Illustration: pride dansers

 The boy is from this year, he was marching with the black and white drawing dancer I posted not long ago. The Drag on stilts was from last year. I have been unable to decide what to do with her. I started as a colour, then though maybe a loose watercolour but couldn't get into it then made a detailed outline and that is where it stands now. 

Illustration: flowers from my garden part deux

 

I had a little time so I worked on turning the second live drawing pencil sketch into another colour illustration with Affinity Designer. 

Illustration: Fierté 2024 (1)

Pride was sort of a bust this year. The parade was cut in 2 by protestors which made it seem like it was only an hour long which made a huge part of the crowd leave early and not see the second half. On top of that the usual people coming late and just standing in front of those who have been there a coupe hours making it impossible to take photos or even see what is going really got to me. It's too bad, I might not go again. I like the march and I like to take photos of the dancing people for reference in drawings. There are not many chances for that. 

That said this was not from a great photos. he was off to the side and at first just walking with 2 other guys when he broke ahead and started dancing, twerking... getting the crowd going. He was also, like his pals covered in solid gold glitter paint which if know that I think explains the shading in this drawing. I wanted to use pen and ink, black and white only - no tones - like my older drawings on paper. It's an artistic challenge to simplify to two colours but since I use stipple to represent skin and this guy was ALL skin the cramping in my hand was constant! 

I am also including the sketch because I decided to not make a super detailed sketch as a guide for the inking but instead use it to see if I could keep the "aliveness" (is that a word?) of the pose by using something less rigid as a guide. 

Illustration: Flowers in my front garden

 We had a huge water main break that cut power, water and flooded 100 places very close to my house a couple days ago. I, somehow did not lose power or water when every house around me did! I did lose cable, phone and internet all day so I couldn't work on clients stuff. Instead i sat in the front garden and drew a couple drawings from life. Then the last 2 days I decide to take one, for now and make a Designer illustration from it. 

Software updates - and lack thereof August 2024

 A quick list of updates and not so updated applications I use regularly. 

The Affinity Suite: This has had a few bug fix updates since it recently was bought by Canva but no sign of where they might be going after this major change in the company. It will take time to hire new people to add new features to be sure and while things seems as they always were in most ways after such a huge shift I wish there was some indication what will be happening down the line to assure me. Insecurity on my part but we have been waiting for a few things for a LONG time that now might be in reach like a Digital Asset manager, Epub tools in Publisher that can be worked on live in the program, the ability to save export presets on iPad, improved selection tools and a host of other things. I have noticed and uptick on the forum of posts bitching about various things that are identical in tone to when it updated to 2.0 and suddenly Adobe bots were (it seemed obvious to me) were stoking discontent. 

Adobe: I am free of all Adobe products, including "back up" versions in case I need them for something. In many years, I have not and getting it all off my system was a relief. They are company non-grata at the moment because of their predatory subscription and licensing agreements that people finally starting reading and this has led to a huge uptick in Affinity users which bodes well for the software I use instead of Adobe. They burnt the bridge to my computer before the subscription thing with their poor service but the subscription thing sealed deal for me to move to other things. 

Blender 4.2 : It's out and I am terrified to update for fear of losing any of the addons I have from the previous version. I am being extra cautious but so far it doesn't seem that I need to be. I will need to put a day aside to set up the new version and reinstall my addons. Since leaving Cinema 4D I have produced one new animation I am extremely happy with but I am little hesitant for a new project. Newbie jitters I am sure. 

Final Cut pro: A recent update added some "AI" features that might be handy but won't work unless you have an M_chip Mac which is a bummer. I can't buy a new computer every year because they change the chips they use and won't support not so much older machines that were top of the line 2 years ago. I am more and more afraid they will go with a subscription model as they have with the iPad version, In that case I'll be moving to DaVinci Resolve. 

Toon Squid and Procreate Dreams: Procreate Dreams was released with some pretty amazing new features but has struggled to add some that most other animation software have had for years and the promised addition of some of those amazing features to Procreate itself have not materialized either. Toonsquid, a one man band situation is in Beta of V2.0 with a TON of new features I can't wait to try out and use. Not sure when the release version will be ready but the sooner the better for me. It is looking like it will become my go to for 2D animation app. Only on iPad but that is fine, the iPad pro is more and more becoming my laptop alternative. 

Topaz Labs Photo AI & Video AI: Constantly updating and improving I can't find fault with the products or service I use from them. I can't afford the latest update to Photo AI, it would be about 135$ CAD and I need more work to come in to justify that. One thing that has given me pause is the release of "Pro versions" of some of their software that need a subscription to access. I have not looked into what that means too much, subscriptions are a non starter for me but depending on what client needs are, I could see signing up for a month, doing the work and letting it go until the new client needs something. The real issue I have is... weren't the products I have been using "Pro"? They were certainly sold as that and I found them pretty useful. Makes it sounds like the last few years I have been sold inferior products to entice me into a subscription service. This is probably paranoia from all the Adobe controversy but it is in the back of my mind now. 

Animation: Cirru Counts to 10 promo video

 

This is the first promotional video  for the series of children's books that I illustrated last year. I used Apple Motion for the animation and motion graphics. Garage band for the music. 

If you follow this link there are links to the books to buy. 

Illustration: Street Acrobat on Saint Catherine MTL

I didn't get many reference photos this year from Montreal Complement Cirque, there wasn't a free show at the park near me and I didn't see many of the acts on St Denis. I did catch this guy near my house, the business group here in the village has been doing small shows up and down Saint Catherine most days and I happened to walk by while I had my camera with me. 

I decided to use Affinity Photo and do my old paint in greyscale then colourize technique. I like the look of it. I might do one more of him, maybe pen and ink maybe digital water colour which I have been playing with but not getting anywhere. 

Illustration: Fred pour John & Jesus

 

A pet portrait for my friends John and Jesus of their new super adorable kitten. 

New Lovecraft Animation: The Hound (le chien) 2024 directed by: Vincent-louis Apruzzese

(Texte français ci-dessous :)

 Story: As I usually do, the original story had to be stripped down to its most simple and basic form. Lovecraft had the characters traveling internationally for their adventures and the hound chases them intercontinentally. As a one man band making animation, having too many elements, locations and characters will make doing the animation impossible accomplish practically. I felt the 2 characters were not likeable and Mike and I tried to get that across. The narrator is a bit pompous despite his degrading mental state as events unfold.

Production: My animation style is usually very stop motion inspired, this is as well but not as much previous efforts. 

This was a challenge, more so than my other short films because my older version of C4D stopped working in my OS and I HAD to learn Blender or not make any more animations. I have been trying to learn it for a decade without any real success. Recently the software has been advancing in leaps and bounds, not just technically but also changing it’s interface to a much more artist friendly one that is closer to industry standards. My work has dropped to almost nothing so while that is certainly panic inducing and financially disastrous, I was able to put a full time effort into learning and since Blender is free it didn’t add to my money woes. 

After 3 months I was ready to try and start production and gathered my research, worked on the script and started to make the sets and characters. I made a couple of plugin purchases ( OK more than a couple) to help me get the look I wanted which included a human character generator that works within Blender and also does the rigging automatically which saved me months of time. It is limited in that clothing options are all modern and no third party additions so far so I have to modify to give a pseudo 30s look to the costumes. I spent a HUGE amount of effort reformatting 100s of models from Cinema 4D to Bender friendly files but it was worth the effort. I was also able to easily ad fog, a gothic horror must that did not take hours to render each frame and I was very happy with the result. 

I restricted myself with some technical choices to avoid getting overwhelmed on my first project so I didn’t learn how to export separate passes of elements that would normally let me do post motion blur and give me  more control over the final images. I also rendered in the faster real time engine EVEE that Blender has developed and it was more than good enough for this. The full force render engine is really great but I would be rendering until next year if I used it, partly because I have to learn how to optimize it for my needs. 

Conclusion: I love Blender! Now I finally have a beginner’s handle on it I think I go upwards from here. It is up to you if this is a step up or down from my previous work but it seems a step up to me! 

Voici une version avec des sous-titres français :

Histoire: Comme je le fais d'habitude, l'histoire originale a dû être dépouillée dans sa forme la plus simple et la plus basique. Lovecraft a fait voyager les personnages à l'étranger pour leurs aventures et le chien les poursuit de manière intercontinentale. En tant que groupe d'un seul homme faisant de l'animation, avoir trop d'éléments, de lieux et de personnages rendra l'animation impossible à accomplir pratiquement. J'ai senti que les 2 personnages n'étaient pas sympathiques et Mike et moi avons essayé de le faire passer. Le narrateur est un peu pompeux malgré son état mental dégradant au fur et à mesure que les événements se déroulent. 

Production : Mon style d'animation est généralement très inspiré du stop motion, c'est aussi bien, mais pas autant d'efforts précédents. C'était un défi, plus que mes autres courts métrages parce que mon ancienne version de C4D a cessé de fonctionner dans mon système d'exploitation et que je devais apprendre Blender ou ne plus faire d'animations. J'essaie de l'apprendre depuis une décennie sans aucun succès réel. Récemment, le logiciel a progressé à pas de géant, non seulement techniquement, mais aussi en changeant son interface pour une interface beaucoup plus conviviale pour les artistes et qui est plus proche des normes de l'industrie. Mon travail est tombé à presque rien, donc bien que cela soit certainement induisant la panique et financièrement désastreux, j'ai pu mettre un effort à temps plein dans l'apprentissage et comme Blender est gratuit, cela n'a pas ajouté à mes problèmes d'argent. Après 3 mois, j'étais prêt à essayer de commencer la production et j'ai rassemblé mes recherches, j'ai travaillé sur le scénario et j'ai commencé à faire les décors et les personnages. J'ai fait quelques achats de plugins (OK plus que quelques-uns) pour m'aider à obtenir le look que je voulais, qui comprenait un générateur de caractères humains qui fonctionne dans Blender et qui fait également le gréement automatiquement, ce qui m'a fait gagner des mois de temps. C'est limité en ce sens que les options de vêtements sont toutes modernes et qu'il n'y a pas d'ajouts de tiers jusqu'à présent, je dois donc les modifier pour donner un look pseudo des années 30 aux costumes. J'ai dépensé énormément d'efforts pour reformater des centaines de modèles de Cinema 4D à des fichiers conviviaux de Bender, mais cela en valait la peine. J'ai également pu facilement ajouter du brouillard, une horreur gothique qui n'a pas pris des heures pour rendre chaque image et j'ai été très satisfait du résultat. Je me suis limité à certains choix techniques pour éviter d'être submergé sur mon premier projet, donc je n'ai pas appris à exporter des passes séparées d'éléments qui me permettraient normalement de faire du flou post motion et me donneraient plus de contrôle sur les images finales. J'ai également rendu dans le moteur en temps réel plus rapide EVEE que Blender a développé et c'était plus que suffisant pour cela. Le moteur de rendu pleine force est vraiment génial, mais je le rendrais jusqu'à l'année prochaine si je l'utilisais, en partie parce que je dois apprendre à l'optimiser pour mes besoins.  

Conclusion : J'adore Blender ! Maintenant que j'ai enfin une poignée de débutant, je pense que je monte à partir d'ici. C'est à vous de décider s'il s'agit d'un pas en hausse ou en bas par rapport à mon travail précédent, mais cela me semble être un pas en avant !

Cinema presentation of my documentary "The Picnic" at The Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square, Cambridge MA!

 

My documentary "The Picnic" is playing July 20, at 3:30 pm at The Brattle cinema in Harvard Square Cambridge! The doc is about the 50 years of the legendary comic book store I used to manage a very long time ago and is still there, very close to the theatre. Some of the interviewees will be in attendance as well! 

This was a long, multi-year project made possible by donations of many people but particularly Denis Leclerc and Spike MacFee (the first employee of the Picnic who sadly passed in 2019.)

If you or anyone you know would be interested and can be there please show up, it would mean a lot to me, the store and those who are in the documentary. 

The Brattle:  40 Brattle St. Cambridge, MA 02138

Saturday, July 20  -  3:30 pm    40 minutes