Shoutout Sunday: Leo Babauta




I recently realized that I owe so much of my new, healthier, more productive mindset and habits to a variety of people. I think it's time to start saying "thank you" to those individuals and to share their wisdom with you.

This post starts a new series called Shoutout Sundays that will highlight the people, ideas and books that have been essential to my spiritual growth and creative comfort.

I'll start with Leo Babauta, writer of the blog zenhabits.net. Babauta's website is a terrific source of guidance for improving and simplifying one's life.

And in his new book, "The Little Book of Contentment," he nails it.

Discontent, fear, jealousy, self-dislike, judgment—all of the things prevent us from being content also prevent us from being creative and experiencing the success of which we dream. Babauta analyzes all of those feelings—simply and straightforwardly—and forces you to acknowledge your own self-sabotage. Self-sabotage, also known as The Resistance, is especially abundant in creative people and recognizing it's symptoms is the first step in fighting it.

Read Babauta's site, download this free book (I liked the Contentment book so much I just purchased his "Zen to Done" book for $9.50. I was happy to buy this one since I found the Contentment book so helpful) and most importantly, take ACTION!

I'm confident it will improve your productivity, your feelings about yourself and your attitude towards your work.

Andrew Loomis's 5 C's

Continuing with lessons from Andrew Loomis's "Successful Drawing," here are the 5 C's to consider when drawing:



1. Conception—before beginning to draw, close your eyes and see what you want to draw. Thumbnail what you see.

2. Construction—gather your thumbnails, sketches and reference material. Establish the volume, bulk, mass of your object(s). Determine your drawing's point of view and perspective.

3. Contour—the outer edges of your forms.

4. Character—the quality that distinguishes one thing from another. Uniqueness. Loomis: "Real presentation of character lifts the artist to the top of his profession."

5. Consistency—the truth as recognized by a viewer's intelligent perception. Also, it's the handling of all of the drawing elements. Harmony. Unity.


Andrew Loomis's Five P's


According to Loomis in "Successful Drawing," the appeal of a drawing involves several factors. Among those factors are The Five P's.

Loomis believes that a drawing's appeal for a viewer is encompassed in "intelligent perception," vision coordinated with the brain. The human brain simply knows when it's looking at something that works and is attracted to it while being repulsed by that which doesn't work (the uncanny valley.) It's important for artists to be aware of the viewer's intelligent perception to ensure that our work gets the intended response. These are a few basic elements to a good drawing and those elements can be learned. 


Let's start with The Five P's:

1. Proportion—every object has height, width and depth. The ratio among these three dimensions is proportion. When the ratios are correct, the drawing looks good.

2. Placement—the positioning of the object within the boundaries of the drawing area.

3. Perspective—the object's relationship to the eye level/horizon. No object can be drawn without perspective. 

4. Planes—in order to correctly show an object's light, halftone and shadow, the object must be divided into planes. The effect of light on planes makes a form appear solid.

5. Pattern—the overall tonal arrangement of a composition.

Next post: The 5 C's.


If You Can Dodge A Wrench, You Can Dodge A Ball!

Image courtesy of http://www.fridayfunfacts.com. From "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story"
More applicable to our purposes is, "If you can reduce every object to a basic shape, you can draw everything." Ignore the detail, see the underlying shape and draw anything. Here's what others have to say on the topic:

Glen Vilppu—from his Drawing Manual book.


Stan Prokopenko—an explanation and video of this basic element.



Andrew Loomis—from his Successful Drawing book.



Stan Lee—from his book with John Buscema, How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way.


Doug Compton—at his Karmatoons site, the opening pages of his Drawing Lessons deal with shapes and their manipulation.



And I'm sure there are many others. These links and images will hopefully show you how to see and draw the basic shapes that will allow you to draw anything.

Drawing a Hand Right!

Every scene of this film will be a struggle. I have resigned myself to that fact. With resignation comes acceptance. I now accept that each scene will take three weeks to complete which means the film will take 2.3 years to complete. That is, however, a number I REFUSE to accept. So I'll continue with the same urgency to get this film done.

I'm one week into drawing Sc. 44, a closeup of Honey's hand reaching to turn the bathroom door knob. I shot video reference of my own hand and printed successive screenshots to help with the drawing. Despite the reference, I'm still struggling to get it right. Below is the evidence of this struggle:







With each attempt, I'm improving my understanding of the construction of the hand. I learned from the last scene's struggles that understanding from the beginning the full construction of an object makes it infinitely easier to animate it later. I'd rather put in the time now to draw the hand right so that all of the drawings that come after will be right, too.

And it's only been ONE week!

Charting the Progress

Recently I decided to dedicate FIVE precious hours to a non-creative activity. I made a single chart that provides all of the essential scene-related information I need regularly: scene number, scene duration, scene description and the scene's percentage of the entire film. Additionally, I decided that every time a scene's completed, I'd add a thumbnail that provides a quick view of my progress.

Aside from providing information, creating the chart made me determine the final number of scenes in the film. When exporting from Storyboard Pro to Animate Pro, SBP generated scenes automatically (I haven't researched it but I don't think the user has any control over that process.) As a result, SBP produced 75 AP scenes. But some of those "scenes" were moments that occur in larger scenes so I can combine some of those scenes into one. As a result, I've gone from 75 scenes to 57! This is HUGELY beneficial psychologically. Although the amount of work hasn't changed, knowing that I have to complete 57 instead of 75 scenes just makes me feel better!

And if I feel better I'm more likely to work harder and be more optimistic about completing this thing!

Whatever it takes…


Searching For Luthor's Expression

I wanted a solid expression for Luthor's lip lick in Scene 16. Of course it didn't come easily and required four days and three pages of attempts before I found the right one.

First attempts.



Second attempts.




Finally found it! (I went with the circled expression.)

Luthor Model Sheet/Turnaround—Body

In the interest of time (as of today, I have 278 days until completion deadline), I decided to do a full body design of Luthor in only the front and back views. I'm confident that I'll be able to base all other views on these two:




Next post: Luthor does his sexy LL Cool J lip lick!

Luthor Model Sheet/Turnaround—Head

The final inked model sheet for Luthor's head:

It's neither great nor perfect BUT it's good enough. With my deadline being Dec. 31, 2013 (279 days left) there's no time to fuss around. All that matters is that I'm satisfied with it. I'm looking forward to watching Luthor transform from this neutral expression to all of the dramatic acting he has to do!

Next post: Luthor's full body turnaround.

Creating Model Sheet for Luthor's Face

These drawings show how I searched for the final design for Luthor's face:





Yes, there was a little frustration during this process! :-) But I realized that's the ultimate purpose of the model sheet, to remind me of how he should look so that when I'm animating, I can keep his appearance consistent.

Next post: the final model sheet for Luthor's head.

Sun Valley Film Festival Review

The Sun Valley Film Festival 2013 banner in Ketchum, Idaho.

I recently returned home from the Sun Valley Film Festival in Idaho. In only its second year, the festival brought out filmmakers and film-lovers from the immediate area and around the country.

I'll admit, the festival wasn't on my radar until I saw that Jodie Foster was not only going to be in attendance, but was hosting a free (!) and open to the public (!) Q & A. Within 24 hours, I had booked my flight, hotel, festival pass and transportation from Boise to Ketchum! (Next time I'll fly to Seattle or LA then to Hailey instead of the Boise route. Lesson learned.) EVERYONE in Idaho was friendly and pleasant and it was a constant reminder as to why I want to move out of NYC!

I chose to stay in Ketchum instead of Sun Valley because the hotel is literally next door to the theater where films were being shown (nexStage Theater) and where Foster was going to speak. I knew there was going to be a big turnout for her so by being nearby, I significantly increased my chances of getting a seat.

View of Ketchum from hotel balcony.

And get a seat I did! I was admitted into the theater after the VIP's had been seated (and a very cold 45 minute waitFoster spoke eloquently and carefully about acting and directing and was gracious throughout even when asked some potentially uncomfortable questions (about Hinckley, her lost childhood and LGBT-themes).

Jodie Foster answering questions at the nexStage Theater during the second annual Sun Valley Film Festival.

(Sorry about the blurry pictures but these people would NOT stand still for me!)

Despite the flight delays and illness on my way home, I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to interact with someone who I've admired since childhood. And I made a filmmaking connection, too!

Festival Executive Director and Founder Ted Grennan and festival Director Candice Pate during the closing ceremony.

Jodie Foster talks to DeWayne Briscoe, mayor of Sun Valley, during the closing ceremony.

Jodie Foster shows off her key to the city during the closing cerremony.

Since this festival is in its infancy, now is the time to submit to it before it becomes huge like Sundance. I fully intend to submit Adult Toy Story and possibly their screenwriters lab, too.

The moral of this story is: NEVER hesitate to take advantage of even the smallest opportunity because you never know what will come of it.

Scene 16—Luthor Layouts

I've FINALLY moved on to scene 16 which is one of my favorites in the film: a pan from Luthor's discarded clothes on the floor, to his wiggling toes, up his body, past his red shorts to a hold on his face at which point he does an LL Cool J lip lick.

One thing I learned from doing the first 15 scenes is that the proper planning up front will save a lot of time in the end. The primary challenge of this scene was to place Luthor properly onto the bed background that had already been created for scene 12 while also fitting his feet comfortably into the frame:


Scene 12 background adjusted for use in scene 16.

These are the rough versions of Luthor's placement on the bed. They evolved from rough to more polished as I figured out the best solution to the problem:


First attempt: figuring out perspective and the pose.



Second attempt: one of four drawings used to make a quick reference animation.



Third attempt: prefer the laid-back pose but the spread legs aren't fitting into the frame the way I originally planned and imagined it.



Fourth attempt: I was happy with this until…I wasn't. His legs are supposed to be in perspective but they just seem too short.


FINAL: Once I elongated the legs, it came together with the other elements of perspective and pose.

I'm slowly beginning to embrace the reality that EVERY animated element of EVERY scene will require this type of exploration to find the best solution. If I accept this idea, it'll make animated filmmaking a lot less stressful!

Tomorrow: a video of rough animation from this scene.






Creating a Basic Pan in Toon Boom Animate Pro



After completing the scene, I decided that a pan was necessary to link scenes 12 and 13. Until this point I had not moved the camera so I needed to learn how to do this. As usual, Toon Boom Animate Pro made it easy.



The best explanations I found were videos made by Adam Phillips, alias Chulaid. Among his accomplishments is the creation of the Bitey Castle website and the Brackenwood Series. I think it says a lot that Chulaid switched from Flash to Toon Boom to make his animation.

I recommend Chulaid's videos in addition to those produced by Toon Boom. If you know of any useful Toon Boom Storyboard Pro or Animate Pro video tutorials, please share in the comments section. Thanks!