And now Spring 2010 is upon us

Welcome Back!

The new semester has finally started here at California State University Long Beach, after some hiccups with a school shutdown due to flooding and a severe weather alert (tornado, anyone?).   Despite all of that crap, the crew here is back on their feet.

Some things I’d like to address:

First of all, the November project that never got finished.  While I wouldn’t call it a complete failure, it was a bit of a poorly planned venture, and our first attempt at that.  Now that we’re a little wiser, we now know that we should completely nullify any significant project of any kind in the last two months, because frankly, we’ll be too damn busy surviving over anything else.  (That being said, we did get a pretty awesome idea going.  I mean, it has a lot of potential – and I think waaaay too much stuff for it to cram into one month.)

Secondly, I’m still all for the themes of the months.  I’d really like to revisit that idea, because I think that we can get some good work in with a theme guiding our work.  What do you guys think?

Another thing I’d like to mention: I’m a big fan of artist’s books.  Especially when they do exercises, and focus on certain techniques and whatnot.  Let’s do the same!

And, last but not least, let’s regroup and enjoy ourselves!  Here’s to a new semester and a new year guys!

- Heliodus

ahhhh Blanca Design Updates

Belated Zoo Stuff

OOOOOOkay let’s see if I’m capable of doing this right…

In anticipation of seeing Murphyslaw’s awesome animal book I’ve heard about as well as Monday’s trip to the San Diego Zoo (assuming the weather cooperates), I looked through my sketchbook of the drawings I did on last Monday’s trip to the Wild Animal Park, and subsequently realized I did very little drawing that day.  Boooo.

Noteworthy Discovery: David Colman’s Blog

So, I just came back from hanging out with Murphyslaw, and she showed me her amazing and drool worthy book, The Art of Animal Character Design. It was chock full of amazing sketches and tips on how to draw animals and give them personality.

And it was practically a semester’s worth of Character Design (and then some) in one book.  So, I decided to look him up online, and Lo and Behold, the man has a blog: http://davidcolman.blogspot.com/

I think this is definitely worth following.  Please check it out – it’s GOLDEN.

Wild Animal Park: Heliodus’ Tale

So, I’ve been putting this off all day, but I suppose I should let it out now.

Yesterday (now, technically, two days ago), Snowflakeinca, Murphyslaw, and I (Heliodus) went to the Wild Animal Park to have a group sketching event.  And it was certainly fun and full of chaos.

For one thing, we almost drove straight to San Diego, because I wasn’t paying attention to the Navigator, so we had to make a round-about trip to the zoo.

Secondly, the weather has been pretty awkward lately, which resulted in awkward animal behavior.  Case in point – ALL the birds of the park were confused because of the crazy weather, so they thought it was mating season.  We saw a lot more than we bargained for!  (It was like the Discovery Channel the whole day.)

Thirdly, we had a good time sketching, and to commemorate the trip, we bought an Emu egg from the Farmer’s stand across the street (the irony hit us, hahah).

2010

My dear friends, this marks a great new year.

Our project is still a newborn, only two months old, yet I’m enthusiastic about all the possibilities .

I know the updates have been few and far in between, but once we all sort out our lives again, we can re-dedicate our time back to this project, and hopefully have some closure.

My hope is to have the Swampland Kingdom concepts done by the end of January, and move onto a new background design.  I’ll be doing plenty of research, that’s for sure.

As for all my other project-mates, I hope you guys are doing well!

Here’s to a new year!  2010, the year of the TIGER

- Heliodus

Christmas!

Is tomorrow!

And my dear friends, we hardly had any time to be settled about our project, hahah.  We are now in the throes of Christmas break – however, snowflakeinca and I have finally decided that we would have a deadline extension until January.  It was almost not feasible to do any sort of project work whatsoever with the threat of finals upon us.

So, I think it has been duly noted that December is officially an “off” month.  Same rule will most likely apply to May of next year-  there’s just way too much crap going on for us to deal with any extra curricular stuff.

That being said, we are still kindling the project alive!  I hope you do the same.

Merry Christmas to all!  And a lovely, happy new year!

- Heliodus

Good Luck on Finals Everyone!

May our fountain of coffee be forever flowing.

Or whatever.

Week 2 of December

Well!  December is finally here.

We have extended the deadline for the final sketches AND a finalized drawing, but snowflakeinca and I are still unsure when we can meet up to determine this.  For the others who are part of the project, please discuss with your partners an appropriate time to meet up for your final critique and collaboration.

Also, I have a request  :).  It would be really great if you guys can post up some of your sketches and ideas, so that we can share the love and creative energy we’ve got going on around here.  I’ve had an amazing time working with you all, and I really hope that we can continue this well into the future.

I understand that hell week is here, so if things are on a complete halt, it’s perfectly fine.  School is a top priority after all.  However, don’t drop the project straight away!  Keep it as a stress reliever.

I’ll update you guys when we decide on a final date.

Until then,

From a sleepy hare,

Heliodus

Some Drawing Ideas

Oh Hello everybody!

Before completely diving into studying for/finishing finals, I wanted to post SOMETHING on here.  So here goes!

This is the evolution of the Swamp Kingdom setting.  I know it got kinda frilly and pretty towards the end, but that was a bit of a tangent practicing atmosphere in Photoshop.  The next drawings will revert back to the darker, moodier swamp with tree houses and everything, I hope.

This is a larger version of the recent sketch.

Hope you enjoy it!