SUÁREZ

illustration and animation • integrative project process and development • Stamps A&D 2020

[othnieliarex]

my mother raised a wolf

16-page comic about guilt, responsibility, and the world ending. IP 2020. Print version available soon.

It’s comic time again - this time for your viewing pleasure in PDF form. The road through this project has been a bumpy one, but for a project that necessitated a lot of flexibility and reshaping, I’ve made my peace with the results.

Hope you enjoy!

[othnieliarex]

unfortunately covid19 has come calling, so semester plans are being jostled around as events are cancelled and whatnot. film progress continues, but i’ve packed in and moved all my stuff into my apartment to work (should be interesting).

i’m operating under the assumption that nothing has changed, deadline-wise. my cels will be completely painted by the end of today, leaving me time to figure out how to set up a good stop motion rig in a student apartment (i have hope!)

layouts are next - i hope to get these done within the week, and mock up frames as well. by next week i’ll be able to share more completed images!

[othnieliarex]

progress from break 😤😤😤

[othnieliarex]

programming update!

Spring break was this past week, and though it wasn’t much of a break for me, I’ve completed almost all of the inbetweens for the film (cue applause).

Upcoming I will be painting the cels, shooting, and beginning the stop motion efforts. I hope to have a full draft (with sound) completed by the 15th.

(Something unexpectedly helpful: Last week I streamed some of my process on Twitch while I tweened cels. It took a bit of setup, but ultimately I was quite productive and I liked putting my work on display like that. More to come?)

[othnieliarex]

programming notes 2.18

excitingly, I think I’ve accidentally become nocturnal. midterm critique is today at 8:30; I was meant to have a full animatic posted for saturday but unexpectedly I changed a large chunk of my dialogue and re-did some of the more complex cuts that weren’t hitting right, so it’s now down to the wire to have something uploaded for critique. (i’m already expecting disappointment because of the last-minute change, but frankly it’s all for the better as the new dialogue is much stronger.)

as for actual animation, 2 of the 6 cuts have been drawn on cels and are ready for painting (some need a bit of fine tuning but that’s all.) I haven’t yet gotten my final audio - still negotiating with voice actors - but the project is looking more and more like a checklist every day (a good thing!)

will probably hit back later with how crit shapes up. xoxo

[othnieliarex]

animation update!

3 out of 6 cuts have been roughly animated. projected completion for this sometime this week (aiming for tuesday). 

dubbing postponed a week to focus on refining animation.

plan on having an animatic draft by thursday.

[othnieliarex]

(mock exhibition review)

It’s April, and the Stamps 2020 IP Exhibition has just opened. The Michigan Theater showing of the animation and film thesis projects is stunning as ever, especially the animated short film, “My Mother Raised a Wolf to Replace Her (But I Grew Up to be an English Major).”

This film, meticulously marrying paint on glass with hand drawn animation, tells the story of a young woman struggling to fill the shoes of her mother, a devilish shapeshifting spirit. The short is a playful, yet thoughtful juxtaposition of the supernatural and the banal, and invites the viewer to think about the expectations and responsibilities placed upon a generation that is not well enough equipped to handle them. 

Audience members empathize with the mother and the daughter both, and in the artist’s studio exhibition, they are able to take a closer look into the process of the film’s creation and the roles the characters play. The exhibit, crammed with mini-comics, sketches, and piles of the drawn cels that created the film frame a modest screen that displays the final product, inviting audiences to engage with every part of the artistic process at once.

[othnieliarex]

winter break

so it’s been the requisite eons, and i suppose it’s time to consult with the ghosts of semesters past present and future to determine what it is i’m meant to be doing,

december review went better than expected, even though i was uncomfortably made aware of my tendency to Talk, Constantly, At Length, and how that verbosity spills over into my art - part of what i presented posed a question as to what degree i should purely write, and the answer that came back was “zero”. which i probably should have expected. i love to talk, and i love to tell stories, but the baggage of language is a bit too much for a design focused panel that likes a strict divide between art and creative writing, even though the two are intermixed to the point of being totally bland separately. writing is just another form of fine art that people refuse to recognize as such.

the length of this reflection post is critical design. lol

being forced to live with my thoughts for several hours with nothing else to do reveals an itching desire to return to crafting - sewing and sculpting and sticking things on other things.

i was advised to stick with one small narrative - the relationship between wolf mother and daughter - and continue to dissect it in various media, which i did get annoyed at initially (because i have nothing better to do than to construct complex untranslatable narratives native to my rich daydream world, and therefore get so bored, so easily) but perhaps the challenge this time is in sticking to one subject and beating the horse to life and death again, so to speak.

all this is basically to say i want to get back in the ceramics studio and make some prototypes for Yet Another Iteration of this narrative series (pending a better, or shorter name, but this one will have to do for now), my mother raised a wolf to take her place, but i grew up to become an english major

drawing experiments to come.

[othnieliarex]

Family Business

A 12 page mini comic about calling your mom.

It’s here! My mini that somehow only took a week from conception to printing - “Family Business.” It’s a 12-page, two-color, 4.25″x6.5″ booklet and I’m selling some copies for $15 (limited run).

It’s a tough phone call to make, telling your mom you’re doing another thing she doesn’t want you to do, but it’s gotta be made. When your mom is a demonic death omen, it gets a little harder.

[othnieliarex]

pulled together in about a week - assembly should be completed soon on this 12 page mini Family Business. ive never used the risograph before, so this was a really exciting experiment!

[othnieliarex]

moved all the stuff in my studio around again. futile attempt to get the gearbox back in order but it’s like that.

i’m currently playing around with the idea of creating a monster myth. last week i sketched out some ideas about a mother daughter conflict lodged in a mythic framework and while that specific one works nice i kind of want to expand in a few different directions with it. distinctly Not Helping that this has made a lot of my old explorations this semester obsolete 8)

cohens monster theory posits that the monster is a warning against doing the impossible (frankenstein’s monster as an aberration of science, for example) (he also says the monster is coveted, which i think is fun).

the uk and ireland have an abundance of fairy stories about black dogs, which aren’t always black, the story as a device to scare people away from certain areas you wouldnt want people lurking

[othnieliarex]

ink explorations 11.24

im taking the idea of the wolf mother and running with it in both hands

[othnieliarex]

here's a spread from my notebook this week, originally as a way of organizing my thoughts about the mother-daughter relationship I was planning to explore. I might open it up into a larger thing, I'm still a little on the fence about what it is I actually want to focus on

[othnieliarex]

Draft animatic for second canto, Jackdaw’s story. This went through several phases of edits since the original script.

[othnieliarex]

goals for this week:

x) get my hands on more craft supplies for prototyping  ) find smaller nuts and bolts for puppet joints  ) more thoroughly organize annotated bibliographies  ) revise second canto for clarity and direction  ) prototype jackdaw puppet (if time: marisol, winnie puppets)

[othnieliarex]

Here’s an example of some of the material work I’ve been doing for the Secretary character. I was originally thinking of crafting her by hand and using resin to cast her many torso segments, but I’m looking into modeling and 3D printing them instead.

(I might also cut up some Barbies because hey if I’m gonna be the bad kid from Toy Story might as well!)

[othnieliarex]

Update: I’ve been working on a script for the series of interviews that will serve as character studies in my project. Storyboards to come.

Under the cut is an excerpt from the character Jackdaw’s interview, describing an event that happened prior to their change in identity and habit of murdering clergymen.

INT. CHAPEL - NIGHT

It is entirely dark save for a scattering of flickering votive candles arranged on an altar. A teenage girl, ANUNCIACIÓN, sits next to it, hugging her knees to her chest. She has a black eye and tear-stained cheeks.

ANUNCIACIÓN Beneath your compassion I take refuge, Mary, mother of G-d, I beseech thee have mercy -

A door at the opposite end of the chapel creaks open, and the girl bites into her knuckle immediately, falling silent.

PRIEST Devil woman! I know you're in here.

We follow the silhouette of the PRIEST as he makes his way through the chapel.

Just a corner of Anunciación's skirt peeks out from the other side of the altar before it is quickly yanked back.

The priest stands in the center of the room for a minute, looking from side to side, seeing nothing. Anunciación holds her breath and does not move.

PRIEST (CONT'D) May the Lord have pity on you.

He casts a hard look around the room once more, turns, and exits. The girl exhales brokenly and resumes her prayer.

ANUNCIACIÓN - Have mercy, please, I don't know what to do.

JACKDAW (voiceover)

This is not a story that I like to tell. Perhaps I'm tired. Will all this be published?

MARISOL Not if you don't wan't it to be. We can skip this bit if you'd rather -

JACKDAW No, no, no point in that. It's been over a decade since my last confession, anyhow.

(Scene resumes.) Anunciación is helping several older women in habits to scrub down a kitchen. She straightens up, stretches her back out. She is, horrifyingly, four or five months pregnant.

JACKDAW (CONT'D) (uncharacteristically contemplative)

She was a little girl, but everyone called her a woman when it was convenient.

NUN Anunciación!

The nun notices she's stopped working. The girl startles, and picks up her rag again.

NUN (CONT'D) Idle hands do the devil's work, hija.

ANUNCIACIÓN Yes, Sister.

NUN If you've run yourself out of work to do here, go and help Sister Dolores outside.

ANUNCIACIÓN Yes, Sister.

She leaves quickly. Nothing about her lingers. The nun's expression softens and folds into worry.

JACKDAW I lied when they asked who the father was, of course. I don't know what might have happened if I'd named him. 

Anunciación brushes past the priest in the corridor. She does not look at him. He does not look at her.

INT. INTERVIEW SPACE - CONTINUOUS

MARISOL And you -

JACKDAW Miscarried, yes. A tragedy, but not unexpected.

INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT

CUT TO:

The same kitchen in candlelight. Anunciación is assembling a thick sludge from an assortment of plants (inc gladiolus, stinking iris, etc) and honey.

ANUNCIACIÓN (mumbling)

I petition thee Raphael, patron of the medical sciences; I petition thee Pantaleon, patron of the midwife and the physician-

She stirs the mixture, and it looks disgusting.

JACKDAW (voiceover)

I'd caught some terrible illness, nobody knows quite what. It was a miracle I didn't succumb to it as well.

ANUNCIACIÓN -And whichever of the Jameses handles pharmacy, I'd appreciate your help too, and whoever else is paying attention-

She steels herself and tips the concoction back.

JACKDAW They couldn't seem to decide whether it was the work of G-d or the Devil. It must have been both.