Back to school

Today was my last day at Rovio. But I'll be back. Soon!

Have a digital sketch for a change. It's an owl by the way.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Since I am too lazy to draw a card, I'll share this with you all:

Best combination ever!

Happy Holidays everybody!

Working at Rovio

 Wow, two posts on the same day. Who knew?

Once again I am talking about Angry Birds. Official stuff this time.

Like I said before, I started an internship at Rovio Entertainment on November. I really enjoy working there and I have learned so many things! It took some time for me to adapt the style and learn how things are done there, but I think I am finally getting the hang of it. This wouldn't have been possible without wonderful co-workers!

Not so long time ago we finished a commercial where the Angry Birds advertise Samsung's new phone, Samsung Galaxy Note. This wasn't my first Angry Birds project (my first AB project was the Ham'o'Ween short where I did a draft storyboard) but it was my first time working on AB project with other people at Rovio.

The commercial goes very fast (it's only 15 seconds long) so you might not be able to notice everything on first view.

I inked and painted digitally the backgrounds for this commercial. Layout and colour keys were done by insanely talented Jean Michel Boesch. I also drew the christmas hats and made lineart for the phones. The phones were beautifully coloured by Veronica. Oh, and I also made storyboards for this.

And just to let you know: I am not allowed to publish backgrounds, storyboards or anything "behind the scenes" related stuff of Angry Birds or anything that I do at Rovio. I can only show here the finished product that has already put on Youtube and some fanart.

A break at work

Everytime when I have nothing to do at work (which is very, very rare!), I try to sketch something on my sketchbook. I haven't been able to draw animals for a long time so the sketches are a bit rusty. Most of them are missing life and dynamic poses. I'll work on that next year.

Explanation for the last picture: If you flip the giraffe's face, you will notice that the face looks kinda undeformed. The drawing should always look "right" when you flip it. It's a good way to notice mistakes and try to balance the drawing.

It's refreshing but also strange to see how open the artists are at my workplace. They are curious and more than happy to show their own paintings and sketches. I'm still very shy when it comes showing my sketches to my co-workers. They are so talented that my drawings are nothing compared to theirs. The lineart, the colours, the use of enviroment in their art.. I can't compete with that.

Maybe one day I will be as good as they are. One day..

A gift

One of my friends is a huge fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Since we see so rarely I decided to make something My Little Pony-related for her as a gift. Her favorite pony is Rainbow Dash so it was obvious to make a "card" of that character.

This card is actually very old. It was made on August, if I remember right. I'm very aware that the character doesn't really look exactly like Rainbow Dash but back then when I made this I wasn't so familiar with that show or the characters. Now I would probably make a better one but I think this looks nice enough.

And some shots without a frame..

 And of course without a background.

Friends

Old sketch, again. From 2009 if I remember correctly. A drawing of my dog sleeping next to a giant stuffed toy.

Wow, this is odd. I have been so busy with the work that I haven't managed to draw anything on my sketchbook. HMM. How did this happen?

But luckily there's still some drawings in my archive that I haven't uploaded here!

A lioness' head. This was done to waste some time. How creative, indeed.

I also found tiny mood sketches done with green ink. I made these while watching Disney's The Beauty And The Beast documentary on DVD.

Sorry. Nothing else this time.

Bird attack!

Alright! I'm going for internship to Rovio for two months. I will be doing awesome stuff, like storyboards and graphic design. This is great! GREAT I tell you!

To celebrate this I will now upload plenty of artwork! Of birds!

Red listens some awesome music. What ever it is, I want to listen it too.

Oh, and I should mention that I found out few days ago that there's an official Angry Birds picture that resembles this pic. And it is this. Now I feel silly.

A hawfinch!

In my head this character is a female but everytime when I colour this character the colours resemble more male's colouring. I have to stop being lazy and just find some photos of female hawfinches for reference.

I'm not so into drawing lineless art but I have to admit that sometimes it is quite fun.

A badass crested tit! Or an evil, emotionally confused, wrongly accused, and attention seeking crested tit... who looks badass.

This is what happens if you combine a giraffe and a hummingbird. It's cute, unnecessary and it doesn't make any sense.

And because this weird creature is so adorable you can have him as a wallpaper for your desktop! Neat, huh?

Download fullsize wallpaper from DA!

That's all folks!

DOG

I have been so incredibly busy that it's not even funny. That's right.

Have a puppy.

New layout, kinda

 I have been trying to get a new layout for my blog. I'm still trying to get everything to work out so what you see right now isn't the final layout. So don't panic!

 Since this IS giraffe sketches blog, I have to upload some giraffes! From 2010!

Donald Duck covers

Some Disney stuff this time!

Last summer I was seeking a job as a Donald Duck comic's cover artist. Never got the job but it was an interesting thing to try out. I learned a lot while making these covers and I even know what to do differently next time.

Most of the poses that you see in the covers look very stiff because I was trying too hard following character's model sheets (I tried to borrow the best parts of 40's and modern Donalds features) than planning poses. Creating the right pose is very important in comics and animation. A great pose tells a story and something special about the character. If you don't plan the pose carefully your character feels empty and the picture looks boring.

When you are drawing a character for the first time you easily ingnore the pose and just try to draw the character on-model. This is understandable because you are learning to draw the character correctly. But when you finally get the grip of that you shouldn't stop drawing. You have to go to the next level which is drawing the character in right poses. Some characters can't be drawn in certain ways because it looks odd or just feels unnatural. In order to draw the character in right poses you really have to know everything about the character. You have to know his/her personality, past, how he/she deals tough situations, why he/she walks in that certain way etc. When you really start to understand the character and you have learned to draw the character perfectly, you are able to draw the perfect pose.

Okay, enough with this artsy nonsense. Let's check the covers!


Cover 1

I wanted Donald to do a "tai chi" pose with a sword but I couldn't find anywhere a good reference for that. It's a shame because that pose would have been so dynamic and it suits well Donald's personality. I ended up drawing this weird.. well.. I don't even know what Donald is trying to do in this cover. Is he preparing to fight someone? Trying to keep his balance? I don't know. You tell me.


I would honestly read a comic where Donald wanders around carrying a katana and fights mean people. Really.

Cover 2

The original idea was that Donald is going to watch a movie called "Kung Fu Duck 4" and is dressed as the hero in the film. The idea of Donald actually going to watch a campy kung fu movie was believable and funny, but not enough for me. I wanted to put some sort of Disney in-joke in it. So, instead of going to watch kung fu, Donald goes to see a Darkwing Duck movie (I like to think that it is as dark and as long as The Dark Knight movie)!

Donald looks quite good in Darkwing Duck costume. :)

Cover 3

My favorite villain? Flintheart Glomgold. My favorite story? Everything that has Scrooge and Flintheart. 

This was tricky one because I wanted to do a cover that highlights the story's biggest conflict. And what could be the biggest conflict than making Scrooge choose between his first dime and his nephews?

About the cane that Flintheart is holding.. I don't really know is it his or Scrooge's. The colour matches Scrooge's cane but I have no idea why Flintheart would have his cane. Well, he IS evil, so maybe he has stole it or something.

At least the paper looks old

Since I have an insanely huge sketchbook (height 42cm and width 30cm) I can't scan my drawings. I have to take photos of them and of course that means that quality won't be as good as I want it to be.

As a drawing the lion doesn't look like a lion, but.. for some reason I still like it. What the-

Last year I drew lots of giraffes. I think my new obsession is drawing owls.

 A... a bearded baboon with.. umm.. Your guess is as good as mine.

This is a proof that the best drawings happen when you don't fully concentrate or try too hard. Which also means that you end up drawing pretty weird looking stuff.

In English: "Adrenalin actually enlarges pupils so, in theory, the birds should look like this. Super-cute."

Smile in the Jungle

I really have to stop making these!

AB:TMC part 2

Yes.. YEEEEESSS!

Too bad the youtube ruins the quality when the pig's "propaganda video" starts. Below is a screenshot what it was supposed to look like. 

Here's also some concept art that was made for the second episode.

"So, this parrot goes to a bar... with a lion.."

I think I'm slowly getting better at these.

I still haven't found a style that pleases me. The parrot is too complicated and the lion has way too much similarities with Brittney Lee's artwork (she's amazing, I''m telling you!). Let's see what I can do next time.

 And some close-ups..

Animatic

I don't have much time so I'll just write as quickly as possible. Sorry!

I uploaded an animatic on vimeo. You can watch it HERE.

Here's a little background info for this video:

A week ago I was going to a job interview at Finnish animation studio. I cant give you any specific details right now but I was looking for a job as a storyboard artist. Unfortunately, my portfolio didn't include any storyboards. So, I had to do one before the interview.

I really wanted to build a storyboard around a dialogue that had been already recorded. I chose a dialogue from a movie called The Unbreakable (2000, © Touchstone Pictures). Bruce Willis does a great job delivering his lines and somehow manages to be calm, sad and slightly angry at the same time.

In two days I managed to create this animatic. I could have done it faster but I really wanted to capture all the emotion that was going on in that dialogue. And because the scene was very short I had also to think very carefully and make sure that every shot has a meaning.

So yes, I managed to finish it before the interview. How did the interview go? Well, actually I didn't have a right moment to show the video for my employer. So he didn't see it... yet.

Final thoughts:

I am quite pleased with the video. The only downside is the fourth picture. It sort of "breaks" the mood because it seems off.  I showed this animatic to my storyboard teacher and even she agreed with me that there's something odd about it.

If it looks so odd, why did I draw it in the first place? Well, I actually had an idea behind it until later I realised that it didn't work out so well. I'll try to explain what is the idea behind that picture.

In the close-up (3rd picture in the video) the old dog is telling a dark secret to the puppy. The secret is that two human children almost killed him. In this shot he is almost talking to himself to remind himself what happened to him.

In the fourth picture (the picture that I find problematic) the old dog rises his voice and now he is talking to the puppy. We are looking at him from puppy's perspective. That's why he see  the back of his head. He's also trying to avoid looking at the puppy because he is embarrased what happened to him.

And that's my explanation. Sort of.

If anyone has critique or something to say about the video, feel free to write!

Coloured paper

I noticed long time ago that I have large amount of multi coloured paper pads. I got them probably five years ago from my father but I never found any use for them. After staring at that pile for a while, I had to do something with them. And this is what I did:

 Incredibly simple work. Not my cup of tea but it was good enough for first try.

 I wanted to try something more detailed but ended doing this mess. The colours are insane because surprisingly there wasn't as many colours as I wanted.

I realised at this point how important is to plan all the layers when you are working with paper. The shadows give so much life so you better use them well. Next time I will be better!

And of course I had to do two business cards. Sizes are 9 cm x 4 cm if I remember correctly. However, the owl is made with markers.

It was fun to work on these but you seriously have to plan how you are going to build the card and also prepare to work all day.