As you may know there is a group of us who meet fairly regularly in the Philadelphia area. We are called: The Mid Atlantic Animation Master Users group... or MAAM for short. Recently the idea came up to create animated versions of ourselves. I took on this challenge... uh... I was volunteered? Something like that.

Anyway to start the ball rolling I did some stylized portraits of each person in the group.

We have Hubakai, Entity, DDavis, Mechadelphia and of course myself, Heyvern. These are our Super Hero identities. During the day we are unassuming members of a small computer user's group but at night we become...

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I am not in the picture below. I was probably in the bathroom or getting a beer or something.

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Uh... well we don't have uniforms yet and we are still working on the logo. No specific plans for fighting crime. Maybe watch some movies on a big screen TV and eat nachos. However we hope to model these characters in AM and bring them to life. It has been a while since I used AM but I am going to take a stab at modeling... myself. We'll see how that works out.

We have not completely decided on our "Special Powers" but so far we are in agreement that my character will be the comedy relief. I will be Shaggy AND Scooby in any animated adventures that may occur.

Keep an eye out for updates.

-vern

Yikers! I'm afraid already! What, Vern, have you set loose on the world?! Oh, the humanity.

In keeping with the super hero theme I am working on my list of powers and weapons.

I will use bags of chips and soda as weapons. Squeezing the bags of chips until they explode in the face of the attacker causing temporary blindness from all the "Extra Nacho Cheesiness". Then finishing them off with a well shaken can of warm soda aimed squarely at the face.

My other contributions will include saying the following when arriving at an enemy's secret hideout:

"Can I wait in the car? I want to hear the rest of this NPR interview."

And also saying this after a horrific battle:

"Where's my hat? Has anyone seen my hat? Did I leave it in the car?"

I think the battle cry for the MAAM Squad should be:

"Show us your GRRRRR face!
GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!"

Or possibly this:

"Excuse us... MAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMM!!!"

-vern

This sounds like great fun, Vern.
I love those characatures caricatures and look forward to seeing the models.
Good luck with it all.
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Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a figure huddles in the shadows. It is too dark to make out his identity. Only a subtle flash of colour, a zig-zag pattern across his chest, can be discerned at times as the figure sways back and forth shaking. A stifled cry can be heard but it is not possible to tell what is causing this pain or indeed if it is pain at all...

Hey Vern:

That portrait is great! Was that done on a computer or is it airbrushed? I don't know your background in art, but you've got some talent there. I'll check on this thread often.

Eric

I did all the sketches initially on paper and then scanned them in to clean up in photoshop. We had our pictures taken at the last MAAM meeting for use as reference.

The sketching and clean up sort of changed as I did each sketch. I don't do a lot of this type of work and found that each one I did got more... "realistic". I started out doing a simpler style and progressed to a more shaded realistic feel. This was based on how much work I did with the sketch before scanning as well.

Once in photoshop I basically was cleaning up bold out lines, adding shading or smoothing the shading of the pencil lines by blurring smudging or using the airbrush tool. I used a wacom tablet more on the early drawings and then did more pencil on paper work on later ones. I think this happened because it was faster and I started to actually get "back in the groove" of drawing on paper.

Also I find it nice to be able to use the "Liquify" filter in Photoshop to shift areas of the drawings easily if I wanted to distort or exagerate features for the caricature.

The final one of me was pretty much cleaned up only from the original sketch. I didn't do much distorting of the final sketch except to smooth out the shading and clean up the lines. That was the last one I did and was feeling pretty comfortable with the subject . The full body "hero" poses were just straight pencil roughs scanned and composited.

This is the first time I've ever really done a "caricature" before. Generally I do realistic portraits when I draw "real" people. It is a lot of fun as long as you don't exaggerate the... er.... wrong features too much. . I am working on profiles now for AM rotoscoping. I probably won't go as detailed with those. I probably should do some 3/4 shots as well.

At least we won't have to hire anyone for the dialog. . The original idea was to just animate to some of the audio in the video shot during our meetings... I don't know if that is still the plan.

-vern

I think I'd be Shaggy... that was my nickname in college. Because, somehow I always ended up saying "Yikes!"!! Scooby doo, where are you?! We better hide in here!... it's a long story. Vern, I took the example for the logo and tried an Iron Hawk look... you guys tell me what you think.

Wow! Those portraits are smashing!

You guys were eye glasses instead of capes!!!

Hope you guys put something together animation wise... it could be
really good!

Just goofing with the uniform.

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Also... I think this will be my "hero pose". Since I can't actually dance (raised by Mennonites) it will frighten and embarrass my opponents giving me an edge.


-vern

Vern... maybe you should not make the feet seperate from the uniform and have it continue right to the feet with no cuff.

I think you are right.

I just watched "Death Proof" and I must have had that "Kill Bill" look in my head from the extras DVD.




OUCH!!!!!!

DAGNABIT!!!


I just got mustache hairs caught in the pull tab of my Red Bull can... oh man that hurts.

-vern

You could do heroic battle with the evil POLYGON!

Vern, I think you should show the actual photos of us so people can see what you had to work with... you made me look way better as a cartoon!

Polygons are evil? I'm scared. I'm shaking like a dynamic bone with a spherical constraint on it.

I feel your pain. That happens to me alot (beer cans). Perhaps I should become civilized enough to begin drinking beer from glass?... hmm... nah.. funny thought though

You fellas look like you might be getting to the age to where hair starts growing wildly out your nose and ears, I'll leave it there. Nice drawing BTW......
Pilly Hash user group, unincorporated, Phug-u for short?