DigitaLeon Illustrations

About 2 hours, painted in DrawTweet. It gives me the feeling of being the face of another planet, but who's to say whether I already am or not.

Really my first attempt at fully animating a car in Max, It's not perfect, but it's a start..

This fan made Sonic game is just right for the old time Sonic fan like myself. This was made by two guys with an intense passion to make a Sonic game, and I think them two pulled off what the peoples at Sega just haven't been able to do. The way the environment looks, and how it plays it's just the right remix that Sonic needs. So while I am spending the few moments not doing something creative...You can bet I'll be giving this a try.

Another project for another class, my 3D modeling/animation II, so now it's twice as much greatness than before. We had to design a futuristic car design, and the environment it will become apart of. By this Friday, preferably sooner, all those checkers will be gone and replaced with cool looking textures.

  A sketched storyboard on small thumbnails. It was kind of tough getting all the details into these tiny boxes. This was  for a class assignment that required the complete use of all creativity you can conjure. So, I decided to do some epic story about some guy named John, who starts from being broke and jobless, to somehow getting transported to an alternate dimension where he meets his older self. However, I realized I was putting so much work on myself, which led me to robbing more mister sandman hours to finish 64 teeny sketches.. good times.. : )

Ira Glass talks about the building blocks of a story. I found this really inspiring, not that I'm a beginner but I feel like I'm in the aforementioned group of people trying to break through this crazy invisible creative barrier... 

A short 3D animated movie that is really beautifully made, while being a touching journey of someone, and what they'd do to get back that special someone. Even if it's are a pet dragon.

The final for my 2D animation class is finally up. I would definitely go into putting sound so it would be even more epic at a future time. But this was mainly a learning experience, getting the animation done, like the walking sequence, the standing up from the seat, and the tripping animations. Then putting them together, so they play along smoothly between each.  It was fun, and of course I'm working on something else, something not class related! So I can go all out.

This short film rocks! STASIS from Christian Swegal on Vimeo .

I had to get Tim here, to walk along with the background. When I was first drawing out the walking part, I really didn't think that would be necessary, buuuut I guessed wrong, and so I had to find out a way to get him to walk in place, so that I can pan the background. I also "beefed" up the background so that it would be wider for space to pan the background. :)

So as I was playing around with Musicshake, and creating some interesting songs I had reached the point where I had to decide what picture I would want to represent the music. Of course I decided to paint something quickly and use them. I'm going to make more music and covers! This is a pretty interesting way to keep busy. :p MusicShake

Whoa, so after a few hours of animation and some more of coloring this short 2D animation walking cycle flies by the screen so fast...Even so, I get a small sense of accomplishment from all labored hours of fun animating. This walking cycle is for a class project, and it will be used, just before Tim, slips on a banana peel. Next week I'm going to animate the slip and fall of Tim and it shall be glorious! :}

just practicing..

A short animation of a biped I animated in 3DS Max for my class. The animation is still a bit rough but it's animatic using the key frames and animating each body part one by one. Since I didn't have IK on the biped, movements seem to be a bit stiff, next one, hopefully I'll get fully rigged, so the animation could be a bit easier and natural looking.

more sketches. Goal? To catch a draw people doing their thing...

And so, another very great class is over, and finally some break!! The video is the accumulation of what I learned in the Principles of Animation class for five weeks, all put into one. The 12 basic principles of animation are, Timing, Squash and Stretch, Anticipation, Staging, Straight Ahead, Follow through and overlapping, Slow in Slow out, Arcs, Secondary Action, Appeal, Solid Drawing. Of course there are now close to 28 used today, but they are mostly derived from these principles. Here's a link to  12 Principles of Animation . So now, I'll hopefully have more time to do some of my own projects :p

This here colorful flying is about a Art Face Off that that is going on tomorrow. So I'm going to find myself there even if I'm taking a bus or something. Should be fun, I am interested in how the even will go and how the other artist are and what kind of new things there are to learn from them. SO, if anyone's in the area come by, I'm sure on there somewhere is the huuge amount of events and activities going on!

So now that my first 3D modeling class is through yesterday, I can safely say it was very interesting and fun work. First week of class we had to plan out the scene and come up with sketches of how it would kinda look. I drew my inspirations from Castlevania Symphony of the Night, as I always in one way or another create the wonderful 2d environments in some kind of 3D. However, in the end my project went it's own direction.The room itself is shrouded in mystery, and no one knows of the ill events which took place within these walls. I don't think anyone really wants to know, because all whom decided to be brave and find out, went missing, never to be heard of again.....

Sir Ken Robinson, brings up an amazing point on how creativity has been disrupted and squandered, by our current educational system. The same system of education that been developed in the 19th century in order to prepare more skilled workers for an industrial economy, that needed skilled workers to build certain things. However,  that system is no longer working, and in result, education has been fashioning students in a way that robs them of their creativity and individualism, and forcing standardized tests and reducing creative classes. What do you think? I certainly noticed this, as I was sketching away on my notes in math class. :)

Hey! I've got more sketches to put up! Don't worry, I'm not going to be putting sketches up forever, I hope but taking advanced life drawing for animation, AND 3D Modeling and Animation 1 classes is quite a journey. In one class we've been sketching like crazy and it's great work, really gets you involved, doing sketches from low angles, high angles, and even five keyframes of people running, falling, and throwing stuff. All poses have to be drawn in less than a minute. That's to sharpen the mind and technique and really improve technique. However, starting next week, we've got to start finishing up a pose in less than 45 seconds. Sooo...Practice, practice, practice....:)

Here are some quick, one minute sketches, I completed last night. They are sequences of someone throwing a javelin. Don't worry, no one got hurt during the process. :)

More practice sketches in the hopes of gaining a better understanding of bodily proportions, in different poses. This can be frustrating at first, but I hope I'm starting to get a better hang of it. I had to stop playing around with Just Cause 2, and really get busy.