Gift to FedEx friends!

Every day during my time as a costumer service and FedEx shipment handler, the same FedEx tag team duo would show up. As it was the last stop for them with FedEx being right across the street, sometimes they liked hanging out while I had panic attacks from learning to do my job. These two were particularly dynamic has you'd have a tall muscly Gaston-like guy  followed by a tiny spunky fellow that loves to joke around. Half the time, I wasn't exactly sure where he was. I always appreciated their company and they heckled me to draw something for them before starting at DCP.

 Each of them got a FedEx Truck variation!

Star Fox Rough Animation

Star Fox Rough Animation Scenes from Jesse Soto on Vimeo.

So during my internship at Titmouse, I would occasionally have some time to rough out animation here and there to become more familiar with Flash and the techniques practiced there. Symbols, scene organization, tweening, etc. Eventually production for TV shows became more demanding so scenes were carried out at home, on my spare-time. The idea was suppose to turn out as Star Fox crash landing and being tracked down by a persistent, yet animalistic machine that burdens atmospheric entry and mechanical failures. Fox would have the sharper instincts and fight back with his calm and cool foxyness.

On the road to Storyboard Boot Camp

Keep in mind, it's made-up.

I always went with my best friend to the movies throughout my teenage-hood. If I had an itchin' for "Over 9000 Zombees", she would always be with me. And usually, this was on a Tuesday night. Films like "Teamwork in the Spotlight" and "Hidden Secrets" was packed with enough pathos to have us watch it more than once.

"We may have stitched arms and limped movements, but we can't be

ripped apart when united. Hands in, everyone!"

"Grandma carried that box through everything. And we needs 

what's inside. Please stay focused for once."

While my best friend re-experienced the movie, I kinda started noticing patterns in the shapes during certain shots.  Some shapes almost looking like a huge NFL-lineback next to a smaller track-and-fielder, even though they were of the same height and weight. Sometimes I felt a bit of apprehension, and sometimes I understood the moment a lot easier. At the time, it didn't occur to me why the filmmaker would do this, he must have been crazy.

But it drove me crazy to not know it when I was in storyboard boot camp many years later. While it wasn't the most important thing. It was damn important enough to seek everyone's advice, where the multitude of possible compositions confused me even more.

With a hodgepodge of logical compositions selected, I loaded my boards and made way to the presentation room. Nighttime assured quiet "able-to-freak-out-as-I-thumbtack-my-boards" time. If I didn't select the right compositions, would I be caught red-handed?

Lucky for me everyone complemented on the pretty boards (YES!) and could mostly tell what was going on. I survived the pitch, and with hopes of less insanity in the boarding phase next week.

Xerox'ing storyboard drawings was the next step towards becoming a full fledged storyboard artist. The machine ambushed me with paper storm the night before the next pitch. Why must you be so hard!?!

Feng Shui - Pagoda with Tree of Life

 (Click to enlarge)

According to the Feng Shui books by Lillian Too, 2011's Rabbit year is suppose to not be so lucky for people with rabbit and rooster signs (I was totally looking forward to a good year too!) all in the name of unlucky stars flying into those year's charts.  Turns out that will some imagination and will power you can turn that luck around! These Pagoda items (usually a solid gold miniature) with a combination of a growing tree, a community of birds, and gems are a good symbol of prosperity to counter the negativity. My Mom follows Feng Shui pretty deeply and our house will go through it's yearly re-arrangement with the addition of this image in various places. 

This took me a while to make through digital cut out/photo-manipulation. Abundance and wholesome-ness was the target theme, and was hoping you feel refreshed or something like that. Everything in here is 100% recycled google images :P! Enjoy!

Happy 2011!!

Happy 2011 everyone! Year of the rabbit commences as of Feburary. It was a difficult and challenging year this one past, and although rabbits are softer, this year will probably be the most challenging as I get settled in and get my butt into gear. Hope you all enjoy this small piece :)

Troll Head Portrait!

So over the past few weeks I've been drawing heads for this 1,000 head challenge as a means to help improve my overall drawing. So after some absence I wanted to get back into with a head portrait (sort of) of my lvl 59 troll warrior in WoW at the end of his quests in Silithus. Trolls generally have very large volumetric nose, shallow eye pockets, and a really rounded forehead. Playing with colors and large strokes makes it easier to see forms at times. In any case, Merry Christmas to all and Happy New Years!

Here are various sketches made for the Titmouse blog, TitBlog. Each week had a new theme to excite everyone. My internship with them ended yesterday, and now I search for work.

(Image Removed)

 

 

Hey everyone! I can't really talk about this project because of a signed NDA. I am, however, allowed to promote any artwork I've made for it. This is a sample model sheet of the characters in the graphic novel that I'm making for musician Alia Ella Henderson. The art styling is pretty close to how it may turn out, but I need to experiment a bit more. This is a collaspable model sheet, meaning the bug folks are grouped in layers behind layers with other bug groups, so I can reference them while comic-making. So it's bed bugs, ants, and termite families in the front, main characters in the center, and giant muscle bugs in the back (including Master Hand). Enjoy :P

(Update, I've removed the image at my freelance employer's request)

I am currently interning at Titmouse Studios! Woooooooooooo! There is a lot of talent there and am learning something new each day, even things outside of art *gasp* I've made a friend or two, and have annoyed many people. It's a fantastic opportunity thus far and am cleaning up animation currently amongst other intern-y things. This is as unexpected to my life, as I am grateful for it. I can't mention many things about what's going on until after the release of current projects, sorry :(

For now, I offer you a pre-production quicky piece from the Star Fox film I'm undertaking. Enjoy! I will post more experience things soon! (Yay for 2:30 am broken thoughts!)

Go watch Iron Man 2! Robert Downey Jr. returns a crazy fool that nearly destroys himself and the world because he can't get past his narcissistic crazies @_@! Overall it was pretty good, some sharp writing, good casting, and nicely motivated action scenes. Side note, Happy Mother's Day everyone!

I'm about Mid-way through film production. My film story is rock solid and I'm getting the hang of adding personality and caricature when I animate. The challenge would be to finish with full color :) This is how I feel right now, kinda funny when you consider that I'm usually happy-go-lucky about things. I'm resting my eyes and mind this weekend. I'll get off the computer now. I'm still alive so I'll update soon, enjoy!

This get well card will get passed around the department for comments and good wishes for our beloved teacher and friend, Corny "lov'em and leav'em" Cole the 3rd. He has gone through a lot in the last year and has been resting at home for a few months now. If you've known Corny for some time or have been one of his students, send him some mail through CalARTs Character Animation.

Unfortunately, fall semester is reaching it's final week of the semester. There's so much left to learn. Man, I feel like this is the hardest I've work to really understand whatever it is I'm doing. Though, every year I work sufficiently hard, this year feels like I've really worked my mind. Animation has been super rewarding with Ted Ty, I've gotten the hang of how to do a story under the Skellies (with a solid animatic to boot), and Masha has enriched all my skill sets with getting me to make animation outside of my norms in her enrichment class. To whomever is reading this blog, please take her class if you want to be a fantastic artist, she'll break your creative shell!

I'm super pumped for next semester and my film. My current animatic is around 5 minute 14 seconds, and I think a few more seconds will be tacked on by next week. I'm really looking forward to the film workshop going on for the 3rd and 4th years, so that we can simplify our class time to animate more :) and also be shown a lot of post-production stuff along the way, which is where I struggle the most. I'll need all the time I can get. I'm aiming to improve my acting skills and vitality in my animation for this film. So study and loads of practice.

Above is a pre-test for my animation assignment on after effects. The lighting and particles are similar to what I'm looking for in my assignment.

Some fun stuff for everyone! Must draw more 0_0!

Second illustration in this Desert Series. It feels like a comic book illustration with all the bright colors, but it feels energetic which was my point. It's based on the Aries astrology symbol which encompasses youth, excitement, and a mountain climber. Time to get back to my film.

Spur of the moment drawings and paintings. I really like how some other students design their shapes and compositions, like Dylan, Kris, and Glen (Calartians will know :D). They keep things simple with few colors and stroke types, and in the end it's easy to get. I tend to throw extra colors, mess around with having extra people, and add intricate lil things with lighting. More than halfway through it: I get lost myself and forget to connect everything together, so things are not so easy to get. :/ I hope y'all enjoy!

I'm really diggin' the customizations you can do with your brushes on CS4. It's like you have 9 or so brushes in one!

Trying out a few things before getting to work on ma film :P I would like to start playing around with different brushes on photoshop and working them with textures.

Fun sketching while listening to Tibet: The story of a tragedy on youtube. If there was a Tibetan basketball all star team, this fellow would definitely be kicking ass with them, and, they would also be using these colors for their uniform. Man, I really miss painting :D

Funky Camel Character Designs - Rik Maki Assignment

Character designs for Maki's class. Time to go to sleep :)

It's been a while since I last posted! Umm...it's about 3 weeks into my 3rd year here at CalARTS. I'm kept busy by a lot of drawing classes and homeworks. I'm having a hard time balancing everything and still having time to work on my film >< I feel a lot of pressure this year because I'll be applying for Internships around April/May. I'm starting to play around with textures and color. I'm also starting to like Storytelling a lot :) Enjoy!