Quick Sketches

Here are some quick doodles from my sketchbook. These are drawn from ref sites like the Sartorialist and F* Yeah Hair.

Dragon/Knight thumbnail revisions

I did a lot of thumbnail exploration for the knight/dragon action fight scene. I took Rad's feedback, and tried to make this part more fun and milked some stuff here and there.

I still need to do a few more subtle edits, nothing major or worth posting, before moving onto the finished boards. But those will be put on hold for a couple weeks as I polish up my sci-fi story. I'll be redoing these in tv-style storyboard format, cleaning them up, working on the acting, and submitting them to the Nick Storyboard Track program.

Wish me luck!

Thumbnails for new story

Here are the finished/edited thumbnails for the new story that I'll be moving forward with for my storyboarding class with Rad. This is a much simpler story with less locations, less characters and less characters. But it also has more actions and more heart. I think it's a much better story sequence for my portfolio. Comes to a little more than 80 panels which leaves me a few extra panels if I need them when doing the final boards.

Monster Movie finished thumbs

Here are the final thumbnails for my Monster Movie story. I've decided not to go forward with this story for my storyboarding class, because it's simply too big. The assignment was for an 85-100 panel sequence, and this one is close to 200. Even with editing it'll only get down to about 180. Also, I feel this piece relies on too much dialogue. I just don't think it'll work as a good portfolio piece.

Storyboard Week 4-5 Homework

Here are some of my thumbnails from the last couple weeks of my storyboard class. I spent the majority of my time in week 4 working on the story. I made created my story beats, and from that I beat out my panels. This helped out tremendously when moving on to actually drawing the thumbnails for week 5.

For the first set of thumbs, I found myself zoomed in and adding detailing and fussing with things I didn't need to. I also had the size control for my brush set to pen pressure so I could get thin and thick lines. TOTAL WASTE OF TIME. I spent too much time drawing the first set of thumbs. For the second set, I forced myself to stay zoomed out. I also turned off the pen pressure for sizing of the brush and stayed at a constant brush size of 3px. This sped up my thumbnailing speed exponentially!

I still have about 30ish thumbs to do. Then I'll be editing what I have. There are a few shots/actions that just aren't needed and some that need to be refined a bit. Then I'll flesh out the character designs so that I can move onto actually boarding these out before my next class.

Story Beat Sheet:

1)  Opening Image (1)

a)     The hero, who’s soaked and looks defeated, enters his room which is covered in horror film paraphernalia.

2)  Theme Stated (5)

a)     You hear the hero’s father say “Why do you let them pick on you?” The hero replies “I don’t LET them!” Then the father says “I don’t know how you’re going to survive school if you don’t stand up for yourself.” In which the hero sarcastically responds to himself “Gee, thanks for the advice, dad. Problem solved.”

3)  Set-Up (1-10)

a)     Hero is weak and helpless.

b)    Bullies are mentioned in conversation.

c)     Hero’s friend calls him.

4)  Catalyst (12)

a)     Hero’s friend calls him about hanging out and shooting their horror film that night. Friend says he found someone to be in the film and will meet them there.

5)  Debate (12-25)

a)     t’s late and the hero has to decide if he wants to risk getting in trouble by sneaking out, and decides that he needs to.

6)  Break Into Two (25)

a)     The hero decides to sneak out, via his bedroom window, and shoot his movie in the cemetery.

7)  B Story (30)

a)     Hero meets up with friend, who says he’s sorry about the bullies says “what are you going to do about it.

8)  Fun and Games (30-55)

a)     Hero and friend run around the cemetery, goofing around, scaring each other, and finding cool shots for their film.

9)  Mid Point (55)

a)     Hero finds a tomb that would be perfect place for the vampire’s lair.

10)  Bad Guys Close In (55-75)

a)     After the Hero’s friend walks away to get some supplies, the bullies enter the cemetery. The Hero hears noises outside of the tomb.

11)  All Is Lost (75)

a)     Hero looks out the tomb and notices the bullies are close by.

12)  Dark Night of the Soul (75-85)

a)     Hero is scared and feels trapped. The bullies are close, they’re going to find him and beat him up. And there’s nothing he can do about it because they’re bigger and stronger than him.

13)  Break Into Three (85)

a)     A boy appears out of nowhere (must be the kid that his friend mentioned) and the Hero realizes he has the upper hand. Horror is his thing, the cemetery his set, and lights and make-up will get the job done.

14)  Finale (85-110)

a)     Hero lights the tomb and puts makeup on, turning himself into a zombie.

b)     As the bullies enter the tomb, the lights go on and the hero tries to scare them. The boy appears behind him and scares them more, by looking like a huge skeletal ghost.

c)     The bullies run away screaming.

d)    The hero’s friend returns, talking about the bullies running away screaming madly.

e)     Hero’s friend says they can’t film tonight because he friend wasn’t able to come, but who helped them? We see the boy’s name on the coffin, or we see him phase in/out of the coffin.

15)  Final Image (110)

a)     Hero stands up to the bullies and learns that ghosts are real.

Storyboard Homework Assignment #3

Brainstorming some ideas for storyboarding class. Here's one a of a wannabe monster hunter.

Storyboard Homework Assignment 2

Here they are cleaned up a bit. I think if I played around with this more, stuck to the model better, and redid some of the posing and pacing, it'd be a good portfolio piece.