Griffin Sketch (super fast)

I posted a video of me sketching a design for one of the BRINE griffins. Here it is:

New Tutorial

I just posted a new basic cartooning tutorial on Youtube. Unfortunately I had to record it on the junker PC I own instead of the shiny Mac. Oh well.

Checklist of Things

Hey everyone,

It's funny how I seem to update this thing in spurts. I'll try not to leave everyone hanging for a month and then randomly update three times in one day. Although, sadly, that probably is more suiting. 

Anyways, I'm working on three projects (four if you count the continual BRINE animation). And I'm internally trying to prioritize them. One of them is a collaboration project I've shelved for probably close to a year that really is almost finished and just needs that last final push over the hill. It's another childrens book--this time about a whale, and it was written by my good friend Pat Buecheler.

So I think thats first on the list. Partly because it sort of has seniority over the others, but also because its nearly done anyways. Next up is a graphic novel that I've outlined and written partially. It has a lot of potential and could be something I could finally use as an excuse to get a table at the Pittsburgh comic con. It would be a metric assload of work, but I think is probably the project that deep down I most want to do. And then we have ANOTHER children's book that I wrote (or am in the process of writing anyhow) about evolution. It would be aimed at kids about eight or so--a bigger project by far than what I've done in this arena--but I wanted to put something together that would be the polar opposite of those awful tracts religious people hand out to try and decrease the overall level of human knowledge in the world. Call this the project I feel I have a moral obligation to create. 

Oh and I just remembered I also have plans to put a little web comic together. So that's another one on the pile. Plus whatever freelance I can snag. Well, as the Patrician says "Don't let me detain you."

Episode 3 of BRINE is "Featured Animation" on Mytoons!

Lookee here! Episode 3 was promoted last night to the front page "Featured" section of MyToons.com. 

And here's the post on MyToons:

Episode 3

BRINE 3: Enter the Reefen

BRINE 3 is finished--a little early I admit. Originally this was going to be an eight minute or so episode, but I broke this one in half so the first episode (3) is an introduction to some new characters and the other half is going to be a big huge monster battle.

You may be saying "early??!" That was another factor. I've spent about a year working on this between freelance jobs. At 3 and a half minutes I was happy enough with it that I put it up on Youtube. Enough delay right? Episodes 4 and 5 should not (hopefully) take nearly as long to complete. I've mastered a lot of aspects of putting these together that were new and odd to me a year ago.

Today's sketch is sort of a photoshop experiment. I was messing with pressure sensitivities and line weights. This is the result. It looks a little like one of the Gorillaz characters. This was not on purpose. I do like the color scheme of muted green and yellow though, and I might use something like that coming up. I even gave his skin a sort of sickly shade. 

Some New Sketches

Sketchy II

What's all this then? Looks a little like a future incarnation of a Spraktor Suit. 

Sketchy

New sketch for Episode 5 (6?). A race of creatures called the Wandigarians. Big plot pivot:) Anyway, enjoy! 

Hey kids. Nothing new to report today, just continuing to work on BRINE 3. I'll probably have some new sketches or backgrounds soon. Meanwhile, check out my friend Jer's site http://www.youmeandsteve.com . It's a webcomic loosely based on Jer's college experiences (which incidentally is how I met the guy). Good stuff!

I'm Back.

To anyone out there who may have been anxiously sitting by their computer since February: "I'm back." BRINE 3 is almost done. You might say, why, you've said similar noises before! Ah but did I have storyboards then!? NO. Read em and weep:

Sam in 3D

Some of the sequences in the next episode are going to be done in a cell shaded 3D look. Here's a look at the model for Sam, so far.

What Will the Aliens in BRINE look like?

So glad you asked!

BOOK. FOR. SALE!

It's here. It's what you've been waiting for! IT'S EEK's BOOK ABOUT MUDPUPPIES FOR THE CHILDRENS! Buy sevens of them!

CLICK HERE for to buy "The Ugly Muckling"

Major News

Ticket Out Studios is going live! TicketOutStudios.com launched yesterday morning, although it's still under construction, there is at least a mockup for the site. Our first ever purchasable products are available in the form of a Cafe Press page, and very soon we will have purchasable content up on Amazon as well. The cafe press shirts are currently sporting a sweet, sweet BRINE logo on 'em, and they are, as they say in the Good Book, "freakin' awesome. The book going up on Amazon can be previewed in rough form on the TO website. It's a children's book about mudpuppies.

-EEK

OutPost

Concept sketch for a friend's post-apocalyptic zombie story:

More Artwork

I'm trying to practice doing more environment designs. This began as just some doodling in Painter, but I kind of like the moodiness of it. The buildings ended up reminding me a bit of certain parts of the game Riven--which I used to love to play, so i guess its resurfacing here some how. Anyhow, it wasn't intentional.



Welcome to Turnip Town!

Corel Painter X

I've been a fan of Painter for awhile now. I bought Painter 8 for a freelance job almost five years ago (my first job actually...an ill fated affair to say the least), and I haven't felt the need to keep it particularly up to date. It served a lot of needs for drawing and painting digitally. But I just this evening broke down and upgraded to version ten, and I gotta say, most of the improvements are subtle, but noticeable. Brushes seem a bit more fluid. I'm impressed. Painter, to me, always seemed just a bit more direct than Photoshop, when it comes to using the program to draw. Of course, this is only natural. Photoshop wasn't really intended for painting. And this only solidifies my impression. So, here without any further adieu is some art by EEK using Painter X:

A Little More Soft Body Dynamics

So, the next episode of Brine, involves a fire breathing dragon, with wings. I'm working on creating a fluid dynamics animation for a different part, and that was the previous post, but this here is a test of linkages for the wings on our creature. Interesting, no?

Soft Body Dynamics

I am trying to learn how soft body dynamics work in 3D apps, and I'm using Blender to do it. Blender is a free, open source animation program that can be downloaded from the web, and there are a bunch of Wikibooks out there for tutorials. I'm hoping to incorporate some of this into the next episode of BRINE, and so far, I have a convincing liquid going, although its still not quite right viscosity-wise. (The following video, I should mention, took almost 2 days to render on a hyperthreading Pentium 4 proc. Next time, I'm using the damn G5).