The Gallery is Up

My portfolio is up on the portfolio gallery page. (Coincidence?)

Spring Cleaning

Well - it is time to dust off the ol' blog and get back to posting. A lot has happened lately.

Right now I'm finishing up tech-school in Pensacola, Florida - I'm learning to fix airplanes. Joining the Air National Guard was a great decision and has really saved the family after Sarah developed her condition. I never thought I would be here a year ago, but things are going well.

Art is constantly on my mind (you would think that aeronautical maintenance would be but mostly art occupies the mind while I'm here). What would I do without a sketchbook? On that - I've never been much of a sketchbook person (some of my friends are never without theirs and it shows). I always just worked out whatever project, design, or art piece that came to mind. Granted I always had them around -- anyways, some people are sketchbook people and some people are not -- I wasn't but I think I am becoming a convert.

Now I just need to get a gallery up on here and keep drawing.

The bad part of being away from home is that I miss my studio space. I miss my desk and books and supplies. I need to get back to animating just as soon as I'm home.. it is a _need_.

Hola mi Amigos!

I'm in Mexico City!!! WOOooooooOOOOoooo - today I climbed a pyramid. Life is good.

News and Chiu

Wow.

I would like to say thank you to Bobby Chui. He is an amazing artist but even more so, he is an amazing motivator. I was drawn to Bobby's work when I first happened upon him on CGTALK. I think the first painting I delighted over was a picture of a a boy in a whale suit. I still love it. Anyways, I was slacking the other day trolling though youtube and thought about Bobby Chui - sure enough, he had some videos. I was bowled over; instead of talking about the work he was creating in the videos, he instead speaks about what it means to be successful. He talks about visualizing your goals, working hard, and overcomming the pitfalls we set up for ourselves that prevent us from achieving our dreams.

I'm listening to Bobby's sage advice. Last night I animated and I loved it. I animated for myself and for the joy of art and animation. I worked instead of slacking and got up earlier in the day. I am an animator and I am going to be a professional soon.

Just thought everyone should know.

The Visitor

Photomanipulation

So I made a photo-manipulation image. It isn't great, but I'm feeling happy with my first attempt.

Jim Erickson is a man Inspiring

I've never been a great lover of photography. I just don't understand what make a great photographer from a good one - I'm not much of a photographer. Or a potter... pottery and photography.. never really had the knack or understanding. But I know what I like and I like Jim Erickson's work. He is truly phenomenal.

http://www.jimerickson.com/

Tentacle!

Woohoo.. the modeling and texturing are completed. And it looks like a tentacle so that makes me happy - better than a finger in the eye. On to rigging then animation planning.

Goodbyes

I just got home from my Grandfather's funeral in Florida. I feel so drained and I need to go into work. This has been one of the most emotionally exhausting weeks in my life.

Before he died he told me to keep on the right path and to do what I loved. I loved him and he will be greatly missed.

Eyes and Tentacles

Well.. I'm working on a project with a monster in mind.. because "The Goon" movie is coming out and working at Blur on it would be a dream come true. Just testing a rig idea.. putting the beach animation on hold.



And.. eyeball :O



Here goes!

Workworkwork

So..here is a little work on a unity guy.. figuring out this stuff again..sorta.

I know this sucks at the moment.. but I'm working.. so :P

Sick again

Sick again.. I sound like I'm killing a duck when I talk.. I slept most of the day.

Being sick sucks.. you're off work, but feel to bad to accomplish anything.

Head hurts.. write more later.

Set backs

So I'm still having some set backs.. the hair I made just isn't that great for rigging..so I'm trying blend shapes with the rig to see if I can fix this mess... referencing is still a no go so that sucks. Also..the undead have infested the city and my brother and I are trying to make it to Mercy Hospital..

Roadblocked

So.. I'm stuck.. I can't get my Katerine rig to work right... her legs refuse to stay where I put them... luckily I have Thaddeus Parkinson (a technical director at ILM.. sweeet) looking at it. I'm sure between us, things will get worked out.. sucks though to be stuck.

Edit: (futzing around in maya for awhile later)

Weee... I can make it work..but not how I want.

The problem appears to be referencing... or how it is being handled. It is probably a user error (my fault), but I don't know what I am doing wrong.

Referencing is great though.. if it was something you could do in the real world, it would be amazing. Like say you had an object like your car.. referencing lets you pimp your ride without it sitting in the shop for a month. I wanted to get the majority of my animation done and then if I felt like it needed extra polish (like cloth or animated hair.. whatever), I could just edit the base model in another file and then go to my scene where all the animation would still be applied and the character would get updated.

So I'm going to try with no referencing because I want to keep moving(and keep trying to figure it out how to get it to work).

On to blocking

So I worked out a pose... and saved my file (been saving multiple files.. incrementally saving). I quit Maya.. open my file.. and Kat is moved and in a different pose.. in all the saved files. What the hell! Arg..hours of work.. ohh well.. I'll push on and hopefully figure out why my saves aren't working.

Tragic Beach

Here are the characters for the short that I'm working on. Katherine is the dying girl on the left and Tom is her fiancé. These two young lovers have a really bad day at the beach..




As always, special thanks to Animation Mentor for being such a wonderful school and providing me with such lovely rigs. (Animation Mentor Bishop Rigs - textured and with hair) If you have interest in animation and are trying to decide on the right school, look no further than your computer and AM.

Feeling quite a bit better

Hooray.. I don't feel like my head is going to explode (scanner style).

So the project is going forward and back again. We have hair and texturing - and textures that are animating when they shouldn't. I messed with the uvs after the model was weighted.. not a good idea (i had forgotten that). So, back to base models and retexturing..

P.S. - Puppies are awesome..but so tiring :o

Sick..sucks

I'm sick.. it sucks..

hear hurts with fever.. no fun

this is cool though

http://www.guerrillacg.org/

Go learn

What happened to Spiderman 3

So Sarah and I popped in 50 First Dates tonight and it had a preview for Spiderman 2. Spiderman 2 is awesome (and the poster looks like my friend Thad, even though Alfred Molina does not) - it is such a fantastic movie. So what the hell happened to Spiderman 3? It pisses me off to think about the movie.. we both left feeling disappointing. The story felt disjointed.. Venom was a weak character.. the Sandman angle was just wtf? When I think of it I get all mad..

I know this post is a year too late but I guess I was repressing the feelings.. it is good to let it all out.

So I just thumbnailed out my new scene.. blocking out the poses tomorrow. I still don't quite know how I want to stage all of the scene. If it is successful (on completion) hopefully you'll get a bit teary watching it. Here's hoping.

Hooray for Walking

I made a vanilla walk cycle tonight - more animations to come. It is all coming back to me.


Hmm.. I need to buy quicktime again so I can compress these.