes when a character moves quickly, their color takes a second to catch up with them. I was surprised by collage style compositions with grainy lines restricting the aspect ratios. Though predictable at points, this was honestly the most invested I've been in the story of a CS movie - it makes great use of abstract elements to build tension in a huge way. And it was so fun to once again get immersed in a magical world of Irish folklore courtesy of Cartoon Saloon. It's a movie that's captured my imagination in a big way, and I've been thinking about it this whole day (hence the fast turnaround on some fanart).
And as you might have guessed, it's got me even more pumped up about trying to get to Kilkenny. Despite Covid, despite the Irish Government's confusing visa laws, despite my own faltering lack of skill - I want to be where people are taking chances and telling great stories.
And where the woods are wild.
-dh
Related Music Recommendation: Been jamming to this song from the Wolfwalker's soundtrack - hoping an official version will come to Spotify soon so I don't have to keep listening to it on Youtube.
made some over the garden wall fanart since I felt bad about having no new art for this post
One of the curious things about this whole Covid-time is that more than ever I've been filled with a desire to go out. I guess that's only to be expected when one is forced to stay in (and given a substantial amount of free time that can be filled with dreaming and doing). This summer I biked around the rural streets that surround our family home, each day going a little further, or down a new side street - anything to experience something new. I saw the Southwest desert for the first time. I worked my first little freelance boarding job and got to be a part of a real production. I had time to read and create portfolio pieces. Combine all this with last year's Lightbox trip (which felt like a deep dive into the animation world), and this past 12 months has been full of little hints of what the next stage of my life might be like - my life after college. So therefore I was a little surprised when I returned to college, found myself placed back into a familiar routine, and especially obligated to protect the health of our community, which means a limiting of excursions and travel around town. This isn't to say I haven't had fun, or been totally dorm-bound (thank goodness). But I do feel the strong call of wanderlust, which as a patient homebody, is a somewhat new and thrilling experience. Read chapter 1 of The Wind in the Willows if you want to know what I mean.
I'm at a point in my life where I feel strangely unsettled, and I'm not sure that's such a bad thing. Sure, I don't love that most of my immediate and extended family has moved from the childhood homes where I spent many Thanksgivings and Christmases and Halloweens. And sometimes it gets a little lonely being single. But that also means that I feel more free to go somewhere new, to see more of the world, and to move away and really pursue this animation thing.
Cause that's the kicker - throughout college I've known that I'll likely have to move away from Nashville and the familiar Southeast US in order to make a serious go at animation. And usually that's felt like a bummer. I do really love Nashville, Lake Norman, the Smoky Mountains, and all the people and places that surround them. But now? I'm actually kind of excited! The fact that I've been developing specialized skills which are in demand in all kinds of different places sounds like a great excuse to experience a new corner of the world. And since LA feels about as foreign to me as another country, I haven't even limited myself to US opportunities (really hoping international travel will be a little easier by the time I'm graduated).
I'm sure a bunch of this is a classic case of "the grass is always greener on the other side," and perhaps when I'm actually confronted with the realities of a 9-to-5, making bosses happy, and finding an apartment I'll feel a little differently. I doubt I'll ever have another time where I get to live on a campus, where friends are so close at hand, and everything is within walking distance. Maybe you'll even see a Roost post in a year or so where I wax nostalgic about college. In fact, you probably will ;) I think even being able to think and write like this is a luxury due to having been in class for 9 weeks, and not fully realizing that we still could be sent home anytime. BUT right now I'm still more than a little romantic about having my own place, not having homework, and perhaps even walking beneath the parapets of Kilkenny Castle (if I get really lucky).
* * *
If The Wind in the Willows has taught me anything, it's that there's always a push and pull between adventuring and home-craft, longing and contentment, creating tales and retelling them by the fireside. These twin impulses are both beneficial, dependent on each other, and take their turns in the life of every person. Right now I want to go. Sometime later I might want to stay. Both are good. I'm also trying to be fully aware that God may call me to stay right here in the American Southeast, and I gotta be ok with that. Cause at the end of the day, it's not about me or how cool it would be to see a Brisbane sunset. It's really about His kingdom, and serving it through my sketches and failed attempts (and blog posts). Wherever that takes me.
May you continue to weather these times with grace, courage, and creativity.
Sooo.... I've been watching a LOT of Ducktales (2017) recently. Like a whole lot. For the first part of quarantine I was in a show-less void but after watching clips of Ducktales' recent spy and Daisy episodes I figured it was time to jump back in. Seems to be a common theme of this quarantine for me - catching up on good shows that for some reason I stopped watching. But now, I am back. Everything is ducks. Life IS like a hurricane, as the theme song had tried (in vain) to warn me. I'm now in the late second season (and part of the third, I've been hopping around :P) and man it just keeps getting so good! Perhaps it's just because the show provides a timely escape to a world where you have ample funding for globe-trotting adventures, or a world where one can go globe-trotting at all (and in close proximity to friends, no less!) Or from a more intellectual standpoint, I think the show and its creators have really figured out who the characters are and can now just have fun with more nuanced storylines. I dunno, this is just all one duck's man's opinion. But the most recent episode did have both emotional storytelling and incredible aerial robot battles and any show that can do both is worth my Disney+ subscription! All this Ducktales and derring-do has had the effect of strengthening even more my desire to really get out there and get a job in animation. Not that that hasn't been one of my goals for a while now, but watching good shows always gets me more excited about someday working on good shows - maybe contributing a prop design or two, or pitching some boards... And although Ducktales will likely be finished with production by the time I'm in "the industry" there's got to be similar stories just waiting to get made! And I want to be there makin' them. Ducktales' focus on adventure has also gotten me thinking about the next big upcoming adventure in my life which is the question of what's gonna happen after college. Not that I haven't been thinking about that for a while now, but now that I'm kinda a senior (I refuse to admit it until I actually step back on campus) the question grows ever more pressing in my mind. Of course, the answer will likely be something I did not plan and hardly could have expected - that's often how God works. Such is the life of an adventurer ;) -dh
Hi all - This post is preeeetty much just an excuse to post this gif full size since Instagram is not quite ready to handle my somewhat wide cinematic stylings at this current moment. So without further ado-
BAM. The Mandalorian. I've been watching the show off and on throughout the past few months and just finished it last night. Despite the baby yoda flood it induced I really like it (and therefore find it strange that I was able to wait so long between watching episodes... hmmmm...) It honestly feels like the most Star Wars-y Star Wars that's come out since Disney bought the franchise. Proof that you don't need 100,000 star destroyers that are also death stars to have compelling stakes and powerful heroes. I honestly really liked the relatively small scale of the project - the show kinda stuck to it's own corner and then made that corner super fun. And I really respect that. And the Mandalorian himself was so well handled - you could tell what he was feeling even though the helmet stayed on. (Ever notice how in Marvel movies they always have to take the helmets off? IN FIGHTS???) I was so afraid that the were gonna take Mando's off too early - glad they saved that reveal until the right moment. And with Taika Waititi working his signature charm on the final episodes it just really made me want to draw something. Which is always a little dangerous since that kind of inspiration typically fades when I actually have to draw the armor and perspective and character and what have you. So I took a page out of GGDG's work and just tried to simplify everything as much as possible like she does in this Samus/Metroid comic. I always feel a little bit more unsure when I do this - since there's less paint on the page it's harder to judge if it's actually good or not. But after some eye-blasting pinks that definitely weren't in the actual show I think I made something that channeled that inspiration without getting discouraged. So yeah! I also made this art of Molly from Animal Crossing recently - she moved into my village a few days ago and is Just the Cutest Little Duck Ever Wow.
I've been in a big simple+cute kick cause I really don't want to draw details right now :P And I've also been digesting 100% cute due to the amount of Animal Crossing I've been playing. (I'm building a little North Carolina barrier island town - come visit!) And while we're talking cute art here's a caricature of Sam Abner I did for our department's annual show (now online due to covid)
I didn't have a whole lot of time for caricatures this year since I was busy drawing caricatures for the Good Boy Richard credits (ironic) but I wanted to make sure I got one in for Sam since he's been a big part of my college experience and is also GRADUATING (wow). This year's senior class includes many of my closest friends at Lipscomb and I wish I could draw them all. But the truth is I did Sam's on the day of the show which was ALSO Good Boy Richard's premiere and I didn't have much time for anybody else. :( Both Sam and Molly were styled after ieafy's work - I love how slick and unapologetically digital her pieces are and it's a fun style to cycle back to now and again.
Now with summer so close on the horizon I'm excitedly looking forward to the potential it holds - most of my internship offers have been getting cancelled, but hey a blank canvas technically has the most potential (and also a paralyzing multitude of options but we'll ignore that part). I'm planning on doing some more personal work and taking some online art classes. Hopefully I'll follow through and actually do those - the doing is the hard part :P Maybe I'll even open up commissions! I've never officially opened for that kind of thing cause no one's asked and I've always had a general "contact+pay me and I'll draw for you" policy going so I never thought it was necessary.
I'm also excited to go to the movies - the experience of actually going to a theater with lots of strangers just feels so foreign right now and almost mystical. I am ready. And waiting. Hopefully not for too long, but who knows at this point. In the meantime I've also been wanting to make a bit more video content while my Adobe Subscription (Quarantine Edition) is still active. Maybe a process video of a past piece with commentary? What say you, bloggerfolk? Just let me know --
May you continue to weather these times with grace, courage, and creativity.
Hi everyone! I've just submitted my last final project for the term and I am now only three short semesters away from graduation (whaaaat?) For the past few days I've been settling into a consistent pattern of working and sleeping with brief breaks to eat and to Christmas party. So it's weird not to be in the art lab right now and not to have anything particular to do - I still have this nagging feeling that there's at least one more storyboard that needs to be drawn and timed out. Cause that has been my LIFE recently (well that and CG animation splining, but I really don't want to write about that. Don't ask.) Even with all the work I did before break, my final animatic for Storyboarding 2 was still quite the task to finish on time - but I'm happy with how it came out! It's a absurd murder mystery comedy, but I don't know when I'll be able share it here. There's a chance it could be made into a Actual Short Film and so I'm not sure if I want to spoil it before it's all colored and pretty. Anyways, the project is at a good stopping point and I figured now's as a good a time as ever to eat a TON of Takis and talk about the other work that I've been doing: If you're one of the people who follow me on Instagram (a hearty crew) and you also happen to be reading this now (a happy few) then you maaaay have realized that I've been posting exclusively fanart since Halloween. I'm a little conflicted about this - I'd rather it be original stuff, but fanart has been just so fun recently. Since I'm doing original storyboards during the day, it tends to be Pokemon and Disney Channel amphibians that flow most easily onto my iPad at night. And these pieces also tend to be in color. I haven't gotten a lot of chances to work in color or make much "finished" work this semester. I'm only taking two animation classes. CG Animation, not surprisingly, doesn't include a lot of drawing, and most of what I do for storyboarding is rather rough and black and white. And DANG IT, I MISS COLOR! AND SHADING!
musharna (pokemon)
I've also been doing some serious style studies/fusions of my favorite artists, and fanart allows me to focus on the technique/form rather than worrying about the subject/content. Studying Saira Vargas has been incredibly helpful to me, and I've been practicing her style in my fanart. I've been combining her half-lineless style and dynamism with some of my old favorites - an artsy gumbo, if you will:
yubaba (spirited away)
polly and hop pop (amphibia)
Both of these two pieces were made for contests, another reason why I've been doing so much fanart recently. I guess when it comes down to it, fanart is a happy meeting of fun and learning: fun, because you get to draw what you like and it's easy, and learning because you can absorb good design and experiment along the way. You also get to celebrate beautiful things and call attention to the good - which is kinda our job as artists and people :P But I still can't get past the feeling that drawing fanart is kinda like playing covers of songs - worthwhile and career building, but not something you want to be known for. I don't just want to be a fan, I want to be an artist too - to create rather than purely iterate. So although I am for sure gonna be drawing some fanart during this Christmas break, maybe it would be good to draw some new stuff too? I'd really like to do some designs of literary characters, maybe from A Christmas Carol or Lord of the Rings. I know that's halfway fanart, but I've got to have some kind of prompt to bounce off of! Or this month's Character Design Challenge sounds fun too: "Axolotl Adventurer." Who knows! In the meantime, I plan on catching up on everything I missed/forgot to do during finals: baking, reading books & blogs, movie watching, rest, general merriment, and drinking eggnog. My Christmas spirit has been high this year and I'm hoping it stays that way until at least the 25th. I also hope to be here on the Roost more often! The end of the year is approaching and I feel a sense of reflective retrospective-ness coming on... which means we're in for a post. The Roost is about to turn one year old and I'm excited to take stock of the ups and downs, and God's constant faithfulness throughout 2019. I was looking through my Instagram today and it's crazy to think where I was just last year! So see you soon! And an Merry Christmas to ya! -dh
I was very literal as a child. So, naturally, it always bothered me when people started singing during a musical, because people just don't do that in real life. Cause we all know that art is supposed to be just like real life. ;) I've since gotten over my childhood skepticism about musicals, but I wouldn't call myself a musical kind of guy - still haven't seen Wicked, or most of the big pop musicals of our era. I usually like what I do watch, but I just don't watch ... very many.
So it may come as no surprise that I've never attempted musical-based fanart. However, Lipscomb’s production of Bright Star was so good that it felt like a perfect place to start! I’m already a sucker for bluegrass music and sentimental 20th century Americana, but the Bright Star builds on that with powerful performances and intertwining love stories. I'd felt this fanart brewing during the couple days following my viewing of the show and finally allowed it to spill out over the past couple nights.
billy and alice
Perhaps due to the brew, perhaps due following a strict sense of style, or perhaps because I had real people to base the designs on - this was one of the smoothest and most successful pieces from start to finish. I wanted to follow fairly closely to the style of Saira Vargas, and borrowing someone else's sensibilities helped me to make choices more consistently and in a way, not all by myself. I find that these kind of style steals tend to end up better for me - some of my favorite pieces from this year so far (this one and the Key West chickens) were strict style imitations of other artists. I tend to feel a little guilty about this - like I always need to give credit to the other artist when someone likes my piece. Like I'm just a perpetual coattail-surfer. But maybe that's just how you learn to draw well. And it's fun to draw like your heroes. So I'm going to keep on doing that. This month has had its fair share of ups and downs so far - this looks to be my lowest finals workload ever, but motivation to do them has also been pretty low... And with Thanksgiving break so late this year I don't have that post-break panic setting in yet. Everything that's not fanart just seems kinda bleaaugh. It's kinda funny to talk about this Bright Star piece when it's most definitely not been the norm when it comes to my work's quality recently. Personal stuff and heartache have come up and made getting to the drawing table a lot more exhausting (though usually a lot more therapeutic once I'm there). I've been really thankful for little jobs that don't feel as overwhelming as finals but still useful in some way, like doing official Instagram sticker/gif designs for Lipscomb Admissions. Which are now live on Instagram! Which is super cool! So maybe use them sometime? ;) Here's a couple in a much more high-res version than you will find on the gram-
I drew these a couple weekends ago when I was feeling pretty bad, but something about bisons in varsity jackets just makes you feel better, you know? All in all, I think just need to get home for a week and re-center, and then come back and finish strong. I'm pretty excited about what I'm working on for finals, but it's much easier to be excited about an idea than actually putting that idea on paper with accurate perspective and anatomy... :P What say you, bloggerfolk? -dh PS - Daniel here, again. I've been editing this post for over a week, and since I initially wrote this post my feelings have changed (as they are wont to do). Starting last Sunday I decided that since I don't have very much work for finals, then it would be better to get that work done before break rather than wait 'til December. I've stuck to that plan and now I feel like I'm actually ahead on most of my projects. :) And I think getting back to work really helped with my overall emotional health - I feel more like myself, I'm getting more excited about my projects, and I'm finishing strong now. I wanted to be honest with the sad parts of this post, and leave them in there, but I also wanted to note that things haven't stayed that way! Thanks for stickin' around, bloggerfriends - I'll see you closer to Thanksgiving.
Hello Everyone, and Happy Halloween! A few days late. Already my mind and the mall are quickly shifting into Christmas Mode, but before the ghosts fully depart from our mortal plane I wanted to share a few pieces that I made (or at least started) in October. That one up top is some Halloween Day fanart of one of my favorite Pokemon, Chandelure. Love its color palette, its Fire/Ghost typing, and (laugh all you want) the fact that it's a gothic haunted CHANDELIER. This piece took a few extra days to complete cause I wanted to try some new things with the coloring. Just one more step in my perhaps eternal journey to capture the playful simplicity of Louie Zong's work. These next ones are some Harry Potter doodles I did while watching the movie with some RA friends. I usually don't draw during movies, but I've seen Sorcerer's Stone a fair amount and drawing also helps me to feel a little more comfortable in new situations and friendgroups - kinda like a security blanket made of scribbles. Also I haven't drawn a lot of HP and now felt like the right time to draw some cloaks and capes.
a dumble
a snep
I decided to keep just the initial sketch layer with some color underneath - I've found myself doing that an awful lot recently. One critique I've been commonly getting is that my clean-up line loses a lot of the life and spontaneity of the sketch and becomes too noodley. I can't see it as easily, but I agree. So the obvious solution is to ditch the clean-up line entirely, right? Right? But I also have a fair amount of construction lines in the initial sketch that shouldn't be in the final image. Oh bother.
. . .
I'm in a comfortable calm-between-two-storms moment in the semester. Last week was crazy with RA events and Halloween socializing. If I wasn't working an event, I was attending one. There were chili and ghost stories on Halloween, and an intense dodgeball tournament in a dorm courtyard the next night. But now Halloweek is over, I've been given a time of rest, and finals are just far enough away where I haven't started to worry about them yet. Which meant that this weekend I had only ~3 hours of homework to do. An absolute rarity. I didn't have a lot of motivation to draw, so I just did nothing. Which felt very wrong, yet also kinda needed? Everything I've read from animation pros in the industry talks about their insane work ethic and willingness to hone their craft in seemingly every possible moment. And so as an animation student with a lot to learn and a lot to prove, any quiet moment feels like a wasted one. Even when homework is minimal, there's still books I could be reading, sketches I could be completing, personal projects I could be progressing - you get the idea. So to do nothing, even for a weekend, feels a little like a hit to my future career. Like I'm being lazy. But that can't be the way people are supposed to live. I believe in the importance of stillness, solitude, of things other than animation. So where do those fit into the get-a-job-in-cartoons plan? It's a balance I've been trying to discover since I showed up here at Lipscomb.
But for better or for worse, I put art on the backburner this weekend. I spent hours talking with friends. I sat outside and looked at trees, and talked to the people who stopped by. I played Splatoon 2. Made muffins. Got kinda lost with friends in the woods after dark. Things happened, but they weren't art things. Career things. Or resume things.
Of course, if I did this every weekend it might create problems. But perhaps those hard-workin pros have weekends like this as well? And maybe it's not just a rat race scramble out to a Hollywood job, but a journey with time for rose-smelling and side-quests? Maybe it's more like Ecclesiastes suggests, where there's a time for everything? A time to draw, and a time to not draw.
