ALL RIGHTS RESERVED & COPYRIGHTED BY TINA NGUYEN. All artworks posted on this blog are created by Tina N. unless otherwise stated by the artist herself.
This is Tina. I am an artist, an animator, a joker, and a laugher. I am not the best but I am not the worst either. And my goal is to be on top.
These blogs are bringing you my greatest passion in life, which I hope you will enjoy. Nothing is as entertaining as images, both still and moving. So please, forget the real world and welcome to the world of imagination~
"When you really draw something, never fear to be BOLD, otherwise, it won't be that amazing~"
Tina N.
P.S. Did I not tell you that I am also a writer? At some point it dawned on me that I do enjoy putting my imagination in texts, not just images. Oh joy!
The internship at Titmouse Inc. is unfortunately over. Ah well, I've had such a great time and a wonderful experience. I've also met a lot of new, fun, and exciting people from the industry. On the last few days at Titmouse, I just had the urge to doodle a lot (as you can see my drawings of Nathan Explosion from Metalocalypse on the previous entry, those were some of the doodles I did), so I joined the character design artists that I had been interning with and doodled some fun Christmas themes - Santa Claws (no I did not spell it wrong, we call him Claws, instead of Claus) and Rudolf. It was a blast! I hope you enjoy these drawings and have a good time with the humor I put in them.
"I've been good this year, Santa~ <3"
Rudolf's Christmas Party
Merry Christmas and have an awesome holiday everyone! Time flies but at least happy memories will never fade away and the fun will never stop if you keep believing and moving on! May this year only leave you with lots of joys and happiness so you can have the power to welcome the upcoming new year 2012!
I've interned at Titmouse Inc. for the show Metalocalypse during the Fall 2011. I've worked mainly with the character design artists because it is also my main focus of my career. Since my internship is almost over, today I got the urge to make lots of sketches and since I was inking a drawing of the young Nathan (Nathan is the lead singer of the band Dethklok, also the main character of the show Metalocalypse), I decided to make my own version of him as a young adult.
Young Nathan
And this is Nathan as a Super Hero "SUPER XPLOSION" with his "Magic Mic". This idea was a suggestion from David Smith, one of the character designers of Metalocalypse. I thought it was funny and interesting so I went ahead and did this sketch~
Finally folks, it is HERE! It is done! Well okay, not yet completely 100% done but I finally managed to finish cleaning up and coloring the whole storyboard and arrange/time the animatic of The NIGHTMARE, my current cartoon project. It took me many many sleepless nights and indoor days gluing my butt on the chair, sticking my eyes on the computer screen, and tying my fingers on the tablet pen to finally complete this 189-panel storyboard. On this special entry, I will be posting pretty much everything on this big project. I really hope you will enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed working on it.
This is, in fact, a project for a storyboard class. The NIGHTMARE came to me as I was thinking of creating a story that is reality, closer to a daily life, but at the same time it has some fantasy-like elements in it. Obviously, the idea of dreams would first pop up, yet it would be a bit too obvious. I wanted something different. I, then, thought of nightmares, which are also dreams but bad dreams. How about a nightmare that come from both dreamland and reality? And the story of a little boy who had to struggle in his everyday life awake and asleep was born. I simply call it The NIGHTMARE.
Here is the second shorter draft of the story/script (after the first long and boring one): A monster is chasing Albert. He is running at his best to escape. Suddenly he trips over a little rock. When he is trying to get up, he sees more monsters are coming at him. Albert freaks out and screams… Albert startles and immediately sits straight up in his bed. It was only a dream, a nightmare. The alarm clock starts ringing. It is time for school. Albert arrives at school. He is walking down the hall passing other students. It is just another bad day at school. “Look who’s here?” Albert stops and looks up. Great, it is Tim and his gang, the notorious bullies at school. Tim grabs Albert’s school bag and starts going through the stuff in it. “Hey give it back!” Albert says. “Yeah? Here you go.” Tim holds Albert’s bag up high and swings it around. Albert tries his best to reach for it. The school bell rings. Tim throws the bag at Albert and smirks “We’ll see you later.” The gang is walking away, laughing, and joking “Loooooser!” Albert sits next to window in his class. The desk next to him is empty. He does not have anyone in the class as his friends. He likes looking out of the window most of the class time. “Albert, could you tell me the formula that we just learned earlier?” Albert stands up “Uh… it’s… I…” The teacher smiles “Albert, I am standing here not outside the window so please focus okay?” The class starts laughing until the teacher tells them to silent. It is lunchtime. Albert is getting his lunch tray. Tim and his gang are sitting at one of the tables along the aisle. Albert looks around but there are no empty spots close by, he has to pass Tim’s gang to find a spot. As Albert is walking closer to Tim’ table, although he tries to be very cautious, Tim trips him. The food from Albert’s tray flies all over the floor and himself. Everyone in the cafeteria bursts out laughing, especially Tim and his gang, the loudest “Hey don’t waste the food! You can help to clean the floor too you know.” Albert wants to cry but he holds it. “What is this mess?” – the janitor is staring at Albert. “You again? How many times do I have to clean up your mess kid? That’s it, to the principal’s office, you’ve caused enough trouble.”
“The principal is famous for being extremely and unreasonably strict. She is sitting neatly at her desk, quietly looking at Albert. She shakes her head “Albert, Albert, Albert, this is the last straw, I will need to see your parents next week. For now, you have to stay at school and clean up your mess before you can go home.” Unfortunately, Albert does not only clean up his own mess, the janitor is an evil man, he makes Albert do almost all of his work and threatens him to tell the principal if he does not do it. Albert does not go home until it is dinnertime. When he is home, Albert has to listen to his parents’ complaints and lectures before he can go to bed. Albert is running and surrounded by the same monsters. He is stuck. He is about to scream when suddenly a bright light is coming down on him from straight above. The monsters slowly back off trying to stay away from the light. Albert tries to look at the light and sees a little angel. She holds out her hand to him “Quick! Give me your hand!” Albert does what she has said. They both fly off up into the light as the monsters are growling loudly below.
Albert opens his eyes. “I was not scared this time, how strange.” – he whispers. “Good morning class, we have a new student today. Please be nice and make her feel welcomed.” Standing next to the teacher is a little girl with pigtails in a light purple dress. Albert is a bit shocked. She looks just like the angel from last night. To his surprise, the girl is walking toward him and sits down at the desk next to him. “Hi, can I sit here?” Albert looks blank for a moment, then nervously answers “S… sure!” The girl smiles “I’m Angela. Nice to meet you!” Albert blushes “N… nice to meet you too." It is lunchtime. Albert is walking down the hall heading to the cafeteria. “What do you want?” Angela’s voice raises somewhere around the corner. Albert quietly walks toward the corner. Angela is surrounded by Tim and his gang. “Come on, hang out with us, you’re quite cute.” Tim is flirting with Angela with a weird and disturbing sweet tone. “I don’t have time so excuse me.” Angela turns and is about to walk away but gets stopped by one of Tim’s gang members. “That’s it!” Albert comes out from the corner and shouts “Get away from her!” Tim turns around and chuckles “Look, it’s the crying baby trying to act hero!” His gang laughs. “What are you gonna do? Whine? Tell on us?” Tim says with a sarcastic voice. Albert says with an angry voice “If you want to mess with someone, here I am. Leave her alone!” Tim raises an eyebrow “Oooh interesting, nobody has dared to yell at me like that.” He glances at the big guy in his group. That big guy understands the signal, he throws a fist at Albert. Everything around Albert becomes blurry then blackout.
Albert slowly opens his eyes. Angela is sitting by his bed and bandaging him. She smiles “You were very brave. Thank you.” Albert is lying on the bed in the health room. He is covered in bruises and bandages. He looks at Angela and smiles back “You’re welcome.”
The best part of this project perhaps was to come up with different designs of the characters from the story. I had to do different plenty of sketches, asked opinions from other fellow and professional artists, to finally gather an awesome crew of catchy, simple, and fun looking characters, that really go successfully with their personalities and characteristics in the story. Here are a few early sketches of the main character Albert:
And the final design along with the turn-around:
ALBERT
ALBERT ROTATION
And the sketches and final designs of the rest of the characters:
ANGELA
ANGELA ROTATION
TIM
TIM ROTATION
BARRIE
TEACHER
JANITOR
PRINCIPAL
MONSTER 1
MONSTER 2
MONSTER 3
All of the characters put together:
The NIGHTMARE Characters
The title page of the storyboard:
Storyboard Title
And last but not least, the animatic!!!
*Note: Please remember that this is not a completed animatic yet. The timing is still messy and it lacks some sound effects. I will continue working on it and post the final animatic soon!
This is my version of some of the characters from the Harry Potter series. It was an assignment from my animation drawing class by Ernie Gilbert (best-known for his work from "The Fairly Oddparents" and "Tuff Puppy"). I came up with many different sketches and ideas to this final draft. I may color this in the near future.
Can you tell who is who in my drawing?
Left to right: Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape, Harry Potter, Voldemort
This is "Two Faces", or two worlds since it's actually 2 drawings in one that contrast to each other. The topic is a girl with a flower. There are many ways to depict this topic, however, I wanted to push it further than just simply a girl and a flower. I wanted to create a whole story behind it. This is a story of 2 different girls whose lives and situations are also totally different. As you can see one is in a forest filled with life while the other is in a desert, empty and dead. The one in the forest is trying to reach a beautiful blooming water lily while the one in the desert is holding a dead sunflower. One looks healthy and beautiful while the other seems rather ill and skinny.
The great contrast between them in fact is a depiction of the two sides of a person's life, of anything going on around us. Hence, the title "two faces" popped in my head. It took me about 2 weeks, between classes and internship, to finish this piece. Perhaps it is not very great, especially the color since this piece is also my own practice on coloring since I am not good at it. There may be updating/improvement of the drawing in the future. For now I am quite happy with it. Media: Adobe Photoshop CS5, Wacom tablet Cintiq and Bamboo
Here is the progress of the painting:
I did a lot of corrections while working on this piece after getting a bunch of suggestions and advice from fellow artists and professional artists who work in the animation industry. I guess perhaps the final draft may not be a complete perfection for now but I am pretty happy with it. I know I will get a lot better in the future and at some point, I may go back and make this one even better and nicer, maybe close to "perfection". This experience has inspired me a lot and I feel like I have to draw more, a lot more.
This is a drawing of all the characters from my current project The NIGHTMARE. It took me a while to design, clean up, and color all of them. It was fun, however.
As you can see, the style is inspired by the Nickelodeon animated series "The Fairly Oddparents", in which the characters were designed by Ernie Gilbert, who is also my current animation drawing instructor. The story of The NIGHTMARE is also somewhat inspired from the show since it is about a little kid in trouble, especially at school, and the trouble even comes to him in his sleep, creating an endless nightmare every night. The main character, the troubled kid, is Albert. He is the one in the green shirt on the very front of the drawing.
I am still trying to finish the storyboard and working on the rotation of all of the characters. They will be posted soon.
This Fall 2011, I'm working on my individual project called "The NIGHTMARE". It is for my storyboard class, by Professor Clisset. The time limitation is usually a minute for an animated short, but I doubt mine would be shorter than one minute, but it won't be longer than two minutes (hopefully :P). The storyboard is taking me forever though. But first off, this is the title page/poster I did for this project~
I will upload the rest of my work including character designs, storyboards, animatic, etc.
This is my very first animated short. This was a group project including 5 students from CSUN: Marilee Spencer, Laura Tellier, Tian Xiang, Eric Damian, and Tina Nguyen (me). They are all very talented and creative. I was so glad working with them. My job was to design the character Newton, animating most of Newton's scenes, and animation editing. Marilee designed the background, animated the first scene (Newton is sitting and reading under the tree), edited the storyboard draft with sound, and voice the tree. Laura designed the apple tree, animated most of it, and created the script. Eric co-designed the tree, animated the lip-sync of the tree, and voice Newton. Tian put together the storyboard and sound effects, timed the scenes, and animated a few scenes. We all did the storyboard and discussed about the story. The music was done by Garrett Crosby. It was a very fun project done for the Flash class (Animation 363a, Professor Steven Theis). It is not completely perfect but at least we finished it on time for grading. Hopefully in the near future, we can edit it and make it better soon.
This animation was done during the Spring semester of 2011. I wanted to post it on this blog a while ago but I forgot! But well it is finally here! :)
This was an assignment in the animation drawing class at CSUN. It was lots of fun and I had to make a bunch of different sketches to finally come up with this final draft. I am quite happy with it but I know it can be better. This is the final draft but not the final drawing since I will color it afterwards and perhaps will have some corrections.
The final digital draft
From Left to Right: Oliver Twist, Fagin, Nancy, Bill Sikes, and Bull's Eye
The pencil sketch
As you can see Bull's Eye from the pencil version does not look good so I fixed it on the digital version using Photoshop. My main references were some pictures of real actual dogs and dogs from Disney 101 Dalmatians. Since you know, my weakness is drawing animals. But I try and it is fun to learn.
I was watching a bunch of Sailor Moon Episodes and suddenly felt like drawing Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon was one of the first animated films that I saw and was inspired to draw. Even though at some point I was trying to get away from the Anime style, some very wonderful Character Design Artists at Titmouse Inc. (BTW I've gotten an internship at Titmouse Inc. Yay!) told me to just draw whatever I like. It is true and also I can never ever forget Sailor Moon, my first inspiration. Hooray for the Sailor Senshi!
Finished Drawing
First sketch
Media: graphite pencil on paper for the sketch and Photoshop CS5 for the finished work.
Rotation can be a pain to work on but after you finish with it, the feeling is simply wonderful, because the art is done and it looks good and now you know how your character look like from different angles in circulation! Here are some of my character rotation study from my character design class at CSUN, instructed by artist Charles Zembillas.
This was for a little conceptual art contest at ASLN (Animation Students League of Northridge) called "Ninja Pet". I had no idea what to draw honestly until the day right before the deadline, I then came up with an unusual idea of "the root of ninjas". Instead of coming from the ancient time of Japan, I kinda twisted it to be the prehistoric era (from Japan, from anywhere in Asia), when human was still a caveman, and a non-scientific fact, dinosaurs still existed (oh yeah yeah did it remind you of Flinstones? What a classic right? But no, this is completely different). Since I thought it would be too obvious to have dogs, cats, mice, birds etc. as pets and I wanted to create something really different, entertaining, funny and somewhat strange (in a good way of course). So yes here comes our Ninja Caveman and his Ninjasaurus which I would like to call her (yes a she! It's a female t-rex!) NIN-DINO!!!
I had a lot of fun working on this piece. And I believe this is so far my best digital piece ever! I really enjoyed coloring the bushes and I think they came out very nice! Although this did not win but I am very proud of it and I'm happy with the concept. Ninjas are known for their smooth, silent and secret movements and they are the masters of hiding and disguising! This would explain the hiding in the bushes! And uh oh it looks like the ninja caveman and his pet Nin-Dino do not hide successfully. Nin-Dino is too big! (And what is with the pink panties-like mask?)
I think this would make a very good animated short or even series :)
What a blast! I finally got my very own (bamboo) wacom tablet and it works just fine! I've been learning and practicing more to improve my digital painting and airbrushing skill and I think I am actually oing somewhere! I found out that the only way for me to work well on a digital painting is to do it traditionally, meaning even though I draw on a computer, I gotta make it feel like I am drawing on paper! Then the drawing/painting would look as good as a traditional masterpiece! Joy!
So here are some doodles and sketches I did~ I even randomly drew and painted a girl using Corel Painter (Oh how I love the brush sets there!).
Eye
Red Girl
Painting Process
Finished
If you compare this drawing of the girl with the Stephanie one I posted a while ago, you would see an improvement on the rendering right? I really hope so!
I have learned a lot from my character design class at CSUN. It was very fun doodling and coming up with different ideas of poses, facial expressions etc. to finally build a whole unique personality of one character. Here are a few of my works:
