Evad Animation

Appealing Deformation: Clean Mesh = Predictable Articulation

2011-12-04T13:42:00.017-05:00

So you just spent some time on your brow weights, getting your spans to flow in a nice appealing smooth shape. Congratulations! Now let's mouse over the below image to see how it holds up in the opposite position.

(hover mouse over image to see poses)

Gross. It doesn't hold up at all. What was smooth in the down pose, is now jagged in the up pose.

In order for the emotions of the character to read clearly the brows should flow as a cohesive unit, giving us a soft arc when the brows are up and a bold straight when the brows are down. Take a look at these drawings of Aladdin to see examples of bold and clean brow shapes.

(hover mouse over image to see poses)

This all boils down to how clean our default mesh is. The more even and clean our edge flow is in the default state, the better chance it has of holding up in all poses. We are talking very small positional changes that have the potential to create very large and very noticeable improvements in our rigs. Once our mesh is cleaned up, we will even see that smoothing weights is a bit more predictable and useful.

Below is a version of the mesh cleaned up in it's initial state, an how that now plays well with our two poses.

(hover mouse over image to see poses)

Now obviously we can't have every edge smoothed out and evenly spaced; our models would become mushy and bland. In a later post I will go into how we need to be mindful of vertex speed when adjusting influences and how skinning workflows should involve setting key-frames.

Eating Salad for Breakfast

2011-09-29T09:13:00.003-05:00

If you are anything like me, you have a hard time getting vegetables in your diet. I buy lots of them with the intention to eat them all, but I end up throwing most of them out the next week because they turn. I think I've found a solution that works for me, maybe it could work for you.

Two weeks ago I finished reading "Born To Run" by Christopher McDougall. The Author who suffered injuries every time he tried to run more than a few miles set out to learn if humans were, as his doctors said, fragile and not built for running, or if we are actually the best long distance runners and our expensive sneakers and our tendency to be obese has just made us bad at it. I'm sure you can tell from the title, what he discovers. In one of the chapters, the author mentions how he is trying to change his diet to train for a 100 mile ultra-marathon. He has concerns about tiring of seeds and vegetables and falling back into his usual routine of hamburgers, when the Dr./Athlete he is talking to says, "Have you ever had salad for breakfast?"

"You get leafy greens in your body first thing in the morning and you'll lose a lot of weight," she urged me. Because a monster salad is loaded with nutrient-rich carbs and low in fat, I could Stuff myself and not feel hungry--or queasy--when it came time to work out. Plus, greens are packed with water, so they're great for rehydrate after a night's sleep. And what better way to down your five vegetables a day than forking them all down at once.?"

So I tried it and have been doing it for two weeks now; the longest I have been able to do any sort of dietary change. The problem for has always been: I never crave vegetables throughout the day, and given the choice I will fill up on pasta and meat and leave the side salad sitting. When I wake up, I am always thirsty and my stomach is hungry but at the same time not ready to handle food. Eating salad for me takes care of that hunger, and like the McDougall said you won't feel queasy, even if you workout right after eating.

So that certainly isn't the normal kind of blog post for me, but I wanted to share that in case you have the same trouble forcing down your veggies in the hopes that maybe it could work for you too. Besides if you eat all your veggies first thing in the morning, the sooner you can have your dessert.

In progress digital sculpt

2011-09-25T19:27:00.003-05:00

Blocked in this sculpt over the weekend.

I tried sculpting it from scratch in Sculptris, but I just don't think that workflow works for me. It was taking me forever and I wasn't getting the control I wanted, so instead I blocked in this low poly version in Blender and I will try importing that into Sculptris to add some detail.

This is based off of Brittney's print "Rainboots" (image found here).

Earning his keep

2011-07-11T01:57:00.002-05:00

Sculpting concept art

2011-05-11T01:31:00.008-05:00

I started modeling Kane in my free time to improve my understanding of the other half of deformation. Rather than build my learning on a foundation of (my) weak design, I convinced Brittney to let me use hers. Since then I have been working on some new characters and I am still learning tons.

When I started on these two love birds I found myself going down the same path as Kane. The sculpt was losing the appeal that was in the concept art. Now it is tough sculpting a three-dimensional character with a sketch from only one camera angle. I prod Brittney for a quick sketch from a different angle now and then, but most of the time I am guessing. I found that trying to eye it, for me, leads me down a path of too much detail too soon and results in a mushy design that no longer looks like the character I set out to make.

(first attempt at the female dancer)

(first attempt at the male dancer)

In the past few weeks I have been working on a clay maquette in a sculpting class at Disney, and well whadayaknow? My clay sculptures were suffering from the same problems. I sought guidance from one of my fellow trainees, Ryan Tottle who is getting trained up in the modeling department and he showed me the importance of finding the big shapes with the clay first. He told me how to stop smoothing things out and adding little layers of clay bit by bit. He taught me to just go for it (the shapes) and have some fun bringing those shapes from the drawing into 3d.

I took this attitude back to the male dancer and scrapped the face I had already created and started over, working simple. Another modeling trainee, Ke "Jackie" Jang introduced me to an interesting method of projecting the concept art onto the surface while you sculpt. This allows for two things: It allows you to get accurate shapes from the profile just as you would with an image plane behind your sculpt, but it also allows you to see the model textured with the drawn shadows so you can see how that relates to the actual shadows of your three dimensional sculpt. He had some great success with it at work so I thought I would give it a try at home.

(work in progress using the concept art as a texture)

It isn't the most ideal setup, since the concept art I am using isn't from a full on profile. The character's head is tilted ever so slightly so there is still guesswork to be done. I think the result I got using this method was closer, but still has some tweaking to go to compensate for the mismatched perspectives. After my tweaks I am going to try this method again on the female dancer and I might just revisit Kane for old times sake.

(the progression of the character sculpt)

James V Bobrowicz (1923-2010)

2010-12-16T10:16:00.007-05:00

I only learned a few years ago that James was not his birth name, though he was likely to punch you in the nose if you tried to call him by that other name. He was Papa to me. In my world, he was the inspiration for Grumpy Old Men, Big Fish and Mickey Rooney's character Gus in Night at the Museum, though, it is unlikely that any of those script-writers knew my Papa. He was as rough and tough as the Cowboy movies he watched so often, but his weakness for pinching the chubby cheeks of his great grandchildren leads me to believe that it was all a facade. He suffered a stroke and was pronounced dead in the hospital...and then went on to live another 20 years (talk about tough). He had a pace-maker put in, he had tuberculosis, diabetes, lost half of one foot and all of the other foot, due to diabetes, but he still refused to sit around and be idle. He would still use the push-mower from his motorized wheel chair, invent contraptions to help him lower and clean out his purple martin birdhouse. I remember visiting him in his rehab after they took half his leg off. He was working the exercise machines before the therapist even got there and refused to stop after his sessions were over. When the therapist had him practice moving from a wheel chair to a mock-bathtub, he did it in one try and told the guy "piece of cake, what else ya got". He was walking on his new prosthetic leg the next time I saw him.

He died this morning, December 16, 2010, 5:10am EST. at the age of 87. I am heading home to be with my family, and we will probably exchange stories of him that will make us laugh until we cry. I will miss him so, so much. I hope he's resting peacefully in whatever his heaven might be: probably the old hunting camp, or the perfect fishing hole.

"Huduyalikea punch in da nose?"

Character TD reel 2010

2010-11-10T16:18:00.004-05:00

Character reel demonstrating modeling, articulation, rigging and tool writing abilities.

I am currently living in Glendale, California and looking for work as a Character TD in feature film, tv or video games. I spent four years working at Crystal Dynamics on "Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light" and "Tomb Raider: Underworld".

View my resumé at www.evadanimation.com

Facial tests

2010-10-04T23:20:00.005-05:00

This is the facial rig in a mostly done state. I need to add articulation to the eyelids to get more expressiveness out of them, and I need to add controls for the cheekpits, tongue and the outside of the orbicularis oculi which helps sell winks and squints. This rig is made with a combination of wire deformers for general movements and clusters for finer articulation. The lips have separate translate, rotate and scale pivots so each action can have a different pivot and different falloff.

Performance without a body.

2010-06-10T12:03:00.003-05:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I love the Muppets. Most of my animation friends knew they wanted to be animators when they saw a particular Disney or Pixar movie when they were little. For me it was Muppets.

So much character, so much performance, in just a little foam banana peel.

Still going...

2010-05-06T01:52:00.004-05:00

Last post I talked about progress on the face rig and the skinning. That progress showed me several areas in the mesh that needed improvement so I back tracked and made some topology changes in the face and torso. While I was at it, I decided to do some adjusting of some of my joint pivots as well as adding in some helper joints that will be used for preserving volume. Though this does set me back in my progress, I think that this rig will benefit from the changes; and that's the whole point, right?

Long overdue progress.

2010-02-21T17:10:00.006-05:00

Finished hooking up the face controls and the initial weighitng pass. After posing this guy, some problems became apparent in both the weighting and the mesh. I know my poor lighting job doesn't make it clear, but the upper eyelids are a bit lumpy in the area that leads up to the brows. The shape of the nose gets muddied up when I lift the nostril. I'm pretty happy with the mouth. The corners of the lips need some work but i'm liking the center of the lips are working out.

I'm trying to avoid correcting things with Blendshapes as much as possible for two reasons: I want this setup to be able to work in a game pipeline, where we are all joint driven, and this character has been an exercise in learning to model for deformation. I want the Rig and the Topology to carry the deformation and only use Blendshapes to augment, instead of correct.

Feedback is always welcome in the comments or you can email it to me as well. This is certainly a good learning experience for me.

Who does your taxes?

2009-12-04T03:38:00.002-05:00

Finished it. The motivation behind me wanting to learn to sculpt was to have something to send to the "Hey You Guys" art auction. Now that it is done, however, I decided not to send it. This sculpt was a huge learning process and I would like to have a bit more practice before sending these things off into the wild. I learned a lot of good techniques from a lot of helpful people and I learned a lot of what works and doesn't work from this experience so I will apply that to the next sculpt. Here are some final shots.

I used to have a roomate, but my mom moved to florida...

2009-11-08T23:29:00.004-05:00

Haven't touched this for over a month, but I need to get this done. I went through and added some more detail to the hand, the face and I began to smooth out the pack. Had some good tips from some people. The biggest things that have helped have been:

keeping the clay cold to make it easier to get corners. The fridge works, or if you are pressed for time, I recommend using dust buster for keyboards
the exact-o knife has become my favorite sculpting tool

I also remembered that we had a "Lazy Susan" that was going to the Goodwill, but instead I ripped it apart and created a little turn-table to work on.

Latest progress on the sculpt....

2009-10-10T23:54:00.004-05:00

It is going much better. I tore off most of the clay and thinned down the armature a lot. The sculpt is less bulky now and that is more in line with what I had originally designed. Sculpey is very pliable and my sweaty hands make it even more so. That makes it difficult to work on the non-organic parts like the proton pack. Any time I make a hard edge I end up mushing it up. I was told that throwing it in the fridge for 10 mins. or so it will harden up enough to work on the details without smooshing the rest of it.

Learning as I go....

2009-10-07T02:17:00.004-05:00

Oh, trial and error: You teach me so much. I was not satisfied with how bulky the maquette got one I added the clay so I ripped most of it off and slimmed down the foil thickness underneath. There are some important things I will not forget the next time I try one of these.

* Don't go for the complete silhouette in the armature. Get the pose down and some slight foil thickness so that the clay has something to grab, but definitely leave plenty of room for the clay.
* Make sure to keep the wire away from the surface. It is easy to compress the foil down when you need more room to work with but if wire is hitting the surface then there is a problem getting around that without adding a lot of clay. As you can see above, I tried to remedy by cutting pieces of the wire that stuck out. It mostly worked with the exception of the piece I cut out of the torso that was holding the leg on. Whoops.
* Mind the anatomy that you will have to build. Elbows and Knees have to be higher on the limbs than I would expect. I think my eye forms the implied contour of the design when I am just looking at the wire and that throws off the proportions. What I mean is, I bent the wire of the elbow to be about where I would expect the elbow bone to be protruding. Once I added the clay it made the upper arm about 1/4 inch longer than I wanted it to be. I did a similar thing with where the legs connect with the pelvis. I didn't leave any room to sculpt up the muscle of the glutes and how the pants hangs around them.

I will try to fix as much of these as possible as I go, but boy it will be nice to start fresh on the next one.

Progress....

2009-10-03T23:37:00.004-05:00

I've got the basic shape all blocked out. It's not quite going how I drew it up, but there is a lot I would do differently if I were to start over. Tomorrow I'll start refining some of the shapes. The hardest part so far was foreseeing how much the design was going to change from armature to clay blocking. In the current state the sculpt is a lot bulkier than I had drew it up. I built up the armature too much. I was so bent on getting the pose and silhouette right in the armature phase that I didn't leave much room to layer the sculpey. Oh well, now I know.

Learning process...

2009-10-03T20:45:00.003-05:00

Taking up a new hoby...

2009-10-03T16:53:00.002-05:00

Trying out sculpting. I've never done it before and I now wish that I had taken the Character Design class back in college so that I had more knowledge of how to do this.

Camping: mustache style...

2009-09-12T17:15:00.011-05:00

(Me being mustach-tic. I was surprised that I
could even grown one of these)

(My stache was nothing compared to brother Adam's)

(Brother Matt is more in my league when it comes to facial hair
growing, but he forgot that mustaches were requried for the trip. If you
zoom in really clost you can see the faintest dirt-stache)

(Sister Sarah was exempt from growing a mustache for the weekend)

Traveled back to PA for the yearly trip home. The Suroviec clan just keeps getting bigger so my time was spent (as usual) visiting relatives. My brother Adam planned a camping trip for us at Red Oaks campgrounds. We used to go there all the time when we were kids. My Papa had a hunting cabin near the campgrounds, but unfortunately they sold it several years ago and no one in my family was able to buy it at that time. We got to visit the cabin though. The folks who own it now were very friendly and gave us a tour of the inside.

(Chloe, Scooby and me in the canoe and Adam in the Kayak)

The whole weekend was a trip down memory lane and a great opportunity to just sit, cook, eat, drink, chat and relax with all of my siblings. We even had time for several games of teather ball.

(Aidan)

(Remy)

(Chloe)

(Noah)

The family is growing so big. I have all of these beautiful nieces and nephews, and another niece on the way, all made possible by the beautiful in-laws.

(Reba trying to tell me to stop taking picutres of her)

(Norma deep in conversation)

(Joshie trying to get everyone to smile for the camera)

I can't wait until next year. Hopefully we can go camping again.

4Mations Contest Runner Up

2009-09-12T17:06:00.004-05:00

A month or so ago I submitted my short film "Furnick" to a online competition at www.4mations.tv. I just got back from my time off to discover that I was a runner up in said competition. Woo!

Comic-con 2009 Highlights...

2009-08-02T00:55:00.006-05:00

-Lots of people
-Bought a Beaker action figure
-Had dinner with Charlie from Mighty Ducks, Syler/Spock, and the Steward of Gondor
-Brit and I ran into Elijah Wood... went something like this:

Back off man, I'm a scientist....

2009-03-08T00:22:00.000-05:00

Update

2009-02-27T00:24:00.004-05:00

Haven't posted in a while, I've been very busy at work and very busy at home working on personal projects. So back in Nov., the game I spent 2 years working on was released, Tomb Raider: Underworld. Since then I have moved on to another project, where I have been able to start working from a nearly clean slate. When I started at Crystal, TR:U was nearly finished with preproduction, and it was my first job ever so needless to say, mistakes were made....by me. I was trained in film, and as an animator and I felt I knew that pipeline pretty well from my schooling, but this was a game studio pipeline that I knew nothing of when I started. I learned TONS of priceless lessons by going through that experience, and two years later we shipped a game with a functional pipeline. It's great to take what I have learned over the past two years and start fresh from the beginning of a project. My co-workers and I have accomplished so much so far and I am excited for what we have in mind down the road. Meanwhile, many of the people who worked on TR:U are still plugging away to bring the fans some download-able content available on the Xbox 360 which is looking good.

Meanwhile, when I'm not watching Brit work on her paintings for WonderCon, I have been trying my best to help out with Joe's project. He is making a trailer for a concept he has been developing called Star Fish Ninja. I have been helping out with the rigging, and I can't wait till you guys can see it.

I also have been passing the time teaching myself how to model. I haven't modeled since my Sophomore year when I just shoved cylinders and spheres together.

It has been really helpful as a Rigger to do some modeling. I have learned a lot about how to model for good deformation, and it has also been good practice for translating someone else's design into 3d. Brit was kind enough to let me work on one of her Hawaiian god's Kane. Here is the painting and my work in progress.

Anyways, that is what I have been up to. Learning lots and being greatful for the opportunity to do so.

New Blog

2008-12-29T01:36:00.002-05:00

http://bayareayummers.blogspot.com/

For the last two weeks, Brittney's mom and sister have been have been staying with us. While they have been here we have been taking them to all of our favorite restaurants. Holy wow we have eaten some great food! One of the problems that I've been having is that when I visit these places that I love, I end up forgetting what I have already tried from the menu. I want to start this blog as a way for me to keep track of the dishes I have tried so I don't duplicate, for better or worse (because I have a reeeeeeally bad memory). Also it will be a place where other people can come to get recommendations for awesome food.

Starfish Ninja is coming

2008-12-02T02:52:00.004-05:00

Just want to get the word out to the small handful of you who read my blog. My good friend Joe Daniels has been working on a trailer for a personal project called Starfish Ninja. He started this project a couple years ago and has been working on it in what little spare time he has had.

I've been giving him a hand with some of the rigs in my free time and I can't wait to see the progress he makes. Keep an eye on that blog for more news on the project.

Being Nostalgic

2008-09-20T19:48:00.004-05:00

While digging around in our one closet trying to find things to throw away, I came across an old notebook that I've had since some time in 8th grade. I used this notebook as my creative outlet. I took it with me where ever I went writing poems, songs, stories and sketches. I used this throughout high school as well. Reading through it just makes me laugh out loud. I took myself so seriously back then. My outlook on life was a lot darker than I remember. Most of my poems/songs focused on heartbreak...like this next little ditty titled..."Untitled". I thought it was artistic to be dark and ambiguous, so I guess titling something "Untitled" (as opposed to it being untitled) wass really clever of me. Oh well it made it easy to scan since the default naming convention of my scanner is "Untitled.jpg". I guess my scanner is pretty artistic as well.

That poem was actually written as a song, but back then my song writing skills consisted of me blatently stealing chord progressions (or sometimes melodies) from my favorite songs of the time and putting my own lyrics to it. "Untitled" was written to the tune of the bridge in Dave Matthews "Satalite" (the part that goes "rest high above the clouds, no restrictions..")

Here is some of the art I created back then. I also listened to way too much Phish around this time, because my art was puposefully as nonsensical as possible, much like Phish's album covers.
It looks as though my love for produce with faces has lasted through out the years.

There were a few good poems in the mix. They tended to be the ones that were not about 'love' and more about experiences that I could actually comprehend. One of my favorites that I turned into a song (stealing a chord progression my brother Matt wrote) is called "Dancing In the Rain". Some day I'll rewrite it with original music behind it.

Finally my favorite poem from my notebook is called "Under the Water". I couldn't scan it because it went across multiple pages but it goes something like this...The rush of the water against me is cool,
As I dive into the pool.
I let myself sink down to the depths,
And with a big SIGH I let out my breath.
How neat it would be to stay down there,
My life sustained without any air.
I solemnly hover, looking around.
A tranquil mood without any sound,
but the low rumble of water deep in my ear.
Other than that no noise do I hear.
The blood in my veins steadies its flow
As the beat of my heart begins to slow.
I close my eyes and rest my soul.
The only place where I feel whole.
I enjoy the serenity
Of the water flowing 'round me.
My eyes pop open suddenly
As I'm brought to reality.
The swelling pain within my chest
Reminds me that I need a breath.
The silence is broken as I swim toward the air.
The pain in my lungs I cannot bare.
My body is struggling my heart wants to stop.
With my last ounce of strength I kick to the top.
I burst through the surface with a frantic splash,
And feeling relieved to have air...
..................I GASP....................
How neat it would be to stay down there. My life sustained without any air.

Some of me...

2008-09-09T01:12:00.004-05:00

I doodled something like this on my two week vacation. I think I'm going to use it when I eventually design my real website. Being home was nice. I was sooooo relaxed. It is a lot easier to come back to work after having that time to wind down. I got to see lots of family (although there is too many to squeeze them all in), I got to camp out at a bonfire (and get rained on), take a 30 mile bike ride, go swimming at the lake, eat Smith's hot dogs (best hot dogs EVER), and do a couple days of manual labor. Although I'm not as driven to do work around the house as my brother might be, I do love working outdoors. It is something I hated doing as a kid, but now that I don't have to do it I miss it. What's great is that you can look back at the end of the day and see what you have accomplished. Some times I can sit in front of my computer working for days and it feels like nothing is getting done even though it is.

Comic Con

2008-08-03T16:55:00.004-05:00

Fun time in San Diego. I spent all day Friday at the beach while Brit, Bill, Mayka and Sean walked around the convention. We went to a nifty club that night where I got attacked by a Cougar. Saturday I went with them and saw some a preview to "Up" and "Terminator: Salvation"...Awesome. I managed to get away with only buying one thing.

My sister in law asked me "When you have kids, what will you do when they want to play with your toys"....my answer is, they can play with all my old toys...not my new ones :)

One of my pet peeves.......

2008-06-17T21:47:00.003-05:00

Things that look like diced chicken but in fact are not:

I'm lookin at you Tofu
Potatoes
and Artichoke Hearts

Want to get me upset? Make a dish that has these items prepared in a way to look like I am piling my plate full of yummy chicken. Then I'll go to take a bite, have that strange moment in my mouth where my brain is saying yum chicken but my tongue is saying, "nah bro, its bogus" and in that fight the food temporarily tastes like air. That'll make me hulk out.

Figure Drawing: 5/24/08

2008-05-26T11:00:00.003-05:00

Figure Drawing: 5/17/08

2008-05-25T21:16:00.003-05:00

Character comes from character design

2008-05-20T01:36:00.004-05:00

Let me pose this question?

What sort of personality does the following character have?

Yeah probably really wise. Pretty somber. Doesn't seem to be focused.

Does the above character have the same personality as this?....

This guy also seems wise, but seems a bit more crotchety. Sort of like a grandpa who is always ready to tell you the way you should be doing something.

How about this guy below?....

This guy just like the other two seems to know something about the world. The difference? This guy knows, but isn't going to tell you. Most of this personality comes from the proportions and shapes in the face, particularly the placement and shape of the eyes.

Now consider this quote:

". . .my ally in the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. It's energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we...(Yoda pinches Luke's shoulder)...not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you. Here, between you...me...the tree...the rock...everywhere! Yes, even between this land and that ship! . . . Concentrate...feel the Force flow. Yes. Good. Calm, yes. Through the Force, things you will see. Other places. The future, the past, old friends long gone. "

Which of these images best fits that quote? This?

or this?

Anmation!

2008-04-22T01:57:00.006-05:00

About a year ago I was working on a different kind of face rig based off of these tutorials. With this set up using nurbs curves to deform the mesh, I created this animation to an audio clip from "What About Bob?"

The model was done by Josh Piejko. So about a year later The Face Machine is released which is an face auto rigging tool that was developed by my good friend Jed Mitchell. This rig uses very similar concepts as my nurbs curve face rig, but it takes it several steps further in the way it deforms the face. The automation is easy as pie too. It takes me about 10-20 minutes to rig a character's face using this tool. So what I decided to do was to revamp this monkey model and rig it using the Face and Setup Machine and try to polish the animation as best as I could. Here is what I ended up with.

if you can't see the videos you can check them out at http://www.mytoons.com/evadceivorus

Get the most out of your Digital Camera

2008-04-14T01:18:00.003-05:00

First of all a big congrats to my friends Joe and Emily on the birth of their beautiful baby boy, Joe Daniels the 5th.

While Joe IV was home last week getting used to parenting, he snapped a lot of pictures and came up with a great way to get good exposure from his point and shoot digital camera using a business card and tinfoil. Check out his post about it here. I made one of these for Britt's camera and let me tell you it works perfectly. No more washed out pictures from the flash, and no more red-eye!

Miles to Go, Before My Car Sleeps

2008-04-12T01:03:00.004-05:00

200,000 MILES BABY!!!

I can't believe it. My car nearly hit 200,000 miles on the money when I pulled into the parking lot after work. I was at about 199,999.3 so I drove around the parking lot till i could park it right on the money. This car has been amazing. I'm pretty sure if I was still on the East Coast this car would be toast. That's what happened to my 89 Taurus. Then engine still ran great wiht 130,000 miles but the body just rotted out from all the winters/salt on the road. I hope this car lasts me for another 200,000 miles. I am not looking forward to shopping for a new one.

Whirled!

2008-04-04T23:55:00.004-05:00

Hey you! Looking at this now! Brittney and Bill have been working hard on this new website/game/viritual world and i think you should check it out at www.whirled.com

What's that? You're too lazy to go there? Well lucky for you I've embedded my room in this blog post. You show up as a little ghost named "Guest####". Walk around, chat with some people, play some games, then sign up for an account. It's all free!

MyToons Finalist!!

2008-03-06T19:46:00.004-05:00

**UPDATE**

Sorry for the delay, but if you haven't heard yet, Furnick won!!! Big thanks to the judges, to mytoons, and the loads of people who have watched Furnick and left me all the nice comments. On mytoons.com it has recieved over 2000 views so far! Woo!www.mytoons.com has a contest to make a short animated bumper with their logo. Well I entered Furnick and found out today that I am a finalist! Out of the ten finalists only three of them win the prize. I believe there might also be a grand prize, but don't quote me on that. Check it out, check out the other good finalists and cross your fingers

Final Animation!

2008-02-18T01:00:00.001-05:00

Illustration Friday: Tales and Legends

2008-01-31T03:57:00.001-05:00

Here are the Tales and legends you never hear of:

The Legend of the Loch Ness Fish and The Tales of Steve the Librarian Who Never Did Anything All that Exciting.

The Legend of Robin Hoods Lesser Known Brother Rodger Hood, who robs from baby's and gives nothing in return.

Jim Henson Toy Puts on a Concert

2008-01-22T02:45:00.001-05:00

Jim Henson Toy warms up the crowd with some classic hits.The crowd loves it. Look a storm trooper made it to the show.

Now Jim Henson Toy starts to play some new hits.

Police force is needed to control the crowd and keep them from rushing the stage.

Some people just don't appreciate Jim Henson Toy's music.

Jim Henson Toy does an hour and a half tambourine solo...

...and the crowd loves it.

After the show Jim Henson Toy gets a hug from one of his biggest fans.

John Cleese on the Muppet Show

2008-01-22T00:43:00.000-05:00

I watch the Muppet Show on DVD while I work and I had to get these sketches out of John Cleese. Unfortunately I didn't have my sketchbook or pen with me so I used sharpie marker on in a notebook.

He is such a funny guy, he has an explosiveness about his comedy. He tries to play it straight until the Muppets drive him lash out in comical goodness.

Starbucks Sketch

2008-01-21T03:56:00.001-05:00

Sketch Crawl 01-20-08

2008-01-21T03:50:00.000-05:00

An old sketch

2008-01-16T02:53:00.000-05:00

This was in my sketchbook. I never got around to posting it for Illustration Friday and it just got forgotten.

"I don't like the looks of this. Let's just go to the next house"

Figure Drawing -01/12/08

2008-01-13T14:38:00.000-05:00

Some Drawings from Home

2008-01-12T19:30:00.000-05:00

I was home for two weeks. Had a lot of fun, got to play in the snow a bit. I miss my family a lot.

Figure Drawing -12/15/07

2008-01-12T19:25:00.001-05:00

Illustration Friday: Horizon

2007-12-25T08:28:00.000-05:00

Look who's coming over the horizon. It's Santa Claus!

Merry Christmas!

Animation!

2007-12-19T04:15:00.000-05:00

Blocking out the timing and poses. It feels good to be animating something that is more....me. My last clip I animated was too forced. I forced the characters into a situation and the animation came out flat. This, although it may not be profound is much more natural to me. I'll post more work in progress as it comes.

Some Blogs of Friends

2007-12-16T17:32:00.000-05:00

Time to plug some friends blogs. David Campbell and Kevin Foster write about their adventures in life as well as post some neat updates on emerging technology. You can read about Campbell's discovery of Jott or about Foster's close encounter with identity theft. Check them both out, they're quite entertaining. I miss those guys.

Christmas with the Muppets

2007-12-12T16:52:00.000-05:00

I don't understand how there can be any Scrooges around Chirstmas time. Whatever happened to this attitude?

I grew up with John Denver and the Muppets around Christams time. We had the LP "A Christmas Together" and we wore it out until almost ever song skips at the same exact moment each time they are played. I miss Jim Henson. Although the Muppets never stopped being entertaining and funny, I think that much of the sentimental side of them got pushed to the background. Every time I hear Kermit sing a sentimental song I am moved. Jim Henson had such an awesome vision of what the world could be. That is what Christmas means to me.

So here's to the lovers and the dreamers.

Figure Drawing - colored

2007-12-12T03:14:00.001-05:00

Figure Drawing -12/08/07

2007-12-10T02:07:00.001-05:00

Loosening up...
All three models we've had since we started going to the sessions have been stellar.

Back at RIT it was hard to find decent models. The males were usually decently built but did very strange poses, and the women usually did not have much of a figure. It's great to be able to see the form while I'm drawing the poses.

Blue pencil treated me pretty well that day. I believe animators use them because they are magic. I want to go over some of these to darken them up or maybe try to color them.

More 20 minute variations.

Sometimes just scribbling is the way to go

Figure Drawing -12/01/07

2007-12-10T01:55:00.001-05:00

Warming up...
Lisa did short poses incorporating her taking off her clothes. It was a good opportunity to get some balancing poses as well as gesture in some cloth.

She had some really dynamic poses

Me and the brush pen are not friends yet.

I really liked her hairClothing props

Twenty minute poses are way too long for me. I'm not interested in getting fine detail, I'm more interested in getting good weight, good gestures, and good caricature of anatomy. Instead of focusing on detail during a 10 or 20 min pose I like to do as many variations as I can with different medium.

I think the watercolor gesture drawings come out the best. I should use that feeling and get a more refined drawing off of that paint blob.

Figure Drawing -11/17/07

2007-12-10T01:40:00.000-05:00

I was hesitant to post these because it was my first figure drawing class since junior year of college (3 years ago), but after 3 sessions I have seen improvement so I wanted to post something to compare. Warming up...

I've really been able to loosen up and experiment now that there is no collegiate pressure. I'm less concerned with making a technically perfect drawing, I like to push the poses. Trial and error.

I really need practice with hands.

She had such good poses

Problems with blogging your images?

2007-12-03T16:40:00.001-05:00

I'm sure some of you noticed in your last couple posts, that any image you blog now tries to download the file when clicking on the thumbnail instead of opening the larger version of that image in your browser. I'm not sure if blogger is aware of this but I looked through the new image code and found the following:

Before your thumbnail image would be sourcing from something like:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cME615demG8/R1JE4D0jamI/AAAAAAAAAHY/
yeV8wRq3z6I/s400/holidayFrontweb.jpg

and linking to:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cME615demG8/R1JE4D0jamI/AAAAAAAAAHY/
yeV8wRq3z6I/s1600-h/holidayFrontweb.jpg

Now what your thumbnail links to is something like:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cME615demG8/R1JE4D0jamI/AAAAAAAAAHY/
X76i_cwk-SY/s1600-R/holidayFrontweb.jpg

notice the difference in parent directory and the difference between s1600-h and s1600-R.
So what you need to do to get it back to the normal way is this:
In your 'edit html' tab of your blog post find the link following "src=" This will give you the proper parent directory (the letters/numbers just before "/s400"). Use this path in the link following "href=". Finally make sure you replace the s1600-R with s1600-h. Save and publish.

Illustration Friday: Excess

2007-12-02T01:39:00.000-05:00

This illustration is dedicated to the boys who constantly hop our fence and swim in our pool. This happens quite often with several neighborhood children and I am usually okay with that as long as they show respect toward the property. There are a few regulars that like to use the pool, take of their clothes and occasionally throw all the lawn chairs into the pool. I drew the line when the day before Thanksgiving one decided to pee into the pool. The kicker is, on the next day they came back and swam in that same pool and I am certain the apt. staff did not clean the pool between that time. I figured that any pee in the pool is too much so it ought to fit this weeks topic.

More Practice

2007-11-26T03:49:00.000-05:00

I have some tweaking to do but I had to get this out of my system. This exercise has been taking me a long time to finish, mostly because I haven't been able to get into the acting so I don't end up working on it for long periods at a time.

Nearly Done from EvadCeivorus on Vimeo.

Thanksgiving

2007-11-25T18:33:00.000-05:00

We had Thanksgiving at our place this year. It was a great time. Good food, good friends, good times. I was nervous about making the turkey. There was a lot of pressure after last year's amazing turkey cooked my our friend Tom. I had Tom's guidance while preparing mine so it turned out to be really juicy and it tasted great. We went with Tom's upside-down method of cooking. It lets the juices drip down into the breast meat. Joe and Em brought awesome deserts, Bill made some killer candied yams, Brit made her famous apple sauce, among other deliciousness and Greg entertained us with stories from his job at Laika.

I laughed until I cried

2007-11-21T14:48:00.000-05:00

Mostly because I pictured my brother Matt doing this.

BEOWULF.....in 3d?

2007-11-16T14:10:00.000-05:00

We went to see a free screening of Beowulf last night in San Fran and.......at least I got a free pair of glasses and a free bag of popcorn. I showed up about 15 minutes late because I was coming from work in Redwood City, and the show still hadn't started when I got there. They had been fiddling around with the projector trying to get the 3d aspect of it to work. All we ended up seeing was a double image even with the glasses on. After about 20 minutes of that they had thought they fixed it (the titles looked somewhat 3d) and they let the movie run for about 20 minutes ignoring the fact that anyone who was close up in the frame was still showing up as double imaged. After fiddling around for another 10 min or so they called it quits. There was no regular print so we didn't get to see the film at all. That was a bummer. From what I saw though it looked like it could be a decent movie if they just used the real actors. The CG was too much in the Uncanny Valley to really get into. The facial expressions were flat, and the design of Grendel was awful (it is possible to have a character be gross and ugly and still have good design). I think that if I had the chance to see this for free again I would. I don't think I'll be paying to see it. And if they ever want to make this story into live action I will be there on opening night.

jack o' Lanterns! pt. 2

2007-10-31T01:59:00.000-05:00

Brittney's workplace had a carving contest tonight. Sorry for the lack of originality, I was looking for something quick and easy.
Brittney did a nice Madusa in a very Lou Romano style

Jack o' Lanterns!

2007-10-15T00:32:00.000-05:00

Haven't done these since I was probalby 8 years old.

Practice

2007-08-15T10:22:00.000-05:00

Been working on this one for a while. I've grown fond of this face rig that I built. It's really flexible yet it poses very quickly.

innocence from EvadCeivorus on Vimeo.

Illustration Friday: Emergency

2007-08-15T03:34:00.000-05:00

I suppose that he's running to the water to save someone. Or maybe he's had a long day at work and its imperative that he gets to surf.

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More sketches

2007-08-12T01:00:00.001-05:00

Fjorg Trip

2007-08-12T00:14:00.000-05:00

Welp. This past week three of the Commandos (me, Joe and Jed) traveled down to San Diego to compete in the first FJORG! competition at SIGGRAPH. The objective was to complete at least 15 seconds of animation in a continuous 32-hour period. It was a great time. We had a lot of fun and made a film we are really proud of. We unfortunately didn't place but oh well. All the teams did a great job...each one of them finished on time. To watch all the films click here.

The trip there was such a blast. It was great to have Jed around after not seeing him for over a year. We had a lot of time to catch up on the way down there. here are some sketches of the trip.

Here is our final video on YouTube.

The Man Who Plays for Pigeons

2007-08-12T00:11:00.001-05:00

I've wanted to write a children's book for quite some time now. This might be an idea to go with. There is a fantastic clarinet player named Don who plays every weekend down at the Ferry Building. He loves when people stop and listen to him.

Some Old Skethces

2007-08-12T00:05:00.001-05:00

Weiners...

Quick sketch of wolverine.

Quick sketch from "Once"

Best Food Ever!

2007-07-14T22:20:00.000-05:00

I took Brit to a place in Berkeley called Venezia. This was hands down the best food I have had since I've moved out to the bay area. I think its probably the best food I have ever had in my life! I recommend that anyone from the area, take a night and treat that special someone to a nice dinner there. If you don't have a special someone, treat your self!

Illustration Friday: Twist

2007-07-04T11:37:00.000-05:00

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No words for this

2007-07-03T13:10:00.001-05:00

This is quite a unique animation. Just make sure you watch the whole thing.

Illustration Friday: Camouflage

2007-06-28T22:22:00.000-05:00

Oops. I thought the topic was Camel Floss.....well I was close.

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Damn, Son!

2007-06-11T18:14:00.000-05:00

A's vs. Red Soxs

2007-06-09T20:25:00.001-05:00

Wed. night we went to see the A's take on the Red Soxs at the Coliseum in Oakland. It was a good time. I'm not very passionate about baseball, but looking around at all the super fans sitting around us it made me wish that I did care that much about a baseball team. There was a comradery between all of the drunkards as they cheered on their team and high fived each other as if they themselves made the triple play. I'll admit, even though I wasn't routing one way or another, I did sneak in a few high fives with some of my seat neighbors now and then...just so I wasn't left out. It happened to be that this game was the evening after Joe here went to Meez for an interview. He had to do an animation test in 3dsmax. Little did he know that this interview went better than he thought because they offered him a job on Friday!

"Once"

2007-06-03T13:19:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine recommended I go see this movie. I found one showing of it down at the Embarcadero Center Theatre. This is a fantastic film. The great thing about some independant films is the use of actors that aren't pop icons. These people are not flashy or poetic or over-dramatic. Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová are real. Their relationship is endearing and I fell in love with these two the second they were on screen. I believe the film itself is somewhat based off of the way these two met and recorded their first album together. The music is excellent, I haven't stopped listening to it since I saw the film. Unfortunately right now its only in playing in select theatres across the country, but if you live in a big city where this might be playing I recommend you go see this movie.

Amazing...

2007-06-01T23:21:00.000-05:00

Sketch Crawl 05-19-07

2007-05-22T11:00:00.000-05:00

This was a wonderful time. We went into San Fran and spent the whole day (from 11 - 6) drawing. I got to see more of the city that I haven't seen before. I got some sun and some exercise...it was a great way to spend the day. Thanks to Enrico for getting these things rolling. Thanks to Ronnie for being so encouraging.

Why are they so angry?

2007-05-05T12:03:00.000-05:00

Because their storyline was turned into an absurd mockery that looked more like the next days YouTube video making fun Spiderman 3. I know that Peter Parker is corny and a geek. Thats why he is my hero, but badass peter parker should be badass, not some spoof of Saturday Night Feaver's John Travolta. This movie could've been so cool

Ancient Book of Myth and War

2007-04-04T13:42:00.000-05:00

Britt and I went to the Nucleus art gallery in L.A. the other weekend to see the art from Ancient Book of Myth and War. It was a really neat event. We got to meet the authors (Nate Wragg, Lou Romano, Don Shank and Scott Morse) the opening night, get the book signed mingle with some other great people and have a few drinks. The next day we went to a workshop to watch the authors paint. It was a cool chance to see how each one of them likes to work. There are pictures at the Nucleus webiste of the event. We made it into one picture.

The man we are talking to is John Musker. This is the second time we've bumped into him. It is just so cool to talk to one of the guys who made some of my favorite animated movies of all time. He is such a nice guy.

Hollywoodland Sketches

2007-04-04T02:41:00.000-05:00

I did some sketches while watching Hollywoodland (which is an okay movie). These all were inspired from characters of the movie in the beginning, but sort of turned into completely different characters by the end of it.

New location

2007-04-02T22:15:00.000-05:00

Crystal Dynamics has merged with Eidos in a new location in Redwood City. We are on the same campus as PDI now which is sort of cool. So the move to the new building was pretty smooth. No huge problems. I.T. did a great job getting everything set up. The place is really nice. I miss Menlo Park though. The new place is way to neat and perfect. Its neatness sort of gives me the urge t0 mess things up. Ya know...ruffle up some grass here and there.The nice courtyards outside of our building. Cute little fountains and perfectly trimmed grass. They certainly discourage loungers who might ruin the art of their architecture by not putting benches anywhere and planting razor sharp grass so you won't want to sit on it.

Our new building.

All cubed out.

Part of my new cube. I need some more books to fill up my shelf.

Another angle. I was going for a blurry sort of look with this picture.

The full view of the cube.

Illustration Friday: I Spy...

2007-03-26T02:55:00.000-05:00

.....with my little eye: Something yellow and Australian.

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Ususpecting B.A.R.T. Passenger

2007-03-18T01:59:00.001-05:00

Unsuspecting Pedestrian

2007-03-18T01:43:00.000-05:00

Saw this guy walkig through Berkeley while attending my first sketch-crawl. I'm not very good at painting. The pencil has always been my thing. But I want very much to get good with color. I only recently discovered the ability to use textured brushes in Photoshop ( I know, I'm behind the times ). Hope you enjoy.

An Old Sketch

2007-03-18T01:39:00.000-05:00

Did this one a while ago. Forgot to blog it.

Wired

2007-03-17T03:20:00.000-05:00

I was late getting it done so I missed out on posting this on Illustration Friday.

It's official!

2007-02-24T23:58:00.000-05:00

I'm a Californian!!

Comando Monsters

2007-02-23T02:57:00.000-05:00

Some more experiments of characters. The design is being pulled from the muppets as well as my good friends. Some are derived from their looks others are derived from their personalities and others are derived from that persons own drawing style.

Rat

2007-02-23T02:53:00.000-05:00

Sort of a strange thing for me to draw.

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Creatures

2007-02-10T13:59:00.000-05:00

Some designs I would like to someday turn into animations. Going for muppet style. I'm interested in what makes muppets so alive with such limited movement.

The Apartment

2007-01-31T00:02:00.000-05:00

So this is the livingroom. Most of the stuff in here was bought very cheap off of craigslist.org. What wasn't bought there was probably purchased at the IKEA down the street.

The other angle of the room.

The office area. Complete with Brittney's gianormous desk, custom built light table (courtesy of my brother Matt).

Homemade painting by established artist Brittney Lee.

Not sure why these pictures turned up sideways. This is the bathroom attatched to the livingroom. Very surfer themed. I'm going to take a short drive south to warmer waters to learn.

I did that painting on the shelf in highschool. Its not for sale.

My favorite room....the kitchen. I painted that sign on the wall. It's a saying my manager at
Eat n Park used to tell me all time...."Never trust a skinny cook".

A different look at the kitchen. The one plant we got that we haven't killed. Oh look! Brittney is making a cameo!

Crystal D

2007-01-30T19:32:00.000-05:00

So here's a mini tour of work. I'm going into my 3rd month at Crystal Dynamics as a Technical Artist. It's going great. I do a bit of coding and a little bit of art. I am working on the next Tomb Raider game -- scheduled to be released in 2008. We just finished up a Demo for the "suits". We start production in a couple weeks. From what we've done this game is going to be pretty awesome. It's amazing what next gen. games are capable of.Here's the front door. Pretty awesome isn't it?

This is Gex. He's a character in one of their claim to fame games.

This is the front lobby decked out with Lara Croft. Crystal Dynamics took over this franchise a few years ago. Their first Tomb Raider game was number seven: Legend. They are about to release an anniversary addition, which is a better looking version of the original game.

This is my new office. I was next door with the animators but I am so awesome they kicked out the boss and put me in his office......or maybe its because they needed my old spot for a new animator.

Here's the next corner. I get a big white board to scribble down ideas on. As you can see I'm not doing a very good job at filling up the bookshelf.

They sure did hook me up. Two 19" monitors and a big ol' widescreen TV monitor (that's for testing out the game on the xbox 360).

Steven v.1.0

2006-12-12T08:06:00.000-05:00

This is my new StevenRig, a multi rig I've been working on. Thanks Joe for the pose. Its taking a bit of time to set up since I don't have much free time after work. Oh I forgot to mention. I have a job. I am working at Crystal Dynamics in Menlo Park, Ca as a technical artist for their next game.

Anyways, I'm trying to get it to an acceptable stage by the new year so I can start to do some Character Animation. This rig will be set up with multiple heads/hair/acessories/body types so that you can mix and match and even creat new assets.

Test Face

2006-11-07T17:38:00.000-05:00

I've been working on a new type of rig for a face that is faster to set up and gives more control. This is a test lipsync

PLAY IT

Also as added fun and to demonstrate what is driving this face I made two videos the FIRST is the controlers of the face which drive free floating clusters which in turn drive the curves of the face you see there. The SECOND is just of the free floating clusters.

Taking on the United States

2006-11-05T02:39:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since my last post but as you can see I've been very busy. At the end of Sept. Brittney and I started our journey across the United States to start the next chapter of our life in SanFrancisco, CA!! Here is a the story (pictures included) of our trip.

COLUMBUS, OH

On our way!!! We stopped briefly in Columbus, OH for some ice cream that we couldn't finish - but what a delicious start to a trip.

NINEVAH, IN

Our first overnight stop was to see friends of Brittney and her family in Ninevah, IN. It was a very beautiful lakeside cottage although the cot I slept on was a little small.

ST. LOUIS, MO

Isn't that a beautiful arch??

MOUNT VERNON, MO

Unfortunately our second night, Brittney decided to get really sick. It was a sleepless night for both of us due to coughing, barking dogs, and uncomfortable crappy motel beds.

We then went on to travel through Oklahoma - perhaps the most boring state in the world. Nothing to report there.

???, TX

I nearly ran out gas in Texas. We were in the middle of nowhere without a gas station to be found. We finally just went down a long, endless dirt road until we found a little gas station with one of those pumps that you pull down the lever to reset the dials. It was great. I wish I had a picture.

RED ROCK, NM

Stopping for a bite to eat at the Red Rock museum.

Proof that she DOES eat!!
Then we went up to the Four Corner Monument - the only place in the US where 4 states share a border. It was out in the middle of the desert where no radio stations picked up on my dial.

Brittney look! I'm in four states at the same time!!!

"Ouch"

FLAGSTAFF, AZ

We stayed the night at Brittney's cousin's 2nd house for the night and then were on the road again.

PHOENIX, AZ

We made it to Brittney's cousin's primary house. Jan and Chuck put us up for the night. Two very wonderful and kind people. I was glad we got to see familiar faces along the way.

We decided it would be a good idea to try to hike a mountain that day.....in 106*F weather.

Feeling rather bored of the hike we decided to make it extreme and turn it into rock climing without harnests. Look how high up we are. "How ya doin' over there Brittney??"

Amazing! Holding on with only one hand!

SAN DIEGO, CA

We swung over to San Diego to get an idea of what Souther Cali was like. That night we would going over to Brittney's other cousin's house. Brandon and Janine. Brandon is Chuck's son.

We had some time to check out the beach.

SANTA BARBARA, CA

What a great little surfing town. Beautiful. We traveled a bit more north and stopped early for the night.

EMERYVILLE, CA

Now entering EMERYVILLE!!!!!

WE MADE IT!!! OUR NEW HOME!!!! Got there and unpacked and are still unpacking slowly. But when its all cleaned up we will be taking pictures and blogging them. We'll also be ready to house friends who are stopping by.

Thesis is Finished

2006-05-24T20:48:00.000-05:00

Chloe Gets a Pet on Vimeo

May I present to you my thesis film: Chloe Gets a Pet. This film took me 30 weeks to create from concept to render. Josh Piejko was a big help. He modeled the characters and props, Brittney Lee designed the characters. I learned a lot about rigging and lighting on this film. I used a broken rig technique in the bird to get it to stretch and squash when needed. Let me tell you that certainly helps a lot in 3d. It doesn't limit you like a normal rig does. If I need the bird to reach across the table and grab something, I can do that without having to worry about it not going the distance. Thanks to Greg Smith for teaching me about utility nodes.

Broad and Subtle or How I Learned to Stop Being Stubborn and Listen to Audience Response

2006-04-18T16:46:00.000-05:00

I have been taking a class for the past 5 weeks called "Acting for Animators". It is quite a useul addition to the R.I.T. animation curriculum. Today we reviewed an assignment. We were all supposed to take 24 pictures of ourselves performing different emotions. Twelve of those were to be close ups on the face and the rest were to be full body poses. Most of my classmates (self included) have grown up in an age of animations where it is more impressive to be able to pull off subtle acting in a character. Therefore most of our own emotions were an attempt at subtle. Many faces were very readable: happy, sad, angry, surprised. But there were a few emotions that repeatedly got muddled up together: disgust, jealousy, confusion. One picture got all of these responses from the rest of the class.
It is my belief that my responsibility as an animator is to be clear with my acting so that every emotion reads to the audience. If some people in the audience are reading "confused" and others are reading "disgusted" and I was intending embarrassment, then I fail. I unfortunately don't have the right to say "well im sorry you didn't get it but the character was embarrassed". That is not an option. The audience has to understand what the character is feeling if they are going to care for he/she, and so therefore sometimes sacrificing subtle to add a broad stereotypical action ain't such a bad thing now is it? I was surprised after much reflection on how some of my favorite animated films do great subtle work when appropriate, but then give you some over the top emotions to really drive it home. Now I will keep that in mind the next time I get a critique that says "This isn't working for me"

2006-03-28T18:59:00.000-05:00

With the joint help of Josh Piejko and Joe Daniels (because I have no idea what im doing with lighting or texturing) Chloe has been made ready for render. Josh is hard at work with other characters and props from my film and I will be attempting to take a more active role with lighting, all the while continuing to polish animation. How exciting.

Illustration Friday - Tatoo

2006-03-13T14:57:00.000-05:00

Yay, another one. My attempt at drawing something badass.