Illustration - The Little Jesus

 My final comic for my Advanced Sequential class - a graphic novel interpretation of "The Little Jesus", one of the short stories from my favorite play, The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh. I always imagined if I were to direct an interpretation of The Pillowman, I'd have each story as its own little animation...but that's something for future me to think about.
And yes, this is technically still a work in progress. I want to reink this (with a bit more character to the lines - I wanted to go for a dark fairytale/Edward Gorey ink style) and recolor it. The comic is the product of 4 weeks of work, the last week of which was spent coloring all twelve panels in the time it took my thesis animation to render. I finalized twelve comic pages and a 4 and a half minute animation in one night...I'd call that a success.

Illustration - Exit Interview

Hello everyone! I am officially a college grad. Summa cum laude and a full-time job already, yay!
So now I finally have a little bit of time to update everything, before everything else gets underway. And my first order of business, by popular demand, is to get some comics online.
This is Exit Interview, my graphic novel interpretation of a flash fiction piece by Dan O'Shea. The original story, along with many more of his dark and hilarious stories, can be found in his book Old School (which you can purchase as a digital copy through that link). I was lucky enough to read most of them for this assignment, and let me tell you, it was difficult picking just one to illustrate. And I still want to do Thin Mints, at some point.

Illustration - Bad Dog Lineup

The final lineup! Enjoy!

Illustration - New Character Designs for Bad Dog (part 2)

And now...back to Bad Dog!
Father Preston
The priest who presides over Sarah's funeral and later, helps Linda get through her anger about losing her mom. He was the most difficult to redesign, mostly because I wasn't sure if I wanted him to stay young as in the original comic, or to become an older, more fatherly figure to Linda.

But in the end, I felt this design didn't mesh with his character.
Sarah and Preston's Redesign
I finished these two together to save space. Sarah is Linda's mother, who only appears at the beginning of the film. Mostly, she is young, pretty, and a good mom. And here's the new Preston.

Detective Reed
The man in charge of the serial murder case. He's a small-town detective, but not without smarts. He is also a new addition via the screenplay, and also serves as a father figure to Linda.

Illustration - New Character Designs for Bad Dog (part 1)

You guys remember my comic from Narrative Illustration? Well, that turned into a full-blown, 47 page screenplay (wherein the little girl Linda lives with nuns and attempts to kill the dog "that killed her mom"). I'm very proud of the story and the screenplay, but I felt like the characters could use some updating. I spent my Advanced Character Design class recreating them, with some great results.

Linda
The main character from the story. She's an eight-year-old girl who loses her mother to a serial killer in the town, and Linda believes that this killer is actually a stray dog she's run into. The nuns take the orphaned girl in, and after recruiting another girl, Linda sets out to kill the monster that took away her mother. The screenplay is essentially her coming-of-age story.

Becky

This is one of the only characters who did not appear in the original comic. I included her in the screenplay because I wanted Linda to have another kid roughly her age to talk to, so that all of the dialogue wouldn't just be a little kid talking to adults. Becky is a bad influence on Linda, and often says things before thinking them through all the way.

The Black Dog
The dog is the main villain of the story. He contracts rabies from the rabbit carcass her devours at the story's opening, and grows sicker and sicker as the days pass. He is fully rabid by the final confrontation.

Sister Mary and Sister Francine
These are the two nuns who take Linda in. They live in a convent beside Linda's school, where they act as librarian and principal, respectively. Sister Mary is the tall, gaunt one, who is cold and distant but an old softie at her core, while Sister Francine is the stout, bubbly one who takes the firmer hand with the girls.

Illustration and Game - The Evolution of the Ponga

For the past year, I've been doing artwork for a small gaming company called Action-Reaction labs. I've learned so much about making video games and art, and I want to show off one of the characters I designed for them.

I call this guy Ponga. He was created for a game we ended up scrapping, so I get to keep the design and do with it as I chose.


Here's a concept screen for the game. It was going to be for iPhone, and the goal is to get the weird blue creature in the middle to the goal point off screen. Also, bear-pillar.


And here is my 3D model of Ponga, which I've been working on in my 3D character class. I'll put up my short animation test of him once I finish the apple toss.

Animation - Airhead (pre-production work cont'd)

Color studies:




Storyboard:


















I might post the animatic later, but probably not. You guys can just wait until we finish animating it. :)