Heroic Leap: an Animation Exercise
I’ve been playing a little bit with this (forgive the pun) “sketchy” freeware program called ‘Pencil’. I cranked out this scene of a figure leaping into the foreground to reveal himself as a superhero… I converted the frames to an animated gif for convenience of posting here.
The Pencil program is a bit buggy, and can be frustrating to work with – but then again, it is freeware. It’s fun to use for quick little roughs, like this one… though given the number of times I’ve lost considerable amounts of work (either from glitches or straight-up crashes) I wouldn’t want to try and use it to do anything more significant. Animation is far too labor-intensive to deal with losing your work.
I’ll probably keep using Pencil to do little roughs like this, to work out ideas… I’ll post them as I get the time.
The Z Team
Wow – it’s been a busy summer/fall for me in my non-artistic life! I’ve only recently started doing some drawing again… and it’s been a reinvigorating experience. Creative expression really does help my state of mind.
I’ve picked up on the Zombie project idea again, and started designing some of the non-Zombie characters who are going to have to survive in the world of the living dead.
So, here are a couple of pics of * THE Z-TEAM *… work in progress.
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1ST DRAFT w/storyline & dialog ideas overlayed
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CAST OF CHARACTERS + a bit more definition
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BACKSTORY w/WORKING NAMES:
MARCUS (front-center):
college student… was on a canoe trip when the Zombie outbreak swept through the cities, towns, and well… campuses. He got back to the dorm… had a look around… and decided to head for the hills… literally;TREVOR (front-left):
art-school dropout & vagabond… was crashing at an acquaintance’s hunting cabin when the dead came to town… and that’s right where he was when Marcus found him;HOOPS (back-center):
biker/mechanic… stays on the move riding with his motorcycle club and kicking Zombie asses along the way… “Live to Ride, Ride to Live” has taken on new meaning… while running for their lives from a pack of TEETH, the boys are saved when Hoops and Co. happen on the scene… suffering a broken ankle in the scrum, Hoops decides to stay with the boys for a bit while he heals;VALERIE (front-right):
USMC Combat Rifle Company squad-leader whose team was eviscerated when a call to “quell a riot” in Trenton NJ put them in the path of several-hundred Zombies tearing through the city… after barely escaping across the river, Val comes looking for provisions at the mall..
That’s it for now… look for more… sooner or later.
And remember – Kill the Head!
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Zombie Killer – Qu’est-ce Que C’est?
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How about I start off this post with a meaningful (pretentious?) quote…?
Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
~~ William Shakespeare ~~
Yeah – nice one… that’ll do.
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So… WHY would anyone be afraid of greatness? I mean wouldn’t it be… I dunno… great??? OK, then consider this… What if you were born great, but didn’t know it? And then at some point–having made no effort to achieve greatness–it was suddenly–and violently–thrust upon you? And what if this all happened to you when you were less than 10 years old??? Hmm… yeah. That could be just a little scary – don’t ya think?
So, there you go – that’s the basis of the back-story for our hero, Blue. Fleshing it out a bit more I figured it went something like this…
The Zombie outbreak surged to a global crisis just before the girl’s 9th birthday, and the defenses which had been keeping her community safe, abruptly and completely failed… As all hell broke loose, the Emergency Broadcast System announced that the Catastrophic Incident Evacuation Plan had been initiated, and so her family set out for the nearby waterfront in hopes of escaping aboard one of the Coast Guard-commanded vessels that had been prepared for this contingency…
At the waterfront, instead of finding salvation they found nothing but chaos and horror… The Coast Guard and their evacuation craft had been overwhelmed by the Walking Dead, and throngs of arriving civilians, caught up in the desperate stampede for survival, found themselves swept forward into the jaws of a nightmarish feeding-frenzy… Panic-stricken people ran blindly in all directions – bodies slammed violently into one another and the world moved at dizzying speed… Clutching his daughter in one arm and holding onto his wife with the other, Blue’s father struggled to keep his feet as he sought an escape route for his family… And suddenly – time slowed…
Blue felt the massive jolt that spun her father completely around… She felt herself slip from his slackened grasp as she was sent airborne… she saw the awful look in his eyes as–still reaching out in an attempt to save her–he went down under the pile of bodies…
On the ground now, she staggered to her feet… she glanced around wildly but could see no sign of her parents… her tear-filled eyes began to burn with heat… a high-pitched white-noise filled her head… her limbs and spine stiffened… and from the pit of her stomach to the tips of her fingers and toes a bright tension drew steadily, relentlessly inward… and just when she felt as if her body was on the verge of collapsing in on itself… the tension released in an outward rush of brilliant light and wind…
Blue felt like she was falling from a sky-scraper, only horizontally – and without moving… she could see nothing but brightness, and though she was sure she was engulfed by flames, there was no heat… no pain… only a deafening roar… through which she imagined she heard horrifying shrieking…
OK, wow – I wasn’t expecting to write all of that. I’d said I was going to keep these posts short, but it looks like I just can’t be trusted. At any rate…
Some time later, Blue opened her eyes and found herself strapped to a stretcher in the back of a military helicopter flying over the ocean. The rescue team had found her unconcious at the scene of the massacre… the sole survivor, surrounded by hundreds (possibly thousands) of incinerated corpses. They’d decided there must have been a chain reaction of explosions which had ignited the thousands of gallons of marine diesel stored at the site… but damned if anyone could explain how this little girl had survived… it could only be a miracle.
Oh by the way… if you’re one of the friends who’ve been reading these posts, but you haven’t been clicking on the pictures to see them at their full-size… well, that’s just not right.
Please go back to the beginning and re-read every word of every post, and this time follow instructions and “CLICK FOR FULL-SIZE” like the nice blogger said to.
* * * more of my drawings * * *
ZOMBIES!?!? What WE need is a hero!
The DEAD walk the earth!
NO living soul is safe!
Can ANYONE save us from the ZOMBIE hoards?
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Alright… so, I’m thinking this is a good time to stop and clear something up…
I DO NOT JUST DRAW ZOMBIES & other creatures of the night!
Yes, I know… if all you have to go on are the pics I’ve posted to this blog so far… well, I can see how you might get the wrong impression.
But the truth is, these pictures that I chose for starting off my blog, just happen to be based on a theme… which just happens to be a hypothetical Zombie Movie.
The fact that Zombies are the subject is really just a coincidence… I mean – I draw all kinds of stuff… seriously. Don’t believe me..?
Well then, just look at the picture in this post!
That’s not a Zombie – now is it?! No… no it is not.
OK, granted… so this IS another sketch from my “Zombie Movie Concept Art” series… BUT… there are NO MONSTERS in sight! Not a one!
So there you go then… proof-positive that I’m a pretty awesome guy, and you think hanging out with me would be pretty cool… and not creepy… or disturbing… and stuff.
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So this sketch is another quick character study.
I had decided that the hero of the story should be a young girl, and that she should have a slight melancholy mystery about her (faint emotional scars from a past she doesn’t talk about, maybe?) and the subtle suggestion of a deep strength–possibly a dormant fury–not to be taken lightly.
This one has a destiny, oh yes… and it’s bad news for the Zombies. Ooh… dramatic… right? Shades of ALICE…? Perhaps…
Though I honestly didn’t realize that until I saw RE:E for the 1st time last week.
Now, it probably shouldn’t surprise anyone to hear that this drawing began with the eyes. In fact, the eyes are the only part of this drawing that I spent any real amount of time on… looking to convey that mystery-quiet-danger-girl thing.
Craig saw this picture and started calling her “Blue”… which seemed fair enough.
* * * more of my drawings * * *
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