Easter and the Sniffles

Happy Easter everyone!!! Thank you Jesus for conquering death and for giving us a new hope. :)

Not going to lie, coming back from spring break was pretty hard, and somehow I managed to get myself semi-sick, so I've had to miss a couple of classes here and there, which was a bummer. I'm supposed to be a volunteer for a mo-cap session at Dreamworks tomorrow though, so I'm REALLY hoping that I won't have to miss out on interning tomorrow because I would be super sad. Also my head is kind of spinning soooo if this post seems all over the place that's probably because my mind isn't functioning at it's 100% right now.

boo for being sick on Easter

At least I'm glad to say that I've been pretty productive in spite of sneezing/sniffling/coughing/drinking massive amounts of emergenC and tea! I've been working on this game called Thralled, which is a trippy ios game about the escape of a Brazilian slave, Isaura. Most of my week has been focused on that, and slaving over internship applications. It's making me wish that I had some kind of a "fast-foward" life remote control thing so I can just skip over everything and go right into summer.

However, in the little spare time I had this week I stumbled upon some pretty cool animations...

-which blogspot doesn't seem to want me to upload, so here is the link to "Under the Fold" (thanks Willie!) by the animation workshop (creators of the Backwater Gospel)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aoi8F-tRW-w

and here is the Croissant de Triomphe by Walt Disney Animations! This one is particularly cool just because it makes me really miss Paris :3
https://vimeo.com/62299762

And I also stumbled upon Chris Sander's blog and spent about an hour obsessing over how incredible his drawings are. Some people are so talented it's just not fair!

I feel like I have a lot more to say (and it's only 10:00pm) but my body seems really eager to be dragged into bed, and also my head seems to be wandering to another planet... so I'll leave with a fun little concept art I did for Thralled today. Throughout the game Isaura always seems frightened and unsure, so I wanted to see if I could play around with lighting and colors to transform her into a strong woman who is ready to face any storm in order to save her child.

I also forgot to mention how I was really surprised at how many pageviews my blog got after I posted it on facebook! My views totally tripled and I think I had around 300 views... from 8 different countries?!? I didn't even know I had friends in switzerland or wherever haha! And thanks to everyone who gave me such nice feedback and comments and are just as excited about my upcoming project as I am :)

Ok I think that's about it. Good night world!

Hello productivity!

Unfortunately, unlike about half of the USC population, I'm not spending my spring break in Cabo (1. because I'm broke and 2. because my thesis is calling to me), but waking up at around 5-6am to work at the campus center and crank out some art for my portfolio-

I also updated my website!!!! check it out here :D

Here is a glimpse of my mornings for the past few days- the campus center is surprisingly chilly in the mornings, aaaand I have been snacking on cheerios/carrots/earl grey tea for the past 5 hours.

side note- did you know that Coke Zero is surprisingly good at giving you an energy boost?? Within 5 minutes of drinking it I get this energy spazz attack and suddenly get super focused. Allow me to demonstrate:

Thank you, Coke Zero, for the sugar rush

But anyways, I've been really productive so far, which makes me really happy! I forgot how much I really really liked drawing because I've been so busy with USC work that I haven't had time to doodle much. It makes my 8-hour shifts go by super fast and I still don't seem to have enough time. In the past 2-3 days I got a lot done on Noemi and the overall look for the thesis:

original concept

rough sketch

digital sketch

start of coloring process

I also got to work on some ideas for Noemi's gloomy neighborhood and what I would like the general color/mood to be. 

concept for one of the first few scenes

Spring Break!!

I haven't posted in a while becauseeeeee quite frankly I've been too busy trying to survive midterms season. In between studying and late nights and internships I've managed to look through some people's blogs to gauge the level of skill I need to be at to get into art/story internships for other companies. Honestly I'm quite intimidated at times because some people are so talented. Oh well-the quote "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars" comes to mind.

Here is a little snapshot of my midterm mindset lately- especially when studying with my sister:

sorry about the super messy half-delirious handwriting

But now that it's FINALLY spring break I'm determined to crank out a bunch of material for portfolios, internships, and my thesis. Unfortunately I'm a bit rusty in my drawing abilities now because I have had such a crazy schedule lately. Hopefully I'll be able to get back up to speed these next few weeks.

(side note- I also got to see the family and friends screening of Dreamwork's movie The Croods today!!! I actually got really emotional at the father-daughter scenes between Grug and Eep :3 Everybody go see it it's beautiful and so heartfelt!)

I had some time today to do some random drawings of Noemi and Milo- here is one of them. I was playing around with the style of Winnie the Pooh (who is awesome and adorable,) and I really dig the watercolor/illustration look. Also if you look closer you can spot the Florentine Duomo in the distance because I might have been having some Italy withdrawals...

Also happy St. Pattys! Mentally sending everyone some good luck because really, who couldn't use some more luck on their side?