Red Wolfe?

I couldn't turn off all that Jazz and then this happened.

Sorry.

Rose's Turn (Wolfe's Turn?)

If you don't watch Glee, we can't be friends.


But seriously, if you call yourself a fan of musicals, which I do say I call myself, Glee is something you should seriously consider. And Kurt Hummel's (aka Chris Colfer) rendition of Rose's Turn is amazing. It's quite inspiring -- as you can see. Here's a fast beat board for a new leica I'm doing. It's the newest, and probably the shortest and sweetest rendition of Red Wolfe - the film that never was.

time: about 20 minutes, medium: photoshop and love.

The frequency of my posts is not a reflection of my horrendous unemployment status. However if you'd like to fix that, take a look at my portfolio.

A Christmas Card and a terrible joke.

time: about an hour or so.

I had fun doing this, I wanted to make it more blatantly sexual and then I realized this is Christmas and I'm sure my blasphem quota's up for today.

:)

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, folks.

Fun with Promotional Art.

time: 45 minutes.

Panelist Portfolio Review -- Say that 5 times fast.

For full portfolio click here.

Portfolio has also been updated on carbonmade. To answer any questions as to why some of the layouts look particularly wide -- it's not because I'm making the jump to cinemascope, although that would be fun - they're actually mini-pans. 2-4 field pans.

Sc015 - storyboard panel

Sc015 - Rough Layout first pass

Sc015 Rough Layout - Second Pass; adding more character

Sc016 - Storyboard Panel

Sc016- Rough Layout

Sc022-Storyboard Panel

Sc022- Rough Layout

Sc023 - Storyboard Panel

Sc023-Rough Layout

Sc025 - Storyboard Panel

Sc025 - Rough layout/Poses

Sc034 - Storyboard Panel

Sc034 - Rough Layout

Sc039 - Storyboard Panel

Sc039 - Rough Layout

Sc047 - Storyboard Panel

Sc047 - Reuse of 39's background, new poses.

Scanners and BG Painters needed!

If you are a first year, art fundamentals or an organized, keen second year - and reading this; come see me in the fourth year studio or e-mail me at leishamarie.riddel@gmail.com.

I have about layouts that need love, and I would scan them but I also have to do the rest of them as well as animate. You will be credited in the film, as well, I'll probably buy you pizza at some point.

Also, those are the final voice actresses - so if you see them in the hallway, harass them. :) I totally stole the Departed movie poster, or one of them as it had a lot for little to no reason. These posters will be printed out and all over the animation wing on the second and third floor soon. If you see them, try not to rip it down or deface it in some other way. I realize I'm tempting fate there, but I'm trying to play off your good nature.

Also if you're into some really intense music and like guitars - listen to "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" by the Dropkick Murphys. I listened to it while I painted this.

RED WOLFE poster -- inspired by Star Trek

I know, Red Wolfe is in the 20s, Star Trek is in space no relation.

I like the poster though for the movie, and I just did this on a whim and with some foresight, recorded it. It's not layout, but it's fancy.

Digital Painting Process - to "Enterprising Young Men" - Michael Giacchino for Star Trek 2009

If you don't feel like watching the process -- here's the final. Total time: 47 minutes.

Yeah I know, I'm totally humping the line when it comes to Wolfe's gender in terms of her appearance -- as Julia so delicately put it. This is the most feminine she gets in her tux, though. Her lighting isn't as exact as I'd want it to be, but this was just a wing-it kind of painting. I might revisit it.

Here's the one I did of Red -- she was a lot easier this painting came in at 24 minutes, just about.
And again, if you don't want to watch the process -- here's the final:

Overall the contrast is better in this one, but the detailing is better in Wolfe -- mostly because I Spent more time on it. I was kindly reminded that I'm running on about 2 hours sleep so I should probably go to bed. I think the most amusing part about doing these is basing them off photos of chiseled men -- and turning them into not chiseled women. Although Wolfe is getting a little close to tranny town, but she's still a woman there.

Red Wolfe - Too many pans? And Royal Winter

After much deliberation, I decided it was okay to post some production work up. Here's some of the heavies from the pile of layouts that I just finished. I have about 15 pans, and 30 layouts. Yes, I actually cut it down from 40. These are just the digital ones, and the effort I put into them tonally was somewhat minimal. I'm doing the traditional ones with graphite powder and love. I might not post those, just to tease.

So as a treat, I also included the lines from the script to accompany the rough layouts.

Sc.002 --
"The jazz hall is littered with boozehounds, flappers and dapper fellows. A single spot shines on the curtains which has a silhouette of a person in tophat standing aloof."


Sc. 005
"The wings of the Redemption are rampant with activity, as costume racks fly past, the longest pair of legs you've ever seen stomp up the stairs to the star dressing rooms."

Sc.006
"You get a flash of leg, and the glimpse of a girdle as the woman travels up the creaky hallway."

Sc.007 --
"She kneels down to hike up her fallen hosiery once more, as she's missing her left garter. She catches something out of the corner of her eye from her gussying up and notices a poster that reads - "ALEX WOLFE, TONITE!" plastered over another. A robed arm reaches up and rips off the top half exposing the one underneath; combined they now read "RED WOLFE, TONITE!". The woman storms off in the direction of the starred dressing room..."

And now, on a much less slutty note, The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair drawings:

I call the above: RACISM.

Also:

Nice number.

A gaggle of whores.

time: 30 minutes;

I drew this, and Rob Simpson comes up to me and I explain that I'm drawing a group of whores. He then explains to me that a group of whores is easily called a gaggle of whores.

I found this most amusing.

Also, I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but I have a thing for arches in terms of layouts. I have a lot - a lot of arches in my layouts.

I'm actually in full blown production, yea - but I have to make maquettes, or at least Red's this week. I have two scenes rough animated, already. Go Red Wolfe go.

Shameless Self-Promotion

time: 25 minutes;

Absolutely shameless.

Also, Julia has noted that Red's butt gets bigger every time I draw it. It's glorious.

EDIT: AHAHAHAHA. Okay. So I Didn't realize I drew her derrier this large, I had pixel aspect ratio correction on for whatever reason. I fix it now.

Leica Reel v9 - dialog, but still no lyrics.

I really need to do something about the lack of lyrics, to smooth out the film a bit, but in terms of screen lock, I'm pretty much there.

Some of the drawings are pretty low quality, and some fully rendered, so the leica's a smidgeon on the inconsistent side. The dialog's pretty weak as it stands, but once I finally figure out how to write these lyrics, they'll smooth things out a bit and eliminate the useless lines.

For those who don't get it, I don't blame you, think Chicago. But since there's no lyrics, I guess that's kind of hard.

I would have had some, but as you can probably tell by the current recording of Wolfe's voice, I'm pretty sick. I sound like I have a turkey up my nose or I may as well have. I also kind of rounded up the voice talented at the last minute for this, I digress. Julia and I are the final voices for Red and Wolfe, but I'm sure I won't have a lung infection for when I do the sync and my go-to guy for sound's brother will be doing the band leader.


VOICE TALENT for now:

WOLFE - A very sick me.
RED - Julia Boublikova
BANDLEADER - Andrew Perez

I finally decided to post this, as its due tomorrow at 8 AM anyway, and because I suppose everyone's a little curious about what I mean when I say "my film's about sluts".

It's not really, it's about deceit, and "survival" and who can be the bigger pain in the butt.

I think Wolfe wins that one.

Beginning of Week 3 -- Some paintings.

time: 4-5 hours;
time: 5-6 hours
time each: 1 1/2 - 2 hours;
time: 20-45 minutes

Some character concept paintings, and story development paintings. Been busy -- back to the grind, I suppose.

I'm pretty sick, but hopefully it won't hinder my film or my portfolio. Go Lei go.

So First Day of School -- I has made progress.

So this is the very first digital painting I did this summer, albeit I didn't finish it, but here it is.



And this is the one I finished a couple nights ago, as the last digital painting of the summer. Progress. I made it. I will continue on my quest to be a better painter, but I think it'll go on the backburner of my film. However, I will have a chance to make some epic painted layouts for Red Wolfe. So stay put and check it out when I post some more art from my film.

Thanks for following my blog all summer. <3

Something a little more complete

medium: photoshop cs4; time: about 7 hours give or take

I'm surprised I kept at it that long, considering CS4 is a selfish brat and throws tantrums whenever it gets the chance. But anyway --

I decided to actually devote time to something that was applicable to Red Wolfe, and thus, here's Red in all her glory. I realized that she looks a heck of a lot like Nigella Lawson in how she carries herself. Nigella Lawson being a Food Network TV show host, (Host of Nigella Express) and a very curvaceous woman while being really attractive all at once. Of course, Nigella is not an antagonistic whore.

I also, will never render silk ever again. Considering it doesn't even look like silk; I think that's evidence enough I should stay away from fancy fabric until a later date.

There's something up with Red's chest too, but I got to a point where I realize that the most important points are fine: Her cleavage, and her face. (In that order of importance)

I'm likely going to tweak this and repost it.

I go to Art College.

I was doing rough boards, and I drew this, and it made me wonder where all my knowledge of perspective, anatomy, ANYTHING went. :)

I just thought it was pretty funny.

Location Design -- The Jazz Lounge Redemption

medium: photoshop; time: about 1.5 hours now

Since I'm going out today, and don't plan on speed painting in downtown Toronto, I thought I'd post this -- it's the beginnings to a location design painting for Red Wolfe. It's of the Jazz Lounge called "Redemption". You can see the box seats, for the rich patrons, the lounge seats for the well-to-do patrons and the peanut seats, for the not so lucky ones.

And Wolfe doing some serious undulating up on stage; there's no dancers yet, and I'm seriously considering just scratching them until the very end. I think it could work.

Even though I'm going out, I'll probably end up drawing in my notebook. So you may see art yet.

Sketch Dump from Red Wolfe -- 08/09/2009

medium: progresso woodless pencil crayon, prismacolour pencil crayon;


Following an exciting evening, and a rather dramatic night -- I post these; the solution to the dialogue problem in Red Wolfe;

uncalled for, on-screen, intimacy.

Enjoy!

Note: I thought I should defend myself here -- Back in the 1920s, bisexuality was relatively popular amongst women, as the suffragette movement was in full force, as well, women were generally beginning to realize they had rights in general which, unfortunately, began to exclude men. Several big stars were bisexual and had romantic affairs with both men and women, including Marlene Dietrich. But a lot of the stars would engage in this, mostly out of spite or for their own advances in the world - which is what this is, Red is looking for the garter, and since she's the veteran, Wolfe isn't about to throw her off since this could get her some good contacts, until Red finds the garter. Also, women of the theatre house were also just talented prostitutes for the most part - since what they made in the theatre was never enough so they would often supplement the income with sex. So Red's lewd actions are not unnatural to her, this is just another day. Hurray for history!

I really like the big-headed, skinny version of Wolfe [the one in the last group of sketches], in comparison to the rather powerful amazonic version [see second drawing] which is holding some variety of a string. She's much more of a victim that way, and that works for the storyline. Also, I'm likin' the less cute approach to Red as well, there's a few faces I drew today and the bottom one seems to the most suited.
Granted, they all look the same to people who aren't in my head, but if you stare at it long enough you'll see it.

Art Dump - July 28, 2009

This is actually just a bunch of drawings, doodles, almost-digital paintings that I did in the last week or so.

Before the summer started I got all foolhardy, and decided to do a leica reel with a few friends. Let's just say I didn't get to it. But I'm still doing some concept work for it, hence the following drawings.






This next diddly is from "Red Wolfe", my fourth year film. I'm not gonna post a lot of stuff from it, but here's a bit. :) It's a by-law now that if a non-smoker asks you to stop smoking, you have to, but back in the 1920s on the vaudeville strip? Not so much.

Red Wolfe is an adaption of Little Red Riding and Chicago, which are polar opposites in terms of content but have similar themes. For those who didn't read this on my old blog:

Red Wolfe is about an up and coming Jazz Singer, who has a run in with a veteran of the vaudeville strip, concerning a stolen garter.