Character Walk

I finished up another walk cycle this past weekend.  Surprisingly it's my first treadmill walk in 3-D.  I really enjoyed the new challenges it brought, and can't wait to get going on my next project in Maya.  Hope you like it!

Trucker Design

I originally designed this guy for a 1st year character design assignment.  I always liked the design and so a few nights ago, I wanted to see if I could still draw him out.  I was very happy doing this, because it was no struggle at all to re-create my character.  I would like to find my very original drawings of him, so I can compare the two and see how close I  got.  I was very happy to add some colour as well, as it's something I want to start adding to my characters.  Hope you Enjoy!

Cow Animation

I started this up as my second Toon Boom Animate project.  Since starting it however, I've been lucky enough to upgrade to Animate Pro 2, and now I'm looking forward to finishing it up in that program.  When I first started this piece, I didn't really have my design figured out, so there's a little bit of change that happens to the character as he comes down the hill.  I have figured out the design for the cow since then however, and I'm looking forward to cleaning it up and getting the background looking all pretty.  Hope you Enjoy!

Horse Paint

This painting was another fun one, but very challenging.  When the image came up of what I was going to work with, I was very excited.  A nice action shot, lots of intense lighting, and a great opportunity to push myself.  This one pushed back though.  I spent a lot more time on it then my tiger paint, but had just as much fun, and really tried to capture the lighting as close to the original as possible.  I learned a lot from this piece, and hope I can keep doing more of these.  Hope you Enjoy!

Tiger Paint

Between work and teaching I have been very busy in the past few months.  I'm still sketching away almost every night, and of course animating all day.  The one thing that I have really wanted to start doing is working with colour.  This is a quick paint in photoshop that I did in about 20 minutes.  It was so much fun to work with colour in a gestural free way.  I'm hoping to do more of these in the future so I can improve on both my drawing, but also my colour theory.  Hope you enjoy!

Hero Knight vs Orc

This is another image for my Hero Knight.  One day I'll finally put my story for him together, but until then, I'll just keep on drawing him and having fun.  When I looked at this drawing today though, I decided it was time I put colour to this image.  I'll plug away on it when I can, and hopefully I can have it done soon.  Until then, Enjoy the new image!

Boxer Design

When I was designing this happy looking boxer, I was very inspired by the movie Snatch.  Of course Brad Pitt's character broke these poor blokes jaws on a regular basis, but I really liked the look of the tough as nails neanderthal-esque British Boxers in the movie.  The random Emo guy who made it onto the page was inspired by the MC at a screening of Nocturna I saw at the Waterloo Animation festival.  What can I say, he was quite a character and I had to put him to paper.  Hope you enjoy!

Preliminary Character Designs

For whatever reason, I love the whole zombie survival genre.  I spent a little bit of time designing up one of my ideas for a graphic novel where a supernatural zombie outbreak takes over a small town.  Here are some of my preliminary designs for some of the characters I was thinking of creating for the project.  I may come back to it one day as I had a pretty solid idea as to how I wanted the story to play out, and seeing these images again just re-kindles all those ideas again.  Enjoy the drawings!

Spartan Robot

While I was in my 3rd year of animation I really wanted to model and rig up my own character to animate with.  Unfortunately due to time restraints and lack of time, I unfortunately wasn't able to. That being said, this is the robot that I wanted to try my hand at modelling and rigging.  The idea behind the character was that he was a Robot Spartan warrior battling very amped up versions of the Greek Monsters from legend.  When I was working on the monster we see in the background, I was thinking Minotaur.  After asking people what they thought, it doesn't really read, and I was in agreement with them.  I'll chalk this monster up to an original Cherkas creation and go with that.  Hope you enjoy!

Skeletor and Two Hot Girls in a Jeep

So one day when I pulled out my sketchbook I thought, I think I'll draw me a bad-ass looking Skeletor.  I had a lot of fun doing my own take of one of my favourite childhood villains.  I don't remember why I didn't finish the drawing, but when I came back to the page in my sketchbook I thought to myself, I think I'm going to draw two hot girls in a jeep.  I do remember why that one didn't get finished and that was because I didn't have any reference for the jeep and didn't want to draw a bad looking jeep for the ladies.  Hope you like the drawings!

Cowboy

Back when I was in my last year of school I came up with this design for an old disgruntled cowboy who has seen a few too many winters.  As I'm trying to get into digital painting a little bit more I thought it would be fun to give him a try.  Over all I kind of screwed up my layering, and worked mainly with the cowboy first, neglecting the background until later.  I wasn't too pleased with how the background and Cowboy came together.  To me it feels too disconnected.  Next time I'll think about doing the BG colour first, or, working the background and figure at the same time for more of a unified look. Hope you enjoy the paintings!

Lil' Monsters

I've been playing around with the designs of some fun little monster characters for the past little while, and decided that I would have a go at drawing and colouring them in photoshop.  I was happy with how the characters turned out, except for the guy standing on the ring with the cigar.  I like his design, but I forgot to give him a twist so his pelvis is facing more towards the ring.  Not only do I feel like that would have made his pose a lot more dynamic, but it would also make a lot more sense with how his feet are planted on the mat.  I guess I'll have to be more careful with my next one.  Hope you enjoy the drawings!

Illiad

 Achilleus

Menelaos

While I was reading the Illiad, I couldn't help but draw some of the characters from the book.  I really enjoyed how descriptive the book could be at times and was surprised at the detail they went into for some of the injuries that occurred during the battles.  I haven't finished the book yet, but one of these days I'll get around to it.  Enjoy the drawings!

New Work

This is some of the animation that I have been working on.  Please enjoy!

Robot Walk

So I've finally gotten Maya on my computer and thought I'd warm up with a walk cycle.  I found a bunch of rigs online, but decided to use this Robot that was rigged by Hong Zhi Hao for my animation.  I had a fun time working in 3-D again, and although the Robot doesn't have a toe bend or toe roll control, I thought I would plough ahead anyway and have fun with the walk.  I've recently finished reading Eric Goldberg's book, which I highly recommend picking up, and listening to one of his interviews from Animation Mentor, and was really inspired by his ideas about putting some nice character into a walk.  I really wanted to capture a nice attitude in this Robots walk, and tried to make him feel like a bit of a tough guy, stomping around.  I hope you enjoy the animation!

Front View

Side View

This view didn't turn out quite as well as I wanted it to.  I had seen the playblasts and in them, it didn't look like the front foot was moving around that much while it was on the ground.  I may go back and finish it, but I'm more excited about starting up my next maya project/

Ogre Battle!

When I was in second year, I was assigned the project to create a tonal study of a layout that would tell a story.  The third image from the top was my finished assignment, and I had an absolute blast creating it, and designing my Ogre for the image.  Off and on I'll come back to the image, and play around with the Ogres design, or, in the case of the first two images, play around with the battle that would take place between the Ogre, and the warriors charging in to fight him.  I've scaled the Ogre down a little since the first images, but still think it would be a lot of fun, and  a good challenge to animate.  Hopefully when I find some time.  Enjoy the drawings!

Baseball!

When I was in school, we had a lot of fun assignments, but we never got to do a pitch and bat.  I've always wanted to animate one, and designed up a pitcher and batter for the exercise.  These are some of the development sketches for the batter, as well as the finished design for the pitcher.  I wanted to give them a more classic look with the high socks, and simple uniforms.  I don't know yet, but this could be my next ToonBoom project.  I haven't decided yet.  Enjoy the drawings!

One Good Customer

Another thing that I really love is cooking, and watching cooking shows. One show I really enjoy is "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives." If you haven't seen it, check it out, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. One night while I was watching Triple D, I saw this HUGE guy, just sitting there, enjoying his meal, and razzing the host a little. I took the best mental picture I could of him before the show cut away, grabbed my sketchbook, and just drew to my hearts content. Enjoy!

Ball Bounce

So the very good people over at Toon Boom, had a crazy good sale on their products recently. I couldn't resist and so, ended up buying the Animate program from them. I've heard nothing but good things about Toon Boom, and couldn't wait to try it out for myself. I know I didn't exactly pick the hardest project in the world for myself, but I had an absolute blast learning the program while doing a fun little bit of animation. I'm looking forward to getting into the building, and rigging side of the program next, but until then, enjoy my fun little ball bounce.

Dracula vs Sasquatch!

So one day on our way back to Sudbury, my friend Nate says to me, "what would happen if Sasquatch were to fight Dracula?" After taking a few seconds to contemplate this proposed fight, I said something along the lines of, "the most amazing fight ever!!!" We ended up talking about the amazing, fun, potential of this battle, and once we got back to our place, spent the rest of the night drawing up designs for the characters. I ended up focusing on my Sasquatch design because I thought it would give me the most difficulty. I had a great time drawing him and did a few different versions of the beast. When it came to Dracula, I was stumped. I wanted the nice classic 1930's Bela Lugosi look, but with a thinner, more gaunt looking form, and ridiculously huge hands. As you can see from above, Dracula never really was completely designed. Nevertheless, an idea for a short did form, and I did start on some very rough boards. I'll see if it goes anywhere. Hope you enjoy the drawings.

Sketchbook Pages

These are a few pages where I continued to develop my hero knight. Once I created the knight, I needed someone for him to battle, and who better than a mean looking Orc. For me, drawing out the fight between the two characters was really my favourite part, as I really got to explore the way the two characters would move, and react in battle. Of course the hero has to win. Besides, there are a lot more Orcs for him to battle with. Hope you enjoy the drawings!

DJ Groovy

This was another very fun piece of animation I did for Cyber Chase. I only really did one scene with this character, but I really wanted to make him the coolest dj in all of Cyber space, and focused on that for the shot. For the show, the editor gave the cd spin a great little Sound effect that really put a smile on my face when I saw it. Enjoy!

Hero Knight

This is my character that I've dubbed Hero Knight. As a matter of fact, these are some of the first ever drawings of the character too. I originally designed him as a simple character that I could do practice hand drawn animations with while I worked as a Flash Animator. Needless to say, my job engulfed me and I wasn't able to do the animations I would have liked to. However, the little Hero has kept showing up in my work from day to day, and I even started to develop a little story for him where he goes on a wild adventure to save a kidnapped princess. Believe me when I say, there will be more of him to come.

Enjoy

A Couple of Fun Sketches

These are a couple of fun images from my sketchbook. The images just kind of came to me, so instead of keeping them all bottled up I decided to get them onto paper. The Hog Biker is one half of a drawing that never really got finished. Looking back, I think it's high time I get back to the drawing, finish it up and give it a splash of colour. Alien Dude can get some colour as well. He's looking like he needs a pick me up. Hope you like both images!

Gretel and the Witch

Back when I was in my first year of animation we had the storyboarding assignment to do a sequence from Hansel and Gretel. It was easily the best boarding assignment I did, but unfortunately, I never got my finished work back. One of my favourite parts about it was my character lineup. I really tried to give everyone a nice unique silhouette. The witch was an upside down cone with a sphere on top, Gretel was a thin almost stick like character, and Hansel was a bit of a round fellow. I really liked my Gretel and Witch designs I did for the project, and decided to re-visit them. Looking back at the image, I would like to change the witch up a little and give her back her very crooked nose, and squintier evil eyes. I'm hoping to do a skip cycle for Gretel and a walk cycle for the witch. Hope you enjoy my work!

Cyber Chase Hockey

A little more animation. I posted another scene from this sequence a long while back with the full intention of getting the rest of the scenes I liked up shortly. Unfortunately, I started to neglect my blog a little, and took until now to get it up. Anyway, this was a lot of fun to work on. I decided to have the big purple penguin do the dirty sloo-foot trip to the kittle penguin. Originally the big penguins foot was overlapping the little guys to really enforce the trip. In the end though, my director thought it looked a little wonky and asked for me to change it. I do wish I had a little more time for the big penguin getting scored on to have more of a thought process in his reactions, but with the timing given, and TV schedules, it wasn't something I could do. Hope you like this one!

Fight!

Like I've said before, I enjoy a good mixed Martial Arts fight. I also really enjoy stop motion animation. Originally my plan was to make these two grizzled fighters into stop motion puppets and let them duke it out in a crazy back and forth brawl. Unfortunately, like most projects, time and work got in the way. Looking back at this now, I think I may give it a go as a hand drawn animation. We'll see what happens. I hope you enjoy the drawings!

A Heavy Load

When I was growing up my parents had a pile of Asterix and Obelix books. My family and I absolutely loved them, and although I wasn't old enough to really appreciate the humour, I always loved the artwork. One Asterix and Obelix sent the two heros on an adventure through Spain and many years later, inspired me to put this image to paper. This was one of those pieces that I had the idea for for a long time and finally after a couple months of thinking about it, I finally put it to paper. Hopefully I'll find time to give it some colour, as I think that would add a lot to this piece overall.

Enjoy!

Round 1

So as I haven't been as consistent as I would like in my postings, I decided that it was high time for a change and that I would start posting some of the many images I have from my sketchbooks. Appropriately, here is Round 1. I love Mixed Martial Arts, and over the years I've designed a number of fighters, and if there are going to be fights, you need a ring girl to keep everyone entertained between rounds. I may have to update her one of these days as this is a fairly old design now, and I think I could give her some improvements. Either way, I hope you like her!

Bunny Animation

A while back I posted some designs/story ideas for some bunnies. This is the beginning of an animation I started involving those two critters. Only very rough key poses on the bunny on screen right, most of the rough clean up and rough keys and in betweens on the bunny on screen left. I animated it all in flash with my good 'ol trusty tablet.

Enjoy!