Demo Reel Revival - Today's Special W.I.P.

[kidcanuck]

The file is pretty big, it's nearly a 3 minute short so please be patient downloading it.

[depleteD]

right on dude.
so right now,
try refineing these
the paceing needs work, the shots seem about the same length,
add some close ups aswell. All these shots are about the same distance from the character.
For example, maybe close ups of the environment....and an establishing shot. A restaruaunt...but where?
Take a look at superman returns. when they cut to martha kents house. They establish the farm, house, kitchen then they go into some details like a old radio, cup of coffee with half eaten cake, scrabble board, and a dog takeing a nap among other things.

Also I think when hes hauling the squid in...it should be massive to begin with. So the viewer is like WTF is that and generate some interest. It would also be a good opportunity to animate with weight. A good place to showcase some skillz.

you want me to storyboard some examples?

If you have a hard copy, put them all up on your wall and look at them. See what you think when they are all laid out.

Try and do 4 hours a day on this, im gonna be super busy in these next couple months. ill try and squeeze in as much as possible.

ttyl man

[kidcanuck]

Thanks for the feedback as always Andrew. This will have to be our main form of communication so blast away.

I'm trying to create the beginning basically as an establishing shot. I don't think we need to create an outside shot of the restaurant. I'll ponder better ways to do it but right now I'm establishing the side camera and then introducing the character by having him walk in. For close up/details I think we should address those while he goes about setting up his work area. Maybe some close ups as he's grabbing cutting boards, fish, etc... That's what I was trying to go for anyway.

If you look at the leica reel I've posted I've removed the interior shots of the fridge, I'm not sure we need them and that can save us creating another environment. The idea was to create a short with one 'stage'. This means he doesn't bring the box in, and that animation is cut. I should find somewhere in the short to weigh him down though, you're right. What do you think, do we need the fridge environment?

p.s. I've been putting around 3-4 hours a day in, hopefully I can keep up that pace or even find more time.

[kidcanuck]

If you have time to storyboard some example of what you're talking about, by all means go ahead. That would help out a lot.

I've playblasted some of the animatic from different camera angles and played around with it a bit. See what you think. (right-click and save target as...)


********file removed from hosting server*************

[depleteD]

Uh before I can comment, can you take this into fusion and add scene number, shot number and fram number on the bottom?

Then I can say at sc1 shot 3 frame 47 this doesnt have to be so long.
designateing all the renders like this will help communication huge.
Thanks man.

as for now..hes walking accross the kitchen way way to slow.

I like the idea of cutting down to one environment...alot. The one stage idea is a good one. We can still get a variety and deoth of shots and what not.


I'm trying to create the beginning basically as an establishing shot. I don't think we need to create an outside shot of the restaurant. I'll ponder better ways to do it but right now I'm establishing the side camera and then introducing the character by having him walk in. For close up/details I think we should address those while he goes about setting up his work area. Maybe some close ups as he's grabbing cutting boards, fish, etc... That's what I was trying to go for anyway.

Cool, I think zoom in when he like picks up the cuttingboard or knife. Show his hands doing what he does. ect. Him setting up his work area could be a reall badass sequence.

[kidcanuck]

I don't have fusion and it's a pain in the butt to do timecode in premiere, but I'll find a way.

*never mind, it's not that hard in premiere

[depleteD]

p.s. about the walking, it looks slow without leg movement but the general rhythm for a walk cycle is 16 frames (out of 24) for a step. Five steps in the first shot = just under 4 seconds without a stopping animation. Perhaps there's just too much walking featured and we can look to cut the amount down?

yea try it out, remember, use multiple camera angles, render them out and try that shit out in premire.

[kidcanuck]

Animatic with timecode can be found at *******link removed, newer post below*********
I'm going to catch some sleep for the night. Thanks for the quick feedback, I know you're a busy man. Talk to you soon.

[brayon]

Hi guys,

Just personally greating first, nice to see the communication going on. Also, congratulation Andrew on your new job. From the looks of it, Tim, you will get there sooner then me :) As I mention to you, I will try to keep up with WIP. But, I might say things that won't help you or out to left ball parc!!

I did look at your storyboard and actually showed to my students, because they are about to start their owns for their final project. So great timing for me.

At, first without reading Andrew comments, I had the same feeling for the camera angles. I'm not sure if you want more ideas to either change or add. But, you can let me know after. Just to find more what you are looking for, are you looking at animation more then the rest? I'm asking because maybe the food for thaugh at the bottom won't help you at all.

Just food for thaught, in the opening scene, maybe have a close up of a fish on the cutting board and then the knive cuts the fish. So, if you are looking at animation, you can show the hands doing the cutting really fast, then zoom out to reveal your character.

As you ask, about should you create the freezer environment. I don't think so, because the picture is pretty clear, what is going on and then, you will save on a lot of details. Like created the squid and texturing it :(

This will be all for the moment.

NOTE: your link for the first rar, doen't work anymore.

Cheers,
Gilles

[depleteD]

Finnaly found some time, sorry

Hey Gillies, thx man, I'm happy to be here its freaking awesome. Super busy, but busy is good.
Some of this shiz I've done thats online sry for the shameless plug
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/23482.html
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/25757.html

I recommend getting your students to post their stuff online here at cgtalk, this is the most badass resource out their.

If your students are interested in asking any questions you can start a thread that I can pop in and answer some questions about scope or workflow or whatever when I have time. Name it the LTCHS 3D class or something :S

I recommend encourageing your students to hop on this forum if you havn't already.

What you been up to man?



K so,

I think this should do some reverse establishing. Because your environment is so limited. Start with close ups and work up to your first shot then have your chef walk in. This will allow your audience to soak up the environment and get comfortable.

Just food for thaught, in the opening scene, maybe have a close up of a fish on the cutting board and then the knive cuts the fish. So, if you are looking at animation, you can show the hands doing the cutting really fast, then zoom out to reveal your character.

I think this is an excellent idea

But overall I think its good to go. I think you need to replace that opening shot of him walking across the kitchen, Its too long. If you use the reverse establishment he can already be in the kitchen.

Do you want that giant squid got in the fridge? Maybe a giant slime trail from the night before. Maybe he slips on it? Not sure. But roll with it so far man, lookin good.

Do you want me to draw out the ideas for the reverse establishing shot? Or you happy with this? Have you tried the multiple cameras in the animatic and playing around in premire?

I'll try to be online more dude

-Peace

[kidcanuck]

Good to hear from you Gilles, I'm excited to see what you come up with in your class at 3DBuzz. I'll definitely be working in more closeups as well. If you could maybe storyboard out a couple ideas I can sprinkle them in, especially at the beginning. They'll work well with the cuts to titles, and we could even put in more opening credit screens to get more cuts in as well.
I don't think it's necessary to show how the squid got into the fridge, the mere physics of getting that massive thing in there are mindboggling, plus I don't want to leave too many clues for the chef.
I have been rendering out multiple camera angles and playing around in premiere to see what works best. I still need more closeups, but I can work those in easily once the flow and the action is laid out. It should give me an idea of where we need them. Face shots for his reactions are one spot I'll look to do this in as well.
I've got roughly 1400 frames of the animatic done. I'll look to post what I have later today. He's just discovered that his problems are coming from the fridge, and about to investigate.
Thanks for the feedback guys. Talk to you soon.

Tim

[depleteD]

Awesome! Looking forward to it dude, Im gonna try ending my day by working on this.

[kidcanuck]

So I didn't have time to timecode it last night before bed. I did it this morning though. We've got a minute and 7 seconds to go over here.

http://3rdivision.ca/animation/1732.rar

Any suggestions you've got, fire away. I find myself not using the storyboard cameras too much cuz they tned to flatten the action. Agreed?

[brayon]

For a particular reason, I can't open that file? I did save and tried to extract but doesn't work.

[brayon]

Hi guys,

Special request now for my part!! I hope you can make time and send me a few comments on my WIP.

First part of the class, I need to create a web site to present my work. I have started and you can find a sample at my new blog: http://gtstudio.blogspot.com/

I'm looking for simple, clean, easy to use and hopefully interesting. I'm open to every and anything you have to say.

BIG TIA :)

[kidcanuck]

I just downloaded it and extracted, it seems to work fine for me. I'm not sure what's different about your system, but maybe a little info got skipped on the download. The best advice I've got is to just try again.

[kidcanuck]

Hey Gilles,

For your website, I'm not sure what your skills are in this department but I'd go with something almost minimalistic in its simplicity. You've got a lot of gradients and bubbly windows. The window might be a little small for posting anything in the way of a gallery as you go along. You've going to want to post a lot of images so find a way to enlarge that space in relation to the page. With the buttons only revealing their titles on rollover you can grab a lot of space from them by either moving them to the top or just bumping them over. I realize this isn't the main focus of your project but it's good to lay it out ahead of time.

Tim

[brayon]

Hi Tim,

Now, I see that the file has been remove from the server? Have you made any updates? Let me know what I can do to help.

Yeah, the first structure of the web site was really primitive and old fashion. I was going for a very simple web site. After starting to think about the purpose of my class, reality sets in and now I put a more effort into the design, the logo and the bacground texture. At the moment, I'm working mostly on the logo. I have posted two different logo. The rounded one, I have to change the animation to be at the bottom of the logo and move the GT up, I think. Anyways, hopefully you will get time to go and give more crits. Really appreciate it.

Cheers,
Gilles

[kidcanuck]

The most recent rar is still posted. I'll try to post a newer one early this week. I'd like to have a version of the whole animatic by friday.

Gilles, I do like the newest webpage design quite a bit. How's the course itself going?

[kidcanuck]

The most recent rar is still posted. I'll try to post a newer one early this week. I'd like to have a version of the whole animatic by friday.

Gilles, I do like the newest webpage design quite a bit. How's the course itself going?

[brayon]

Can't wait to see your latest work.

Thanks for the comment, now I have a new one!! Yeah, I will need to make a decision someday. As you know, you work on it, leave it, comeback, try new things, leave and as we all know: their is always something you can do better!!

About the class, HOLEY COW!!! Just finish listening to a 2 hours lecture on what we will need to do for our short story. I think I took about 10 pages of notes in my drawing book!! Talk about details and what to expect.

Anyways, if you get a chance, stop by the tower. I would like to run a few stories by you and talk about your project :)

Keep up the good work.

[depleteD]

Shit dude, I am so sorry I am just getting to this, been so busy.

Its cool to see your progress on this, keep at it. I'm liking it so far.

Well heres my comments

Overall, render these previews out with depth of field and motion blur.
You don't wanna be figureing that out at the end.

Scene 1 Shot 1

We are introduced to the environment and character immediatley. These elements need to be seperated. Show the env then the char in seperate scenes.

Your first scene is 5 seconds of him walking across the room.
Way too long. Needs to be borken up with cuts.

Scene 1 Title

I would integrate this with a close up. Have a close up of the counter or something unique to a sushi kitchen. maybe the letters on some sashimi.

Sc 001 Sh002

Character is too far left. Move inward to the left third. Move the knife to the right third to balance the scinematography. This will work when he reaches for the knife and bridges the composition while adjusting the focus. 4 seconds is too long for this. Maybe break it up with a cut. Zoom into his hands picking up the board then end with a close up on his hand wraping around the knife.


Sc 1 Title 2

Mix it up with a close up for continuatiry and variety

SC 002 Sh001

Eliminate this shot, its jaring with him leaving his action area when you already showed him arriveing to it.

Sc 002 Sh 002
This is jaring
with him coming back on the left side of the camera when he exited the right. I think this shot should be eliminated.

Sc 002 Sh 003
This is where it should pick up. with his fish already on the table.

Sc 002 Sh 004
Good cut. Maybbe slow everything down. Show the ssquid being super cautious. Good opportunity to show the sneaky character.

SC 002 Sh 005
Another excellent cut. I would adda close up of the tentacle grabing the fish. see hwo that looks.

Good work so far man. Looking forward to seeing more.

[depleteD]

Gonna do the other scenes right away watched the old version. I thought something was missin...lol

[kidcanuck]

Yo Melons,

thanks for the feedback. It still applies since I'm pwoering through the whole thing and then adding and changing things where we need them on a whole. I like the scene by scene. I'm almost done the 2:40 animatic then we'll go through each individual scene and cut in things where we need them, move them around, etc... It was just a lot easier since the whole animatic is contained in two animation files. Then I'll make mini-files for things we need to change and add them in. My goal is to be done animating the 'matic by tomorrow night. Have a good weekend.

T

[depleteD]

uuuuhg its been so long
u makin good progress
well im finnaly gonna get to where i left off

Sc 3 Sh 01
I dont think the pan is appropriate, a cut to a close up would work i think

Lose all the pans

Scene 4 Sh 001

THat zoom in should be spead up to how fast he relized, its too slow. Make it snap. Like a slap in a the face


Scene 4 Sh 002

this is a cool cut but you have used this camera angle before

Scene 4 Sh003

cash money

4 :4

too quick, you have lots of long shots, this one is really quick and doesnt fit the paceing

4:5

This is an awesome shot, i think a pan from left cenetered on the character and the tentacles would be dope.


4:6

Same camera position

brb

[brayon]

Ok, now I have tried my home computer and the school computers and still can't get it. I get the famous 404 not Found message :(

I would sure like to have a look at it. Maybe, if you don't mind, you could e-mail it to me.

Cheers,
Gilles

[brayon]

I have a question for both?

First, I have check your drawing portfolio Andrew and WOW, nice work. Showed that to my students and mention that if they don't draw like this for their storyboard, they would have to stay during lunch and practice!!!

My question is: what do you use to draw your concept art? Digital software or old fashion way, pencil and paper? If paper, then you scan it and digitize them? I believe you are using PaintShop to finish? If you had to draw Image Planes of your characters, how would go about this process? Meaning, that would you do that on paper then scan them or would you draw them directly in a digital software?

Thanks,
Gilles

[depleteD]

Hey dude,
thx alot

yea practise is the big thing
for concept art digital is the way to go you can load your colors faster, generate silouetes and paint in layers. I personally use painter becuase i like the blender brushes. It all depends on what the artist perfers.

As for imageplanes, I only use those to get the proportion down then I push them away to the side and use them for refrence.

As for my process I would do 100% digital. But I have acintiq, so I would recomend drawing on paper then finishing on photoshop or painter.

This is where I learned this, I highly recommend these

http://www.alienthink.com/
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/spl01.html
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/ijo01.html

[kidcanuck]

I'm old fashioned, pencil and paper. I'll scan them in after and colorize them on the computer from there. I do use image planes, and then hide them once I have the major components of the character done. I've tried Painter but I just don't have the practice that Andrew does yet. It's a great program though.

[depleteD]

:D its all good, your penciling is ****ing sick, how that animation comin homes? :D Any updates?

[kidcanuck]

Thanks for the compliment. ALso, yeah I'll have an update up real soon (like I haven't said that before) I've got 3800 frames of animatic blocked out, I'll wrap up the last 150 or so today and then start rendering out camera angles and the motion blur/dof FX.

[brayon]

Wow, you have a few frames!! You must have a pretty good computer!

Yep, I agree with both of you for drawing. It is easier on pencil but I won't to move to digital, so I will need a lot of practice with my Wacom.

Anyways, just to let you know that my website is comming along and if you have time to go and see it: http://adp.3dbuzz.com/brayonmt

Man, do I have a problem with decision making! I want to create a short that would be funny. Now, I have a synopsis on the site about a little kid, but now, I'm thinking that maybe I should try to focus on something that is gaming related. Because, apprently the toon shader is really hard to learn and accomplish(maybe, Tim you still have the enormous training library and something about that rendering for toony look or...). My thinking, is that realistic is way to hard and I don't think that I have the power computer for that :(
Then, what would be funny with gaming character!! I don't know why but fishing comes to my mind a lot!! Or, something like the Assassin Creed demo reel that was funny. I can't find that one anymore on the net to give as example. Can you guys kick me in the butt so that my brains get stuck on a decision or tell me something, HELP!!!

Also, can wait to see that Tim, keep on animating and mostly having FUN :)
Cheers

[brayon]

Wow, you have a few frames!! You must have a pretty good computer!

Yep, I agree with both of you for drawing. It is easier on pencil but I won't to move to digital, so I will need a lot of practice with my Wacom.

Anyways, just to let you know that my website is comming along and if you have time to go and see it: http://adp.3dbuzz.com/brayonmt

Man, do I have a problem with decision making! I want to create a short that would be funny. Now, I have a synopsis on the site about a little kid, but now, I'm thinking that maybe I should try to focus on something that is gaming related. Because, apprently the toon shader is really hard to learn and accomplish(maybe, Tim you still have the enormous training library and something about that rendering for toony look or...). My thinking, is that realistic is way to hard and I don't think that I have the power computer for that :(
Then, what would be funny with gaming character!! I don't know why but fishing comes to my mind a lot!! Or, something like the Assassin Creed demo reel that was funny. I can't find that one anymore on the net to give as example. Can you guys kick me in the butt so that my brains get stuck on a decision or tell me something, HELP!!!

Also, can wait to see that Tim, keep on animating and mostly having FUN :)
Cheers

[kidcanuck]

Nice simple website design Gilles. It's always tough nailing down a story that you want to spend so much time animating. You've got two very oppostie streams of thought going. I personally like kiddie, cartoony animations. Just mostly preference. I haven't found the toon shading look to be hard to pull off and like any approach it has its advantages and disadvantages. A good toon shader should render faster than a realistic or even current level of gaming detail. You can also play around with Mental Ray's Contour shader to add the lines to semi-realistic scenes, similar to what I did in the cat and fish animation. The key thing is to find a look that fits your story, not the other way around. I've seen a lot of students go for toon shading as a "cop-out" to texturing their animations and it comes out poorly. The best thing would be to draw the style you want with shading before you even touch the computer, and then try to match it.

If you go the game character route, you won't show a lot of modelling detail, and your story will need to be rock solid to pull it off. If you want to make people laugh, a good way to go is to play off the assumed seriousness of gaming and have a surprise "punchline" that breaks it. There is also a world of gaming conventions, and a recognizeable history that can bring entertainment with some nostalgia/viewer recognition. Think of things that only happen in gaming, like respawning after you die, Mario breaking bricks with his head, or the blocky graphics of the old atari system.

I hope I've given you some ideas. Feel free to bounce your ideas off of us as you progress.

[brayon]

That is weird. I posted a reply after you did Tim and now it doesn't show?? Anyways, I will try to re-write it.

Have you posted your new stuff yet?

Yeah, I do agree with you with my first story. The gaming character idea came to me from inspirationnal thinking!! In the big picture and a very nice comfy pillow, I could dream of getting good enough to get in the industry of 3D. So, if I wanted to go in the gaming industry, maybe it would wise to have a demo reel reflecting gaming characters. But, that is only a dream :)

Now, still trying to pratice with my Wacom and photoshop!! Andrew, when you draw with your tablet, what size and resolution of documents are you using? Maybe it is my brush? Because, I'm trying to practice to draw but man is it ever frustrating to have lines looking like a 6 years old kid who is drawing!!

Thanks again.

[kidcanuck]

Yeah I have it animated to the end now but I haven't rendered out all the cameras yet. I'm also working on an architectural viz project right now that I'm in the process of testing and trying out. Once I have some idea of what my rendering times are going to be for the paid project, I'll get back to the personal one when I can. There's no nine page contract to uphold on the sushi short. ANyway I'll get back to this as I can and I look forward to seeing what you come up with for your reel.

[brayon]

Wow that is interesting a viz project. Good pratice and variety spectrum :) Good for you.

Cheers,
Gilles

[depleteD]

Cool shit
You have V-ray? It allows you to do calculate the gi once and then fly through.

MR in Max 9 is great too , arch mat materials + final gather is what where switching to down here. It looks sick, quick too set up and renders fast.

[brayon]

MR in Max 9 is great too , arch mat materials + final gather is what where switching to down here. It looks sick, quick too set up and renders fast. Cool to here that, and especially will be impressive for my students when they hear that Blur is using it :) If that is the case, then, I better start reading those books that I have on MR. I'm not sure that it talks about rendering for cartoon look? It does talk about realistic. Will see and read. Again if you know any good video tutorials on that, please let me know.

BTW, I ordered the drawing DVD for the school :) Thanks.

[kidcanuck]

Yeah I've been playing with v-ray and it gives some great results, especially with the camera fly throughs, but it really bites when it comes to having any animated objects in the scene. Even rendering them seperate and compositing them in later is not going to work for this scene. The clients emphasized a busy atmosphere so I'm trying a number of rendering options. Mental Ray was what I tired first, I might go back to it. Do you know of any good sites/tutorials on the architectural materials? I don't have a lot of experience with them, but they'd sure come in handy here. I'm trying some finalRender stage-1 tomorrow to see how that works. They're really the only ones who have the animated GI nailed with their hyper GI engine. I need the whole scene to come in to around 6 minutes a frame. I sure am glad I started the R&D early on this one, cuz there's a lot to figure out.

Also, a note for you Gilles: from what I've done with toon renders, a good toon look still needs solid light placement to achieve a good variety of contrast in the scene, and enough bands of color on the shader to make it pop. To get the nice contour lines to mark things such as noses on a character's face you have to model with sharp edges to get those to show up. It's a good thing though, it keeps poly counts down.

[brayon]

Tim, I have a few books on rendering with MR and for Viz. I'm not reading them at the moment because I need to concentrate on my story and storyboards. So, if you want to have a look at them, I could bring them tomorrow in school.

Let me know.

[kidcanuck]

I would defintely like to look at those books, when's a good time to drop by the school?

[depleteD]

Mr is geiving us freaking awesome results for animation

Light with Mr sun and sky system
Make sure Logarithmic exposure is enabled in environment
Enable Final Gather

1 /16 samples
FG High Preset
3D motion Blur enabled

make a distance pass for z depth in comp for fogging and focus

as for the materials
make sure you have refrence and paint your color, bump, reflection , gloss and transparancey maps if needed. Enable the fast glossy feature on these materials.

At the bottom the BRDF curve needs to be tweaked. But once you do...bam.

These steps will carry you to a beatiful efficent render.

If your using MR skin shader you can use the "material to shader" to pull the fast glossy reflection data from the arch materials into your skin shader for faster results. I'm not tottaly sure how to do this but I can ask one of the cats here to hop on here and explain.

To improve efficency look into the scene state manager.

Hope this points you in the right direction.

-Andrew

[depleteD]

Cool to here that, and especially will be impressive for my students when they hear that Blur is using it :) If that is the case, then, I better start reading those books that I have on MR. I'm not sure that it talks about rendering for cartoon look? It does talk about realistic. Will see and read. Again if you know any good video tutorials on that, please let me know.

BTW, I ordered the drawing DVD for the school :) Thanks.

Great to hear, Ill ask BLUR if I can pass you guys a scene to look at and you guys can deconstruct it to see how we did it.

Gnomon has some MR for Maya vids. But I recommend the mental ray shader thread here at cgtalk in 3ds max section. Look for Jeff Patton and go to his site. Hes badass and his site has a ton of example files on complex shaders.

Before you have your students jump into MR I recommend makeing them read this
http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/indoor-light.htm
Solid info on how light works. This really helped me push my cg further and provided me with an understanding of reality.

peace

[kidcanuck]

Hey dude, thanks for the render settings. You probably just saved me a day or two of tweaking and waiting. I'll let you know how it turns out.

[kidcanuck]

Hmmm, even with the medium FG preset, a really simplified scene is coming in at 54 min per frame. Back to the tweaking board.

[depleteD]

those presets i gave you were for final, so like your super final settings,
I forget what machine you have but we are on quad dual cores with 8 gigs ram.

[kidcanuck]

Those are some nice computers. After playing around with the different systems, I'm going with VRay. They have a "medium - animation" preset in their irradiance map that renders decently well, and comes in at about 3 minutes a frame on my dual xeon with 2 gigs of RAM. I'm gonna stick with that and hopefully when it's populated and the interior lights are added I can keep it under 6. Thanks for the help though. Those presets will come in handy someday I'm sure.

[brayon]

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to say thanks for the drawing DVDs'. That guy is teaching me how to draw heads and the method that he uses, is for my type of learning = Mathematics :) go figure!!

I will post some of my learnings, on my web site in the near future.


Cheers,
Gilles

[brayon]

Hi Guys,

I'm starting to draw some concept art!! Really in the ruff states at the moment. Also, at the same time, I'm trying to get use of drawing with a Wacom tablet and brush strokes in Ps and in Ai. So, a lot of fun, but a lot of questions.

I'm debating on the structure of my main character, Jack who he's about three years old. I'm thinking of creating him to be "cute", rounded in the face, easy hair cut, small hears, small nose, medium body size for his age, strong legs, arms and shoulders not to much define. I'm struggling also on the eyes structure!?!?

So, I have included a full size body of Jack and some samples of eyes structures. I would really appreciate any feedback and I'm open to anything, I really mean it, OPEN :)

[kidcanuck]

Hey Gilles,
Your wacom skills are coming along nicely. Suggestions I have for your character design are mostly related to proportion. Kids generally have large heads, especially in animation where we emphasize the head, feet and hands. I'd do that here, bring the head size up and make his limbs skinnier. He looks like a pretty ripped 8 year old in your sketch, and shinking that will make him cuter. It would also emphaisze the feet and hands, which I'd also enlarge. Of the eyes you've drawn the bottom left (round) ones are my favorite. Since you're going for cute, large round eyes are what you should be going for. Look up the Robin Hood flour kids on you tube for a good example of what I'm talking about. They have great exaggerated proportions, and large loveable eyes. As a result, they come off as very cute and funny.

[brayon]

Thanks for the Crits, I will be working on the full body this weekend.

I have made a side view of Jack and tried to reduce is age from 8-9 to 3-4. Hopefully this looks more like it. I'm having a hard time to make him facing front. So, I drew him from the side and seems to work better. What do you think? I didn't work on the eyes for the side view for now, I wanted to make the other features look like a 3-4 year olds boy.

EDIT: just added the two difference set of eyes that I'm still considering :)

[kidcanuck]

Those are good drawings of a realistic young boy, but I'd still encourage you to push it further into the realm of cartoon. Push it to the other extreme and then work backwards from there.

[brayon]

Man, I'm starting to really hate the way that I have started this thing. I should have created more in the fiction sense. Also, a three year olds kid, not the easiest to draw for me. I can easily make a 6 and over years olds.

So, did a few, like 50 pages of drawing diffirent eyes, shape, structure... Now, I have this latest one that I'm starting to like better is the one attach. What do you think. I have to work on the nose in the other expressions!!!

[kidcanuck]

Yeah that new one is a lot more cartoony. It's good to see you pushing your boundaries out, you should try to tackle something new everytime.

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