Sunday Sermon Series April 2, 2017

Howdy friends and neighbors! This week's drawing was inspired by a sermon by Pastor Shaun about seeing. Shaun's sermon was about what Jesus saw, specifically in Zaccheus (who was as we all know a wee little man, and a wee little man was he!).

This got me to thinking about how we as Christians see those around us. Do I see those in need around me? Do I share the hope that is Christ within me? Those were the questions I asked myself as I drew this.

I started with a scene I am familiar with, a bus commute. I spent 8 years riding buses and trains back and forth from Clark County to downtown Portland. Once the pencil drawing was completed and I had started on the colorization I realized I had dated myself. Not one of these commuters is looking at a smart phone. When I rode back and forth people read books, newspapers, some of the women knitted, I sketched. There were no smart phones. Make no mistake though, people were just as able and willing to turn the outside world off.

I thought about rendering the type in 14 different fonts, to make it more appealing to the Instagram crowd. But that's just not me. I kept the colors to a minimum, to help convey a glum feeling for the lost people on the bus. I purposely chose ugly colors for the bus seats, because I think it is fun to use those nauseating colors that were used everywhere in my youth. At my friend Matt's suggestion I colorized "Everyman's" hair so that it stands out from the blinders he wears. The pencil drawing is much "sketchier", or looser than my usual drawings posted here. This is not for effect but because I didn't have time to redraw any of it, so I just used my original sketch.

This pencil sketch was done with a Pentel .7mm P207 mechanical pencil in a Pentalic Sketchbook on 70lbs. paper. It was scanned and then colorized in PhotoShop. I hope you are encouraged by this post. God bless, and have a great day! --Ryan

April 28th Walk This Way...

Howdy friends. Today I give you three more characters strutting their stuff. We have Mort Felinestien, Hank Tembo, and Mrs. Topeka. I trimmed the sections that you have already seen, so that it doesn't get monotonous. As I have stated in previous posts the first section contains the rough pencil animation I have used as the basis for all the other walk cycles. When I drop these characters into scenes in the final animation I'll stagger their walk cycles. In English that means they won't all walk in unison in the final. ; )

As you can see to the left here, Mrs. Topeka doesn't have much up and down in her walk cycle. I tried to match the suggestion of girth/weight (no offense Mrs. Topeka!) that I had in Mr. Topeka's walk a few weeks back. I have a feeling that as they approach you on the sidewalk you can feel these two characters before you see them. The concrete would tremble.

Speaking of trembling concrete, Hank Tembo (Swahili for elephant, according to Google) is sporting a stylish plaid Irish cap (which can be purchased in the gift shop on your way out). His toy/gift bag originally had the name Finnegan's on it, but it was too hard to read so I took that out.

And then of course there is Mort Felinestien looking oh so sharp in a grey suit which matches his bowler, the band of which matches his tie and socks! Mort is carrying a rolled up newspaper, which he plans to attack and shred once he gets back to the office.

One again that's the Marine Corps belting out "Up In The Morning". It seems very fitting with all the exercising going on around here. It's also one of my favorite cadences, and one I loved to run and ride to back in the day.

Next time I will try and drop a city sidewalk scene scrolling by in the background for next time. Something that loops, like the old Flintstone's backgrounds did. Something simple though. I want it to be interesting, but I don't want it to detract from the main purpose which is just showing off the walk cycles.

Walking Characters from ryanloghry on Vimeo.

As I have stated before my work flow is pretty basic. I draw the characters in my sketchbook. I scan the drawings and "cut them out" in PhotoShop so I can move the pieces. Then I pose them on each frame of the walk cycle (still in PhotoShop). Then I render it out as a Quicktime movie. I use After Effects and Premiere to composite everything together. As always I hope you have enjoyed my drawings and this animation. Thank you for stopping by, God bless, and have a great day.

More Walk Cycles

Hello everyone! I've added two more animated characters to the mix this week. an alligator, and a buffalo. I also added some Miles Davis for them to walk to. Five points if you can name the song and album(that's what we called a collection of songs before cds came along, for all you kiddos out there).

More Walking Animals from ryanloghry on Vimeo.

Pitching Sequence Third Pass

So here is the last pencil test version of this animation. I've roughed out all the frames I need to create a compelling and convincing animation. It will take me a couple weeks at least to produce the 34 final drawings of the main character, and then I still have to put a little action in the crowd in the background.

I hope you've enjoyed reading about and watching this process, and the end result when I get it posted. Have fun and God bless. -- Ryan

Secondary Pass

As promised here is the second pass of the pitching sequence animation. With my schedule the way it is anymore it took me a few days.

When I was finally able to view what I have here I realized that his back leg lands right next to his front leg, and if he were really throwing a pitch the follow through would carry his back foot way out in front of his front foot. Also, I need to speed up the second half of his motion, to give his pitch some ZIP. SO... I'll need to re-animate the last few frames, and add some more. Then I can get back to the crowd in the background. Once I get that doped out I can start on the final drawings. Easy Peazy.

Pitching Sequence

Here is a pencil test for a new project I'm working on. I threw the background in to make it a bit more interesting for you the viewer. I'll do finished drawings for the pitcher next, maybe add a little more exaggeration, and then I'll draw the crowd a couple times over, to give them a little movement, not much but just enough so that they aren't frozen. That crowd part will probably be take the longest.

I'm going to add a few in between frames to this, but I like the flow of his pitching action, so I don't think I'll make any big changes.

This is a small part of a bigger project I'm working on, a children's book and animation. With digital books/apps being what they are these days I'm excited about adding little clips of animation that the reader/viewer can activate within the story. I'm hoping it will add to the experience.

Speaking of children's books, remember you can still get "The Little Leaf" (written by Jairo Penaranda Illustrated by yours truly) at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. If you have an iPad you can get an interactive version of my book "The Searcher" (written and illustrated by yours truly) via iBooks. As always thank you for stopping by, and have a terrific day.

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.

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

Wall Street Lemmings

Wall Street Lemmings have been wreaking havoc again. I had this idea a week or two ago, but didn't sketch it out. I have very little spare time anymore, but I made time to draw this one. They've (WSL) ruined the retirement plans of so many people. Personally, I'm never going to retire. I've known that for years. One of the fringe benefits of being an artist is you never make enough money to retire. 8 )

As for me, I'm going to concentrate on storing up treasures in heaven. Try and lighten up folks, it's only money. Enjoy your life.

Matman!!

Another one of my pals from work is mild mannered Zach. One day Zach was cleaning all the door mats. Being the terrific friend that I am, I followed along behind him singing "Na-na-na-na nah... MATMAN!" I think they really just keep me around there to keep the morale up.

The Randinator

One of my many friends at my day job at HP is Randy. Today over lunch Scott and I decided that Randy's night job was that of professional wrestler. His nickname is The Randinator. He has a ferocious demeanor, and his trademark move is "The Tape Gun", where by he wraps his opponents up in the ropes, and then launches them across the ring shouting "AIR MAIL!!!!" Yeah. Sometimes we get carried away at lunchtime.

July 25, 2008 Illustration Friday "Enough"

"I'd had enough. They'd killed my partner. They'd kidnapped my girl. But this... this was the last straw, they'd smashed Ma's cookie jar."

The topic this week is "Enough". I thought about having a smashed chair, and kitchen table in the scene, but it just looked too cluttered. Let me know what you think.

July 11, 2008 Illustration Friday

Translation: "Gee, these grapes are sour."

The topic this week was "Sour".

Click here to see an animated gif version.

July 4th, 2008 Illustration Friday Fierce

They never give up, nor surrender to fatigue
These the boys, of the Babe Ruth Little League
Shorter than his bat
Weighing slightly more than his helmet
There was never a hitter quite as fierce
Standing at the plate, was Little Timmy Pierce
As ball left hand
Tension crackled in the stands
His bat did twitch and with a mighty swing
Lil' Timmy had hit the tar out of that pitch.

The topic today, was "Fierce." I drew this whilst listening to a game yesterday. I was working on it when Jim Thome hit a big two run homer in the 8th to seal the win for the White Sox. Big Jim is a fierce hitter indeed, so I wrote my little verse, and decided to use it for Illustration Friday.

Yoyo hoard

Double post!! This was my other idea for Illustration Friday this week. I owe this concept, a hoard of yoyo-putians, to Kate. I really wanted to finish the color on this one, but haven't had time this week.

Illustration Friday

Howard happily herded hoards of heifers, hour after hour.

The topic this week was "Hoard", which I stretched to include "Hoards".

Learning

Hi everyone! Today's verb topic is "Learning":


Okay, the kid on the top is coloring, instead of learning. That sketch probably a little autobiographical. Just about every paper I ever turned in had doodles in the margin. Something about that little strip of paper to the left, broken up by the 3 holes, it was a creative wonderland that constantly beckoned to me. I really enjoyed taking notes in class, doodle-doodle... scribble some notes on the lecture... doodle doodle... this probably explains why I had trouble concentrating in meetings as an adult.

June 1, 2008

Welcome to June everyone. June. I can't believe how quickly time passes these days, and yet there's never enough time to get everything done. Strange. Here are a couple animated gifs for you:


I used a dip pen and ink to create these. I hope you enjoy them. They are externally linked, because for some reason animated gifs don't work on Blogger.com.

May 30, 2008

This drawing was done whilst I spent some time with my friends' kid. He would suggest subject matter, and I would draw it for him. It went something like this:
"What if... there was a alligator."
"Okay... an alligator."
"Yeah."
* scribble-scribble *
"Yeah. I like that. Giant alligator."
"Okay, let's make him a giant. How bout if he's eating a car?"
"Yeah, I like that. Rar. RAAAAAR!!!"
5 minutes later...
" ...RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR!!!!!!"
"Okay, what else?"
"Pummah mounans."
"What?"
"PUM-MAH MOU-NANS." Said with emphasis, to aid my stupidity.
"Huh."
"Purple Mountains." Translation provided by parent. It seems purple mountains majesty was in some song the kiddies were singing in pre-school. Anywho, it went on like that. We drew a screaming family inside the car, but then decided they looked to scared, so we wished them out of the car to Candy Cane Island...

May 29th, 2008

Here's another illustrated verb for you folks:

The verb of the day on the 28th was Eating. This happy lil' gator has himself a sammich. I'm thinking... ham and cheese.