UPDATE: The complete “How to Draw Big Cats” Course is NOW AVAILABLE – CLICK HERE
This is a quick SNEAK PEEK at my upcoming video series “How to Draw Animals: The Big Cats” – In this 53 minute video I’ll show you some key tips for how to draw lions.
The complete course will be available very soon! It covers Lions, Tigers, Leopards, Cheetahs + Much More. The full course contains over 8 Hours of video lessons and includes tons of bonus materials and PDF Files. In the meantime though I wanted to share this early look at it with you. ENJOY!
Recently I was invited up to Nashville, TN to attend the second annual “Taught By A Pro Weekend” which was presented by TaughtByAPro.com – While there I got an opportunity to give a lecture, do some demos and speak with my good friends and amazing animators Tom Bancroft (Mushu from “Mulan”) and Eric Goldberg (Creator of the Genie from “Aladdin” and co-director of “Pocahontas”).
I’ve been excited more and more recently by the possibilities of TVPaint. It had been a little while since I had sat down and created any original animation so I got the itch to do something fun. This was just a quick little piece that I created in 8 days using my Wacom Cintiq and TVPaint. I was thinking about elephants when I got the idea for this character name Cyrano. This short animation shows some of the hijinks he gets into with his trunk. I hope you like it… I think I’ll do more with this character soon. Continue reading Hand Drawn Animation – “Trunk Troubles”
I often get questions from new artists of all ages on the best way to get started with digital illustration/painting in Adobe Photoshop. There are probably thousands of methods and techniques so it can sometimes seem overwhelming. To address this I put together 1 Hour and 11 minute video giving a brief overview of my techniques and my approach.
So today I wanted to get back into TVPaint and do some traditional animation. So I decided to grab a snippet of dialogue from one of my favorite actors (Jeff Bridges) in one of my favorite films “The Big Lebowski” – So without further ado I present “The Dude… Sloth”
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This is a sneak peek at an upcoming series of animation training videos and lessons that I am working on coming early this year. Enjoy!
We had a great response to our first ever “Art Giveaway Contest”.
First, I’d like to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who purchased my Custom Photoshop Fur Brushes. I’ve had a great time experimenting with them myself and I wanted to let everyone know now that I’m currently working on creating a second set, so stay tuned!
Note: There were too many entries for me to provide individual feedback on each one. But as a general rule I must say that I was very impressed with what I saw and each and every one of you who participated has talent and should continue to develop and pursue it!
As for the art we received…We had such a wide variety of subjects. It was so much fun going through everything and seeing how the brushes were used. There were illustrations, photo-retouches and more! Everything was really great and I could see the fun you guys were having. That being said, there were a few that stood out for me. Out of the entries I picked five.
I’d also like to announce that along with the first place winner receiving a signed original drawing from me, the remaining four will receive signed prints. So here they are!
Interested in Digital Art & Animation Instruction? I offer a line of tutorials videos and lessons. CLICK HERE to Learn More.
A final note on the the “Photo-Retouches” there were some really fun and solid ones that were this close to making the final cut so please don’t hesitate to keep them coming in future events. There were also some great images that unfortunately came in after the deadline. Sadly, to be fair to everyone I’m trying to keep the cut-offs as serious as we can. So if you don’t see your name here, keep at it and be on the look out for my next art challenge which is coming soon !
Once again, Thank you so much for your participation and Happy 2015!
– Aaron Blaise
P.S. I’ll be contacting all the winners shortly to get shipping details, etc. – Congrats Again!
Lately, I’ve been having a blast revisiting my “old friends” from the Disney films I worked on. Yao was a character I designed and supervised the animation for the film “Mulan”. Here I’ll take you through my process as I paint him in Photoshop.
Below is a time-lapse video of the process and the final image:
[youtube_sc url=”TpnIk_VZ5Wc” width=”750″]
Interested in Digital Art & Animation Instruction? I offer a line of tutorials videos and lessons. CLICK HERE to Learn More.
You can also see my take on the Beast from “Beauty and the Beast” HERE and my Rajah from “Aladdin” HERE
Rajah (from “Aladdin”) was the first character I was ever given the opportunity to actually design and lead the animation. It was a huge deal for me. I was 24 and I remember being very nervous. It was fun to draw and paint him tonight after so many years. Thanks to John Musker and Ron Clements for having faith in me way back then.
Below is a time-lapse video of the process and the final image:
[youtube_sc url=”LuaMG0_-xWw” width=”650″]
Interested in Digital Art & Animation Instruction? I offer a line of tutorials videos and lessons. CLICK HERE to Learn More.
You can also see my take on the Beast from “Beauty and the Beast” HERE
So my friend and I were talking and he thought it might be fun and interesting to take some of the characters I’ve animated in the past and do realistic renderings of them in Photoshop using my painting techniques and photographic textures. I agreed and so I decided to do The Beast as my first one. This was the first major character I ever animated thanks to Glen Keane. I’ve always loved drawing him.
Below is a time-lapse video of the process and the final image:
[youtube_sc url=”C6Dk7EEFTG4″ width=”650″]
Interested in Digital Art & Animation Instruction? I offer a line of tutorials videos and lessons. CLICK HERE to Learn More.
I am so excited and extremely honored to announce that the latest issue of Imagine FX Magazine features a cover story and new video tutorial by me. It was a lot of fun putting this together and the whole team over at the publication did an outstanding job. They are based in the UK so it hits news stands there today, November 7th and it should be in USA and other international book stores soon after! In my area I know it can be picked up at Barnes and Nobel bookstores.
To celebrate I am offering a limited time 30% OFF promo code for my site. Just enter “ImagineFX” at checkout to receive 30% off your order.
Yesterday I was fortunate enough to give a demo on “Creating Photo Real Creatures in Photoshop” at the 2014 Adobe Max Conference. Well today I am pleased to see that they have posted it online and I wanted to share it with you as a free demo.
NOTE: This was a screen capture so you will only hear my voice for the first few minutes. After that though the full demo is visible. Also, this was a new audience so some of the info may be familiar to you if you have watched some of my other videos. It runs just over an hour.
In this episode Aaron talks about how to find pleasing compositions for you paintings, photography, illustrations or any image for that matter using any of three methods:
In this episode, Aaron talks about how creating images on a mid tone background will allow you to judge your value structure (lights and darks) more accurately.
In this episode Aaron shows you his techniques for animating dialogue and getting good lip sync. These are the very same methods he employed at Disney on films such as Mulan, Brother Bear and more.
In this episode, Aaron shows you his method for creating textured skin surfaces in his character and concept digital art. He will take you through using textured brushes, fitting the textures to the contours of your character and adding lighting details.
Check out this link to the brushes on his site: http://creatureartteacher.com/product/custom-photoshop-brushes-set-2-elephant-texture/
In this episode Aaron talks about pushing straights and curves in your drawing line work in order to create contrast and make your drawings more dynamic. This principle applies to photography and painting as well.
In this episode, Aaron takes you through his process in creating wipes for your character animation. Sometimes you have a great distance to travel across the screen with your character but only a few frames to do it in. Using a wipe is the answer to retain fluidity and avoid strobing.
In this episode Aaron takes you through the process of creating a landscape with just the Lasso Tool in Photoshop. This is a lot of fun as it does not require a lot of drawing skill to achieve!
In this episode Aaron takes you through his process while he creates a school of fish through repeating one fish. He then explains creating depth through atmospheric perspective and lighting. This technique can be used any time a large number of repeated objects is needed.
In this special episode of Aaron’s Art Tips, Aaron talks with long time friend and colleague, Ronnie Williford about the importance of drawing and how it should be a part of any visual artist’s skill sets. Ronnie has an extensive career in the field of art, having covered everything from music, sculpture, painting, and animation. Aaron and Ronnie worked together for 8 years at Walt Disney Feature Animation in Orlando Florida. They continue to get together and paint or play music whenever they can.
In this episode of Aaron’s Art Tips – Aaron talks about his methods for using both contrast in value and levels of detail in order to guide the eye and create centers of interest in your compositions. This applies to not only painters but to photographers as well.
In this episode of “Aaron’s Art Tips”, Aaron gives advice to you graduating art students out there that are getting ready to put together your portfolio for visual development for a studio position. Having served on the review board at Walt Disney Feature Animation for over 20 years Aaron will tell you what he looks for when looking at new portfolios from young talent.
