Animation On A Budget

Well Well Well, look what the guys who created Toonboom have done for us all. Its called Vectorian Giotto and you can get it here

I have been using a version of Flash I bought some years ago for a while now, Flash 5 to be precise. I never shifted to another version because of how painfully "PhotoShopy" complicated the software had become. Initially Flash was an animators tool. Its user design was based on the traditional way of animating and it was quick and easy to design both graphics and animation in, that is if you understood held cell animation. That’s not to say the latest version of Flash is lousy. But it is messy and over complicated for those of us who just want to draw and animate stuff. So now along comes VG and all I can say is, thank you great gods of vector illustration. I am hoping that some plugins get developed for exporting as swf is not always in demand.

Good Illustration Process

Although this is a Photoshop tutorial...Blech. It is a good example that can be adapted to Inkscape, The Gimp or Xara. Hope you enjoy it.

Open publication - Free publishing - More photoshop

Open Source Alternative to Poser.

I hadn't put this one on the blog earlier, as I had thought it was more a 3D animation tool. But as it can be linked to a renderer and the final images can be used in picture bashes. I thought it would make sense to tell you all about it.

This is MakeHuman.

It is a relatively easy program that allows you to build and render 3D models of humans of any age and build. Using it along with the recommended rendering software Aqsis, an artist can develop realistic looking Characters to add to picture bashes. The dragon rider girl and the old wizards face were made this way. I have been playing with MakeHuman for years and although its not as versatile as Poser, if you want a human model or human render quickly, I recommend it for the Freeware Illustrator.

A couple of new picture bashes.

These were created for magazine illustrations. The dragon rider is my favorite. All done using open source software on a free computer using The Gimp, Krita and MyPaint.

The results speak for themselves.

 

I am really liking this new loose style.

These two were roughed out while on the bus. I am trying to do things in a more spontaneous way these days. Form and colour are my key driving factors.

New Styles For Me

I have been playing with a looser style by using Inkscape and Mypaint. I am really roughly sketching up an image in Inkscape then exporting it into Mypaint as a layer. I then slosh some water colour around as a very loose offset fill. The finished result is saved without editing to keep a more spontaneous feel to it.

Animation and Poetry ( I love this idea )

I was just emailed a kickstarter update on gmail. I joined the kickstarter program because I wanted to trial it to fund some ideas I have. I believe in community funding art in this way. it encourages avant guard ways of creativity. The Animation and Poetry angle of this idea is exciting and realistic.
Short poetry pieces illustrated with incredible artworks.