..::Melissa Wolfert::..

catching up

2011-12-23T18:15:00.000-05:00

hey blogger, how's it going? i feel like we don't talk anymore. i'll admit, i've been having an affair with tumblr, but i check in on you every now and then.

let's catch up, shall we? here's all the stuff i've done in the past few months

we cool?

Sherlock!

2011-08-20T17:41:00.000-04:00

I watched the Sherlock series a little while back and really liked it and finally got my husband to sit down for two hours and watch the first episode. I did some doodles while we watched it.

top right looks like Beethoven..

Celia, Moray Princess

2011-08-13T20:05:00.000-04:00

I wouldn’t be surprised if no one knows who this is.

In 1992 Disney released a mini series of Little Mermaid comics, the first two of which was a great story about Ariel crossing a chasm in the ocean and coming upon the Moray people. This is their princess, Celia. Celia’s a biiiiiiiiiitch and I love her so much in the same way that I love Azula from Avatar. I still have these comics but they’re falling apart because I read the absolute crap out of them as a kid.

you can see some scans from the comics here

2011-08-13T08:52:00.003-04:00

Random Vesta and Juno sketches. They make for good subject matter when I'm bored/art blocked.

2011-08-06T19:09:00.000-04:00

Got the new Sketchbook Copic app and did a little dooooodle~

Maybe if i get good at fake markers i'll break out my real ones..

Cleaning House

2011-07-31T19:22:00.002-04:00

THIS

..is four years of my life.

I cleaned out the closet today and this had been in the back of my mind for a while. I'm never going to go back to these projects. I'm never going to scan, rework, or need any of these drawings. I'm bad about amassing "STUFF" and being emotionally attached to too many inanimate things. 2D animation takes up a lot of space. All of this paper is going into the recycling bin.

I am keeping my senior film (for now; it takes up less space than I thought) and a few choice bits and pieces from various projects (like my very first bouncing ball assignment).

Feels like progress.

La Dolce Vida sketches

2011-07-17T16:44:00.000-04:00

I watched La Dolce Vida for the first time yesterday and kept pausing it because I wanted to draw from it (a very effective way to make an almost 3 hour movie even longer)

Self Portrait with Cat Hat

2011-07-10T23:35:00.000-04:00

Paul Revere "The Truth"

2011-07-01T08:49:00.000-04:00

Here’s a little short I helped animate on. I worked on a couple shots (the initial 1-4 lanterns and the nukes) over the course of ..jeez..a year? Well it finally got put out into internet land! Happy Fourth of July, my fellow Americans.

Gumball!

2011-06-08T22:00:00.000-04:00

If you haven't seen The Amazing World of Gumball, get off the internet right now and go watch it...unless you need the internet to watch it. in which case it's ok.

I LOVE THIS SHOW SO MUCH.

characters colored in photoshop. background photo is from a recent trip to Maui.

red panda love

2011-05-31T22:46:00.000-04:00

i looove red pandas. i want to have a red panda farm where they can frolic and be adorable.

i see lots of photos of red pandas sticking their tongues out. surely they would like popsicles, right? i really like how these came out. i've been wanting to animate red pandas for a long time now. maybe i can do something with this little guy..

Jewel doodle

2011-05-26T22:55:00.000-04:00

she gets mad at me for neglecting her and forces her way into my sketchbook.

Fluttershy (more ponies)

2011-05-26T08:51:00.000-04:00

ponies ponies ponies

I put up a few work in progress shots HERE

My Little Pony Madness

2011-05-15T22:09:00.000-04:00

I got bit by the pony bug.

Not being in a market with those neat plastic toys, I fell into the same thing that always happens when I don't like the toys for something...I make my own.

I did Applejack first because, honestly, she's my least favorite of the main cast and I wanted to work the kinks out with her. Glad I did because I learned a lot from working on her. Her face isn't perfect, but that was part of the learning process.

Quite pleased with how Pinkie came out, especially her hair. I learned to keep the tail detachable with the help of some wire which makes painting sooo much easier.

They're both around 2.5" tall, made with super sculpey and painting with acrylic craft paint.

This is probably not the end of this...

Aerialist Life Drawing!

2011-04-13T08:49:00.001-04:00

Last night Dr. Sketchy's had a life drawing session with a bunch of aerialists and hoops hanging from the ceiling. Very exciting! Also another chance to use my new pen and pencils! Double exciting!

1 minute warmups

10 minute (unless they couldn't hold it that long) poses

yay fanart!

2011-04-06T21:37:00.001-04:00

there's always something to draw with fanart..

i got some new drawing stuff i wanted to break in and, when in doubt, there's always sailor moon.

I got several different colors of Pentel color eno 0.7 lead which I love. I really like drawing with colored lead, but those Staedler drafting pencil leads are so thick, it's nearly impossible to get any detail in. The Pentel hi-polymer soft eraser also does a kickass job of erasing those colored pencil lines which can often be stubborn. I also got a 0.4 Pilot Hi-Tec-C black pen which I adore. It feels so awesome to draw with and I love the loose line quality. Happiness is new art supplies!

vesta doodle

2011-03-14T21:18:00.001-04:00

hi blog. still here, just not a lot of time for arts right now.

evening doodle of my kitty, Vesta.

11 Second Club - Feb 2011

2011-02-21T09:23:00.000-05:00

Having to shelve this so I got it to a presentable state and submitted it. Probably for the best, some of the cleanup started getting away from me. Onward to bigger and or better things!

just checking in...

2011-02-15T22:48:00.004-05:00

an updated WIP of my 11 second club. simultaneously working on tweens, cleanup, and reworks. probably not the proper way to do things but it keeps things interesting :D

sorry blogger insists on making such crappy quality videos. i'm having trouble figuring out how to embed video hosted on my own site. any tips? i have it -> uploaded here if you want to see it prettier. <-

11 Second Club WIP Keys

2011-02-09T23:42:00.002-05:00

Calling it a night but figured i'd do a WIP post. It's early on (in the process and the month) so feel free to critique. Just know I've barely touched the dude on the right, I just put him there to giver her a set spot to look at.

Pardon the ghosting at the beginning. For WIP posts I'll only give Flash 15 minutes to stop being a bitch and export properly. I think I tried atleast 6 times with the same result. What's up with that, Adobe? Didn't have that problem in Flash 8, now, did we?

Audio is from "Garden State". If you dont' know what 11 Second Club is you can check it out here.

edit: holy crap the beginning looks washed out on that player. i'll fix it in the next post :/

double edit: there seems to be issues viewing the video in Safari. it works fine in Firefox and Chrome, though. again, something i'll look into for the next post.

11 Second Club - character design

2011-02-03T08:27:00.000-05:00

I got really excited when I heard this month's 11 second club clip and immediately started brainstorming how to reinterpret it. I think a lot of times when you know the source material it can be harder to break away to do something different since you already have that preconceived idea of what the actor is doing.

Anyway, after a few scrapped ideas I came to this. I haven't even started boarding yet so the design might change a little, but overall I like her. I hope I'm not biting off more than I can chew with her design. I have to keep reminding myself that it's February so I don't have quite as many days as usual.

Daily Sketch Challenge K-P and Q-V

2011-02-02T22:20:00.003-05:00

Continuing the DSC Alphabet Challenge, I'm splitting them up into two to make them easier to see. As always, click the picture for a bigger version. Again, these are all pretty quick drawings. Usually 15-30 minutes each.

First batch the assigned characters were:

Katana

Lady Death | Megaton Man

Nomad

Obsidian | Polar Boy

And the second batch (I think I'm the most happy with how these came out) we have:

Quasar | Ronin

Superman (Kingdom Come) | Terrax

Underdog | V for Vendetta

Animation Gold Mine

2011-01-23T16:17:00.002-05:00

I haven't yet posted any outside links on this blog, but if only for my records in holding on to these i must engrave in internet stone the wonderful animation links I found the other day.

Scans from the out of print French book, Les Heroines Disney

Dailymation - the near daily animation exercises of Yoni Goodman, Director of Animation on Waltz with Bashir (also posted on YouTube)

Also this pencil test from Pinocchio (which apparently Dagny posted a while back but I am a terrible friend and missed it)

That is all for now. Hope to have my own animation to update with sometime soon :D

Daily Sketch Challenge A-J

2011-01-16T20:27:00.001-05:00

So the great Atlanta snow/ice storm last week kinda threw me off my groove. I worked at home all week which kind of altered my state of mind for working on personal stuff. There's a community at Outcast Studios and "simulcast" on deviantart called the "Daily Sketch Challenge". Every day they post a character (sometimes very obscure!) for everyone to draw. The point is less to come up with a finished work of art (though that's welcome as well) but for 15-20 minute sketches just to get you drawing every day. I figured a good way of jamming myself back onto the drawing wagon was catching up on the current run of alphabet challenges. So here's A-J!

(click for enlarged version)

A is for Azrael, B is for Balder the Brave, C is for Casanova, D is for Dead Girl, E is for Etrigan, F is for Flamebird, G is for The Great Machine, H is for Hourman III, I is for Imorrtus, and J is for Joker (Dark Knight version).

I'm not really familiar with most of these characters (except Joker) so it turned mostly into a fanart lifedrawing project. I'm quite pleased with Balder, Dead Girl, and Flamebird.

Bjorn Gunndis!

2011-01-09T22:19:00.000-05:00

There's a neat community on deviantart for designing characters based off prompts and shapes. This month there is a theme challenge:

"A heavy, grumpy viking who doesn't care much for combing his/her hair, has a smoking and drinking habit, loves to get into fights"

So here is what I came up with. I have named her "Bjorn Gunndis" which means Bear Battle Maiden. Totally looked up Norse baby names.

Week 01 Life Drawing

2011-01-09T13:54:00.002-05:00

Made it the whole week! Lots of randomness, all drawn from reference of various types. 1/7 features the life drawing turned into Kristaia, my account namesake, who i haven't drawn in a very very long time. 1/6 has some bats because a friend told me to draw bats. I aim to please.

*click for a larger version*

Ladies & fabric

2011-01-02T16:52:00.001-05:00

I've realized that when it comes to photographic reference for life drawing or posing, searching through stock photos on deviantart beats out any pose/reference books i've seen being sold out there. And it's free! so massive win there.

Keeping with the 'i suck at fabric' theme, found some really nice photos with drapery and dresses here and I know I will be back for many more.

1.1.11 Life Drawing

2011-01-01T21:25:00.000-05:00

So I'm going for that oh so common new years resolution of artists to draw atleast *something* every day. Decided to start out with two things i suck at: dudes and fabric. Drawn from ref material from the Comic Artist's Photo Ref. Here's to 2011!

Back to character design

2010-12-26T21:57:00.001-05:00

does this thing still work? been a few months since i've posted anything -_-

and speaking of being a while, it's been waaaay too long since i did some drawing, so i decided to dive back into trying to get this damn lady designed.

kinda like where these are going..she's a little older which i think works better with the story. playing some with colors, too.

FINISHED 11 Second Club

2010-09-29T23:53:00.003-04:00

trumpets, fanfare, and unicorns throwing confetti...it is done.

admittedly, "done" with an asterisk that i would work on it more if i had more time, but this is the deadline i set for myself and i think it looks pretty good for the time i put into it. i'm damn happy to have a colored, finished piece to submit this month.

so here it is. i'd love to say i'll go back and touch up some things later, but that never happens. always moving on to bigger better things!

11 Second Club - Sept 2010

More 11 sec club

2010-09-21T22:43:00.000-04:00

Rufs just about done! just missing mouths then it's off to clean up land. whoo~

Also damn you, adobe for foresaking quicktime in every version of flash after fl8. Terrible ghosting issues making me bring swfs into after effects to get a useable file out of it >_<

Cat & Dog sketches and Animation update

2010-09-13T23:54:00.000-04:00

After roughing in some key-ish drawings for my 11 sec club entry, I figured I should spend a little time doing some life (photo) drawing of some of the key poses and actions. Oddly enough, I pretty much always had a dog growing up, but I've always sucked at drawing them. For whatever reason, drawing cats came much more easily. Also I need to work on getting out of the habit of drawing animals' heads so tremendously big : /

and just for kicks, here's where I am with my animation. still have some timing/posing issues to work out.

story board v02

2010-09-11T20:06:00.001-04:00

Got some feedback on my previous post and reworked some things. Added an intro of the cat getting on the chair and a couple more poses. I feel like it's a little busy at the end, with the cat finishing his line and the dog shaking his head...i might tweak that in animation to see how much time i really need for that stretch, if i can push the head shake later or see if it reads as an action to do while he's standing up. Feel free to critique more :)

I also thought i'd throw in a photo of my inspiration for this idea, my dog Misty and cat Vesta. Vesta is the most adorable little satan cat ever (as anyone who's met her will tell you) and Misty's solution to everything is to just walk away.

Alive and animating - 11 sec club

2010-09-10T18:09:00.001-04:00

...or getting there atleast. Sorry i have neglected you, blog world.

I really like this month's sound clip on 11 second club and an idea came to me really quickly so i started my sketching and my boarding. here's my first pass story boards. comments and critiques onegai shimasu! again..first pass boards, so ignore any lack of cohesive character design.

Fanart Explosion!

2010-07-28T14:50:00.000-04:00

I looove doing fanart. So nice to just focus on the technical aspects of drawing and not having to come up with the design of what to draw.

There's a group on deviantart called Daily Sketch Challenge (which is linked to Outcast Studio's forum) that posts a character every day. Participants submit 15-30 minute sketches, with the emphasis being just picking up a pencil (or stylus) and drawing every day. It's a low pressure community that just encourages drawing and not on creating a polished finished piece. Here's a couple 15-20 minute drawings i did for the group:

Saturn Girl

Tomorrow Woman

aaand some personal fanart. if you're going to spend any time on my blog you should know that my favorite subjects for fanart are X-Men and Sailormoon. So..be prepared for that.

the quest for the perfect character design..

2010-07-12T21:39:00.000-04:00

I've got this idea for a short but I keep getting stuck on the character designs. She's...kind of a wannabe princess, but I think most of the drawings I've done of her make her look far too young. Before I had much of the story down i did these designs which i was happy with at the time but, once i started fleshing out the story, i think she's too young.

(done back in 2008)

After some time away from the project, I really hit the story side harder, fleshing it out and doing some ruf boards. After that I took another stab at the design. None of them really jumped out at me. Also I started watching Princess & the Frog towards the end of doing these (the ones on the left were actually last) and I think it's funny how much the designs loosened up.

(April 2010)

I tried again today, this time with a much more traditional Disney-ish look to her. I like how she turned out but I still think she looks too young :/ Maybe I'll try playing it out and see if it's really as off as I think it is. Even if I don't use her for that, I still think it's a cute design :D

Squidbillies sculpts

2010-07-07T08:50:00.000-04:00

I did these a while ago (between june-december of 2008) but in an effort to keep updating this, i'll throw in some older stuff from time to time. We have Early, Rusty, Squid Jesus, and Herschel Walker. Early is about an inch tall and Herschel is 3/8" tall. They're all moostly to scale to each other.

Honestly, these started because I was kind of disappointed in the actual figures that came out (the Early one had a zillion legs). I was very proud that most views of of these show the "on model" number of legs.

Anyway, new stuff coming soon!

Action!

2010-07-05T21:10:00.000-04:00

I periodically like to scour deviantART for good photos to draw from, and I found some awesome action shots this time around. Check my posting at dA here if you'd like to see the photos I drew from.

New Demo Reel

2010-06-09T22:57:00.003-04:00

Batman Again!!

2010-06-07T08:55:00.001-04:00

Here's my overachieving second submission for the studio sketchblog.

If i had it to do over again i would do the composition much more dynamically, and put it together a little differently. oh well, live n learn. i'm still having fun playing with watercolors! these are from a cake set that i got..jeez...like 10-15 years ago? i just bought myself some fancy tubes of watercolor so i can practice with those like a "real artist"

Batman!

2010-06-04T08:52:00.006-04:00

My submission for the studio sketchblog (Batman theme, obviously).
i was definitely going for a simpler, more cartoony i guess style for him, but looking at it this morning it kinda looks like lego batman *shrug* unintentional. this is kind of a painted collage. the background is watercolor, and everything else is cut out from paper i painted with acrylic, all layered. the scan made it much darker than it actually is, but i think that makes it way better.

i'm hoping to do another submission before monday. here's to a busy weekend!

character design exploration

2010-05-26T21:40:00.002-04:00

did some sketching last night, working on character designs for the comic i want to do. still exploring a style and design and all that, but i like how most of this came out.

comic character doodles

2010-04-24T20:17:00.002-04:00

Nothing too exciting, just some doodles i did the other day with the comic i want to do in mind. possibly drawn on squidbillies notes...who could say? 0:)

I'm hoping to spend all of tomorrow with my sketchbook, some tea, and perhaps 30 Rock on netflix, and knock out some solid ideas!

Super Hero Life Drawing

2010-04-15T09:31:00.001-04:00

Earlier this week I went to a life drawing session featuring a model that dressed as Scarlet Witch and Ms Marvel! Super awesome! ...not as awesome is how out of practice I am at life drawing. practice practice practice!

The Internet Wins

2010-04-14T20:08:00.001-04:00

I held out for so long, but the internet has finally broken my will. After surviving so long on only a portfolio page and a deviantart account, I have fallen to the will of blogger. I figure here I can not only post my own art, but scrapbook other fun and exciting things and inspire me.

I am a freelance animator and amateur comic artist and sculptor. All of these things I will share with you! You are so lucky!

So let's bust through the lack of things posted by me throwing a bunch of things down here that i've done over the past year or two.

I hope we will be good friends, internets!