RAldridge Art

Animation, paintings, drawings, and other stuff I do.

[raldridge]

Been a while huh?

5 Years? Feels somehow longer. Where to begin?

I worked on “Dinotrux” and “Dinotrux Supercharged”. Moved on to “Dragons Rescue Riders”, then “44 Cats” for a couple seasons, then that “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” Disney+ special, which led to “Gen: Lock Season 2”, thus ending my run at Bardel Entertainment.

I left on my own terms. Just needed a change and the opportunity presented itself. Up until that point I had only worked at two studios, and one was just a part-time internship, so really just one full-time contract job. I wanted to see what other studios had to offer.

Thus began my short search for my next employer.

Started with ICON. The production I got assigned to just wasn’t really working for me, so I went to WildBrain next to work on Ninjago.

And WildBrain ended up being a much better fit for me, so that’s where I am now. The Studio at least. Can’t say what the production I’m currently working on there is just yet.

I do my best to keep my IMDB page up-to-date, so you can always check it if you’re curious.

Richard Aldridge - IMDb

Richard Aldridge, Animation Department: gen:LOCK. Richard Aldridge is known for Gen: Lock (2018), Dinotrux (2015) and Ninjago (2019).

Made a fair bit of art here and there. I should probably post some of it here. Likely will, I just need time to organize it all and prioritize which ones I want to share.

If you’re anxious to see it all now, you can look at my instagram page. That was my primary place for sharing art up until now.

http://instagram.com/raldridgea

So why am I suddenly back here? Easy. Twitter’s apparently dying. Maybe it’ll recover. Maybe it won’t. Maybe another service will take its place. Who knows? Figured I may as well get back into posting here in the meantime. This could be a one-off, but it might not be. We’ll see.

If you’ve been following me on twitter, you may have liked my super basic movie recommendation posts. If so, you can follow my Letterboxd account here:

Richard Aldridge’s profile

Richard uses Letterboxd to share film reviews and lists. 2,180 films watched. Favorites: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Catch Me If You Can (200

I think that about sums it up for now. Hope this post wasn’t too long. Hope you all are having a nice day.

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Still alive

Hey guys, sorry I haven't made a post in months. Turns out my full-time job has really been full-time, so I haven't really had the creative energy to pursue any additional artistic endeavors outside of work. In case I never announced it officially, I'm working on the show "Dinotrux" which you can catch on Netflix if you'd like. So far only one episode I've worked on that's been released so far is Season 3 episode 16 "Magnet Mountain", which was a heck of a note to start on. Anyway, I really don't know when I'll be back to doing side projects on a regular basis, so I apologize for that. It will be at least a few more months, maybe even longer. I basically just need to figure out a balance between work and personal projects, and I figure that will come with experience. So I feel like a broken record saying this once again, but thanks for sticking with me. Hopefully before the year is out I'll find balance and get some personal projects going.

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Aaaaand now I'm in Canada

Well, things just took a major turn for the better! I got a new (and very awesome) job working for Bardel Entertainment in Kelowna, BC!! Now this means two things: 1. I'm going to be super busy for about a month at least, as I figure out how Canada works, and find myself a place to live. 2. I may or may not draw an Ogopogo at some point. Once again, thanks for sticking with me! Hopefully this move will strengthen me as an artist even further.

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Life in transition

Hey guys,

So long story short, I’ve been going through a lot for a while now, and it’s really been a struggle to get extra art things done. I had to move across the state about 6 months ago, and now I’m about to have to move across the country (or even into a new one) in a few weeks. Once I’ve moved, I may not have access to a computer (or internet) for a while, but I honestly don’t know right now (trying to figure out if it’s easier to ship a computer, or just sell it and buy a better one a few months later).

Anyway, that’s why everything has been so inconsistent for so long. My daily schedule has drastically changed many times over the past year and a half, due to moving, internships, freelance opportunities, family moving in an out of my apartment (with their pets), and other things as well, so I’ve been struggling to adapt. Hopefully my life will settle down soon so I can get myself on a consistent schedule. There are so many projects that I want to do, but I feel like I need to do more study projects first before I go back to fanart and original content. Not because I’m not capable of doing them yet, but because I’ve noticed that my work has been consistently getting better after most of my study projects.

So thanks for bearing with me and my long stretches of silence! My life is all sorts of scrambled right now, but I’m sure things will be settled by the end of the year at the very least (ideally, in a few months). Hopefully by then I’ll be able to get myself into a proper schedule and start making things at a more consistent rate. Thanks again for sticking with me!

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Here’s a timelapse of it.

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Another practice painting. This one took about 4 Hours. (Referenced photo: http://nature-planet.tumblr.com/image/76859664599)

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3 1/2 hour paint study from a photo I found on Pinterest (Source image: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/44/7a/01/447a01cfc47db0b557366ac0f9e13a07.jpg).

I also recorded the whole session, so here's that:

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Fan Art February Day 7 (and 8): Batman and Inside Out. Sunday I spent most of the day driving, so I had to take the day off and try to do two on Monday. Once I knew what Monday’s subject was going to be I realized that combining both into one fan art would be MUCH more interesting than two separate ones. So this is what I came up with. I'm probably going to come back to this in March and add a little more space to the right to balance it out.

Batman will always be my favorite super hero because of his detective skills. Pretty much all of his best stories involve a mystery of some sort, and I do love a good mystery. His ninja skills are a plus as well.

Inside out knocked me on my bum the first time I saw it, and it continues to stab me in the feels each time I watch it again. Such an amazing film.

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Fan Art February day 6: Viewtiful Joe. I REALLY wanted to color this one, but wow it took me a while to get even this far (also it's 3am, so I REALLY need to sleep). Hopefully one day I'll have time to revisit it, and finish it off. Viewtiful Joe was one of my favorite games growing up. It's still super-fun now! I hope they make an HD version one day.

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Fan Art February Day 5: Bowser. Goodness sakes this one was a struggle. I should have thumbnailed this one a bit longer before I committed. I dove in too quick, and ended up not knowing where to go with it. Anyway, enough whining. Bowser has always been a favorite of mine since as long as I can remember. Couldn’t tell you why if you asked. Just always thought he was a fun design.

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Fan Art February Day 4: Kung Fu Panda . Since the topic I chose for the day had a movie in theaters currently, I took the liberty of watching it before starting my drawing. Long story short, I only had an hour afterwards to come up with something and draw it before I needed to sleep. Kai is kinda tough to draw, but Po was a lot of fun.

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Fan Art February Day 3: Kirby and King DeDeDe.

I was actually planning on doing these two characters separately, but I decided against doing so right when my pencil hit the paper. It's interesting to think that I've always liked these characters, and it feels like they've been around forever, yet I've never actually ever finished a Kirby game before. I don't even think I've seen Dedede outside of Smash Bros!

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Fan art February Day 2: Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors. So, yeah. I didn’t have the time or energy to paint or shade this one today. I may do it later if I get the opportunity (I really hope I do). Yesterday’s piece took me most of the day to finish, and while it was absolutely worth it, I don’t think I have the energy to put that much time into every drawing I do this month. Had a lot of fun with this one though. Little Shop of Horrors is such a fun movie. The cast is perfect, and the puppet work is phenomenal! If you like musical parables with giant man-eating plants, then you have to check it out.

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I recently learned the value of creating fanart, so I'm challenging myself to make one every day this month. King kong has always been a favorite subject of mine since it includes most of my favorite things. Dinosaurs? Check! Gorillas? Check! Dinosaurs fighting a giant gorilla? Yes sir!

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In an attempt to diversify my portfolio, and also pick up some new techniques and workflows, I’ve been spending the past few weeks (about 2-4 hours a day) trying to figure out how to model and 3D print a neat little sculpture for myself from scratch (and also learn zbrush, as I had not done much with it before this). While I actually managed to make this thing 3D printable, the cost to have it 3D printed from Shapeways is FAR beyond my budget (I figured it probably would need to be at least 5 inches cubed to retain sufficient detail, which is about $450 to print on Shapeways with the cheapest material. Even after hollowing it out a bit), so I guess I’ll just have to be satisfied with the 3D print-ready status and move on (until I can get my own 3D printer of course). It was a very educational experiment, and I feel far more comfortable with zbrush now than I have ever been. I just wish it had a satisfying ending. I’m not going to pretend that the printing part was the only problem here. Far from it. The belly button completely died when I posed him out, which didn’t help (seems every time I try to fix it, it gets worse), and of course, there are a lot of little errors throughout (seriously though, I hate how bad the belly looks because of that stupid belly button). The overall pose as well has consistently looked worse to me every day since I, well, posed him that way. Don’t even get me started with the overall composition, and the set design. I could start the pose from scratch (as I still have the T-Pose) and put him on a better set, but I’m just plain ready to move on. I chose one of my more boring designs to test all this stuff out on, and I’m ready to put my all into something more advanced. I don't usually give up on projects, but this is clearly starting to take more time than it's worth. Maybe later I will finish it, but we'll see. I got some much more important projects to start. In short: Fun experiment. Ran into problems. Learning from them. Moving on.

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On the brink of my artistic career

Hey guys! A lot of exciting things that I can’t share right now are in the works, so until they run their course, I’m going to have to take a break from blogging. I know that things have been sparse as it is, but hopefully I will have time to work on side projects again once the ball gets rolling. Thanks for sticking with me, and I hope I can return shortly!

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My good friend Kat made this awesome Wendell sculpt for my birthday!