It took me almost 6 months to complete one sketchbook that was 11x14. Only 100 pgs and in the last 3.5 months I've been killing sketchbooks like the plague.
Over 1,000 pgs 4 sketchbooks. 1,478 storyboards. Over 400 pgs of newsprint. And 4 sketchbooks in progress.
3 of those will be filled from my left hand, because I've injured my right hand from drawing so much. That and the lack of exercise since moving, I need to take better care of my money makers! I'm not left handed but I'm going to push as hard as I can. I am going to try and post some of my life drawings in the following week. I need a team to help me with the process!
I've got all these wild dreams and aspirations and 2012 will be the year I make them a reality. I wish everyone a happy and safe new years!
Man does time fly. I can't believe how fast the last 3 months have gone by, I've just been trying to hold on for the ride. I feel like some of my hard work is paying off, and that was reaffirmed at CTN. Even though I'm not going to have my "One Million" website I'm still pushing to crank out drawings and kill as many sketchbooks as I can.
Something that has really helped me start to "see" instead of copy what I'm seeing has been a lot of blind contour drawings. Here is one below.
It's so nice and quick that I can get the foundation for whatever I'm trying to draw, especially with a crowd or story type of drawing. Which is the next phase I need to develop. I feel like I've lost some of my own creative mojo to just draw whatever I want from my head, and have been only drawing what is in front of me. I think once I can get to a certain level of drawing what I want, how I want, it will become easier to draw things from my head.
Below is a photo I took right before my last pitch in Story class. I was over the assignment by 200 boards, but I didn't know what else to do except draw my butt off and have things thrown out after the pitch. We were asked to adapt a Grimm's fairy tale and I picked the harder of the two stories. It was great to see Gio's and Jett's stories as well since they were the only others to have picked the same story. We all struggled in the same area. And I'd like to reboard everything and polish it for an animatic.
Dan pitching on the last night. He had some of the craziest and coolest ideas for stories! I hope to work with him and everyone in the class one day.
And this is the Fall Gesture Class - we became a very tight group of friends over the course I hope to have more experiences like this class in the future.
After every gesture class we would all try and go have dinner together at Can't Fail.
Now that Classes are over, I will be able to update more. Stay tuned!
Part of our homework in class is to practice contour drawings, I wanted to share some of my recent drawings.
When I first started drawing contours weeks ago I never imagined the lines actually forming something that's recognizable.
I'm always drawing on the Bart and it's been great being able to quickly draw someone without the back and forth of looking at the person and my sketchbook. Once I'm finished I'll go back over it and plus the drawing.
I would like to get to the point where I am making these drawings ooze with appeal and push the caricature of them. And as I continue I want to start making each image say something and not just copy what I'm seeing. Push more story elements into each image. Two weeks ago we practiced a continuous contour study (not sure if that's the correct term) But the model would be moving and we would copy the poses as the model moved. The image below is another practice at the same technique while at CTN.
And since being back home I quickly drew my dad to show him that I'm not looking at the paper while drawing and fortunately it turned out somewhat decent and looked like him!
The CTN Expo flew by yet again this year. I had a great time and it was truly awesome to help and see my buddies, Danny Wise and Zach Stark have a booth this year. We all learned a lot for next year and they received a lot of great feedback and response to their work.
The guys in action with their booth all setup!
I didn't realize until now the lack of photos this year and the ones I do have aren't that great! Next time. :) I also want to apologize for not being able to hang out with some friends I originally planned on seeing! I received notice for a last minute interview on Saturday and busted out a quick portfolio Fri night/ Sat morning.
It feels very good to know the work I've been busting my butt for at AnimC is paying off, makes me want to push even harder now. And about half of the Story class from AnimC received fantastic feedback as well! We all have been kicking some major tail, so it's great to hear the positive feedback. It would be so cool to work with everyone from class one day!
For next year I'm considering a booth, I'm not really sure what I would showcase but I'm toying with the idea for now. I also ran into a couple friends I attended Gobelins with back in 2007, it was freaking awesome to see them and catch up! And just seeing Danny and Zach at their own table was a great feeling for me, I'm really proud of them.
I want to thank everyone that took the time to check out my work, and wish everyone safe travels back home! I'll update more once I get back home and eat a big fat turkey!!
This was one of the short films created during the 24hr film event with the AnimC crew!
Josh was the voice of Sexy Muffin and I was the voice for the blue guy. I think on the next 24 film event we will use stop motion again because the film I worked on with Mitchell and Liam grew into a giant short film. (6-7mins)
If we find the time to redo it we will post it, but for now we will be focusing on new work!
I was just informed my very first animation test at Lego has now been added to Lego Universe! Check it out here: It's a Member Exclusive: Attack Crocodiles!
Glad to see this little guy in the game and it's cool reading the feedback on the forums. Feels very rewarding, knowing the struggle I endured in the beginning to complete the Croc animation.
I was first tasked with optimizing the Croc bringing down his poly count to around 3k from 20k, next up, I had to rig the bugger which was difficult because we had to keep the bone count under 17 bones. And once that was finished I went to town on the animations sets so I could keep my job haha.
I've also uploaded my Lego Reel on Youtube:
(not intended to be a show reel)
The Croc animation is around the 3min mark. I should try and find my last bits of animation I was doing for Nexus Tower and NinjaGo.
Speaking of animation I've picked up some new freelance, working as remote contract animator for a new video game. Once I allowed I'll post up some animation and news about the game!
This is only a small taste of all the work I'm doing for Gesture class. This past week we had to make Ecorche studies, which was a lot of fun. And every day I'm drawing about 15-18 pages, that includes journal sketches, which is finding a photo from an event in the news.
I'm also trying to get better at drawing faces and drawing period. Thus creating the 1 million drawings blog, I'm pumping out so many drawings now that I'm extremely behind on uploading. Maybe once I get a break for Thanksgiving I'll finally update.
I'm also working on a "Art of me" FB page that will include all the artwork I've created over the years.
-Oh ya, and I hope my friends don't mind me drawing them from FB! :P It's been great practice so far.
I couldn't believe the news when I heard Steve Jobs passed just a few days ago. He contributed so much to this world and I'm thankful to be living in a world with his contributions. If it wasn't for him I probably wouldn't be where I'm at today, pursing a career in the animation industry.
He was the rock for Pixar when they were starting out and he was the only one that could see their vision. And now they are a power house that changed the game. Jobs was a game changer.
I was going through my images and realized I had captured a few pictures of a painting I completed as a birthday present. It's funny, I finished this just 3 days before my computer crashed and thank goodness I was able to send this off to print!
I was able to snag a groupon deal earlier this year for Picaboo. Nice little site, even though they have a limited selection on canvas prints I was able to format the image to fit decently and I thought the print turned out great!
And here are a couple art tests I completed for a new game studio here in SF.
I also want to plug my ONE MILLION! site, which is underway along with getting my drawings uploaded. I'll soon be posting my first hundred pages! I'm still settling in and trying to wrestle my schedule for finding time to make my meals for the week and I need to find a gym. Every weekend the AnimC crew meets up for a SketchCrawl on Sunday. This past weekend we went to the Golden Gate Park I'll make sure I post some drawings and pics. Stay Tuned.
I am so grateful to be apart of this new school and be surrounded with such incredible talent from all over the world. I was right, it's just like Gobelins, great artists, great mentors, the energy is through the roof and everyone is excited to help others grow.
I'll be posting some art work here and there, I still don't have my setup out here in SF yet, but I'm flying home soon, then driving back out to SF to get settled in. I'm going to push myself hard than ever, and I've created a new blog to keep myself accountable.
**1.M.D.** will be coming very soon... in the meantime enjoy a few pics!!
2011 has been my year of learning hard lessons to say the least.
As I woke up yesterday to backup all my latest work I've created over the last couple months, my computer was humming. I didn't think much of it, I went to transfer files, got an error and thought I better restart the computer. Stupid move. When the computer was trying to restart, it was clicking, humming and practically singing to me. When my desktop loaded my main drive folder icons were missing. Luckily I have some great friends that are always able to help me with computer issues. This time however, not so lucky. Today I went to a "specialist" he opened up the drives in a clean room, came back out and said they were unrecoverable.
If he would have been able to recover them, it would have cost $1500. Which at the moment I would pay whatever to get everything back. I can't believe how stupid I was to allow this to happen, just a few months ago my only external stopped working, I just got that fixed last week. I kept telling myself over the weekend to backup. But I waited till Monday morning. Stupid move. In the past I've always been religious about backing up all my files, for some dumb reason I hadn't done this for a long while.
I lost everything, my new portfolio, the new 200+ storyboards I had been working on for a new short, and excited to show off for the Animation Collaborative, new animated pieces, 3 years of photos, all new projects for my company, all of my Tough Mudder video and animation I was creating. My library of reference folders, blah blah. I lost it all. I'm going to search for another "specialist". But things look grim.
I was also fortunate enough to land a gig animating for Idol Minds but because I'm leaving for AnimC I didn't feel right getting trained up and leaving only after a month. They felt the same way, it would have been contract work until the end of the year and a very fun game with lots of creatures to work on! :D
So now, I need to buy some new drives to replace the broken ones, consider getting a laptop, figure out if I should take my cintiq, try and find a place to live, reinstall everything and start backing things up properly. And getting my credit card approved for more money ;) With all that shit I couldn't be more excited to be attending AnimC and starting a "new chapter". It's almost like it was meant to happen for me to literally start over.
I'm still in great health, have great people in my life, and couldn't be more excited to learn from the best and be around incredible artists. This is an investment for me and one day it will all payoff. Look for new work to come in the following months!!
Oh - and if you are reading this, and telling yourself I should backup my work, let this be a reminder to back everything up! And not be stupid like I was. :)
I've been accepted into the Animation Collaborative course out in Emeryville! I move out in just a couple weeks, and I couldn't be more extatic!
I've created a FB page for those of us, that way we can try and arrange living quarters and allows all of us to meet beforehand. We figured it would be great to all live together so we can keep pushing each other and continue learning!
So far, the energy has been exactly what I've hoped for, nothing short of what I felt in Paris when I was attending Gobelins! I've got a feeling it will be like this in the manner of extremely passionate artists. And the knowledge we will gain will be unparalleled.
If you are reading this and have been accepted please drop me line and I'll get you added to the group!! And congrats to anyone who's been accepted! :D
It's difficult to stay positive with all the things going on in our country and around the world. But I absolutely love the era in which I live. Never have we been able to communicate so easily with people all over the world and help someone.
This year has been my best yet at staying healthy year round. Every year I make it a goal to do better in some way than the last year. This year my goal was to finally eat correctly and learn more about food and nutrition. So I dedicated and kept myself accountable by letting close friends know what I was doing so if I slipped they could call me out.
I've been reading lots of material and signed up for news letters like Thrive in 30 and just consuming everything I can, especially documentaries. (I watch LOADS of documentaries.)
About a week ago, I was surfing Neflix to watch a new Documentary and I unexpectedly found a gem. It's called: Fat, Sick and Nearly DeadI liked it so much I decided to make a little comic about it!
Now, I've been around weightlifting since I was wee lad and my dad - at 6'4 and 266 lbs - who inspired me and taught me everything I know took his workouts seriously. As he got older he's had two back surgeries, a couple knee surgeries and a few other operations and he's no longer a lean, mean, fitness machine. Over the years I've tried desperately to get him off his ass and start exercising again. And it's no secret that working out can extend your life and improve your health.
What I found pretty incredible in FS&ND was the fact that Joe and others were barely exercising. They were walking and that was about it. AND they were losing incredible amounts of weight, and granted as some of them lost more weight they started to exercise more because they finally felt like they could!
And I thought this diet would help jump start my pops into getting motivated again. You would think I was a cars salesman or a pyramid scammer. He just didn't want to watch it. Then finally one night he did! And then he wouldn't shut up about it!
And one night at work, my dad was telling a buddy and he said I'm gonna tell my sister about it, she's been pretty sick. They watched it and now they are starting it!
My one quip, is the use of the word "FAST" - When most people think of the word fasting they think of not eating, they must drink a supplement or something to "restart their metabolism". I think that's dumb, just like I think the Cabbage diet is dumb, counting calories is dumb, the point system, Atkins and last, these new pills or droplets that you take while only eating 500 calories. STUPID.
To me this diet should rather be called a cleanse, OR as Joe and his team now call it a "Reboot" - The movie has caused such positive impact that Joe and his team created a website called Reboot Your Life. And this sounds much more appropriate to me.
Too many people have a negative thought association with the word "diet" or "fasting". But really the bottom line is, they just don't know better. I've personally only trained a handful of people but each person reached their goals and learned the proper information about working-out and eating.
LOTS of people think, if you don't eat you will loose weight! WRONG! - That mindset drives me crazy! If you want to loose weight, you have to eat!! Period. And just like a vehicle you need to take care of it, so why don't we take care of our own vehicle? You get out what you put in.
What I like about this, is, if you're hungry - make a drink! If you are still hungry make another drink! Drink 6-8 a day. Not just 3 little "cleansing packets" We are getting back to our roots with this "diet" - raw foods man. And you can connect back with your community if you have local farmers markets! We are so far detached from our roots it's ridiculous.
Here's the bottom line for me, you don't need to go on a 30 or 60 day "diet" like Joe or Phil. Just try it for 3-5 days. If you like it, extended it a week. And if you do want to extended it go consult your physician. ;) Just by doing this for 5 days most people would be "eating" more than they normally do.
And the part that pulled on my heart strings was the fact that Joe was able to connect with a stranger and help save / change his life for the better. Not only that, Phil turned around and started giving back in his community. And it's stuff like that, I love seeing. Hell, when I watch Extreme Makeover Home Edition I can get choked up. Same goes for Biggest Loser, just something about a person taking back control of their life deciding to make a change for good just hits home with me.
We all have the strength within ourselves to do whatever; the sad part is, not everybody believes it, or they lose that belief along the way.
One last note, six-packs are made at home in the kitchen not at the gym. Again it's all about what you are putting in your system. If you happen to watch the film or have questions, drop me a line! Tomorrow I'm off to the farmers market to start my Reboot! :D
A couple weeks ago I finally watched "I Saw the Devil" and I loved it. I wrote a snippet on my tumblr.
Min-sik deliver's a powerful and scary performance. One part in particular was the first time the detective found him. Great build up and moments by Min-sik that couldn't be scripted or boarded out. Here is part of that build up - this is when the detective finds him and they get ready to throwdown.
Today was a great day. Lots of good things coming at once. Isn't it funny how that happens in life? I'm sure everyone has experienced that, when things in life are bad they usually happen all at once or when things are great, same thing.
It's like the universe draws in clusters of good and bad. Hopefully I'm not the only one that feels this way haha. But the phrase "when it rains it pours" comes to mind on days like these.
I woke up and just had good feelings brewing. I interviewed for a character animation position and that went extremely well. As I left the studio and merged into some heavy traffic on a very busy street. I was about to cross a bridge heading back home when all of a sudden cars were screeching to a halt and swerving. A little jam-up and people were going bananas honking because they were not moving through the green traffic light. Then it turned yellow and everyone just drove on through.
I didn't have a care in the world and I was in no rush, as I pulled up to the light I saw the cause of the traffic jam and angry people, a stuck jeep cherokee. Now most of the time I will pull over to help someone, this particular spot was not safe. I figured what the hell and pulled in the other lane and backed up.
As I got out of the car, the light turned green again and the sound of angry honks filled the air. I started to direct vehicles to go around and I found out the people stuck were out of gas. They asked me to help push them. I'm thinking "uhhh I dunno" but I figure what the hell ha.
There was a pregnant and very upset mother in the passenger seat, her daughter was behind the wheel and a 10 year old girl in the back. All about to have a nervous breakdown, granted all the horns were not helping. They were stalled on the far right of 3 turn lanes - two middle lanes to their right directed traffic over the bridge and another lane to the right was a turning lane. And that turning lane went up a very steep inclined hill. And that's where they wanted to go.
There were really no options, the intersection was huge, and to get them out in the middle would be dumb, so the only feasible option was to push them up the hill. I told them I'll go park and I'll be right back. I run the red light cutting across traffic and drive up the hill and pull in a Chili's parking lot. Outside were two employees clearly enjoying their shift being over. I approach them asking if they would care to assist me and they reply, "ARE YOU CRAZY".
Not ready to leave the shaded tree they tell me their boss has a gas can in the back of his car and to go inside and speak with him. "Great, thanks I say" just as I turn their boss comes out and drives over to us. They ask him if he has his extra gas can and he's like "YUP" - I'm thinking holy crap how ironic is all of this. He scavenges through his dirty trunk only to come up empty handed. Then he proceeds to tell me they keep a extra can out back near the dumpster - I'm thinking, sweet, even better! - He looks, and again nothing. Then he goes in to ask the rest of the staff. Nothing.
I say thanks, and decide I'll just push the damn thing myself. As I'm running back down the hill I notice a gas can in the back of a green truck in the parking lot. Hmm. I disregard it and make it back down the hill. I start directing traffic and ask the driver to turn the wheel. Just as I'm doing that the mother tells me not to worry her boyfriend is on his way! GREAT!
SCREEEECH! I turn around and this guy get's out angry as hell slamming his door. I go to say hi and he blows past me cursing up and down.
- B/f - "I guess I'm the only f**kin' person nice enough to help them out!"
- Me - er, okay.
He takes the gas can and throws it against the driver side door, it falls to the ground startling the girls. The mother yells, and get's out. She says thank you and kind of shoos me on my way. Before I leave I ask the "b/f" if he has a hose for the gas can because it doesn't have a spout.
- B/f - "@#$%" "%**@#$"
- Me - okay bye!
As I make it back to my car I see the two girls sprinting towards me. They ask if I can come help them get the gas into the tank because their mom's "b/f" just left them.
- Me - Wow, nice guy.
- 10 yr old - No, not really, I hate him.
Older Sister looks back scolding but agreeing eyes. I laugh and let them know I was being sarcastic. I go up to the tree boys again and ask them about that gas can. I find out it's an employees. I try to make it clear that I borrow it and if they can let the person inside know.
- Me - Mind if I borrow that?
- Dude 1 - You gonna bring it back?
- Me - Well ya (duh lol)
- Dude 2 - just bring it back when your done man
So I run back down the hill gas tank in hand along with the girls and as we make it the sidewalk, their mom has been pouring the gasoline all over the side of their car. I believe she had a hand or finger inside the tank to open the little door but there was gasoline all over the car, the tire, probably her and the street. She looks at us, "I GOT IT!" Opens the passenger door and hurls the empty can inside. I tell the girls I will stay put until I see them drive off....
The girls make it back to the car, engine starts, and they drive off. I take the gas can back up to the truck and a dude runs out from Chili's looking hostile. I try to calm him down as quickly as possible and show him I never planned on stealing his gas tank and walk with him back to his truck placing the can in it's original spot.
- WHEW! That lil' story took a bit longer than I thought to write, but if those little girls ever end up stumbling across this some day. I just want to say - Don't ever date a jackass like your mom.
ps. big thank you for all the effort and help the tree boys put forth.
"Copying is how we learn, you can't introduce anything new until we are fluent in the language of our domain. And we do that through emulation."
Not sure how, but I came across this little gem and I wanted to share it. It's a four-part series created by Kirby Ferguson and it's really well done. I recommend watching the other videos as well.
I find this really interesting as I've just started working on a video/ animation project from my Tough Mudder experience. I am trying to do a throwback to old 8-bit games and I've been referencing a lot of games. Mostly the ones that last an impression on me. In the last couple weeks I've been studying the artwork from the talented artist that worked on Scott Pilgrim vs World: The Game - My goal is to try and create something similar and match in quality.
It's not my intention to create something new and never done before, there are TONs of amazing artists and work (short films and games) that achieved what I'm looking at doing.
And during this process I'll be learning new skills and tricks so it's a win - win :D And most important I've had a lot of FUN working on it so far.
ASIFA Colorado hosted it's first gathering for a life drawing session and it was great! It's been a long while since I've attended a class, so needless to say I was rusty. I need to find a place I can go to weekly. We had a great model as well, it's always exciting when we have a model that actually models and doesn't come in to sleep for two hours.
I just wanted to quickly post that my girlfriend and I finished Tough Mudder yesterday!! Coming in around 3 hours. I was trying to keep track of my time, but my watched got bummed and reset everything! OH WELL! :D
Yesterday was just about finishing strong and pushing ourselves, and that's exactly what we did! I'll update again, as I'll be cutting a video toghether with some footage and photos!!
ALSO! I want to thank everyone who helped donate! We reached our goal of $1000 plus some, so awesome! More to come, and now I need to get my butt back in gear on my project since I've slacked from the excitement of Tough Mudder!
6 more days until Tough Mudder!! Brittany and I are trying to raise extra money for the Wounded Warrior Project that Tough Mudder proudly supports. I decided to create my own team and make some logos.
Without realizing it, I found the logo to be pretty similar to Rescue Rangers. The team name is Renegade Rangers - It's suppose to be a spoof off the old Power Rangers. Once I realized the logo looked the same as Rescue Rangers, I just decided not to fight trying to make our logo different and play off the one that's already done and working.
Britt and I are trying to raise a $1000 for the event! If anyone is interested in donating please email me or check out the links below!
**update! 6/22/11 - we are only $150 away from our goal!! If you would like to help - even a $1, let me know! muchlove
We came back from LA with our heads held high as we learned the project just wasn't the right for the studio. However they did like aspects of it, or else we wouldn't have been working with them. We are grateful for receiving such great critiques and feedback. All worth every penny spent on prepping for this presentation and trip.
Doing this sort of thing is definitely something you can't go to school for and learn. All about trail and error. And we are trying to fail as quickly as possible. The faster we fail the faster we can learn and advance, making things better. And I enjoy that. I also enjoy the level of professionalism, compared to what I have been working with over the last few years on my own projects through 3rd parties of "wanna-bes."
Of course I shouldn't expect anything less, but after being fed nothing but b/s over the years it's refreshing. A part of me feels like I wasted 5 years, but the optimistic side says I've learned and done more than I would have just going after an animator job. This whole process has also allowed me to realize what I'm great at, what I suck at and what I really want to do.
The goal now is to meet back up with team, regroup, refocus, re-energize and come back stronger. We learned our idea doesn't suck and it would be better suited for other networks, which is great! And that's what we aim to do!!
I plan on working on a new idea in the same vein of "Dream Train" - Hoping to have a rough cut done by the end of June for feedback then take another week for polish. This time, it should have some nice action moments, complemented with comedic moments and I'll be adding in some V.O. work.
I also have the crazy Tough Mudder event coming up real fast! I've been training hard for that and I'm really looking forward to that event.
What a blast the past few weeks have been! I flew out to the premiere of Kung Fu Panda 2! Had lunch with some friends at couple studios, went to the Zoo for some good'ol life drawing, played on the beach and ate great food!
The premiere was so much fun, the amount of energy in that room with everyone was incredible. All those years of hard work lead up to that moment to just fly by in a couple hours. I hope KFP2 does well at the box office! I hope to be apart of that experience in the future.
I then had to come back home on May 24th, recover and reconvene with my team to finish up the pitch we have been developing. And I flew back out to LA just 4 days later with a collegue from Big Grin.
Sometimes I enjoy drawing the animals not enclosed behind bars more than the ones that are. ;)
Back in LA - my team and I crunched for four days, and we were able to put together a nice little presentation. It will be exciting to how things go down!!
I met Don Hahn when he was promoting his film Waking Sleeping Beauty, super nice guy he gave me some "gems" of advice. I looking forward to reading his latest.
That doodle was submitted for the theme "Flight" - I had a lot of fun drawing tons of ideas, most of which I plan to expand and post up.
I Haven't been able to post much lately, but I'm still drawing tons in my sketchbook! My hard drive went to crap on me then one of my monitors, then the next one (just flickering but annoying) and my cintiq now has goofy pink lines running through it!
Gots to love technology haha. So I'm sending one thing back at a time so I can keep working. I've also storyboarded out a new dialogue clip I'm planning on animating and just finished a tiny script on another idea from a dream I had that I'll start boarding out soon.
I've started training, again; I'm prepping for Tough Mudder - check the vid -
I decided to bite the bullet and sign back up for the Boot Camp classes I've been taking since Nov. of last year. Just this past Feb. I had to stop as I tweaked my lower back - but I'm good to go now, and I've also started training at a gym for Parkour! I've been wanting to do Parkour for years. So this, on top of bootcamp is kicking my butt already!
The hardest challenge out of all that is eating enough and getting those calories from the right food sources. I need to maintain 3k plus and I want to put 15lbs back on so I'm going to be eating full-time... maybe I can find a new job eating full-time and I can keep up on all the drawing! :P
With coach Alf at the helm, team N.P. - no pants - went undefeated for three consecutive years. Some say the universe was in perfect alignment to allow the worlds best talent to play on the same stage. We will never see anything like it again.
"I think it's the greatest team ever assembled in any sport." - He-Man
"You can't cover the sun with your finger." - Optimus Prime
You ever had a wild dream? Well, almost all of my dreams are like Michael Bay films - Freaking crazy! Crap exploding, crazy camera angles, lens flares, gun battles, I try and save a bus full of kids, whatever. A lot of the times I will dream situations, and pause it in the dream. If something happens in it, I will rewind it, and play it back for a new outcome.
I try and recorded them by writing them down or drawing out what happened.
Well a couple nights ago I had a pretty wild dream and I thought I'd share a part of it with everyone.
**warning - may be a wee bit graphic**
This took me about 3 days to complete and another half day for music and tweaking. The hardest part was getting the exact images from my brain to my pencil. The 1st day I drew tons of thumbnails and finally had to go look up some reference. All and all this was great practice!
My entry for the weekly doodle. I took the magician/ sorcerer route with this concept, and I referenced Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson's tat for the characters tattoo. His tattoo is pretty bad ass in it's design.
In just about a weeks time I created a new portfolio from being laid off. I mailed my friends and mentors for critiques then made as many changes as possible in the time I had.
As always great practice working under the gun. When I was at the print shop it reminded me of how much time and effort went into my graduating portfolio, we were allowed so much. It's crazy to think how little was done when given 11 weeks.
I already know what I want to do differently to make it better. I've been following a lot of great artists for inspiration only to find even more during this process. It would be incredible to work with these artists one day.
I joined a friends online sketching group and this is my submission for last week.
I'm finally getting around to contributing! I kinda took a different approach from the entry title, she's just so deadly without even trying. :P
Unrelated note, I bought the 4 disc pack of Tangled, I was super excited to get it! I popped it in so I could geek out on the special features and there ARE NONE!! what crap. Not even a directors commentary. Man I hate when movies don't have any decent features.
I was able to learn more about the film when I attended CTN last year. I really hope this doesn't become a trend for Disney, in about 3 years I bet they will "re-release" it from the VAULT and it will have 2 extra things on it. grr. waste of money man!
I've decided to create a schedule practicing my story skills and this small update is to show that. My day consists of reading story structure, cinematography, composition and perspective books. After that I'll watch a movie and storyboard out my favorite scenes or sequences, and try and figure out why I like it. Then practice my screenplay writing and just for fun write a short story.
This started as doodles of my favorite shots, then it turned into drawing out the entire Amitabh sequence - I really like this sequence because it displays Jamal's character very well. He's willing to do anything to get what we wants, which foreshadows the rest of the movie. I like the setup.
slumdog millionaire pt.1
I plan to board out other sequeneces of the film - and start breaking down shots with camera movement, one movie that I really enjoyed for the pacing was Unstoppable. I'd like to break that movie apart ... maybe that will be next week :P
This little short is way too cool to pass up and not share with everyone! It was posted on Cartoon Brew last week but I freaking love it. So many of my own school books were filled up with doodles like this.
The short was created by Danny Madden, Jonathan Silva and Will Madden also known as Ornana Films. Enjoy!
Last year I watched Jamie struggle to show American's the importance of healthy eating, now he is finally being recognized for his work. Feed your brain and watch this, share it, and start making a difference.
I'm also glad to see ABC investing with another show for him. Over the last couple of years I've been striving to make bigger and bigger changes with my diet and this year will mark the change for good. I've been learning to cook and surrounding myself with great people who share the same beliefs.
If anyone who reads this would like to start making a change, please watch Food Matters, Food Inc, The Future of Food, and a Beautiful Truth. Just as a kick starter to start fueling your brain with some nuggets of info you may not have heard of.
THEN go and research, don't take everything you hear as pure truth, it's up to the individual to do their homework and research, then make the best decisions. I am shifting my outlooks to all natural all raw foods so I can stay as healthy as possible, this will take time and will not happen over night, but it's an investment I believe in.
The past couple days have been crazy! I was surprised to have my name attached to any information about the layoffs, and the amount of responses, offers and well wishes have been amazing!
I have just been asked by IUPUI Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis - to come speak with the Siggraph group about animation and my experiences! That's pretty exciting!
Back in November of 2010 I arranged a panel talk / discussion forum for the students at the Art Institute of Colorado hosted by a handful of NetDevil artists and myself! And that was great fun. I've been to a number of schools hosting talks ranging from, elementary schools, middle schools, high schools and in the past year speaking to colleges! I fly out in 2 weeks.
I am very grateful.
The next couple of weeks should be interesting and I look forward to what comes next!
I was asked to help my friend and director John Ludwick. He was tasked with creating 9 animated commercials and I animated 4 of them.
All 2D, created in Flash. This was a great experience, we were strapped to time constraints being asked to deliever on a very tight schedule. I tried to keep each animation under 20 hrs of work (tried) lol. These were created for Mediasauce.
Here are the finished pieces:
1. Defender 2 - Flamingos
2. Defender 5 - Sprinkler
3. Defender 3 - Nosy Neighbor
4. Defender 8 - Nosy Returns
I loved working on 2D commercials and would love to do it again! Keep in mind this was all during some crunch time at work. If I could do this full time I would be able to produce even better work.
Unfortunately a lot of talented folks lost their jobs as I've been finding out on Facebook! I personally think it's pretty terrible to find news out that way and not to be correctly notified. We all were receiving phone calls tonight and I just got mine about 2 hrs ago.
From what we've been told a handful of artists will be kept on board and continue working on Lego Universe. But at the moment that will be a very, VERY small team. As the count continues to rise on FB, they've cut over 20 people.
I will say I did enjoy the fun times I had at ND and my pushup club which was going strong for 18 weeks! I had over 35 people in the club at one point! With that said I wanted to share one of my last animations at NetDevil:
My other animations can be viewed on my vimeo page as well - This animation was particuallary challenging due to time constraints, limit on frames, parent constraints, reanimating twice because of wrong assets-which required a new balloon rig.
All in all, I feel this was one of my best animations, although parts are too quick and the overlap on the loose balloon are hard to watch at times I did what I could and it doesn't look to bad in-game either.
I truly hope everyone lands on their feet and finds a new fun adventure! It was a great experience and it was awesome to be apart of something (at the time) so fun and exciting. To my ND peps - I wish you the best!
**update: just to clarify - We were all told we were "safe" just a week or so ago, and last night the first couple of people let go were posting on FB. Then all hell broke loose on FB and everyone was getting anxious, so yes- its a total surprise to be getting a call saying you lost your job. Personally, it sucks to find out massive layoffs are happening and watching friends post about it before you know or hear anything directly.
What really sucks for me is I took time off for the holiday and was heading back into the studio - but no, I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to some people.
-tc
