Moving in, Taffetas, and Drawing

I realize about a month passed me by without updating this blog!

 When is Tracy going to update her blog?!

January was crazy. I moved to another state, settled into the new house, started my job, got in a car accident with a hit-and-run, developed a mild case of whip-lash, fell into an exhausting and frustrating sadness, snapped out of it, worked overtime for a big project at my new job, worked on Taffetas, and cooked homemade jam for my co-workers, among other things.

 The beginning of my cherry jam! Yum!

So just to give you guys a bit of an update:

My Job

I mentioned before, but I'm a multimedia designer/animator working in the illustration department at Hallmark Cards. I interned there over the Summer as well. To be honest, sometimes I still wonder why I was offered a job, since the company is made up of extremely talented, seasoned artists that I can only dream to live up to.

But I'm learning a lot and I realized today that I love my job. I mean, I knew that during my internship, but I had that moment again where I was aware of the fact I spent an entire day drawing and that I was paid for it. The frustrating part is that I can't show off my work until it comes out (if it comes out), so unfortunately there is a decrease in artworks to post online.

The Taffetas

 If you aren't keeping up to date with Taffetas, you probably missed my recent posts:

• Taking A Stance On Our Story
• Drawing Characters
• The Outline - Part 1

We update every other Wednesday. Our posts are about what Yesenia and I personally learned while working on the project, or just our new developments on the pitch. The outline - Part 1 I'm particularly excited about because I feel like the story is finally coming together again.

Beyond that, I did light sketch work for our upcoming revamped Facebook page. Above is the sketch for the ID picture and its earlier variants. I may not always get it right the first time, but I can rework it until I do :).

 

Etc...

Did I mention I have another friend who is not Jess, my roommate/co-worker? She is totally real and I'm not making her up. 

Her name is Dana Corrigan and I worked on her senior thesis in college. Now adays, Jess, Dana, and I skype every weekend to critique each others' work from our projects, we call it our "brain-jam".

This week, though, Dana couldn't make it. Is it because she's imaginary?

NO.

It's because the poor dear had laryngitis.

 

I felt bad that she was sick on a weekend, so I dreamed up a few comic ideas on what her project's main character, Cain, would do if he had her same ailment. I did not finish the full six ideas that I wanted to before the weekend was over, but I feel like I did okay for the time I had. Dana liked it, so I'm pretty happy!

 Though I really wish I finished this one! 

(text is omitted so that you may put in your own using your mind)

Jess arranged the type and word balloons for me, as well as designed the backgrounds. I also know this won't make as much sense if you're not in the know of her story, Fate Saga, but hopefully it's enjoyable to look at anyway.

Coming Up from me will be, inevitably, more Taffetas artwork and a long over-due Christmas art. Hopefully it won't take another month to post...but I better not get anyone's hopes up :).

Sketch Dump

These are some close-ups of my figure studies for Taffetas

Did I mention I love drawing hands? (reference from stock photos)

 

A character named Bianca from my friend's story, Fate Saga

 Also, I'm writing some neat posts for The Taffetas production blog!

Taffetas progression WIPs and silly sketches

Part of our Taffetas flow-chart

Things are going pretty good for Taffetas research. I finished some books relevant to our new pitch and our upcoming indie-production of the first episode(s) in a frantic attempt to better myself as a producer, director, concept artist, animator, etc. so as to live up to my expectations for the project. It's a tough thing getting through because I find myself sometimes procrastinating out of sheer fear of the task that lies before me (not the reading, but the responsibilities I have to making Taffetas a success and true to our artistic vision!).

 

All the while, Yesenia and I have also been researching mythology and pitching and are slowly working our way through finalizing details on Season 1 for our pitch book which has been an unexpected snag in my original let's-get-this-done-in-a-month schedule. We have a pretty nifty thing going on though in that we are basing the story of Taffetas to the hero's journey, but told through an interpersonal tale, from the female perspective.

 Also there's kissing.

 Meanwhile, I've started up a small 5 second animation challenge where I'm pushing myself in Flash with some slightly tweaked, personally untested methods of how I usually go about animating. In the end, this animation will also be my ID and icon for my updated Deviantart presence.

 I'm also trying to finish that forest sprite sketch to a cleaned up illustration...

Oct 31st Sketches

 

Happy Halloween Everybody!

Taffetas Studies

 My pal Yesenia Carrero and I have been at work studying up on mythology, independently producing animation, and pitching for the last few days. We still have quite a lot of books to get through before we're done.

It's driving me crazy not really drawing anything for the project since feel like we're stagnating somehow, even though I know this writing/research part is of the utmost importance. So here's the drawings I've been doing in the down-time, some studies, practice and silly sketches so that I'll be ready to go when the concept art portion hits.

Elena Sketches

Exploring the siren character Elena for my and Yesenia's series pitch, The Taffetas. I'll get down to the nitty-gritty with extensive silhouette and outfit studies and stuff in a bit, but for now I play.

Another Taffetas Sketch

Veil and Gem Being Silly

More on the way, just gotta scan and clean up...
I'll get to it later this week maybe

Finally, Drawing for Fun!

Baby Veil

Veil was a pretty quiet but sensitive kid. Growing up, he would seem almost too well-behaved, sitting up straight in a chair, out of the way and quiet, and always remembering his "please" and "Thank yous". In moments where he thought no one was watching he might sometimes take comfort in softer things like plushies or blankets, or engage in more childish behavior like swinging his feet around from where he sat.

Rafe and AlexArt Trade with Megan Miller of her wonderful characters Rafe and Alex. Essentially, Rafe is an assassin robot gone rogue who relies on a young, human mechanic, Alex,to see that he is always functional and operating. The two form a close bond together after many thrilling and action-packed adventures together and begin to like, you know, worry about each other and stuff. She drew me Veil and Gemini in return!

Taffetas Poster Work

Well, today was the last day to vote for the online reader's poll of the Animation Magazine contest! Jess and I won't know how we did with the competition until mid-July so we'll just have to wait and see. I'm so thankful for each and every person who helped out and voted and spread the word. As I have said, this contest is not Yesenia's and my only opportunity, but it is a fairly good one and we are excited to be participating.

In the meantime, here's some behind-the-scenes stuff of the poster we did.




After many concepts, thumbnails, and a few rough sketches, we narrowed our choices down to one poster.... which then later split into two posters because we freaked out near the end and our first poster wasn't good enough auuugh, so we tried to see if we could fix it (shown above), quickly grew frustrated with lack of sleep and a disappearing sense of self-worth, and went with a slightly altered version of our original poster.

Taffetas Sketchbook 07 + Upcoming Test Animation Boards

Taffetas Sketchbook 07

Oops! Didn't have this one set to automatically upload on the blog. This was the sketch for The Taffetas poster, which was then colored and graphic design-ed by the amazing Yesenia Carrero for our new 3-D poster Ad Campaign, "The Birth of Something Beautiful". You can see the final result, as well as what we're looking for for the project, HERE.

New Taffetas Boards

I'll probably be animating this one myself because I'd really like to do it, however there will be more assignments on the way for CHARACTER ANIMATORS as we test out our puppets and just try to have little scenes and animations to really wow people and strengthen our pitch. I am also in need of assistance from an EFFECTS ANIMATOR for this one and many of the other tests for Gemini's flowy hair, so feel free to contact me and co-creator Yesenia Carrero at ycarre20@student.scad.edu if you're interested in helping out.

Here's rough sketches for some of the antagonists from The Taffetas pitch. From left to right we have Luke the cult leader, Gabardine Taffeta the jerk, Lace Taffeta the baby-eater, a demon-like creature from Gemini's island, Kristina the whore, and Matthew the sadist (who is not facing us intentionally).

compare and contrast Lace and Gabardine from a few years ago (the ones at the very end)

Lace Sketch

Think I'll clean up and ink this one and see it to full completion later tonight or tomorrow evening, but I'm in conflict whether it's good enough to do so or not. There are some weird things going on, but I don't think the weird things are all too blaring, or even matter. I'm afraid of re-drawing it and losing some of the life (as I'll already lose some in the inking process). Soooooooo we shall see.

Veil Heads

goofin' with textures and stuff. I might do an illustration with this style though. that right one is like so spot on to how I imagine Veil.