Aviation Progress

Here's some screenshots of the progress of my senior film, Elementary Aviation.



(That's kinda how I feel at times when working on her rig...)

The Canary is super fabulous though.

Snow Leopard Cycles in progress

Snow Leopard rig and model is property of Rhythm and Hues, who have graciously allowed SCAD to use it.

Pitch Poster!

So, myself and a few others from SCAD had their senior project pitch posters selected for the SIGGRAPH issue of Animation Magazine. Had no idea it was even considered, but for some reason the old version of my poster was submitted, not my shiny new one. Oh well, I can't complain, it was submitted, and that's awesome! So go vote for me and my classmates!

http://www.animationmagazine.net/pitch_party_09_vote.html

Up up and away!

If you haven't bookmarked or even checked out my new short film pitch blog, then do it now, because it is getting updated this weekend. I could update it right now, but I'm trying to get the posts in about the same order as the book that goes along with it (that if I'm talented enough I might include as a downloadable .pdf), so untill then , enjoy the layout and my pitch poster as seen above!


PS - I feel a bit like a sell out, but I have a twitter. Find it on right side of page -->

(goes to hide in shame)

New Blog! (UPDATED)

I'm not moving, I just set up the blog (in its barest form currently) for my undergraduate senior film.

Elementary Aviation


Not much there right now, but check back in a couple weeks.

UPDATE: The film and blog have a new name (Actually, the film has changed completely but you don't have to worry about that)
Keep up to date!

Jerk Wad

Got to see Coraline last night with a large group of people. It was kind of funny seeing the movie theater packed with fellow Animation students. All in all, the movie was amazing. I wish I had the patience to do stop-motion, the effect of it was beautiful. I randomly found an interview with the director, Henry Selick, this morning and he made an excellent comment on how the Other Mother had hand made this world for Coraline, so using the stop motion technique, that is all hand done, was a good compliment to that idea. I agree with that idea and it worked well. The only thing I disagree with is showing the film in 3D. I don't understand this 3D craze that is going on lately, half the people I talked to afterward said that it gave them a headache or was just uncomfortable for their eyes. My depth perception is off to begin with since I have uneven astigmatisms in my eyes, but I was even wearing my normal glasses under the 3D glasses and it was still obnoxious. (Maybe I need a new prescription?) But, that was the only thing I have to complain about, and it's not even that big a deal. Not all showings are in 3D, and when it comes out on DVD, that won't be in 3D either. So, if you're reading this and haven't seen Coraline yet, go see it. Now. Do it. Dooooooooo iiittttt.

Turn in Day

I get back to school two weeks ago and I already had to turn in three animations. Curious?


For 2D, had two different head turns to do, using Mushu.



Had to do a quick simple one...



...and a more complicated on with anticipation.


As for 3D, we took the Andy rig and did a hop. Hopefully I'll find the time to redo this with proper weight and such, but in the mean time, if you see this and want to add critique, go right ahead!



Enjoy!

/youtube

Heh heh heh...

Youtube didn't need it compressed. And youtube keeps the videos bigger. So here it is! My final from 3D Character Setup and Animation with professor Brian Schindler at SCAD.

Now I'm just waiting for my professors to google their cohort and find my blog... again. :D

Remember, Remember...

Posts will always be few and far between while I get distracted doing actual work rather than trying to display it.

So, while I'm at it, here's the latest character to be added to the Caprean arsenal with Dallas and Jestir -

Sophie Rammeyer!


Actually, she was just created for a certain project for my Acting for Animators class (which is proving to be a waste, I'll explain later). She's based on the character Sophie Rauschmeyer by Neil Simon from his play Star-Spangled Girl. I'm animating her to a line Sophie says from the play ("And I can do without you tying big bottles of eau de cologne to mah cat's tail!") If I finish the animation well enough, I'll post it. If not, then it was a bust.

Belated Update

While I'm at it, I should probably post some of the character designs I did last year for Troy Gustafson's classes.


Jestir was done for Animation 1 with Troy Gustafson. An original character of mine that I've had for some time now but she had to go through a bit of a make over to fit the criteria of the project. Let's just say making characters look as fancy as possible sometimes doesn't go well with getting things done on time.




Dallas is another original character I've had for some time along side Jestir. Wyatt I made up for the sake of the project but he's a usable character still if I decide to take these guys any further in my animation projects. Dallas and Wyatt I did for Troy Gustafson's Character Design and Visual Development class. (That was a wallop of a class : / )

Some of the results of the character sheets...

My Animation 1 final featuring Jestir.

It's supposed to be super rough looking, I'm not a slacker.

I would show you the results of the maquette I had to make of Dallas... but I broked him the night after I turned him in :(

This is how he looked in progress, however, before I broke him, and before the terrible gray spray paint... and before everything went to shit for the poor guy. Since then, I've tried to reuse his base to start making a maquette of Jestir... but I lost interest in doing that awhile ago. Her wireframe is still hanging out somewhere in my room, so I could always go back and keep going.

Summer 2008

So I haven't had anytime till just now to really just sit down and breathe. Honestly, it feels like it's been from one thing to another. I worked all summer long at the Chelsea Teddy Bear Co. store here in Chelsea, Michigan, and when I wasn't there, I was thinking about being there. I didn't help myself either when I became addicted to World of Warcraft... heh, oops. I've been a terrible friend this summer, not keeping in touch with my friends from school or from home! They're all at most twenty minutes away and I've only seen them a couple times this summer. Also, I've gotten nothing creative done this summer.

Now I just have two weeks before I head back down to Savannah and stay at my boyfriend's house for a week, then move back in and start up classes again! I'm surprisingly not very stressed about the idea. I'm trying to have a more Hakuna Matata outlook on life, seeing as I can get so pent up over next to nothing.

I have managed to see a couple movies this summer. I got to see WALL·E earlier this summer.



Absolutely adorable movie! Disney/Pixar score again in my book. However, I am not a fan of the use of life action filmed people in these animated movies. Happy Feet was an enjoyable move for the most part, but not one of my favorites. I was especially turned off when I saw the filmed people towards the end of the film. It felt cheap to me for them to use real people like that. There's something about an animated film that just has its own feel and character to it that is interrupted by the use of mish-meshing medias like that. So when I saw the clips of Fred Willard being used in WALL·E, I was afraid. But, I was pleasantly surprised with how they used it this time. The progression of how people became what they were in WALL·E's time was very smart. Showing the captains' portraits, up to how they become, fat and baby like, was ingenious and reassured my confidence in the film. So, just having those few filmed clips didn't bother me as the film progressed. The minimal use of dialogue was amazing. In our beginning animation classes, we're stressed to on how to animate things without having to use verbal cues, and still being able to portray action and emotion. Now, in WALL·E, we still got sound effects and little blips of language, but for the most part they had to rely on expressions and movements to get the emotions across. This, in my book, puts WALL·E up there as one of the best pieces of animation I have seen to date that has utilized non-verbal cues like that.

I didn't get to see Kung Fu Panda, so I don't have much to say about that. I did get to see Dark Knight, and was very impressed with it. It's a shame we had to lose Heath Ledger, he had quite the future ahead of him. But, on an animation note, I've been told that part of Harvey Dent's burned half was actually animated. If this is true, then that was some damn good visual effects right there. If not, then that was some damn good prosthetics job.

However, as a side note to all this animation talk, whoever made the rigs for the cat forms in World of Warcraft needs to be slapped. Cats can't sit without a disgusting pinch at the hips. Yes, I understand it's just a video game and it doesn't have to be a neat as a feature film, but a good rig can't be so hard to ask for! Even with a certain polygon count. The texture people can't cover all the imperfections of a polygon model!

Oh, yea, and PS-

I've given up on DeviantArt. It's gotten too fancy for me.

Jestir Rock Dance!

And there you have it, my final for Animation 1!

I think I've successfully posted this animation on every webpage I can attach my name to.