Harry Potter Opening In After Effects

So I’m working on my next live action video which, as you might have been able to guess, deals with Harry Potter. I’ve been trying to find a good tutorial on how to get the opening and I finally found one after forever of searching! lol

I looked at some other random After Effects tutorials but I guess it’s because I”m a newbie but they are kinda hard!  I couldn’t really understand them. I wasn’t sure if people were using CS5 but I know Photoshop CS5 isn’t that different then Photoshop CS4 so I guess if its the same deal with After Effects, it wouldn’t really matter that much if they were using CS5 or CS4 (I have CS4). Yet I still couldn’t follow completely. When I followed this Harry Potter tutorial, however, I was able to learn some things that were in previous tutorials but I was too much of a newbie to figure out what was happening! haha

But I think the biggest thing that threw me off most of the tutorials was the fact that they used downloaded plugins and Idk, I’m just not very much into downloading plugins. Whenever a Photoshop tutorial useing plugins or downloaded brushses, I’m usually able to improvise but since I know little to nothing about After Effects, I had to resort to giving up lol

OMG, After Effects is such a WONDERFUL program though! There’s so much potential for awesome videos! I’m so excited about having it and I really want to learn more! But one problem…

WHY DO AFTER EFFECTS TUTORIALS HAVE TO BE SO BORING?!?!?!

No offense to anyone who made any After Effects tutorials, I don’t think it’s the way people make the tutorials, I think I just zone out when people talk about film type stuff like camera sizes or…idk lol I took a film english class once and I fell alseep almost whenever my teacher started to talk lol maybe he’s to blame for my lack of ability to pay attention because he was rather boring…but I think it’s mostly there’s just something about talking about films that just bore me haha which SUCKS because I love the art of film!!

I’m not sure if I made ANY sense just now lol but I’ll end it here and with the video tutorial I was able to follow for the Harry Potter Opening! lol Enjoy!

Harry Potter Opening Tutorial

Stock Exclusives on Facebook!

So the other day I made a facebook page for my site! Yayz! I think it’ll be easier to keep people updated on stuff I’m working on and to stay connected with people. =) So you can go check that out but I wanted to tell you what you’ll get speical before anyone else!

Exclusive stock photos! I’ll upload a few stock photos 1 days before they go on DA =) Also I’ll add some photos there that won’t go on DA  So go over to facebook and LIKE the page and share it if you like it! =)

You can find my Facebook here and my stock deviant art account here.

Here some of the exsclusive stock photos I already put on Facebook. =)

LIKE on FACEBOOK!! =D

Pencil Drawing and Shading at Work

So the other day I made a post about different shading techniques and tools for shading. Also I wrote a post on graphite pencils, which you can find here if you missed it.

I love drawing and I love Assassin’s Creed! Soooooooo I decided to draw Altair form the first Assassin’s Creed. So I put my love or drawing and Assassin’s Creed and put it with the two previous posts I wrote and made it into a video! It’s not a tutorial on how to use the pencils or shading techniques and tools  - that sort of thing you just have to understand what each can do and then practice with them to learn how to use them. If they’re really hard for anyone to understand, I’d be more then happy to make a video on how I use them in order to help anyone better understand how to use the graphite pencils and shading tools and about the shading techniques.

It might be a good idea to find a picture with high contrast – where it has a lot of dark areas and then a lot of light areas – to practice with. The image of Altair I drew was this one

(I added in the Assassin’s Creed hehe) I know his blade is suppose to be on his left hand but I liked this image and the fact that it was suppose to be on his left arm totally flew from my mind before I started to draw! haha But nonetheless, it’s a good image and I enjoyed drawing it.

Here’s the final image:

What do you think? Good? Bad? Let me know! =) Here’s the video process for it – there’s a cute surprise in it! ^.^

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From Photo to Cartoon!

So lately I’ve been doing a lot of work turning people’s portraits into cartoons on Fiverr.com and since a lot of people have been asking me to examples of my work and wanting the actual photo and then the cartoon version, I thought I’d make a post so people can see the before and after pictures look like. Enjoy! =)

Yes, some people send me cartoons to make them into cartoons…… lol people just seem to really like my style. =) And I enjoy doing this but the amount of time I put into these images aren’t worth $5 to me anymore, I’m sorry to say. So now I moved this gig from Fiverr to TenBux. If you’re interested in a cartoon, you can place your order here.

Shading and Blending Techniques

So one of the hardest but important aspects of drawing is shading. It took me a while to understand how lighting works and where to shade.  There are different types of shading and different ways to blend your colors.

Shading Types:

Tonal shading is where you have different levels of light and dark. The darker areas are where the light hits the object the least and the lighter areas would be where the light would his the object more.

Scumble shading is like a basic sketch for shading. You just put a light coat of whatever material you’re using to shade with.

Smudge shading is, well, where you smudge your shading to blend it together. I’ll go more into this one and different tools to smudge and blend with later in this post.

Hatching is where you draw strokes in one direction. The more lines you put, the darker the area will be. This is like tonal shading in a sense you put in lighter areas and darker areas. The way you make the areas darker is by putting more lines and the lighter ares have fewer lines.

Cross hatching is a lot like hatching expect you have lines going in two directions instead of just one. This is the technique most comic book artists use. I love this method of shading but for some reason I can’t really seem to get it. haha

Accent lines are used to do basic shading also.

Tools of the Trade:

Here are some things I’ve used to smudge and blend my lines together. Each has a different effect and you use them depending on what kind of look you want to go for.

Tortillions are tools used by artists to smudge and blend. They’re basically rolled up pieces of paper and you use the tip to smudge with but I tried making my own and it’s just not the same as using store bought! haha you can try rolling up a piece of paper and using it as a tortillion but it doesn’t work for me personally haha They come in different sizes. They’re not really use to blend out into large areas but for smaller areas or if you just want to soften some lines. You can get a lot of good detail work done with the fine point tortillions. They blend smoothly but you can also get some harder lines out of them if you know how to use them.
You can use Q tips to blend as well. This will get you a very smooth service, not very ideal if you want to have texture. I wouldn’t use a Q tip to blend skin tone.

Kleenex tissues are really good to get smooth services too but these I would use to more broader areas and not so much detailed work.

The easiest and cheapest way to blend is to use your finger! Your finger won’t get you very smooth blending because fingers have lines on them haha but they’re good if you don’t mind getting messy and want some texture in your work.

I’ve also heard people using paint brushes for blending but I haven’t personally used this technique  but I imagine you can get a wide range of smooth and rough textures depending on the type of brush you use. =) I’ll try this out sometime and let you know how it goes haha

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Copic Markers

Today I found out about a new tool for designing. Copic Markers  allow you to make drawings that look like digital art! I watched some video on youtube of people drawing with copic markers and their drawings really looked like the coloring (and inking) was done in photoshop or something!

What are Copic Markers? Well they are alcohol based markers that don’t ruin your paper, as many markers tend to do. They come is 4 different types: Original, Sketch, Ciao, and Wide.

All of the different types come with two ends except for the Wide and they all come in a load of colors! The Original, Sketch, and Ciao come in over a hundred colors and the Wide comes in about 30. They are also refillable and recyclable. Who doesn’t like environmental friendly tools? lol

These markers look amazing! I haven’t used them but I really want them! They look fun to use and they make normal paper drawings look like they’ve been digitally colored! Check out this video I watched of someone drawing and using these markers. It’s amazing!

Artists on Youtube really don’t get that much exposure and they really should!  But anyway….this video is amazing and it wonderfully demonstrates what I mean about how they make drawings look very well colored and blended – almost like how they would look if they were done in Photoshop.

The only thing about copic markers that really suck is that they are kind of expensive. I looked on the AC Moore website and they sell for about $7 per marker! =/ I just wanted a small set of starter markers but the smallest one was about $40. I’d love to get it but I can’t afford it right now haha but maybe Micheals or other arts and crafts stores might sell them for cheaper. Here’s hoping! haha If all else fails – there’s always ebay! lol

You can watch this video on what Copic Markers are . =)

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Pen Tablet Problems

A lot can go wrong when you’re trying to get some work done with a graphic design tablet. I have a Wacom Bamboo Fun Tablet and it works wonderfully! Usually….yesterday I encountered an issue with it but I think today I found a solution. This post isn’t technically about art itself but more about some tools you use and how they can go wrong. Learn about your tools and you’re work flow will be more efficient.

Wacom offers many different types of tablets. Wacom Bamboo Fun is probably the least expensive at $99 but it’s worth every cent. =) I’ll go more into different tablets in a later post, but what I want to say about the Bamboo Fun, and many other tablets, is that’s it’s not touch sensitive.  I can’t tell you how many times I work on my laptop with my tablet next to me and my brother or sister come over and touch the tablet int he hopes to mess up whatever I’m doing! lol It’s pretty funny that they keep doing it even after I tell them it’s not touch sensitive. Today, I actually found out that it’s actually works with magnets that are in the pen and sensors. I don’t know much about the hardware of technology like this but I learned about the magnets after my pen suddenly stopped working with my tablet.

Yesterday, I got angry with my sister and in my anger, I slammed my pen down on my tablet in mid work. Good news is, my sister and I weren’t really fighting, just playing around, bad news? In the midst of playing, I actually manage to break apart the magnet that allows my pen to connect to my tablet. The eraser part worked perfectly but the nib part would not respond at all!

How horrible!?! To a graphic artist, this is pretty much the end of the world! (Well to a broke graphic artist anyway lol, the pens are about $30 a pop!) I was so upset that my pen wasn’t working and I felt guilty that I wasn’t able to get drawings done for a few people on Fiverr, I had to message them asking for more time. And I spent what felt like forever trying to find a cure for my poor little pen.

I was really hoping that it was a software malfunction, so I tried uninstalling and re-installing the tablet software, I checked for driver updates, and changing pen nibs but nothing worked! Many other people asked the same question I was but there wasn’t much of a solution. And then something happened. Like an angle came down to answer my heart’s desire of finding a solution. Someone commented on a question that was just like mine and referred readers to a blog. What was the solution you might ask? I had to open up my pen and fix the magnets!

That was a pretty scary thought? Opening up my pen? Blasphemy! What if I broke it? It’d never work again and I can’t get a new pen right now! I’ve opened up electronics before but this was my beloved pen! But I had to try.

It wasn’t that hard actually, and, more importantly, it worked!!! I was sooo happy! But my pen movements are still kinda jerky and I’m working on getting those kinks out. The reviews on that tutorial was phenomenal! A lot of people had this method work for them and so did I.

If you’re having trouble with your pen, check out this blog post and see if this will work for you. =)

Fixing a Wacom Pen

First Episode!

It’s finally done! The animation isn’t anything that great, I’m still learning and working on techniques but I really wanted to get the first episode done! So here it is! I hope you like it!

This week I”m going to publish another video. It’s not an animation though. I’ve been playing around with After Effects and I’ve got some really fun ideas! I shot the footage for my first video so now all I have to do is edit and add in some effects! I”m really excited and I can’t wait to upload it! hehe Until then, enjoy my first episode of my new animated vlog show and subscribe to my Youtube channel so you don’t miss out on anything! And don’t forget to check back soon!

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Toon Boom

So today I got really tired of Flash. I had the trail and every time I would try to open Flash, there was an error that I just didn’t know how to fix. It would say uninstall and re install the program. The good thing about this corrupted file was that the 30 day trial would start over. But the reinstalling process really got annoying and not only that, Flash would crash every 5 minuets! And if I didn’t save, I’d lose all my work or even if I did save, there was a high chance Flash would crash while I was trying to save and I’d lose my work anyway! Ugh! How irriating!

Now this isn’t a rant on how horrible Flash is because I think it’s actually a really good program but one that just doesn’t want to work properly on my computer. So I started looking around of other animation software. I came across one that I have heard about in the past called Toon Bom and I decided to look into it.

Toon Boom seems, to me, to be made more for cartoon work like shows and such and then Flash more for application animation type thing. Sorry if that’s pretty obvious to others but I knew about Flash and just thought “Well hey…I’m going to try to make a show using this program.” And that just didn’t work out for me. I”m going to try the trail for Toon Boom and even though I can’t buy this program, I think it’ll be fun to buy. Also, I heard there was a free program that was a lot like Toon Boom but just not as polished.

So what’s so great about Toon Boom? Well my interest was in Toon Boom Animate Pro and the thing I really liked about it and seemed interesting to me was the Automated Lip Sync Detection and the 3D Stage. The lip sync function helps with, of course, syncing audio to your animation. To me, syncing lips isn’t all that difficult but it doesn’t hurt to try to make things easier! haha  And the 3D stage allows you to work more with perspective and actually create a world inside the program – even if you want to create a 2D animation. Now this program is for 2D animation or at least I didn’t see anything for 3D animation.

You can check out the program by watching this video which does an overview of the program:

If you want to take a look at the program similar to this one, but free, you can find that here.

The Illusion of Animation

So lately I’ve been working a lot on the first episode of the animation show I’m trying to start. So far it’s just been a pretty simple stuff – it’s more like a motion comic. Motion comics are still images that sort of pan rather then actually move. Sometimes in motion comics, if someone walks, the image of the person just glides across the screen but other times the animators will actually have the legs move and take steps.

The first episode so far is more like a motion comic. There is a short part where you actually see my character talk and something I’ve discovered with setting up audio to the mouth to sync it up is that talking in cartoons is an illusion, just like most things in art. What I mean by that is when you draw a two point perspective, for example, it looks like the image is going back into space but it’s still just on a flat surface. The depth is just an illusion.

Lip syncing is also an illusion.When you watch a cartoon, the character don’t form everything they’re saying like people. There’s no need. All you really need are the major sounds that you hear. When I first started syncing in my animation, I drew out the process of the mouth forming “hi”. I drew the mouth closed, then a litte bit open, then more open, an so on until the mouth was at the max width when pronouncing the “h” in “hi”. I realized that this all was very unnecessary.  Instead, all you really need are the basic sounds. Here’s a mouth chart I used to help me figure out what how to draw the mouth.

(I just used this image as a reference – I feel that these images may over anunicate words and you may just want to watch yourself in a mirror or video tape yourself saying the lines you want your animation to say to see how you should draw the mouths. Like when I say the sound “K” my teeth don’t show like in the above image lol)

All you have to do for the illusion of talking to work is to set your audio with your animation then place the mouth where you hear the sounds. You have to listen carefully!  This mean where ever you hear the M sound, for example, you place the mouth you drew that imitates that sound.

So if you want your character to say “Hello, my name is Lauren” You would place the “E”, “L”, “O” (kind of like saying ” ‘ello” haha) “M”, “E”, “Y”, (the transition from “E” to “Y” will have to be pretty quick”) “N”,  ”A”, “M”, “I”, “S”, “L”, “A”, “R”, “N”. Not all the letters are necessary   – in my name, you have have to put the “U” or “E” mouths in because you won’t notice the mouth skipping them and they’ll probably cause a lag in your animation and you’ll lose sync with your audio most likely.

When I tried to add in all the sounds, it looked like the character was putting in more effort then needed to speak and it didn’t seem to flow. In my experience, less is more when it comes to lip syncing your animation. Now that I took out some mouth movements, the talking seems to flow much smoother and seems to match up better with the audio. Also, it’s important to remember that if in your audio, the person talking holds their “m” sound, for example, you should add in frames so that the “m’ image will last just as long. I also read that setting your audio a couple of frames after your animation will make it look more natural because our mouths make the movements of sounds before the sounds come out. I haven’t tested this theory yet personally but it’s something to keep in mind if you’re stuck with your animation. =)

Hope this post was informative and I hope that my animation will be done soon! I almost finished it the other day but then I realized something….it sucked! lol

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