Awesometania

Some more work sketch…

John Hill — Tue, 08 May 2012 00:04:19 +0000

In the ancient past I used to do the webcomics. This is a reimagining of Skanky Sally, lead singer of the band The Skankettes, and love interest of Dinosaur, from Alien and Dinosaur Rock Out, one of several unpopular titles I did.

Ah, the halcyon days of my early twenties. Her hair is based off of Scarlett Johanssononenons from the Avengers, since my tumblr dash is full of people’s drawings of her. Originally Sally had a mullet because I couldn’t draw hair and didn’t realize you could just get reference. Ha.

More work sketches.

John Hill — Mon, 07 May 2012 22:45:56 +0000

taken by my cell phone.

When my Hulk is out, he goes commando, cause I don’t believe in purple shorts.

Sometimes you’ve got to force

John Hill — Mon, 07 May 2012 20:09:10 +0000

yourself to sketch for fun. To sketch at work. Whatever. I’m always so burnt out by my grad school work that I don’t sketch for myself at all anymore. So, I forced myself to break all my normal rules today. Just sketch whatever came out of my head today, and to just finish it, even though I didn’t warm up or correct the anatomy or really figure out a good composition. Sometimes it’s important to just shit out some garbage to break down that wall.

Yes, dear God yes, Buzz Aldrin.

John Hill — Sun, 06 May 2012 20:42:11 +0000

Of all the weeks, of all the days, today I would truly like to yell at the moon with you.

I have to be careful now, or this could quickly turn into a real blog.

Final Batman Storyboard

John Hill — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 20:56:36 +0000

Here is the final version of the Batman storyboards. I got an A on this revised version.
Feel free to let me know which versions you like best.

Dunna-Dunna-Dunna-Dunna-Dunna-

John Hill — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 20:24:29 +0000

…Batman storyboards! Way back when I was in highschool, or in college getting my BFA, this was kind of a dream job for me. A lot of other people were into “teh animes” and Toonami and all that, but I was really into Batman The Animated Series. The opening was fantastic and in general the episodes were fast, well paced, and the animation was real consistent (if not always great). I got a B on this first pass. I’ll be uploading the second pass in just a second.

General notes on this one: Cleaning up and revising some poses to be more dynamic, better silhouettes, better proportions etc. Nailing down some of the backgrounds, making sure there is some additional detail and perspective is clear. He had me add some shots, and change the angle of some of them. Some of these notes were obvious, but a couple of them I actually didn’t like because I felt like it looked less like the show, and more like a live action production. However, as you’ll see in the revised version, it is way more dynamic and interesting visually.

Heavy Lifting…

John Hill — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 22:01:55 +0000

Here is a project that was spread over three weeks, and was pretty hectic. There was a lot of action before, where the character walks in and sets up the scene. It was quickly eliminated because the instructor and I agreed it would take too long to accomplish. Even with that eliminated it was a nail biter. However, it’s quite successful, and I got the A, so I’m really happy with it. I have done lifting exercises before (academically and professionally) but never on paper with this much planning, finesse’ and pressure. At each point, (the first pass on the reaction to the object, the first pass on the impact of the weight and the inevitable fall, and the pivotal pass on the actual lifting) I had major revisions and the timing kept getting tighter and tighter. The initial version of the lift was pretty awful. There was too much stagger, and just not enough change. Now, the lift has a lot chopped out, and I’d like it a bit smoother, but visually it’s effective and the whole package works together.

Heavy Lifting from John T Hill on Vimeo.

Quick little storyboard….

John Hill — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 01:42:48 +0000

Another smaller storyboard exercise. We’ve finally started working from scripts, but this is from an assignment just before then. The premise was “Two characters are traveling down a road or path and something falls from the sky. You must use at least two sheets (12 drawings) to 4 sheets (24 drawings).” So everyone had drastically different boards. Mine was notably the darkest.

The. Thick. Of. It.

John Hill — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 20:58:01 +0000

So busy lately. Sleep deprivation. Mood swings. Exhaustion. Poor diet. I found myself weaping profusely at 2am one night, watching some rap video on youtube, scrawling grad school assignments that I’m dreadfully lucky are all seeming to work out. That’s not really luck though. I’ve always been perfectly comfortable letting myself fall apart, but the work is easy. Hopefully I’ll have some professional stuff to bandy about here soon-ish. Just wrapping up an interesting little thing that I’m excited to see out in the world. Till then, have a storyboard exercise: A

Apparently this is the kind of thing you do for clients when you’re making advertising boards. They’re called Production Boards, which I guess makes them a little similar to Color Scripts or Lighting boards in animation. We were encouraged (commanded?) to use photographic reference and to trace the photographs, but I had a real hard time doing that, and really had to be forced. Regardless, it all worked out in the end. This is a real ad campaign for some auto dealers. I’m not sure how or why this is used to sale cars though, since the cars are always secondary to these lame gags with the Monkey (Who is an ape, it shoudl be called trunk ape. Morons.)

Revisions and additions: Goose Sneak and Zip Out Edition

John Hill — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 22:54:27 +0000

So this was two assignments combined, and will probably be the only one I do in color this semester. It’s too time consuming, and the benefits are nill when you have to rush the ink and color. Plus, I like working on paper more, it retains more life. Anyway, I addressed the notes on the Duck’s body and neck to make it more consistent, and then added a little take and a zip out to complete the scene.

The new note on the zip out was that I could make the hold a moving hold, have his legs churn a bit and the whole figure shift slowly to the right before FFFTTPPPTTTHHHH! Zip out. We agreed it works fine this way, but that change would definitely plus it.

It wasn’t originally planned, but since it’s already happening, I’m hoping to have some version of Dracula and the Wolf Man appear in something I do every semester.