LENKALAMARI

Joel Cheetham / Lenkalamari Head of creative development @ Studio Yotta.

[lenkalamari]

Composed this after playing Mania (which is a fucking incredible game). It has a lot of callbacks to other songs from throughout Sonic’s history.

[lenkalamari]

Hey there! Love your artwork so much! What would you recommend to learn/improve in drawing anatomy? Is there a book you recommend or just looking at references? Thanks!

I recommend two books to beginners regarding anatomy/life drawing: “Drawing Manual” by Glen Vilppu and “Figure Drawing: Design and Invention” by Michael Hampton. I especially like Vilppu’s book, as it has a linear structure to it and starts off with extremely simple exercises, making it easy to work your way through chapter-by-chapter.

Both of these books will basically give you the knowledge required to simplify/exaggerate different parts of the body (not just in regards to anatomy but also proportion). As for references, they’re also vital - balancing observational drawing with the stuff you learn from these books will transform your drawing skills (and way of thinking) within a matter of weeks.

-Joel

[lenkalamari]

king of the koopas.

[lenkalamari]

really really nice animatic! what program was it made in? storyboard pro? photoshop?

Photoshop, although Storyboard Pro sounds like it’s worth a shot!

[lenkalamari]

Cuz I promised. 

[lenkalamari]

Yotta’s been hard at work on this project for around a year now, and we’re going to be wrapping it up in the next month or so. It’s a pilot episode for a comedy called Obituary (written by Michael and Zachary Barryte) - I storyboarded the entire thing last summer, and I’m also the background artist! Many of the starbomb animators and cleanup artists are also on-board.

Once the project’s a bit more complete I’ll show off even more, but this’ll do for now.

-Joel

[lenkalamari]

HERO OF RHYME, the latest video by myself and the rest of Studio Yotta, is OUT!! Here’s some model sheets and sketches to tide you over until I post the storyboards. Enjoy

-Joel C

[lenkalamari]

Hey, I just had a quick question. I love the storyboards for the Smash video. What kind or type of brush did you use for them? I would notice some notes would pop up saying like "Size 3 @300%" so I was very curious since I would like to work on Storyboarding also

the brush used for the roughs is usually any old photoshop brush, like the watercolour one with opacity adjusted to be affected by pen pressure. it gives a really cool 'traditional' feel as if you're working with actual tools instead of a computer.

as for the hard lines (known as 'layouts'), they're all done with Flash's brush tool - with Flash, the size of the brush doesn't 'scale' depending on how far you're zoomed in (which is a bit weird - your drawing gets bigger but the brush doesn't).

for example if you're zoomed in at 400%, the actual brush on screen remains the same size as it would at 100%. essentially you're using your zooming to calculate lineart thickness, it takes a while but you'll get used to it. 

zooming in allows for more accuracy and generally smoother looking lineart, so that's why I do it. one more thing, Flash's brush also has a 'smoothing' setting - i keep Flash's smoothing @ 50 but i know some people who prefer it at around 20-30.

hope that helps

-joel

[lenkalamari]

hey joel I was wondering what does it take to be a storyboard artist at yotta? I have never really storyboarded a big project like you have but I have made a couple of animations and have made storyboards on my own.. I would also like to know what program you use to make the storyboards for the animated video smash? Thank you for your time.

thanks for your question dude, i'd say the biggest requirement for storyboarding is versatility as well as a good eye for composition and perspective. a good exercise is to pause a film at random intervals and sketch out different shots as fast as you can, it'll really train your sequential art skills

as for the program, the rough storyboard drawings are done in photoshop whilst the cleaned up lines (layouts) are done in Flash (CS6 for both)

[lenkalamari]

MERRY XMAS! Here's my gift to you lot: The full storyboards/layouts for Smash. You can see some of the ideas we ended up dropping, as well as shots that ended up getting much better throughout production.

[lenkalamari]

Let me tell you right now that I love you for such good work on the animations, also, the design for The Announcer is gold and I love him so much. Thanks for doing such a cool work, you and your team. <3

glad you dig the announcer! he was designed in a hurry so i could move on with storyboards, so it's cool to see he went down well with the audience.

[lenkalamari]

Hey, I love your art and would totally fuck the shit out of you in real life if I knew you. ANYWAY... Would you recommend schooling for someone to draw, even if they suck? Also how did you learn to draw (schooling, self taught, head trauma, etc).

thanks. i'd recommend schooling if you like learning via a strict education system - otherwise i know plenty of professionals who are self-taught (in that case, you have to be your own teacher). i have seen some artists evolve from drawing horrid, misshapen abominations to making beautiful paintings within roughly 2 years - no school whatsoever. 

there are plenty of ways to learn how to draw - but whatever path you take, make sure it includes getting honest, constructive feedback. life drawing is also essential - in it simplest form it seems like it's just an exercise to train your observation, but in actuality it's training every aspect of drawing (perspective, form, gesture, value, etc)

i always enjoyed drawing from a young age, but it was mostly with the intention of keeping it as a hobby (wanting to go into graphic design or post-production, which was my job before joining Yotta). i started taking it much more seriously when i was roughly 22, studying mainly from glen vilppu's drawing manual (as well as other essential art books such as the ones by andrew loomis). 

hope that helps. it's never too late to learn (unless when you attempt to draw you end up jamming the pencil into your eye socket)

good luck!!

-joel

[lenkalamari]

Here's some of the pre-production art I did for Smash (concepts, character models and boards/layouts specifically).

The project was intense from the get-go - we were given roughly 7 weeks to make the entire thing from scratch and I'd just recovered from repetitive strain injury, so the stress levels were through the roof at times. I designed Markiplier's announcer character in 15 minutes, going for a mixture between the Dragon Ball Z announcer and Space Dandy.

As the director I knew I'd have to make sacrifices; I intentionally boarded some shots in a 'side-on' fashion to not only emulate the look of Smash Bros' actual gameplay, but also make sure we didn't have too many ambitious shots. We also had to ditch the idea of shading pretty early on, going for something more animation-driven than art driven (the opposite of the Zelda Rap, basically)

I can't thank Jake enough for assembling the crew and keeping production steady despite already dealing with about 10 billion other things, allowing me to focus entirely on the creative and technical side of the video. It was a huge pleasure to work on this, and it's all because of the team. We kept each other in high spirits, traded techniques, argued about whether Yoshi should be pink, and generally just had a really good time despite the demanding deadline.

Paul ter Voorde and Nico (better known as Twistedgrim) tanked through the major 'storytelling' shots and even helped out on layouts when I was being overwhelmed with other things to do on the project. Spencer and Max fucking knocked it out of the park with their action shots (Spencer especially was able to work with a ridiculously crude 'diagram' of Pika/Fox's fight scene and turn it into gold). Javier, Temmie, Brandon and Chris all turned in great work as well, interpreting the boards perfectly and keeping the energy of the cartoon going. 

And of course I have to thank the cleanup crew as well for lifting the weight from our collective shoulders and following my layouts so well. Audrey, Everett, Aileen, Cal, Nathan, Sandra: no matter how small or large your contribution to cleanup was, it's the reason the cartoon got finished on time. Thanks so much.

Also, I'm glad people are picking up on the Jojo references. Polnareff is the best character, by the way. 

-Joel

[lenkalamari]

Visit Original Link

preview of an upcoming project of mine, which is composing songs and then doing paintings (all set in the same world) that suit the music. this one has a bit of a studio ghibli/zelda vibe. 

they'll be getting released in the new year. 

[lenkalamari]

It's out.

pre-production art coming later this week!

[lenkalamari]

hey what brushes do you use cuz your drawings are choice

i usually use 'watercolour loaded wet flat tip' (a photoshop default) for most of the sketchy lookin stuff, usually with pressure affecting the brush's opacity (so its like a proper watercolour brush). otherwise i just experiment and use whatever

[lenkalamari]

misc recent stuff, mostly cooldown sketches. the yoshi's island/DK images were done for my friend case portman's music channel - go check him out he's great! there's also sonic and streets of rage illustrations i did for the channel that aren't in this post.

new 'proper' content is coming out over winter, so get ready