Motion & Drawing training documentation.

27. Hyper Island alumni, trying to practice every day on art & drawing techniques. ...................................................... Otherwise a pretty seasoned musician and newb animator. Content updated randomly. ___________________________ soundcloud.com/arkineer youtube.com/senjan

[davidketikidis]

An orchestrated interperation of Carola Häggkvist's christmas song "Heaven in my Arms / Himlen i min famn" Original versions linked down below:

English version  - Swedish version

Swedish version:

[davidketikidis]

Prove Thy Courage - Adventure of the Lunarbolts Soundtrack (Volume 2)

I ment to post this a whole year ago: https://www.patreon.com/posts/lunarbolts-prove-15756428 Download: https://soundcloud.com/arkineer/prove-thy-courage-lun...

Extremely belated, but uploaded all the same! New lunarbolts music!

[davidketikidis]

Soldier Blade - Operation 4 Remix

AKA (Counter-Attack on Terrain Forces)

Another of many comissions for the Lunarbolts project. Some retro-rock action going on up in here this time! I hope you’ll like it!

Please check out the Wonder Boy 3 and the Metal Gear cover as well! <3 

[davidketikidis]

DELTARUNE - The Legend (Orchestral Cover)

For over six years, Toby has been eager to share this story. And for years, Toby has been hard at work to create this first chapter of DELTARUNE. His dedicat...

Toby has once more graced us with an amazing story. Thus, I wanted to contribute the way I do best. An orchestral cover of Ralsei’s story; The Legend.

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^ Hold it! Saw the “Listen” ? ^

The song is right above us, in that smol little bar! :D Clicky click!

Anyway,

May 17

Having been drawing so little lately feels really bad honestly, but I’ve been very occupied with important work for my portfolio this month! The name-change is a minor little adjustment, but the work around it was fun and engaging!

While this may seem like a temporary go-to animation for the name change, it’s actually a part of my coming showreel’s outro. I wanted something a little more playful than just mere text for contact info in the end sequence.

You may have seen this already, as it was shown in my latest uploaded youtube clip, starring the previous song of the soundtrack prio to this preview today! Be warned; magic and friendship in that direction!

If you want a safe version; have a soundcloud link!

https://soundcloud.com/arkineer/whatn-town-nation-lunarbolts

Anyway, as regards to the little preview you heard above, that’s the upcoming battle theme for the very same music project. We’ve taken a lot of inspiration from Sonny & Soul Calibur for this one, both having huge impact on my childhood and inspiration source (the Sonny will make more sense in the full version, don’t you worry!). I strive to have it done within the next couple of days! Until then!

[davidketikidis]

April 17

So this monthly post was supposed to present the latest song for the Adventure of the Lunarbolts Soundtrack, however it has not yet been approved by the main developer, so it’ll have to wait. 

So to pass the time, and to present something in its absense, I’ve been fiddling around with some potential logo design. I believe I will go with the name Arkineer (Arkade Engineer), which is an old alias I used for gaming that I kinda like, and it also isn’t Senjan XD so that’s a win for me lol.

So with Arcade and Engineering in mind (the latter being a bit off, but goes well with the former which is very close to the feel and style I like to play around with music-wise), I tried to think of elements of design that could fit. 

Plus what kind of font to work with. The font itself was merely supposed to be the reference for an illustrator trick that I found out a few years back.  By adding a sharp Bevel & Emboss onto a text-layer, I could then mask on-top of said Bevel & Emboss to create an interesting shadow. 

Said shadow worked very well for a stand-alone visualisation of the name letters, I noticed. It worked especially well for Senjan, which I demonstrated in my profile header for quite some time.

It was harder to make it as clear and fitting for the new Arkineer name, so I did play around a bit with extra visibility to back it up, and also just to practice on un-rustifying my skills in After Effects (which I should do way more frequently).

So, yeah. Here’s the result. This is somewhat what I want to make for my profile intro. I’m nowhere near done or fully satisfied, so I welcome any and all feedback & criticism. (Keep in mind it’s supposed to play way faster).

Other than that, this beauty right here should be available very soon, once (or IF) our project leader gives it the approval. Stay tuned on my SoundCloud or Youtube profile to be the first to hear it when it comes!

[davidketikidis]

March 17

This is beta-version of an animation project, which merely place-holder “effects” and sounds.  The base is more or less complete as it is, minus some glitches and graphical errors in and around the characters.

So I got this phenomenal idea when I was busy working with some music. Quite recently me and my online game-clanmates had a silly experience in-game when we tried to enter a dungeon, which blocked us out of the entrance. To pass the time instead, we decided to go all out Player vs Player (PvP), and my character won numerous duels in a row without failing, until one bittersweet end far into the gaming session. I thought it was a pretty fun night we had, and from out of nowhere, a huge craving to animate something for this idea came to be.  For this I used World of Warcraft’s model viewing tool, which allows me to load in any character I want, dress them anyway I want, in any pose I want. I change the background to green to serve as a greenscreen, chroma key out the character in After Effects, then tweak transition between multiple separatedly-recorded poses to tie together an actual animation sequence.

Here’s a visual demonstration of how it works and looks. Once I’ve fixed and put up the full VFX-version, I will also post a behind-the-scenes of the process.

Figured it’d be fun to share with the public to those who wishes to try it out.

[davidketikidis]

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February 17

Not overly pleased with the quantity of work done this month...  To my defense, amazing brother-visit from Australia came to us over a week, and the convention NärCon was just recently past.

That, and I may have spent more hours than I'd like to admit working on that song that you probably missed clicking on the top of this post? :0  (It's OK, I don't blame you if you did <3) Although I've been digging into more tips, tricks and tutorials among many aspects of drawing recently, one which I decided to focus more-so on than the others for now. And that's heads & muzzles, from various perspectives and how to perceive them. (Shoutout to Eqval for the fantastic breakdown!)

And I feel like practice (as little as it have been for now) has been giving fruit lately! Before I felt absolutely clueless. Now I've taken a step upwards and merely feel very, very, VERY confused. (YEAH PROGRESS, haha)

I'm an extremely slow drawer (and musician, actually). I need time to reflect and evaluate. As much as I wish, I haven't reached that point of "fuck-it adjustment" that I can just dive straight into a project and start drawing without any hesitation or hiccups (how do I draw this next face, arm, whatever). Oh well, only one way to reach that ideal, right? 

Also if- I mean, when I manage to finish that battle theme up above, I will animate the approriate frames and gestures for it, just like I did with Fields of Legend last month. (Yes, it’s another Lunarbolts theme!).

I got a lot on my plate these coming weeks, but I'll try my best. 

...Oh, and if you want to be the first to know the song mentioned is done, feel free to follow me on Soundcloud! Until then! :*

[davidketikidis]

January 17

Ohoo, what is this? A throwback to 2012?!

Well, yes, I mean no, well, sort of? :O

You probably don’t know this, but soon over five years ago, I started helping out with composing music for a silly little game project staring magical equines of magic and fun adventure times! 

And just like now I’ve always had a great passion for everything fantasy and for beasts & creatures of all shapes and forms. I was no stranger to any of this, and back in teenage days I was also pretty sharp with my music skills.

So one day this fancy blue horse dude with an orange mohawk was all like “Hey, wanna help compose music for this awesome game with awesome unicorns in awesome adventures?!” and I was like “how can I say NEIGH to that?! HAHAHA- “ So I decided to volunteer for the team ,and what do you know?! MAGIC SPROUTED EVERYWHERE and HOLY shit I somehow assumed the form of an ungulate being equal to those I were assigned to orchestrate for and now we’re all horsing around together and hot damn this was  actually a very fun project to compose for.

The collaboration lasted up until some time in 2014, then it died out from inactivity. Unfortunate, but the adventure dulled out after slow progress and lack of interest from both parts.

But hey, guess what?

I was contacted again recently!

The guy actually contacted me again during christmas, and I was honestly quite happy to return back to the project! Making music for adventures is something I’ve started to miss after a long hiatus. Aaaand, you know, for the heck of it, I decided to play along 100%.

I thought it’d be a fun nostalgic throwback to re-introduce the persona (horsona?) from before and use it again to present the new song.

I’ve been comissioned to make about 10 more songs for the game and overall soundtrack, so I thought it could be fun to have a character talk about the future plans, ideas, and thoughts behind the game and upcoming songs.

Think of it as “author’s notes”.

It was hard, but very fun to play around with animations of this simpler caliber. I managed to create a base template that I can expand on for future songs, and play around with more various and complex emotions.

Not only would that grant more skill in art and animation, but I feel like it could give more character and emotion behind the music, perhaps?

Eh idk, I just love cartoony things and want to embrace it, lol.

I imagine my horse persona from back then is about as old as I am now (and old, as in; no longer a teenager), so I decided to play around with that thought.

...And as you likely know by now, I’m a huge fan of the ace attourney series, and wanted to start of a bit easy and animate simpler movements for my character. Just so that I have something to build up on in future videos.

VIDEO RESULT & SONG HERE:

So that’s it for now! More music and template art coming up next! Hope you’ll stick around to see the future content! :D Until next time!

Toodles! <3

[davidketikidis]

November 16

Sup. 

I’m back. I’m not programming anymore. Just working. And developing my portfolio and skills therewith. I feel like I couldn’t concentrate on more than one thing at a time this year. Trying to understand programming, which by the way was a freaking atrocity (being the unlogical and terrible moron that I am) just murdered any and all art motivation. I just wanted to focus on getting my programming done, yet even after a lot of effort, it felt like it barely payed off. Not even a little... So I quit. And that might probably be one of my greatest, most mindful decisions ever.

I’ve had a pretty busy and entertaining month, with a mountain of new inspiration and energy to discipline myself into a daily routine. I’ve haven’t had this sort of energy and joy since I first experienced music 5 years ago.  A whole new fire and passion has bloomed up. I can’t controll it, and I’m amazed by it! I didn’t manage to art as much as I expected of myself though, even though this is probably a huge record thus far. But I will try and expand more as each month goes on, and my competence with anatomy and procedure gives fruit. Also, I’m crazy fascinated with anthropomorphism (or as some like to call it; furry). It’s without a doubt a style that I’ve had crazy fun with and will play around with for a long time to come. I feel like I’ve finally unleashed my inner child that has longed so eagerly to draw like crazy and fulfill all those ridiculous, amazing ideas and characters that I’ve for so long held hidden only within my own imagination. Letting go and just allowing myself to be absolute nerd trash is the greatest feeling I’ve felt in a long time.

I hope you don’t find too much distaste in this kind of style, cause I’m loving it thoroughly. And you will see me draw more of it. Lots of it. Cheers and shoutouts to Rick Griffin, Rhari, Silverdeni, Justautumn / orig14, my fantastic friends Jigget, Nissefrasse and many, many others for tons of inspiration and teachings shared throughout your work and various guides. A lot of my practice doodles here are heavily influenced by your skill and tips.

[davidketikidis]

Week 15

Yay, fifteen weeks through!  Thanks again for the idea & encouragement, Maxwell! <3

That said, though, I will have to take the next (possibly two) weeks off. Another upcoming exam, and moving out to another apartment this Easter. Until next time, have a eggcellent holiday! 

[davidketikidis]

Week 14

Time to take it up a notch. I’m usually not drawing enough weekly. This felt satisfying! No tracing, merely observing and trying to co-op with the hand. References: First, Second & Third. The Nidoran Family

[davidketikidis]

Week 13

More “Drawing what you see” practice. My art-partner Filip suggested a few pictures for me to observe and sketch, and so I did. Tried not to stay too long on the drawings, so I documented the time devoted on each one.  ...Except that I forgot to with the bottom one. That’s the only digitally sketched one compared to the others. It feels much more satisfying and managable to shape and shade with pen&paper compared to digitally. 

Perhaps I just need to practice with some new proper brushes set for shading? (Having a hard time with the default ones, that’s for sure).

So yeah, there’s that. Nothing more to it. Just gotta grind.

[davidketikidis]

Week 12

Continuing on the strategy Filip and I discussed last week. We turned on a game of baseball online, found ourselves a pose, then paused and worked a maximum of 30 seconds on it before moving on. We did this for about two hours. These are just a few of many, many various attempts. I decided to later on take this up further on by playing around with line of action and more dramatic poses.  Again, no more than 30 seconds, sometimes less than that. I gotta be better at drawing what I see, and more efficient.

I wanted to show progress on a 3D tutorial project I’m practicing on, but preparations for a relocation occupied most of the week. I’ll try and have more of that shown next week, but on Friday I’ll have another exam. We’ll see how things goes.

[davidketikidis]

Week 11

Had to take a break last week due to an upcoming programming exam that I had two days ago. The amount of practice I had to put into (hopefully) passing it was overwhelming.

The absence in drawing shows because of this, and it ain’t too pretty or to be proud of. I still want to get those anatomic proportions under control first and foremost. It feels like unless those are more familiarized with, playing around with more lively expressions will be impossible without breaking every anatomic rule lol. Gotta find more time to draw what can be seen in the surrounding. Hopefully I’ll have more than two hours by the week-end to work with next week… 

I like the idea that Filip had, however. to use no more than 80 seconds to observe and draw what one sees, to prevent over-concentration on details and more on the entity. I remember how we used to practice in a similar fashion many years ago at highschool. 

I Will try and work with that more often. Thanks Filip.

[davidketikidis]

Week 10

Been REALLY busy with school and preparations for the convention next week, so this week is another slim one unfortunately.

Although I did get some time off to attempt to study closer the proportions of the human body, and the famous line of action. 

Starting off rough & quick, to gradually put in more details as I went (up to the point that I literally slothed my way through details beyond my comprehension)... it’s hard! That f**king pelvis... 

Luckily I have a very good friend who’s helping me out with a lot of tips & tricks when it comes to drawing and motion in general. I’d recommend checking him out, he’s a neato 2D artist who also strives to improve. Too bad it’s a bit difficult to work together on drawing through distance communication, plus the fact that I’m a complete doofus and a slow learner. Babysteps, fellows. Babysteps. (Worth noting that this assignment was based on Andrew Loomis’ “Figure Drawing For All It’s worth, containing a whole lot of good practice and examples for proportions. Check it out here).

[davidketikidis]

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Week 9

...is secret!

Sorry. In a few weeks I can announce what this is. For now, enjoy this little preview.

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..

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....what, you’re not happy with this? You want something animated, too? ...Oh alright, here have this.

I made this while I waited for the renders... (OK not really I tried to make something very cool but failed).