Friday, December 12, 2008

Artemis Moon

Another assignment from my Figure Illustration 1 course this semester - finally scanned in! (It's too beg for an average scanner, at about 14x17 inches) This particular assignment had three main requirements. 1) it had to depict a Greek myth of our choice. 2) it had to be done traditionally, preferably in part with acrylics, and 3) while photo realism was not required, we did absolutely have to use photographic reference.

I also apparently have something for moons in the backgrounds of images for this class. This was the first of two. No idea why.

At any rate, the lovely *Tasastock of Deviantart was gracious enough to allow me to use one of her images ([link]) as reference for Artemis here - my Greek Goddess of choice - Goddess of the Hunt. Do check out her wonderful stock gallery if you get the chance!

Acrylics, Prismacolor Colored Pencils, Illustration board.

Cheers,
♥Mel

Figure Drawings Gallore

So ends this semester, and my Figure Illustration 1 class with the tremendously awesome mister Chuck Gillies. Below is a handful of scans from my newsprint pad from in-class life drawings, ranging from portraits to figures to random odd doodles.
This image is so completely typical of my life drawing books. I just cannot seem to take the thing TOO seriously, henceforth the presence of little cartoon doodles. Above is Harry sporting what usually would be a star-stamped hat, and, for whatever odd reason, my boyfriend and I as cats. I believe at one point in the sketchbook, a particularly frail model of ours was wearing a pie for a hat.
I am so glad I caught this image. Rich has an absolutely fantastic smile, but one, sadly, that is rarely seen due to the seriousness and intensity of such drawing classes, and the length of many of the poses. One of the many perks of having a class with Chuck, however, is his great humor, and frequent entertaining stories. Rich was smirking amidst one of them at one point in the same moments that I was caricaturing his face. The above image was the result, and it is one of my favorites from the semester because of it.
More drawings still! Rick in a Greek warriors' outfit, a montage of Ron, as well as a trio of portraits, including classmate Lindsey, my buddy Calvin, and our model Harry (and my inherent incapability to adhere to seriousness therein) once again.

Cheers!
-Mel

Harry at Rest


This is one of a handful of life drawings I just scanned out of a newsprint pad from Figure Illustration 1 this semester. I'm not sure what it is about the regular male models at my college, but they're all absolutely fabulous to draw - fantastic unique features, on top of being really great guys. This portrait in particular I really enjoy - I believe it was a 20 minute pose.

-Mel

Saturday, December 6, 2008

"Nexus: Feral Kin" Colored

Another Finals assignment for the semester out of the way: Score. Given some compositional tweaking from the original sketchbook lineart posted earlier, I gave Nexus' Simon, Dominic and Cheyenne here a proper color treatment: More then was required for the assignment itself, which was to simply have a certain ammount of drawings in a sketchbook completed, granted, but hey. This was fun... and if one can make Finals fun, by all means. Rock it.

♥Mel

Nanmia Character Study


The rather charming old gal I've been animating in recent weeks, Nanmia, from my TKP series concept. This was the initial study sheet I scrawled out prior to starting the current animation I'm working with. I really do love this character - tenfold since animating her. She's both charming and an incredibel challange in all of her loose, floppy skin and quirky expression. I'll hopefully get the pencil test posted here for you soon.

♥Mel

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Doodles!


I needed a break from the animation lab, so I thought I'd share a couple of doodles with you all. Here's two tied down frames from the 20 second long pencil test I'm working on at the moment, as well as a little toon of me as a kitty... just because, really.

-Mel

Mel's Other Half

A fairly recent painting for my Figure Illustration 1 class this semester. Acrylics, in a very different style then I've worked with the paint previously - mostly color washes. A very interesting process to learn, for sure. That said, here's my sweet man, Niles. And yes, his eyes really are brown and blue ;) Acrylics, roughly 11x14 inches or cold press illustration board.

-Mel

Friday, November 28, 2008

MSB Pages 1-4


I recently started a new rather dinky thing of a sketchbook - all of 5x8 inches - perfect, I'm finding, for doodling on the fly and note taking. For something a little different, and to give you and idea of how I'm keeping a sketchbook recently, here's the first 4 pages of the MSB ("MiniSketchBook") all 4 of which contain notes and doodles surrounding Nexus' new original incarnation. Characters Pictured: Dominic Drowe, Simon Valkyrie, Cheyenne Valkyrie (Kayo) and Vinnie Lennox.

♥Mel

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Nexus: Simon, Dominic, and Cheyenne


Ah, bless Figure Illustration 1 for giving me the excuse amidst all of my maddening schedule to HAVE to work in a sketchbook. It's so hard to find the time otherwise, when I'm rifling madly through hundreds of loose sheets of animation paper on a daily basis! This is one of seven images I have to have in my sketchbook for the class. Ultimately, these seven images are supposed to lead up to a final concept for our final project - an illustration of our "Alter Ego." My argument is, as animators, our characters ARE our alter egos in one form or another, seeing as, as the "actors" behind the characters we create and animate, part of us is reflected in each and every one of them.

In this images' case, here's a trio of characters from my "Nexus" series: Simon Valkyrie (Top Left) Dominic Drowe (Top Right) and Cheyenne Valkyrie. Simon and Dom are the Alphas or leaders of rivaling Feral (or what humans would loosely consider "werewolf") packs. Cheyenne is the monkey wrench in their rivalry: Simon's firstborn and Dominic's mate. As you could imagine, all hell breaks loose amidst the lot quite frequently indeed.

Drawn in a cute little 5x8 inch sketchbook I picked up the other day.

♥Mel

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

New CCS "Game Art" Reel



My apologies for being so quiet as of late! Unfortunately, everything I've been working on is still either in production or in the possession of professors for whatever reason. I'll be able to accumulate the lot by the end of the semester though, for sure, and share it with you all. For now, here's the latest demo reel from the college I attend, this one centering around concept\game art. I have three pieces in this one, which is quite the honor indeed!

-Mel

Monday, October 27, 2008

Akinah Expressions Test



A quick pencil test from this evening - our assignment was simply to animate the transition between three different facial expressions in a character. So, here's poor Akinah, having a rather bad day. I wish I'd had more time to putz around with it then just a couple hours this evening, but cest la vie! Onto the next assignment first thing tomorrow morning. Also of note: The nifty music clip there is from RoyaltyFreeMusic.Com

♥Mel

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Agave for Emma Progresson Video



A progression video for the "Agave" image i created for my buddy Emma, in an Unavisi Community art exchange over this past summer. Mechanical pencil line art, Adobe CS3 and a Wacom tablet were used.

♥Mel

Monday, October 20, 2008

This Is My Hell



Our assignment this weekend?
"Animate something weird."
Well, ok then.

♥Mel

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Zensei "Bank" Image Progression



I enjoy creating these, actually - it's another step by step display of the progression of my Zensei "Bank" image (which, in all actuality, is really a tradesman's tent for the Zensei clan) for the Environments and Characters class I took last semester. Set to "The Fremen Qizarate" by Brian Tyler from the Children of Dune soundtrack, a tune I tend to lean back upon frequently when thinking about this particular tribe of people from TKP.

♥Mel

Friday, October 17, 2008

The Dawn Watchman (Tobias Rough Pencil Test)



A rough, 7-second, three scene pencil test for my Tech 2 midterm assignment. Tobias ("Toby") hears danger approach Kemono territory, and alerts the post on the edge of the forest across the way. A smoke signal tells him that his warning call has been a success.

Update: Also, to answer the question of, "ugh, why isn't it longer?" Trust me, I think this thing could benefit from at least another 15 seconds of acting time. Unfortunately, per the assignment, we had to be exact in the timing down to the very frame in this assignment, or we failed. So, 1 second (24 frames ) for the first shot, 4 seconds (96 frames) for the second shot, and 2 seconds, 7 frames (56 frames) for the third. Hope that helps!

♥Mel

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Unavisi Sketch Exchange: Xand for Lee

An egregiously late all-digital sketch exchange for my buddy Lee of her drop-dead gorgeous Terina character Xand, from the Unavisi community. Lee, thank you again for your gracious patience with this!

♥Mel

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Life Studies Set 1


As a bit of something different, here's a set of figure drawings from the Figure Illustration 1 class I'm in this semester - there will be more of this to come, for certain. It's an incredibly busy class. Please excuse the somewhat grainy quality of these images, they're taken with my aging digital camera, as the tablet they're drawn in is quite large. Models present: Richard, Ron, Harry and Heather.

-Mel

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Penelope's Debut



Assignment two for Traditional Animation Techniques 2: everyone in class was assigned a line from Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz" with the job of designing a character and lip syncing them to it. It was a first-ever lip syncing attempt for many of us, myself included. Challenging, but fun. Here's Penelope the Shark.

-Mel

Suspicion


I'll definitely try to get better photos of this soon, but for now, I'm in too great of a scramble to keep up with homework, so this will do. It's the first painting of four I have to do this semester for Figure Illustration One, this image's theme being "Suspicion." The model is a classmate, Courtney. It's still rough, I think, but as my first stab at painting in over two years, I'm still fairly pleased with the result.

-Mel

Saturday, September 27, 2008

OIAF 2008



A visual medley put together quickly today of photos and clips taken from my trip to the 2008 Ottawa International Animation Festival. Set to "Life in Technicolor" by Coldplay.

Available in a high quality version on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgo_gKMu4J8

-Mel

Monday, September 15, 2008

www.melmillerart.com

In anticipation for Ottawa (http://ottawa.awn.com/) this upcoming weekend, I've purchased a domain name for my up and coming website which, for now, forwards here to my official artwork blog. You can now reach this page through http://www.melmillerart.com, an address that is now featured upon my new Ottawa 2008 edition of business cards. On that note, here are my four new card designs, (which will be accompanying a 36 page portfolio for everyone's perusal) destined for Canada!

Take care,
Mel

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Oldies but Goodies









In rifling through my files, and compiling images for my Ottawa-bound portfolio, I came across a couple of older images that I had not yet shared with you all, and still enjoy enough to do so. Included are two concept images from my TKP series pitch, which is continually in development, as well as a ship design for The Defiant, another concept image for Brianne Goetz's "Unavisi", as well as a silly little illustration of the Norse anecdote, "The Tale of Thorstein Shiver."

Cheers,
Mel

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Nyx Yawn Rough Pencil Test



I've started Traditional Animation Tech 2 this semester, the first of my Junior year. The first assignment was a rough three-second reaction test, with fast and slow movements, and emotion of some variety. As the first of only two pencil tests I've had the chance to do in the past four months, (I cannot post the other as of yet, as it's for a freelance job, which is still in production) I'm pretty happy with it, and may go back in to flesh it out an clean it up later.

More to come, for sure - college is back in session.

Also, it's wholly worth noting I will be attending the Ottawa International Animation Festival again this year from the 18th through the 21st. Looking forward to it!

Cheers,
Mel

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Sardonyx


Fairly quick image of Nyx done last night in the early AM, meant to be a better reference of the patterning for her motley hair. I also finished coloring her full-body ref yesterday, posted below.

Nyx (based on the Sardonyx gemstone) at age 10, is a pick-pocketing street rat who has proved utterly untamable and impossible to hold within the Nadir orphanage. She's been a run away since the age of 6 and while she's been captured and detained on numerous occasions for theft or simply to attempt to hold her long enough to put her back into the safe confines of the orphanage, she's renown for managing to either escape (Often with the help of other street-rats she has befriended over time, Willem especially) or simply run off again the moment the time is right. She currently resides safely, and quite sneakily, in a little living space she's made for herself amidst the gears of the massive clock in a tower built into a stone precipice near the center of Nadir. (She gains access to it interior through the tunnels beneath the city streets used for plumbing, so no one sees her going in or out of the building). At present the only people who know about her little home abode in the timemaster, Sid, who does routine maintenance on the massive clock, and Sid's good friend Celeste - neither of whom are talking, as they are both rather fond of the spunky squirt. As a whole, Nyx is brazen, ballsie, spitfire, and fun. She tends to be a leader to other streetrats, while looking up to and rather idolizing the ever-capable Willem, who has been living life as a pickpocket and rebel rouser far longer then she.
-Mel

Monday, August 11, 2008

Unavisi: Exchange for Brianne

My latest Unavisi community art exchange image - this time, for my buddy Brianne! (My character) Bumble gives the surly BeeEater (Brie's Character), her big brother, a snug, whilst Otter (Also Brie's character) gets a giggle out of catching a glimpse of Bee's illusive "Inner Softy".

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Unavisi Exchange: Agave for Ems


A multitude of life-events have kept me away from my art so far this summer, sadly. I've been suffering from a horrible art block for well over a month now... or at least, I was up until this exchange. Leave it up to an Unavisi Community art exchange to wrangle my inspiration into something productive ;) Anyhow! I got Emma (Tephers) which excites me to no end - she's such a sweetie! She wanted her character Agave drawn. (I also made a couple of icons out of the resulting image, as a little extra "Welcome!" gift to her, as one of our newest members.)

I pictured Agave resting late one night in one of the hot springs alcoves previously owned by her life mate, at peace, but undoubtedly still grieving over his loss internally, and longing for his presence. Image is inspired by "Where the Ghosts Are" by Klaus Badelt

Much thanks to Kate, Sufi, and Niles for checking out my bombardments of WIP's, and giving so many wonderful tips and suggestions!

♥Mel

Friday, May 23, 2008

Raven - Playing with Prismas


My classmate Sufi got me to sit down and have a first go at using color Prismacolor markers. I decided to use an older inked drawing of my character Raven as the guinea pig - here's the result.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Summer at the Creeds

A little bit of silly fanart to kick off the summer. "Summer at the Creeds" - My take on Marvel's Sabretooth, along with my characters Kayo and Riley Cole, and my buddy Carl and I's character, Minx, roughing it somewhere about the vast woodlands of the Creed Estates.
Also, a little bit of sketchbook character drivel. Line art for Cali "Minx" Creed, (an XMen fan character created by myself an my buddy, Carl Owens, many years back) which I hope to color soon. Hope everyone is doing well!

Cheers,
Mel



-Mel

Monday, May 5, 2008

Spring 2008 Demo Reel



I put this together yesterday for my End of the Year Review tomorrow.... and now that I've gotten sleep, I figured out how to size is small enough for 'net posting. Thanks to my babe Niles for the help on that ;)

For anyone curious, songs used herein are "Delicate" by Damien Rice, "The Inlaw Josie Wales" by Phish, and "Bron Y Aur" by Led Zeppelin.

Friday, May 2, 2008

More Work for 'The Defiance'


A new set of concept images I've amassed for a SciFi project I've been milling over recently, The Defiance. This particular trio were for my Finals project for Characters and Environments at CCS - a class which has given me a fantastic opportunity to develop the series off and on for the duration of the semester. Image titles, in order of appearance: Sadiha Model Sheet, Alexis Model Sheet, and The Bridge (Environment Study).

Drako Maquette Complete


Here is the finished product of my third and final character maquette sculpture of Drako from Larry Larson's class this semester. Larry was kind enough to take a myriad of nicely lit portfolio shots of the project for me, so I though I would share. More detail shots of the sculpture are below.





-Mel

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Stu "Rotgut" Bogey Walk



I know, I've been pretty much non-existent the past few weeks. I do apologize - I got sucked into the life-eating vortex that is finals at CCS. I'm nearly past the brunt of it though, thank goodness, and will be updating in mass soon enough. (And throughout the summer, at that) This here is actually my final assignment for Traditional Tech 1 for the year.... and boy do I like it a great deal better then the walk cycle we were assigned at the beginning of the semester! It feels so good to know that I really have improved looking from then to now. Huzzah for hard work (and an awesome professor's guidance) paying off.

My concept-in-training Caravan's Stu "Rotgut" Bogey, in all of his jaunty, slightly inebriated glory ;)

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Drako Maquette WIP


Here's a preview of the third and final maquette I'm working on for this semester's character maquette sculpting class. It's of Drako, a long-standing original character of mine. I'll post the results as soon as he's done. :D Thanks to Tavis for snapping the photo!

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Penguin Slip & Fall Test



A quick test for Tech 1. Steve wanted us to create a rough animation where a character walks in, slips on something, and falls, within the timespan of exactly 2 seconds. Poor 'Guin got to play guinea pig again. I really do need to give the poor little guy a cookie for his troubles.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Zensei "Bank" Coloration


The "Bank" half of my latest Environments and Characters assignment. The Zensei tribe in this series live and die by the drive to accumulate wealth and profit. They maintain a stronghold on their society's core trading market as a result - often seen as the inevitable go to guys needed to get whatever one needs.... particularly where gold, or less 'proper' acquisitions are concerned. Amidst the nomadic tribes' perpetually moving tent towns, large tents are set up and used for the sole purpose of presenting, storing and swapping various forms of fortune.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Zensei "Bus Stop" Coloration

So this particular project for Environments and Characters called for us to draw a bus stop and a bank environment, both having a joining theme. I decided to use the Zensei clan from a prehistoric plotline personal project of mine - the nomadic tribe of their people, who utilize massive, rather beastly mammals as their mode of transportation. Seen here, early in the morning, the clan pack up and gear to move on from their over night encampment.

Now on to coloring the "bank". After I hit up some chinese food, that is. Also! Many thanks to folks who have been dropping by and commenting on my art blog here. I really do appreciate it!

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Kayo Expressions



Facial expressions for Characters and Environments. I really enjoyed doing this one quite a bit - it gave me the opportunity to draw Kayo once again; one of my oldest and most favored original characters. Above, the finished sheet. Below, the rough sketch and clean line art stages for some of the busts, to give you an look at my process of working.