spider rig

This is my latest rigging project. It still needs some tweaking but I thought I'd put up the little animation test I did. I tried a new way of skinning this rig and a different way of painting weights by selecting vertices and flooding them to individual joints, which actually was more successful than my last project. 

Ideally, I'd also like to still tweak some of the weight painting on the verts, put in some deformations, add more flexibility in the leg joints, more controls for the body (which you can't see in this video) and texture the little critter... In progress! 

hands

So I've been drawing hands lately. Not sure why... but thought I'd share since I haven't posted in a while

escape plan

Or maybe lack of a plan... This is my final for my screenprinting class. I was thinking about the idea of "climbing the ladder" in terms of building a career and making money, and really, how going to art school is kind of climbing down that ladder for me. More like a fire escape than a ladder. Not to say that engineering is like a burning building that I need to flee, but... well, maybe it is. Or maybe art school is just a better fit? 

OR I'm going to end up penniless and homeless. Who knows?!? It's just all so exciting thinking about all of my bleak prospects!

When I tried to explain the idea behind this print in our critique, I was met with silence. Which made me feel like a gigantic Dumas. At the end of class, though, another girl who works for CalFire came up to me and said that when I was talking about the ladders and art and money, she felt the exact same way. So, either the silence was just weird art kids not understanding what I meant because they haven't yet experienced the world of personal finances, or the CalFire girl and I are both a couple of Dumases.

Senior Project

Here's my senior project. Another not quite finished piece, but I'm happy with the amount of work I did on it. I guess. Ha.

The title literally translates to "life" which sounds really pretentious, but I meant it more in the way I heard a lot of Russians say it. When something sad or really unlucky happened, they would let out a world weary sigh, shrug and say "Zhizn" as if resigned to living in an unfair world.

I know. It's still pretentious. But I'm in art school so bear with me.
...or I guess I'm not anymore!
I feel so lucky to have gone to school with so many talented and generous teachers and other students! I can't wait to see what all the CCA kids end up creating. And I'm so grateful for my family, friends and coworkers who have been there to support me in my crazy decision to go back to school.
I love you guys!

let me catch my breath

During my last two weeks of school, I finally found a chance to shoot my final piece with Charlie from last semester. I'm not totally happy with it. It could still use some more in-betweens and some of his faces aren't quite right, but it's pretty good for me!

Rigging

So I'd consider this my first real rigging project. The model of the "skywhale" was created by my classmate, Kevin Baker, who has some serious modeling skills. But the motion system and controls were created by me. Which means, I totally made that thing fly. 

I know it doesn't seem very artistic to just make joint chains and controls and put them in hierarchies, but it's strangely addicting... especially once you see them moving. I love it.

my latest obsession

So I don't know if it's just because it's another nice distraction from working on my senior project, or if it's because it's something I can do when my hand (and/or brain) hurts from too much CG rigging, but I have completely fallen in love with screenprinting. The whole process is mesmerizing. Similar to rigging, I can be in the print studio for hours at a time working on a print and not realize how much time has gone by until my back starts hurting or my stomach tells me I better find some sustenance soon or perish.

On the last project, my teacher showed me how to print a gradient (or degrade, as they called it at her school in Canada). Here are some of my results.

The first is a print from a photograph of my great grandpa Lee on his farm. I scanned it into Photoshop and applied a halftone filter to it so I could create a stencil from it. The quote is from an e.e. cummings poem called dive for dreams.

Here's an example of another gradient before I applied the second layer.

And here's the rest of the print. It's a photo of Lee's brother, my great great uncle Burt after he crashed his car.

And here's the last print I just finished which used the most layers so far. Four different straight colors and a two color gradient. It was a challenge to get all five layers registered, but I did pretty well. Not perfect. Meh.