New Animation Tools = New Animation!

Ice Skating Test Animation from ryanloghry

Hi everyone! Merry Christmas! I've been saving up for almost a year now, and last week for my birthday/early Christmas present I got the rest of the funds needed to get the Production Premium Adobe package I've been needing for a few years. Adobe has finally added inverse kinematics, and what they are calling 3D options, and I'm am very excited about the special effects possible in After Effects(like the snow you see in this animation). So I sat down over the weekend and put this little loop together. I only had a couple of hours to devote to it, but I learned SO MUCH. My hope is to continue to add to this piece, to make it more interesting. Here is the original Christmas card from last year, so you can see the starting point for this animation:

I just had to share the fun and excitement I feel. Enjoy! (P.S. I set the animation up to loop, so don't wait for it to end, cause it won't.

An Animated Interview with Cyrus

I created this animation in the spring of this year. "An Animated Interview with Cyrus" was done as an audition for a job that I still might get. One of the hazards of working for a group of people is sometimes you have to be patient while they decide what to do.

I really cranked this one out in a short amount of time, 4 weeks. Sounds like a long time, but consider I'm one guy and had to do sound recording, character design, lip synch, character animation(all be it limited animation), backgrounds, editing, and... I guess that's all.

An Animated Interview With Cyrus from ryanloghry.

The sweet banjo riff was provided by my friend Alan Hayes. We recorded in his bathroom(no ticking clocks in that room). Thanks again Alan! Cyrus is voiced by Cyrus Patton a friend of mine from church. I asked him a series of questions and he was a real trooper. (I asked him after he got to see the finished piece and he said he thought it was cool to see himself as an alligator.) I edited out the replies I felt were best, and created my master audio track to animate to, and went to work.

I scanned my pencil drawings and colorized them in Photoshop, creating the finished pieces I needed to animate. I then animated in Photoshop, and exported Quicktime movies which I then pieced together in AVS Video Editor (Unfortunately Adobe video editing suite, and no, I'm not going to rent it for $50 a month via the cloud thank you, I don't rent my skill saw, or a hammer when I want to use those tools).

The entire project was inspired by Aardman Animation's "Creature Comforts", which I highly recommend you check out if you haven't seen it already. I was going for quaint, cute, adorable. I hope I achieved that, I hope you enjoy watching it.

Creepy Carrot

Meet Creepy Carrot. He was grown by a friend of mine, Luke. Luke plopped Creepy Carrot down on the table at the BBQ Friday night and issued a challenge to draw, draw like the wind. So several days later here is my rendition of Creepy Carrot, who is doing some sort of Rockettes like dance kick *shrug*... I dunno why. Press play on the video below to see the photo transform into the color sketch.

Creepy Carrot from ryanloghry.

God = Buoyancy

One of the things I learned while on the youth outreach trip to Friday Harbor last week was God = Buoyancy. And that the "u" comes BEFORE the "o" in buoyancy.

I've heard/read verses saying God is always with us before(Matthew 28:20; and Joshua 1:9), but the word picture that Steve Jensen painted really struck home. God isn't something I add on when things get tough, when I'm at the trough of a wave to keep me from being swamped and sinking. And my life is not one long crest because I'm a Christian. Nor is God simply there to get me from crest to crest. God like buoyancy is an integral aspect of my life. Always with me along the journey, always keeping me afloat.

As I listened to Steve's lesson on this topic I created the sketch that became the color illustration you see here. It would be fun to animate this into a looping cycle, but I'll never have that much spare time. I thought it would be a good way to start out a new series of sketch/posts though. When I'm listening to a sermon I sketch main points that stick in my head, it helps me retain the lesson past the Sunday I hear it. I plan to do a little clean up on the sketches and post them here. I hope you enjoy them.

Gospel & Grub

Gospel & Grub from ryanloghry on Vimeo.
I created this animated short to promote a dinner and gospel sing night at Hockinson Community Church, to raise money for one of the missionaries we (and Yacolt E-Free Church) support - Jill Wellman. Jill is taking a team on an outreach trip this summer (2013). The deadline was extremely short, I had a week start to finish. I'm not thrilled with the audio quality, but I did the best I could there with no sound studio or professional equipment. I used the ipad and Wave Pad software to capture the sound.

As for the animation itself I scanned my illustrations and animated in PhotoShop using layers and then exporting frames as QT movies. Then I edited each scene's qt movie together with the sound .wav file. After I knocked off all of the scenes I took each mixed (sound and video) qt movie and edited them together. Easy peasy. The voice over styling of Iris Wellman, myself, and Roy Loghry were used in the piece, and that is Alan Hayes on the banjo in the intro, and exit of the piece. A big thank you to them and my wife Angela for all their help.

The animation is choppy, more so than I usually do, but that is due to the time constraints. There is also very limited secondary motion (arms, legs and other appendages moving about to create the illusion of life), again due to a lack of time. Another big time saver was re-using a background image from a farm illustration used in my children's book The Searcher.

I hope you enjoy the piece, feel free to comment here and share the link. -- Ryan

Logo art never used

Food sketches from ryanloghry on Vimeo.

I created these sketches for a restaurant logo job that I didn't get. I don't do a lot of logos but this project was fun while it lasted. I hope you enjoy the sketches.

Animated Short: "It's Jesus Calling!"

I created this animation in the spring of 2012 for a youth group presentation at Hockinson Community Church. Had I more time I would give it all a pencil drawn look and feel (some parts of the backgrounds are airbrushed in PhotoShop to save time), and I would have more robust character animation. But with only one person and limited time on my hands this is what I could produce. Enjoy!

It's Jesus Calling! from ryanloghry on Vimeo.

The Searcher -- E-Book!

I am very pleased to announce that The Searcher, my first children's book is now available in e-book form. It is a multi-touch title, with very cool sound effects (some of them performed by yours truly!); loads of sketches from the illustrations in the book and ones that didn't make it into the book; and some animation as well. I hope this new format will reach many more readers, exposing them to my work and love of adventure! Click here, or on the image to go to the store and download the free sample. The Searcher is very affordable at $1.99. Please be sure to leave a review. Thank you, and ENJOY!!

January 2013 Oregon Business Magazine Feature Article Illustration

Howdy everyone. I hope your holidays were terrific. We were very busy, but we had a wonderful couple of months. Lots of old friends and family visits.

Before Thanksgiving I got a call from the art director at the Oregon Business Magazine asking me if I was interested in another job with them. Of course I said yes. This month's feature article is about the legislative issues that will be discussed at the capitol in Salem this year.

You can go and read the online article on the Oregon Business Magazine site.

Here is a video that shows many of the sketches, and also the final artwork I created for the project:

The Making of an illustration from ryanloghry.

Be sure to check out the page I built describing the job on my website, I created some really cool animated characters for it.

Click on this little guy to go to my website and see more!

Check back here soon for some EXCITING NEWS about my children's book The Searcher!