Sans, the Cheeky Monster

Another commission, and progress on this was recorded with even more granularity. This one was commissioned by Skulldog, a fellow artist from my own home state of New Hampshire.

First an initial sketch based on the reference material provided by Skulldog.

This character is named Sans and he's a kind of bird gator dog like monster.

 

Keys established describing the general motion.

Both these steps were done in Clip Studio Paint

Switching to TVPaint, The keys are translated over.

Some keys dropped or redrawn to better clarify the motion and focus.

Sans is going to laugh, so a "z" is drawn where I'll be jagging the motion.

Some laughter added.

More frames added and the laughter motion solidified. Face on the second key pose made crazier and goofier at the same time to better describe the character's personality.

Wing motion reworked to clarify silhouette and motion. Wing drop added to draw the eye down towards bottom third and add focus on face.

Tail added in and details start emerging. Back feet drawn in.

More details, feathers, puff more obvious.

And it's done! Now with shadows, pupils, and even more feathers.

I'm pleased with how this came out. I've felt my weakness in animation was "breathing", making the character react to moments with the way it drew in breath. So this animation challenged that weakness and had me experiment with more ways to suggest rapid breath (laughter in this case) and using breath as an anticipation tool.

Building a Sea Dragon

I was comissioned to animate a sea dragon (based on the sea horse relative) and this being one of my first swimming animations, I was fairly excited to get to it. Anybody familiar with my work would know I love monsters and dragons especially, so this was something else that got me eager to start.

Initial pass on 6s to get that motion roughed out.

Most of this was completed while at a panel of drunken experts explaining their field at a convention. Including one animator!

Now on 3s (where it will stay).

Tightening up the motion and nailing down the details a bit more.

Inbetweens in. Cleaned up enough I could follow what was happening and move on to inks.

Body first. Face was a winner from the start,

but the back end needed some tightening. 

Wing added, more frills.

Body motion smoothed out to be less choppy.

Considered whether to keep it at this level of complexity, or go further.

Went further :D

MORE details! More frills. 

Finished image.

More detail. Shadow applied to better follow motion of limbs. Some hatching even!

And a snappy second pair of wings.

Pretty please how this came out.

The mix of seal and snake motion was a challenge to nail but so satisfying to watch.