EricaWester

New Years 2024 Update - getting back into it!

Hey guys!  Hope everyone had a good holiday and new years!

So here's an update for ya'.   The industry job I'm at gave everyone the nice Christmas surprise that they're letting our team go at the beginning of January!

Which is fine by me... without going into the juicy details, I've pretty much had my fill of this particular job, so I'm excited to get to jump back into W2H2 pretty much immediately in the new year.  

Jobs in the industry are a little s...

a leeel update... (industry stuff!)

Hey guys!  I recently took an industry job, so I'll be pausing the billing this upcoming month.

I did this a year or so ago when I took my last industry job, and it feels like the right thing to do.   I'll actually be continuing to pause the billing while I'm employed at this job... for any month where I feel like my output is really low and I don't have much to post.

That said, I do have stuff to post!  I am in the compositing stage of W2H2 currently, so I ...

SC03 video!!!

Hey guys!  Here's something we haven't had in awhile... a whole ass video!  With sound!  

Timing is subject to change, and it's still missing some stuff like foley/sound effects, but this is approximately what the scene would look like.

Since deciding to just finish up what I can on W2H2, I've shifted gears into a different part of the process (compositing, sorta), and I'm still trying to figure out what to share for Patreon.  So this month, $5 folks are gett...

W2H2 Animation

Hey guys!  This month I've got another animation gif for ya!

This shot was kind of difficult, it's in a weird perspective, and there's a camera movement, which I animated in the animation program rather than doing it in After Effects like a healthy person.  Sometimes I think when it comes to methods for animation, my brain's just wired backwards... but I make it work!
Also Mephistopheles doesn't usually float like Sock does, so it's kind of fun to have him do it.

S...

Spinning shot!

HOPE YOU GUYS like seeing the same shot over and over again!

I've been noodling with this one a lot 'cause it's one of the only shots in the film that's going to be colored AND it has special lighting.  I mean, ideally, this entire scene would be colored, but realistically it wont be, so I'm just picking the most important shot in the scene and allowing myself to indulge.  (without actually cleaning it up... I know that's kind of goofy, but the clean-up is less important to ...

teeny tiny update on that indie studio interested in W2H...

... Absolutely not gonna' happen.

I wont go into the deets, but since I've been hinting at it in past posts, I thought I should give you guys that update.  

There was some shady financial shit going on with the person running the company, so I'ma just avoid any association all together.  Fortunately for me, I never signed a contract with them, so it shouldn't be an issue.  Clean break!  

I'm not too bummed about it, I think it's better to find that out ...

spinning shot color + camera test!

Hey guys!!!  Sorry for the dry spell of work these last couple months.  I moved in the middle of January and I've been trying to get my stuff all set up in the new place and settle in to the workspace.  It's kind of hard to focus when you're whole living set-up is in shambles!

Anyway, this is what I've been able to work on!  

I spent a lot of time fussing over the camera movement/BG, and it's still not quite right, but I think it's at least as bad as some an...

Maikoh / Kolotl illustration process!

Since I'm short on animation this month I thought maybe I'd share the process for a drawing I did earlier this month.  

They're all in order, so hopefully it makes enough sense, but here's the gist of it:

1. initial sketch/idea.  Pretty much exactly what it sounds like.

2. finding the flow, focus, or lines of action.  This is pretty typical for action poses but I think it's also helpful for compositions with multiple characters, or 2 characters interacting. ...

Demon Tactility Physics diagram

This is kind of a weird one!  Haha... so there's an insert-shot in W2H2 of an illustrated diagram, and in my boards it was just stick figures 'cause I hadn't designed what it should look like yet!

So I decided to go for a 70s vibe?  Like Schoolhouse Rock, or those indie animated segments on oldschool Sesame Street, or like... I don't know, that old Tootsie Pop commercial with the owl???  Anyway the characters in the diagram weren't initially going to look like Sock and J...

Jonathan + Mephistopheles head tilt

Heyyyyy!  It's another animation-less post, guys!  Traveling for the holidays and all that junk kinda got in the way, as it does.

But!  I got these nifty head-tilts for the characters done! (Sock head tilt is here!) I think I mentioned on a previous post that I've been working on these for a potential future W2H project with an indie studio, but we'll see how that goes.   2022-12-08 19:03:28 +0000 UTC View Post

UPDATE! On posting W2H2.

Hey guys!  So I don't think I've made a proper post about this yet, but I had an epiphany recently that I just need to post W2H2 once I feel like I've gotten to that "good enough" point.  

What the film will be:
That means it won't be fully cleaned, colored, and composited -- some of it is just gonna be roughs, like the GIFs I've been posting here, but with completed backgrounds!  (You'd be surprised how much legwork these backgrounds are doing, so major props to Clai...

Sock and Jonathan Head Tilts!

Unfortunately I don't really have any animation this month because I've spent most of my time doing these head tilts!  They've been really hard and they're still not quite right, but they're close enough.  

I think I've mentioned in a stream before that there's a chance I'll be working with another studio on a W2H project, so these are basically for that.  I can't say anything about it yet, 'cause it's not far enough along to know if it'll pan out, but anyway.  That...

W2H2 Animation

Hey guys!  So you'll probably recognize a lot of these from previous posts, but I assure you they are updated or refined and therefore different!  

Got some added lip sync, got some pose fixes (Meph's arm was supposed to be leaning back on his chair, from a previous shot... they didn't hook up!)... got some hopefully not-too-spoiler-y adding of props....   

Most of the spinny shot is pretty much done!!!  So I'm happy about that.  Added some solid co...

Meph Mouth Chart and Tom!

So this month I had to decide on colors for Tom, and I also sketched him out real quick into the size comp, so... here you go!  Full body, full-colors Tom!  For the hardcore fans.

Also some mouth charts for Meph!  I had to finally cave and do these because I ~may or may not~ be working with someone else on some animation.  I'll post more about it later, but in the meantime, this is really something I should've done a long time ago.  I tend to do completely cust...

W2H2 Animation

Okay so this month I've got this big-ass bonkers spining shot, and it's still definitely a work in progress... I went ahead and left some animatic-y stuff in that's not timed out properly, just to give you guys something extra, but mostly I wanted to share the part that's been roughed in.  It's been a little hard to focus this past month, but most of my focusing has gone into this, and figuring out how the fuck the back of Jonathan's hair works lol.  Sock's too.  It's getting r...

Sketchbook dump

Sorry it's mostly furries????  I was helping my friend come up with a design for a dog lady for something he's working on (she's a daschund!), and then I was like "I wonder what kind of dog I would be", and took, like, 2 or 3 different online quizzes, and I shit you not, every single time I got mutt.  Which is fitting 'cause if you had asked me what my favorite dog was when I was a kid I would've said "I don't know, mutts?"  There's just something about a scraggledog, y'know? &...

little update!

hey guys!  I feel like my post was a little sparse this month, and I'm worried it will be a little sparse next month too (I'll be out of town for a chonk of it)... so I thought I'd switch it up a little!

All patrons are getting the animation gifs this month!  And the $5 tier folks are getting a WIP of a song I'm working on for W2H2.  I'll obviously still be working on W2H2 this month, I'm just feeling like I need to give a little something extra to make up for it.  ...

Better Off Alone_WIP

This is a song I've been working on that I'd like to use in W2H2!  It's still FAR from being finished, but I thought I'd share it since this month's animation is pretty sparse.

I guess you could consider this a demo?  Pretty much all of it is going to be re-recorded eventually, but I wanted to lay out the groundwork of the song.  Neil did the bass part, and he's going to be mixing the whole thing, since he's been interested in music production lately!  

So I'...

Sketchbook dump

not much this time around... but I found a pink pen in the bottom of my pen case that I really like!  

W2H2 Animation

Had to go in and refine some of this Meph acting... adding in-betweens, fixing arm positions, doing lip-sync.   

Not much to say, but Meph's lip sync has been a little more involved, 'cause I do one pass for his mouth, and another pass for his stupid goatee.  I'm gonna have to start combining them to make it easier on myself haha.  I just get really eager to check if the mouths are working so I hold off on the beard!  I'm sure I'll get faster at it as I go thou...

Monthly sketchbook

sketchbook is kind of light this month, but I wanted to revisit an old idea for a story my girlfriend and I would like to develop.  It's about 2 teenagers in 1999 who are obsessed with ~Fuzzmigos~ and strike up a friendship in an online chatroom... right before the Y2K BUG hits and destroys all computers, sending the world immediately into apocalyptic 90s/2000s wasteland.  Rabid boy bands roam the streets.  You can hear Sugar Ray playing from an old radio tower in the distance....

W2H2 Animation

Most of these shots will probably look familiar, if you've been a patron for awhile.  

Most of them  were still in pretty early roughs, so I dug back in and filled them out some more.  But the first one in this batch is interesting, 'cause it's actually the first shot I ever animated on W2H2.  I normally wouldn't go back and change the acting for a shot I've already done, but in this case, the line got changed and Jonathan's acting didn't match the new line.  B...

Standard pose Turnaround - Meph

had to updated Meph's turnaround to go with the new ones I did for Sock + Jon a while back.  It was about time!

I think I might have an update for Debbie pretty soon too, haha.  

W2H2 - keyframe animation

Hey guys!  This month I've got some guest animation work from my buddy Wen Qui!   

You might recognize the scene, she had previously animated a shot from it awhile back, and she had some extra time to revisit it, so she keyframed the rest of it for me!  

The blue lines are draw-overs from me - just little tweaks to the drawings so they stay more accurate into the next step of the process.  I'm super super grateful that she was able to help me out on this!<...

Sketchbook dump

Hey guys!  It's been awhile since I did one of these, so hopefully you get a kick out of it.  This round was mostly me trying to figure out character designs.  There's some stuff from my girlfriend's projects, stuff from my roommate's projects... Fraiser and Niles.  Plus some attempts to redesign the W2H2 logo!  And some marker work Captain Yajima fanart lol.  

Also included the final character designs I settled on for my girlfriend's pitch idea, Solar Der...

Standard pose turnarounds!

I knew I'd have to do these eventually...  Less goofy turnarounds for Sock and Jonathan.  Plus a height comparison.  Enjoy!

UPDATE!

Oh my god, this is the 2nd time I had to type this, I got logged out and the draft never saved... UGHHK!!!

Okay, so just a general update!

I'm currently doing storyboards on Tuca & Bertie!  That gig should last for about 4 to 5 months, and if you've followed me since this past summer, when I was working at WB, you've probably noticed that I really only have the energy to do one thing at a time.  So my W2H2 animation posts will probably slow down here for awhile. &nb...

Streaming with Neil!

Hey guys!  Doin' a stream, check it out!

Streaming Tomorrow w/ Special Guest: Neil (Meph's VA)

Hey guys!  I'm gonna stream tomorrow around 7pm PST / 10pm EST!  

It might end up being closer to 7:30/10:30, but I wanted to give you guys a heads up.

I'll probably be animating, and Neil will be hanging out and doing whatever!  Chattin', chillin', maybe saying incriminating stuff in Meph's voice?  Who knows!  But I thought it would be fun to have him on to make up for the lack of stuff I've been posting.   

So tune in tomorrow night a...

"I Will Never (Be Your Friend)" - Cover Song from W2H2 Trailer

I've got a couple requests for this so I figured I'd upload it here!  My crappy coffeehouse acoustic cover of Irish Stew's "I Will Never (Be Your Friend)" for the W2H2 teaser trailer.

Unfortunately, there is no full version of the song, I just recorded the pieces I wanted to use for the trailer, BUT, it is an isolated track.

In case anyone was wondering, the vocals were recorded in my car using a Blue Snowball mic, holding a piece of mesh in front of my face as a pop filte...