| Andrus |: 2006

Its getting to be that time of year!

Thanksgiving was great, and getting to meet up with the Ringling crew was non-stop laughs. I hope everyone’s thanksgivings went smoothly as well. Below is a quick sketch I did of a restaurant that Lindsay and I hit up during the holiday weekend. The next few weeks I foresee my posts getting sparse, but work is going to be getting extra hours in the coming weeks.

Also as its getting closer to the x-mass time and I just wanted to post up a couple links to some charity organizations that have been great resources to me over the past few years. One of the links (childsplaycharity) was shown to my by my old roommate Jason, and we both have been active with it for a few years now. There are plenty of places to give a little to and these are just a few.

www.childsplaycharity.org
www.charitynavigator.org
www.redcross.org

Happy Holiday’s everyone. Keep drawing, and be safe!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just wanted to wish everyone a safe holiday weekend. I have a few figure drawings that I'll put up later tonight. I promise to get some solid drawing time in this weekend as well. Have a good one!

Boston & Back in 25 hours.

Lindsay and I were able to hop some flights over to Boston to visit with my family. It was great to see Patty and Scott fitting into the new roles as parents so well. Needless to say it was all worth it though, the lack of sleep was just like the old days back at Ringling.

Here are some sketches I did while waiting for flights. They are all a blur really, some from Burbank, San Fran, and Boston.

FIgure class.

Here are some sketches I did during figure classes this week. I will put up some animation tests when I get some free time. Work is getting into gear, and I'm tring my best to keep up with the team.

A full weekend.

Lindsay and I did alot of running around this weekend. Managed to fit in a few mins of location/people sketching in there though. Didn't get to draw at Disneyland on Sunday because we stepped off Splash Mountain and were handed these badges that allowed us fast pass any time on all the rides. So, needless to say we basically ran from one ride to the next getting in as much as we could while avoiding the lines.

Also Patty, Sophia, and Scott are all back home from the hospital. Everything went smoothly after she was born and they are settling in back at the house.

Flushed Away & Bee Movie Trailer

Flushed Away hit theaters this Friday. Also before the movie is the first trailer for Bee Movie. I hope everyone gets to check them out this weekend.

On a side note one of the animators who worked on Flushed Away (Jeremy Bernstein.) Did this awesome caricature of me during a meeting before lunch. Check out his blog and you will see him drawin people like a machine. Hehe. Thanks Jeremy.

A NEW ADDITION!

Just got word that lastnight back in Mass, my brother and his wife just welcomed in their baby daughter Sophia Andrus. Mother and daughter are doing great, and I think my brother is holdin in there too hehehe. More info to follow, and I can't wait to get back home to see her. I wish Patty, Scott, and Sophia the best.

Drew this quickly while talkn to family on the phone after my dad sent me a picture of her.

Relaxin weekend.

Lindsay and I ended up taking it easy for the most part this weekend. Caught Dreamworks Animation screening of Flushed Away. The teams who worked on the film did such a wonderful job. It was great to see the names of some of the animators I work with at the studio, and to see their shots up on the big screen. Also while waiting to pick Lindsay up at the airport I did a few sketches.

We decided to hit up Disneyland again on Sunday just to get a few rides in. We also tried out the "how to draw Disney characters." Sadly we left without our drawings, but we were instructed on how to draw Donald.(Where I also learned that he has been in the most animations of any Disney character...) Next time we shall save the drawings.

Tonight after getting in from the park I did a quick tweak to that bouncing ball with a leg test. I tweaked the ending so that he lands toe, to ball then heel. Then added a little hop back, sense today there was this kid at the park who jumped off a railing and hopped back due to his landing. Thought it might be something to add in. So after a few mins of messing around. Here it is.

One down and One more to go!

Just got word that Lindsay got her contract extended until march. Which is great sense it will take her through the entire Subs project! I'm sure she has a long career path ahead of her up there. Great work darlin!

San Fran 10.20-22

Getting back in from a wonderful weekend up in San Francisco with Lindsay. Got to meet up with Meng, and Nara for a late lunch. HAPPY B-DAY TO MENG! Did a few quick sketches while relaxing around different areas of San Fran. Now I'm off to play me some Tetris DS for the night.

A try at some contrast.

Here is what I did tonight during figure.

Searching for contrast.

Well tonight I decided to just do some digital drawing/painting...Alas I always seem to end up with image that has low contrast. Usually my work method is something like this:

Poor use of background + Low contrast = Visually boring image.

So, just for fun I copied and layered stuff together, inverted and many other things to see what other contrast combinations I could get. I see that Guillermo is doing just straight gray scale paintings and I'm thinking I might have to do that. I need more contrast in my images to help sell the poses of the characters. Granted I have seen artists make some amazing images with very little contrast to them. I guess I'm just looking for it in my own stuff at the moment. Chris gave me a couple good examples of still life's in mono or close to mono chromatic paintings at work a few days ago. Anyways enough rambling here is what I have thus far.

CONGRADS TO LINDSAY!

Got word today that Lindsay just got her first chunk of subs finaled up at Pixar! Good work darlin, I knew ya could do it. I'll keep you all up todate on her progress up there as the months progress. We both have our contracts up in December for renewals...So wish us luck.

Disneyland.

Well just finished up a great weekend over at Disneyland with Lindsay. Her and her team got to fly down to see the construction site of the new Finding Nemo ride called Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. It should open sometime in the summer of 07 I believe.(Best to check Disney's site for up todate info on the rides schedules and such.) I know she and her team were extremely excited to see it all coming together down there. I personally can't wait to ride it!

Also coming out this week is Dreamworks Animation's Over the Hedge (Oct 17th)! (Note I didn't work on Over the Hedge)

Its been a very exciting time for Lindsay and I being at our jobs. Its so much more then we could of asked for coming right out of school. We are learning so much and are working as hard as we can so that our teams keep us animating for more projects to come.

And so it begins.

My jump into the world of color that is(Don't laugh at the paintings too much hehe). It has been fun, but also very tough getting workflow, color theory, and materials going. I do feel that I'm finally at a point now where I can take on this side of art, and try to develop it for some fun expression, and dare I say art for art sake...

I have come across these two artists and have been taken with their uses of shape, color and contrast. Scott Morse's style is wonderful! (I have been following his work for style) Great shapes, fun designs and the colors really add some life to his layouts. Also Hiroshi Yoshida's landscapes are great uses of color. So for the past couple weeks I have been looking to these guys for some inspiration and education.

I hope to keep pushing forward with painting and getting a better grip on its uses. I have to say thanks to Chris and Jason for helping me get going on this stuff as well.

Monday drawing class.

Sorry for the lack of updates the past week or so. Here are some sketches from this Mondays drawing class during lunch. Once again it was awesome! The vibe in the room was great, everyone cracking jokes, pushing drawings, adding little story touches to each sketch. The list keeps going! Sadly my sketches aren't anywhere near the level of character that some of the artists crafted that day.

Note: One interesting thing I over heard during the class is pulling the pencil, pen, brush what ever your using towards you. Letting the line cascade down your figure to help keep things flowing. It helped me that day to really lay in large lines that got me on my way.

Zoo and a link.

This for all the KFP guys at work.(dialup users beware.)

The zoo was a great trip, and worth the 2.5 hour drive. Lindsay and I got to see some interesting animals but alas the show stopper of the day was the Polar Bear. I'll attach some pics below of him playing around.

Fun link and my first animation note!

Stumbled across this link...I wish I had moves like that. (Video link so Dialup beware.)

This week finished out pretty well I think. Let go of two shots, and I will be launched on another two next week. Spent today just exploring poses, and seeing what I could do with the facial shapes on our main character. Also we had a studio wide update and things look awesome! Look for some great movies from Dreamworks in the next few years ahead. I'm really excited to be part of the studio, and hope that they will allow me to stay on and keep helping out. Well I'm off to explore the San Diego Zoo this weekend so lookout for some drawings of that.

Animation Note: what does your negative space look like? First I just thought of keeping your silhouettes clean and readable. But what about creating rhythm or design with your negative shapes...Putting a hand on a hip or scratching ones head can give great triangle shapes which can sometimes help keep the viewers eyes on our characters. Just in my few months on the job I have seen some awesome, and extremely creative uses of this in poses. Try it out! Its something I'm getting into myself, and hope that it can give my shots a stronger visual appeal.

This weeks figure work.

Here is this weeks figure work from the night classes at the studio. Mostly 8-10 min poses. I want to start posting up some thoughts and notes on animation too. I'm typing up a post on how my outlook on my old ways of keying characters in 3D is starting to take on some new perspectives. After seeing different techniques some of animators at work use to block their shots and take them to final. So look for that soon, as well as some more sketches and adventures.

Today's Drawings Class.

Here are some sketches from today's drawing class during lunch. The teacher is one of the story artists at work (I'll make sure to get his name up soon.) It was great to hear everyone laughing and adding little flourishes

to the sketches. I will definitely be going back for more if my work schedule can allow for it.

Fun link.

Here is a link to a site that is pritty cool, called SketchSwap. Try it out and see what you get back after a little sketchin. Thanks J.

A couple sketches.

The first sketch is inspired by Willy, one of the guys I work with. He has recently done a few western/police line up drawings and I just went with the cool shapes he was playing with.

This next one is of a kid I saw waiting to cross the street one day while out and about in Glendale. I hope to do some more location sketching this weekend with Lindsay when she comes down. Its always good to get some bucks and draw...

Also below are two figure pages that I grabbed off the pile in my room. Nothing great, but I'm attempting new things each week. I'm trying to watch people draw, to understand how they go about laying the ground work for their gestures. Its been great viewing people after hours during figure because everyone is at such an amazing level.

Jay Leno.

Lindsay and I were on our way to have some dinner today and we happened to cross in front of Jay Leno. Who was driving what appeared to be a steam powered car...Not 100% on that but it was pritty fun lookin.

I'm also going to start posting up some thoughts on animation techniques that seem to ever changing in my mind. So that is on its way, as well as additional sketches and such.

Hope everyone had a great three day weekend.

Day at the park...

Here are some quick sketches from my day with Lindsay at Marine World just outside of San Fran this weekend. Hit up some good coasters and had some pritty amazing garlic fries...I will post up some figure work too from tonight's drawing class later this week.

Congrads!!!

Just got word today that Lindsay got a contract to work up at Pixar! Great work Lindsay, I knew ya could do it.

Figure class.

Here are some quick scans of some drawings done tonight. I tried to use more connecting shapes tonight to see if I could make things overlap abit more...Not sure if its working yet.

Little Miss Sunshine.

I recently saw Little Miss Sunshine, and it was great. The acting was extremely good from the family that just kept hitting hardtimes over and over. Here is a little sketch I did that is inspired from the relationship that grows between the younger brother and sister. Check it out, its a good laugh.