Remember how a few weeks ago I mentioned I'd like to get my niece into My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic? Well, in a twist of irony (I've learned God likes those), I was able to spend some time with her and her sister this summer, and now they're fans of the show. So of course I had to draw them as ponies (along with their cat Fred, whom I have previously depicted as a dromaeosaur because why not).

I imagine their pony names are Cosmic Swirl (she wants to be an astronaut when she grows up) and Milky Puff (do not run out of chocolate milk when this toddler is around, or there will be terrifying consequences).

Another animation assignment that I think turned out nicely; this time, we had to animate a jump cycle. I can't remember if there was a frame count limit or not, but these are obviously just keyframes. (It loops, if you're bored enough to click through the thumbnails over and over.)

 

For this assignment, and a few others in the class, I used Toko, a character I made up in high school for a not-very-well-thought-out story idea* involving heroes fighting for justice on a lawless desert planet. Toko was a young hacker who used his skills to take down criminal computer networks and obtain valuable intel. The story was super corny and uninteresting and I eventually scrapped it, but who knows, maybe someday I'll find another story to fit Toko into.

*Does anybody ever actually have any well-thought-out ideas in high school, though?

Another animation from college; we were practicing the good old bouncing ball subject that most animation courses start with. If I recall correctly, there was nothing in the assignment about anthropomorphizing the balls and making it into a fight scene, but I overachieved again.

The rest of the frames are after the jump because there are quite a few frames in this one and I didn't want it to stretch out the main blog page.

I saved a few projects from my animation classes; I did a program in animation production, which covered not just actual animating, but just about everything else involved in producing animation for film and television, including storyboarding, character design, and screenplays. The only other animation-related degrees at the school had more to do with animating for video games and general 3D animation, which mainly just involved learning how to use 3D animation software. The animation production program gave a much more well-rounded education, and I also really loved that it included a couple of courses on good old-fashioned drawn animation (which I like better than 3D animation, but that's a rant for another time).

This assignment was to animate a dance in 10 frames; typically for me, I got carried away. The end is a bit truncated because of the 10-frame limit. Anyway, because of the way Blogger displays images, if you click on any of these thumbnails, you should be able to click through the other pictures sequentially and get a good feel for what it looks like "animated". (This character is just a random character design from back when I used to make up random character designs.)

 Before I get anyone asking me if I can animate such-and-such for them: I'm actually a really bad animator, so you're better off asking someone else. Also, I don't have any animation software on my computer right now.

Now for some real blasts from the past--I was rooting around my hard drive and found the folder with all my old projects from my animation classes in college! I thought I'd share the good ones here. 

I'm particularly fond of this assignment from my storyboarding class; we had to storyboard a commercial for a fictional breakfast cereal. (The technology in the first panel really dates me.) I got to make up my own cereal, and, well, it's not a kids' breakfast cereal* without an over-the-top mascot and questionable nutritional value.

*I'm pretty sure breakfast cereals "for kids" are primarily consumed by 18-24-year-olds no longer under their parents' thumbs.

 Back in college, I had an extravagant idea for a tactical video game set in a fantasy version of historical Asia, where various cultures and communities were represented by humans with animal features (Shaolin monk rabbits, samurai dogs, etc.). The idea never really got off the ground (I'm an artist, not a programmer), but I like this piece of concept art that I did for it. The qilin in the game were supposed to be very rare, demigodly creatures who would be difficult, but worthwhile to recruit. I know the proportions are a little off, but, I dunno. I just like things with deer faces I guess.

More old art, namely a character design for a Digimon roleplay I did with a friend back in college. My character was a scrappy swordswoman who chose to stay behind in the Digital World when it was disconnected from the real world because she disliked her "real" life. She trained as a warrior under Leomon and Ogremon, and continued to wear this getup even when she returned to the real world years later, not caring how many heads it turned.

(Yes, she does greatly resemble Terra from my Neopets fics. I did a lot of character recycling in college, before I started taking my writing seriously.)