My World

TellTale Cinematic Test

2012-01-27T10:25:00.001-07:00

I finished this right before Christmas and can finally post it. I feel good about the test, I enjoyed working on it and finished the test under 20 hrs.

Sam & Max Cinematic Test from Toby Cochran on Vimeo.

I'm excited to take what I learned and apply it to my next project. And for those who have asked, yes, that's my voice for the sounds :D

The History of Lego Universe

2012-01-26T20:03:00.000-07:00

If you enjoy LEGO you should watch this little video. It brings back a lot of fun memories working with everyone on Lego Universe. There was a large pool of talent under that roof and I had a lot of fun working on the game.

I'm sad to see that the game couldn't just accept the free-for-play and let the community still enjoy the game. I put in a little over a year and a half working on the game but there were some who had been there since the first pitch! Around 5 years of blood, sweat and tears were poured into that project.

Thought I'd post some photos :)

We had the 2nd largest collection of Lego bricks in the world

Getting ready for the Xmas party!

this was my ride until I crashed. Then I bought a ripstick

2 fast...

During a BBQ I think...photo by: Sergey

My first year I took 2nd place for the Halloween Costume party, 2nd year we owned it.

This will be a nice little gem to reflect on.

WW SketchCrawl #34

2012-01-23T13:31:00.000-07:00

For the first half of the morning the weather was nice enough to draw outside, then the wind picked up and we moved inside the Ferry building.

There was a lot of great talent out sketching on Saturday, it was very inspiring and motivating to meet new artists.

The Hudsucker Proxy Breakdown

2012-01-22T22:38:00.000-07:00

A new term has started at AnimC and part of the first assignment is to study a film and breakdown the shots. Focusing on visual progression; meaning cutting, continuity, line quality, line closure and finding basic shape progression.

The Power of Enthusiasm

2012-01-19T13:08:00.001-07:00

2012 Is going to be a great year. And I want to help drive that home with this video. If you have 18 mins or can listen to it while you work, I recommend you do so!

Good bye 2011

2011-12-31T14:52:00.001-07:00

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!

Fall AnimC Classes End

2011-12-10T15:07:00.000-07:00

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!

Contour Practice

2011-11-26T16:34:00.000-07:00

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!

CTNx 2011

2011-11-21T17:18:00.001-07:00

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!!

AnimC 1st 24hr Film: Date!

2011-11-07T14:22:00.001-07:00

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!

enjoy! :D

Lego Attack Crocodiles!

2011-11-03T15:29:00.000-06:00

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!

AnimC Gesture Class

2011-10-13T16:59:00.000-06:00

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.

RIP Steve Jobs

2011-10-07T01:38:00.000-06:00

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.

My last Painting & Bieber

2011-10-03T17:44:00.001-06:00

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.

AnimC Classes

2011-09-20T12:41:00.002-06:00

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!!

Shouldn't it be Lotso?

A little hike above Berkeley Campus

The Hogwarts of Tennis Clubs

Finally a view of the birdge!

From my bike ride

1st SketchCrawl!

New Chapter

2011-08-17T00:45:00.001-06:00

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. :)

Animation Collaborative!!

2011-08-15T22:37:00.001-06:00

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

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead

2011-08-05T21:14:00.023-06:00

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 Dead I 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

I Saw the Devil

2011-08-01T15:54:00.002-06:00

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.

If you enjoyed Oldboy I recommend this. :)

Jackass of the Day

2011-07-29T23:59:00.047-06:00

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 land 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.

Everything is a Remix

2011-07-14T13:26:00.001-06:00

"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.

You can also help support the series - visit -everythingisaremix.info/donate/

Creativity isn't magic. Interesting thought. ;)

Also want to thank all the support and help I've received by some of these amazing artists. Their generosity will not go unnoticed. :)

ASIFA Life Drawing

2011-07-10T23:10:00.004-06:00

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 hope ASIFA can host more of these!

I'M A CO TOUGH MUDDER!

2011-06-27T13:48:00.003-06:00

I just wanted to quickly post that my teammate 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! O 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!

2011-06-20T15:28:00.002-06:00

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

-Donate to Toby-

-Donate to Brittany-

Pitching Feedback

2011-06-16T15:00:00.024-06:00

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.

LA Ventures

2011-06-04T14:47:00.000-06:00

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. ;)

Pitch Day!

2011-05-31T12:04:00.004-06:00

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!!

Unleashing Your Creative Self

2011-05-27T08:36:00.000-06:00

Never Give Up.

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.

Donnie & Leo

2011-05-25T14:36:00.000-06:00

I wanted to post this up last week but ran out of time trying to get things ready for my quick trip to LA. enjoy! |:|)

Soaring

2011-05-09T23:23:00.003-06:00

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.

Boot Camp starts again

2011-05-07T13:27:00.000-06:00

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

Moo

2011-04-26T11:53:00.000-06:00

This was a little painting I made for a friends birthday. She loves anything with cows so gift ideas are pretty easy :P.

Painting this took a little longer than expected, my acrylic paints were a bit old and very clumpy ha. Next time I'll stick with my watercolors.

1980s Three-peat!

2011-04-22T03:38:00.001-06:00

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

"A true Dream Team." - Alvin & the Chipmunks

Dream Train

2011-04-14T18:15:00.006-06:00

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**

Dream Train from Toby Cochran on Vimeo.

let me know what ya think!

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!

Mike & Raph

2011-04-08T23:55:00.003-06:00

Another submission for the "turtles" theme.

Turtles!!

2011-04-05T19:11:00.002-06:00

This weeks theme is Turtles. And I can't help myself but think of Ninja Turtles when I hear the word turtle.

Big Kahuna

2011-04-04T18:34:00.002-06:00

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.

Human Pin Cushion

2011-04-01T13:45:00.002-06:00

I was stuck with a bit more needles than usual today so I decided to look up, and this is what I saw...

I tell ya, the needles in the toes and fingers can hurt the worst.

New Portfolio

2011-04-01T07:58:00.003-06:00

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.

In the meantime I'll keep busting my butt!

Happy Friday!

Femme Fatale

2011-03-31T14:48:00.005-06:00

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!

Slumdog pt. 1

2011-03-30T13:01:00.001-06:00

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

(notes on) biology

2011-03-23T14:43:00.002-06:00

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!

Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food

2011-03-22T09:32:00.001-06:00

Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food | Video on TED.com

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.

knowledge is power, so eat up. :D

Artists Help Japan ---Earthquake & Tsunami 2011: Artists Help Japan ---Earthquake & Tsunami 2011

2011-03-14T09:40:00.000-06:00

Just helping spread the word.

Artists Help Japan ---Earthquake & Tsunami 2011: Artists Help Japan ---Earthquake & Tsunami 2011: "Dear Artists and Supporters On March 11, an 8.9 earthquake struck off the northeast coast of Japan near the city of Sendai. The earthquak..."

TED prize winner 2011

2011-03-04T15:40:00.004-07:00

incredible.

1 week later

2011-03-04T02:47:00.004-07:00

Well, a week has passed since being laid off and I have a new Portfolio!

400+ drawings and wham-o!! :D I still need to polish some things, but I'll be posting to get some feedback and start making revisions!

Looking forward to this weekend! I'll get some rock climbing in, maybe a yoga class and go watch Rango, gonna be great!

Hold on tight!

2011-02-25T13:32:00.005-07:00

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!

The Defender Project

2011-02-24T12:35:00.008-07:00

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.

Laid of from NetDevil

2011-02-23T22:44:00.007-07:00

Well this sucks... haha.

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

Life Drawing Jan 29th

2011-01-29T01:41:00.004-07:00

Finally made it back to a class! Enjoyed seeing some familiar faces and drew a new model who was quite good at posing. I always enjoy models who take posing seriously - just helps.

Next time I'll get there in time for the fun gesture work!

Dr. Sketchey's Jan.

2011-01-17T11:38:00.007-07:00

It's been a while since attending a Dr. Sketchey's event and even longer since sitting down and practicing some life drawing.

I was extremely slow and rusty, the event this month was an ode to the pinup - so much fun and I wasn't fast enough! haha. next time.

I want I want

2011-01-02T20:38:00.005-07:00

quit bitching and just do it, you have people around you that are supportive and investing good energy into your well being - what more could you ask for?

If you want to find love, first try and love yourself. Change comes from within, and if you truly want to change something it wont happen unless you want it. If you want to be the best animator, then quit talking and do it. Doesn't matter what school you go to, find the help you need, there are more resources than ever to study. If you want to be in better shape because you are tired of looking down and not seeing your toes, then you have to WANT it. No amount of complaining will make your waist size go down.

No amount of self pity posts you make one facebook will make someone like you. You think people like being around someone who just brings everyone down in any decent situation?

Maybe you don't like working out or whatever, but guess what!? It will add years to your life, and you will start to feel better; emotionally, physically and mentally. You will gain that confidence you want, so you can talk to that girl you are scared of talking to. To many times we all make up excuses, I can't talk to her, I'm too fat, she wouldn't go for a guy like me. I can't work there, only the best of the best can work there. Well what's stopping you from being the best? ... no one... but you.

I write this because I'm tired of seeing my facebook updates of peoples new years resolutions and already DAY 2! People are making excuses. Try making smaller changes and just build on top of the progress you make, take small steps to get to your ultimate goal. AND guess what! It's not going to be easy, if you want to be healthier or a better artist, it takes time and patience...and YOU have to put in the time, no one else can do it for you. Start investing in yourself.

Happy New Years everyone! And remember your life wont change until you change.

Best wishes for 2011.

Merry Xmas!!

2010-12-24T11:27:00.003-07:00

Just wanted to share this with everyone and wish everyone a Happy Holidays!!!

- will update more before the end of the year, since getting back from CTN things have been hectic and exhausting. Hopefully things will be on the up and up shortly.

Best wishes!

Going out with a bang!

2010-11-15T16:26:00.001-07:00

End of the year is wrapping up in the next month and half, and I can't believe how fast time has flown by!

I've been taking Robb Pratt's online storyboarding classes all year. And I remember signing up at the end of February thinking, "I have to wait all year to just get 10 lessons!" Dec 11th will be the last class, and I'm kinda sad it's already over.

I do wish the classes were a bit more one on one with assignments however. I am looking into all the schooling I can get my hands on for storyboarding to take my skills to the next level. There are a couple of places offering classes and videos that I plan to soak up.

CTN Expo. I can't wait for CTN! It's going to be great, lots of great artists will be there and I am super excited to meet a few board artists that I've been following, along with some long time idols like Humberto Ramos!!

this weekend is going to be freaking amazing!!

Safe travels everyone!!

AiC Event talk

2010-11-11T21:15:00.001-07:00

I had the pleasure of arranging and setting up a panel talk at the Art Institute of Colorado which took place last night, Nov. 10th. The Alumni coordinator and I have had this in the works for over 2 months now!

A few months back we received a demo reel at work from a current graduate and unfortunately it wasn't very polished and looked very "stock" - meaning it had every class assignment in it and lacked any extra ..... pep.

And I got to thinking, so many of us up at NetDevil graduated around the same time as one another that we were fortunate enough to get an awesome gig soon after graduating. I was wondering why that was, why were we different. Then I thought we should give a talk!!!

Now I've had my problems with the school in the past and I'm still upset to see how things are running at the school, but they have been making BIG improvements!! I know for myself, while I attended I was ALWAYS seeking out mentor-ship and knowledge when I couldn't gain it in the classroom.

And I know for myself if someone from the industry hosted a talk about what to do to get your foot in the door I would have soaked that up!! And that's exactly what I wanted to give to the current students and other Alumni still seeking a gig.

The idea was to host a no holds-barred type of forum and let it be a free for all letting the students ask questions and at the end to receive feedback on their work. I was able to round up some colleagues and had a total of 10 speakers from work to speak. It was fantastic because we an array of experience from Seniors, Leads and jr. artists who have moved on up. And it went extremely well!

I really hope lots of students took away nuggets of good information from us all. And I want to thank Shandra and AiC for hosting us. If I get the opportunity to do another talk I would be more than grateful too.

Remember to keep the dream alive and never let anything get in your way from achieving your dreams!

Nov. the Great

2010-11-02T23:03:00.003-06:00

Nov. is going to be a great freaking month!

1. CTN Expo - boom! I can't wait, JBL and I are going to have blast.
2. 4th month of swing dancing
3. LOTS OF MOVIES!!!

Toy Story 3 on DVD - I've already devoured all the extras and going through the extra commentaries. :D
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World comes out on DVD next week!! Such an underrated movie, and it's unfortunate it didn't do so well in the theater. But I hope it sees a long life on DVD.
And movies releasing in the theaters - Megamind, 127 Hours, Due Date, My Dog Tulip, Harry Potter, Tangled, Black Swan, Faster and Monsters should be playing at a local cinema!

4. Family time - Thanksgiving is coming up, and my family unfortunately is getting smaller each year so it makes harder but makes it much more meaningful for us to come together. Also a reminder to be thankful for the friends I still have and the new friendships I'm building.

5. Life Drawing

6. Giving a speech at the Art Institute of Colorado with my colleagues from Netdevil, should be a fun time.

Austin Film Fest

2010-10-22T14:54:00.002-06:00

This is my first time at a film festival, and the overwhelming feeling I have feels just like the feeling I had when I attended my first Siggraph show. I feel a bit out of my element, but I share a common dominator with other artists here. We love film.

And after sitting in my first writing panel I may be one of a few storyboard artists here... I need to capitalize on that and see if I can't meet/ make some new friends!!

And I have verbal confirmation that my stubbornness has been rightfully so, the past few years of not breaking my rules just to create a film. Every freaking thing I've been striving and preaching about is truth as I've just been hearing, and from "A-list" studios. This is very reassuring.

It's time to move on and take my game to the next level. Excited, I am hungry to already get back to work after only a day, and can't wait for what lies ahead of me!

more to come from the festival when I get back home.

I heart Cintiq

2010-10-12T18:04:00.006-06:00

Man, I was struggling on my 4X5 wacom to finish up the rest of my animation for the commercial, and I decided to go into work and use a friends Cintiq. After two full days of grinding I was still not finished, a friend of mine was nice enough to let me borrow his personal Cintiq to use at home and I was able to finish!

AND man! I don't know how I've been completing work without one! They are so freaking nice! I was actually looking at buying my buddies but I just recently dropped a ton of money on my car so am gonna have to let it pass!

Luckly though, I have learned my lesson and know the style of the next animation and will be better planned ahead of time so it wont be as difficult. Hardest part on the last one, was 3 characters and staging. Clean up went smoothly using the cintiq as well, so nice working on one.

I also worked a bit on my starry night painting that is posted here, I should only have about 8-10 hrs of work left on that, then I'll post an update. Oh and I wont be able to show any of my work from the commercials until November 5th! So stay tuned.

I will also be giving a talk down at the Art Institute of Colorado on November 10th. I've been in talks with the school about setting up an event and I've rounded up some colleagues from work and we are all going to be sharing some insight. The goal is to go down and have a no holds barred type of forum, we are running with the title: "Your Degree, Reality, & You."

We want to be as open and honest to the students as possible! Should make for a fun evening. Next time I post, I'll post some artwork instead of just boring text! :)

2D Animation

2010-09-26T10:30:00.004-06:00

I decided to pick up some last minute freelance to help pay for some upcoming trips I'll be taking in the coming months. And I should have known better haha. But so far it has been fun, and I need reevaluate on how I can execute all the work needing to be finished.

I have just finished roughing out 36 seconds of animation in 6 days, working part-time. Now, I need to cleanup & finalize the characters in Illustrator and import them over into Flash to polish.

Then I can move onto the next commercial. This work is a lot more than I intended it to be, for the next commercial I will keep a big sign hanging overhead that reads "MOVING ILLUSTRATIONS ONLY" instead of animating things out. Because the turn around time for 30 seconds is so freaking tight it's not worth killing myself over this.

I will post some w.i.p. when allowed! And hopefully I will get out and enjoy the sun sometime today!!

Pen

2010-09-19T21:09:00.002-06:00

Olympus Pen uses stop motion to tell a story.

This is a really well executed commercial / short film. I love the progression and the music used in this film.
enjoy:

Also here are some tidbits from the creators.

“This is the PEN Story in stop motion. We shot 60.000 pictures, developed 9.600 prints and shot over 1.800 pictures again. No post production! Thanks to all the stop motion artists who inspired us. We hope you enjoy

Some of the comments we have read here suggest that we should mention the creator of “A wolf loves pork”, Mr Taijin Takeuchi.
While we were looking for a way to realise a story describing “a journey through time” based on printed images, we were inspired by Mr Takeuchi’s brilliant work. For this reason we intentionally quoted his work in our little movie while showing full respect to his original idea. We didnt mention his name because we did not want to do so without his prior agreement.
However after considering some of the comments posted here we have decided to add credits to him and his work, which we obviously absolutely love.”

UMBRA

2010-09-13T23:38:00.001-06:00

wow.

watch & enjoy

more doodles

2010-09-04T23:49:00.005-06:00

another random doodle using the odosketch site. just wish i had a bit more control on a few things or the colors. Seems to be stubborn with the tiny pencils.

some random food for thought:
The only way to retain love is to give it away, and the only way love grows is by giving. And if we deny love given, and refuse because we are afraid of being vulnerable then we live an empty life suffering much greater.

-now I must get back to work :P

quick lunch doodle

2010-08-31T12:59:00.007-06:00

just in case the video doesn't work CLICK ME

fun little doodle during lunch.

The Monk and the Monkey

2010-08-30T21:15:00.003-06:00

This is a really nice film by Francesco Giroldini and Brendan Carroll - I am curious if Ringling is allowing students to team up now? It seems if this was the first pair that did so the quality has improved greatly. I would even compare it to some group efforts by Gobelins students.

I really enjoy the music in this short film along with the lighting! It's obvious A LOT of time was spent on this, the character designs, textures, camera and the animation are all really polished as well. Great job and best of luck to you guys!!

New Painting W.I.P.

2010-08-21T17:31:00.005-06:00

Man, I am terrible at trying to keep this thing updated haha. Although I have been updating my other blog quite often, and posting on my twitter... man so many things to keep up on. I don't really have anything interesting for people to be following me on twitter just yet haha.

I will soon release that beast and share what all I have been up to with everyone soon. :D I mentioned I'd be getting a painting up, and I finally have some progress on it! Check it out, still have lots to do, but I'm happy with the progress in the short amount of time today.

I will also be posting some great short films I've been watching.

I hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend!!

Bird Box

2010-07-29T16:08:00.002-06:00

This is soo good I wanted to share it! The timing is fantastic and the characters are SO simple!! great work!!

Serndipitous

2010-07-26T00:47:00.003-06:00

I had one heck of an interesting weekend this past weekend. Only way I can describe it was it was just all meant to happen... so I am thinking?

It was more than just right place right time...

I was able to sorta bring back my story team for a last minute jam session on some future work!!! It's kind of getting scary at how well we can all flow and mesh together, I'm not sure if it's all the practice we have had over the years or what.

Probably the fact we have spent years on this project and are starting to really understand this world we have created, that it's now getting to a point of not being as difficult ... so I hope! haha.

And I should have some new art work to post up that just isn't nude life drawing studies!!

Oil Spill S

2010-06-29T00:12:00.001-06:00

Satellite Timelapse April 20 - May 24 2010 Deepwater Horizon From Space.

Still spreading... this is going on what 70 days now? We can send a man to the moon but we can't figure out how to plug a damn hole?!

Goals vs. Objectives

2010-06-26T16:14:00.003-06:00

Not sure how many folks follow Ed Hooks, but his work is brilliant, and his workshops are even better! If he ever stops traveling so darn much I would love to attend his class again!

I read his monthly newsletter and this month had a great write up on Goals vs Objectives for characters motivation. Here is what Ed had to say:

"When Barack Obama was running for President, his goal was to be elected. But he first had to win primary elections in order to become the Democratic candidate. In acting terms, his objective back then was to win in each individual state - Iowa, Pennsylvania, and so on. You see what I am saying? A goal is not the same thing as the objective that motivates a character to act.

In my workshops, I teach that a character should be playing an action in pursuit of an objective while overcoming an obstacle, but I think that that word "objective" is unclear to some animators. Think of it this way: Your character is going to do something right now, immediately. Right? What is his immediate objective? Why is he moving? Analogy: When you go to the studio to work, getting out of bed in the morning is an action in pursuit of that objective. Taking a shower and eating a bowl of cereal are actions in pursuit of that same objective, getting to work. Stepping onto a city bus or starting your car is an action in pursuit of that objective. Your ultimate goal, perhaps years down the road, may be to be direct movies at Pixar. That is what causes you to have the kinds of objectives that you have. It is good to have goals, and most people do. But in terms of acting, starting your car in the morning is not going to lead directly to making movies for Pixar. It will result in you getting to your job this morning. That is your objective, and it is provable. You will know whether or not you got to the studio, right? An objective should always be provable. If you want to make a salad tonight, then going to the market to buy some lettuce and tomatoes is an action in pursuit of that objective, and you will know whether or not you achieved your objective. You will know whether or not you get the salad made. Your goal may be to lose ten pounds, but your objective is to make a salad.

If your character wants to travel from Paris to London, then getting to London would be his objective. Deciding whether to fly or take a train is an action in pursuit of the objective of getting to Paris. In order to make it theatrical, you need an obstacle of some kind - a snowstorm or blocked railroad track or something. Simply getting from London to Paris is not sufficient because that would be "regular reality". In storytelling, we want "theatrical reality", and that requires an obstacle. Theatrical reality has structure, form. Regular reality does not.

Stage actors also take into consideration what is known as the "super objective" when playing a character. This kind of objective is different from an immediate objective or even a goal because the character is often unaware of it himself. A woman works eighteen hours a day to build her cake-baking business. Her objective might be to fill particular orders, and the conflict might be a lack of sufficient time. Having a successful business that gets written up in the food magazines is her goal, but right now she has to get the cakes out on time. Her super-objective has to do with why it is important to her in the first place to be the owner of a successful business. Why is she looking for business success rather than, say, spiritual fulfillment as a Catholic nun? All humans have super-objectives, but not everybody is conceptual about it. That is what psychotherapy is for. Performance in animation has not yet reached the point at which we need to talk a lot about super-objective, but it will in time. Just remember, you cannot play actions in pursuit of a super-objective. Nor can you play actions in direct pursuit of goals. The concept of actions and objectives is an immediate motivating idea. "

- if anyone isn't on the mailing list here is his link: Acting for Animators I really enjoyed this write up and thought I'd share it, great material for animators and storytellers. :) I also liked the idea of "super objective"...

What's your "super objective?"

TOY STORY 3!!!!

2010-06-17T16:21:00.001-06:00

Tonight!! Some friends and I are going to do the marathon!!! Freaking sooo excited for this!!

If anyone is in the area, come join us!!

Keep pushing

2010-06-12T21:54:00.001-06:00

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars
- Kahlil Gibran

:D

Busy, busy.

2010-06-01T23:13:00.007-06:00

that's how I like it.

However, I might not have any hair left at the end of June. haha. I will soon be in crunch at work to finish support for the online teams I help. I have 2 freelance projects, entering a contest and finishing some things for my feature film.

Biggest issue for me is making sure I stay on point for keeping some balance mixed in all this! It's finally summer time and I don't want to be hunched over my computer through out the day and night. Which means, I need to work much, much smarter and faster.

One decent habit I've been trying to pick up is on my time management. Instead of multi-tasking only giving __% to 5 different things, I'm giving 100% to just one for a set period of time. I have downloaded some digital timers to help me. If I only have one hour to paint, then I have to accomplish as much as I can during that time! Same for blogging or suffering the net ;)

And I have to say it's really helping, especially at work. I know this may sound strange, but I work extremely well on tight deadlines, so when I have a timer in the corner of my eye, it adds that extra bit of push and pressure for me. Odd, I know. But hey, if you can find something that works, stick with it and bust your butt! :D

Life Drawing

2010-05-15T16:09:00.007-06:00

Here are a few doodles from the past 2 weeks.

Working on getting my game back.

Headless Studio Reel '10

2010-05-04T21:42:00.003-06:00

WOW. Love all of the work they have produced. When I first watched this reel I was autmatcially wondering if they had worked on the film Noturna!! And sure enough they did! Their style reminded me of the beautiful animation work in that film.

Watch their reel! enjoy!

Headless studio reel 2010 from Headless Productions on Vimeo.

And keep up the great work at Headless!!

Bear Film

2010-05-02T22:17:00.004-06:00

Calart students create some awesome short films. I really like this film and love the design of it.

a bear film from kris anka on Vimeo.

I remember right after high school I was considering Calarts, at the time I had no idea what I wanted to do really, I just knew I could draw and when I watched those drawings come to life I loved it... I still wonder "what if" at times ... haha. I am very happy and fortunate with the path I have taken, and I'd never change that.

Great job Kris!! Best of luck to you!

Build a tower, build a team

2010-04-28T10:42:00.002-06:00

Love this.

No Excuses

2010-04-27T22:58:00.005-06:00

I'm starting the Insanity work out tomorrow!

I've been trying to find balance in my life ever since Nov of 09, I've been all out of funk. Last year I was doing yoga constantly, participating in tons of different exercises and working out on a regular basis. I need to get back to doing that and this is my way of starting it. And my way of committing since I'm posting it up; gotta stay accountable :D

My sis has always wanted me to show her how to use weights and work out etc, so I'm going to be doing this with her and it should be really fun I think. I've been slowly writing on my blog about inspirations and keeping motivated (haven't posted any) And I'm going to be turning this blog into more of that and still sharing my art.

My objective is:
·Insanity work out - 60 days - week break
·P90x - 90 days break
·Body for Life 90 days (last year I was doing this and mixing it with my routine)
·Power and strength 8 weeks - break and then I'll mix it up and go back to creating my own routine. :)

Kick A**!

2010-04-18T13:18:00.002-06:00

I thought this movie was great! There are some really great interviews with Vaughn, Goldman and others on what it took to get this film to fruition.

Here is a link to a podcast with Jane Goldman: Screenwriter

And here is a decent review at: /slashfilm

What hits home for me, after reading and listening to interviews with the director is that no studio would buy this film. Everyone told them to change the story, wanted characters to be older, etc. etc. And Vaughn had enough and just made it himself!

I just wish I had the funds and extensive network as Vaughn does to do the same thing for my movie instead of running around in circles listening to people who "think" they know what to do. I just want to make MY movie with my team damnit! :)

Dragons!

2010-03-30T00:51:00.009-06:00

Okay, I take back my Avatar statement for the use of 3D; Dragons blows it out of the water! Man! huge congrats to everyone over at DW!!

Sean Sexton my class mentor, his shots turned out amazing. And it was soooooo cool to see the shots finalized and lit after visiting and seeing everything last year in the rough blocking stages! I'm going to see this movie again!! I wasn't expecting too much from it, but from friends at DW - I was just hearing this could be the best they've done, better than KFP. Congrats to Luke and Tyler as well!!

And I was hugly impressed with the quality all around. What I enjoyed the most was the cinematography, match cuts were brilliant, use of 3D was so nice!! The flying scenes and the underwater scenes in 3D are very cool. Pacing of the film was great, not a moment dragged. The story development of Hiccup and Toothless was nice, had really nice conflict and turning points!!

Hiccup and his father, man! I loved how far they pushed the dad to just being a complete jerk, but they had some wonderful moments with him and then with the end... money baby!

Also pick up the art of book!! Nico is freaking amazing and I loved looking at

Interviews & great links about the movie:
·Kristof Serrand, Supervising Animator --- I learned from Kristof while I attended Gobelins a few years back, that man is amazing!
·Sabrina Riegel, Supervisor of Surfacing
·Gabe Hordos, Supervising Animator
·Cressida Cowell, head of Character Effects Supervision
·April Knobbe, Matte Painting Supervisor

·AWN Article
·LA Times - Conflict

I'm the Exhale of the Night

2010-03-24T23:29:00.003-06:00

Man, time flies! And how lame of me not to post until now!! Been a interesting past couple of months! I'm still cranking animations out at NetDevil.

Close to 5 mins of animation in total, and I've been getting faster! Learning to block in spline mode, no time for stepped. (there is sooo much animation between the 4 main animators at ND - close to 3k if not over) And I've learned to work out of the graph editor for most part. My super limited knowledge on rigging has grown by little bounds, which is good as well.

I'm apart of the LUP team, which is all user generated content that is sent in looking to be optimized, setup and rigged then animated by me! So custom creatures, objects you name it, I've been animating it. It's been extremely fun and difficult at times, some of these characters are only 4 pieces of lego brick. And to get that sucker to read like the animal they want can be hard. But at the same time, it's really pushed me to plan better and become even more creative with such tight limitations.

"Greatness is performing under limitation" - nice quote I heard from a friend that I thought couldn't be more fitting.

·Also I've been working on a new blog for my company along with a website. I thought it was about time I started tracking this journey, covering the last few years, current progress, and as it continues allowing a small window into everything the team and I deal with.

·My team and I have also been working tirelessly on the story for the feature. I will elaborate more on this on my new site. But in about 4-5 days we damn near busted out 500 storyboards. Once we really get going, it is are goal to average 100 drawings a day for the team. Only 3-4 of us right now, and once we hit that bar it will increase even more :D

·Us taking a break to power up ha.

Well even though I'm a few months behind on the HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope everyone's year has treated them well thus far!! And I can't wait for what this year has in store for everyone!

Change always comes bearing gifts. ~Price Pritchett

Merry Chritsmas!!

2009-12-25T02:13:00.002-07:00

I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and for those that celebrate other holidays HAPPY HOLIDAYS to you!!

This was one hell of a year. A bit of reflection for me.

-09 Started off with a terrible bang, followed by madness with finished up AM.
-Then jumped on a Discovery Channel project in the middle of finishing up my schooling
-Gramps isn't doing so well, finish last week of school or go see him for the last time.. I went and thankfully passed AM!! Working hard with the team trying to keep everyone motivated on the film but as graduation grew closer we all pretty -much took a much needed break.
-Started reenergizing my batteries, meet up with tons of AM school mates to celebrate graduating, had a trip of a life time with some friends
-Came back refreshed and the blinders came off- focused on making my temple strong again doing all sorts of fun things: dance classes, yoga, parkour, kayaking, taking different religion classes, tai chi, exploring CO's awesome mountains, etc etc.
- Quickly teamed up with Michal Finegold for a animboom contest
-Found out NetDevil was looking for another animator and they contacted me!!
-My grandpa passed away - so great full I went to see him
-Started my new gig at NetDevil
-Regrouping the team, for the last big Hoo RA! - learning that my time management went out the window - trying to refocus my time where it is needed then I am trying to get back on the horse for staying active and in shape.
-Lessons in life; Friends are worth fighting for!
-Time to kick ass in '10

Also thank you, to everyone for their support, and all my love and wishes go out to everyone pursing their dream! If it was easy, everyone would do it.

"If you can dream it, YOU CAN DO IT" -by my fav. one and only - Mr. Disney

Avatar

2009-12-21T20:11:00.005-07:00

GO SEE!

WHOOA! Slow it down there... the art team at Netdevil all went to go watch the flick and wow. Then I watched it again in 3D!!

Is that how this stuff is suppose to be done or what?! Aside from UP and Coraline the use of 3D was fantastic I felt. Overall, the movie was nothing mind-blowing storytelling wise, but what one hell of a ride!

I think that's all it was meant to be, to entertain, and I believe over the next weeks it will be rolling the cash in from people going back. I was predicting what was going to happen next almost every-time (which sucked) but still felt super glued to the screen. And man! That's what its about when it comes down to it. No need to freak on reinventing the wheel, just tell a story in a new and entertaining way and boom! You have Avatar!

I also think this is a movie experience not to pass up, go see it in the theater!

NetDevil pt2

2009-11-22T21:00:00.004-07:00

Here are some more Pics from NetDevil!

I just moved spaces, which I'll be moving again shortly because the studio is going to be expanding! But me and Will are trying to build a igloo entrance around our workspace area!

NetDevil is pretty freaking awesome, great vibe on the Lego team, everyone loves what they are doing and the company itself really takes pride in taking care of its people.

Ewoks

2009-10-31T15:24:00.003-06:00

This is just hilarious I think and these guys made the show!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Happy Halloween everyone!

NetDevil

2009-10-28T22:54:00.007-06:00

Wow Netdevil is so cool. Great atmosphere with tons of passionate and very talented individuals. It's great that this company really goes the extra mile to take care of it's employees! Lots of extras like breakfasts, lunches, lots of people playing sports. There is a freaking basketball court there!!

Now I can practice on breaks and earn my name of Kobe back on the court ;) haha.

Here are some pics of the studio:

- Photos are from NetDevil's website check them out!
I'm working on the Lego Universe game, as an animator that will release next year! I've been working on a creature and coming up with some fun animations for him!

We had a snow day, lovely Colorado and it's madness decided to dump down tons of snow! Here is a pic from my back yard!

Ardipithecus finally comes out!

2009-10-01T17:55:00.006-06:00

Ardipithecus ramidus - Adri for short

Or Fred, we actually had a few names for her at work, lol. I was asked to come help out Impossible Pictures working along side my mentor Daev Finn, & colleagues Jackie Evans and Russ Adkisson to finish a project on time.

The show airs on Discovery Channel on October 11th!

The project had been in production for a couple years, and wasn't looking to great. We didn't have much time and basically recreated 2 years worth of work in 6 weeks I believe? The two hardest weeks were the back to back 80 hour weeks.

To see what Daev Finn did with lighting, texturing the creature, I mean Ardi ;) is unreal. Espically in the short amount of time they had. wow.

The image is from the Discovery channel, once I'm allowed I will post up my shots and some of my sketches of my work flow. This was my first time working with motion capture, and it was very difficult. One of the shots I deleted about 800 frames and had to rework (keyframe) everything from the hips up to the head, to the fingers in about 18-23 hour time span.

I was also in charge of coming up with the teasers for promotional use. I am not sure if they will be used though. On the rest of the production, I assisted on texturing, rendering, scene layout, cameras, compositing, set dressing and whatever else the team needed!! lol.

So if anyone gets the chance check it out, or check back when I can post some of the shots up!!

I Must be

2009-09-24T00:37:00.003-06:00

CRAZY!

I'm teaming up with Jackie Evans and we are going to try and bust out almost 20-30 seconds of work in two weeks!

We are kinda bored and needing to improve are skills so I came up with a fun little idea that has a simple enough story behind it. Jackie is going to be modeling, texturing, lighting, and composting everything.

I'm going to be designing, storyboarding, layout, SFX, editing and animation. So far we have about 10-12 shots. Tomorrow I will be doing some rig tweaking, layout and more storyboarding to figure out how many shots we need/ don't need.

Then video reference and finish the schedule so we can figure out how we can possibly accomplish all this in such a short time frame. We are working on a work flow for all the assets so we can both being going 120 mph on this and not back track!

The goal is to have this finished by Oct. 7th! (that is my deadline - Jackies might be extended because of lighting and all that) 2nd part of the goal is not to pull any all nighters nor kill are selves for this. :D

Featured on

2009-09-18T12:03:00.003-06:00

Whoa cool!!

Michal and I were featured on We are the Real Deal website for are work!! Very cool!! It's a blog about promoting good body image for women!
You can read are little spinet here:
JUMP

Now that I look at it again, they didn't mention me... hmmmm... Haha. That's okay though. Michal did write this that didn't seem to make it in the post: The artwork you see was done by the wonderfully talented Toby Cochran. I was just the girl with the initial idea, but without Toby it wouldn't have come to fruition. :)

So it is very cool to see the ideas behind this short little piece we created, you can get a bit of the back ground on it. And it was a joy working with Michal! Hopefully one of these days soon we can team up again and doing something incredible!!

Reel

2009-09-04T08:03:00.006-06:00

Revolution

2009-08-30T17:56:00.010-06:00

(Animatic) Susan B. Anthony’s address to Judge Ward Hunt reaches across time to women and men today, calling them to unite and continue the fight for equal rights."

Created by Michal Finegold and Toby Cochran.

Finally submitted are entry for the contest! Click here to watch and vote!!
Revolution

Competition is going to be stiff on this, there are some really nice pieces that have entered! Good luck to everyone!!

History Channel Contest

2009-08-28T00:02:00.005-06:00

Quick update!!

Finished another rough pass of the animatic and showed it to Michal! She loved it! So awesome, pumped out a lot of work in the last couple days! And it's great to know this is what she had envisioned! And is diggin' a few of the ideas I added.

Going to press on, and we set a goal of Sunday for us to turn it in!

That gives us two days before deadline and will allow some folks to vote on it! Will post the animatic come Sunday!

onto v.5~!!

****
update~~!!! It's 4:24 am Aug 30th!! Finished up on some work, going to check in with Michal in the morning - double check some stuff then submit!!! Animatic will be up soon for voting!! :D

Calm before the storm

2009-08-24T15:51:00.001-06:00

Exciting news! I am teaming up with Michal Finegold and we are entering the AniBoom History Channel Contest!!

Michal was in need of a storyboard artist, so I offered my services!! :) I met Michal during Siggraph of 08, she is a power house to reckon with!! And I'm stoked to be working with her finally.

We don't have much time before the deadline (next week) But we will be cranking tons of work out the rest of this week and get it posted for everyone to see!!

WE will need all the help we can for voting and such! So please be sure to check it out once we get it posted!! I am going all out on this one ... so check back in a few days to see what what we've done in less than 2 weeks.

:D

RIP Grandpa

2009-08-20T17:34:00.006-06:00

On August 14th, 09 my grandfather past away. I wanted to share a drawing I did of him a few years back done in charcoal.

And here is a photo of me and the family at thanksgiving of 08.

After that, he became sick and I wasn't able to go out and visit him with the family due to work and school. Which was really making me feel horrible inside. But back in June during my last week of school we got a phone call saying he wasn't doing well, so I jumped in the car and headed back to Kansas with my dad.

Ended up missing my last week of school and such, but I was able to see my grandpa. That was the last time I saw him, and I'm thankful I jumped in the car and went to go see him.

My sister is going to make a cool collage on a canvas so when she gets that done I will post that up here sometime!

Love ya gramps!
tc

Meteor Shower

2009-08-14T13:00:00.003-06:00

this is a w.i.p.

Graduation

2009-07-29T12:01:00.025-06:00

WOW

I can't say that enough. So much fun, and it was fantastic meeting everyone that I've been going to school with for the last two years online!

It's a bit surreal meeting everyone, you are use to seeing them in this tiny box from their web cam, then in real life you almost doubt if you really think that's the person you think it is! But it was great putting real faces to the tiny avatars!

The Graduation weekend started on Friday, July 10th, which Animation Mentor held a open house and a job fair! Open house was a lot of fun, it was really cool to see where a lot of the magic takes place to make such a great school run!! The students will sometime have "Office hour visits" on the school through the web cam, but it was really nice to meet the people behind the scenes that have been helping us out over the years! Saturday was the big day; graduation, then celebration time! And Sunday was the AM BBQ!!

The graduation ceremony was awesome, classes 11 & 12, I think a total of... at least 120 students?? More?. I think it was AM's biggest classes to graduate thus far. AM had a special guest speaker for the grads, which was Dave Burgess!! Super cool guy! I remember attending Siggraph last year and he was at one of the panels speaking. Also ran into him at DreamWorks when I visited!

I arrived in San Fran on the 8th along with my friends Emanuel Almer, Ana Cunha and her friend Dianna. E (Emanuel) traveled from Austria and the girls traveled up from Brazil! We had set up a 17 day vacation from graduation. The couple days before the AM festivities kicked off we toured around SF!! Trying food out, E was able to have steak and eggs for breakfast for the first time (which we ended up getting for 4-5 days in a row!! mmmmm) We had an Alcatraz tour which was pretty fun, walked around China Town!

I wound up making a new partner in crime while I was visiting SF!! Bridget is her name and walkin' is her game - haha :P. When I travel I love to just walk, and see where my feet will take me. It's so much fun because it's usually during these times you find some of the best experiences. Apart of the old cliche, it's about the journey not the destination. Turns out Bridget loves doing that too! So after the BBQ on Sunday she took me on a tour of the city, we walked about 7-8 miles I think? Maybe? Not sure, but it was one hell of a work out! . I was crazy enough to run up a few of the steepest streets while I was out there.

So after a great time in SF, me and the gang (Emanuel, Ana, and Di) set off to drive the coast to LA! We stopped at quite a few places on are way down, first up was Monterey; we caught the sunset there! super pretty btw.

Continued on to: Carmel Beach, Big Sur, ((we stopped to check out some Elephant Seals relaxing)) Pismo Beach, then stopped over at Santa Barbara (caught another sunset!!) Then we made it into Santa Monica/ Venice area, which is where we stayed for about a week!

While we were out there we played at the beach, visited Blur Studios, and DreamWorks, I was able to meet up with one of the best Mentors EVER! Mark Pudleiner, had some sushi with him. I had the great pleasure of learning from Mark in Class 1 and Class 5. At DreamWorks Ana and I met are class 6 mentor Sean Sexton!! Again one of the best mentors to have and his class was fantastic. At graduation I was able to meet up with Jay Jackson and he was my class 4 mentor! I unfortunately missed Michelle Meeker she was my class 2 Mentor!!

While out at the beach in Venice, Emanuel and I worked out at Muscle Beach!! We are both into fitness and have both wanted to visit. That was a lot of fun, but a bit extreme in the heat! :D

We ended up extending are stay in LA an extra day and I was able to drive up to Ventura and see an old friend and mentor of mine! Emanuel came up with me and we went sailing! It was my first time ever going sailing and I loved it, I ended up taking over the reigns and sailed us around the Pacific for a while. Once we came back into port, Emanuel and I went Kayaking!! And that was a blast! We ended up seeing a dolphin and some sea lions. E, was hoping to see a shark, but no luck! :( lol.

The following day the gang and I went to DISNEYLAND!!!! SO, so cool! I hadn't been there since I was a lil fella, maybe 2 years old? But I felt like a 6 year old all over again!! E and I ran all over that place. We purchased the park hopper pass and we went on just about every ride in California Adventure! Then about afternoon time we ran over to Disneyland! We didn't get to go on as many rides but we took as many photos with the characters as we could! We were hell bent on getting a photo with Mickey so we waited about an hour to do so.

FYI for anyone that will be going to Disney MUST, this is a BIG MUST: ride Indiana Jones ride and do the Toy Story Mania ride. Coolest experience!!

After LA, we hit the road again to Vegas! Vegas baby, VEGAS! lol. Vegas is definitely a place you go for just a couple days and that's it. While we were in Vegas, E and I won some money and we went on a Helicopter ride in the Grand Canyon!! I had never gambled before and I think E and I both got lucky!!

I use to be terrified of heights, like looking out the window from a building would start to make me feel uneasy. So maybe a couple years ago, the thought of a helicopter ride would be like "NO WAY!!" But I enjoyed the hell out of it. We flew over the Hoover Damn, then landed near the Colorado River for some refreshments then headed back home. But if anyone reading this gets the chance to go on a helicopter they should!!

It's very hard for me to point my finger on, what was the best part of my trip. It feels like I had many "cherries on top" for each day. Always something new. For San Fran it was finally meeting everyone and seeing the city non-tourist style. The coast drive in itself was incredible, visiting the studios, body surfing, playing in the sand, sailing, Disneyland, and the helicopter ride! Hell the whole freaking trip was phenomenal!

And it was very needed, last couple years have been rough, and I've had my nose down going 150% Rarely being outside or just spending time away from a computer. (which I do NOT recommend lol get some sun)

It was fantastic meeting everyone from AM, I wish everyone the best!! And to Emanuel, Ana, and Di thanks for a memorable trip!

--If you want to see more photos, add me on facebook!

AM DONE!!

2009-07-05T15:51:00.005-06:00

wow.

I can't believe I haven't updated this thing sooner! I finished school at Animation Mentor Back in June!!! Graduation time now!! So glad I was able to pass, for a few weeks
trying to get everything changed over and with everything else I really felt like I might
not graduate.

But I did what I could to the best I could.

I would also like to thank everyone for believing in me, and giving me lots of support during that time! I couldn't of done it without you guys. :)

During that time I was freelancing with Impossible Pictures! Super sweet studio with some awesome people working there. I jumped on a project that was being completed for the Discovery Channel!! Super cool, I've always wanted to work on a show like that too.

I can't say what the project is just yet, but once it gets closer to airing on TV I will post it up!

I cleaned up animation, mo-cap work, a little rigging and texturing, assisted on set dressing a scene, some lighting, rendering and helped out the team on compositing. I was also in charge of the teaser promotional shots. Which was fun because I came up with tons of ideas to present to my supervisor and team and would get feedback then go back to actually setting it all up for layout. It was fun because I had some creative freedom working in some tight constraints but was able to creatively direct the teaser shots!

It was a great experience and now I've just been getting back into some graphic design freelance and prepping for my graduation trip!!! I graduate July 11th. Will be attending the AM BBQ and hanging out with tons of people from all over the world, that I've been going to school with for the last couple years!

I'm actually going to be staying in San Fransisco for a few days with some friends then we are traveling down the coast to LA. Going to meet up with some friends and get some studio visits then drive on over to VEGAS! VEGAS BABY VEGAS!!! lol. Then come home and get back to work harder than before.

As for Big Grin - things have been a bit on a hiatus with the development of the TV show. So when I get back I have a few options on what exactly I want to do and start moving forward with my life and company!!!

So there is a tiny update! More to come soon :D

Speed bumps

2009-04-17T08:24:00.006-06:00

Well 3D is under way for my short, last couple weeks have been rough transitioning over, I've mostly just been working on bugs and wrestling with the rig on setup.

Doing a little modeling every week for the bedroom and some others have helped out modeling props for me! This following week 4/20th-24th, will be another slow one for me and not much will get done. I leave mid week to fly out to Buffalo, New York. I'm attending Dov Simens Film school. It's going to be a great time! One day I would like to direct a live action or two.

Here is my new layout, still super rough, hardly any posing going on. I just worked on the cuts and timing to follow the pacing of the music from the 2D blocking.

Test

Just want to say thanks for everyone's support! I'm going to do what I can in order to finish so I can graduate.

Heartbroken

2009-04-09T01:22:00.008-06:00

So I was notified Wed. of this week that I would not be allowed to continue working on my short film in 2D. Same goes for Bobby Pontillas, he took time off from AM and put even more time in for his 2D film. Either go 3D or don't graduate.

Funny because Bobby Beck and others through out the course of AM lectures talk about animation is animation no matter what the medium. And to be told that I haven't done that much work and it should be easy to do the film in 3D, doesn't set right with me! Just leaves a pit in my stomach.

I BUSTED MY ASS off to get what I have, and I hustled even harder to help my classmates out and do whatever I could for them. I didn't have all the time I wanted to put into my short film, but then again, who does have all the time in the world.

I wrote Bobby Beck the CEO, and was disappointed with what I read in return. I would have thought with him being an animator himself and being the CEO he would understand and unfortunately is out of his hands. It feels like the people who we are trying to communicate and work with have not created a hand drawn piece or made a short film before. This isn't easy and can't be changed with a click of a button.

WHY would I want to animate in 3D when all of my love, passion and motivation is for doing this in 2D on the film. Besides that, with my whole heart being poured into this, why wouldn't I make this the best piece of work I could? And if you know me, I don't half ass anything.

Mr. Beck also said I didn't have the draftsmanship for the standard needed; I could see that with my short film. Its also in a very rough stage. And I would like him to take a look at my portfolio and tell me I can't draw. But whatever, its cool everyone is a critic, that's why artists have to have thick skin.

If it sucks its sucks, ya know? :P Besides I wasn't going to have it 100% completely done in 12 weeks, clean up takes longer than animating lol. And I'm cool with that because I want to draw each frame by hand then paint it using watercolor.

What sucks to is: I remember Bobby Beck's exact words when Ryan Hobbiebrunken, Zac and I had a heart to heart with him while out at Siggraph in Boston. After speaking with Bobby and hearing everything we were so desperately needing to learn, that of which we weren't learning at school. We went back to school and caused a huge ruckus!!! Which of course wasn't the intention at all, we just went back to school and told the truth. And a handful of students dropped out after we talked to them. Hobbie actually left and he was super concerned this would hurt him in the long run. But I told him that he would be the first from are "group" to be working on a feature film, he would be working on a feature film before he even graduated the school!! And guess what!? He did exactly that, so AM was the best thing for him! And I was so happy for him. (law of attraction does wonders)

And the coolest part was, Shawn Kelly wrote to us, telling us his story! And what he was going through back in school and making a tough decision like that. It was totally cool to hear that from such an awesome person. For me I couldn't do what Hobbie did, it was different, I finished up because of one person, and they helped me get my business up and running. But guess what, not even a full week after graduating school I was starting AM up! I've only had great things to say about this school. So this sucks. No one knew we weren't allowed to do 2D.

Whats hard for me, is, I looked up to Bobby Beck. He was working at Pixar, and left it, to go off and pursue a dream, all those years of hard work, the long nights with his buddies and it finally paid off. Look at what AM has accomplished! And for me the connection is he never gave up, he stayed true to himself and his dream. I've been pursuing my dream the last few years. It comes down to examining ones own desires. I have made a choice, I am willing to risk certain parts of my life to live my dream, I've risked relationships, time and humiliation. What are you willing to risk?

I mean, I'm a kid, 23 yrs old getting gray hair already from working so much. Even though I'm not getting paid, I wake up every morning and LOVE what I do. How many people can say that? And I know it will pay off one day soon.

To me this all correlates with story telling. I believe my ambition has a life defining force with it. The measure of the value of a characters desire is in direct proportion to the risk he takes to achieve it. Greater the value = greater the risk.

And I've really risked a lot trying to make my short film the best it can be on top of everything else. This is why I admire people busting their butts that have to work so many jobs just to attend school, or people with newborns, they are doing it for their family. Even people who decide to quit work altogether and solely dedicate their time.

So 2D isn't allowed. Well it doesn't mention it in the Class 5 syllabus, it wasn't apart of the "rules" for making a short film. So why now? Everyone was under the impression that the AM staff checked out the work of the students, and everyone is having a hard time believing that they wouldn't have known about Bobby Pontillas work or mine. I mean this has only been going on 6 plus months, close to seven now.

I mean there are tons of students to watch, but still we were passed from class 5 and everyone seemed to know... except the staff I guess? lol

So for me, now, I have to graduate. Plane tickets and hotels are already reserved. I feel really bad for Bobby P. he is so far along on his work, its looking fantastic! I just want to get this sorted out and honestly I would like to just work on some animation tests (in 3D lol) so I can strengthen my reel.

Were being told this is for are best interest so it doesn't hurt are chances getting in the industry. I can see where they are coming from. They're just preserving the market for which they employ grads, that's all. And the market is all 3D!! Last thing I would want to see happen is me and Bobby get really hurt by this.

I've always wanted to work on a 2D though, maybe that's the Disney kid in me haha. Or even something like Triplets of Belleville. And didn't this years short film Academy go to a 2D film? :P It wasn't full blown Disney level animation. Very stylized. Same for Lavatory - Lovestory, that was a great short film. I think it all depends on the story trying to be told, and I will stick to 2D for my story.

I will just have to finish it on my own time. And I know it isn't going to be easy, I mean doing emotional animation scenes in 3D is freaking hard and you have more control over things. But that's part of the fun and challenge I find in my piece.

I still have enjoyed my journey in Animation Mentor, and have made friends for life and worked with some of the best talent the industry has to offer. I wouldn't change that for nothing. Just time to put this behind me and bust my butt on a awesome 3D test!

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”
-Harriet Tubman

Short Film Progress v.2

2009-03-27T19:16:00.015-06:00

Here is what I finished up with after class 5.

The short is still in rough layout mode, basically a tightened animatic.

I tell you what, class 5 was harder than I expected. I use to be a peer buddy and loved helping others out and would always comment on as many peoples work as I could. It's a great way of meeting new students, making friends and polishing your own skills as an animator.

At the beginning of class 5 I made the decision not to be one anymore and put all of my focus first into my class and then others as much as I could. And it really paid off this term, granted I didn't get around to my friends work spaces (i tried :( lol) Even though I'm personally not as far along as I would like to be, I did what I could to the best of my ability. Working 70+ hrs a week, or working 20+ hr days some weeks was killer and drained me.

If it weren't for my classmates, the Puddy Carebear Crew I wouldn't have made the short I did. So for those who are parents or raising newborns, or for some that are working crunch time on films (ice age 3) or people who have to work 3 jobs to make a living to follow your dream, it will pay off!!! And you are here doing it for the right reasons, I have much respect for those people who make that choice.

Because when it comes down to it, and you have a dream, what are you going to do to make it happen?

Sure you can complain about work, or how crappy everything in life is, or blame others, and all you do is talk about what you wish you could be doing!

People! Wake up, you realize that no one has control over creating your happiness!! No one but you has that control!! And if you are surrounded by people that control that, WHY?? Seriously why? Put your energy where you want it to really go.

"easier said then done" or "it's not that easy" is what I always hear, yeah your exactly right! But guess what the secret is... "its not easy!" No one ever tells you that part, if it were easy everyone would do it. You have to work at it. So it comes back around to what are YOU going to do that separates you from everyone else?

It's getting up off your ass, shutting TV off, and putting in 1 hr here or 30 mins there. It's coming home from the longest day at work, and making sure you put the time in; may it be h/w, your film, whatever it may be!

Remember "Energy flows where attention goes"

And I believe my awesome class knows this very well.

Puddy Story Ninjas:

Ana Cunha
Andreas Koumpis
Annette Perin
Daniel Carey
Daniel Coes
Daniele Zannone
Frank Spalteholz
Gabor Lendvai
Irina Golina Sagatelian
Ricard Castany Boix

(I will get links to everyones websites soon!)

Make sure to check out their sites!

Story Time!!!

2009-03-04T11:07:00.002-07:00

Well I'm off to see the big story wizard with the Big Grin crew! We will be attending Robert McKee's Story Seminar!!

It is going to be an intense weekend but very much worth it! We are still working furiously hard on are feature film. Zac and Danny did an awesome job pitching out a sequence they storyboarded just over the weekend. And the presentation rocked! We have some time now to tweak and polish the boards and create a nice animatic before the big meeting!

I'll post up some photos once I get back!!