Maroon

I was watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and got inspired to make a design of Maroon... slapped some color on it for the hell of it:

gesture drawing

So, a group of us at Blue Sky have started to take half an hour everyday to just draw. It's been great: we stop working, go to a room, and let the worries of our day stay on hold for a full thirty minutes while we let pencil meet paper. It has made me realize how much I really miss drawing...

It's been pretty fun having animators pose for each other. I have seen a lot of poses in the past 3 weeks that I had never seen done by the models I have drawn before. We have been trying to get story key poses here and there, and come up with emotions etc to draw from. We have also only done 30 sec to 1 min poses, and nothing past that. You have to be fast, lose and in the moment, NO TIME TO THINK!!

Anyway, I have gone through a sketchbook and a half already in 3 weeks. It took me a while to sift through it all and scan the ones I thought I had been somewhat successful... I am still trying to work on pushing poses and finding the story within the pose... got a ways to go, but the improvement over the last few weeks has been somewhat encouraging:







I will try to keep up with posting since this took a while to put together! I am also still working on the 2d dialogue test... taking me a while as I am experimenting with work flow and such as I go.

Indiana Jones

Last weeks BlueSkyChallenge was Indiana Jones, so I decided to color a sketch I did at work while I waited for playblasting for practice. Here is the sketch and the color attempts... not sure which version I prefer, although the one with the yellow background pops more:




I am still working on my first blocking test for the cowboy dialogue... It's been hard to find the time to sit down and animate after getting home from animating all day, but I am making slow and steady progress. I will post that as soon as it is presentable!

planning

So here is my planning thus far for the dialogue test I am doing with the cowboy character I have previously posted. This will A) help me nail down some more of the design B) help with working out some character and C) Get me animating in 2d! This will actually be my first 2d dialogue test ever... kind of rediculous, but nothing that I have worked on in 2d had any dialogue! This will be a huge learning experience so lets see how this goes... but here are the tumbnails and notes:




Well, I will try to keep this up and get a pose test/blocking up soon. By the way, the clip I am animating to is from There Will Be Blood. I'll post it next time!

more bandit

Some more bandit explorations! Next up, I am going to to an animation test to a clip from There Will Be Blood to test moving this sucker around... I am somewhat daunted by this since I have not done 2d in a while. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.






Most of these were done a few weeks ago when I flew out to the Horton Hears a Who Premiere out in LA. Good times.

Oh, and here is a rough pass at another character from the short: The Bartender

why hello there

So it has been a while I see... I was working long hours animating on Horton Hears a Who from July to the end of December, so I had very little time to myself. Since then I have had a month off and got some rest and started a new project with a friend of mine. We were inspired to tackle a Western, and have a pretty sweet outline already. All we need to do now is design and flesh out the story for a while. Here is what I have came up with thus far for the bandit:



We will be finally uploading to our production blog sometime soon, so we can document this sucker.



In other, more exciting news, I was hired full time at Blue Sky Studios, and I start on Ice Age 3 on Feb 11th! I know, I know... I tricked them all!! It has been an amazing experience thus far... I can't express the level of dedication and talent that surrounded me everyday. Hopefully I can keep up with them all...

Dialogue test

So I started blocking out a test with a character I designed, modeled and rigged a little while back, just to keep fresh before I start work in 2 weeks. This is what I have so far with 4-5 hours of work put in-


Still need to try some different things, explore a little more, and strengthen some posing, but some parts are working pretty well thus far... any comments or crits are more than welcome!

Also, here is the chimp, fully furred up and rendered, but low res for now:



I'll post the shot that's from when it is final!

Gators

Just working on solidifying the gator design from my first post. It shall be used for a project in the future...

African Wild Dog

So I was at the Bronx zoo recently and finally got to see the new (new to me!) African wild dog exhibit. I must say, it is a great addition to the zoo. When I first walked in, there was a little boy playing with one of them through the glass. It was pretty ridiculous: the boy would charge at the window and the dog would fake back and lunge while the boy laughed in excitement. It was like any domestic dog playing with a child... except for the fact that it is a completely wild pack hunter... Needless to say, it was great to have a large group of social pack animals to draw: if you are in the middle of a quick pose and the subject moves, then there is more than likely another one within the pack doing something very similar for you to pick up from! Gave a shot at a design:



edit: so after getting some feedback, being tired of drawing like me and being super inspired by one Martin Wittig, I decided to try doing a design in his style. I enjoyed doing this, because I had to approach the process of drawing in a more sculptural manner, almost carving into the thicker rough. Doesn't give any justice to Martins' style, but I tried... and it certainly gives me greater appreciation for how GOOD Martin is!

Rough Animation

So I finally got round to figuring out a good way to post some animation. Here are some tests from my student film, which I am currently finishing up. There is a lot yet left to do. I'll post a newer shot and some CG work soon... got to get some momentum going!

Flame Lion... again

Felt like staying on the lion a little longer. So here is another rough version of a modified flame lion. I need to try to force myself to simplify , which I did only slightly. I can't help myself. I'll keep trying.Edit: alright, I think I got the lion out of my system for now... here are a few roughs thrown together with some color

Lions

So I was sitting watching some Discovery Channel and National Geographic, and was inspired to draw. If you guys have never seen a show called Planet Earth, I highly recommend it. It took them 5 years to shoot, and it covers things in nature in ways you have never seen! I have no idea how they got the shots they did... it's breathtaking (even more so if you have HD)! But anyhoo, I give you LIONS...and yes, one of them has no legs.

So, in keeping with the whole trying to become a better character designer and artist, here is my attempt at pushing what I see in a lion...
edit: and the color version...

raccoon

some raccoon designs... I need to push the shapes more, but design just doesn't come naturally to me. Oh well, I will keep at it!

Memory Sketch

So today I got my hands on an acme hole puncher, but not just any hole puncher. It belonged to Bluth's studio in the early 90's! One of my old bosses/good friend of mine use to work there and kept it when he left, and offered it to me since I keep having to go back and forth from school to punch paper every few weeks. Good times.

Anyway, on the way home I was on the very crowded Q train next to some guy. I got a good 20 minute look at him right up close, so when I got off the train I decided to to a memory sketch. Here it is:

2 ladies and a tiger

So I have been drawing here and there and messing around with color. Don't often draw the ladies, so I took a shot at a few. I'll keep at it... design is a struggle for me but the only way to get better is to keep trying. Anyway, I swear I will post some animation soon... do most of you use youtube to post your animation work?

gator and dog

Messing around with the gator... trying to develop some character...

my film

Things are starting to roll a little more for me on the remainder of my film. I have less than 4 months until I start work again... not enough time to finish, but hopefully enough to knock a large dent out of it (all the cleanup perhaps?). Anyway, I will leave with a post of a still from my film from a year and a half ago... hopefully I will get some animation up soon!

news

So I received a surprising email yesterday morning... I was offered a position at Blue Sky Studios as an animator!!! WHAT?!! I mean I can't believe it, but needless to say, I have 4 months to finish up my film before I start the long commute to Whiteplains to work on Horton Hears a Who! I also met up with Alex Kupershmidt and some other Disney reps to show my portfolio over at NYU that afternoon. Once again I was very surprised that they liked what I had to show. For the first time ever, I had FEATURE ANIMATION ARTISTS looking at my work in person, and giving me advice as to what was strong and what could be cut from my reel. It was especially crazy to be sitting next to Alex while he pointed out how much he liked my drawn portfolio... I mean he sat there, pointing at MY drawings telling me I HAD to apply for an animation position at Disney (even after I told them I was offered a position at Blue Sky). It was a surreal experience to say the least. Anyway, I will post my reel soon, and I will leave you with some pages from my portfolio. What a day!

kid

It has been a little while since I posted... been animating up a storm and I also might have some exciting news about my future! But I will wait until I know it's for sure. Anyway, some drawings of the kid from my student film I made randomly here and there. For some reason I subconsciously draw him older than he appears in my film... interesting...

here we go...

SO, I have resisted long enough... I quit my job in order to finish my student film at last! Hopefully this will be somewhat of a documentation on that progress, as well as a place to post some animation and drawing. So here are some crocs I drew last night after animating all day... you know, cause people are reading this...