Animation industry is about to be upgraded

Graphic artists are impacted right now, but we can see how Hollywood is going to be heavily revolutionized by the AI generated tools available today

Who would have thought?

https://www.corridordigital.com

I see a lot of concern, especially from animators, that tools like this will eventually make them obsolete.
This isn't a replacement for someone that knows how to animate, nor someone who can draw. Tools constantly evolve, but making something visually captivating always requires those same core skills. It still takes an artist to make art. That hasn't changed.
What we figured out here is a very advanced form of old-fashioned rotoscoping. Animation takes a lot of forms; Traditional, 3d, stop-motion... They all have different strengths, and enable different stories. Our method here isn't a replacement, but an attempt at something new.
What excites me is that this tech makes it easier to bring my visual ideas to life. Ideas that were otherwise impossible. When I said this democratizes animation, I'm referring to the near-insurmountable mountain of work needed to make a full-length narrative animation. Currently that requires large studios and large budgets. Doing it on your own is nearly impossible.
But I see potential in these tools to change that! That's what I'm so excited about. Imagine one person, or a few friends, bringing their crazy ideas to life. Imagine if a traditional animator could automatically have their drawings inked and colored. Imagine eliminating the uncanny valley on cgi faces. These tools have the potential to do that. We're trying to figure out how, and sharing our journey. If we want community-controlled AI tools, we need to develop them as a community, otherwise they become proprietary tools locked behind a company.
And yes, this can be done with your own style. We trained our model, not from hundreds of artists, but from ONE film- Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust.  We've been very open about this, and I think it's important to be. But this is also an experiment and a loving parody of this era of anime. I consider it no less ethical than the countless other videos on our channel that borrow from pop culture to tell their story.
Sudden change can be scary, especially if it feels like your passion or livelihood is on the line. But that's why we're out here exploring it. Hopefully we can help shine a light into the fog for everyone.
-Niko

FaceYourManga.com

FaceYourManga.com | Shake Yourself!

Digital Painting Process: DJ Goh-Goh

Digital Painting Process: DJ Goh-Goh - YouTube: piece: commission for Shwann of his character DJ GohGoh

Hannah Minx

Hannah Wagner (better known by her stage name Miss Hannah Minx; born Oct. 1990) is an American vlogger known on Youtube for her Kawaii anime look and proportions (notice the frequent use of top down photo like the one above).

Her extensive cosplay in Japan, her informational videos about Japanese culture, and her JWOW (teaching a Japanese Word of the Week)/JPOW (Japanese Phrase of the Week) made her one of the most successful Youtube account.

She is actually so successful that many popular vloggers have made parodies of her characters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCPNPm1nlq0
Controversies, parodies, hateful comments nothing seems to stop Hannah, why?

Because Hannah Minx is quite a package of win

What are her angles? Japan, cosplay, teaching Japanese to the mass and being a geek with a big heart.

In my blog I've made some articles on famous cosplayers, and I wanted to add Miss Hannah Minx - even though she's not really a conventional cosplay girl ; because of her enthusiasm.

You can tell whatever you want about her characters or her videos, but you'll never get bored.


YouTube - MissHannahMinx's Channel
http://www.youtube.com/bonusminx
http://misshannahminx.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/HannahMinx
https://www.facebook.com/MissHannahMinx

Now absolutely nothing to do with the character above - I just fund a fantastic t-shirt :

My next article will be about .. the invasion of pornstar in the cosplay milieu.

Cosplay rising to new heights

Cosplay is now for the pros

In the past during comics convention, a new trend was forming with fans making amateurish appearance  in outfit hand-made and this was to the delight of the artists and visitors.

But today this Art is actually at a stage where it surpasses the simple portraying of comics book or movie star characters. With amazing skills, crafts, excellent photographs, the cosplayers are now entering a new level where they are “becoming” the characters. The illusion is complete.

And their level of mastery is even pushing them into making variations or even upgrading the current character's outfit to new level of awesomeness.

Rising stars

On this blog Crystal Graziano  an outstanding cosplayer has been praised a couple of times - Since she has launched a video series ("Project Cosplay") on how she makes her mind blowing outfit.

Nadya Sonika - Fan art

And it was mentioned that Crystal Graziano is among the top brass of the North American cosplay - now there is a rising cosplay star in Mexico - she has the class, beauty and style making her the match to this new trend of cosplayers that are pushing the limits in designing outfits and cosplay.

Her name is  Nadya Sonika - this post is an homage to her magnificent creations.
She has fan herself (and like many cosplayers today artist are drawing her and sending "fan art").

Which is quite a prowess, since cosplay (short for "costume play") is a type of performance art in which participants wear costumes and accessories to represent a specific character, and then now cosplayers themselves can have fan of their own.

Are we going to see a new type of fans cosplaying  Bellechere, Jessica Nigri, Katybear, Megan Marie, Queen Riot, Crystal Graziano etc ... ?


Or  movie with actual mainstream actress portraying cosplayers ? Well, that would be fun and I'll watch that for sure.

Where to find more about Nadya Sonika :
www.nadyasonika.com/
www.facebook.com/pages/Nadyasonika
nadyasonika.deviantart.com/

Cosplayer Spotlight

Back in 2011 a post has been made here ; about an outstanding cosplayer - she goes by the name of Crystal Graziano - and she is among the top brass of the American cosplay folks (among celebrity like Bellechere, Jessica Nigri, Katybear, Megan Marie, Queen Riot, etc ...).

No wonder she attracts success like a magnet - she has a dream body, the technical skills, the design genius, and the taste of a real professional. And she's getting better and better.

The only regret written back then, was that the beautiful Crystal Graziano  didn't had any youtube videos yet. Well surprise, now there's plenty of excellent interviews of her at www.youtube.com/user/stagefivetv/ check for all videos titled "Project Cosplay" - 8 episodes featuring the missus.



Extraordinary Cosplayer Spotlight: Crystal Graziano - Los Angeles Video game babes | Examiner.com: The pinnacle of sex appeal has been achieved.

But not only she's cosplaying, designing and making her own costume, she also can draw  anime style.

There seems to be no limit in her talents.

Where to find more about her :

www.flickr.com/photos/preciouscosplay/
www.facebook.com/people/Crystal-Graziano/
crystalcosfx.deviantart.com/
twitter.com/#!/itsprecioustime
preciouscosblog.blogspot.com

Grumpy Cat

Image source : Grumpy-cat

Tardar Sauce (aka Grumpy cat) became an internet sensation after her photo (yes Tardar is a female) arisen in  September 2012.

Her official webpage is at www.grumpycats.com
Her facebook page
Her youtube channel
Her tumblr
Now there's meme about grumpy cat all over the place
"I had fun once, it was awful"
"No!"
"Good!"

The meme is being used into T-Shirt, Poster,  magnet, flyer, hat, etc ...

Check for yourself :
http://socialeyezer.com/2012/12/11/14-purrfect-gifts-of-the-grumpy-cat-meme/
http://kakuleter.com/20-lol-grumpy-cat-illustrations-and-drawings/

This post is dedicated to Grumpy Cat
But does Tardar Sauce approves of this ?

Webcomics little helper

Here comes more helpful links and tips for (web)comic artists 

1. list of (free) programs

Inkscape - For your layout and illustration

Gimp - For sketching, inking, coloring, and adding text (Inkscape might be better for that task).

2. list of miscellaneous helpful links for the making 

Now if you don't have drawing skills you can always fall-back to use some nice comics stock resources free.

For Office comics
Check http://www.designcomics.org/ for usage details.

The whole source files (Characters, Background scenes, etc ...) is available for download in JPG (64MB) or Adobe illustrator format (207MB) at http://www.designcomics.org/source.html

For drawing references
Check this deviantart account, where a lot of renders are available


For caricatures and public domain pictures
check openclipart.org

3. Lettering

For a good selection of comics fonts
Check www.blambot.com (it's a reference)
The website even has some nice tips for letterer

4. Hosting 

Wordpress & Comicpress - Both for your basic site setup and webcomic layout.

(A nice alternative where everything is already setup is comicspace.com)

And finally Webcomic List - Great forum, get tips, help, or have people critique your work!

Selvaria : sew it!

Selvaria from Valkyria Chronicles was once featured on this blog with the post on the Cerberus Project figurine.

Her full name is : Selvaria Bles and she is a 22 year old Brigadier General War Witch and one of the main antagonists in Valkyria Chronicles & Valkyria Chronicles 3.

This splendid character with silver hair had me stumble upon one of the most breathtaking cosplayer : Crystal Graziano - She really does Selvaria justice.

But then I found her various cosplay version of Cammy and then I really thought Crystal deserved to be featured in the blog. There was too many "serendipity".

Here's a few links to her website and interviews :
www.flickr.com/photos/preciouscosplay/
onpaperwings.deviantart.com/

www.facebook.com/people/Crystal-Graziano/
twitter.com/#!/itsprecioustime

My only regret is that Crystal doesn't have created a youtube account (yet).

But I won't despair : her popularity is going strong by the days, and her last shoot as "Black Widow" with the "Big white Bazooka" is a must-see.

Sintel - a Dragon's tale

Wow, Sintel is ready! Big kudos for the work done, it's brilliant, it's shiny ... it's beautifully made, ...

You can download the high resolution movie (up to 2048 x 872 px which is about 270 MB)
Check the project official page at Sintel - Open Movie

Last time it was a giant white rabbit fighting against critters (Big Buck Bunny), in a funny Rambo pastiche kind of way - now, the new animation is getting more mature, the story too, with  breath-taking landscape, more characters, lost cities, and ... Dragons.

Although Sintel is only 15mn long, (Big Buck Bunny was 10mn ...) many comments are hoping for a longer version, a sequel maybe?!

Check the http://www.youtube.com/user/BlenderFoundation

Drawing Tutorial by Jolly Jack

The video above is the part2 out of 3 - I've seen Drawing tutorials many of them - some are just plain "speed painting" with no explanations whatsoever - but I recommend these 3 videos by Jolly Jack because he gives a lot of good information and advices during the process - very helpful.

I'll try to highlight a few interesting points :

1.  Before starting you should already have a rough idea of what you want to draw
2. When drawing start with the head - set where the character is looking and build the body according to that pose.
3. Concentrate on the figure's flow, make the pose looks right
4. Use a very thin brush (1) for the rough sketch
5. keep the layer 0 for the white background an use layer 1 for the sketch
6. After the basic outline is done on layer 1, get a larger brush and add details starting with the eyes
7. You should work at least in 300dpi
8. When the rough is done on layer1, it's time to add a new layer for the final line-work
9. add 2 layers (one will be used as a buffer and made invisible)
10. set the layer1 with the rough to 15% opacity and retrace it on layer 3 (line-work)
11. use a slightly larger brush (3.1) for the finished lines
12. After the line-work is done, duplicate the layer and merge them - to add contrast
13. Now it's color time, add a new layer (4)
14. If possible have a palette for each characters you have - otherwise load a previous artwork
15. Layer 4 is used for the flat colors, use the lasso tool on layer 3 then return to layer 4 and fill the selection
16. After the flat color is done add a new layer (5) for shadow, using black with 40% opacity
17. Then add the light (new layer (6)) with white and 10% opacity

Interesting to notice that the whole process (starting from scratch with a blank document) to the final artwork seems to have taken only about 1 hour - Impressive!

Supergirl Tutorial by Juan Martinez Pinilla

If you're an aspirant designer (or simply a Supergirl fan) and want to get some nice tips on the coloring process, have a look at this Tutorial above, it's really impressive (kudos to Juan Martinez Pinilla for this! it's always a great benefits to see how the professional artists are doing their masterpieces).

See the finished painting on Juan's deviantart page.

By the way, Supergirl was played by Helen Slater, back in the days (1984) ...

Cammy is back, fighting Morrigan Aensland

From a previous article: "Street Fighting with Gimp" ; Cammy White (as shadowloo "killer bee") was featured to show Gimp's ability to generate animated Gifs.

As an experiment, using the same gif and technique, the challenge was to check how hard it would be to replace Mr. Bison by Morrigan Aensland (Darkstalkers series) - and 1 hour later, here's the result :

Conclusion, that wasn't difficult ... just a matter of being patient and consistent in the process.

Credit : Sprites used are coming from the "Sprite Database"

• Morrigan
• Cammy

See all posts related to Cammy

3 ways to learn how to Draw Manga

if you're eager to learn how to draw Manga -  or simply looking for website teaching manga drawing ; Here's a handy list of website :

www.howtodrawmanga.com

www.mangatutorials.com

And last but not least Mark Crilley Youtube Channel that contains more than 100 videos

How to Draw Manga -- Manga University How to Draw: Tutorials

2 Amazing BJD from the Cerberus Project

---

Exactly to the opposite of the uncanny valley ; which is a hypothesis regarding the field of robotics. The theory holds that when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost like actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers.

It seems that many people have a strong attraction to anime figures or dolls, especially in Japan - Lately I stumbled on 2 websites one is the Cerberus Project that introduced me to the wonderful World of "Ball-jointed doll" (BJD) and where I found these 2 gems (among other).

(c) Cerberus Project

Selvaria

and

(c) Cerberus Project

 Devil Girl 

And the second website is  gamerabaenre.com but I will make a separate post about it - because there's so many beautiful PVC figurines there that it deserve a special post.