Story Final - "Forgotten"

This was the final for my Adv. Storyboard class, there are still so many things that I would like to change on this but I figured I’d post it here while I make the changes for my portfolio.  The story is based on stories from this NPR story about the first female Air Force pilots in WWII.  I had never heard of this story until it came across my Facebook feed a few weeks ago--these women were pretty daring, amazing & enthusiastic about flying.  They were nearly forgotten and left out of history but lobbied Congress for recognition for their contributions.  My story is based off of one of these women’s personal anecdotes but there are so many more awesome ones!

I'll also have more development work coming from this as I get it cleaned up a bit (and some more boards!)

"Hidden Voices" Book Launch

April is was a pretty active (& awesome, yet stressful!) month for me after the our dance performances earlier this month I got ready for another performance of sorts--a book launch @ Stanford University!

About two years ago my boss  Mary Maniery (at my day job PAR Environmental Services), approached me about illustrating for their book on Chinese railroad workers.  Since the book was aimed at the public they wanted a way to bring people in and allow them to connect with the book and events of the railroad-AWESOME! Its been a long road but its finally complete,published and ready to go! Last weekend we were able to launch the book at the CRRW 2016 Conference @ Standford University!  It was an excellent day with some really interesting talks & good food!  Even though I'm not an archaeologist I really enjoyed being there and learning more on the topic (and having a captive audience of people to draw--shhh!)

The book finally produced & some conference SWAG!

Our book "Hidden Voices of the Chinese Railroad Worker" Sold out at the conference and was very well received! We were able to introduce the book and thank our contributors as well as receive recognition for our work.  We ran out of time for questions from the audience which I was sort of happy about but also sort of disappointed (because I love talking about animation & illustration!!)

Spot illustration for the a chapter on leisure in the camps.

This was my first time working on a project with creative illustration for a client.  It was definitely a learning experience but I think the process of revisions and feedback we went through to produce work that was both entertaining and cultural sensitive significantly improved my illustrations and gave me lots of think about in terms of illustration and representing different cultures and traditions.  

Here are a few things that I learned along the way:

• Create characters using specific historic reference (For this book I used immigration photos, lithographs and other historic photos to craft individual characters).
• Everyone has an opinion! (We had several people from different backgrounds reviewing our book and providing valuable feedback, sometimes elements were loved by some reviewers and not quite so loved by others--we tried very hard to address all concerns while being true to our work but ultimately you can't please everyone 100% of the time.  I think its best to understand that each person comes to the project with a different perspective and not take these comments personally).
• The first time you're told to completely revise or change something, it will hurt--but the end result will be MUCH better--keep going!
• You might have to explain your process a bit.  (Academic work doesn't typically use creative illustration to communicate ideas but since our book is meant for the general public we thought creative illustration would be the best way to engage the public while helping them imagine and connect with the history. I provided an artist statement at the beginning of the book to help explain this and the purpose of my illustrations.  While as an illustrator I thought that was obvious, academic reviewers were more wary of including creative illustration until we explained the process and implications of it bit).

Again, this was my first chance to illustrate creatively for another person & it was a challenge! But I think the end result came out so much better than my initial ideas and I learned so much about the process of illustrating a book as well as my own process in illustration and I can't wait for another chance to illustrate like this! 

For anyone interested book can be purchased through the SHA Lulu site.  

Dressing Christmas-y

It's not Christmas time anymore but somehow I ended up wearing Christmas colors to work and my co-worker noticed! Gah! (I think she meant it in a good way though :-p)  Its hard to not find Christmas color combinations when you love green and red for clothes--I swear the shirt was dark pink & I was just trying to match my red shoes without being too match-y match-y (another fashion faux-paux).  

Oh well there goes my attempts at being fashionable--luckily my water color/character experiments came out a bit better than my outfit.  This was pretty fun and quick so hopefully I'll be able to do more soon :).

Previews & Story Work

Here are some quick previews of some things I'm working on in between my finishing my thesis backgrounds this month.  I'm trying to develop some work for a Story Portfolio so I'm actually trying to turn this stuff into a bit more finished looking work than my normal sketchbook pages--if I still like the drawings & ideas when I look at them by the light of day that is!  

Here's one I still liked:

These were some sketches of me trying to explain the merits of stage acting v. film acting (and why Stage & B&W films are better!) to Matt, who wasn't buying it--I'm gonna say I won that argument (Matt may still not agree with me :-p).  And the top sketches are what happened when I Matt came to watch Abominable Bride with me--I was SUPER excited & he was well...asleep ..or bored I'm not sure which--something about not getting the 'hype over Benedict Cumberbatch' ....maybe if he'd stayed awake he'd understand ;-p.

Link Round Up

I'm going to start posting helpful links that I find periodically on the blog.  They could be anything from artistic tips, how to stay motivated in animation or art school or what I like to call 'animation theory' --or how we go about thinking about  making good scenes and characters.  I hope you find them equally as interesting & helpful!

• On Fear for the Future and Navigating the Animation World After School Aron Shay -- Excellent, candid and honest answer to an ask about fear and going from school to the real world, good advice and inspiring for anyone struggling to find their place in animation after school--keep going!
• Animation Practice, Process and Thoughts  Mike Nguyen -- This whole blog is filled with 'animation theory' about how he takes ideas and actions and turns them into living, breathing characters.  Seriously so helpful, if you're struggled to think about animation the right way, follow this blog to learn and be reminded how we're supposed to think when animating.
• Love Thy Rock Mark Manson -- Not necessarily art related but struggle and passion and finding the thing that you should be doing in life and for a living by looking at what you want to struggle for rather than what you want to become good at--enjoy the process & the struggle 'Love Thy Rock' (inside joke from WHS AP core and an existentialist essay on Sisyphus)
• Walt Disney Documentary PBS -- An excellent look into the life of Walt Disney and how he built his company, it feels like a balanced look at him and his life and shows the power of perseverance in the face of defeat--innovation comes from trying stuff and sometimes that stuff just doesn't work--Walt was okay with that :)
• Kelley McMorris Blog Kelley McMorris -- full of beautiful art, process and thoughts on being a working illustrator--an excellent blog and resource! (Her blog gave me the idea for this post and how to revive my blog a bit :)--thanks!)

Adventures in Sac

This was a long and fun break from work--my younger sister came to visit me and we went on some pretty strange & awesome adventures.  Below was our first adventure --we decided to take a trip out to 'Rancho Seco' which is a recreation area around a decommissioned nuclear power plant just outside of Sacramento.

It was an eerily creepy area that definitely suited the location & history of the place!

For some reason we didn't think that it would be very far outside of the city so we spent the drive up joking about how weird, creepy, & lonely that road was --it looked like just the type of road people are murdered on in horror films (or creepy crime dramas--my favorite!) which only made the trip more fun.  When we got there it turns out it was a legit-managed recreation area (and by that I mean we had to pay $10 bucks to go in).  We ended up wandering a nice trail around a lake where several people were fishing & camping.

 It wasn't so creepy, except for the looming nuclear silos in the background--ahh nature! We have a weird sense of humor so we named it 'Sac-Chernobyl' & joked about glowing in the dark (although it was shut down as a precaution in the '80s and not be cause of an accident--but that makes a much less interesting story).

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Here are the original sketches from my sketchbook--I fixed them up a bit but not much (I'm still figuring out drawing into Photoshop so right now the its easier to draw in my sketch book)--more to come! Happy Holidays!

Great Goddess

My mythology course required a sketch this week as commentary on the Great Goddess.  The topic was pretty interesting and discussed how at one time we saw many contradictory aspects in the Goddess and how it is an ancient idea that we lost with time and changing perceptions of women.  The contradictory nature of the Goddess traits made me think of the emotions in Pixar's Inside Out because I was struck by how well rounded and dynamic the original version of the Goddess was--she represented motherhood & sexuality, civilization & nature, and tradition & transformation (the character I drew is also representing 'clairvoyance' which in this article went a long with transformation).  That is just a few of the traits that She embodied.

For the drawing part of this--I tried to get my sketch to show more character and not be 'just a pretty picture' as I'm often critiqued for.   I don't think I've quite nailed that yet so I'll have to give it another go in my next illustration/sketch--remember--specific characters Amber, specific characters with specific emotions/thoughts/etc!!

Warm ups -- Turns Out They're Kind of Important

Its been a pretty intense couple of weeks (midterms + my thesis have made me a bit crazy!) but I thought I'd make a post of some of the sketches I've been working on.

Recently I've started doing warm up drawings pretty regularly. I used to do them occasionally when I felt like I 'had time' but it wasn't a normal part of my drawing practice.  I knew that warm-up drawings were 'good for you' but I never really understood what is was you got out of them until just now.  For me they're a way to get out all my 'bad ideas' and 'bad drawings' so that I can start stiff and get looser and get lost in making an idea rather than just shapes or a 'pretty picture' (my most dreaded and most often told critique!!)  They also help on days when I'm feeling exhausted and pretty inspired--I can turn on a quick show and just draw sort of whatever comes to mind--like pictures of me drinking coffee or looking tired or scenes from books I've been reading or weird ideas and concepts I see on Tumblr. I'm learning that my best ideas are definitely NOT my first and often I'm not even sure what I want to do on my first drawing but they get better as I go...So far I think it might also be helping my animation --which has gotten more loose at the beginning and I feel like I can more confidently get my poses right or at least work on them until the ARE right.  So more warm-ups it is! :)

Inktober 05

I'm tried today (can you tell by how many sleepy Amber drawings I drew?) so my Inktober #5 is sketchy & just done in Bic pen. Here are some drawings of me and my goofy cats for you--because they kept trying to sit on my paper!!

When you need to loosen up...

When you need to loosen up apparently you need need to draw on a bumby train--here's a few sketches from my train ride home last night.  Usually the train is bouncy and too annoying to write or draw but the internet wasn't working so I started trying to get more into story and character in a few sketches--some sketches are of me on a train, and from a medieval book I keep trying to read and a myth we just read for my mythology class--pretty fun! I'll have to make a habit out of this.

Hopefully  I'll be able to turn a couple of them into Inktobers and catch up tonight!

Inktober 02

Tonight I got a little bit carried away with my inktober sketch and worked on it way too long on it, but I'm pretty happy with the result. :)  Maybe its the creepy ads for a Victorian horror film that keep playing on my Hulu but focused on the creepy other worldly side of the Victorian era this time!

Here's the photograph that inspired it--old photographs--so creepy, so cool!

Inktober 1

I've decided to participate in Inktober this year, or at least attempt to anyway.  My plan is to make some kind of quick sketch each evening in October and focus on character and storytelling.  For tonight's sketch--I follow several Victorian and Edwardian image blogs on Tumblr and the people often look so solemn but a few photographs showed glimpses of real people and so I tried to capture a 'behind the scenes' version of Victorian photography subjects--no one can be that serious all the time!--I think I could explore this idea more and want to see where it ends up at the end of the month!

For tonight I'm just breaking into it after much animation on the same scenes so I think the idea could use some improvement--but for tonight--this is my Inktober #1 -- enjoy :)

You can find my reference photo here.  (Can we still dress like this?!!??)

Blog Reboot

Good morning, its about 6:30 am and I'm already on my second cup of coffee--it seems like its going to be a million cup of coffee kind of day! If you've been following this blog for a while now you might have noticed that its gone dormant in the last few months --years-- I'm sorry, that wasn't my intent but I was transitioning from a post-undergrad struggling to find a way to make a living in art into a graduate student attempting to pursue a rigorous animation program, work full time and maintain my sanity--the jury is still out on whether or not that's been a success.

I'm in my last year of graduate school (hopefully) and trying my best to learn, understand and practice animation. I've come a long way over the last five years (I'm part time) but as is the purpose of graduate school--I never feel like I've come quite far enough, given quite enough time or quite grasped the concepts. This blog is going to serve going forward a place to collect my thoughts on animation process, practice and films in general as well as a look into the life of a working grad student--a reality that is becoming so much more commonplace as schools develop programs that make doing both easier but 'real life' never seems to want to cooperate.

In addition to needing a place to put my animation thoughts I was also inspired by a fellow artist/designer looking to find her place in the art world--Anne-- I love reading her blog and seeing how she navigates her transition into designer.  Also the lettering is beautiful and something I'd aspire to if I had that kind of patience.

"New Voices"

see Amber~Mations in a group show!

Amber~Mations in a show?! What?!

Amber~Mations in a show?! What?!

Hi blog followers! I'm having a show this weekend at the Red Dot Gallery in Sacramento! Please stop by and say hello at the reception fro 5-9pm tomorrow or check it out all month long! The gallery is located on 2231 J Street in Sacramento! Hope to see you there!

Back in Action

I finally finished my semester! It was an extremely difficult semester full of sleep deprivation and animation but its over!! I am back at work in my studio after only a couple of days break because I have a show at the Red Dot Gallery in Sacramento on February 9th and I'd like to show some new work--here's a sneak peak at what I've been doing--more sketches to come soon!

I'm trying to develop a process for painting and on work on these few in the same way for each one--What I've been doing is drawing a very detailed image, tracing the image on to vellum with a pen and doing an image transfer to get it to the canvass--I want my new paintings to have more volume and shape so I'm working for create a strong under painting in sepia before doing the details--hopefully it all pays off!