Hadrosaur Sketches

It's been a while since I've posted anything so I thought I'd post some of these rough sketches I did a few months ago. I was working on some Hadrosaur designs. Not trying to restore any particular species, but have been referencing things like Gryposaurus, Kritosaurus, and even a little bit of Tethyshadros. I was just exploring shapes to help bring out character.

This was some visual development of a possible comic idea I had. We'll see if I get around to doing anything with it. Also, just for kicks, here is another character sketch:

Enjoy,

 Evan

Sculpting Final

As you may or may not recall, I'm taking a clay sculpting class through work. Today was our last day, and here is what I came up with:

-Evan

Happy Friday

No Better way to end a week of debugging technical problems than with some good old-fashioned animating. Did this little test tonight in Pencil which surprisingly worked better than I expected. Might keep refining and completing it in my free time. We'll see. Click the image to play the GIF -- It also plays better if you  Right+Click and open the image in a new tab, opposed to the lightbox thing (less frame skipping). Enjoy!

-Evan

Whoah Physical Media! What is this nonsense?

Since I spend so much of my time these days solving technical problems, I decided to enroll in a sculpting class once a week after work to help me keep my creative brain working. One reason I chose the sculpting class is because I haven't done any real sculpting before. I've dabbled, but usually just playing around, and not trying to actually to improve my craft or anything. The closest  I've gotten to real sculpting has been in the form of digital detail sculpts and this thing. So this has been a relatively new and challenging experience for me. Hurray for learning!

We're about halfway through the class and in each session we just do gestural bust sculpts based on a model for about two hours. Here's what I ended up with today. Still incredibly rough, but I guess you can't be expected to be amazing at anything on your first go.

-Evan

BIRDSQUAD: A Retrospective

Hello all! It's been far too long since I've posted. Been busy at my new job, but have also been trying to keep sketching when I can. Today's post actually consists of some older work, but is something that is incredibly personal. Some of you may have seen these guys before, but probably don't know a whole lot about where they come from. So I thought I'd give my first true online introduction to the world of BIRDSQUAD:

BIRDSQUAD is a passion project of mine, that has grown and evolved throughout my life. It started as a comic book that I started drawing in 4th grade (yes you read that correctly). I remember first creating this when I was in my basement in Virginia in 1996. I wanted to make a comic book hero that I really liked and felt motivated to draw. Instead of a typical superhero, I wanted to explore making a much more cartoony character. I wanted to combine superhero elements with the type of whimsical, sometimes nonsensical humor of a cartoon. So I drew upon my childhood fascination with the Galapagos Islands, and created the principle character of BIRDSQUAD: The Masked Booby. I continued to draw very short, very rough comics, and by the year 2000 I revamped the Masked Booby series, transforming it into BIRDSQUAD.

Throughout High School, I worked on a rough animatic about the origins of this group of characters. This was done in MS Paint (yes with a mouse) and crudely put together to music in Power Point. This "animatic" (as rough as it is) was my first true endeavor into digital art. It put me through my first true all-nighters (from the pure joy of creating the story), and was a major stepping stone in getting me started on the journey to where I am today. Despite having started these characters so long ago, I constantly return to them. I actually still have all of the original 12 Masked Booby comic books, as well as the three-part, half-hour long  BIRDSQUAD Trilogy animatic.

And with that brief introduction, what I want to do with this post is a retrospective look at the members of the Galapagos fighting force known as BIRDSQUAD:

THE MASKED BOOBY

   The Masked Booby is the "Leader" of the team. He was the original crime fighter in the Galapagos. This progression shows how he has changed throughout the years. He is a Masked Booby (Sula dactylatra), and that perfect pun opportunity was one of the main reasons I chose him for my hero. The top left is the very first drawing of him, ever. It doesn't look like much, (wow, is that what I thought guns looked like when I was a kid?) but that's actually from the cover of the first comic. The bottom left is the super pixelated version from the animatic I did in high school, and the rest of the bottom are from experiments I did throughout college. The last drawing in each of these progressions is from 3 or 4 years ago.

SUPER CORMORANT

   Super Cormorant was the next to join. He was basically a Masked Booby fanboy who just followed him one day and eventually became his sidekick. He was always more of a loyal follower of The Masked Booby than anything else. He is a Flightless Cormorant (Phalacrocorax harrisi). The first drawing in the progression is from his 3rd appearance, on the cover of the first of two Time-Travel related stories.

DODO

   And speaking of Time-Travel, in that story, they accidentally brought a Dodo Bird (Ralphus cucullatus) with them to the present. Despite being a dodo bird, Dodo is probably the most intelligent of the team. He only communicates through thought bubbles, and by "communicates" I mean he breaks the fourth wall to the reader/viewers. He has uncanny abilities that he only uses when they are most needed, and he mostly uses them when he's bored, to simply get the "scene" over with and move on to the next thing. He started out as more of a pet, but my love for this character soon made him an active participant in the team. The 3D model in the lower row is a low-poly game model I did for an interactivity class a couple years back.

GOOBER BOOBY

   Goober Booby is actually The Masked Booby's younger brother, who one day showed up on his doorstep, since he was evicted from his home. He is a klutz and a little childish but means well. He joined the group after a second Time-Travel episode, where he proved to his older brother that he could keep up. 

"STUBBS" McGEE

  "Stubbs" McGee was an ex-military officer who was recruited by Mayor Softshell as one of the two members of the Galapagos Secret Service - which later merged with The Masked Booby and company to form BIRDSQUAD. He's a fiery hot-head, but also has a great sense of pride and honor. It took him a while to warm up to The Masked Booby when they were first paired together. He was originally created by my brother Ian, who drew the first drawing in this progression. Stubbs is a Large Cactus Finch (Geospiza conirostris).

THE RED BOOBY

The Red Booby was the second member of the Galapagos Secret Service before the formation of BIRDSQUAD. She is a strategic genius, a tech wiz, and the most logical of the bunch. Although The Masked Booby is the official "leader" of BIRDSQUAD, The Red Booby is the brains behind the organization. She is a Red-Footed Booby (Sula sula). 

This post became longer than I anticipated. I really just wanted to show these character progressions, as I think it's pretty cool to see the same character drawn from my elementary school years through my college years. It became longer as I figured it wouldn't be very interesting without some explanation of who these guys are. That's all you get from BIRDSQUAD for now. I don't want to give away too many plot details as I still hope to do something with these characters one day.

-Evan

Jack-O-Lantern Designs 2011

Hey all! Last year I drafted up a contact sheet of jack-o-lantern designs. I enjoyed the process enough that I decided to make it an annual thing! So each year I'm going to post a new contact sheet of Jack-O-Lanterns to share with you all!

(click image for larger view)

And same deal goes as last year: if anybody actually decides to attempt to carve any of these (i'm not sure how well they would work in the real world), please send me pictures at evan.m.boucher@gmail.com and I'll post them up here! That goes for previous pumpkin designs as well.

Happy Halloween, all!

-Evan B.

Tupandactylus VI: Final Product

Alas the time has arrived! Sorry it's been a while since I've posted on this guy. I think the difference between the last image posted and this finished animation will speak for itself!




I also decided to do this making-of video. Houdini's procedural nature allowed me to show off some of this process really easily, so I took the time to edit this together:



I hope you enjoy! I really had a lot of fun delving into Pterosaur anatomy. Unfortunately due to time and other obligations at work, I cut the shot in half. The second half would have showed some quadrupedal walking and launching. The motion is all blocked out, but that's where it must remain for now (sigh). I hope sometime in the future I get the chance to revisit it. I really want to play with such a bizarre animal walking. Despite the cut, I'm really excited about the project! Thanks for tuning in!

-Evan