Road Trip! (In fake drawing land.)

Well I've finished my first portfolio assignment to myself. I created a series of vignettes with my stuffed puppy character and myself on a road trip around the USA. I've been on a lot of road trips pretty much ALL over the place, so I thought it was a good topic. A few of them were based on real life events, but I guess not in any of the ones I'm posting here. At first I was trying to base all of them on real events in some way or another, but fantasy world road trip seemed more interesting in some cases.

Now I'm ramping up for my second assignment, which is to board a segment from my Billy Goat's Gruff story. I don't really have it all worked out yet, so its proving a challenge to get started. Not to mention I just bought Zelda: Twilight Princess. I wasn't supposed to get it until I finished my portfolio, but I had this gift certificate that was going to expire. Now its all up to will power. Must..finish....portfolio!!

Ok so here's four of the dozen or so vignettes I did. The first two images are going to be the bookend pictures to the rest. The rest are done as polaroids. That's sure was a weird aspect ratio for me. I just can't think of compositions vertically like that. So anyways here's two of the polaroids.

Ok until next time!

A Racconcert (and a dog named Rogue)

Hey everyone! As promised....an update. The last few months have left little time for art. This summer I plan to change that. I've got to do a massive amount of art in the next few months. Gotta improve and get a kick ass portfolio going on. I doodle tons of crap at work all day, but most of it is crap...or griffins. (Seriously I draw so many griffins its ridiculous.) I've been trying to branch out and do other things. Anyways these drawings came out of that.

Here's a bunch of raccoons rocking out. I was listening to the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack and I started seeing raccoons playing banjos, then it turned into a whole band. I drew the dude with the bass(or is it base? alas dictionary.com you are so few clicks away, but, alas, I am also lazy.) and I tried to draw his hand on the frets, but it wouldn't really reach, so I starting wondering how a tiny raccoon would actually play that thing. I realized he needed a friend to sit up there and hold the notes while he plucked the strings. Ah ha! anyways...


And then I also doodled my friend Heidi's doberman, Rogue. Apparently some people call dobermans dobies. Its really annoying. To me. But then I'm annoyed by words like cupboard and huzzah, so there you go.

Once in a...

What's this? I think Jen might actually be updating soon!
Oh crap! This is serious. I think its really going to happen you guys!

Goat Dump.

That's gross. What I mean to say is I'm dumping a bunch of goat drawings on this blog. There you go. Anyways, I've slowly been working on this retelling of the Billy Goat's Gruff story. I posted some trolls like a year ago. Here are some goats! Old goats....not so old goats....big goats....crazy eyed goats......GOATS.

Kitten CaDoodle

Wow its been a while!

So yeah, anyways, I'm going to take a moment to fawn over my two cats. Here goes!

I've got these two cats, Squash and Stretch. I love those little guys, even though at times they can be huge obnoxious turds. For instance, today, upon returning to my apartment I discover Stretch has blasted his way though my velcro cabinet defenses to pilfer the huge bag of cat food hidden within. *shakes head*

If these cats were filmmakers Squash would be Ron Howard, sweet, sentimental (Cinderella Man) and at times stupid(The Grinch Who Stole Christmas), and Stretch would be Michael Bay(Armageddon). Squash wanders around making this adorable chirping noise looking for love and food. He gets into trouble by accident and he never understands. Stretch on the other hand is actually in search of badness. Everything on the counter must be knocked on the floor, and if its on the floor it must be ripped to pieces. Upon yelling at him he will immediately tear off around the apartment making this frustrated gurgle noise looking for something else to rip up and destroy.

Anyways that's probably enough cat talk. The real point of this post is this drawing I did of the two cats. I've been trying to caricature them for a while now, and this one felt pretty good. Squash is the cute orange one and Stretch is the long-faced gray one.

Ok until next time!

Pitter Pitter Patter, Here's a Lion and a Rat

Hey folks. Well the new year has begun. I have a lot of goals this year, and one of them is to do more artwork and hopefully update this blog more often. Woo!

SOoooooo it happened. I'm obsessed with Lost. My roommates and I have been watching the first season for a week now and I am just totally "lost" in Lost. (Do you see what I did right there? Blows your mind doesn't it?) Michael Giacchino's music is pretty sweet too. I'm going to order the soundtrack methinks.

So yeah I drew this random picture. I started with the lion and then he was looking at a rat, and then I thought, "Man, rats are pretty cool!", and I drew a rat.

Jen of the Caribbean!

Hello everyone! I'm back from my winter cruise adventure! It was a pretty good time, but its nice to be back on dry land. Being on a cruise ship almost feels like being in a huge human zoo. You sit in your little cabin most of the day waiting for food, and they have a little water pool and places to layout and sun yourself, but mostly your day is spent waiting around for food. And man the food. You can eat 24 hours a day if you want, so you end up spending a lot of time just trying to be hungry for the next meal.

Anyways yeah, the boat was boring, but the nature was flipping sweet. The water! The cloudforms! The beaches! Ahh! Amazing! You'd think with all this inspiration I would have drawn something right? Wrong. I have drawn nothing. My sister even drew more then I did! (I'll have you know *I* wrote Merry Christmas.)

Also I'm reading the History of Brittain for Dummies. I'm up to like King Henry III, around the 1200s I think. History is pretty much a huge mess, but its been fascinating me a lot recently. My goal is to read more nations' historys until I'm the smartest dummy around. My sister even gave me her anthropology book! Yeah!

Ok I have to go do exciting things now like buy milk at the grocery store. Seeya!

German Shepherds!

In celebration of Thanksgiving I give you German Shepherds!! Well sort of I guess. The two just kind of coincided! I was going to update last night, but I broke the backspace key on my keyboard and spent a whole hour trying to fix it. Its really due to a kitten's ass that I got into the mess in the first place, but it was my own foolishness that broke the key. Now backspace is kind of just hanging there, dangling from one side and when I press it, it sort of sticks to my fingers, pulls up and doesn't register. *shakes head* It is the burden I must bear I suppose.

Anyways I drew these at work after being inspired by miss Heidi Jo Gilbert. They were pretty fun! My favorite part was trying to design the fur patterns and make it feel German Shepherdy. I think the one on the right has the right idea. I like the neck the most. The face is a little weird though. But yeah anyways...here it is!

Also Fried Green Tomatoes is one of the saddest movies I can remember seeing. Not that it even ends sad! It just has these sad parts that....wow....they just make me cry. I cried during the movie and then afterwards when I started thinking about it again! Yeah...ok....now I guess you all know how much of a soggy-faced girl I really am.

OK.....German Shepherds! Thanksgiving! Food.....prep...eration......

Old Story Idea

This was an old story idea I had my third year at school. I originally had huge epic plans to do a fourth year film in cg with these characters, but then griffins and other such things filled my thoughts. (Not to mention CG films are a lot of work!!) So it fell by the wayside. I think about it a lot though and I'd really like to make the film someday. Its kind of this bittersweet thing with this hermit alien guy and this little firefly that becomes his friend. I guess it sounds like boring cheese when I put it that way, but there's more to it then that! I'll probably be doing a bunch of art for it cause I'm thinking about trying to board it. Its going to be a glacially slow project, cause I don't have much free time, but I will try!

Anyways, here's a picture. I colored it on the Cintiq. I'm not sure about the background. It was a lot of playing around. Ok so here it is! I have a few more sketches but I haven't colored them yet! More to come!



Oh and speaking of bittersweet things! This film Kiwi is adorable!! I just find it so charming and sweet. You should watch it!

Rhinos....One with lips.

I'm back again! I have more doodles for the ol' blog. This time it's some rhino scribbles. If you look really carefully one of them has lips. It's kind of gross....a rhino with lips. Ew, what was I thinking?


Also you guys should check out Patches the horse!! What's even more curious then a horse riding in a car is a horse named Patches with no visible patches. hmm...

Haha anyways, yeah you watch it.

Elephant!

Hey guys!

I've been doodling a bunch inbetween animation renders. I'm actually working on shots for a real movie now guys!! I'm totally excited!! Hopefully I can learn fast and work hard so I can stay on the show. I really hope they like what I'm doing.

Anyways! I'm hoping to post more doodles, and not worry so much about making clean finished drawings.(not that you can tell I was worrying about that with my other scribbly posts to this blog! :P!) I couldn't help scribbling in a little tone in Photoshop on this one. So yep! Here's an elephant!

Cats!

About a month ago my roommates and I acquired two crazy babies....KITTENS! And being the animation nerds we are, we named them Squash and Stretch.

This is Squash:


And this is Stretch:


The picture is ripe for some kind of "cat out of the bag" play on words. I'm not going to do it though.


I will do this though: Looks like a "CATastrophe!"


This occurance was so cute it may have cured all cancer with in a 2 mile radius. The picture doesn't do it enough justice, but wow.....it was adorable.


Squash the leg climber:


Just general cuteness:


And finally here's a few cat scribbles!

There will be no new blog entry tonight.

My drawings are simply too crappy.

A Concerned Jellyfish

Dinosaurs!

I drew these last night while watching "Last Call with Carson Daly". I don't normally stay up past Conan O'Brien, who is one of my personal heros, and its for good reason. First of all I'd be really really tired for work in the morning, and more importantly "Last Call with Carson Daly" is one of the worst programs I've ever seen, but there's nothing else but infomercials on that late on basic cable. It's physically painful to watch. Nothing is funny and everyone is trying so hard and failing entirely. Also apparently they have to pay the audience 7 dollars an hour to sit through it. *shakes head*

Anyways...I hadn't drawn dinosaurs in a while, so I did. Dinosaurs are so cool. I watercolored it in front of the lodge at Calarts today. It was really peaceful. There's nothing more calming then doing watercolors in a nice place. I've got to make a habit out of it.

Goats!

There were a few days this summer where I went to this local park/ranch/farm thing down the street to draw the goats. I'm trying to do research for my Billy Goat's Gruff project, which hasn't gotten much attention as of late. I've been animating like crazy, and staying late every day at work. Gah! I'm learning a lot though, so that good. Anyways I really enjoyed watching the goats and drawing them. It was pretty peaceful and I'm sure I'll go back for more. Not to mention animals are just awesome, and goats have really strange heads. They need studying!

Santa Clarita! So glad to meetcha!

Wow, well sorry for abandoning this blog for so long. I've been working hard on my animation tests at work, and at the end of the day it leaves me with little will to do anything else, much less anything on the computer. The blog is taking the hit big time. I have some artwork, but I'm too lazy to get out the scanner. Maybe tomorrow.

Anyways...yeah....here's the lamest update of all time...

Every evening I drive 45 minutes through a bunch of annoying traffic to get back to Santa Clarita, and I hate it every day, but right at the end of my journey I come around this bend and there's always the most beautiful mountainous vista sunset waiting for me. The last 5 minutes of my drive is usually pretty beautiful! So anyways, I took a few pictures last week. Heeeere ya go!

Arrrrrt and Also Arrrrrrrrgggghhhh......

Hey everybody!! Well I saw Pirate's of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest!

Yep! That pretty much sums it up!

And also I've got some art. I drew these two baby griffin pictures a couple months ago and I thought they were cute, so I scanned them and colored them on the Cintiq. I think the first one worked out better. Then the third picture is just a griffin sketch from a month back. My roommate Nick left his red colerase sitting out and I was playing with it. It made me feel like I was drawing real professional animation drawings. Oooooo! (Mostly just cause it was a color other then gray.) This is the last of my old artwork too. Now I have to draw new stuff! I'll try not to draw so many griffins. I need to expand! Hopefully I can find some time and motivation. I've got some ideas for some goat characters I'm working on. I think they'll be fun to design, but ....yeah... no time right now!

ARRRR!

Well Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest comes out in two days. I really hope its good. I'm so tired of being disappointed. I go back and forth between complete confidence of its awesomeness and a cautious worry that "Hollywood" has screwed up yet another really REALLY fun film series. *sigh* I will just have to wait and see. Regardless of how it turns out though, I'm still excited right now! I have random pictures for you people!

First of all I hate Superman Returns. A lot. Bryan Singer left X3 to rot for this piece of garbage?! Pffft! I'm really looking forward to watching Pirates II blow it out of the water this weekend at the box office. Yeah! I made this image to express my emotions:


I wanted to do picture of Superman actually being blasted out of the sky by the Black Pearl, but such a picture was not to be found, so I had to settle for this instead. Maybe this is more..... tasteful? Eh?

And also, (and this is less stupid) last summer I went down to San Diego with some of the other Dreamworks story trainees and on the way down we spotted this on the 5 freeway:


Upon closer inspection it seemed to be some kind of morbid movie prop. Here's a high-res photo for you:


One year later I see the trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and what do I see?! The same morbid movie prop!!! So awesome!!! It's totally the same thing, check it out!




Every once in a while its pretty awesome to live in L.A. (And by "in", I mean "near", because I don't actually live there. I'm Jennifer Hager and I don't endorse lying.)

Ok this was a completely geeky post. I'll have some art in the next one!