Ready for some animation?

Yeah! Oh wait, I need to punch paper, drat!

Getting ready to start the animation on my film, and boy do I have some catching up to do. It's the price I pay for pondering so much. I really wanted the story to my film to be strong before I started production. Well, it's got the green light so I've begun the x-sheeting. I'll be starting off with some simple shots, and move onto the more complicated later in the semester.

Above image: Mia holding Emilio in what looks like a very odd cross genre, they both look rather perplexed by the whole ordeal.

If you haven't seen Mel's blog, it's over in the side bar. She's already a third of the way done rough animating her film. How does she do it? Well, magic I think, and by taking sleep out of the equation. I swear sometimes I worry about that girl, well, that is until I join her face planted against a light desk. Woo sleep deprivation!

Until next time, Peace!

"My Dad the Giant" ReEdited Animatic

Concept: "A commentary on master apprentice relationships in the family."

Brianelli, a world famous renaissance painter, is trying to finish his latest painting but his son Emilio keeps getting in the way. Emilio's struggle for acknowledgment from his giant father conflicts with his fathers alone time. Only too late does Brianelli realize his son looks up to him.

Re-edited down to 4:30 min.

(Left-White Numbers)
Timer Minutes:Seconds:Frames(24 Fps)

(Right-Red Numbers)
Shot breakdown

Just gotta doodle!

It's been so long since I have done a "non-animation" related drawing. While at the cintiq, preparing for another long night of story boards and animation doodles, I decided to whip this little one out. It's based off of an artists style who I greatly admire, you can find her blog in my blog list on the side.

It's not much, but it didn't take long, and it gave me my illustration fix. Till next time!

Portoflio

The portfolio that helped get me the internship at Disney, soon to be updated.

Please click images for a larger view

My Dad the Giant work

Greetings everyone! Here are some quick images from my senior thesis film. I'll just show the father for now and run through some of the processes I did to get him where he is now.

This is a more refined face for the father. After working through some of the construction and trying some different styles in cheek and jaw design I arrived at this. For the father to soften in his demeanor I had to make his face more expressive.
A quick bone study. Taking what I know about skulls I then applied it with the necessary adjustments to fit the father's head structure. I left the jaw unhinged so that he can really open that mouth.
This is my favorite of his smiles. A mirror really helps when doing expressions.

Various facial expressions I made using a mirror as reference.

Exaggerating some of the facial features, perhaps too much.

Can you see the Disney influence? Here I tried out some simple construction, an egg for the body, circles and tubes for most everything else. He's a bit toned down in the proportions here so that he is easier to animate.
I did some tight construction on his face to feel out the forms and shapes that make up his brows, nose, and jowls. It's not a very appealing design, but this got the job done as far as breaking down the complex construction into more digestible pieces. Later I softened some of his features to make him more pliable.

More construction at work, you can see that when I work really tight it tends to get plastic and stiff.

More of the same. It works, but it's not as far as I can go.


A silhouette I worked up to try and make his hands more manageable. I'm not too happy with how thin he came out looking, and I think I'll stick with the thicker arm designs.
The first drawing of him as the artist type. A mix of Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Beethoven and even some Edgar Allen Po went into the design, as well as the mouth from my father.

Here the final design is with more meaty hands. I think I'll stick to the jowls in the surprised expression page, overall though, this is the design I am working with. Maybe smaller hands, we'll see.

Till next time, best a luck!

Kilted Animator: First Video!

Greetings everyone! Long time no see. I'll try and keep this short and sweet. I've finally gotten around to uploading one of my instructional videos. This one is about character construction. I hope you all enjoy!

Epiphany

I think I have finally found out why I do what I do, or at least where to take it from here. With the website almost done, and plenty of illustrations left to finish before I head back to school, I've been pretty busy this break. I finally decided to take a break and sit down with my new Pixar DVD. In the 2nd disc of Wall-e, special features, I found a wonderful film called "The Pixar Story." About halfway into it, something hit me, like running into a brick wall. I paused the film and sat up straight, uttering to myself. "What am I doing!?"

All this time I have been so concerned about learning new tricks and processes. I've been focused on the physics and the technical aspect of animation, and all this while I had forgotten why I was at art school, why I draw. It's because I love it! Animation isn't just about making things move, about how they move, it's about telling stories and getting emotion and empathy from your art. I feel great now. I know what I have to do, what I want to do, and what will make me happy.

I don't need to move the character perfectly if I can still get an emotion from it, to make the audience feel for the character. Learning tricks is for when I get into the industry, now is the time for me to focus on telling stories, on acting and getting emotion out of my artwork. This is why I have felt my art lacked that extra punch all this time, now I finally know!

Just wanted to share that with you. The website is going well. Tomorrow I will head out to my old elementary play ground and film myself climbing and acting out scenes for my film. Wish me luck.