First pass on 030_030_050

Finished up a first pass on this yesterday and got back some notes today. The giggle isn't working for Dave, so I'm reworking it.

Got some gig's in in the works though I don't know when I'll be able to talk about em. Garden City updates are definitely gonna slow down a bit for awhile.

Hope everyone had a great fourth! (those in the USA at least...though I reckon I hope you had a good fourth regardless of is you spent it on cookouts and fireworks or not)

New Shot, Updated Head and Austin for a day

• Garden City - Started a new shot this week and coming along on the blocking.
  
  
  
  Also, Bokser started a new fan page for the film on Facebook, so join away if you like
  
  
• Head Project - Coming along just fine. The base model is about done and I ran it through The Face Machine a couple of days ago to see what it looked like moving around. Pretty swell:)

• Austin for a Day - So word of advice - if you move make sure you tell Amazon. In a rush to make an order before heading out of town a few weeks ago, I neglected to check that and I now have a shipment of books waiting for me at my old apartment. Ah well.
  
  The main reason I'm heading there to to hang with my cousin before he heads off to school in England, have coffee with an animator pal and visit with some potential animation conspirators.
  
  
• New Gigs - Got a couple of gigs in the que so the aforementioned projects may be shifting to the side burner for a bit. However, looking forward to some new projects to gnaw on. It'll be a bit before I can talk about them. I will say that I would have be up a creek without The Setup Machine the other day. It's a great tool for the tool box.

Sally is Twirling Again...

Spent most of the week polishing on some shots for Gardern City and working on the "head project". Here's the latest shot:



Have a great weekend all.

Arkansas Mountain Sketches

Some sketches from our annual trek to my wife's family reunion in Arkansas. Had a great time, experienced my first small Tornado after having lived in Oklahoma for 17 years and seen none and did a little sketching.

Note to self - you suck at drawing trees. Practice.

Garden City and a Face...

• Garden City - Been waiting on some notes from Cory before continuing the 2d gig so polishing on some Garden City shots to get them past Bokser. Here's the latest on one of em.
  
  

  
  
  Speaking of, Bokser has a public Garden City production blog now!
  

• Face Thingy - thumbnailing up and planning for a new project that would make good use of my staring-at-faces-for-three-some-odd-years-at-midway experience. I've been playing with some other peoples rigs. The Norman Rig, Andy Rig, and Blake Rig (you can google em) in particular. Great stuff! However not super easy for folks to customize the characters further. The idea is to create a customizeable face and rig to go along with it. Initially it'll be just to throw on a character that's already setup except for a good face rig but eventually I'd like to make it more comprehensive. I'm still trying to think of a name for it if anyone has any ideas.
  
  I started a sculpt/model for the initial head. Still pretty early on but it's somethin to show, eh?!
  

In awe....

So rarely do you come across something so unlike anything you've seen. I have no idea what's going on but I like it. A lot. Don't know where he's been hiding, but glad he came out to play.





Came across some other neat stuff lately but that's it for now. Back to deadly combat with my allergies.

Yes, I have been working...

...And man, 2d camera moves and moving characters through space is hard (especially when you haven't ever really done it or worked in a 2d production pipeline). This is where I'm at on a promo piece I'm doing with some buddies at Portland Studios. Initially I just started working in flash but I realized there was no way I was capable of doing that by hand. So, I animated the layout on a large format, and then moved my camera around it in flash. I'll clean things up as I tie down the details in the next flash pass. If anyone knows a better workflow, I'm all ears. :)

We're still looking on final look but for the most part Cory wants to keep things rough.

Couple of great films I came across...

Both from students out of Cal Arts. Need to get me some of that water...

...on, and flash is hard....

Thanks to everyone who's sent emails on Squirrely. Glad you like him:)

Space Girl...

Watch out for Ruxpin.

This is my first entry into the Drawergeeks drawing club. Perhaps a little uninspired, but it works! I'm gonna try to be more proactive on drawing more.

Jack and Inar...

Who's Jack and who is Inar? Well, Jack is the boy above and you'll have to wait to see Inar down the road. I started working on my collaborative project with Cory this week. First thing was to play with seeing if I can draw in his style. This was the first attempt I felt hit it. We'll see if Cory agrees.

Working through the animatic now and hopefully we'll have something to show before too long. I have a tinge of worry that this project is beyond my traditional animation muscles but that's what stetching is for, no? Oh, for an animation desk...

Progress might be a little slow next week as my beautiful better half is off and wants to do stuff other than animate:)

After this project it's back to Garden City unless another freelance or work opportunity sweeps me away.