What do you feed a pixel monkey?

Everyone out of the pool!

2008-07-07T11:13:00.000-07:00

Alrighty! This blog is officially CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED
It's been great, but I'm moving to a one-stop-shop business model.
All new posts will be over at www.heathermcnabb.com

Finger Blisters will remain open until I finish that project (which I haven't been working on recently but plan to pick up again at the end of the month)

Nuked

2008-07-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

Today was supposed to be the day I closed this blog and unveiled my new Wordpress powered, all-in-one website. Until I accidentally nuked the database while trying to back it up. Uh, whoops. I am very angry right now...

In the meantime, the old website can be found here:
www.heathermcnabb.com/archive/index.html

This blog is not dead, plus I'm a little famous!

2008-02-12T17:49:00.000-08:00

I know it looks like a dead blog.
Really it's not though.
I am currently redesigning it to integrate with my all new shiny content managed website. Which has been designed and will go online as soon as I figure out this shiny web content do-hicky, i.e. don't hold your breath or nothin' but it will go online sometime this lifetime.

In the meantime...
I have accomplished something as an Animation Mentor student that I was never able to as a professional dancer. Namely I have had a nicely photoshopped picture of myself printed in a trade magazine! See me shill for my school:

Go AM!
Now I must get back to work at learning animation. Hopefully the next time my picture is in Animation Magazine it will be for animating something amazing.

Now I have been animating for 6 months

2007-10-07T01:18:00.001-07:00

Here are my (almost finished) assignments from class 2 of Animation Mentor.
I'm very happy with how the class went; my lack of ability with Maya was much more of an issue for me this class but my learning curve is definitely, er...steepening ^_^.
I'm in Class 3 now and moving on to acting, but I'm going to keep working on my body mechanics until all of these shots look at least as good as the baseball pitch.

Tom Gately saved my life (premptively)

2007-10-06T23:36:00.000-07:00

I took gesture drawing classes from Tom Gately ( who teaches the Walt S. method)before becoming an animation student, and boy am I glad I did. It was painful sometimes because I was so far behind the other students, but that early practice of drawing quickly from life has made getting my ideas down on paper so much easier now that I'm drawing from reference footage, making scene thumbnail drawings, and sketching out shot ideas all the time.

Since these are about the only drawings I am doing regularly, other than the PBlair project I have going on in my other blog of course, I've decided to start posting them here lest this blog wither away to nothing...

These are my thumbnails for next week's assignment.

Trying to draw like a fashion designer

2007-08-07T23:16:00.000-07:00

Dragging out the old marker set again for a bit of a go-round...maybe I'll get around to drawing her something to sit on soon, but my Animation Mentor studies are keeping me quite busy!

And some of my Animation Mentor sketches:

The last three months, right here

2007-07-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

So here is my first reel from Animation Mentor.
There are a bunch of technical issues - including frames dropping all over the place in the encoding- no smoothing at all between clips, and some highly amateurish animation but still I'm proud to have gotten it this far in 3 months. Animation Mentor is an amazing school and I'm learning so much so fast.

''

Now go see Rataouille and bask in it's amazing-ness!
Oh and maybe Transformers too.

Been a long time gone

2007-03-19T07:30:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed, the blog has been on temporary hiatus while I change jobs, work on a new personal website, and generally do a life re-org. I begin Animation Mentor classes in a 2 weeks, so please come back soon; I'll be posting a lot once classes get going.

In the meantime, I highly recommend checking out this movie, which I just saw at the SFIAAFF: The Girl Who Lept Through Time.
Directed by Mamoru Hosoda (I think he was the guy who got tossed off of Howl's), this movie is really charming without being sacharine or boring and overall is really well done.

New year, new sketchbook

2007-02-05T00:22:00.000-08:00

Wow, I can't believe how January just flew by!
Thanks to everyone who came out in December to the show. Your support was very much appreciated, and Myleen and I had a great time.

So what's new in the new year? Well, I finally bought myself a moleskine sketchbook with my Christmas money.
I'm really liking how well it is designed (it's a good weight, has the handy elastic for keeping it closed in a messy bookbag, and it's the perfect size) but so far the paper has me less thrilled. It just doesn't have enough tooth for pencil drawings, and forget watercolors or washes. There is a moleskine that is supposed to be just for watercolors, so maybe that's more my speed. In the meantime I'll just stick to pens.
Here's 2 tiny sketches:

Sighted has opened

2006-12-12T23:09:00.000-08:00

My show is finally up on the walls at Chrissy Bee!
Thanks to everyone who came out to the reception on Saturday despite the miserable weather; Myleen and I really appreciated the support.
Special thanks to Mary and Jukay for the beautiful flowers.
Here are some pictures; I'll go back and take some better daylit shots later.

Cheeto & Sumatra

Rats, Foliage, & Scarab

Downstream

More on my Flickr

Less than a week until my show!

2006-12-03T22:40:00.000-08:00

It's less than a week until my first show and what am I doing right this moment? Procrastinating! Whoo-hoo.

Actually, I am almost ready for the big day, although I could always use a little more time to make things just a bit better...

Anyway, here is a sketch I did a few weeks ago of Winnie, who was my boss for a brief but educational couple of weeks. She's a great manager/ creative director, so if you are looking for someone who can really whip your team and project into shape let me know and I can put you in touch with her.

Sighted Dec. 9th @ Chrissy Bee

2006-11-17T09:14:00.000-08:00

Here's the postcard! Only a few weeks to go - I'll be spending all my free time painting until then...

And a quick peek at the dining room table which has now become my temporary studio -

It's been a busy fall

2006-11-06T08:14:00.000-08:00

I haven't had time to post here very much lately as several other projects have been taking up my time. In addition to having a product launch coming up at work, I've been focusing on getting ready for my first art show which will be at the Chrissy Bee boutique and gallery in the Haight on Dec. 9th. I'll be showing between 10-15 new pieces alongside the photography of my friend and former co-worker Myleen Hollero of Giant Robot. I'll post the promo postcard and details as soon as I finish designing it.

I've also been working on my cartoon/comic drawing skills by participating in the $100,000 Animation Drawing Course and posting the results in this blog - Finger Blisters.

So it may be awhile before I have a lot of material to post here. In the meantime, here are some more sketches from the zoo and other places I've wandered.

2006-10-09T00:18:00.000-07:00

From last week's zoo trip, speed painted in Photoshop after I got home:

More Penguin rejects

2006-08-31T07:28:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more 'directions not taken' for the penguin based book I'm illustrating.
I like these two well enough that I'd like to do finished drawings of them at some point.

kitsune

2006-08-23T22:29:00.000-07:00

I don't get enough drawing time right now, so if I'm watching TV I try to get some practice in while I watch. I thought this character was interesting because it is so cat like, yet it is supposed to be a fox creature.

Observation

2006-08-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

Ever notice that when you're sketching someone with particularly strong body language or in a very distinctive pose that you start to stand the same way they are, and then all your lines tend to stretch out in the direction you are now leaning? This sketch turned out like that...

1 minute sketch, 3 minute color

2006-08-20T15:35:00.000-07:00

Penguins

2006-08-15T22:51:00.000-07:00

One of the (many) little side projects working I'm on, in addition to starting a brand new job as an interactive designer here, is a series of penguin character designs and illustrations for a children's book. This is one of the sketches I did during the first round of brainstorming. Say hey for penguin combovers.

New supplies

2006-08-15T22:20:00.000-07:00

So, here's a quick sketch I did of some leaves on a recent camping trip:

I show this sketch not because it has an particular artistic merit, but because it illustrates a problem I've been having recently as I try to integrate more color into my sketching process. Namely, the 10 set of watercolor pencils I've been using isn't hacking it anymore. They're very convenient to carry in a bag, but the colors aren't strong, mixing them is nearly impossible, etc, etc.

So I've been researching what kind of watercolors to buy.
I wanted high quality, high pigment load paints in a small sized portable case. I wanted dry paints- no possible tube explosions inside my backpack, thank you kindly- and I wanted the paint line to have a good selection of colors so that if I was unhappy with my original color choices I could add in new colors as needed. To top it all off I wanted the carrying case to have a palette inside.

It turns out there is such a product, and I am now the proud owner of a Schminke/Aquarell 1/2 pan travel watercolor set. I can't wait to try it out!

Fur textures

2006-08-15T21:41:00.000-07:00

I really need to start learning how to tile and apply these textures to models, but right now I'm having far too much fun painting.

New avatar

2006-07-29T13:20:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to making a little picture of the pixel monkey/lemur.

recent Muni encounters

2006-07-29T12:18:00.000-07:00

...and what I do in the margins of boring DMV paperwork

I hope I get my Qee back

2006-07-28T21:48:00.000-07:00

The Qee contest has been judged!
You can see the contest winners here.
Honestly I prefer the runner up to the frog & Elvis, but I'm a sucker for detailed painting technique.

I just hope I get mine back, or at least have time to make some minor changes before they go wherever they are going to go.
I really wanted to knit him a little red scarf, but I just didn't have time before the deadline. I think it would make him look jaunty.

I've also learned that sign paint would have been a better paint option so if I enter another one of these types of contests I'll definitely try it. And primer. According to the the Fakture gallery site primer helps a lot.

So all and all a fun time was had and congrats to the winners.
If you want to see more pictures of my Qee, I've uploaded a Flickr set.

QEE!

2006-07-18T10:14:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a fun little project for the last week or so : Interbrand is having a design-a-qee contest and I'm participating. It was my first foray into real (versus digital) paint in too long, and I now have a much greater appreciation for those people who paint figurines as a hobby. It's really hard to get paint to stick to a small curved piece of vinyl! So here he is; his name is Oni.

I'll post more pictures on my Flickr account later.

Mod girl text messaging

2006-06-22T10:03:00.000-07:00

A super quick sketch I did at work for a project. The style was rejected in favor of photography, but I think I'm going to keep working on her on my own.

The New De Young

2006-06-21T01:26:00.000-07:00

The last time I tried to check out the new De Young museum we were turned away at the door due to a power failure. This time, I made it in and was suitably impressed. It's a wonderful new home for their collection, and now that I once again can go see their John Singer Sargent painting whenever I want to the world is just a little better place to be.

I was with other non-artist types so I couldn't sketch too much, but I did this super quick one of an object in the African art area. The skull was tiny, most likely an infant's, and therefore really haunting as the centerpiece of this totem/icon.

2006-06-14T08:47:00.000-07:00

The answer to the question in my previous post is:

Exactly 14 days to use up all my Flickr bandwidth. Two more weeks to go before I can post new stuff.

Still working on the Mary Blair stuff

2006-06-13T10:22:00.000-07:00

Farewell texture painting class

2006-06-10T20:18:00.000-07:00

My texture painting class is officially over. Thanks so much Robin! It truly was a great class.

While the class is over, my work is not; there are several assignments I didn't have time to finish and I'm bound and determined to do so.
This painting was meant to be part of my style imitation assignment, in which I chose to work in Mary Blair's style. It ended up far too realistic for that assignment, but I like it and so I'll post it here.

My Flikr Account

2006-05-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to getting a Flikr account.
So far I like it alot. Let's see how long it takes for me to use up my bandwidth allotment...

Ronnie's Site

2006-05-29T11:47:00.000-07:00

It has been brought to my attention that the link on my page to Ronnie Del Carmen's blog is broken, and for the life of me I can't figure out why. I assume it has something to do with the fact that he keeps his blog on his own server, because the url I put into my blog code is correct, as is the link syntax. If anybody knows more about this I'd love the lowdown, because I would like to move my blog to my own server eventually but I don't want other people to have the same problem linking to me.

Anyway, he has just posted a wonderful tribute to Alex Toth- go check it out.
http://www.ronniedelcarmen.com/blog1/2006/05/alex-toth-1928-2006.html

Italian doorway - Work In Progress

2006-05-24T00:48:00.000-07:00

This is a slightly cursed painting- every time I sit down to work on it I get an urgent phone call, or someone knocks on the door, or...well, you get the picture. However, it is starting to come together. On my to do list for this week: finish this painting, give it several passes of dirt & grime, do some test renders of my older paintings, and move on to the next piece.

Oh, and we're having an Eishi exhibit at Giant Robot this weekend. It's going to be pretty interesting; stop by and check it out if you're in the Haight.

Taking a break

2006-05-24T00:36:00.000-07:00

I needed a break from this massive set painting I'm doing, so I painted a few smaller texture pieces of rusting metal. I'll post a work in progress pic of the set piece later.

finishing up

2006-05-19T07:32:00.000-07:00

I went back this week and finished up some of the texture class assignments I hadn't quite managed to complete. I can't believe we are already 6 weeks into the class.
Only 2 weeks left to go.

Lion of Babylon

2006-05-14T16:42:00.000-07:00

The first image here is a marble texture I painted.
It's amazing how much faster I'm getting at painting flat textures!
The second in a relief of a lion painted over top.
I used a simplified line drawing for reference, and then pretty much just painted black and brown over top to create the illusion of depth.

Next time I try something like this, I'm going to try to do something a little more well defined like Warit's, so I can also make a simple displacement map to use on the relief.

new toys are great

2006-05-08T00:16:00.000-07:00

I just got a new Pentech water resevoir pen/brush for sketching with.
It's great and it was only a few bucks.
Right now I'm using it with watercolor pencils, but I hope to be able to buy some nice little watercolor cakes in the near future.
Here's a little sketch I did at work the other day of Myleen.

violins and fences

2006-05-06T15:09:00.000-07:00

wood textures

80% better

2006-04-29T11:49:00.000-07:00

Yep, the blog is still not 100% because the Blogger template editor disconnects from the server every couple of minutes, but at least things are mostly working again. Notice how my blog now color-coordinates with my website! I didn't get my fancy pants graphic design degree for nothing.

Here's another painting from my class of a dying japanese maple leaf.

Under Construction

2006-04-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

Halfway through my re-design, blogger's gone all funny.
Please excuse any minor hiccups.
I'll fix them up when the template editor is working again.

earthquake anniversary

2006-04-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

During the week long celebration/memorial of the great SF earthquake, there has been a lot of cool historical paraphanelia on display. I did this little sketch off of a photo of a group of Chinese workers. This guy caught my eye because he just looked so determined and/or angry.

Textures ahoy!

2006-04-22T00:46:00.000-07:00

Here are the paintings I did my first week of texture painting class: oily concrete, smooth concrete, and rose granite. There's lots of room for improvement of course, but it's a start!

I almost forgot- third photoshop painting

2006-04-11T21:01:00.000-07:00

I got so wrapped up in the start of my texture painting class that I forgot to post the last pre-class work I did. It's actually not quite finished, but as I am now busy with the class it is likely to remain that way for a while.
The class is a lot of fun- I'll post some of my work once it really gets going.

movie watching doodles

2006-04-10T09:20:00.000-07:00

I love Akira Kurosawa samurai movies - even his not so good ones are better than most other movies I've watched.

Another sketch

2006-04-08T20:36:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted a sketch in a while, so here's another one.

Michaelle can look so elegant when she's bored, heh.

Going to A.P.E. this weekend

2006-04-07T12:33:00.000-07:00

I am going to head on over to the Alternative Press Expo this weekend to check out the scene and hand out some of these flyers I designed for an event that will be taking place next month during the Mission Creek Music & Arts Frestival:

It should be a good time.

Second photoshop painting - yama no saru

2006-04-06T12:05:00.000-07:00

He's a shaggy monkey of the mountains!

This painting is the second one I'll be turning in as a "before" example in my texture painting class. I'm turning in the eye study I posted a while back as my first. I need to finish one more before the weekend. I think I'm going to do a still life.

Rolling Thunder

2006-04-02T00:57:00.000-08:00

Another day, another long promised beer label for Martin.
Now he just has to make the beer to go with it!

this blog needs a makeover

2006-03-30T23:46:00.000-08:00

I just opened up a new blog for my school friends and I to use to stay connected.
I spent just a few minutes working up some gifs so I could customize it to the school colors and while it is no masterpiece of web design it certainly looked a lot better than this page's unaltered template. Then I overspent my server bandwidth and pow the gifs are gone. So sad. I figured a way to fix the problem short term, but I'm going to have to find some time to work on it this dual problem of more bandwidth and designing a new look for this page.

Meanwhile, you can keep track of all the USF goings on HERE

Feature creep can be fun!

2006-03-28T16:29:00.000-08:00

Recently I've been playing around with some of the features in Illustrator that I don't use very often. This bamboo drawing was done using the symbol sprayer tool, which is really better for abstract designs but was fun to use none the less. I have just enough comp sci knowledge to have a really vague idea of why this tool set works the way it does. Ah, a little knowledge truly is a dangerous thing.

Monday + Threadless deadline = time for the bad jokes!

2006-03-27T10:02:00.000-08:00

I've been going to a lot of interviews lately, there was a big wedding last weekend (congrats Kit & Alicia!) and I'm trying to finish a sculpture. Oh, and I have to do 3 digital paintings before Robin's class starts in 2 weeks.

So...I had pretty much given up on the whole Threadless thing.
I wasn't producing work I was happy with anyway, although working in a 4 color palette was probably a good thing to try.
However, when they announced a special contest with ipod nanos as the prizes I figured I at least had to try because, well, it's a nano!
The obvious solution was to pull a bunch of drink related puns from my brain and execute them as quickly as possible.

D'oh- actually my second one got rejected because I didn't indicate where the placement of the image on the t-shirt was. See what happens when you rush things?
It was a horrible joke anyway.
See it HERE

Union Square pics

2006-03-24T22:12:00.000-08:00

I got trapped downtown for awhile yesterday.
Luckily I had my camera on me and I got some interesting shots.

In other news, I have signed up for an online texture painting class Robin Cooper is teaching. I'm really looking forward to it.

First photoshop painting

2006-03-15T10:54:00.000-08:00

I wanted to explore some of the capabilities of Photoshop I don't use very often and do some painting, so I combined the two projects. So here's my first "realistic" photoshop paint study. It is based on this photo and I'm pretty happy with the overall look of it, although I really didn't do too good a job of tackling the skin texture.

roos & cool art

2006-03-13T21:53:00.000-08:00

The amazing illustration couple kozydan is in Austrailia right now and they are sending back some great pictures!

Kangaroos wa totemo kawaii desu!

Maybe if I draw them often enough I'll stop losing them all the time.

2006-03-10T17:57:00.000-08:00

I got a chance to hang out with the always cool Tom Gately the other day and he admonished me to sign and date my drawings from now on. So, since he is universally right, see me sign and date.

quick sketch o' the day

2006-03-06T12:21:00.000-08:00

Done while waiting for Drew to pick out a suit at H&M.
There weren't too many people around, so I did a gesture drawing of the fake person.

Grumpy Bunny

2006-03-04T23:21:00.000-08:00

I've been promising to make Martin some labels for his homebrew for quite some time, so instead of doing a Tshirt design today I made this to put on the beer he'll be taking to Kit's bachelor party:

Alicia provided the original photo and the nickname.
Girl, you better protect me from him when he finds out about this.
The CFM shield is based on one Drew did for another label, but we couldn't find the file so I just drew something similar.
Font is Little Girl Lies by DINC

Super Official Grand Opening

2006-03-04T18:28:00.000-08:00

Alrighty, my website is officially up.
Please go give it a look see:

Heather's Stuff-o-Rama

Comments & complaints are welcome.

fun with markers

2006-03-02T13:47:00.000-08:00

So I have this big pile of art markers in my art bin that I bought for a project but never really used. Since I don't use them, I'm not good at using them, which leads me to avoid them more.
Yesterday I decided to break this vicious cycle and drew this.

Maybe tomorrow I'll try and tackle the blending marker.

Almost moved in

2006-02-28T23:27:00.000-08:00

Alrighty, so I've almost made the switch from Live Journal to here.
I'll probably keep the lj space, but this will be my official blog from now on and all current projects, Threadless entries, website updates, pleas for employment, and other random stuff will go here.

Speaking of Threadless, here's my latest.
Thrown together in a few minutes when I didn't finish my official contest entry by the deadline and someone's horrible type abuse made me feel it was needed.
One of these days I'll get my website together and then my Threadless entries will be better.
In the meantime, please continue to support me anyway! Er, *cough* yes.

Not so grand opening!

2006-02-17T00:07:00.000-08:00

testing...testing...
Is this thing on?