Character Design for "Tasty Spacemen"

I'm working on a new project with the current working title of "Tasty Spacemen". Here are some of the initial character design ideas, focusing on silhouette.

"Tasty Spacemen" silhouette sketches

Businessmen

Some character concepts for a short flash animation needing a "successful businessman" main character and his boss. They were all just pencil sketches initially, I thought I would have some fun cleaning them up and showing a little variety of simple styles.

Businessman & Boss character concepts

Art Tests

The last month has been pretty hectic with moving house and exciting job opportunities. A couple of which jobs wanted me to complete and art test to show my skill in those particular areas.

The first company was Spongecell and they wanted me to create a web advert for the Honda Santa Fe.

The other art test was for a Jerrard Wayne Creative and the task was to design some marketign material for an imaginary advertising  agency. I realise it looks more like music industry branding than advertising, but I like the way it turned out,

Life Drawing

I have missed life drawing since uni. I have been searching for a group to join and found a lovely bunch of people in Wimbledon. Although I have found some good online life drawing resources (my favourite being lovecastle), it was great to do some real life drawing and meet new people. 

life drawing 22md Jan 2013

Flash to Premier to Vimeo Export Settings

This is mainly so that I don't forget how to export my Flash animations properly, but hopefully this will save someone else some time too.

1. Create your Flash project at 640*480px and 24fps.

2. File => Export => Movie.

3. Save type as Quicktime (*.mov)

4. Go to "Quicktime Settings..."

5. I unchecked "Sound" as, although there is sound in the Flash project, it was only used to check timing and it is easier to manipulate sound later in Premier. Then go to "Settings..."

6. Set the frame rate to "24" fps, key frames to "All", Depth to "Millions of Colours+"and Quality to "Best".

7. Set up the Premier project at "DV - 24p Standard 48kHz". Import the flash .mov and sound (mp3 seemed to be fine for me).

8. When you are ready to export the video: "File => Export => Media ". Set the format to "H.264" and preset to "NTSC DV". I found it useful to modify the output name so that it describes the export settings. It made it a lot easier to work out which settings produce the best quality and file sizes. 

9. The export for the video will now look ok, but will have thin black bars on each side, to get rid of this, but also remove a thin slice from the top and bottom of the frame, set the source scaling to "Scale to Fill".

10. Then upload your video, I was using Vimeo, but I am sure the quality and file size will be fine for Youtube.

Lonely Drunk Lady

I have been getting in some more practice drawing females thought I would add some colour to my favorite sketch of the last couple of days. Her friends have abandoned her at a party so she is getting drunk in the corner with a comfortable wine.

lonely drunk model

Adventure Time Christmas Card

I have always loved handmade cards, partially because I don't like the idea of spending money on uninteresting designs which are often never quite 'right' for the person or occasion. But mainly, I really appreciate the time spent crafting something for someone else to enjoy. I wish I had the time and energy to make personalised cards for everyone I cared for. I make the most effort for my Goddaughter, especially as I get to spend a lot less time with her and her family than I would like to. 

Merry Christmas Time

She has great taste, and is currently is currently into Adventure Time. I hope she enjoys colouring it in.