Deep River Muster

Geeked out this weekend with a Fife and Drum Corp Muster down in Deep River, CT. I didn't actually play anything (since I'm still pretty craptacular at the fife), but it was fun to listen to the corps and watch the phenomenal amount of white trash wander around drinking beer. Got a few sketches down when the 'f' troupe started (that's the big jam session at the end of the evening).


By the time I decided to stop trying to sketch drummers (the fifers were hidden in the mass of drummers!), it was getting a bit dark. I soldiered on though! Started sketching my surroundings instead. Here are a few drums and tents in the background.


This sketch took me a while to realize that as the music crescendoed behind me, I was more and more frantically scribbling! I had to consciously slow myself down for fear of my sketchbook bursting into flames or my pen flying out of my hand. haha. It was at this point that I really wished I'd brought some paints (and a big floodlight to paint under!) because this food stand was lit with brilliant yellow-orange and white light - while everything else around it was dark green-purple. Maybe I should try a color sketch in photoshop. We got photos of it, but I find photography annoyingly unsatisfactory - since the colors never look the same as they do in real life.


Also been trying to get a handle on some more animation. Teaching myself the proper way to do a walk cycle from The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams. Fabulously informative book with great writing and humor. Having a hard time switching back to keyframing versus straight ahead animation (which is essentially what I've been doing successfully for the past three years). Oh well, its like switching from digital art to paints, just requires a mental tweak. All this reading of animation techniques and looking at other people's work makes me realize how much of a gap there is in my animation education. Guess I gotta fill it with knowledge from books and stuff now!