Mean Ol' Gater

The little kid was inspired by Greg from Over the Garden Wall :) If you haven't watched the show, do so!

24hr Animated Film: Well Fed by Sentai Snails

Above is the Sentai Snail's entry for the 24 hour film competition! The Sentai Snails, aka: Eggy, Erika, Jon and Christian, and me!

The contest details:

Make a 30 second short film in 24 hours with a team of 5 people. We are not allowed help from teachers, or are able to use pre-existing characters. The entries will be themed so as to prevent anyone from prepping ahead of time. There were 52 groups participating from USA, Canada and Australia! There were prizes from Dreamworks, Disney, CTNX, and Wacom to name a few.

Unfortunately, we didn't place.. but no harm done! It was a really great learning experience for everyone involved. We had some great laughs (some freak-outs too) and are proud of our silly chickens! 

To be honest, our team was not a close knit bunch to begin with. It actually formed very randomly and I only just met two of our teammates just a couple of weeks before. To top that, we almost did not even get a chance to participate due to the limited number of Cintiqs in our studio! We managed to scrape in with some persistent emailing on my part.. 

On the day of the competition all the participating groups gathered in Nancy's classroom (our storyboard teacher who organized it all). We all waited to hear what the theme was to be via a live stream on YouTube. When we found out what it was, a lot of us were concerned:

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - George Orwell

Such a difficult theme! We thought it was going to be something like 'cooking' or 'embarrassing moments' or something broad like that.

Luckily we were able to come up with a story quite fast.  I actually thought of show-cats originally, but then decided chickens might be funnier and it seemed to spark something with the others and then everyone started throwing out jokes. Erika was storyboarding while we were throwing out ideas and we were actually laughing the whole time. By the time we were done, this is what we had:

 We made some minor adjustments and then started breaking it down into who would animate which scene.

Christian animated the grabbing and the roast scene:

Erika animated the swallow scene:

Eggy animated the pecking and the blowing up scene:

I animated the little jig that the fat chicken does and the weird ugly squashing scene lol:

Jon did all the backgrounds/layouts: (plus inside the barn)

Also a huge thanks to Erika who did a lot of fixing up, compositing and sound editing!

Trivia!

• Within the last hour of the competition, Christian's Cintiq crashed and messed up all the coloured frames for the pecking scene. Jon and I had to speed colour around 200 frames in half an hour so that we could upload it in time!

• The weird hen noise at the end where the egg comes out of the roast is actually Jon's voice.

• We made a bit of a screw up by not colouring outside of the frame, which is why the human hand is 'dismembered', which you can see in the first screen cap for the grabbing scene.

• The egg that the smaller chicken laid is not coloured in properly because Jon forgot that the background for the chickens was not going to be white!

• I came up with the title 'Well-Fed', but before that we were thinking of 'Sunny side up', 'Cracked', and 'Fluffy Chickens' to name a few.

• You can see the skinny chicken's bum-oley when he lays the egg out of shock:

Wrapping up

It was a great and fun experience all around. I feel privileged to have worked with such talented people and even though i was technically 'the group leader' it was really irrelevant to the process because everyone brought their A-game. I also learned how to compromise in spite of creative differences, and to stop and listen to what others had to say--even if you think your idea is the best.

 I still remember crying with laughter when we all watched the scene where the chicken squishes his head in and does the weird tongue flicking thing. I have to say i still laugh at the gravy farting noise and the egg at the end, but i'm probably biased :)

Here are the winners of the competition!

1st: Deflated

2nd: The Mane Suspect

3rd: Mathamanimals

4th: Dig In  Go Sheridan!!

5th: The Graduates

And the other teams from Sheridan:

Roll-her Coaster

A Dream Far Away

VIP

art update

Hi I'm alive im sorry.
Here is some stuff from last year and summer,,
I was busy with cons so i didn't draw a lot over the break except to do some commissions and print stuff. Sometimes i feel like long breaks help me come back fresher and looser~

School Dump

I almost got Oscar up in the display case but i formatted the page vertically instead of horizontally so it didnt fit ....... bragging-right dreams crushed lol

Ive never drawn a pig before ..

help

My painting mark is crappy right now so i did an extra painting... hopefully it will help :S

Eddie the Teddy

We got to create a character to rotate in character design class, i couldn't resist my inner derp urges so i made this guy.

Eddie watches you while you sleep.

First Year Sheridan Animation

So i just finished my first day at Sheridan in the Animation program, and although it was a bit of a rocky start as i expected, i'm excited regardless. First period was awkward because i got to class just on time but the whole lecture hall was filled so i sat alone at the back like a loser lol. Nobody really talked to each other until second period but I made a couple of friends in the end so it wasn't too bad! Painting class looks like it will be fun! I'm not that great with gouache but it looks like such a versatile medium that im excited to gain a better understanding of it! I want to make pretty gradients! lol

I really would like to get to know more people in the program, as i feel a bit like a fish out of water.. I hope people dont think im scary because most of the time i have a tired bitch face on lol damn 8am classessss @_@

Anyway, here are some of my pieces from my accepted portfolio. Sorry you dont get to see my room drawings, they were really bad and for some reason the pencil like.. rubbed off? idunno maybe it was too waxy or something..

Life Drawing

I got all 4s on the Life drawing section of my portfolio (including hands and animals) yaaaay supah proud

Objects

Storyboard

Character

sorry for the huge watermark lol

Yup thats it~ The rest is not that important or not that good lol. 

Feel free to ask me any questions, it took me three years so im pretty sure i can tell you how not to do a portfolio quite well lol

Amo Wig Review from CosQueen

If you havent heard of AMOYAMO before, definitely check them out. They're an adorable duo that started out as models for magazines such as KERA, a magazine featuring lots of spunky Harajuku fashions! Naturally, I'm a big fan :) 

They both have awesome style and they started making J-Pop music that is also worth a listen! I never was a huge fan of J-Pop but i actually like their stuff quite a bit. I've had their song 'A☆M☆O☆Y★A★M★O ' stuck in my head quite a few times lol

So I recently acquired some new wigs for my shop CosQueen, and I really wanted to take this Amo-inspired wig for a test run as soon as I saw it. I seriously considered dyeing my hair like Amo's before i saw this wig :P. I'm just so in love with the subtle tones of lavender/mauve/cocoa. It reminds me of sweet mulberry tea c:

I took it out of the bag and holy guacamole, was I impressed. This wig is so soft and thick, i could tell i wasnt going to be disappointed. I have to admit, when I first saw the stock picture I wondered if the colors would be true, and if they would suit my skintone...  usually muted colors look pretty bad on me. Thankfully all those worries were quickly banished when i tried it on!

Detail shots!
Circle lenses: EOS V-201 Pure Brown
Jacket: Rose Fan Fan
Shirt: MILK
Pin: Found on the subway in Tokyo!
Hair elastic: Gift

'Gen spotted a wild cupcake. mmmm.'
The mini bat clip and ice cream ring are both handmade, from my accessory brand 'Alice Dear'!

This wig is as thick as some of my Prisila wigs!! I was very impressed and I cannot say enough good things about this wig <3 

• The curls are my favorite type of curl; not too ringlet-y, not too wavy. 
• I tend to get annoyed with wigs that are longer than 70 cm, so this one was the perfect length for me at 60cm! 
• Its slightly longer than my natural hair and it detangles so easily, even just with my fingers. I have a really good wig brush as well, but i didnt have to use it at all.
• Its heat resistant, so I could curl the bangs to get that Amo style right, same with her little side tails xD
• And of course its adjustable, like most wigs are of this quality :)

Cliché cat face lol

Where can you buy one for yourself?

You can pre-order it from me in my Facebook shop CosQueen! I'm having a sale on wigs and EOS circle lenses right now! The pre-order ends on March 28th, but you can get all contact lenses for $15/pair and all wigs 10% off until March 22nd! 

The lenses I'm wearing are EOS V-201 'Pure Brown' Series! Also available in my shop ^^