Harry, er, Happy Birthday!

It's Harry Potter's 33rd birthday. I couldn't resist sketching a little something. :)
Yes, hid birthday hat is a mini Sorting Hat.

Photoshop

Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros

(Almost) Fanart Friday

Okay, I'm jumping the gun a little. But I'm also going out of town on Friday, so there.

Good ol' Figment from the Epcot attraction, Journey into the Imagination! I did this for my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary, and Figment is my grandma's favorite Disney character. 

A friend of mine let me borrow her Cardcaptor Sakura manga series, and I couldn't resist drawing Sakura. Boy, I watched that show and read that manga so much as a kid... I forgot how endearing and cute it is!

Holy cow, it was wonderful to pull out some traditional media. 

Prisma pencils. Copic markers

Figment belongs to Disney

Cardcaptor Sakura belongs to CLAMP

Story-ing

Earlier this year, I took Advanced Storyboarding at BYU, and our class was fortunate enough to meet Steve Hickner from DreamWorks. As part of a portfolio demo, he gave us a story prompt and we had to board it, and we also got class credit for it. Unfortunately, this happened during my bout of tendinitis, but I worked things out with my professor and did only a portion of what the project required without completely hurting myself. I'm so grateful that all of my professors were so understanding; I basically couldn't use my hand to its full capacity for two and a half months!

The prompt from Steve Hickner was a chick who's eaten too much bird seed somehow has to run away from a predator. Again, I didn't board the whole thing, but this is the chase/climax. 

BYU in the NY Times!

A couple months ago, the BYU Animation program had the awesome opportunity to be featured in an article in the New York Times! Students were even asked to participate in a photo shoot that would appear alongside the article. Best part? The New York Times wanted the students participating in the photo shoot to draw caricatures of themselves!

It was pretty unbelievable and fantastic, all of us being asked to do that. The photo shoot was a blast and we had an awesome time doing it! The article turned out great. I'm excited that our work gets to be seen on a national level like this. It raises awareness of our program and (hopefully) puts us on the map for animation studios, and shows that our program treats productions more like films than student projects.

The article can be found here. You can also see our fun photos and caricatures!

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/magazine/when-hollywood-wants-good-clean-fun-it-goes-to-mormon-country.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I had originally done this caricature of myself for the article, but I wound up using another one instead. I think I like this one more, though.

And, while we're on the subject of caricatures, I did this one for a good friend of mine from my last internship in Disney World. 

I'm not a fan of giant heads with huge noses, or "normal" caricatures. 

Film Work

Whoa! Two posts within 24 hours! I'm on a roll!

This past semester, along dealing with tendinitis, I was also working on a new student film in the visual development department. It was a great experience, really seeing film-making in action and working with a terrific team. This project has easily been one of the best student projects I've ever worked on. Everyone's super dedicated and passionate, not to mention talented!

Prop design is a lot of fun. It's a neat challenge to put a particular personality into an inanimate object. 

Can it be...?

Why, YES, DEAR FRIENDS! IT IS!

I suppose you're wondering why it has been so long? No? Well, I'll tell you anyway...

See, there was this six-month internship in Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL, and I participated in it! My second internship at WDW, in fact, and I hope that it's not my last!

And then, 4 days after my internship ended in December, I went back to Utah and good ol' BYU.

Shortly thereafter, this wonderful new experience happened.

Tendinitis. In my right hand. My drawing hand. 

If you don't know what it feels like, here's a pretty accurate description. 

It pretty much made the rest of the semester fairly miserable, seeing as it hurt to draw, write, type, drive, play piano, do dishes, cook, pack lunches, eat, move my wrist, sleep, live etc. 

BUT! I survived long enough to give you these sketches that I made during my stay in Florida!

Normal people ride Space Mountain in Disney World. I draw pictures. THEN go riding on Space Mountain.

More tales and adventures to come! Hopefully with my wrist not feeling like it's going to fall off my arm!