my ode to kimbra

There aren't enough words in the English language to express how much I love this talented woman. Kimbra is such a delight to listen to and is probably the only other thing I play on a loop in my car besides the soundtrack for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Her performance of "Settle Down" for Spotify was what won me over. I know that I can die happy if she just see her in concert and witness her majestic, weird, hand move dancing in person. I've decided to do my midterm final on her song settle down-- particularly on the verse that talks about Angela Vickers who I suppose is some scantily clad woman about to encroach on Kimbra's man. Hahah I was really drawn to this verse because it speaks about jealousy which is something I have definitely identified with in the past. Whether it was a friend or boyfriend or whatever, jealousy just mauls you in the face when your hormones are going crazy as a teenager.

so anyhow~here's my storyboard for it-- I will have to change up the beginning because the words go too fast for any of it to be clearly legible.

I was really inspired by graphics from the 1950s and neon signs from that era as well. Hmm now that I look at it, it definitely needs some kind of build up to the color stage of the animation-I do like the ending (even if I used a lot of grays that are too cool and warm to match each other.) and it resonates more with the direction i want to take it so hopefully I can give the graphics a little more of a push this week. When I went to CTN last year-- Lorelay Bove suggested that tagging colors to certain characters can really help you with your color scheme- so I tagged the main character with green to represent envy, blue for the boyfriend/husband guy to represent someone who is innocent, impressionable, and red/pink for the Tramp because that is a color we usually identify as evil, romantic, and sexy. I'll post my animatic up once I re-board the first few parts of it!

Business 101

Hello!
yes updates are slowing down-- I've just been busy at school and actually having a social life this term!

I am currently taking this class called Business 101 and this is the promo assignment. Which is a continuation of the last assignment we had about what kind of business we wanted to run. So~ in some alternate universe or some time in the near future, I'm hoping to travel the world and compile my experiences in a bunch of journals that I will eventually publish.

I delved even further into the idea and thought that it would be cool to make traveling more fun for kids. Happy kids= good and memorable trips. So that the next road trip or visiting family on the other side of the country wouldn't be so boring. Since a lot of families are upgrading to the digital age, so are a lot of magazines and books. I thought making an animated kids travel magazine would be fun to do. It would be both informative but also interactive.

So since it's currently the month of October, I've decided to do a Halloween edition of this magazine and since families usually don't travel to other countries for the holidays (unless their entire family lives in another country) I've decided to do one about the Queen Mary which is more local and well known. Here's an image of what it would look like on the phone because the video couldn't really capture it as well.

I did not make the iphone template, I downloaded it from 365psd.com . I did make the images on the screens though. I created the digital magazine using MagPlus which is an add on to your InDesign. This thing is amazing! I've only been using it for two or three days but it is so much fun when you get the hang of it...I'm so hooked. Anyhow, on the left is just a sneak peak at what it would look like and on the right is what happens when you tap one of the words colored in yellow- a box pops up giving a short definition of the word. I tried to stick with an art deco feel for the scrolling and pop up assets because the Queen Mary interior was built with Art Deco sense of design.

I animated quite a few little tidbits of each illustration but found that it overloaded the program so I just stuck with one or two little animations per page. Here it is in action!
I would have just recorded the screen using some kind of app but apparently you have to jailbreak your iphone for that. So excuse this grainy video-I will find a way to make a better recording once I'm done with this :)

Thanks for reading guys! I'll post more progress later on.

Hello and goodbye!

Hi guys! I am so sorry I abandoned this blog for a while--I've been a little busy for the past two months arranging my trip to Japan and creating miniature felt desserts.

Unfortunately I either misplaced my travel diary or some master thief was able to take it out from under my nose in .01 seconds. *sigh* but I have started a new one and hopefully will get a chance to scan in a few pages from that before I leave.

I'm lifting off American soil next wednesday! D: Japan will be the farthest I have ever been from home. ;_; i feel like Sam from LOTR taking his first step outside of The Shire. I'm excited, anxious, and am gorging myself on as many american/mexican/ thai foods as I can. Oh taco bell, how can i live without you? (well actually i can...)

Although my family can't see me off to my flight, they wanted to do a going away party. Since they were kind enough to have the party, I thought I would make little fake postcards. I feel like I'm working on an assignment from school haha but without the pressure of 'who's best?' and 'will it sell?'
here's just some progress pics!

for some reason, I really thought it was more difficult to create the clean, crisp, exact shapes I wanted in photoshop--as opposed to illustrator. But I'm kind of really liking and getting more used to photoshop when I do these graphic kind of illustrations. Although the shapes are a little imprecise on PS, it gives the image more character. I still wanna add a little more texture and need to finish painting the statues.

btw! the statues that I'm seated next to are called jizo (jizo bosatsu) statues. They appear to be child-monk forms of Jizo Bodhisattva which I think is some kind of deity that exists in India, China, Korea, and Japan. He is the protector of women, children, and travelers. Statues of Jizo are placed near intersections so that the traveler could choose the correct path. 
--03/07/13 11:49 pm
done woot!

Alice's Tea Party

I've been pretty busy lately!! soo there's gonna be a couple more posts after this with all my wips. 

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11/03/12

cafe du monde menu

wip wip wip still need to 'render' the coffee cup, bowl, and tea kettle
for now...can't decide if green just makes me feel like vomiting/not eating food or an interesting color choice...I was trying to emulate Donald Brun's style. He was a Swiss illustrator who did a lot of ads for Swiss consumer products. I think this is going somewhere else haha-not in a good way though D:..just not satisfied...

-----
Rendered everything out...and so this is my first pass on the menu! :) now to figure out how to make my printer print the color I want D:<

June 26, 2012 5:08 p.m.

old digital illustration stuff

part of my final--wasn't quite happy with the finished product
but I want to continue working on it maybe for portfolio or to sell

lady of the swamp finished!

warning, large file! :D and please do not steal!
made by yours truly and finished at 6 this morning
kind of proud of it :) the only critique in class was to draw small waves in the water and eliminate those little circle brushes
other than that, i'm pretty satisfied with it....it makes me feel a little more confident about my art

breakfast world

-preview of my isometric cube project
took about eight hours
but i absolutely LOVE this project

singing in the rain

when the raindrops were bigger, it was like the little girl was being pelted with gigantic pieces of hail XD

i have been wanting it to rain for a while and it has!! :D
there's no particular story behind it =_= somehow i feel like my creativity just gave me the slip and ran away after first term 

ahhh *face to palm* i used to like making up stories and now my brain is just blank but maybe it's just that with illustrator you have to think more graphically

i'm doing my best to just focus focus focus
it's not a good thing but i'm kind of disconnecting myself from my 'social network'
sadly -- it does help a little i hate to admit
but right now i really need to pull up my grades (not that they're bad, just not good enough for me to get into the track that i want) i completely screwed myself over first and second term- and that's tuition money and time wasted
 i invested a lot of time doing things that didn't help me get my homework done =_=