Find parts one and two of this series here!

The next assignment in my storyboard class was to redo the last assignment twice– once in all one shots and once in all two shots. Wait, wait– what’s the difference? A one shot is when a shot in a movie has only one character in it. A two shot is just what it sounds like: two characters in the shot. It can be rather difficult to compose an entire story out of only one shots or two shots, but that was the real challenge of the whole thing.

Story told in one shots:

Story told in two shots:

The final part of this assignment was to combine the two version by selecting the best of each shot, and making an animatic out of it. So here’s that! This was my first ever animatic, and was made in Adobe AfterEffects.

To be concluded in part four!

For part one of the Storyboard series, click here!

The second assignment in my Storyboard class was to do the exact same story again– but this time with human characters (I’m the only one who chose cats originally– odd?!), and in a specific other artist’s style. My randomly chosen artist was Bernie Wrightson, a horror comics artist who emerged in the 1960s. His style is dark, moody, and minutely detailed. He tends to have a full value range on every panel of his comics, and uses spot blacks dramatically.

The amount of things I learned about proper storyboard notation from the first to second assignment is astounding. You can tell that I picked up tons of information about camera angles, framing, and action/dialogue notation. But just wait ’til you see the stuff I started doing after this. I think I’m in love with storyboarding, now!

To be continued in Part Three!

I’ve always been curious about storyboarding. It was definitely something that wasn’t covered in my undergrad courses, and I had no idea what they looked like or how they worked. Well no more! I’m in a storyboarding class, and have been learning quite a lot about the film industry, aspect ratios, camera angles and framing… and acting, of all things. It’s amazing how much these things are all tied together.

My first assignment ever was based on the following prompt: two characters (one anxious and one coy) in a mystery genre story must be escaping from the bowels of the Earth. My prompt’s details were all drawn from a hat, so each student’s story was completely different. For example, another student had an angry and a sad character waiting for grandchildren at a sporting event. My interpretation of my prompts was two cats (one a detective and one that was weird and twitchy) were trying to escape from a sewer. It was completely random. What then further pushed our creativity was that ee had to use a specific script, and keep it between 6 and 9 panels.

As you can imagine, this produced a lot of interesting results. Below is my attempt, with the thumbnails first and the boards second. I still had quite a lot to learn at this point– and did I EVER learn! Storyboarding involves drawing the same thing about a million times. Also, I apologize if you can’t read my handwriting. It’s the curse of being an artist.

To be continued in Part 2!

So my other class this summer is Children’s Book–

*record scratch*

Wait.

Can I take a moment and just say: two studio classes during summer semester? What WAS I thinking?! This is the most stressed and overworked I have been in my entire life, and that is saying a lot. I’m the sort of person who forever overfills her plate and is moving at 100 mph. When *I* say something is too much, it’s gotta REALLY be too much. I’ve literally been physically tapping out with how much I can do in one day, and it still isn’t enough. This isn’t productive stress; it’s just too much!

Anyway, back to what I was saying.

My other class this summer semester is Children’s Book, and I have absolutely fallen in love with this method of storytelling. Our first assignment was called “The Big, Round Red” and was basically a prompt assignment (the prompt being the phrase “big, round red”). I really enjoyed it. I came up with the concept of the “big, round red” being the hot African sun. My two main characters are meerkats, and they are sweltering and need to find shade! Above are the final panels I came up with for the short.

Here is some of the concept art that I did initially while playing around with the idea. It features a few characters that didn’t show up in the final short, but are still part of the big story.

My original set of thumbnails showing the story, but based on feedback I decided it was trying to cram too much story into just five panels. I ended up cutting the five panel story down to just the elephant and the tree.

The old “final” panel 4, which had been decided was too like the others, and thus why it was redone as seen above. I don’t particularly like the new version either, but at least it was different. I need to revisit it again. I do like the story though, so perhaps I’ll eventually develop it into a full blown book featuring a whole host of characters.

As part of my catching up, I’ve got here all of the rest of the still lives and statue studies that I did in my Chiaroscuro charcoal drawing class.

>>Egg On Your Face – This was actually one of my first drawings I did, and is in graphite. We had to draw an egg still life. Mine needs more darks, to be sure.

>>Ladies’ Night Out – This was a still life that was supposed to have a theme, so I chose some items a lady might take with her on her way out for the evening.

>>Another Fabric Study – This was another fabric study done with a very thick piece of fabric. It needs more midtones, however.

>>Still Life with Bottle – Another still life meant to study dark glass.

>>Mastercopy of Statue Drawing – A drawing of a statue that I had to copy directly. I actually did this same assignment in undergrad. I really wish that I had my old version so that I could compare them.

>>Head Statue Study – A study of a plaster head.

More below the cut. Slight NSFW warning for some nude plaster statue drawings.

(continue reading…)