Careless Wiener

When dog meets hot dog...

This was the final product of the Hot Dog Eat Dog project I helped work on a few weeks ago.

Created by Pencilwood Studios and Studio Phi:
Rocky Bergen - sound
Eric Hetherington - art
Stuart Hunnable - background
Rexis Liwanag - character animation
Girish Manuel - concept, storyboard, character design, comp

Copyright 2012.

Hot Diggity Dog

This is an independent collaboration with friends in Winnipeg. The project has a blog where I, Girish, Stu, Eric and Rocky share our progress.

Hot Dog Eat Dog

I am responsible for the dog animation. When it is complete, I hope to post the full video on this blog!

Mystic Schoolgirl

Here is an idea I have of a Catholic schoolgirl with mystical powers. It would fit the usual Shojo template of uniformed schoolgirls battling evil with their superpowers. The only major difference is that it involves popular Christian mythology, such as angel and demon characters. She is called upon to be a human fighter in a spiritual battle between good and evil. The battleground is her academy, where Satan has taken the human form of a schoolgirl.

I intend for this to be a fun series that doesn't take itself too seriously. I know that religion is a very divisive issue, and despite the fact that this idea borrows heavily from popular religious beliefs, I do not want it to promote one ideology over another. There will be absolutely no promotion of Catholic doctrine, or any mention of God or Jesus.

While I no longer have a sprituality that I claim to belong to, I was raised as a Catholic, and very familiar with the religion, some of its teachings and beliefs. I also liked to broaden my understanding of other Christian denominations and saw very big differences. Among them is the particular Catholic custom of "veneration of the saints", which some would argue is a form of worshipping dead or mythical saints. I see a lot of fun potential in playing off of this custom.

For example, if our schoolgirl harnesses the power of St. Francis of Assisi (who is officially a "patron saint" of animals), she could have the ability to communicate with animals. Silly, yes! I love it. I know it shows a complete misunderstanding of religion. But I think religion has always been easily misunderstood anyway. This is just fun!

Another element I would like to include is the popular beliefs that derive from the "Book of Enoch", which is a non-canonical book of the Bible (with the exception of Coptic Ethiopian version of the Bible). This book interestingly enough, is where most people get their beliefs about angels and demons. For example, the belief that Lucifer was a fallen angel is said to have come from this book. Raphael, who is considered an archangel in Catholicism, is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible; he is however mentioned in Enoch.

The challenge is to make it non-religious. Everyone has an opinion about religion, so I am prepared for the differing viewpoints. But most people I have talked to about this idea love it. It's probably because of all the schoolgirls!

That is another challenge... I need more feminine grace in my drawing skills. This is a great exercise for me to do just that.

A Self Portrait

Now you can attach a face to the artwork. This is me!... or a liberal interpretation of myself.

Unlike some of the previous artwork which had some more attention to form, this self portrait is done in a graphical flat style, with huge eyes and calligraphic lines. The oversaturated colour was a happy mistake. I didn't realise I was colouring in CMYK mode, until I switched over to RGB at the very end.

A Pint After Work

I have recently been getting back into illustration, as I get enough of my share of animation at work. This picture of Orion was drawn at the start of my temporary break from work at Studio B / DHX Media. It originally started as a doodle to help me warm up on my gestural drawing, and suddenly became more of a finished piece of artwork. I may make a post on how this evolved from a doodle.

The original drawing didn't have a gun on the table. But I figured if it weren't there, it just looks like Orion was mugged. I wanted to make him look like he has been through some action. Realistically, Orion wouldn't just have his gun laying out on the table for all to see, and guns are very uncommon in the UK. Placing the gun there was more of an artistic decision.

I also would have placed another agent having a drink beside him, but no other characters have been designed yet. There is a Commander Draco that exists, but at the moment, she is just a murmuring sound at the other end of a phone conversation.

I just really like the liberties in 2D that I can take, which would otherwise be very labour-intensive in 3D, such as the open jacket, tie, hair, etc. The stylisation of the line is something I have revisited in Photoshop, and looks very similar to how I used to ink my drawings traditionally many years ago.

I would bet that you like the 2D version of Orion more than the 3D version...?

This was another doodle of Orion, done within a few hours. It's less refined in line quality and proportion, but has a more lively style of colouring.

Codename Orion

This personal project which I have been working on during my free time is a short film to get me more experienced in using Maya. I chose an easy-to-understand premise to avoid setting up a complex story within a couple of minutes. It's a combination of subjects I like: James Bond, London, fight scenes, and coffee. Currently, this film is animated more than halfway. I intend on finishing it when I have the time.

Codename Orion: Orion's addiction for coffee has made him late for a briefing, and the sudden appearance of the dangerous Peacoat Ninjas makes this morning even worse for the half-alert agent.

Although this project is being done in 3D, I have found some technical limitations I wish I had the resources to get around. For example, I would have preferred to have Orion's jacket open, as would be the norm for cityworkers. That would have given a more dynamic, blowing-in-the-wind effect with the tie that I would like. But I imagine animating that would have been twice the work.

I am thinking about doing a 2D animated version of Orion after completing this film. I have already done lots of drawings of Orion, and am more pleased with the more dynamic clothing and hair that I couldn't do in 3D. I will post some art of Orion for you later on.

What's the Plan

There are several things I would like to do with this blog:

-Share my artwork for anyone to comment on
-Give some personal insight and tips for different drawing techniques and knowledge
-Create discussion on animation and the direction in which the industry is heading

This blog should be informative for you, but I really hope that it will be informative for me as well. I am always curious about the future of animation, especially at this evolving time of digital media, the ease with which animation can be created, and the rapid change of copyright law, among other things.

I'm also planning to show you how I draw. As much as I have held off of making tutorials (because there are just so many bad ones out there), I would like to think of this as just sharing my techniques on how I draw. Teaching technique is apparently something I can be good at, so I may as well share some of my knowledge.

You will also see some artwork by me. I have several ideas I want to flesh out here, and I would appreciate your input!

Right, here's the obligatory life drawing to get it started.

five minute sketches 2011

half hour drawing 2011

twenty minute drawing 2011