Adventures in Flash

Last semester was the busiest, craziest yet most exciting four months of my life. It was the time of many firsts: my first semester as a Digital Arts major (I switched from English after my freshman year), my first time getting a paid job (as a Precalculus tutor! Who knew I secretly enjoy math?), my first time drawing and completing an original storyboard, and my first time working on an animated short.

I volunteered to help a fellow student with his senior thesis film, because he's making his film using 2D animation--a medium that I've always adored and wanted to explore. The problem was he was making the film entirely in Flash and I've never used Flash before. Actually at that point I didn't really know how to use any software except for the very basic tools in Photoshop. I told him I was interested in creating background art, but I can only sketch traditionally or in Photoshop. Fortunately he said it wasn't a big deal. So then he asked me to sketch a basement for his protagonist, an inventor who accidentally gets teleported to prehistoric times and gets into trouble with some cavemen. Here's a wide shot I got from the director and used as a reference:

 He asked if I could improve the layout and also design more furniture and other props. So I sketched some and came up with these:

I have to admit, these suck (as you can so obviously tell from how small I made them on this page).






And that was pretty much all the work I did for the film last semester. It's not much, but I gave myself a pat on the back for going out of my comfort zone, talking to someone new and signing up for more than what was required of me. Anyway, I got in touch with the director last week and told him I'm still very interested in helping out. I've learned quite a lot from my Photoshop class and this gave me a little more confidence.





So he told me wanted this scene
to take place at dusk instead of in broad daylight. I was excited to get to work. I looked at multiple reference photos, including the ones he sent me, and studied the colors as much as I could. I came up with a pretty solid color study of a dusk sky.

I think it's incredibly fun to experiment with colors, especially when you can just pick and mix all the colors you want without worrying about actual paint drying up or running out.

I sent my color test to the director and he told me he liked the top right and the bottom left the most, so he sent me this--a combination of the two.

With my colors ready, I bravely opened Flash CC on my computer to edit the file the director gave me. I spent hours trying to figure out how to edit shapes, especially the clouds I painted. I can't lie, it was intimidating and frustrating working in Flash for the first time, because I wasted a lot of time figuring out how to select this or convert that, instead of just simply painting.


Hours later, I finally got the background to look like I wanted it to.

I'm sure for most of you artists out there won't think much about this because it looks simple, but I'm proud of how it came out. I think it's pretty good for a first try!

Here's what it looks like with the characters and the fire:

So this was my first adventure in Flash and I'm actually looking forward to having more. My goal is to design all the backgrounds in the film, so wish me luck!

TV and Michael Scott

I was never really a big fan of television and TV series; sure I'd watch some How I Met Your Mother or The Big Bang Theory when I was bored, but I wouldn't call myself a big fan of these shows. So when one of my roommates last year--by some voodoo or miracle--got me into Supernatural, I was astonished by how big of a fan girl I was capable of being. I quickly became obsessed with the show and its amazing(ly good-looking) cast, and before I knew it, I watched seven seasons within two months (or something like that). I loved the show for Sam and Dean's relationship, but I stopped watching  it halfway through the seventh season because I honestly didn't care about the leviathans. Anyway, this isn't a review of Supernatural so I'll leave it at that.

After my Supernatural phase, this year, my new roommate introduced me to The Office. She's a huge fan of the show and we get a long extremely well, so I figured maybe I'd like the show too. And I did. I got into it pretty fast; I couldn't stop watching it not only for the jokes but for characters like Jim and Pam, and of course, the great Michael Scott. My roommate and I always talk about how Michael would be so unbearably obnoxious in real life, but in the show he's just hilarious and actually endearing sometimes. His character just works well. So when I finally got to "Goodbye, Michael"  in season seven, I couldn't help but cry me eyes out. I felt like I knew this man and how much he loved the people in his office.

When I finally stopped crying, I figured it would be fun to draw something for Michael Scott, because why not? So I spent an hour in Photoshop playing with new dry brushes and voila:

It was inspired by my favorite of Michael's hilarious malapropisms and also by a certain cat who cannot be pleased. Steve Carell just does this look sometimes that reminds me of Grumpy Cat so much.

I haven't really done a lot of painting in Photoshop, so I'm still getting around using brushes and layers and other features. Hopefully I'll get more and more comfortable as I go along.