Sunday 15 July 2018

Motivational Tips for Animators and Artists





Art and animation can be tough and there are times when all artists have gotten in a rut and don't know how to get out. So I thought I'd share some tips with you all on how I keep motivated and keep creating things.

Do you guys have any other tips for me? The more the better :)

Saturday 30 June 2018

Animal Facts - Comic

Recently I have been combining my two loves. Animal facts and drawing.
Here are a few for you:




Wednesday 20 June 2018

My Favourite Copic Colours

I love art supplies but I hate buying things and then not using them or finding out that they are the wrong colours. I thought I'd make a video of all of my favourite Copic shades for you. Think of it as window shopping for art supplies :)






Thursday 14 June 2018

Blind Drawing - Doodles and Things - Cartoon Characters

I live far away from my family and that can really suck so recently my sister and I decided to do something fun together and record a drawing session. Since we are both artists (not that you would be able to tell from this video...haha) we thought it would be fun to draw some classic cartoon characters from memory.
We had a fantastic time and I can't wait to do it again with her.


Sunday 10 June 2018

A Few Things About Me...




Hello lovely people.

I love Youtube. I love watching illustrators and animators talk about art and the way they work. I enjoy it so much that I thought I would contribute something to the 'illustuber' community. I have tried a few times to get into the world of Youtube but with a full time job and an addiction to animating and drawing at home it has always felt quite hard to add in editing and making videos. Then I had an epiphany and thought of a way to make videos that would be a little less time consuming (and involve less of my face....very important to me). This is just a little intro video but I am hoping to start releasing a video every two weeks and then once a week if it goes well. Let's see how what we can make :)

Have a lovely day everyone and happy doodling.


Friday 25 May 2018

Art Supplies Galore

I got an amazing gift from the fabulous Kakibot so I thought I'd make a video and test out some art supplies:


Saturday 10 March 2018

Things I Can't Draw


This Feb I started drawing my travel Zine. I had the notes and the ideas, but I had one major problem. I didn't like the drawings. I draw a lot these days but I draw very similar things. I never push myself so I thought I'd use March as a warm up month before I start drawing the zine. That is how I came up with the 'Things I Can't Draw' challenge. I made a list of all the things I hate drawing or never draw and set myself the challenge of doing one a day. 

So far it has been going well. I have found that most drawings go into one of three categories; 'This is more fun to draw than I thought', 'I can draw this if I spend time thinking about it' and 'I need lots of practice'.

Hands are something I draw every day but I always rush them and pig-headedly draw them without getting some reference. When I spent some time on them I was happy with the results. 

Scenery turned out to be really fun. I love how scenery drawings always come together when you ink them. The colours can be really expressionist and then the inked lines and details add life to the sketch. I'll definitely be doing more of them. 

Feet. I hate feet. I hate my feet. I don't like drawing feet. I will practice them more and hopefully grow to like drawing these weird mechanical yet organic objects. 


I'm only 10 days into the challenge but it has been fun so far. I have some hard days coming up but the results are pushing me through. 

What would be on your list of things you hate to draw? 


Wednesday 24 January 2018

Getting back my Mojo at Anim Dojo

At the start of this year I decided that 2018's mission was to be a better animator. This August will be a milestone for me. It will be a decade since I became an animator. While I am relatively happy with my skills, I feel that it's easy to get comfy and I want to push myself to the next level. Another factor of pushing myself is that as an animation supervisor and lead in both 2d and CG I feel it's my job to help my junior animators and my team as much as possible. I want to be a good mentor to them. I feel I owe it to them to get my butt into gear. All of these reasons pushed me to join an online animation school called 'Anim Dojo'. Anim Dojo is a online animation site that is aiming to teach people who can already animate, how to animate better. 

AnimDojo

When you've been an animator for many years , someone asking you to explain/ teach your process of working can sometimes feel like a golfer trying to explain their swing. They can use the tech speak but don't really know what they are technically doing to make it different from anyone else...they just do it and can't explain the nuisances, which is where Anim Dojo is coming in. 
We all know the tech speak of key poses and inbetweens but sometimes just saying 'work in a pose' can be daunting to Junior animators.  Animdojo is forcing me to breakdown (animation pun intended) my process. It's amazing to really feel like I'm working out the basics again and it's helping me deconstruct my work. 

Fingers crossed I can know all my bad habits out and build back up stronger. I've done it for two weeks and I already notice a HUGE difference. 

It's been stupidly fun so far and because I am paying for it each month it is pushing me to work in my own time. I have allocated three week nights to it so far but I'm so eager that I may do more. 

It is the cheapest online anim program I've found (which is a huge plus because I'm a horrid cheapskate) at only $30 (aud) a month. This is starting to sound like a paid advert and it definitely isn't. I just think it's something the animation industry has been missing and everyone should jump on it. It also helps that the company running it is called Blue Zoo where I use to work. I know they are an amazingly forward thinking company who are enthusiastic about their animators becoming better and not just worrying about their deadlines. 

To sum up...DO IT! 


I'll keep you up to date and post animations that I do from scratch. There are a lot of tasks that involve Maya scenes with your keys already given to you. This is to help practice timing (such a great idea) or scenes with the start and end keys in place so that you create your breakdowns (another genius idea). I won't post them because I don't want to show other peoples poses but I'll show you some work soon. 

p.s their rigs are to die for! 

Saturday 13 January 2018

New Year - New Creative Challenges

Happy New Year everyone!

It was a crazy 2017.

I started drawing like a loon and posting my drawings daily to Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/doodlezilla_/

and excitingly I have started a podcast that I absolutely love recording with my oldest friend of 23 years (and boyfriend) about Science Fiction. The basic concept is we have some drinks and I propose a fundamental change to the world and then we build a new world around that rule. How would it influence science , population, art and culture?


http://drinksanddystopia.blogspot.com.au/2018/01/ep-08-i-punch-lined-all-over-it-lee.html

It's just some silly fun but over 2000 people have listened so far (what?!).  It's exciting and I can't wait to carry on in 2018.

Other exciting adventures and missions are:

* Learn more Toonboom
* Paint more

What are your creative plans?