First Armature

Finished!

I've always wanted to make an armature. I've had a lot of time on my hands lately, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I went out, bought all the materials I thought I would need, and got started.  The brown fur color wasn't my first choice but Marshals didn't have any furry fabric. It worked out, though!

Prototype 1

I crochet the fur around the armature, but I did it kind of weird. I wasn't satisfied with it but I decided to press forward.

After I got all the feathers on and it was painted, I realized I totally screwed myself with how the feet were. I was running out of materials, so I put that one off to the side and started a new one with the knowledge I gained from prototype 1.

 Prototype 2

I took progress shots this time!

I improvised with how I put this together. I realized I messed up again with the hands/feet, with that I didn't make any way for them to attach to the armature... and I baked them. At least the toes move! Not enough to grip with one hand but it can hold small objects with both hands. The next one I make will have more range in the hands, as well as gripping feet. 

I started to crochet the fur. I improvised here, as well. Starting with the strip of black that goes down the back, tail and down each of the legs, I expanded out with the brown fluff yarn until I was able to crochet the edges together.

This one is going to have ears! Not sure what they'll be made up of, feathers or yarn. Decided to go forward with painting and getting the fur finished up. Straggler yarn everywhere.

Testing the range of motion...

I skipped a few steps but here's a gallery of shots when I had added the yarn dreads, feathers, beads and detail paint over.  It took me around 3 days to make him. :)

Hello!

I've been meaning to get this guy fully rendered. I drew this line art in flash a few weeks ago. I liked how it turned out, but since then this character has evolved into something more. I thought I'd do a sort of throw back to my earlier style. I always loved other artist's progression art dumps, and perhaps more for myself than anyone else, I need to see how far I've really come. I'll post that at the end of this post.

I've talked about not being inspired to draw ever since I started college. A lot of it has been a lack of motivation, but taking those drawing classes made me almost retreat to a blank slate. My drawings throughout school looked like those that I have criticized both on the internet and my peers as being not 'good enough'. Instead of worrying about what I wanted  it to look like, I was worrying about how accurate my anatomy was... it was very demeaning towards myself and I stopped drawing all together, which I realize is the last thing needed when I had an art block as big as I did. 

So, long story short, this is the first piece that I've drawn start to finish since I've gotten out of college. I'm sure that there are some issues with it, but I was mainly concerned with just getting something to a state that I was comfortable showing others, or even simpler, just to be able to say that I did something this weekend.

I finished this last night, and as I was looking over it this morning, I realized that I could go a lot further with it. I had sort of rushed through the painting process in order to 'finish' it last night so I could go to bed. I didn't want to leave it like that... so I painted over it this morning and come up with this!

I think this is a big improvement! The character pops out from the background and features like the hair, tail, markings, anything that is glowing has more definition. I am much happier with this, and I've learned that I must not end the process prematurely. 

As promised, here is that art drop I mentioned in the beginning of this post. These are snippits taken out of my 2006/07 sketchbook. At this time, I was just starting college. There are a lot of fox-type animals, and cats... little obsessed at this time. 

Pup-Pup Mini-Sculpt

Long time, no post! So... this isn't animation or drawing, but here is a puppy I made with Sculpty! The painting was fun, but I learned a lot of what not to do when painting future sculptures.

There has been a bunch of exciting things going on, and they are all pushing my creativity to try mediums that I've been afraid, in a way, to attempt them. The fear of failure is becoming easier to push aside so I can focus on what I know I can achieve, and this has been accomplished by being thrust into a program I was rusty in. 

After fumbling around for a bit in it and feeling like I was not good enough to pull off the project that was in front of me, my stumbling around became less and less. My confidence in my abilities are slowly building up. 

Surely, I feel I will be using this blog for more and more.

:)

~Kayli

Flash Character Animations

I finally got some of my flash animations up online! I animated them all, though in 'Family Band', I did everything in that scene. Take a look~

It's actually happening.

It's here. I did it. It's going to be over.

Graduation is in three days. :]

I didn't think this time would ever come. I've been anxiously waiting it's arrival for four years now, ogling at my dream dangling in front of my face. I faced an obsticle that was College, the only thing separating me from that aspiration of being a character animator.

Now I can truly call myself one. I am a character animator!

I know that college wont be my only feat that I'll have to pass in the upcoming years. In fact, I'm prepared for the worst. However, after these past couple years I've shown myself that this was not a spontaneous quest, and that my dream could easily be tangible.

I have to remember, though, that these things will not come to me. They will not pan themselves out in front of me, hand me a life plan and let me be. There will be disappointing moments, there will be moments of doubt, of pain, of sleepless nights, but I just have to tell myself that I am doing something that many people admire. It is a privilege, and as my family always taught my siblings and I as we were growing up: Privileges can be taken away.

Anyways, here's a demo reel! Take a look! If you have any comments, please, leave it down below. :)

Up and running!

After much hassle, I now have my website up! It turned out pretty cool, though it is still being worked on a little bit. New stuff to come soon! In the meantime, check out my website!
Kayli Edwards Portfolio Website!

New website design!

I've gone through so many designs, but I think I like this best! I'm eventually going to model and animate that lil raccoon guy down there, but that's something for summer break. :)
I would love advice on this, for it's still a work in progress! Sorry for the low quality preview! click it and you can see it full sized.

-Kayli