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Now I have t-shirts for sale through redbubble.com

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I’m learning TONS as I continue to work, solving problems about how to shade certain elements but not others, how to create limbs that can be easily foreshortened without having to redraw them over and over again…    Also I’m getting a little better (not faster but better) at “tweening” - the process of making sure each subsequent frame lines up with previous and following frames.   The more familiar I’ve become with Toon Boom Animate Pro, the more I love it.   Even though I still have lots to learn, I am more comfortable with how to use the software.

Here’s a screenshot of how it looks when I’m designing the character:

As you might notice, it’s set up a lot like Adobe Flash, except the method of rigging a character’s individual body parts together using pegs is (for me) more advanced, offers (me) more control over movement, and is more intuitive (to me).  I also like the way effects are added through the network screen, which visually demonstrates how all of my elements are connected to one another.  Here is what my character Charlotte’s network of elements looks like (as much as I could fit on the screen):

The green elements are pegs, holding different elements together.  The pegs will be responsible for the motion that I add to the character later when I animate her.  The dark blue bricks represent effects and composites (like filters and linked-layers in Photoshop).  Each of the blue bricks represents a drawing element.   One of them contains the torso shape, another contains the shape of the skirt, another one contains the lower part of a leg.   The trick to achieving a model that seems to convey the level of dimension that I’m working on (that still maintains a 2D style rather than the obnoxious 3D CGI bullshit that we see everywhere these days) is to sometimes create multiple drawing elements for different parts of the body.  So I have part of a shoe in one element that overlays the ankle element, and then the back part of the shoe behind that.   And for each frame (Charlotte has 38 frames - each representing a different angle) they shift accordingly.   So when Charlotte is facing away from us, the shoe element that once contained the drawing of the front part of the shoe, now shows the back part of the shoe, and the element that once contained the shoe-parts behind the ankle are empty because there’s nothing visible behind her ankle in that frame.

Blah blah blah - needless explanation - my point is that while the shape of my character remains simple-looking, there is a complex system of overlapping and intertwined elements that helps achieve the way Charlotte is shaded and hinged together for motion.  When I add her face, the number of elements and pegs in my network will easily double, because every facial feature gets it’s own drawing - the shape of each eye gets an element, as well as a pupil, and a special cutter element to keep the eyeball within the eye shape.  The eyes alone will involve at least seven pegs.  Not to mention that each eyeshape that I draw has to be redrawn when I want to make the eyes widen, or narrow, or close/blink FOR EACH FRAME THAT FEATURES AN EYE!!!  I’m hyperventilating.  Give me a moment to breathe into a paper bag.

Once Charlotte is complete, I have five more main characters to create.

And three or four minor characters, and a crowd of background people for the party/rave scene.

And then I have to draw the backgrounds for each scene.

And then I lip-sync the audio track to the characters.

And then the actual animation begins.

And then I can edit together each scene with Final Cut Pro.

And then I score the project with music that I have to create somehow, without being a musician…

I’m hyperventilating again.

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In their 1996 essay titled “Re-Place-ing Space: The Roles of Place and Space in Collaborative Systems,” Steve Harrison and Paul Dourish eloquently explain,

Physically, a place is a space which is invested with understandings of behavioral appropriateness, cultural expectations, and so forth.  We are located in “space,” but we act in “place.”  Furthermore, “places” are spaces that are valued.  The distinction is rather like that between a “house” and a “home”; a house might keep out the wind and the rain, but a home is where we live. 

“There’s No Place Like…” features work by sixteen artists each exploring the murky gap between the notions of “house” and “home.”   What signifiers transform a space into “home?”  How long after a domestic space has been abandoned, destroyed, or transformed into a non-domestic space do the remaining materials continue to be imbued with the sense of “home?”

Artists include:

• Susan Alta Martin
• Nicholas Bustamante
• Wendy DesChene & Jeff Schmuki
• Kay Knight
• Tracie Grace Lyons
• Brandon Jenkins
• Susan H. Johnston
• Adele Mattern
• Sarah McFalls
• Lori Larusso
• David Linneweh
• Dominic Lippillo
• Mark Schoon
• Melissa Wilkinson
• Brandon Woods

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Adele Mattern
21 Henshaw; Bedroom
photographic print
24″ x 18″
2011

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Adele Mattern

21 Henshaw; Front Parlour

24″ x 18″

photographic print

2011

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Adele Mattern

Stuck On You

string, rice paper, encaustic, tape

dimensions vary

2011

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Lori Larusso

Hungry Heart

 acrylic on panel

43″ x 40″

2010

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Wendy DesChene & Jeff Schmuki

Church St.

documentation of digital projection on forest

13″ x 19″

2009

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Wendy DesChene & Jeff Schmuki

Walston House

documentation of digital projection on forest

13″ x 19″

2009

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Wendy DesChene & Jeff Schmuki

Railroad Drive

documentation of digital projection on forest

13″ x 19″

2009

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Dominic Lippillo

Television and Stereo

digital print

24″ x 30″

2010

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Dominic Lippillo

Brown Recliner

digital print

24″ x 30″

2010

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Melissa Wilkinson

 Camper (from the Deconstructed Disaster Series)

ink & watercolor on paper

29″ x 41″

2009

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Melissa Wilkinson

 Lattice/Debris (from the Deconstructed Disaster Series)

ink & watercolor on paper

29″ x 41″

2010

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Mark Schoon

Neighbors

c-print

30″ x 24″

2010

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Tracie Grace Lyons

Eve’s Temptations

 watercolor, pen & ink

12″ x 17.5″

2009

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Susan Alta Martin

Meth Lab

sculptural photo-collage & mixed media

42″ x 16″ x 14″

2009

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Susan Alta Martin

Meth Lab (detail)

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 Sarah McFalls

Smith Farm, Tennessee

gesso, marble dust, sand, graphite & oil on wood

 24″ x 48″

2009

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Brandon Woods

Interior: Lost House

oil on canvas

60″ x 36″

2010

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Kay Knight

Stairs

gouache on vintage wallpaper

22″ x 22″

2009

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Kay Knight

 Addition

gouache on vintage wallpaper

22″ x 22″

2009

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David Linneweh

 Refurbished Landscape (Sheridan 1)

oil & graphite on panel

12″ x 16″

2008

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David Linneweh

Refurbished Landscape (Percy 1)

oil & graphite on panel

12″ x 16″

2008

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David Linnewah

 Refurbished Landscape (Laramie 2)

oil & graphite on panel

12″ x 16″

2008

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Brandon Jenkins

Identifying Who They Once Were

 photography

18″ x 30″

2010

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Susan H. Johnston

Kitchen Icon

acrylic on canvas

20″ x 24″

2008

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Nicholas Bustamante

Room With a View

charcoal & India ink on drafting film

2009

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Nicholas Bustamante

Room With a View (detail)

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Nicholas Bustamante

Room With a View (detail)

“Dallying Around After One” from Jason Driskill on Vimeo.

Orientation to Art - 84252 - ART 1030 - 010
Must attend first class or lose place. Associated Term: Fall 2011 Registration Dates: Apr 01, 2011 to Sep 01, 2011 Levels: Undergraduate Attributes: GE-Current: Hum/Fine Arts-Hum, Gen Ed - Hum/Fine Art Block, Credit from 4-Year College, Visual and Performing Arts Instructors: Jason B. Driskill (P)Middle Tennessee State, Main Campus Lecture Schedule Type Conventional Methodology Instructional Method 3.000 Credits View Catalog Entry Type Time Days Where Date Range Schedule Type Instructors Class 6:00 pm - 7:25 pm MW TODD BUILDING Aug 27, 2011 - Dec 17, 2011 Lecture Jason B. Driskill (P)
Orientation to Art - 86658 - ART 1030 - 011
Associated Term: Fall 2011 Registration Dates: Apr 01, 2011 to Sep 01, 2011 Levels: Undergraduate Attributes: GE-Current: Hum/Fine Arts-Hum, Gen Ed - Hum/Fine Art Block, Credit from 4-Year College, Visual and Performing Arts Instructors: Jason B. Driskill (P)Middle Tennessee State, Main Campus Lecture Schedule Type Conventional Methodology Instructional Method 3.000 Credits View Catalog Entry Type Time Days Where Date Range Schedule Type Instructors Class 4:10 pm - 5:35 pm MW TODD BUILDING Aug 27, 2011 - Dec 17, 2011 Lecture Jason B. Driskill (P)

Classes are full.

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Happy Canada Day, indeed!  I woke up yesterday morning to a surprising email announcing a one-day 50% off sale on the animation software for which I’ve been saving up in anticiapation for the 25% off Christmas sale (6 months away).

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The Canadian company with the goofy name “Toon Boom” creates 2D style digital animation software that’s like Flash, but more user-friendly (for me) and designed specifically for animation projects (rather than interactive java-powered website projects).  For the past few years I’ve been slowly developing some skills with an older, academic version of this software.   The new version includes more advanced features such as variable rotation velocity (allowing smoother limb movement on figures), pegs that can be adjusted frame-by-frame instead of permanently fixed, and images that can be rotated in a 3D space rather than only perpandicular to the camera’s POV.  These features probably don’t mean anything to anyone who doesn’t use this (or similar) software, but they’d be like the difference between a rotary-dial telephone and a touch-tone telephone: these advances not only speed up the production process, but they also opens up many other options that weren’t previously possible.  Since the old version was outdated enough that my projects couldn’t be imported to the new version, I decided to hold off production of “Nether” until I could afford the new version (so I wouldn’t have to do the same work twice, designing and building my characters’ “puppets” into both softwares).  Now that I have the pro-grade software, I can stop merely practicing and start production!

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Or can I…?

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When I got my old, academic verison three years ago I had been practicing on a very basic, hobby version of the software.  And I was overwhelmed with the number of options presented by the newer version.  I had expected to take the processes with which I had become familiar and simply apply them to the new version, but this was not as simple as I thought.  I’m a slow learner when it comes to new procedures, and it took me awhile before I understood some of the changes from one to the other.  Likewise, when I installed and opened my new version of Animate v.2 on my computer last night, I realized there were vastly more menu items, and unfamiliar buttons, and features that I couldn’t immediately find…  It’s like sitting behind the wheel of an unfamiliar car - wow, everything’s in a different place and I’m reaching in the wrong directions for things.   So I have a lot of tutorial videos to watch and a little more practice to do before I can actually start production.   But I’m much closer now than I was two days ago!   And I’m so excited.

Blend Gallery: A Group Exhibition. July 2nd - 23rd, 2011.   This show features artists Mandy Brown, Charles Clary, Amanda Dillingham, Jason Driskill, Derek Gibson, Hannah Maxwell Rowell, and Sarah Shearer.

 Meeting once or twice a month for critical discussion and progress reports about their respective works, these artists use a group format to keep one another accountable to making work that’s consistent to each of their individual disciplines, which include drawing, painting, sculpture, and multi-media.  The meetings allow the exchange of ideas that help the artists grow beyond their limited perspectives.  For this group show, they selected the theme of Combustion was a starting point for new work.