CTN expo 2016

Thanks everyone for coming to visit our table during CTN this past weekend!

It has been a wonderful experience (and hectic behind the scene) 

Brewery Art Walk

Every year Brewery Art District open their studios for public to visit. 

I was too overwhelmed by the surrounding and ended up only doing one sketch. It's good to just walk around and take in the experience of bring present. I must be honest I was more interested in how artists decorated their studio space more than their artworks. 

 A lot of their kitchens looks interesting. 

Kitchen will tell you a lot about the habit of the person who lives there. 

(Sometime the restroom in a restaurant reveals a lot about the restaurant too)

I bet most people are not interested in looking at laundry room in the studio building, but look at those clothes just laying in the laundry machine without their owner. Who left it there?

The buildings themselves are very cool because they were mostly repurposed warehouse. You find traces of what they used to be.

I particular like this studio because it looks like a working space instead of a display. If it was just a display I said their've done a superb job at fooling me. 

Lot of plants and pots all around the Brewery 

One thing I learn about designing environments is not just make it look good but let it tell us story about the person who lives there.

Chronemics

I LOVE IT. This is too perfect
 
Chronemics

This is how I brainstorm

This is how I brainstorm. This is a visual representation of what a brainstorm looks like. Ok fine, I just tuned on all the layers on my photoshop but this is how I brainstorm.

Productivity

I have some very exhaustible willpower. Internet is a very dangerous place to be on. Temptation lurking around the corner of your browser. 10, 15 tabs opened all at once. It is mental obesity, craving for excess amount of information that does little good to the mind.  How many hours and days have we wasted on surfing...on things we no longer remember. It is about time to go on information diet.


That have been said. During near a year of absent from my blogspot, I made many new works, done many thing I have't done in my life, explore my curiosity. It is about the experience. As for my works, they will be up soon. Time to renovate my website too, and time to make new business card!

SAIC Holiday Art Sale 2013

Thank you for those who came to the the Holiday Art Sale. It was a great experience talking to people. I am planning on creating a new series of paintings. I may participate again in the 2014 Spring Art Sale so if you are around Chicago in the Spring, keep your eyes open.

Bruce's Lecture

My Film Analysis professor Bruce has very animated hand gestures. I always think he looks a little bite like Bill Nighty.

Never An Easy Way

After spending months trying to figure out how to cheat on making less drawings for constantly-changing-perspective background by using After Effects' 2 an 1/2 D option. I realized I might as well just have used those time to make more drawings.

The title of this film is called Cyborg 

I admire you Joanna Quinn.

How many JellyBeans?

For the past month I have been thinking about a lot of things and looking at a lot of things.
To be honest, I didn't do much.
I didn't draw like I promised I would before summer break
I didn't finished reading the book I planned to finish
I didn't do a lot of things I promised myself to do.

I feel bad, but at the same time I am glad that I was able to stop and think for a while and learn more about myself and what I really want.

I found this video made by Ze Frank



How many jellybeans have I spend on worrying about my future? Oh man a big jar, or maybe more
But, I don't regret spending that much time worrying and thinking
Without all that I would not be writing this post, or finding this video, or trying out Corel Painter, or realizing how different the color of dusk in different cities, or be the person who I am now.

Thank you for everything that happened to me! good, bad, success, failure, mistakes, happiness, stress, whatever

Scatter Hoarding

I just remember the password for my ancient Wordpress page. The Scatter Hoarding blog. I put anything that interested my on that blog: artists, games, films, musicians, Ads, and whatever that looks cool.

It is a site I want to publish publicly but never did. Maybe I will this summer. When I can go back and finish the contents.

In freshman, I promised my professor that I will have a blog that I routinely update. At last, I did it. This Blogger blog is  my first "active" blog. I never thought I would be able to keep it up. (Cheers to Tiffany and Kye, you guys have been very supportive in the beginning and until now.) This whole thing started  out as 365 Sketches project Tiff and I came up with last summer. We looked at other people's blogs and we envied their drawings. "How are we ever going to be able to draw like them?!"  We came up with the idea of posting sketches everyday and improve our drawing skills.
We were supposed to post for 365 days. We mange to carry on the project for a month. But then school started and we got distracted. Though I'm not posing everyday anymore, I'm still sketching everyday and keeping track of the number to complete the 365 project.
Specking of that,

I drew this last week. This is number 305 (counting backward)
I'm going back to traditional oil paint next semester. Getting paints all over my hands and mix paint with my fingers gives me the illusion that I'm an experience painter.  Mixing linseed oil and turpenoid makes me feel like a chemist, makes me feel....smart.

Happy April Fools

I smell success!

 
Happy April Fools' Day

First Post in 2013

January is such a good month. I took a break and did not make any animation at all or update my works. Opps.
I did do something drawings during my break.

I just have to put the giraffe on XX large size to get the feel of their long neck. It looks good on my screen. I don't know if it will look good on other people's screen though. I think the neck could be even longer.

I don't remember what the name of the bird.

I got distracted by all the good food while I was back in Taiwan so I didn't brother finishing them. I also got distracted by watching anime and reading manga (I call this "researching" I discover a lot of good techniques for composing shots by watching anime.)

February is also going to be a good month. I finally have the storyboard thumbnail of my walking box film.

Atli Örvarsson: Another Great Composer

After taking the Sound to Image class, I have been reassure once again that soundtrack is just as important as the movie. I love Hans Zimmer and I found a composer who's not as famous as Hans Zimmer but he made some great soundtracks that came close to Zimmer's.
Atli Örvarsson

Vantage Point (2008)

I love this soundtrack

Here's a bonus drawing of a chipmunk I did last night

Long Long Time Ago

It has been a while since the last time I updated my post, almost a month ago. While I'm still trying to wrap up my finals, I want to share my wonderful experience yesterday and through today.

Yesterday, two of my fellow animator friends decided to go watch The Hobbit premier regardless of the fact that we have our final critique the next morning. I think it's a legit to say that watching movie is a form of  "research" for us. Thursday afternoon after classes, we entered our little private animation room and animated till 9:30 pm and headed to the theater. We brought our computers to the theater and continue to work on our final (I took the time in the theater to relax because my computer is malfunction at the time.) I love the theater environment. The theater is full of energy even though it was already midnight. People were really excited about the movie.

The Hobbit

Bilbo is more adorable than I have expected! The movie simply would not be the same if Martin Freeman did not was not play Bilbo.

After the movie we came back to school, back to our little private animation room and working our way through morning where we then had our critique. I came back home at noon and woke up at 5 pm and I had the urge to update my blog.

Btw, this is my 100th post!

My First Sound Mix on GarageBand

 This my first time mixing song in GarageBand. Fun~
and another one

Graduate Portfolio Day

I always want to do paintings and illustrations in the film industry but I never thought of myself becoming an animator or a filmmaker. I remember three years ago, I attended National Portfolio day at Emily Carr University and the two schools I spoke to, one of it is CalArts. When I applied for college I decided not to apply for CalArts because I wanted to do fine art. I wanted to be an conceptual artist. I wanted to be a painter. I chose SAIC because they have great fine art department.

I got in, and after a year of being hammered with all the conceptual ideas from the school, I realized...I hate conceptual art. It's fun to think conceptually once in a while but not so fun to do it for the rest of my life. (Though, I still love painting)

Today I spoke to CalArts again for their Graduate Experimental Animation Program. (This is coming back to full circle!!) They told me I need more experimental things. I have mostly traditional paintings and traditional 2D animations so it is an expected suggestion.
I always feel like I have to choose between painting and animation.It's like asking people if you want water or food. I need them both.

I'm going to take experimental animation in my seiner year and really pump my portfolio up.

btw. Tiffany is finally back to blogging after 3 months break! 

Thank You Tiffany!!!

Tiffany can read my mind. She found the book I was searching for months.Yes, the MOONSHINE book. She has a lot of amazing and useful sources on everything. I love you Tiff. I just want you to know that.

and side track, here's my half way finish sound animation but there is no sound yet. I made this in 4 hours, so proud of myself.

A Book I Want: MOONSHINE

This is a book I really want, called MOONSHINE: DREAMWORKS ARTISTS...AFTER​ DARK!. It's a collection of artworks made by DreamWorks artists

Unfortunately there is no new edition currently so the only available copies are from other owners and the prices are way too high for me to buy

Book Review by Parka Blogs

Missing Cameras

On Monday, somejerkone stole 2 of our video cameras in the classroom. (about $3000 each, that's enough to feed me for two years) We were out to Redmoon's studio in the afternoon and the classroom door was apparently left unlock.
So now we can't make pencil tests for our animation. Ughh. Our animation department is already poor enough. Please don't make this any harder.

Seagulls have funny footprints

They drag their front toe