The Gui Spot

Go It Alone...in HD!

2011-12-18T22:23:00.001-08:00

Hi folks. I revisited an old rotoscope project I did back in '06.

It was a music video for the song, "Go it Alone" by Beck from the album Guero.

I decided that it looked like crap on Youtube because of the size and quality.

So I figured Id make an HD version of it.

Also, during the original project, I didnt have enough time to do any significant post production. So this time around I cleaned up the frames, color corrected, re-cropped, and even redrew a few scenes.

Make sure you expand the video to your entire screen and watch in HD!

Thanks for watching.

Go It Alone from Ryan Guimond on Vimeo.

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-13T10:35:00.000-08:00

A little holiday card I made for my company Farm.
(www.farmcp.com)

Happy Holidays!

Charicatures!

2010-10-27T22:41:00.000-07:00

We've revamped our website at work and I drew charicatures of everyone in the office. Instead of painting, I used the dodge and burn tool in Photoshop to block in tones.

Here are a few of the more successful ones:

Sort of Work in Progress..

2010-10-11T21:53:00.000-07:00

Ive been drawing a little here and there but no real significant content.

Here's a work in progress.

Prismacolor color pencils.

Santa and Yeti

2009-12-21T22:36:00.001-08:00

More vector stuff..

Hippo and his bud

2009-11-23T23:16:00.001-08:00

Spies!!

2009-10-15T21:58:00.000-07:00

Please vote for my t shirt design at Threadless.com!!

Go here: http://threadless.com/submission/236232/SPIES

It just takes a minute to sign up, just enter your email..

Make sure and score a big fat 5!!!

Thanks guys!!

Just some sketches

2009-09-21T23:00:00.000-07:00

Hello folks. Been busy with summer and work, so I draw when I can but nothing much to show.

Heres some random sketches and some copies of screen grabs.

Charicature of me by Grigor

2009-06-11T22:16:00.001-07:00

Charicature by the amazing Grigor Eftimov. Im trying to get him to finish it but he's a busy guy.

Goodies from John K!!

2009-05-11T23:33:00.000-07:00

About a month or so ago, I inked a drawing by John K. for a cartoon pitch presentation. He sent me a box with some really cool stuff!

Heres the drawing he needed inked:

The ink I did in illustrator:

John's magical photoshop skills:

Here's some of the stuff I got..

Official Spumco Lodge membership!:

George, Sody, and Jimmy pencil toppers!

Cool Postcard-ish Spumco characters!

Spumco membership card:

(make sure to click and enlarge to read what this entales..)George Liquor drawing!

Sweet Layout drawing!Jealous?

Thanks John!

Coloring Book!

2009-04-04T13:10:00.000-07:00

Hey there! I finally finished the coloring book ive been working on off and on for about a 3 months now.. I had some computer problems and lack of time so im happy its done.

Back in October, one of my art professors passed away. Patrick Welch had two little 5 year old boys that loved to color with him. I figured Id make a little coloring book for them staring them as a frog and a mouse. Also, Patrick is the dinosaur.

Thanks for stopping by!

New One

2009-03-17T23:22:00.000-07:00

Im doing a little coloring book for a couple of 5 year olds. These by themselves probably dont make any sense, but Ive only got a few more drawings to do until I post them in sequential order.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tree Penguin?

2009-03-08T22:51:00.001-07:00

Im back!

2009-03-06T00:06:00.001-08:00

Here's a little sneak peak of a project im working on.

More to come..

Ill Be Back Soon

2009-01-06T00:32:00.000-08:00

Not sure if anyone stops by here anymore, but if you do, sorry I havnt posted anything for awhile. My computer was having some problems and I had to uninstall Photoshop. So until I get Photoshop again, I cant scan anything or format any pictures. Hopefully Ill be up and running again soon.

Thanks for stopping by.

Ryan

UFC 90

2008-10-29T22:16:00.001-07:00

So I went to UFC 90 in Chicago last Saturday and was a little disappointed. It was the first time in history that the UFC was in Chicago and the months leading up to the fight was torture to me. My expectations were shattered by sub par fights, bad decisions, and the anti-climactic showdown in the main event.

The event wasnt really in Chicago, but just about 20 miles away in Rosemont. A large group of friends pitched in for a limo so we could get as drunk as we wanted and not have to worry about anything.

The Ladies were all over me right when I walked in.

After I said "adios" to the ladies, former UFC champ Mark Colman followed me until I took a picture with him. I politely obliged.

Mark has a little highlight I would like to share with you that is the funniest thing I think Ive ever seen in MMA.

Its only 13 seconds long so enjoy this:

Nicole likes it !

This is a shot from our seats. Cote went down in the 3rd round for no apparent reason. Turns out he tore his meniscus in his knee. He had aggravated it about 4 weeks prior to the fight but did'nt want to pull out because it was a shot at the title.

Thanks Cote.

I might just watch the UFC events at a bar on pay per view for awhile until I get the bad taste out of my mouth..

Goodbye Patrick Welch

2008-10-21T23:43:00.000-07:00

Friend, mentor, professor, artist Patrick Welch passed away last week, Oct 16 2008.

Patrick was truly an incredible man.

I had the honor of studying under him for many classes. I first met Patrick back in the spring of 2006 for Drawing and Charicterization. I also took Storyboarding, Acting for Animation, and my Senior Thesis with him.

Patrick's teaching style is like nothing Ive ever experienced. He loved to joke and have fun and truly cared for each students' success. He was a great inspiration to everyone. You wanted Patrick's approval. You loved going to Patrick's classes. He had an infectious personality and you just wanted to be around him.

In 2006, Welch started an art movement collectively known as the micromentalists. The general philosophy of the group is that art need not be "monumental" in scale to be important, and has been described as "pseudo-Marxist".

The group is known not only for its premise of small art, but also for its commercial practice of selling art at lower prices, adjusted for the income of the buyer.

Welch is perhaps best known for his "Miniature Hate Paintings" which evoke a strange combination of childhood nightmare and adult neurosis, drawing on references from contemporary fine art, comic books, and science fiction. More recently his "Miniature Insult Blocks," painted on 1" x 2" blocks, detail English playground childhood insults in the saccahrine colours of boiled sweets.

Heres some of Patrick's mini paintings:

"I Now Understand"

"Gods Work, Not Mine"

"Art Tree Rapist"

"Art Killer of Trees"
"Self Titled"

"Shit Mouth"

"Would/Wood"

"P Fuckin Dub"

Patrick was a fun guy to be around and sometimes we would draw ugly pictures of each other.

Here's a couple of charicatures of Patrick I did in class.

Also some Patrick Welch sketches I snagged from him in class:

Self portrait:

Random sketches:

We all love you Patrick and you will be missed.

John K's Political Toys

2008-10-16T23:54:00.000-07:00

John K has created some political toys to get your juices flowing for the upcoming election. I got my Obama toy the other day and its absolutely amazing! I can't believe the level of detail and craftsmanship put into this toy. The photo doesnt do it justice, so you have to order them to see for yourself!

rfxtoys.com

Charicatures!

2008-10-09T19:58:00.001-07:00

We were working on our new website at work and they wanted me to do charicatures of everyone. I dont have pictures of the people so you'll just have to take my word for it.

There's a lot of inside jokes going on, and when we couldnt find something to make fun of, we just decided to pose them with one of their intrest/hobbies.

Here it is on our website:

Here!

Can you guess which one is me?

New Freelance Stuff!

2008-09-20T02:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Ive picked up a few projects here and there to keep myself busy. Ive been working full time at my job doin all kinds of stuff like storyboards, concepts, animation and 3D modeling. Sometimes its hard to just come home and start working again after 9 hours at the office but I force myself to pick up little projects like these. Ive fallen out of my art mode before and it takes awhile to get back on track! So keep drawing or whatever you like to do!

This one I did for a guy who needed an illustration for a menu in a bar. I guess the thing was chicken wings and beers for a cheap price during the week sometime. So he wanted a chicken holding a beer and a "wacky face."

I went a little too agressive on the fucked up factor of the chicken and he wanted me to tone it down a little.

So I toned it down and gave him a responsible drinking chickens face.

Cleanup

I remember when UFC first came out in the early nineties and my buddy and I would rent the tapes and watch them without our parents approval of course and we loved it!

I sort of lost track of the UFC fighters for the latter part of the nineties since they could'nt show the fights on pay per view and I kind of thought it just went away.

Since Dana White and the Fertitta brothers bought the UFC for 2 million dollars, they have grown the business into a billion dollar industry. They implemented rules and got it commissioned by the states. Now MMA is bigger than ever and I love it!

So anyway, I know quite a few guys that I wresteled with in high school that have gone on to fight in MMA.

One guy that I know that used to be a piercer for my tattoo artist buddy, opened his own gym and needed a logo for his gym, the Acadamy of Mixed Martial Arts.

Heres a few versions I did for him.

George wipes mouth #6

2008-09-09T21:53:00.000-07:00

I fixed the eyelids so that they are consistent throughout. Also tweeked the eyebrow.

George wipes mouth revisions

2008-09-08T22:05:00.000-07:00

Heres the revisons:
#1. I straightened out the box. Is this what you meant John? Also made tassle and mouth thicker.
The next two are the same head. I thickened the eyebrows and eyelid line

#5. Thicker eyelash line
#6. Thicker eyelash line. You also mentioned thicker eyebrows? They are from pose 5..did you mean thicker eyebrows on #4?
Thicker eyelashline.
Let me know if these are good to go!

George wipes his mouth

2008-09-07T22:44:00.001-07:00

Some of these look a little cluttered with all the layers but here they are.

George heads

2008-09-03T22:41:00.001-07:00

A couple more George heads.Let me know if I need to ink the window. It looked a little rough as if it is just used as reference.

Revised Inks

2008-08-27T21:09:00.001-07:00

George runs to window

2008-08-26T22:48:00.001-07:00

George's feet might be to thin here..

Rhino!

2008-08-11T22:43:00.000-07:00

I grabbed this drawing off of John K's blog.. I had to give it some ink. I really like the flakey horn. This one was challenging because of all the little details.

Last ones

2008-07-31T23:48:00.001-07:00

Whoops.. I see a mistake on the hand..will fix that! Maybe his head needs to be thicker too..

New one

2008-07-29T23:51:00.000-07:00

More inks

2008-07-29T00:48:00.000-07:00

Revised inks

2008-07-23T23:57:00.001-07:00

Heres some more inks of John K's layout poses. I attempted to thicken my lines along the larger shapes and give more variety of thickness elsewhere. Let me know what you guys think.

George Liquor Inks

2008-07-19T13:15:00.001-07:00

Heres some layout drawings from John K. I figured Id practice up on my inking skills. Done in Illustrator.

Vegas!

2008-07-16T23:53:00.000-07:00

Got back from Vegas after a long 4th of July weekend. My girl and myself went out there to relax, gamble and watch some UFC!

The Arena at the Mandalay Bay from our seats.

We saw a couple of fighters after the show. Cory Hill was on the Ultimate fighter show a couple of seasons ago. He was dominating his fight but got choked out eventually. Man, he's so tall and skinny for a 155 pounder.

We saw Chris Lytle after the show too. He just could'nt do anything against Josh Koshchek. He got a nasty cut over his eye and was bleeding all over the octogon. I lost 50 bucks on Chris. I got a picture with him anyway:)

I lost some money on a couple of fights on the undercard, but I won $165 on Forrest Griffin. What a great experience! If you have a chance to see UFC live, do it.. Its amazing!

I Grad-e-ated!!!

2008-06-30T20:45:00.000-07:00

Whelp, I just recently graduated and it feels great to be out of school. I attended Eastern Illinois University from 1997 to 2001 and majored in graphic design. After a few low paying and unsatisifying jobs later, I found myself working in bars making more money and having more fun. A few years later I decided that it was time to grow up and follow my passion. I enrolled at the Illinois Institute of Art in Chicago in the Media Arts and Animation program. 2 1/2 years later, I finally graduated!! It was the best and hardest decision Ive ever made. I was $3000 away from being completely debt free when I enrolled at AI. Now Ive got lots more debt!! But I also have a job doing what I love to do and the best work environment and co-workers ever. Ive been working at my job part time for 2 1/2 years now and Im finally full time. The company is Farm Creative Parlour. We specialize in photorealistic renderings of products, specifically in the contract furniture business. I get to do a little of everything here which is awesome. Ive created character designs, environment concepts, storyboards for animations, models, textures, and animations. Check it out here: FarmCP

Here's my Demo Reel.

The whole reason I started this blog was because of John K, one of my all time favorite cartoonists! I stumbled upon his blog a couple of months after I started school and it was a constant source of inspiration and helpful resources. Thanks John.

Heres some picts of what Ive been doing in the past couple of weeks.

Setting up for the portfolio show.

Saman, Timmy and Kelli.
My booth at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago.
My Mom and Pop.

My girl Nicole, and my great bud, Saman and his wife.
Graduation party!
Buds.
Nicole, myself and Bryan. He says he has gigantism. I tell him hes just fat like me.

Nicole's dad, my sister's husband Chris, My uncle Tim, My dad and my bro.

Family.

My website is up too! Check it out at

www.guimondanimations.com

See you later!

New Chacho sketch and Ink

2008-06-05T01:21:00.000-07:00

Im in the process of getting ready for my Portfolio show on June 18th. Im updating a couple of pages and decided to crank this drawing and ink out tonight. Its been awhile since Ive inked in Illustrator, so it was refreshing to do this little dude.

Chef renders

2008-05-28T00:52:00.001-07:00

Whoa! Almost done with school! Just a few weeks left and I still have a crap load of stuff to do. Im working on my official website right now. Heres some new renders of my Chef character from last quarter. I designed, modeled, textured, lit and rendered these images. My buddies, Bryan Tims and Batko Wojcieck rigged the model. Done in Maya.

George Liquor

2008-05-01T20:49:00.000-07:00

Heres a few sketches of John K's George Liquor. I have some problems here with proportion. I found myself drawing the facial features too big and making them creep into the back of his head just like John warned us about. Overall form is off too. Ill give another stab at it tomorrow.

New!!

2008-04-15T00:20:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all.. Man, Ive been so busy lately trying to get my demo reel together and working. I managed to squeeze this little freelance illustration together for one of my buddies from high school. Ill try to post more often!

Later guys.

Purple and Brown

2008-02-24T18:09:00.000-08:00

Wow, Ive been really busy lately. I was on Vincent Waller's blog the other day and came across this Purple and Brown clip from Aardman studios. I have to say that this is the funniest shit Ive seen in awhile. Check it out!

Purple_and_brown_collection
Uploaded by alexgfx

A Crappy Shitter

2008-01-15T00:22:00.000-08:00

I did this in Maya. I used Maya's Paint Effects for the trees and foliage. The renders took about 50 minutes a piece with Mental Ray.

Chef

2008-01-11T22:42:00.000-08:00

Heres a concept sketch of a chef character for a senior project. Its a group project that we will have 11 weeks to complete a 3-4 minute 3D short. Wish us luck!

Chacho inks and stuff

2008-01-03T22:55:00.000-08:00

Heres some inks and a little motion study from last quarter:

Chacho and Makko jammin!

2007-12-21T01:04:00.000-08:00

This is from last quarter..

More Construction Practice

2007-12-12T23:27:00.001-08:00

You can never get enough construction practice right?

John is continuing his online courses, this particular assignment is drawing a 3d toy to understand form and construction with basic shapes.

Heres a couple attempts:

A couple more chicks

2007-12-05T20:42:00.000-08:00

2 more for ya..

Color Pencil

More Chicks

2007-11-25T15:54:00.001-08:00

Chick

2007-11-14T23:48:00.000-08:00

So heres my first inking attempt. I used a Micron Pigma brush and a Faber Castell Pitt artist pen. These brushes are fun to draw with and you can lay down large areas of ink with ease. The Micron pen is a little more like a brush in the sense that its a little flimsy where as the Faber Castell brush is a little stiffer and good for smaller detailed parts.

I originally screwed this one up in the face. I was expierimenting and went a little too far. I was also trying to be overly perfect. When I decided that it looked messed up I just started being loose and not caring so much and I think I accidentally salvaged it.

Illustrator ink:

More Stinky inks

2007-11-02T23:31:00.000-07:00

Heres some more inks. Something weird is happening with my copy of Illustrator CS2 when I ink. After I get done inking, I save the file but am unable to open the file back up. It says, "Cant open Illustration ID - 50." It then opens up the file and all my inklines I made are gone!

Im still able to open the Illustrator file in Photoshop, but it rasterizes it, so I cant go rework it in Illustrator.

Ive never seen this before, but it only seems to be doing this when I use the brush tool. Is this a graphic card issue?

Stinkin inks

2007-10-28T23:02:00.000-07:00

Ive been inking in Illustrator lately with Brian Romero's technique. I was getting the hang of it but still having a couple of problems with really long strokes and round forms. The line was still squiggly and it didnt match up right. I asked Mitch, whos been crankin out some of his own kick ass inks and he gave me a few pointers.

Thanks guys!

So heres a few of my attempts.

Construction Practice with John K.

2007-10-22T00:56:00.000-07:00

Head over to John K's blog and check out this great construction lesson he has posted. It got sort of messy, so I traced over the constructed drawing with some cleaner lines.

This sort of thing is great practice and it will help you understand the forms that make up a character.

Touch up

2007-10-21T17:29:00.000-07:00

So I decided that Chacho needed to be colored better. The first version is ok but you see too much paper texture coming through. You really have to lay the color pencil down thick for it to go into each and every pore of the paper. So the 2nd version here I just went over it a few more times to smooth it out.

Chacho and Makko

2007-10-17T12:31:00.001-07:00

Its been awhile since ive busted out the color pencils.. so here ya go..

Makko

Chacho

Why cant I finish this drawing?

2007-10-10T16:21:00.000-07:00

Man! Sometimes I have a problem with not finishing my drawings. I drew this a few years ago and just recently stumbled across it. I remember wanting to do the background but I just sat there and stared at it for way too long and lost interest. Just like that! I actually tried some background color schemes on a tracing paper overlay, but they were not working. Anyone have any ideas?

More work from Finals week! slash huge 3d post.

2007-09-22T16:09:00.001-07:00

I know theres some 3D haters out there and honestly it may not be my favorite thing to do. But.. This dude was pretty fun to work with. Although there might be a fair share of button pushing, and vertex tweeking, that turns most cartoonists off, there is also a fair amount of artistry that I enjoy doing.

I would like to go through some of the workflow involved with creating a 3d model.

1. Concepts:

Figure out what character you would like to model. Not all characters will translate well from 2D to 3D. (Anyone seen that Simpsons episode where Homer is in 3D..wierd.)
There is no single one way to design for 3d, but flat looking characters with no volume to their forms will probably not translate well to 3D.

Here are some early development concepts of Otis Strigifini from last year. Since then I have redesigned his face but kept his proportions.

2. Turnaround/Image Planes

To some, this is very important because most people cant just wing it in the 3d program. You have to have nearly exact front and side view of your character to match up in the viewports for reference. Once you get more comfortable in the program, exact image planes become a little less important.

3. Modeling

Blocking out your basic form starting with a box. Get the basic form down first and then start adding details.

Head details:

Once you have your overall form delete one side of the head. After your done, you can mirror over the one side to the other and weld the two together.
4. Texturing

If youre decent at modeling, you probably havent had too much trouble yet. Now you have to unwrap the mesh off the model so you can lay the textures out without them being stretched all nasty. This process is a bitch sometimes. Its called UV Layout.

Heres the owls head uv layout.

Now after all this uv crap, I got to do some painting..

I downloaded some cool Photoshop hair brushes to paint this color map. It took me about 3 hours to slowly build up this texture.
The beak.

5. Rigging

Ok now this part really sucks. This is the technical side that I havent gotten into quite yet. So as you can imagine I suck at this and had tons of problems trying to rig this little fucker. Rigging is putting in joints/skeletal system so that you can animate or simply just to pose your character. Tons of problems arise if you forget to do one little thing right or if a joint is facing the wrong way so expect to hate this process until you've done it a hundred times.
Heres Otis's skeleton.

Theres another whole catastrophe of a process called "painting weights" that Ill spare you the details of.

6. Lighting and Rendering.

This is actually a technical side that I actually enjoy. This involves setting up physical lights and making sure your character or environment is illuminated correctly and that your textures get seen as well as producing appropriate shadows.

Well, this a pretty basic knowledge of Maya, but for those who havnt used any 3D software, this is what they are teaching us here at AI.

Heres my final images.

Check out my short!

2007-09-18T23:16:00.000-07:00

Hey Y'all! My short is done! Its my first attempt at flash and im pretty happy with how it came out. The sound fx could have been a little better but it is what it is I guess.

I animated the whole thing on paper first, scanned, and inked and colored the frames in flash. I did use some symbols when necessary. The whole thing took about a month.

Well let me know what you guys think! Thanks for stopping by!

Play Movie

Sneak Peek!!

2007-09-13T21:28:00.001-07:00

Heres a few frames from my short. Its almost done but I still have some sound fx to put in. I should have it up by early next week!

Style sheet

2007-09-04T22:31:00.000-07:00

Heres a little picture of the two characters in my short. Makko the Possum and Chacho the Owl. I have to do 3 different styles of this picture. 2 more to come..

**Update**

My short is almost done! Im going through the arduous process of inking and coloring all my frames in flash, so I should have something up in a week or two. later!

Heres another one with limited outlines. Sort of like Samurai Jack.

BG's

2007-08-22T00:17:00.000-07:00

Heres a few of the backgrounds Ill be using for my new short. I dont usually draw landscapes or backgrounds but these seemed to turn out alright.. I quite enjoyed drawing these. I havent used Illustrator for awhile so it was good to refresh my memory. Thanks for stopping by!

This one is my favorite so far. There is going to be a character dropping in the foreground in this scene. I really paid close attention to compostion on this one. I framed the two figures with the trees and placed the flowers so they point to the characters as well.

Im changing the name of my blog

2007-08-21T20:34:00.001-07:00

Ive decided that I will change the name of my blog to, "The Gui Spot". Sorry all you Ryan G's Cartoon Crap fanatics, You'll just have to dip into the "Gui Spot" from now on.

Bouncy Possum

2007-08-16T01:18:00.000-07:00

Heres the crazy possum character from my new short. I havnt got a name for him yet. These are some keys from a scene where he's falling from a tree branch with his tail wrapped around it. He falls and recoils back up. More to come!

New short in the works

2007-08-12T22:49:00.000-07:00

Thats right. Production has begun on my new short. Storyboards are done, and Im laying out scenes, drawing backgrounds and animating a few scenes and im really excited to see how this thing turns out. Im going to be drawing everything by hand and then scanning the drawings and making a little flash movie. Our classes at school are only 11 weeks long and Im just starting this right now. That leaves me roughly 6 weeks to finish this bad boy. Wish me luck!

Heres one of the stars of this short.

Later..

Bosko wave and Side step

2007-08-09T21:19:00.000-07:00

I thought Id give the Bosko wave a try from John K's Animation post. Man, what a cool little bouncy, fun guy to animate!

Bosko wave_01
Uploaded by rguimond

Heres a little side step project from my class. We had a beginning and end pose given to us and applied it to our own characters. We then had to do some funky inbetweens. Hope you enjoy! Later.

Sidestepmovie_02
Uploaded by rguimond

Heres the keyframes!

Otis and Tommy Two Horn

2007-08-02T17:15:00.000-07:00

I drew this a few months ago and am just now getting around to posting it. These are some characters I created for my Drawing and Characterization class. They're gangstas. Some of the color got a little muddy with the scan, but you get the idea.. Thanks for coming by! Later.

More Pub Drawings

2007-07-22T14:36:00.001-07:00

Heres some more pub drawings. While I was supposed to be choking people out for not leaving the bartender a good tip, I was drawing these..

Dirty Birdy

2007-07-09T20:17:00.000-07:00

My 3 week summer break is over. I did this over the break. Enjoy.

Dirty Birdy
Uploaded by rguimond

Pub Drawings

2007-06-27T15:21:00.001-07:00

I used to bounce at an old Irish Pub here in Chicago. All my shifts were 12 hours long and during the week it was pretty slow. To stay sane, I drew pictures on these yellow pads of paper they had there. Theres something about ball point pen that I love. I dont know, maybe its the way the ink flows out or the nice tip that always stays consistant. Anyway, I would always draw these "rocky" structures with a strong light source. I must have been in some sort of texture phase or something. wierd banana cluster
bumpy "S"
sharp rocks
bottle opener rock formation
swirly/twisty thing.

Sven Hoek expression studies

2007-06-18T13:53:00.000-07:00

Hey there! In my opinion, Sven Hoek is one of the top episodes of Ren and Stimpy. It has some of the best acting ive seen (especially from Ren) and some of the funniest expressions. I study this episode often and from time to time freeze frame certain scenes so I can draw them. These are some of my favorite expressions from Sven.

New Drawrings

2007-06-04T19:41:00.000-07:00

Hey There! Its been awhile since Ive posted some goofy drawings, so heres some stuff from one of my classes. I had alot of stuff to draw, so I sketched them really quick with a soft pencil and colored them in Photoshop. It only took about an hour to color them all.
This is my friend Saman. He's French. Haw He Haw.

Disiplinary father figure teaching the rules of the world to his offspring.

John K. and Bill Plympton in Chicago!

2007-05-28T15:26:00.000-07:00

Hey folks! What a great weekend I had! I got to attend the John and Bill show on Friday and meet my hero John K!

The show started at eight and I got to meet John right as we walked into the lobby. He was cool and remembered me from all the comments I leave on his blog. My girl and I went in and got a seat and watched about 2 hours of some rare and unseen John K. shorts. Ive already seen about 90% of the stuff John showed, but the more rare stuff I havent seen was great to see for the first time. I got to finally see "Boo Boo Runs Wild" in its entirety for the first time along with a Pee Boner short and a full episode of the "New Adventures of Mighty Mouse" John told some stories about each clip he showed and Bill asked a few questions to John. The most memorable story John told was when he was studying animation in Canada and had recently discovered Bob Clampett. He got Bob's phone number from one of his professors. John flew to L.A. and immediately called Bob when he got off the plane. "Is this the Genius," John asked as Bob started laughing. Bob then invited John to his studio to meet him.
After the show I got a charicature from John! I also bought this still from Bill Plympton's new movie "Idiots and Angels"
There was an after party at a bar called Shubas. Some friends and I rolled up there and started drinking free PBR's. I saw Bill Plympton there and got to talk to him for a minute. I asked Bill for some advise for young animators trying to break into the industry. Bill said to have great drawing skills (obviously) and to learn as many programs as you can. Especially Photoshop, Flash and Final Cut Pro. Bill was nice but left shortly into the party. John finally showed up and I was fortunate to get to shoot the shit with him for a minute. It was last call and there was about 20 people wanting to talk to John so I was happy I got to talk with him.
John was super cool and took a picture with me too! If you have a chance to see one of his rare shows, dont miss it! It was a great weekend!
Also, thanks to Gabe Levinson for setting this show up!

My trippy girl

2007-05-19T13:43:00.000-07:00

I dont know why Ive been doing psychadelic projects lately. I swear im not on drugs.

Psychadelica

2007-05-07T18:50:00.000-07:00

Heres something for all you Acid eaters out there. Made in After Effects.

psychadelica
Uploaded by rguimond

Materials and Lighting

2007-05-02T22:06:00.000-07:00

Here's a little alley scene that my teacher Vicki Hrody modeled. We had to texture and light it in Maya. I took pictures of all the textures used in this scene.

Ryan Guimond: Animator

2007-04-28T16:58:00.000-07:00

Hey! This is a little name identification piece I did for my Motion Graphics class. I jump all over the chance to do some 2D animation. This little guy was fun and easy to animate. I scanned all the (24) drawings and made a layer in Photoshop for each drawing. I made an alpha channel for each of them too. I imported them into After effects and composited them! Wha la! The text I did in Maya. I think when I uploaded the video, The line work got all blown out.. So sorry for the shitty quality. Whatayagoingtodo?

Name ID
Uploaded by rguimond

3D aminations!

2007-04-21T00:32:00.000-07:00

Im currently taking an intermediate 3D animation class here in Chicago. These are a couple of excercises they got us doing. Whoopee.
Ryan Guimond_PB
Uploaded by rguimond

front side step
Uploaded by rguimond

Drawing of Life Drawing

2007-03-29T23:26:00.000-07:00

This is a drawing I did out of Anthony Ryder's book, The Artitst's Complete Guide to Figure Drawing. Its quite large, approx 19" tall. I had to scan in two sections, so its always a pain to match the parts up exactly.
I learned some cool techniques last quarter from my Life Drawing teacher. One of them was rendering using the side of your pencil and laying down flat tones. Layout your darks and lights, then go in and do your middle tones. Its a great approach!

Done with an HB pencil.

Tommy Two Horn...in 3D!

2007-03-24T15:54:00.000-07:00

Well, I just finished another quarter at the Illinois Institute of Art here in Chicago. One of my bigger projects in my Intermediate 3D modeling class was to model a head. I decided to model a character I designed "Tommy Two Horn" a gangster rhino. Not like the ghetto gangster with pants around the ankles, but the old school "Goodfellas" type gangster.

This is my concept sketch. Its a cropped section of a really cool scene I drew which Ill post soon.
In order to successfully model a good head, you need good reference. Usually a side view and front view are good enough to model off of. You need to import the images into Maya and line them up in the viewports. The most important thing is to make sure the parts line up. Like the top of the head, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the bottom of the head, etc.. have to line up or your going to have a hard time modeling off of them. Its important to learn to draw good model sheets and turn arounds.

I tried drawing my character in the side and front view, but its very hard to achieve the exact proportions. So I decided to make a little sculpty model of my rhino guy. I actually only modeled half of the head fully. I then took photos of it and mirrored one side of the face to the other in Photoshop to create the front plane.
Here's the side view.
My teacher thought it looked like a little baby bird. It was also beneficial to me to have the sculpty model with me to reference along the process.

Here's the final model. I wish I had time to put in is pubey hair cut, but time is always an issue.

Im not sure if I stayed true to the 2d character or if Its to close to a realistic rhino, but it is what it is I guess..

Later guys!

Guitar Dude

2007-03-06T23:56:00.000-08:00

I have recently received an opportunity to showcase an original piece of artwork in a gallery. Unfortunately, most of the students selected to submit something for the show, chose not to participate. So there are only like 6 pieces right now, obviously not enough for a gallery show. We will still have the show eventually but it looks like somewhere around June/July.

What the school wanted, was a piece that illustrates what each major was all about. I'm in the Media Arts and Animation program so the committee was looking for a submission such as an animation or character design or a 3d model.

I decided to do what I love to do the most and draw a goofy cartoony dude, playing a curvy guitar.

I still need to put in a few details like arm hair and model the face a little more, but if anyone has any critiques or suggestions I would greatly appreciate them!

3D model

2007-02-24T00:37:00.000-08:00

Yeah, Its not quite finished, but for the sake of posting something, here's a 1995 Ford Mustang that I modeled in Maya for my Intermediate 3D modeling class. I still need to complete the headlights, add some car logos/hood ornaments, and that black trim that goes around the windows, and the grill. I used Mental Ray to render.

Bill Plympton

2007-02-18T15:10:00.000-08:00

Yeah, its been a couple of weeks since my last post but I havent found the time or motivation to sit down and scan things and all that jazz. So, last week I got to meet one of my animaiton heros. Bill Plympton came to Chicago as a part of The Animation Show. The Animation show is an animation festival similar to Spike and Mikes twisted animation festival. www.animationshow.com . The festival is produced by Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeld.

So we got to see a bunch of awesome animation including Bill Plympton's latest short called "Guide Dog." Its a follow up to last years oscar nominated "Gaurd Dog." It was hillarious as usual but I was extremely impressed with Joanna Quinn's short called "Dreams and Desires."

She has a similar style to Bill, in that its really shaky looking but the animation is great. It also looks like she used charcoal, and the camera angles and acting are outstanding.

Check her out here: http://www.animationshow.com/eu.aspx?url=http%3a%2f%2fwww.berylproductions.co.uk%2f

Here's a little clip from Joanna's movie:

So after the show, I got to meet Bill and get a picture and a couple of autographs from him. He drew a little picture for you if you bought a DVD or something from him. Check out his site: www.plymptoons.com All in all it was a great time and I got to meet one of my all time favorite animators. Not a bad Friday night!

Damn

2007-02-04T20:01:00.000-08:00

Well the Bears blew it.

I just hope its not another 21 years till they're at the Superbowl again.

Later.

Ryan G.

Im a Weiner! (Well sort of..)

2007-01-22T18:58:00.000-08:00

Hey ch'all! I entered into a national drawing contest back in the summer time for Red Vines licorice. The grand prize was a $5000 scholarship which I was initially going for. Well, I did'nt win the grand prize, but I am going to have my design printed on the packaging! It will be printed on the Red Vines 5 oz. trays. Starting this month! So go pick up a package... there are a total of 90 or so designs that they chose to print. Maybe you'll see mine!

GO BEARS!!

3D (action/reaction)

2007-01-14T21:06:00.000-08:00

Heres a littly diddy I did, animating this flour sac character. The assignment was to create a action/reaction scenerio.

final sac movie
Uploaded by rguimond

Fat guy walking

2006-12-30T16:30:00.000-08:00

Heres a little walk cycle assignment I had for my 2D animation class. I explored alot of secondary actions with the gut the arms the hair and the face. Is not quite perfect but I had to move on to other projects. More 2D stuff to come!

walkmovie
Uploaded by rguimond

Sketch Book Doodles

2006-12-21T13:19:00.000-08:00

Here are some sketches from my most recent sketch book. I mostly use my sketch book for school projects..Id like to do alot more drawing for my own amusement though...

Animation Keys

2006-12-16T12:48:00.000-08:00

Hey folks! My quarter is done! Holy crap! So much work, but I got it all done. Ive got a butt load of drawings and animations to post.. This is a little preview of a character I animated for my Acting for animation class and my 2D animation class.. Stay tuned for more!

3D Animation

2006-12-03T16:57:00.000-08:00

Dailymotion blogged video
lampington_final
Video sent by rguimond

This is a project I did in Maya for my 3d animation class. We looked at Luxo Jr. from Pixar and had to complete an animation of our own, with a lamp. Some of the jumps need a little work... tell me what you think! Later guys..

Money Game

2006-11-16T12:46:00.000-08:00

Hey there! This is my midterm project from last quarter's Video class. We glued a dollar bill to the ground, found a good hiding spot and taped the insuing chaos! It was really fun watching these fine Chicagoans struggle to pick up a dollar and the project had a good responce. It was my first time editing so it was also a good learning process.

We initially wanted to glue coins to the ground but we had problems getting the coins to stay since the ground was so bumpy. Also, no one saw the coins after we did finally get some to stay down.

So I was like F*** it.. and dug into my life's savings to produce this film. I think the grand total was $6.58. All for the sake of art.

Sorry if the movie is a little slow loading up..

Emotional Fat Guy

2006-11-11T16:39:00.000-08:00

Heres a little emotion study from my Acting for Animation class. We develop a character throughout the 11 week quarter. We act out their movement, their emotions, voice, mannerisms, and all that good stuff.

These are some suggested emotion poses: Biting into rotton food
Finding something of great value
Desperate to urinate
Humiliated in public
Recieving an award for a high honor
Favorite tool breaking at the wrong moment
Being seductive

Im starting to like to work with this character. He's a substitute teacher that not many people like. He's not a bad guy, just really slobby and shit. Im currently working on a walk cycle with him in 2d. Maybe Ill post soon! Later Guys..

Fat Dude sketches

2006-11-04T00:05:00.000-08:00

Hey! Ive been busier than ever with school and work and cant post as much as I would like to, but heres some sketches of some fat dudes that ive been developing for my acting for animation class. We have to work with one character all quarter long and develop their personality, movement, emotion, etc.. I tend to laugh alot while drawing these fat, slobby, discusting guys.

Ive been animating alot lately and Ill try and post my 2d stuff here soon!
I have a crap load of markers that I decided to use for once. I mainly use colored pencils for coloring but its alot more time consuming. Id like to get better at markers.

Pencil Drawings

2006-10-22T19:09:00.000-07:00

Here is a drawing of Rodney Dangerfield I did just after he died.

This is my teacher Patrick Welsh. He's really cool and draws everything urinating on the board. He's got a great English accent.

New for you, old for me

2006-10-17T00:44:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! Ive been slackin on posting lately but Im super busy at school, and have been working alot more at my job. So here are a couple old pictures to lay your peepers on!

I took a photography class at Eastern Illinois University in 2001. It was a really fun class. It was all 35 mm cameras and we had to develop our own film and make our own prints. It was a great learning process and fun too!

This picture below is probably the coolest picture ive ever taken. Our class took a field trip to the Lincoln Log Cabin, a historical site, to take some pictures. The workers there dressed up in costumes from the 1800's to give it the ambiance. I was walking around this little house and a girl came in and was trying to get a cat from out underneath the bed. I turned around and snapped a couple pictures and it turned out really cool. It has a sort of creepy, ghostly feel to it. I also like it because it reminds me of a Vermeer painting, with the lighting coming in from the left.

The concept for this drawing was made on this yellow lined paper while I was working as a bouncer in Chicago. I have alot of these "being bored" while bouncing sketches Ill probably post some time. Well enjoy! See you!

Check out my Movie!

2006-10-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

Well, my movie has been done now for a couple of weeks and I finally got around to posting it. So, thats me with the stack of 1887 frames I had to trace for my Intro to Video final. For those who dont know what rotoscoping is, ill give you a quick run-down. Basically, its tracing over film. I shot the original footage myself, edited it, and then exported the movie into jpeg files. I printed the frames out, punched holes in the top with the animation hole puncher, and then layed a blank sheet on top and traced the figures. I ended up using about 50 black Prismacolor color pencils. The entire project took me about a month and im really glad its done. I didn't go out on the weekends and didn't get much sleep while working on this project. My friend Bryan Tims from my school helped me out with a couple of scenes. He took on about 8 seconds of animation and did a fantastic job adapting to the style I was working in. I had to make a quick way of drawing the frames and tried not to spend more than 3 minutes per drawing. Some scenes took longer than others, especially the scenes with 2 figures.

I used the song "Go It Alone" by Beck from the album Guero.

The actors in the video are my brother Jeff Guimond, my girlfriend Nicole Duran, my roomate Dylan Barrett, and myself for a second..

Well here it is.. Id love to hear some feedback from you guys!

Click Here to Watch!!

Maya Final

2006-09-21T23:58:00.000-07:00

Hey Whats up! Well, this is my 3d modeling 1 final. I chose to do a interior scene. The models are pretty simple but the lighting and texturing came out beautiful. I looked through many interior design magazines and took certain components that I liked from different images. I used raytracing to get the lighting and shadows. I used 1 spotlight outside and 4 really soft lights inside. Not bad for my first go around with Maya. Looks like a comfy place to chill right?

The Movie Is Done But....

2006-09-17T13:11:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! Finally! I finished my rotoscoping project! It was a month of hard work and no fun on the weekends. I finished a week early too! I finished the drawing part of it last Tuesday and did the final editing on Wednesday. It turned out awesome and I burnt a bunch of DVD's. I cant wait to show everyone. However, there is one little problem. I used a song by Beck in the video. Since its a copywritted song im reluctant to post it on my blog without permission. I was planning on submitting it to Art shows and or film fests and I didnt want any problems with copywriting infringement. So I wrote Beck an email stating my case and hoping he will reply with permission to use the song as long as im not gaining monetary value from it. Beck is a huge supporter of the arts and I really think he'll lend me permission.

Am I being to paranoid or being smart about this. I really want to show this thing off but at the same time I dont want to burn any bridges. Should I wait to hear back from Beck first or just say screw it and post it.. Tell me what ch'all think..

Its Katie Rice's Birthday!!

2006-09-12T01:41:00.000-07:00

Its Katie Rice's Birthday y'all.. So go wish her happiness and stuff at funnycute.blogspot.com

Rotoscope IIII

2006-09-09T17:13:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! This will be my last post updating this rotoscope project. That means this sucker is almost in the bag!! I only have about 20 - 25 seconds left to do. Its due in a week and a half but I also have other class projects I need to attend to. I hope to have it completed by Wednesday.

Ive been getting some really good reactions from students and teachers on some of the scenes i shot as pencil tests, so I really cant wait to see the finished movie. My buddy Brian took on about 8 seconds worth of footage to help me out.

I also want to thank you all who come to my site and leave me comments. Its nice to hear your opinions and support.. Only a couple weeks left of school for this quarter! I need a break! Later guys!

Rotoscope 3

2006-09-01T22:10:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! Progress is definitely moving this project along and I have completed about 1 minuted of animation. Im half way there! This movie runs about 2:06:00. I broke down and passed a couple of scenes to my buddy Brian Tims. Brian is very generous for offering to help me take on this monumental task. He's going to start off with about 8 seconds of footage and we'll see if he wants to do more.

This particular scene took me the longest to do. It was only about 55 frames or something but it took me about 6 hours to complete it. I try and stay around 2 to 3 minutes per frame. These frames took me 5 to 6 minutes. The figures are much larger in these frames which takes longer, plus there are 2 figures in the scene.. It took forever!! Needless to say, I shot this scene on hte animation lunchbox and it looks incredible. It will be worth it in the end. Well back to drawing..See you soon..

It Has Begun

2006-08-17T21:16:00.000-07:00

Yes. It has begun. The stupidest thing I think I will ever do. Attempt to complete a 2 minute rotoscoping project on my own. This project is for my intro to video class at The Art Institute. Ive already shot the movie , edited it, and have begun printing and tracing a few scenes. Shit man, this is going to take me forever. There is a total of approx. 1900 frames to trace. Ive got about 170 completed so far. Ive already used up 2 black prismacolor color pencils! I figure ill use 20 pencils at this rate. Well here's a still frame from my masterpiece. Its my brother Jeff in his funky '70's vintage clothing. Ive shot about 15 seconds of my progress and it looks like that Ah-Ha video from the 80's..Take on Me or Take Me On or something like that.
Well, other than that, here's some girls from my sketch book. Ive always wanted to be able to draw sexy girls like John K. and Katie Rice. Ive been practicing a little here and there. Tell me what you think.

GUY IS THE MAN!!

2006-08-09T23:28:00.000-07:00

Guy Aitchison
www.hyperspacestudios.com

One of my best friends is a tattoo artist and he turned me on to Guy Aichison about 4 or 5 years ago. Guy is the most innovative and talented tattoo artist in the industry today. The tattoo industry itself, does'nt have the best reputation for representing high quality art and artists. Tattooing has a negative stereotypical aura about it. I think most people imagine these big harley looking fellas with huge beards and loads of tattoos from head to toe. Well, things have changed. Although, as easy as it is to buy a tattoo gun and some ink, few tattoo artists strive to do nothing more than make a few bucks, by tracing a picture from a page on the wall.

The industry is becoming so saturated with tattoo parlours, that a person not knowing much about art or tattoos, will settle for the first tattoo artist they come across. My friend owns his own tattoo buisness and half of his buisness is covering up other artists' craptastic excuses for tattoos.

Anyway, Guy Aichison is among the elite artists in the tattoo industry. Many people like to get all kinds of differnt tattoos scattered all over their body. Guy on the other hand, sees the body like a canvas. Guy likes to tattoo full back pieces, half arm sleeves, full arm sleeves, etc... Guy also tattoos with the body's contours. He lets the forms flow around the body instead of slapping down a decal-like tattoo. Guy is the master at lighting, texture, and creating the illusion of depth.

I actually met this dude below while
working as a bouncer at Butch
McGuire's in Chicago. He came in wearing a tank top and I knew right away it was a Guy tattoo. I was star struck seeing this tattoo because ive never seen one up close. Ive only seen pictures in magazines.See how this tattoo flows
around the countour of the
arm

John K. Caricature

2006-07-20T14:55:00.001-07:00

From time to time, I venture over to Eddie Fitzgerald's blog and check out what theory he has in store for the day. Many theories that Eddie posts include caricatures of himself, drawn by partially insane, John K.

The wierd thing is though, I dont think ive seen any John K. caricatures by Eddie or anyone for that matter..

I suggested to Eddie that he post some reference pictures of John, so that we bloggers could take a crack at drawing John.. Well it occured to me that there was great reference of John on the featurette from the first Ren & Stimpy DVD's. So I sat down last night and crapped this caricature onto a piece of bristol..

Now I see why I dont see many caricatures of John.. He's really hard to draw!! He really does'nt have many distinguishing facial features.. But I had to keep pushing the drawing and I finally came up with this caricature that captures his likeness along with his "old man balls..."

The Ren & Stimpy Lost episodes are out and blew my friggin mind. Hopefully, it will blow your mind too.. John K. and Spumco are at thier best in this 2 disk set. There are tons of interviews, along with never before seen cartoons !! So run out and pick it up..John K. is a sick bastard of a genius.