Merry Christmas!

It's not quite Christmas yet, but I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas anyway!

School is finally over, and I am so happy that we all get to relax after an extremely stressful semester.

And I will post more about it after Christmas.

(when I have fully recovered :P)

I made a Christmas card this year that I will be giving out to friends and family.

It features my dog and a little cottage that I wish that I could live in.

I also posted my first pass for the card, which is the second image.

I think I was still in Layout mode, so I was thinking too much about it being dimensional and whatnot.

So I created another that is more like a holiday card.

And it reads better too.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Stay warm, be safe, and enjoy the break!

Good Morning

Film Layouts

For layout class, we had to do 2 assignments.

One with dynamic curves, and one with peaceful angles.

So I used this assignment to do some concept art for my film.

There's only 2 weeks of school left... and I haven't developed a style for my film yet :(

It would be nice if my film could look like my layout assignment but it's going to be way too much work.

I'm freaking out on the inside, but I'll figure things out!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I can't believe the holidays are here already.

I hope everyone is enjoying their Thanksgiving.

I know I will, I've been waiting for the holidays since last year!

There's so much to be thankful about, but I only have time to draw out a few :/

Without these things, I would not be who I am today.

(Some drawings have more than one thing to be thankful about, so I kind of cheated)

Have a wonderful holiday and remember those things that you are thankful for!

My family

(including: my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, family friends)

My wonderful boyfriend, Jason.

CalArts. Everything about CalArts: my friends, my teachers, my life there.

I am so grateful and lucky to be a part of CalArts.

Being part of the animation industry and the ability to draw, animate, and be creative.

Being Chinese

Nature

(including animals!)

Autumn and Winter

My 2 favorite sports that have taught me a lot about myself, and keep me active.

Stable Layout

For layout class, a group of us were assigned to design a stable layout.

So I decided to put my film character in a forest.

He's not a final design, but he's almost there!

I'm a little iffy about this layout,

but my instincts were telling me to just do it :P

I hope my instincts are right....

I'm Coming Back Home

Acting Within an Attitude

I am posting another 2D animation assignment that I did for this week.

It's really not the best, but I've been trying to focus on clear acting.

With 2D and 3D.

Our assignment was to animate an emotion with just a few poses.

I wanted to use the vampire that I drew for character design.

And again, I apologize for the bad lighting. And my small drawings :P

The vampire is pulling a small bulb of garlic out of the box.

When I get the chance, I would like to hold the vampire's first pose a little longer.

Instead of just having him immediately rising up from behind the table.

But until then, this is what I have:

Happy Halloween!

Snow Yeti

Here is an assignment that I did for my 2D animation class.

It's the first one that I'm ok with showing :P

Our pencil test stations have been updated and it's super convenient to shoot now.

I miss the lunchboxes, but I'm glad I got to use them before they took them away.

The lighting is not the greatest and you can hardly see the mailbox.

But I'm hoping one day I can color it.

And a scan of the snow yeti's mailbox.

The snow yeti deserves a nice mailbox because he's so sad.

WorkWorkWork

It's been a while since I posted. And I've been meaning to share the stuff that I've been doing,

but I haven't been happy with a lot of my work.

These past few weeks have been super crazy because we've been working on our second year film animatics.

Since all that craziness is over, I want to post some of the stuff I've been working on.

The first one is for Layout class.

The assignment was to draw yourself as an animated character in a

treehouse.

And the things that you put in the treehouse have to say something about you.

I really enjoyed this assignment, and I want to color it so bad.

I even tweaked it in Photoshop so it's ready to paint. But there's no time :'(

The next few are from Character Design. My teacher is Andy Suriano and he's amazing.

Some are before and after drawings.

I think it's really interesting to see my original designs and then see them after Andy's critique.

My character designs look much better after getting notes from him.

Some of them are still botched because I'm not a good character designer :P

But I love character design anyway!

Before

After

Redesigning the Galaxy Trio:

I forgot to scan the before drawing.

But here's the after:

Before

After

(orange markings are Andy's)

Before

After

(midriff was my idea...and I'm sorry I suck at drawing legs)

I really hope that I can color some of these in the future. That would be so much fun.

I am currently uploading an animation onto Vimeo.

So I will be posting that next.

There's a lot I would love to share, but it will take time.

Hopefully not too much time though :)

Bebe

My dog Bebe passed away peacefully last night around 1am.

She was a very good dog and has always been until the end.

Bebe never gave us any trouble. Her passing away was a bit unexpected, but she was old.

She was 13 years and 2 months old.

We had a family lunch that day with all the grandparents and the whole family.

So she got to see everyone before she left.

We're going to miss her so much.

Bye Bebe, we love you and you'll always be with us.

School!

This blog has been quiet for some time. And it's because of school!

School has been kicking my butt yet again and keeping me busy, but in a good way.

I am enjoying my second year at CalArts very much. My classes are awesome, and the people there are awesome. I really couldn't ask for anything better!

I want to post some of my assignments, but will need to wait because they either need fixing or I need to get them back :P

Because I'm so busy with school, I'm going to have to reconsider Chinese painting :/

My teacher is actually resting right now from a small surgical procedure, but when I start classes again, we're going to have to discuss my schedule.

I might go to class maybe once a month or so.

I haven't posted a Chinese painting in a while, so I scanned some shrimps that I painted a while ago.

The paper is rippled because of the wet ink that I used.

I like painting shrimps :)

It's also nice to change up the medium from time to time because I've been working digitally most of the summer.

I am also posting some sketches that I did at the LA zoo today for Life Drawing class.

(I broke Bosco's arm.....)

Apparently, zebras have a very unique marking under their belly. It looks like a pair of lips!

I also want to use this post to talk about some of the classes that I've really been enjoying.

Animation Layout - This class is one of my favorites. I am learning so much in this class and the assignments are really kicking my butt. I have a lot to learn from this class and I'm glad it's during our first semester because it will definitely help out with films. Dan Hansen is an awesome teacher and I'm excited about this class.

Character Design - I am not a very good character designer. I love it, but I'm not the best at it :P So I'm super happy to have Andy Suriano as a teacher because he's from Cartoon Network, so he can draw some seriously crazy characters. I know that I'm going to learn so much from him because he'll help me push my designs.

Story - This year's story class is amazing. It makes me think about my first year story class and how much I didn't really learn because we focused more on our films. We are going over story fundamentals and I already feel like our films are going to be 10 times better this year. Also, we had our first story assignment that we had to draw on paper and pitch traditionally with a stick and everything. Pitching was so scary, but my teacher, Jim Hull, is a committed teacher and gives very thorough and constructive critiques. I'm not the best story person either, but I know that I will be learning so much and improving on the little story skills that I have.

CG Character Animation - I've always enjoyed the CG animation classes. Our teacher this year is Eric Deuel, and he is also really awesome teacher. We will be focusing on animating a few shots this year that could potentially go on a demo reel. So I'm very excited to have him as a teacher and build a CG reel because he gives really good advice on acting, animation, and much more.

Screenwriting for Animators - I was really nervous about this class in the beginning because I am not a very good writer and I've never really written a script before. The teacher, Nicole Panter, really emphasizes script formatting. And we are also learning about character development and story through her critiques. I haven't written a script for this class yet, so we'll see. But so far, I've learned a lot from this class as well.

Film Workshop - I'm really glad we have this workshop class this year. I feel like our story class last year was more like a film workshop class, and not quite a story class. I'm really enjoying the workshop sessions because we can really discuss our film ideas and focus on the things that we are having trouble with. My second year film is already becoming more and more solid because of the help from Brooke Keesling and my classmates. Our class size is very small so we have more one on one time.

School has been a bit overwhelming, but I'm enjoying it for the most part.

The tough part is adjusting to the new classes and schedule, and the workload can be crazy.

But it will only get better from here!

I'll do my best to post more work and document my experiences as the year goes on, as there will be much to share :)

A Different Kind of Snowy Owl

I wanted to do a simple painting of a great horned owl in the snow.

But I put in a lot more effort than I expected :P

It's all because of feathers!

I don't know how to paint and color feathers properly without making it look ugly.

So I kept trying and ended up with something that isn't too bad!

This painting is also an iphone wallpaper for my boyfriend.

I'm painting snow already in hopes for cooler weather -_______-

too hot....

My Favorite Darrell Moment

In Darrell's defense, he was really really hungry...

CalArts Schedule

Hey peeps!

I am posting my second year schedule at CalArts.

Who has the same schedule as me???

The yellow blocks are the ones that I need to sign up for, or I'm debating about.

The blue ones are for sure.

Also, I'm going to be a TA this year and I'm super excited about it!

Here we go second year!

Or not quite yet...

update** I've changed Acting for Animators to Screenwriting for Animators!

Idea For Second Year Film?

I've been thinking of a story for my second film.

But I kind of fail at storytelling, so for now I did a quick concept sketch.

It's going to be about a boy who falls in love with the spirit/goddess of the beach during sunset.

(For now, I gave the boy the same hair as Sokka from Avatar, but I

definitely want the boy to be from some kind of tribe...)

Mythology has always been interesting to me, so maybe I can make up my own.

This is it for now.... -______-

I'm only thinking about bits and pieces of the film but not the whole thing.

I can't even come up with a proper story, but I'm sure that will come in time.

I hope... :P

I Just Had To Draw This

Movie Poster and Header

For DoodlePoops this week, we are redesigning movie posters!

So I decided to draw my own version of Kill Bill 2.

Because drawing a sexy kick ass girl is always fun :)

Also, I designed a new header for the blog to continue practicing some lighting.

(I'll figure out how to center it soon enough...)

I've been collecting all sorts of images of lighting coming from windows.

And I've also been loving window nooks because they're so cozy.

I definitely want one when I have a house!

Ideally, I would love to change the header for the seasons and holidays.

I can change the colors and have the cat and cockatoo be wearing accessories.

But school might get the better of me so we'll see what happens :P

Hello August

I realize that I haven't been posting as much as I want to...

I don't think I ever do :P

I wanted to post some pictures from this year's Chinese painting exhibition, but I haven't even done that.

My next post shall be the pictures then!

Summer has been very relaxing, and it's nice to work on my own projects.

But it's too dang HOT!

You'd think after living in so cal my entire life I'd be used to it... I'm not -_____-

I try not to work next to anything electronic until it's after 8pm.

And I try not to use the AC too much because it can be expensive... especially in the valley.

It sounds like a terrible excuse but maybe that's why I haven't been posting/working as much as I want to

:P

So when I'm not sitting in front of the computer ... I'm watching Avatar the Last Airbender!

And it's awesome! I am so in love with the show.

I actually just finished it today and I'm re-watching some episodes to remember certain things.

And also to do this quick sketch of my boyfriend and me as air benders riding Appa, the air bison :)

August is the last month of summer vacation, and it's not going to last very long.

Which is good... because the weather will be cooler and I can see my friends again at school.

Yay!

Zombies!

It's Zombie week on DoodlePoops!

So I did 2 drawings:

1. Zombie Stripper! (based off the one in the movie Zombieland)

2. Zombie Pear

Remember, zombies do not discriminate!

Expecto Patronum

My dog BeiBei is getting old, so I did this painting for her and for DoodlePoops!

Charlotte Caricature

For DoodlePoops

Charlotte is my food buddy!

My Favorite Breakfast

I go to sleep thinking about this breakfast sometimes...

Try it!

It's half a toasted english muffin topped with:

gouda cheese

sautéed spinach

sliced hard boiled eggs (I take out some of the egg yolk!)

a pinch of salt

yum