swishy cow tail

Twenty years ago I tried to draw something like this in Deluxe Paint on my AMIGA computer, but the overlapping motion was too much to wrap my mind around. So this is progress, right?



music: Brandenburg Concerto #6 Mvt. 3 by Bach, performed by the Advent Chamber Orchestra, licensed for this use under the EFF Open Audio License.

with every christmas card I blight

I don't send out actual Christmas cards anymore, but when I send someone a gift I sketch out some quick personalized scribble to attach to it.

Here are a few I cranked out today with the ulterior motive of practicing my generic cartoon character construction:

for my nephew who wants to be a pilot


for my niece who has started learning clarinet




a Boxing Day card for one of my non-Christmas celebrating friends

bouncing ball 2

Ok, here's some actual new animation. The squetchy bouncing ball. I did this all on "twos" (two frames per drawing at 24 frames per second) just to see how that would look. The contact frames look a bit sticky on two's but I think it works.



The strobing isn't as bad as I expected. To investigate that a bit further I did this little turn test on a cone. One is on ones and the other is on twos. Can you tell which is which?



Not a dramatic difference, is it?

squetchy jumping can

A quick warm-up I did a couple of years ago. I thought it would be quick. It took several hours.



That may not look like a big deal in 2D, but it would be a major hassle in 3D to try to rig a cylinder to do all that deforming.

Big mistake I just noticed: the can is bigger at the end than it was at the beginning. I'll do better next time.

hey coach...

A few drawings I made in attempts to coach some people on animations they were doing. Not wildly successful attempts, just attempts.

my sister's birthday

Two quick sketches I made for my sister's birthday card:


"The blackberry crop failed this year..."





"So I'm sending you my peach jam instead!"


I notice I've got the feet in an impossible position in the first drawing. Maybe I'll get it right next year.