Still Thinking of The Old Days

In light of my recent post showcasing some dreadful animation, I've been thinking about my progression over the years. That statement gives me chills, haha. I find it ridiculous that I've been trying (I say trying for a reason) to be an animator since I was 15! Hell that's 3 years of animation before I've even gone to college for it.

The crazy part is that I've improved drastically. I mean, my schooling has been books, blogs, trial and error, and iAnimate (the last one is much more substantial of course). But in my opinion it just shows that hard work gives you things that blindly going to school for won't.
Of course I say this in a much more reflective way than a self promoting way. I know I have so much left to learn, and I'm quite excited for it. Right now I'm under Ken Fountains tutelage in iA. I feel as though he really knows how to dig deep inside a character and understand the all important "why" behind the acting choices one has to make. Since his class started I've put so much more thought into my characters acting. Not just looking for "what looks cool" but instead searching for a believable, and relatable performance.

Anyway, I really don't know why I made this post. Probably because its late and I want an excuse to keep listening to some killer songs before crashing.

And so I don't just leave with a wall of text, here's a drawing that will probably be in my portfolio.





















Good night my faithful readers. (I'm going to pretend I have faithful readers)

p.s. I was accepted into Art Fundamentals at Sheridan! So now my back up is set. AKA I'm off to Sheridan for sure this year :)

Working on my Portfolio

Here's the character I've designed for the character design section (go figure) of my Sheridan portfolio. I'm trying as hard as I can to keep this blog updated!!

The old days

I'm currently dividing my time between my 2nd crack at an accepted Sheridan portfolio, and iAnimate. I really can't complain about the fact that my days are spent animating and drawing. However it's definitely tough work! Right now I have the fantastic Ken Fountain as my instructor.
It's unreal how much I've learned from him in such a short time.

Anyway, here's something that moves! I did this as one of my very first animation attempts. Note the word, "attempt".




And yes, the dialogue is from the simpsons. I'm not going to even explain how bad this test is...

Workshop 4 - Assignment 1

Well, my first post of the new year has arrived. Here is a shot I did for iAnimate when in WS4 - full body acting. Thanks to David Hubert for mentoring me, and teaching me so much.



I was really happy with it, then I stopped being happy with it, then I was happy again, and now I'm unhappy with it. Now you know how odd I am.

Kyle Balda Walk Demo

A lot of people (at least in the animation community, I can't imagine CNN putting this up) have been posting this walk demo from Kyle Balda. Kyle was an animator at Pixar for quite a while. I'm not entirely sure what he's doing now though. My knowledge base is from IMDB by the way, haha.



Anyway he does a great job in explaining why he does what he does, and at opening my eyes to a workflow thats quite common. The layering method. I mean I've heard of it before of course, yet I've never tried it. I like the comfort and safety of blocking in stepped mode.
To me, using splines immediately seems so risky and unpredictable, as opposed to the rock solid blue print you get with stepped keys.

Really I'm just ranting for the sake of actually having posts on my blog. Fear not! Soon I'll actually have some animation up.


And on another note, I just finished workshop 4 at iAnimate! I had the fantastic David Hubert as my instructor, and he taught me so much. The workshop is focused on full body acting with dialogue. It was really tough, haha. My first shot I think turned out quite well - I'll post it soon. The second shot - not so much. I have so much work to do on it.
Basically I've been trying to get way too many conflicting ideas into one shot, and then the added physicality of animating a drunk just made it a nightmare. Hopefully I'll get it right and show my devote followers!

Flipbook Straight Ahead Animation

Just a quick straight ahead in flipbook I did. I really do want to do another hand drawn test soon, although this little test in flipbook reminded me of how tough drawn animation is.

After watching that, here's something that actually can entertain you:


Rune Bennicke straight ahead animation - incredible.