Oh wow. It’s a new year. Holy cow. Did the holidays run up on anyone else like a runaway train. They were on me so fast that any of my plans for things to do for them were completely up ended because of it. And now they are over, and we have already started another trip around the sun. I’m going to take the opportunity to start a new project. I’ll also continue working on some projects that I started before the holidays.
My before the holidays projects are courtesy my sister. My sister finally got to take her trip to France that she has been trying to take for several years. She very generously shared photos of the sights along the way. Great pictures. About half way through her trip she sent me a text telling me that she had ‘so many projects for me’ from the pictures she was taking. I know some would consider this presumptuous of her, I did not. I found it a little bit funny. A few weeks after she got back, I was wanting to start on a new piece of art but didn’t have any real pull of something to paint. So I asked about her “projects” and she sent me several of the photos that she took that she had in mind. I chose a different one that she had sent me. And then printed the others so I would have them as reference for the next painting.
I painted the one I chose and had mixed results. The subject came out ok but the background didn’t work out the way I expected. I’m using watercolor paints and pencils. I purchased a full set of half-pan Sennelier watercolors and a 60 piece set of Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolour pencils and this was my painting to test them out. The paints and pencils worked out really nice, better than the background of my painting. I’m really pleased with them and excited to get to use them more. The tools were not the problem. It was me. One of the things I noticed was that if I mixed a color, I didn’t mix enough of it for what I’m was doing so I ran out. I’ve done that the times I’ve tried using acrylic paints and oil paints so I’m going to have to work on that.
Many of the pictures that my sister sent are buildings. A few are of some lavender flowers and many of buildings, or and a flag. Buildings are not my usual subject matter for creating art so these are definitely outside my comfort zone. And that seems to be my sister’s challenge to me. ‘Here, step out of your comfort zone and make something of these.’ Ok. I confess, the first one I started on has me stuck. I like the basic composition of it but I’m having trouble, particularly with the colors and the contrast. Though, as I think about it, it may be because of how I’ve approached it. I may need to step back and reconsider how I want to depict that. Hmm…
The new project has come about through my Taekwondo. We used to have these posters in the studio that showed the steps of our poomsae. Some time ago they were taken down when the place was given a fresh coat of paint and they didn’t get put back up. I was speaking with my Master who runs the studio about them and shared how useful I found them. He indicated that he can’t get them anymore and that he hasn’t found any new ones he really likes. That sparked an idea.
Several years ago I had an idea to do a series of Taekwondo animations around my experience learning it. I didn’t get far because I got wrapped up in trying to create the scene and props and never got to creating the character and the animations. So, I got to thinking that I could sort of revive that project. Instead of a series of stories I could do all the poomsae in animation and use that to create a poster like what we had in class. And maybe even revisit some of the story ideas.
It has been a long time since I animated a character in the computer. And the last time I did that it was in 3DS Max and now I’m using Blender. Which means, I get to learn how to do this all over again, in a different application. That’s the first step. I need to learn how to model a character for animating and learn to rig it and then animate it.
I’m starting with a course through Udemy. I’m expecting that at the very least it will get me back into working in Blender. It takes you through modeling a few characters and animating them. The first one is a really simple character with no need for a rig. I’ve just finished it. And I learned two new things. I learned how to create a walk cycle and how to create and use shape keys.
The walk cycle was really cool to learn. It turned out to be adding an item to the animation graph for each of the legs and then checking a box. And then the little character just walks and walks and walks. I have always understood that there had to be a simple way to make a walk cycle but I didn’t know how to do it. I only knew to animate step by step. This is a big deal for me. It opens up a lot of options for things. And has me thinking about revisiting some things I did in the past and trying them again. Though apparently, the method used for cycling the walk in Blender doesn’t take kindly to being interrupted and breaks if you try to do something different in the middle of it, or just after it is meant to stop.
The shape keys are really important for several things. The uses that come to mind at the moment are the squash and stretch deformations that are used for say bouncing balls and soft or semi-soft objects impacting other objects as well as for talking. Shape keys have been used for making the mouth shapes for the different sounds. So think about how your face and lips change shape when you say something like “oh” versus when you say something like “see” or “fine”. The shape keys we setup were fairly basic, just the squash stretch type for the ball. Still, it’s a start at understanding how to create them and how to use them.
I’m excited about the Blender course and about the Taekwondo project. I’m looking forward to seeing the results of the project. I am expecting this to be my primary focus for a couple of months, maybe longer. I’ve got a long way to go just to finish the course so you’re likely to be reading more about it and the characters for it. I’ll share some of the animations along the way.
Of course, there will be traditional art to share. I do have my sister’s projects to work on. They should be a good periodic break from the computer. And for those who like to follow the music stuff, there will be more of that to come. Though for the moment I have lightened my practice schedule. With the Taekwondo animation project, the painting project, and so many other things that I need to do fitting in in depth music practice on a regular basis is going to be challenging. I do still have the day job. At least, as my grandfather used to say, it will “keep me out of meanness”. With so much to work on I expect to have more to write about and post about. See you soon.