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.