Intro to Game Animation

I'm about to head out to teach a class introducing animation for videogames at the Yarborough Branch Library here in Austin!  If you're reading this and you came over from there, howdy and I hope it was interesting :)

If you'd like to learn more, follow this link to a Google doc I put together for additional reading!  While it's written of the perspective of a sprite-animator (especially the links), most of the info is general enough to apply to almost any technique you choose to work in.

Tips on Creating Videogame Sprites

Keep learning, and have fun! 

Extra Life 2016!

It's almost that time again :D

Join us on the dates above if you can! My awesome friends and I'll be broadcasting on Twitch.tv, with all proceeds raised going to benefit the El Paso Children's Hospital!

For more information, please check out the Extra Life event page at http://www.extra-life.org/participant/ArtByBeaver2016!

Extra Life D&D Campaign WrapUp!

Now that the weekend's over, the apartment is finally back in order, and I've finally gotten the chance to rest a bit, I just wanted to catch everybody up with the D&D Weekend – All in all, it was an enormous success! With the help of some amazing friends around the table and all the awesome folks who joined us on the Twitch-stream were able to raise $445 for the Dell Childrens' Hospital via Extra Life, and had a great time doing it! Thank you to everyone who supported this project, and I hope you'll support Extra Life in years to come!

The big day has come and gone but if you'd still like to donate, my fundraiser page is still open – I think it may continue to be through the rest of the year. While we've already surpassed my personal goal, I'm sure the hospital would welcome any added help :)

All these drawings came from the month of Inktober, which I tried to leverage as an advertising tool (and planning tool) for the D&D campaign while also practicing my chops in ink-drawing.  The original plan was for a full 31, one for each day of the month, but work & life got well in the way of that :\  Maybe next year -!  I think I might've at least beat out last year's effort. 

Dr. Sketchy's Sky Candy Session!

Last night Dr. Sketchy's Austin hosted a figure-drawing event starring several of the performers of the Sky Candy aerialist company!  Great time had!  Really do need to get in more practice though, that's for sure.  These are some of the more presentable results.

Also, fun fact -- They had running contests throughout the event, one of which was to draw a piece without using your dominant hand.  I answered this by standing on one foot, drawing with the other.  Try to guess which one that was :P

At least it feels energetic, I guess?

Fifth Element Pixel-Art Fun

When I was a kid, I always kept an eye out at rental stores for a Fifth Element SNES platformer.  After all they had to be making one, right?  'Cause it would've been just so awesome?

Comicpalooza Wrap-Up!

We had a great time last weekend at Comicpalooza!  Always glad to go out to that show; it's huge fun and a great excuse to hang out with all our art-buddies in Houston.  The coloring panel went pretty okay, too!  Unfortunately the last day of the show was when all the weather craziness rolled through Central Texas.  We were able to avoid/find shelter from all the flooding, though many weren't so lucky.  Please support relief efforts if you can.

Meantime, here are a good chunk of the sketches I did over the weekend!  Hope you'll dig 'em!

Comicpalooza Coloring Demo!

For those who came out to Comicpalooza today (or were just interested), here's the working copy of the final file, prior to merging down to the files export!  Also within this folder is a Doc-file of meditations on the process.  The basic moral is that you can do basically anything and build as high as you need, so long as you have a fairly ordered structure and a few smart work habits.

Download away!

Other recommended reading:

Color and Light, by James Gurney.  One of the modern masters of color theory whose insights are valuable even in our hypersaturated world of four-color comics.

Muddy Colors, a daily-updated blog curated by some of the brightest names in art and illustration.  Every post is a gem, but some are super useful for process.  Keep an eye out!

Adobe's Photoshop Default Keyboard Shortcuts.  Well worth knowing!

Also, I promised a pack of the brushes I used:  That, too, is on its way!  Sorry; check back in a couple days.  Need to get some time aside to reverse-engineer and compile them :X