Sketchdump / Musicdump

I've had a lot of downtime, so I've been sketching in Photoshop.  I've gotten rusty.

Some character stuff:

Some anatomy/figure drawing stuff:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Music stuff I've done since the last time I posted some:


Just a quick test.  New rhythm guitar tone.


Recorded a backing track for improv practice, then I recorded a mostly improv lead line for this.  It goes off the rails a bit near the end.  I got some use out of my E-Bow for a short little bit in the middle.


Something I've been working on for a long time, I did a test recording of a segment of this song.  Seems promising.


I've wanted to do a Folk Metal cover of this song from Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind for a while now.  Might happen some day if I can finish transcribing it.


Here's a MIDI track of a song I started a while back and recently finished.

Reels

I'm posting up some new reels I cut recently.

Here's a hybrid 2D/3D reel:


And my just-2D reel:


I want some of my more recent work from Loopsy on these, but it hasn't aired yet.

And for good measure, here's my 3D reel, which hasn't been updated (yet):
Ryan Neff - Demo Reel from Ryan Neff on Vimeo.

Robot Chicken/DC Comics Art Show, and other things.

So here's the final piece I made for the Robot Chicken DC Comics Art Show.

Direct Image Link for zoomification

All done in Photoshop.  Lots of pen tool, lots of layers, lots of masking, and bits of the brush tool.  And it was done in far too many hours, in the span of far too few days.  The show is Friday, so I might make another post Saturday on how that goes.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Music stuff to catch up on:

Not-So-Black Metal:



A song using some fast double-bass drumming and some blast beats, with a bit of a post-metal vibe and my usual upbeat-ish improv solo.

------

E-bow Thing:



It's a thing.  I made it using my new e-bow.  Hence the "E-bow Thing" thing.

------

02-02-2014:



Looped backing track and some improvised solos for most of it.  Some more metally riffing at the end.  Plus, synth sounds I made myself in Reason.

------

1-24-2014:



Quick idea recorded with just guitars (originally to a metronome), because I was too lazy to actually write this progression down I just recorded it.  Probably no easier in the long run.  Also quasi-improvised, especially on the right-channel.

Computator drawerings and what have you.

I made these.  Not much to say here, other than "I really need a Cintiq."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the next 2 things, these were made for 2 music subreddits' banners.

First, /r/progrockmusic. A subreddit for, well, Prog Rock music.

See it in action HERE


Second, /r/epicmetal.  A subreddit for, well, epic metal.

Background was done really hastily, but the guy turned out pretty cool:

See it in action HERE
These were done in the spirit of the /r/progmetal banner I made some time back.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And now for the music portion of tonight's broadcast:

Here's a sloppy recording I did the same night I wrote this part.  It was made more out of boredom than anything else.  Solo is improvised:



Here's a sloppy clip of a song I wrote a short time ago.  Done as a proof-of-concept for myself.  Solo at the end is improv:



Here's a not-sloppy, but computerized version of the song the previous clip comes from.

Wedding Invite Design

My brother Scott and his now-wife April asked me to design their wedding invitations several months ago, giving me mostly free reign over the design.

I wanted to try a cut-out construction paper-type look, but I wanted to do it digitally.  I initially designed the parts of the card in flash so I could easily readjust them as needed, export them as an image sequence, and import them into photoshop as layers.  From there, I added the paper texture on individual items, added drop shadows (so. many. drop. shadows.) to give it depth, added the text and little squiggly bits (with even more drop shadows), and tweaked colors until I got it all right.  I ended up with well upwards of 100 layers, methodically sorted into a bunch of folders in the most well-organized photoshop file I've ever made.  It really had to be, because it was madness sorting out all those pieces.

The Reception invite and RSVP cards were simpler from there.  I took assets from the first card and repurposed them into the new cards.

 

I'm rather proud of these, and I know Scott and April are really happy with them, and I got many compliments from guests.  It's good to see it came a long way from the first draft I sent them:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In unrelated news, here's a song I did.



https://soundcloud.com/ryanimation02/broken-strings


The first fully electronic song I've done in a long while.  My guitar string broke, and I felt like making music still.  Lots of fun sound experimentation in this.  The main thing is messing around with distortion.  Most noticeably at the end, obviously, but almost every track of this has some amount of fluctuating distortion.  Also, a sort of mistake resulted in the drum climax near the end.  I accidentally left a more rock-oriented drum loop I had started with in, and forgot about it after placing it way later in the track to save for later.  It ended up playing on top of the electronic-oriented drum track, and after a few tweaks to make it fit better, i decided to leave it.  The electronic track still has the punch in the bass, but the rock track fills in gaps with energy, and more prominent cymbals.