Disney Villains Painting

So I haven't been doing much over the summer, mostly just trying to recover from constant work and animating.

I did manage to finish this Disney Villains painting that I have been working on for a while. Here is the final product with the reference image I used:







The design was from the 2004 Disney Catalog Halloween cover. I really liked the colors and decided to do a larger one. Sorry the photos aren't larger, I shrunk them for the web and don't have the larger ones with me right now.

I also went to SIGGRAPH and had a blast. Met a lot of really cool people and made some new friends. I definitely needed to be around energetic, excited creative people again. I feel a bit more energized now. Can't wait for 2010!

Class 4 - Week 08 - Assignment 2 - Two Weeks Notice - Starting to Spline

Here are some adjustments made from suggestions by Sean, and I also splined some more sections:

Class 4 - Assignment 2 - Two Weeks Notice Blocking/Blocking+

Here is the latest of my blocking on my Two Weeks Notice shot:



It's still mostly in blocking/blocking plus, I splined Lucy's body in her shot.

Class 4 - Assignment 2 - Two Weeks Notice Layout 2

Here is the my redo of my layout, with camera adjustments, new posing, and additional poses:

Class 4 - Assignment 2 - Multi Character Dialogue Shot

So second assignment, just like before, but we have to pick a longer clip and one that has 2 characters interacting. The latest work is listed first. I decided to go with the Two Weeks Notice clip.

This is the first time we had to do a layout. It was tricky at first getting the camera, characters, and set all laid out and referenced. I still need to explore clothing options for the characters.

Layout:



Video Ref:


Many thanks to Adam for helping with the reference!

Clip Prep Choices:

Class 4 - Assignment 1 - Continuing Class 3 Dialogue Shot

So for the first 3 weeks of Class 4 we had to continue with our dialogue shot from last class, and add lip sync and facial performance. We were given a new rig that had more than just a mouth rotate and blink controls. We now have eyebrows and lip controls, etc!

We had Jay Jackson (my mentor from last term) sub for a week which was nice, he got to see the final take on my Princess Bride shot with lip sync.

Here are some of my passes for this shot, starting with the most recent (still needs work - when are you going to hear an animator say that their shot is done?):

Week 4:




Week 3:




Week 2:




Week 1:

Class 4 - New Mentor Sean Ermey!

Class 4 is here and I have a new mentor, Sean Ermey! He goes all around doin' freelance type stuff. He has worked on TMNT and just wrapped on Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Check out his IMDb here: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2194909/





I'm not posting my class reel yet, I will after this term since the Princess Bride clip shot carried over into this class.

Class 3 - Shot 2 - Dialogue Shot

Our second assignment was to take a 10 sec dialogue clip from a TV show or movie. I chose a clip the Albino recited from The Princess Bride.

Week 11 - Polishing:



Week 10 - Polishing:



Week 9 - Splining:



Week 8 - Blocking Plus:



Week 7 - Blocking:




Vid Ref:


Much thanks to Adam for the ref! Thanks to John who stopped by to help too!


Dialogue Choice Research/Prep:

Class 3 - Shot 1 - Pantomime

Sorry all, I have been way behind on updating this blog. I'll try to condense what has been happening over the last few months. Shot 1 for Class 3 was on Pantomime. As you will be able to see that this shot still needs a ton of work. Here are my different steps, starting with my most recent pass:

Splining:




Re-block/Partial Splining:




Blocking Plus:




Blocking:




Vid Ref Redo:

Class 3 begins! New Mentor Jay Jackson

So I was going back and forth on if I should retake Class 2 for a third time. My mentor encouraged me to retake, but my advisor said that they have seen people do well in Class 3 that have performed like I have in Class 2. Since I would have to retake the old curriculum and I was getting antsy, plus money is not infinite I opted to continue on to Class 3.

My new mentor is Jay Jackson. He has worked on TONS of stuff and seems like a pretty cool guy. He has worked on Sebastian in the Little Mermaid, the Simspons movie, Cat's Don't Dance, Oliver & Company, and more, check out his IMDb!

The assignment is to take Stewie and create a 5-10 sec pantomime clip with two different emotions. I am choosing confident and embarrassed. Stewie walks in confidently and trips over himself. Jay had some really good suggestions, I either keep moving the direction I was walking and skulk off, or I knock over something and run away. I'm still pondering that. Here is my vid ref:

Progress Reel

Progress Reel! Instead of picking and choosing bits I liked from each time I took the class I decided to compile EVERYTHING together, the horrible and the hideous are all here (I'm not kidding)! Enjoy:

Weeks 9-11

Sorry for the lack of updates, but here are Weeks 9-11

Week 11: Repolish



Week 10: Polishing




Week 9: Blocking Plus

Weeks 6 - 8 - Posts Polish - Dive Blocking

Sorry everyone I'm a bit behind on blogging, my dog Webby passed away on the 11th and I've been a bit of a mess since.

Here is my blocking for my dive assignment:



Here is my video reference:



Here is the horrible polishing job I did on the post assignment, I'm still working on refining it:



I will add my blocking plus pass later, I forgot to grab the file so I could post it.

Week 5 - Post Jumping Blocking

Here is my blocking for the post to post jump assignment:



The poses need to be pushed more and the timing needs to be fixed, which is what I'm working on right now.

Joe gave us some additional HW to see Madagascar 2 this weekend, woo! That's the kind of homework I like, not that I wasn't going to see it anyways. :o)

Week 4 - Ballie Turn - Polishing

Polishing my shot! Just a few more tweaks and this thing might be getting somewhere:



Also video ref for the upcoming assignment:

Week 3 - Blocking Plus

Here is my blocking plus:



Still feels weird, and I think it has to do with timing, one of the campus mentors felt that it was too even, so I will begin to work on that. We will see what my mentor says about it in his eCritique!

I think that is a big problem of mine, making everything even, I think that comes from the weird math/programmer background for me.

Week 2 Done - Blocking and Vid Ref

Hey all,

Here's my blocking for this week:



Here's the vid ref I didn't have a chance to post last time:

New Mentor! Joe Mandia

My new mentor is Joe Mandia, check out his IMDb here: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0541798/

He currently works for Sony Online Entertainment, for DC Universe Online which is a games company.

It's cool to hear the difference between game animation and film. In games you really have to think about animating in the round, so everything has to look good from any angle. In film you can cheat and get away with animating to just one camera. I know for Horton Hears a Who! they did a lot of cheats by animating UVs to get better shapes for one camera, if you moved it the model would look extremely broken.

Apparently game animators are uber fast too, yikes! I'm kind of surprised they use Maya there since almost all the game companies around where I live use 3D Studio Max as their primary 3D software.

So Week 1 went well, it was planning. I may upload my vid ref a little later, but I just threw my first blocking up for Public Review and have gotten some feedback which I will begin to incorporate.

I haven't totally disappeared I swear

Hey all,

So AnimationMentor starts up again on Monday for me! I will be retaking Class 2 to hopefully really solidify my Body Mechanic skills.

I am glad the new curriculum has 2 Body Mechanics classes and that there is a new Polishing class, I'm just upset that I can't jump in on that! We'll see how the situation looks when I graduate if I can get a chance to take them as electives.

I'll try to blog when Class starts to let everyone know who my new Mentor is, etc.

If you are bored check out this sketchblog I'm a part of: We wanted to have a new theme each week, but that kind of faded away after the first week since a bunch of us were preparing to get ready for SIGGRAPH. Now I think it's a bit of a free for all, we'll see if we can get it back up and running.

I also kind of started 11secondClub's September challenge. I'm definitely not going to finish it by the end of the month, seeing as I just have a few poses in there. It at least got me back into Maya and allowed me to play around with some cool rigs.

AND in super exciting news, I have collected a bunch of NEW CRAZY HATS FOR THIS TERM!!!!!!!! I should maybe start posting pics of the hats each week, I dunno, we will see!

Yikes! No updates yet

Hey guys,

Sorry for the lack of updates. I was on my trip then got hit with a yucky summer cold. I am back on my feet though for the most part.

I am working on redoing my portfolio at the moment, revamping it and trying to take out stuff I don't want to do any more.

As for my trip my sister has a very thorough description on her blog:

http://mariawanders.blogspot.com

But in short, being there and seeing places like the Henson studios, Walt Disney Studios, going backstage and hearing all about Walt and his visions reinvigorated me to go after what I want. Dreams really do come true, you just have to have the courage to do it. So that is what I will be doing this summer, attempting to take steps in that direction.

Hopefully the new folio layout will be ready soon, most definitely before I go to SIGGRAPH.

That's it for now, I'll try to rummage around and dig up some sketches to post to entertain you guys in the meantime.