Thursday, July 8, 2010

Life drawing the Michael Mattesi way

I've started delving into Michael Mattesi's book Force while taking another life drawing class and I'm already starting to progress in the ways I was hoping to. I can't wait to see where I am after the 10 weeks are over. I've loosened up significantly in my drawings (I heard many times that they were too tight or tense) and have started focusing more on the overall motion on the pose than the specifics of 'where this is in relation to this' details. I have to say that starting this book along with studying with Professor June Brigman has truly resparked my love of drawing. Here's what I feel are my best results from the first two drawing sessions:





The third I'm most happy with, although I'm very eager to learn and would love some advice and critique. It'd be amazing to get advice from Mattesi himself since I'm sure he'd have a lot to say.

Aside from the life drawing, I've been refining some work and getting it ready to put it together in a demo reel form. It'll be up here to see by the end of next week.
A group of animation students (including myself) along with Professor Tina O'Hailey The Great are going out to California for the week of SIGGRAPH and we're all very nervous and excited about getting our stuff ready to show off. I'm hoping to get some strong contacts and then start applying for internships! :)

I've also joined in on a few new projects.
The first is called Drag'n'fly. The story was created by storyboard artist John Hurst and was taken on by a SCAD Atlanta group project class that began bringing it to life last quarter. Now the team has developed into a summer crew of the remaining people around who want to help get it done!
The second is a stop motion collaboration that is still in the initial brainstorming stage. I won't be able to 100% jump on board until actual production starts though, because the meeting times overlap with my class with Professor June. However, I'm really excited to see what they come up with. :)
Finally, I've been working on storyboards for a project for the company SSMP Productions. That's about all I can tell you about that one though.

We'll see how they all go! I have high hopes for all of them!