Prof. Snape's Office

Snape's Office 1

Snape's Office 2

I have no regrets whatsoever about choosing Prof. Snape as my character to create an  environment for on Maya in my Digital Form, Space, and Lighting class, but there were aspects of this project that I just couldn't stand. There are four aspects: Blocking, Modeling, Texturing, and Lighting. I didn't mind blocking, and I might have gotten at least a low B in it if I had remembered to freeze transform all of Snape's jars after I referenced them into the masterscene. I hated modeling. It just seemed like I couldn't do anything right in that phase of the project. Prof. Maloney continues to tell me that I need work on my modeling. That's one of my many goals for the summer. I will perfect my modeling, just like someday I will perfect my inking. Texturing was fun for the most part although I hated texturing the chair and the desk, which is why I wound up changing them both. The images you see above are the ones that I turned in for Texturing, before I changed the desk and chair. I loved Lighting, but I won't get into that until I am ready to post those picture.

Before I ever started using Maya I had heard the horror stories of how it would crash, which is why we must save, save, save, save. I felt that I was pretty luck by the time I got to texturing because it hadn't crashed yet. I doomed myself for thinking that because the day before I was supposed to turn it in it crashed, and it continued to crash every time I tried to open up my masterscenes. I thought that my masterscenes were corrupted that I had to start over again. That sounds bad especially the day before it was due, but the props were all made in separate files, and I just had to re-reference them into a new masterscene. The worst thing really was to find the great camera shot that I had before. However, it continued to crash especially when I was trying to reference in both the cupboard and the bookcase. I figured that something must be wrong with those two props that I cut them out of my scene. Because I did cut them out I had to readjust my camera shot to what you see now in the images.

I got to work on redoing the entire room three hours before class, and I managed to finish it all ten minutes before it was due. That includes re-texturing the desk because the professor came into the DMC (Digital Media Center) homework lab while I was working, and he told me that I should change the desk texture to look more like wood. I wasn't too pleased with that texture either. The built in Maya texture sucks, and so don't ever use it. I got out of the DMC with five minutes before class, and I literally ran back to the main building, getting to class right at 2 PM. The real kicker was that the professor hadn't shown up yet. It continued to crash until I opened the masterscenes in Maya 2012-I had been working in 2011-and so go figure that one out. I would learn while lighting the scenes that we needed to turn the texturing off otherwise Maya would go berserk and crash. Oh, now that's why it was crashing on me. Lesson learned.

My morals kind of got in the way when it came to texturing certain props. Prof. Maloney had told us to get photo references and place them onto the objects. I knew that I had to do that when it came to the potion book, the Daily Prophet, the photograph of Lily, and the Slytherin crest, but I felt funny about everything else. It felt so much like cheating. He did understand that though, but he explained that it wasn't cheating. So I have improved the texturing quite a bit although I am still not happy with that chair.

My First Maquette

Madam Knight Original Characters

I have a storyline that I believe that I had mentioned several posts ago when I wrote about my final project in Digital Coloring, and it features a group of heroes sent by God called the Chosen Ones. So after we were done with the Firefly characters in the Character Design class we had to create a cast of original characters for any genre that we like. I have several characters who could use a make over, but I didn't want to use any of them. Instead I decided to create a new batch of characters, and after looking at different genres I came to the decision to stick with the Chosen One storyline, but bring to life the first Chosen One, Madam Knight in a fantasy genre. The story features Madam Knight/Kendra Cartwright, Mackenzie the Monk, Elisha Grayson, an emperor, the Pope or a religious figure, a hermit/druid, an elf, and a prince, and it takes place during the first Crusade. These are the first silhouettes that I did for them, but I have since redone them all except for the druid and the elf, who still need some work.

Prof. Schweizer told me that I needed to think about shape when creating the silhouettes instead of the outline. So I took his advice, and they look a whole lot different now, but I don't have any pictures to show you unfortunately.

 When I was redesigning the look of Elisha Grayson, one of the villains of the story, I had made a slight mistake with his arms. They weren't proportional. The professor liked that they weren't because it made one think of a T-Rex, and he suggested that I play with that idea. So that's why Grayson's arms are so funny looking, but I will have to consider how he will fight in a duel. I better figure that out because I am storyboarding the final battle between Madam Knight and Grayson for the final project.

Elisha Grayson

My First Maquette

I had wanted to do Madam Knight for my first maquette, but it seemed like the class wanted me to do Elisha Grayson. I gave them what they wanted. Unfortunately he doesn't really look like the drawing, but actually I think he's a scarier as a maquette. There were elements that I had to get rid such as the horns on his shoulders because it was realistically impossible for him to have all of those horns and lift his arms up. So I made up for the deletion by putting a horn on each elbow, which adds a little more to the threat that he imposes to Madam Knight.

My favorite element has to be the sword, which I made from a small piece of a wooden pick that I found at Hobby Lobby, and then I created the handle with Super Sculpey. It turned out better than I had anticipated, and now have a whole bag of wooden picks to make at least a hundred swords.

My first maquette was all right. There are definitely areas that I would improve such as the bulging eyes and the paint job. I had put too much paint on it that I had accidentally painted over the black paint that's underneath in areas that needed to keep it to make it look three dimensional. I had to go back over it with ink wash, which was the first time that I had ever used that technique. However, as a first it turned out pretty well. I hear that most people's first maquette suck although there are exceptions, and I saw most of them in my class. One would never guess that Liz Enright's maquette was her first. That's how spectacular it was. Overall, the class really hit it out of the park with their maquettes.

Anijam 2012

This summer I am getting to work on another animation project, my first one since Norman and the Love Triangle, but this one is a bit different. I will be working in a collaborative effort. It's called an Anijam, and the way I had described it once was that it's like an assembly line of animators working on their own animation, but each one has an element in common. Each animation will be jammed into one film. The beginning key frame and the end key frame for all of our animations is what will link us together. The SCAD-Atlanta Animation Society had once talked about doing such a project, but it never materialized much to my chagrin because I was all for it.

We will have several animators from the Animation Department working on this doing our own style whether it's 2D, 3D, a combination of the two, or stop motion. It will be a fun experience, and a perfect thing to bring up if a studio ever asks us if we've worked in a collaborative effort. I'll be able to finally say yes. We'll have both Professors Gregg Azzopardi and Keith Ingham helping us out along the way. 

The element that each of us will have in common will be a cardboard box that way we can really show off our style with whatever character we use to interact with the box. I have been thinking about doing a combination of 2D and 3D, which I recently learned, but haven't tried. It will have a 2D character and a 3D background, and I am going to add dialogue to it. First, however, we have to create the storyboards...after the quarter is over of course.

Final Thoughts

The Spring Quarter is almost over, and part of me will be glad because this quarter has really given me a run for my money when it comes to work. I thought that last quarter was bad with Environments, but that's nothing compared to Digital Form, Space, and Lighting. Though at the same time I will be saying so long-I will never say goodbye that's too permanent sounding-to some friends, which I am not happy about it. So I wish Lisa Tolbert, Sasha Williams, Nolen Taylor, Courtney Strickland, Nick Palmer, Jeff Yu, Lily Cho, Heather Carter, Kristen Petty, Ryan Ingram, Scott DeRussy, Sarah Crook, Dara Dyer, Kathleen Lynch, Alejandra Aldana, Jhaimensen Jackson, Heather Lipstas, Dinesh Dave, Mike Bedsole, and Eric Beatty a good luck. Remember those names, people. I expect big things from them all.

Until next time this is Billy Wright, wishing you all a good night. So long, everybody.

The Vampire Mouse #1 "The Price of Love Part 1 of 2"

The first issue of the Vampire Mouse debuted yesterday at the Fluke Mini Comics Festival in Athens, Georgia, and as promised here is the story in its entirety.

Cover

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Page 6

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In Memory

Coming Soon

Final Thoughts

I hope that you enjoyed it and are relishing the release of the second part of the origin story of the Vampire Mouse. The festival was a huge success. Due to the fact that I ran out of ink I was only able to make ten copies, which I didn't like, but it didn't matter in the end. I sold all but one comic. Pretty good. It was a great experience that I would happily do again. I met some great people along the way. Sure there are things that I would do differently next time, but that's why the first time is always the learning experience.

There are plans in the works to increase the Vampire Mouse's exposure by turning this into a webcomic. I'm still looking into it, but the probability that it will be a webcomic is great.

Until next time, this is Billy Wright wishing you all a good night. So long, everybody.

Firefly

Cast of Firefly in Silhouette

I am taking Character Design and Storyboarding for Animation....finally! I say it that way because in the Spring of 2010 I had registered to take the class in the fall of that year, but then dropped it along with all of the other classes due to finances. I registered for the class again for the Fall of 2011, but dropped it since I couldn't afford three classes. Third times the charm, I suppose. Our first assignment was to create seven silhouettes of the characters from Joss Whedon's Firefly. I had never seen Firefly although I had heard that it was a fantastic show that the television executives didn't like because it only lasted one season before it was cancelled. It has such a huge fan base that I am surprised that some network hasn't decided to cash into that by bringing the show back. So before I got to work on this project I had to watch the show, and I was instructed to watch the episode entitled "Jaynestown." It was the only episode that I've watched, but I plan to watch the rest of the season before I cancel my free trial subscription to Netflix. It was pretty good and pretty funny. It will be interesting to see if Whedon developed his Firefly characters like he had developed his characters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which were well rounded. The pencils turned out better than the silhouettes, and that's why I actually kept them while I silhouetted the scanned and printed out version. The characters that I chose to draw in silhouette were, from left to right, Zoe, Jayne, Mal, Simon, Kaylee, River, and the pilot.

My professor, Chris Schweizer said that I needed to work on making my characters look different. He liked what I did with Kaylee, but he felt that I needed to make her puffier. He also said that the best one was Mal, and that was why I included him in the next project. We were still dealing with the characters from Firefly, but this time we had to remove the silhouette and add detail to three of the characters.

Characters from Firefly in Detail

 This time I approached the characters a bit differently since I had seen how the rest of the class approached it. I not only made Jayne the tallest of the three, but I also constructed him primarily out of squares and rectangles. Unfortunately the professor said that the body language didn't tell him anything about the character's personality. He still thought that Mal was the best. As for Kaylee, he said she needed to be puffier around the waist and the bottom of the legs.

Our final project with the Firefly characters was creating turnarounds for two of the three characters, and to color them with flat colors, no rendering or cutting. For those of you who are unaware of the term turnaround it's drawing a character in the four primary views: front, 3/4, profile, and back. Though we did have to draw one hundred heads before we got to start on this project that I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to pencil, ink, and color two characters four times. I should never doubt myself as I still have yet to miss a deadline.

Firefly's Mal

Firefly's Kaylee

My colors on both of them were just fine, but I do need to work on making hands bigger. I need to remember what my Life Drawing professor, Larry Anderson had told me when it comes to drawing both hands and feet. Hands should be as big as the person's face, and the feet should be as big as their head. Kaylee's hands were fine except in the profile view. Mal's hair in the front view is different from the rest, and I admit that I had trouble with that one because I couldn't figure out what his hair would look like if it jutted out. Perhaps I was just thinking too much about it. That sometimes happens with me. It was suggested that I should give Mal a gun holster since that is a part of him. That's the problem with just watching one episode because he never wore one in "Jaynestown." I need to practice my profile drawings too. Though at least I can say that I did get Kaylee puffy because it was never mentioned. To aid me in getting that puffy look for her I turned to Jasmine from Aladdin, who wore puffy clothing.

Severus Snape


The other studio class that I am taking this quarter is Digital Form, Space, and Lighting, which is an animation class where we get to work on Maya, the primary program that animators use for 3D animation. In this class, however, we are only going to be learning how to build a 3D environment. Of course, my humor isn't lost on this one because last quarter I was in a class where we created environments for comics, a 2D medium, and now I am creating environments for a 3D medium. This was the first time that I had ever worked in Maya. I worked briefly in Houdini, and that didn't turn out well at all, and so I was feeling a bit intimidated. It doesn't help either that I keep hearing my friends complain about Maya. However, I have really enjoyed the class, and it's been an absolute blast working on Maya and creating the 3D environments. I haven't experienced any crashes yet, which is what frustrates people the most about Maya, but that's why we always save, save, save. As Nolan Woodard would say, "Woe to the person who doesn't and their computer crashes."

Our first project was to choose a character from literature, history, or film and create a 3D environment for that character. I was going to go with Sherlock Holmes at first, but I had attempted to create a Victorian England sitting room last quarter in Environments, Props and Structures, and that was the worst project that I did for that class that I didn't want to repeat myself. I don't like repeating myself anyway, but especially not in matters like this. Instead I decided to go into literature, and namely from the books of Harry Potter. The character that I choose was Prof. Severus Snape, the most intriguing character in the entire series. I realize that Snape was portrayed on film, but I am totally focused on the books although I will turn to the film occasionally like I did when I constructed his wand and the pensieve. My goal is to try to reflect Snape's power, but at the same time show how much of a loner he is. This is a man who didn't allow anyone to get close to him. He had lost the one person that ever did, Harry's mother, and in fact, I included artifacts in his office that will remind him of Lily. So I hope that it comes off great. Below are the three value studies that I did for Snape's office, and I wish that I could show you the actual 3D environment, but I am having a hard time locating my memory card to get the pictures off of my phone. I owe you all one.

Prof. Maloney wants me to clutter up the shelves with more bottles because as of right now they are too evenly spaced. Hm, why does that sound familiar? Oh, yeah, Nolan kept telling me that last quarter. What can I say? I like things that are evenly spaced, just like my mom does. I also need to find a focal point because right now there is a lot of areas to look at such as the desk, the cupboard, and the bookcase (not pictured in the value studies).

AtlantAMation

Thursday night SCAD held a huge festival called AtlantAMation at the Landmark Midtown Cinema, and it featured thirty animated shorts from SCAD students, primarily from the Atlanta campus. SCAD-Atlanta is turning out some great animators, some who I actually knew, and I look forward to seeing what they do in the future. There were some pieces that I didn't like such as An Untitled Film About Flying, which was a stop motion film. This was the third time that I've seen this film, and I still don't understand it. If by chance the animator is reading this, feel free to write a message telling me what it meant because maybe I would like it if I got the meaning. Otherwise it's just creepy looking. But overall, the animations were great, and my deepest admiration goes out to each and every person who worked on them. I give a special shout to Mike Bedsole, Ryan Ingram, Bianca Gee, Kevin Ridgway, John-Michael Kirkonnell, Amanda Kieffer, and Wendell Whittaker. Remember those names, everyone!

Final Thoughts

When I first arrived at SCAD-Atlanta in 2008 I was hoping that I would graduate in 2012, but of course, I took two quarters off and blew that hope out of the water. My eyes now turn to 2013, providing I make up for one class. I am taking three classes now, and if I continue to take three classes from now on I will be one short from graduating with the Class of 2013 that I am hoping that I can take a summer class. That means that I will have to turn to something that I have been trying to avoid...taking out a student loan. It would be for my final year, and so maybe it won't be as painful to my budget in the end. Plus it's not like I will be needing the entire tuition from the loan, just enough to add to the personal finances and maybe a better scholarship to make sure that I graduate next year.

Until next time, this Billy Wright wishing you all a good night. So long, everybody.

Sooner or Later

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Page 6

As promised here is my final for Visual Storytelling 1, and in my opinion, it is the best comic that I've done all around. Definitely the best coloring. There is still a few tweaks that I need to make, and in fact, I made some on the sixth page already in regards to the shadow on the figures and the balloon placement in the second panel. Originally the shadows on the figures were blue except done in multiply to give them that shadowy look, but it was still too blue that I decided to go back to what my normal shadow color is just tweak it a little to mach the nighttime color that I had given the environment. According to the critique it was difficult to figure out what balloon to read first in the second panel, and so I moved it around to make sure that there isn't any doubt. The other tweaks that need to be made are drawing related, and so it will be awhile before I deal with them.


I was really nervous that I wouldn't be able to finish this story in time, and I was very fortunate that Vis. 1 was a 2 PM class because that gave me a little more wiggle room, not enough to sleep, but to finish it anyway. Aside from penciling over the thumbnails with the lightbox I did something else that was rather unique for me. I didn't pencil, ink, or flat the pages in order. I thought that it would be better if I worked on the easiest pages first, and in some ways, it worked out well. I finished inking the pages on the final Saturday of the Winter Quarter, and so I flatted, colored, and lettered six pages in two days, which is pretty impressive given that it took me close to a week to do three pages for Digital Coloring. This coloring job is much better than that one although I wish that I could have colored certain scenes based off of Pete and Allison's mood. I thought about it, but I just wasn't sure if that would enhance the story or hamper it. I'm still not sure. 


This story had changed a lot over the course of the entire quarter, but fortunately the true meaning never did, which I will get to in a moment. It was always my intent to have Linda break up with Pete at the prom, and the reason behind it always remained the same, but when it was suggested that I add a corsage to it as an important storytelling device I had to figure out what she was going to say when she handed it back to Pete. Although what Linda did was wrong I never wanted to vilify her, and so I had her say,  "I'm sorry, Pete. I hope that we can still be friends after this, but if we can't then I'll understand. I don't deserve THIS," as she's taking off the corsage. It was suggested that she needed to be more harsh, and in fact, my Vis. 1 professor, Doug Dabbs had said that perhaps she should tell Pete to take this ugly thing back. That certainly is harsh. My mom suggested that perhaps I should show how naive or stupid Linda is by telling Pete that she hopes that he can get his money back. I didn't want to vilify her, but I also didn't want her to come off as dumb either. I did take the professor's idea, but went another route with it.  


I had mentioned in the last entry that this was mentally based on a true story, and what I mean by that is that it is psychologically true. The events never took place...for me, at least. I was once told by three friends who are girls that girls are looking for a guy like me, they just don't realize it yet. Of course, I had no idea what they were talking about. However, when my mom told me something very similar it finally made sense. My mom basically told me that girls feel safe around me because I am nice, they don't feel threatened by me. That's what girls are looking for in the end. I don't know if that's true, but this is my response to it all. Pete Taylor is a nice guy who gets used by the girl who he had fallen for the moment he saw her, and the reason that Linda uses him was because he was nice. It is sort of referred in page 3, but it gets talked about more in a deleted scene where Pete mentions to his best friend that Linda's boyfriend is a motorcycle riding bad boy. He rants in the deleted scene that he wishes that he wasn't nice at all, maybe then he would be noticed. The deleted scene ends with Pete telling his best friend that he is just going to accept his role as the nice guy, and he turns around to leave. That's when the final panel of Page 3 takes place.


Pete had just gotten knocked down, and he was feeling rather down on himself, but he rises above it by asking Allison Strickland to a dance. Not only does he find love, but he also finds that courage to stand up for himself when Linda comes over to tell him that she wants him to take her home. After writing down what the true meaning behind this story was I realize that the title Sooner or Later is perfect. It certainly puts this story in a whole new perspective when one knows the true meaning behind it. When I adapt this story to animation it will contain the deleted scenes, and hopefully, the true meaning will be seen a lot more clearer.

A Vampire Mouse Update

Cover for The Vampire Mouse #1

The penciling and inking of my first mini comic is complete, and just in time for the start of the Spring Quarter. So the rest of the work that I have to do is all on the computer. So I can now make this announcement more official. The Vampire Mouse #1 The Price of Love Part 1 of 2 will premiere at the Fluke Mini Comics Festival, which is being held at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia from 11 AM to 6 PM on April 21, 2012. I don't know how many copies I should print out yet, and so it may very well be from 11 AM til supplies last. There will be pin-ups for sale as well, and so far all I know is that the pin-ups based on the covers of issues #1 and #2 will be at the table. I need to deal with a few issues before I can guarantee The Looney Tunes Universe, The Disney Universe, The Hanna-Barbera Universe, and The Doo Family Portrait. The pin-ups will $20 each, but if you're a SCAD student you will get my special discount, which has yet to be determined.

The Forgotten Announcement

It All Started with a Mouse

I never get tired of talking about It All Started with a Mouse, and I certainly hope that you haven't gotten tired of hearing me talk about it. As you can tell, this is the original version except without the dirty colors. I had mentioned that I had entered this into the 2012 SCAD Scholarship Gala, but what I had forgotten to mention was that the artwork sold. I wish that I knew for how much, but they wouldn't tell me since it was a silent auction. If it sold higher than my estimated price of $300 then I would be happy.

The Alienation by the Atlantic Station

Another story that I had forgotten to mention, and this one deserves to be heard by all artists in the Georgia area. Around midterms, my Environments class went down to the SCAD parking garage to learn how to draw vehicles, which is a useful thing know in this business. However, I was a little nervous about it since I had this idea that the owner of the vehicle would tell me to stop, which is completely ridiculous since we are all art students at SCAD. Really the only problem that I had that day were the smokers. I was trying to draw an SUV near the smoking section of the garage, and the smoke kept getting to me that I couldn't finish the drawing.


So that Friday I went out with a few friends from the class to practice drawing vehicles at the parking garage of the Atlantic Station, and that nervousness returned, but this time, we were not dealing with art students. I was picturing that something was going to happen, and I was right, but it was not the way I had thought it would happen. First, the  security guard on a segway told us that we could draw down in the garage as long as we aren't blocking the doors to the offices. That's fine. However, he comes back later completely humming a different tune. Now we weren't allowed to draw down in the garage at all without permission. Another guard joined him except on foot, and he was a lot nicer about it that he was trying to figure out a place that we could go to draw, but that segway officer just wouldn't have it - give a guy a pair of wheels it straight to his head. We were told that we weren't allowed to draw anywhere on the Atlantic Station premises without permission because of recent robberies. For all they knew, we could be drawing schematics of the stores to later rob. Oh, give me break! Though someday I would love to just go down there and sit on a park bench and just draw from my imagination. It has to be something wacky, something not seen anywhere in order to really show the true nature of the Atlantic Station. If a guard tries to get me to stop he has just opened himself up to a smart aleck comment especially if I am drawing vampires. The Atlantic Station has made a very, very crucial mistake. I am a Wright, and us Wrights are all bitter that we tend to hold grudges when angered. I went to the Atlantic Station nervous, but I left it completely angry. I will not forget this.


We wind up going to the Fox Sports Grill to draw the interior, and they didn't have a problem with us at all as long as we bought some food or a drink.

Final Thoughts

Tomorrow starts the Spring Quarter, and it will make the first time since the Spring of 2010 that I took three classes. I am looking forward to that. Sadly, it will also be a very difficult quarter since a lot of my friends will be graduating. That's going to be hard, but I will not say goodbye because that signifies that we might not see each other again, and instead I think that the last sentence of this blog is more appropriate.


Until next time, this is Billy Wright wishing you all a good night. So long, everybody!

The Perfect Gift

Page 1 of The Perfect Gift

Page 2 of The Perfect Gift

Page 3 of The Perfect Gift

The Winter Quarter has ended, and with that comes a plethora of art. Sorry about using such an odd word, but I just wanted to use it at least once. Okay, now that I got that out of my system let me introduce to you my latest story called The Perfect Gift. This is the only story that I will be introducing this week because I want this one and Sooner or Later to bask in the spotlight by themselves.  The Perfect Gift is a three page comic that I turned in to my Environments, Props, and Structures class on the final day of classes - Tuesday, March 13, 2012. I have to admit that I really thought that I wouldn't be able to finish this in time. I had a lot on my plate this past quarter, the most that I've ever undertaken since being at SCAD, and partially it was my own fault for writing a six page story for Visual Storytelling 1 when only a three page story was required. Well, completing a six pager does prepare me for Visual Storytelling 2, which I hear is close to or at least eight pages. I was trying to alternate between the two stories although as I was nearing the end Sooner or Later had to take precedent over this one because there were more pages and more to do...plus it was due first. So the final days of the quarter were very hectic that I had to literally keep telling myself that I was going to finish them time because I have never missed a deadline yet, and I certainly wasn't going to start now. I pretty much went without or with very little sleep for that final week. It was the only way to accomplish everything.

For those of you who did not read the last entry, the first two pages of The Perfect Gift were actually based on true stories. The third page is more based on what my subconscious tells me whenever I am looking for the perfect gift. I know that it cannot be found in an object, but it doesn't keep me trying. I'll get into this more next week, but Sooner or Later is loosely based on a true story, and why I say "loosely" is because it is more in line with the mental aspects of the truth.

My Environments' professor, Nolan Woodard helped me a lot even though he has no idea how much of a help he was. I was under the impression that these three pages were supposed to be colored, and I am not sure how I came to this impression. It really doesn't matter how in the long run. So one day in class I was close to completing the flats for the first page when Nolan came over to see how I was doing, and he thought that I was working on another class' assignment, but when I told him that I wasn't he told me that I didn't have to color these pages. First, I felt like I had just wasted my time with the flatting, but then I saw the bright side to this. I didn't have to color, and if I didn't have to color then I could jump right to lettering as soon as I was done inking. That thought not only cut my work down considerably, but it also made sure that I would be able to sneak in a little bit of sleep on the final week. If I had to color and letter NINE pages in a week there would have been no sleep at all. 

The Perfect Gift was done in a different way than anything that I've done in the past save for...The Defining Moment and The Peter Grayson Pin-Up. All three of those works were done by placing a blank sheet of Bristol over the thumbnails and lightboxing over them, which really speeds things up. Though this was the first time that I had done this method with comic pages, and it was something that I had intended to do for this project because of the six pager that I also had to do, but I wound up doing it for both projects, which I think was very wise. Of course, I would not be me if I didn't have some quarrel with the thumbnails at some point and change them. I stayed true to the thumbnails until it came down to the mall environment, and that's when everything changed.

Another change from the thumbnails to the final was perhaps the greatest change that I could've made, and it was a last minute decision. In the story, it is never said who this mysterious man on the bench is, but in the script, I said that he was an angel. I was just about to ink the third panel in the third page when the idea struck me to give the audience a hint to who he was by adding the sun behind his head to represent his halo. It was something so subtle that no one probably would think much about it, and Nolan figured it out since he had read the script. I had a difficult time with the placement as I had considered placing it right behind his head with only the top part of the sun showing similar to the Holy figures in Renaissance paintings, but I didn't like the looks of it, and so I went with the over the head placement, which I think worked out better.

When this was being critiqued on the final day there weren't very many negative comments, and it might be because we were kind of running out of time and trying to rush through things that the class kept it to themselves. If that's the case I wish that they hadn't because I am always searching for perfection, and any help in achieving that would be greatly appreciated. So if anyone from my Environments class has any constructive criticism about these three pages feel free to get a hold of me by any means necessary, which includes tackling me in the hallways. The comments that were made have already been dealt with, and so the version that you see here is the updated version. My friend, Lisa had mentioned that she had thought that the woman at the mall kiosk was the friend that Eric was buying the gift for, and so Nolan suggested that I fix that in the lettering by moving  the "Hello, Sir" in the fifth panel of the second page to the fourth panel to make it clearer that the woman was a stranger. In the third page, Nolan suggested that I get rid of the black of the trees and the bench because they were conflicting with the mall doors and the city in regards to depth. That was the most time consuming, and I am not too pleased with the benches because they don't look perfectly in perspective any longer. He also suggested flipping the panels on the third page, and that was the easiest although it did force me to move and sometimes reconstruct my word balloons. 

Even though I do like the story and will eventually color it as it was meant to be seen I don't like it as much as I like Sooner or Later, but of course, I am comparing it to a story that is similar to It All Started with a Mouse in regards to how spectacular it is. With a few tweaks here and there Sooner or Later could reach that pinnacle of perfection, but more on that next week.

More From Environments

The First Church of Christ Scientist_3-Pt Perspective

Georgia Power_3-Pt Perspective

Here are more drawings from Environments, Props, and Structures, and I won't go into too much details about them. This is the 3-pt perspective drawings of the First Church of Christ Scientist and the Georgia Power building, both in Downtown Atlanta. These drawings are very memorable to me because I got the living daylights freaked out of me in the class after we critiqued these three point drawings. Anyone from my Environments class or even in the SCAD-Atlanta Sequential department knows exactly what I am talking about.

I made an interesting discovery after I got my grade back for this. I got a B+ for these, and I got an A for my two-point perspective drawings of my kitchen and living room while the grades for the drawings done from imagination weren't that great. That has led me to believe that I am much better at drawing from life/photos than I am from my imagination. I have no idea why. If you have a clue, feel free to tell me.

The Castle of Ferdinand_3-Pt Perspective

Salem

These are the two 3-pt drawings done from my imagination, and they both are connected to the Vampire Mouse mini comic.  The project was called "Gotham and Metropolis"...or was it "Metropolis and Gotham"? It doesn't matter. We had to create one environment that was like Metropolis, clean and law abiding while the other environment, Gotham, was dirty and over run by crime. I decided to introduce the Castle of Ferdinand the Vampire Monkey, and the run down castle is in the middle of a town that is overrun by vampires. Although Ferdinand is a good vampire in the mini comic he doesn't have complete control over his minions. They do what they like unless given the order not to, but Ferdinand didn't give an order not to kill the living since he was hoping that they would just follow his example. Since the drawing shows a vampire monkey sucking the blood from a woman they don't care about his example. The other environment is Salem featuring the giant rabbit that the mice ride on for transportation and Samantha Taylor and Cotton Mouse, characters from the first issue.

Unfortunately you will not be seeing the second project from the class, the one that followed my A, because it was the worst one that I've done. Funny, really because I went into the critique liking the Victorian England sitting room and the Union Workhouse, but I came out of the critique wanting to destroy the drawings. They should be glad that I haven't lit them up yet. It was the worst critique that I've ever had. There was nothing good said about the drawings. It was just one constructive negative comment after another that the list that I wrote down was the length of a typical grocery list. I had considered redoing it for extra credit just to turn the C - a generous C because it would have been worse if I was the grader - into a B, but I was so swamped with finals that I didn't bother. Perhaps someday I will pull it out and redo it, but for myself, not for anybody else or even for a grade.

Vampire Mouse Update

Saturday, April 21, 2012 is the release date for the first Vampire Mouse mini comic, and there is still so much to do beforehand. I am happy to report that I am finished with the penciling and inking of the comic pages although I do need to go back and add some of the ideas that Prof. Schweizer had suggested. However, for the most part, the pages are all in post production, which mainly includes adding color in certain areas of the comic.

Better Late Than Never, I Always Say

I try to correct any mistakes or...mention any discoveries that I've made that make a previous statement of mine invalid as soon as it comes to my attention. Though sometimes time can be my worst enemy that I may forget to do so. It has been close to a year since I wrote the entry, but better late than never,  I always say. Shortly after, I returned to SCAD-Atlanta from taking two quarters off I wrote about my 20th Century Art professor, Keri Watson. It has been my experience that art history professors have all received their doctrine, and the idea that my 20th Century professor would be called Dr. Watson thrilled me to no end. Every professor who I've had who were doctors have always introduced themselves with the doctor title. However, when she didn't introduce herself as Dr. Keri Watson I was thrown for a loop that I thought that my assumption was wrong, and that's what I wrote in that entry. It would turn out that my assumption that I was wrong was wrong because a few weeks later she gave a lecture in the Gallery Space at 4C in SCAD-Atlanta, and finally, she was introduced as Dr. Keri Watson. I was supposed to write a correction in the next blog entry after that lecture, but so much time had passed that I had forgotten. I actually had read that entry not long ago, and I saw what I wrote, but I felt that it has been almost a year that it was kind of a moot point to correct it. However, NOTHING is ever a moot point. If something needs to be corrected, correct it no matter how much time has passed. It only becomes a moot point when you're dead. That's my tip for the day.

Final Thoughts

Next Sunday I will post the six page story Sooner or Later, and hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I do. This week I will also be getting back to work in writing the script to adapt the story into an animated short, and it will include scenes that were cut from the comic due to length. So at some point I will start posting the storyboards and character animations.

So until next time, this is Billy Wright, wishing you all a good night. So long, everybody. 

An Animated Story Turned Comic

I had mentioned in the last entry that I was working on two stories for my classes that will be unlike any that I have written in quite a while. These six page breakdowns are for the story that I am working on for Visual Storytelling I called Sooner or Later, and it's name comes from the Grass Roots song that I was listening to while I was writing the script. This is an interesting story for a couple of reasons. For the longest time I have been wanting to do another animated short, but I didn't have any story ideas. After doing Norman and the Love Triangle, I wanted to do a cartoon that had a story, not a cycle like The Vampire Mouse Transformation. There was one idea that I had about a female character sitting alone at a dance, and a guy sees her and asks her for a dance. Not only was there a story, but it also allowed me to animate a dance. Well, when I learned what the final project was in Vis. 1 I was having a hard time coming up with a story that I decided to use the story that was meant to be an animation short as my comic. I still intend to turn this into a cartoon, and it will include scenes that I wound up cutting from the comic.

The second part that made this interesting was that the story really evolved throughout the course. The original idea was that the two characters would dance, and the clearly liked each other, but neither would say it. It ends with them not getting together, but it leaves some hope that they will eventually, hence the title Sooner or Later. However, during the critique for the script the class wanted me to give a more satisfying ending. So I changed the ending to match with the protagonist's nice guy personality while also clearly showing the two main characters getting together. That wound up being changed after the breakdown was critiqued, and so I changed it again into basically a romance comic. It's changed so much that I am not sure if the title even fits anymore.

If I pencil, ink, color, and letter it correctly it will be fantastic though. It should be the best storytelling that I've done in quite a while.

A True Story...Sort Of

These thumbnails are the three-page comic that I am working on for my Environments, Props, and Structures class called The Perfect Gift. It is different from what my typical stories are except it does contain a message within it done in a very subtle way that the reader shouldn't realize that that's what I had done. This story was actually based on a script that I was writing as birthday card to a friend in 2009 with the same premise except told with Disney characters. I realized that I couldn't write, pencil, ink, letter, and perhaps color the story in time for her birthday that I scrapped the idea and never finished the script, and I went in a different direction for the card. While I was thinking about what I wanted to write for the class I came across that script, and I read a little of it, but I wasn't going to resurrect the idea. It wasn't until I was at the Atlantic Station Target one day that the story idea came to me. A friend's birthday was coming up in February (the 2nd to be exact), and I was looking for a gift for her. I was looking at picture frames, but nothing was jumping out at me. The relaxation fountains were sort of interesting, but not interesting enough to get one that I wound up leaving Target with nothing. It was when I was leaving that the idea came to me, and I immediately sat down at a park bench to write the story outline.

The story is about a guy looking for the perfect gift for his friend, and he was looking at picture frames and even relaxation fountains, but left the store empty handed. My friend's birthday is February 2nd, which is also Groundhog's Day, and I wanted to stay true to the true story, but not use her birthday that I chose another date that had something else happening on that day. So in the story the friend's birthday is also St. Patrick's Day. I even paid tribute to the script that this was originally based on by adding another true story. The character encounters a woman at a mall kiosk who was trying to sell him some nail polish and other ointments. This was based off of a true story in 2009 where I had just left the Disney Store at the Mall of Georgia after purchasing a gift for the friend who was supposed to get a comic book style card when a woman at a mall kiosk tried sell me some nail polish and other ointments. She tried to convince me to get an ointment kit for the friend, which I knew would be a bad idea especially since I was already in a weird place with the friend at the time. The true stories end there. There is no one who tells me what the perfect gift really is since I already knew that there is no perfect gift, not that that is going to stop me from looking for it. So I guess you could say that Pages 1 and 2 were true stories and Page 3 is my subconscious.

The Career Fair

Friday, February 24th I went down along with several other SCAD-Atlanta students to Savannah for the 2012 SCAD Career Fair. It was really the first time that I went somewhere to show off my portfolio. I've shown professionals an art piece, but never several art pieces since I was never sure how to approach the subject. At conventions artists are there to sell their work, not see yours unless you ask them, which is where my problem comes in because I don't want to interrupt their business side, which is why when I showed Laura Martin It All Started with a Mouse I did so when she didn't have any customers, and besides, I have found that it is easier to show off one piece than several pieces. However, at a career fair, you're expected to show off your portfolios. I did have difficulty in figuring out what to put in the portfolio, and I wasn't even certain how many pieces should be in there. I had a dilemma to begin with because I actually have four portfolios: an 11x17 portfolio featuring inks and pencils, a 9x12 portfolio featuring inks and pencils, a portfolio for charcoals and pastels, and a 9x12 portfolio for colors. It was really only the 11x17 and the color portfolios that would be considered in showing off. When I spoke with someone from Career Services they suggested I just show off printed copies. Okay, that meant I could condense the 11x17 work and combine them with the colors. That still left how many pieces are reasonable. I got that answer at the end of my Environments class one day when I overheard my professor, Nolan Woodard tell someone, who was getting ready for a portfolio review at the Publisher's Forum that was also on the 24th, that only 10 pieces should be in a portfolio, 12 would be overdoing it. So when I was setting up my portfolio I decided to concentrate on all of my areas such as storytelling in both black and white and color, coloring, storyboarding, character designing, and both digital and hand lettering. Unfortunately I did go over the ten because the one scene that I wanted to show off from the mini comic was a two page scene forcing me to have 11 pieces instead. Aw, well.

I wound up only speaking with two companies, but the first was the biggest. I spoke with someone from Walt Disney's Imagineering, and I've always said that I would give up my goal of working in comics if I was given the chance to work with Disney. That would be a dream come to true. I wish that I could have shown them my portfolio since I had included It All Started with a Mouse, but the woman I spoke with wasn't looking at portfolios, her partner was, just not her. They said that they are trying to create a pipeline of talent that they can turn to for certain projects. Artists in this pipeline gain experience and get to work with some top notch professionals. I have heard the term pipeline before, but I don't know too much about it that I can't say whether it's a good thing or not that I probably will ask one of my professors or my faculty adviser. However, it is STILL Disney. Pipelines may turn out to be bad for artists, but if that's the only way that I can work with Disney I'd jump at it.

The line for Disney was so long that it took me a couple of hours to get seen, and that took a huge bite out of my day at the fair. I had a long list of companies that I wanted to see, but I could only see one or two more after Disney. The final company that I spoke with was Floyd County Productions, who are the creators of television series Archer, and they were really one of the few who were looking for sequential artists because of storyboarding. I got to finally show off my portfolio, and the person who I spoke with used to work with Cartoon Network that my drawings of Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera characters brought back memories for him. My resume jumped out at him too because not only am I from the Atlanta area, but one of the exhibitions that I was featured in was ASIFA-Atlanta's Roll Yer Own. Unfortunately, last year's exhibition was the only Roll Yer Own that he's missed, and so I told him that the animation that I did was on my website. He told me that storyboarding would be a definite fit for me. After Floyd County, I hurried down to Turner, and I was in their line, but I had to get back to the bus by 2 PM that I couldn't see them. That was really the only disappointment on the day.

Final Thoughts

I have recently finished constructing my website, and so if any of you are interested in seeing more of my work you can go to http://www.wix.com/billywright/thewrightside. I still need to make some improvements, but it's good for now.

The SCAD-Atlanta Animation Society had another poster stolen recently, and strangely it was once again a poster that was hung outside the women's bathroom in the computer lab on the 3rd floor of the main building. When last quarter's theft occurred I was depressed, and I felt like that all of my work to advertise for the club was for nothing if the work was going to be treated like dirt. But this time, I am downright mad. This faceless coward should be glad I don't know who they are because I would give them such a verbal thrashing. There's a reason why my mom said that I was like a boiling teapot.

So until next time, this is Billy Wright wishing you all a good night. So long, everybody.