Charcoal illustrations

The world is a BIG place, and in it we have the rich and the poor, the healthy and those dying from preventable diseases, the happy and the depressed, the fat and the starving majority found in Africa, and Asia. This was a depressing illustration to create, based on the late Kevin Carter's famous photograph. May his soul rest in the arms of our Lord. Being an African I have seen first hand some of this suffering, that pregnant mothers and society are faced with during high inflation, corrupt goverments and drought. May God heal Africa.

A2 is a VERY BIG canvas to work on (for me) when one is illustrating keys! This was my first charcoal piece, before I did the other two. Ever since then I really love working with "The black chalk" (as I call it). I had to wrestle with a massive mental block before I could do this piece. I never thought I could enlarge such simple object to such a big scale. This is the piece that introduced me to charcoal's great abilities.

Someone told me that this piece kind of reveals to people my 'animation side'. I really enjoyed the strokes that went into these wild stallions. Out of the three, this artwork took me the least time but involved the most intimate strokes I've ever made in charcoal. The Starving child/ opharn was depressing but I really really poured my heart into it especially when it came to the kinky hair and the exposed rib cage. The keys in the middle of the blog were overwhelming since I had to enlarge something that fits into your pocket to fill an A2 page, but these horses were..... fun! If you look closely the strokes on the horses spell ou my name. Enjoy the rest of my blog.

Cheers
Tafadzwa

Random photography

I decided to share a few random photographs I took. I've always been a HUGE fan of black and white photography until today!

I never thought colour could "properly" capture emotion in a photograph. In my opinion it at times feels as if the presence of colour takes away emotion. B&W photography leaves you curious, it kind of.... stimulates the mind more. I was however wrong in assuming colour photography has less emotion in it because Dave Hill's works are AMAZING (google him!) his website www.davehillphoto.com has the most moving colour photo collection I've ever seen! Its what the 'professionals' call hdr photography. Hdr involves at lest 3 photographs that are layered/ merged together to create one HIGHLY DETAILED piece of art. It can tend to look a bit animated but make no mistake, its photography! GREAT photography, its so great I want to venture in a similar path from now. B&W photography has brought me up to here but HDR is the future, you can see it being applied on Movie posters, and wrestling merchandise! Its AMAZING....

Thanks (Linky: my photography lecturer) for introducing me to this great world I didn't know was out there. Black and white photography, and Hdr are the only photography roads to take.

cheers guys!

Tafadzwa

Welcome to my Blog!

 

Hi there, thank you for coming! My name is Tafadzwa Tarumbwa I'm Graphics student/ animator. (The above profile picture was taken by my classmate Jovante Spies - she did an amazing job!). I hope you enjoy some of my thoughts you'll find posted on this blog, if a blog is not enough try CLICKING HERE to visit my website. For the next few days I shall be quietly working on the Hooked Alive script along with a few other secret projects. Enjoy my blog:

Tafadzwa Tarumbwa

contact@totally2d.org

Salad chick comic strips [flashback]

Hello reader! Before I created Totally2d's website or even this blog. I animated a mini series which had mixed language both English and Shona. Salad chick was the name of the show and below i've attached some of the comic strips I made after the animation. I still have more Salad chick episodes pending for animation. I love creating the show! Here is the website for Noble Savage whom I worked with on Salad Chick, and an NAMA nominated musical video (you can watch on www.totally2d.org/Watch_animations.html)












 

Hooked alive [Progress report]

Things are looking up! I've designed the above characters  and I'm currently in the process of drafting the third episode. So far episode 1 and 2's script has been finalized, and the Afrikaans translation (yes! part of the script is in Africaans) the translation for episode 1 is sounding AMAZING thanks to Angelique.
 


Thanks to my co-producer Trent we have recorded one of the scenes for the show, but the best part is Trent did an AMAZING with Hooked Alive's theme song. It sounds perfect for this show, progress has been made! I've tagged some of my peers involved with the voice acting on the Facebook group. In a mildly related issue, I once made a mini PC game featuring Stunt Goat. The project is still under wraps, and hasn't circled online YET but Hooked alive might later adopt the same route if the animation continues to flow as smoothly as it is. Fingers crossed guys! Last but not least, THANK YOU for visiting my humble blog.




cheers

Tafadzwa's HALL OF FAME [Entry 002 Robert Granito's Comic fraud]

Being in the creative industry is a very demanding thing. People are expected to keep coming up with new ideas, new animations, new content. Robert Granita however decided to just go around claiming he worked on Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, Batman, and even Teen titans for DC! Rob (pan intended) decided to sell "original" art to collectors who thought there were getting the real deal. Read more about this scandal at http://www.comicbookdaily.com/wp/daily_news/the-rob-granito-story/



 I agree with Comic book daily when they said and I quote "I think the bottom line for this guy is that if he had claimed he was a ghost artist copying other people’s art, he probably would have been okay, but instead he tried to claim it as his own". Rob has stole his last penny in the industry thanks to the 'co-smackdown' by Mark Waid and Ethan Van Sciver.

Visit the Comic book daily website to learn more about Robert Granito's fraud. This unfortunate story has to be entered into my Hall of (shame). I've never ever done anything for DC but you can see some of my work at www.totally2d.org. I hope Robert Granito's story shall fend off any other fraudsters looming in the arts industry.

The egg theory.

People, and I don't just mean me, but everyone has certain expectations when watching a movie, or walking into a place or country for the first time. As a designer one must NEVER forget this. To pump up one's adrenaline an artist must avoid the obvious, last week I was watching Hero Wanted. During the whole movie I didn't know what to expect, the guy was a hero WITHOUT super powers or anything! Not even a mask or cape. Poor guy was going against bullets, not in a invisible "rambo" way we've come to expect in movies. One could tell he was struggling through out. Enough about the movie...



Every project a photographer, designer, or animator works on is like an egg. Judging from the colour or size, you can gauge what will hatch out of any given egg. to some extent we have all become familiar with a chicken's egg size and shape. When you see an ostrich's larger egg you know you won't be seeing chickens sitting on it. That's the basic foundation of my egg theory.


Having established that any project/ brief one has is an egg, you should be bold and hatch out results that NO ONE else was expecting. Instead of a mundane ostrich hatch out a pterodactyl or something! When clients hand you an egg they have predictions on the course you shall take with their projects. The danger is if you do what they expected they end up feeling more intelligent than you. Which is not true, thinking alike makes both of you equally intelligent. But you can never get time to explain that, rather hatch the pterodactyl on them, and claim you dominance as a true designer/ photographer/ animator.

  

Back to my "Addicted to jeans" photo collection. I made a mistake in the photograph above, I love this pic don't get me wrong. I'm proud of the whole "Addicted to jeans" photo collection. However I failed to push the boundary by capturing the lighter flame. My model flicked the switch several times but the flame wouldn't stand. The first thing my Photography lecturer said was she LOVES the photo but I........... should have included THE FLAME! Oouch

The egg theory is not about just thinking ahead, but it's also about going that extra mile to hatch your next BIG IDEA or project. Next time you're holding an egg of any shape or size people should come to expect the unexpected from you. The "Hooked alive" animation project is one of the eggs I'm currently sitting on.

That's The egg theory!

(As usual feel free to check out my website: www.totally2d.org)