Where did July go?

Ok, well since I've updated I've worked a bit more on Gob character designs as well as animating in blender. Unfortunately my computer really hates 3d animating a lighter program such as blender. I also have been working on story boarding a few shots that are more cut scene-y unfortunately with the shape the apartment is in I misplaced a sketchbook and had to draw in a different sketch book and now I'm condensing the shots back into one sketch book. Hopefully meet up about them soon. My favorite concept for gob so far has been theses two krakens.Top one would be a total pain to model with my still basic modeling skills.

San Diego comic con also happened while I've been away and I was full of jealous the whole time between the adventure time pizza, ponies, LOONEY TOONS, and Scooby Doo Mystery Inc. people. I really hope that in the not too distant future to be able to comic con out there. It doesn't really look like a great next working place but at the same time it does so I guess you have to go to find out.

I also got back from Otakon over the weekend. It was cool stuffs. Saw the FMA movie that's still in Japaneses theaters which made me feel special. Also got to see the Trigun movie dubbed and that was really exciting 'cause doughnuts. Also bought all the pokemon... well not all the pokemon but pretty close to it. Over all between watching more things this year and hanging out with friends more I enjoyed Otakon '11 more than the past ones.


Also perhaps most importantly I got married. I also got my last name upgraded because well Mrs. Sparkes is pretty awesome sounding.

This face is possibly the best face I have ever made on camera before. Oliver is making fun of his father for being short. That's also my uncle who gave me away.

I'm hoping it won't be so long in between updates, but I like posting things that are a bit more polished art wise then what I've been working on which is super unpolished.

So I've Graduated...

... and I didn't get the grant money I was hoping for from the Delaware Scholarship Incentive Program. So I can't really afford graduate school next year. I spoke with my one friends sister who has 1 bachelors degree and 3 masters degrees and she said that after Oliver and I get married financial aid becomes a lot easier to come by. I can see that being true. Still not attending graduate school right away even though I got in and even was able to skip a class is a pretty big downer. So I'll be working saving money, paying back loans, applying at game companies, and today I sent out about 100 postcards for various illustration jobs that my work seemed to fit into. I am also reconsidering going to graduate school specifically for animation. I'm thinking more of an "Entertainment Technology" program and to specialize in animation, because I think I might rather work in video games because of the constant production work flow and I like being busy. That and with video game you don't get the out sourcing that comes with the animation territory (at least television animation).


So since graduation other than working I've also been working on food illustrations as seen above because Charlie suggested it to me after he saw my postcard 3 months ago and I'm finally getting around to drawing some

I've also started preproduction work for my next animated short "Level 4 Goblin" Title still in the works. I've pretty much started on making a map and fleshing out the map a bit so that I have and idea on where this goblin is going when I storyboard it. The basic concept is this goblin gets dropped into a game of dungeons and dragons while the world is being built around him I expect the run time to be between a minute and 2 and a half minutes. That'll sort its self out after I do the story boards and throw them into an animatic. I also want to go to 3 film festivals that have animation as part of their work and depending on what happens next year I really want to go to the Ottawa animation fest.

I have also watched this one anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica and between that and The Amazing World of Gumball airing on CN I am really taken a back by their animation. They are very different types of shows; Madoka Magica is a sad sad show with amazing character development and upon watching the ending my tears caused Lancaster PA to rain for a day straight, and Gumball is a silly show with less developed characters and convenient situations and over all hilarious shenanigans. Both these shows that have recently been airing in their respected countries have several different animation styles and techniques inter graded in the show and pull it off really really well.

This is a .gif from Madoka Magica and it doesn't show how awesome these combined techniques really look, but it does show the gest of what I am talking about. (Also from this show I learned that Joan of Arc was a magical girl).

The character designs are really adorable and between that and the way the backgrounds are build and the lighting in some of these shots I'm really blown away. (This show has the most intelligent humorous cartoon mom).

I'll try not to wait too long between posts because the result tends to be super long.