A Lobster, a lighthouse, and...an animated Jesus

• Lobster - I made this character last summer for a client who was doing a commercial. They liked Squirrely and wanted a "lobster-Squirrely" character - hence" Lobstery" (Yes I should probably come up with a more imaginative naming convention). The client ended up doing the animation in house for various reasons but were cool with my taking a stab at it for the old reel. The shots make more sense with the live-action plates:)
• Great stuff to watch... First up, fantastic mood in this piece. I'm a big "playing-with-light" fan so this is just a beautiful piece. Care to guess which amazing French school it came from?...guess I gave it away there Next up is a pixelated take on animation. Love some of the poses and the look is something I've not seen since the old King's Quest days and it didn't move like this:) Another fun one from across the pond... If you're offended by non-kosher* use of the image of Jesus, avert your eyes. Not sure I understand the film but whatcha gonna do? Enjoy the visuals, that's what! There's some sweet animation in this and great timing. * "non-kosher" - Yes, I'm aware that using the term with Jesus might appear to be ironical. However, He being a Jew, God incarnate and originator of a whole new faith I'd hope would both understand the complication created and appreciate the attempt at humor.

No Sound for you!

Blogs are funny things. You start to feel guilty when you don't post on them for awhile - kinda like a journal or a sketchpad. Ah well. Let's see what this belated (or timely) post brings...

• Garden City - So in keeping with not revealing the entire story of Garden City there will be no more audio with the shots I show from it.Here's the latest: Henry is none too chipper at the moment...
• I want to learn! - There are a lot of absolutely amazing resources out there now for animators wanting to hone their skills. I've been watching Jason Ryan' seminars lately and they've been great. Also, recently Keith Lango started a YouTube channel with some of his lessons on there which is also a great source of info and frankly inspiration as well.
• Inspired - Here's some great work I've my rss net has gleaned from the internets... This one is a little dark, but very good... A fun one from a buddy and his pals... Great layouts and so much done with limited animation. Check out the site for more info. Gorgeous designs as well.

Updates and tidbits...

Garden City is still chugging along. Just finished a large sequence and starting another. Here's the blocking from the first new shot. I shot some vid reference for this one (still experimenting with workflows) Personal life has been busy and been reading a tome of a book - Les Mis. What an amazing study in character development. Lots of neat stuffs on the internets:

• Pencil Test Blog - If you're an animator, you should subscribe to this the rss feed here.
• Need an idea for a doodle? - Check it out or the Worms of the Ensnaring Messiah might get you (Worms courtesy of the Dark Minion Generator on said site)
• Amazing Paper-cutout/Illustrations - Love this piece.
• Animator Tools - Some neat ones listed on a great blog for things to add to the toolbox
• Nice Post on the 180 Degree Rule of Filmaking - Interesting read.

Couple of things...

• The shot that will not end. I've been polishing on and off on this shot forever. Most recently because I got the final mop and an updated facial rig that warrented a rework so hopefully it's looking better and DONE. :)
• Nice post on character design can be found here.
• Heading to Dallas tomorrow to seem some friends at ReelFX and for my cousin's going away party. He's heading to England for a year to study some more acting/writing/improv. Hope he has a great time but I'll miss him feeding me odd asian candies whenever I crash his pad for an Austin trip.
• Beautiful short film here:

Lots of stuff and not so much...

• Animals Shmamimals - Squirrely has worked overtime on getting attention and I appreciate his efforts. Been busy the last few weeks working on a commercial project for some folks "down under". The character and rig are ready to roll, just waiting for what I need to animate. He was a fun character to design and model. Bokser helped me out with body rigging and cloth and I took care of the facial. Learned some new stuff along the way as well. Really looking forward to how that's shaping up and can't wait to show it
• Love the look of this show - Been following it's production art at the great blog they have set up.
• Jason Ryan Classes - Signed up for Jason's seminar and enjoying catching up on the classes very much.
• Great post on "dirtying" up animation - Read it. You won't regret it.

Gobelins makes me wish I was European...

...And had gone to school there. A couple of more from the champs of student films. Enjoy. Making of... And another...

Some ok work, some amazing work, and some learning...

• Another Garden City shot done: Pulled out the "school girl laugh" and added a good bit of polish.
• Please look at this if you're an animator - Some phenomenal workflow vids from animator Jeff Gabor. The first is a comparison reel and the second is an evolution reel. Do yourself a favor and check em out.
• Blender - Started a gig this week where I'm learning blender. It reminds me of a slightly more complicated Lightwave. I will say that for being free, it has a lot of features however from just an animator workflow perspective I'm not finding a lot of my perferred tools. I know some nice shorts have come out of it, I'm just trying to figure out what kind of workflow they must have used. Time shall tell...

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 if 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.

Squirrely Bounces into the Wild!

Version 1.0 is out! Catch him while you can:)

Squirrely is a free rig for noncommercial use only. I wanted a "ball like" character with a tail to play with for animation tests and Squirrely came into being.

Features:

• Body Rigged with The Setup Machine 2
  • Stetchy IK Spine
  • FK/IK Switchable Arms and Legs
  • Limb mirroring
  • Auto/Manual Stretch limbs
  • Character Sets Set up for proper keying
  • Tail/Ear Controls
  • Finger/Toe FK/IK
  • LowRes Proxy Geometryy mode for faster playback
  • Character scaleable via master control
  • Hideable tail via "COG"
  • Face Camera
• Facial rig
• Limited yet functional facial rig
• FK/IK Eye Rig - set up via my good friend Scott Englert's Tutorial
• Eyelid Tracking/Blinking Control - setup via John Doublestein's Tutorial

Recommendations:

• EyeBlend Control transitions between Joystick/look at control for the eyes
• Use the character sets - one of my nit picks with the setup machine is that the FK/IK swich attributes are located on the COG control. As such, having limited keying sets via selection sets or quickselection sets is a hassle. The characters sets make sure you key all the appropriate attributes
• FK/IK Arms and Leg switching accessed via the TSM controls
• Mirroring accessed via TSM Controls

Requests:

• I'm not great at shading/texturing. If anyone wants to come up with some slicker stuff you want incorporated, lemme know.
• Tag animations you do with him as "Squirrely" on YouTube, Vimeo or the like. I'd like to see em.
• Have fun:)

Demo Reel - Spring 2009

Well, it's about time. I've finally updated my reel. It's mostly comprised of Garden City work along with the lip sync and Squirrely animations I did over the last couple of weeks. I am currently seeking temporary/contractual onsite or remote work as an animator in film, game or commercial work and am also open to full time employment opportunities in the Austin/Houston, TX areas. A higher res version of my reel can be found at the "Reel" link up top. Resume is up to date as well. Next week, I'm working on a project with Cory. Can't wait! Also, Squirrely is in prerelease. If you wanna test/play with him, gimme a shout via comment.

Squirrely in HD!

Just press the HD button on the full screen mode. This was as far as I needed to get for some anim on the demo reel, I'll swing back and get him over to the acorn when I have the time. Demo reel incoming shortly:)