Muybridge for Sketchbet

Last year when I was participating in the trial run of Sketchbet, a competition for artists with the goal of posting one drawing every day, I put a lot of emphasis on drawing Muybridge.

You'll know Eadweard Muybridge best by his stop-action photographs, which were the predecessor for film. What makes them so great for an animation student is that they capture movement in still frames. I did quite a few sketches reference from Muybridge's plates, and here are some highlights from those I did for Sketchbet:

Paper Mom

In fall semester 2011 I took a storyboarding class at DigiPen. It ended up being one of my favorite classes, and this was my final project:


Paper Mom from Sarah Nixon on Vimeo.

It was done with pencil and paper, with details added in photoshop, and put together in after affects -- phew! I had the option of pulling it together in flash, but I opted not to as a style choice: hand-drawn images would fit the story being told much better.

The assignment itself was to create an animatic with a story inspired by the illustrations of Harris Burdick.

Penny Arcade Expo - Theatre Crests!

So, I've been an [Enfocer] at PAX since 2005 -- and thus far I have never missed a PAX. I have been mostly involved with the Satellite Theatre department.


Each of the Satellite Theatres are given animal names -- some mythical and some mundane.


I started drawing crests for the Sat Theatre department, mostly in order to give the department it's own visual identity, but also because I needed something to use as a cover on a handbook each year. :D


This collection is about half of the work I generally put into them -- for each "crest" (except for the last one) I took the time to separate out each mascot into it's own crest, so that members of those theatres could use them to represent their individual theatres.


These were never used as an external marker at PAX, but instead where just something that was created to share within the enforcers.

In '09 there were four theatres: Serpent, Unicorn, Raven, and Wolfman.
The initial idea was to create a sort of hogwarts-esque crest to represent four houses. :)

Manticore, Naga, and Wyvern.
2010 marked the first PAX East, and that first year there were only  3 Satellite Theatres.
I wanted to take East in a different direction, so this became the first PAX without a "crest" design.
I wasn't able to create a crest for PAX:East 2011 due to time commitments.
Though they added more theatres that year: Merman and Cat.

At PAX Prime 2010, we added one more theatre: Pegasus.
You better belief those flippy ivy designs were fun to draw!

In PAX 2011, we added Kraken theatre, which made the total amount of theatres jump up to 6!
I decided trying to fit that many animals into a traditional crest design wouldn't work out so well,
so instead I composed them into a design wherein they are all just represented!
This one was particularly fun, and sort of happened during a time where I was photoshop pen-tool happy. XD

I don't really do Sat Theatre crests anymore, instead devoting my creative efforts at PAX to designing the Line Entertainment Pins. Unlike the Sat Theatre Crests, which were entirely internal and just passed around between Enforcers, the Line Entertainment Pins are designs on 1" pins that are given out to attendees while they are waiting in line!

Which means, of course, that I'm still drawing each of the Sat Theatre Mascots every time a PAX rolls around!

Sketchbet Highlights

 Last fall I participated in an online competition hosted on tumblr, called Sketchbet. The idea was that you had to post one sketch a day for three months -- and I nearly made it! (I failed with about a week to go because I messed up time zones and posted half an hour late -- poo!)


So I ended up drawing about 90 sketches for sketchbet. Here are some highlights!