Wacom settings

Posted on April 3, 2010 | 2 Comments
Filed under Animation, Education

My friend Patrick asked me about my wacom settings but I tend to use my Intuos3 less and less those days I must admit.

First it takes a lot of desk space and forces you to move the keyboard way too far back for good typing position, second I suffer from RSI as much with the wacom than with the standard issued Microsoft mouse (as long as you keep your wrist in a natural position and not flat) and third ….. I find it fairly imprecise especially when used with 2 screens so once in a while I drag and drop a folder into an other one by mistake. Yes I could get a widescreen tablet but come on, what is the point of having a nice dark solid oak desk if you can’t see it anymore!

Ah and I also have my conspiration theory!!! How safe is it to have a Wacom radio emitter radiating through your hand and forearm all day? Any research on that?!

Related post:
Animation hotkeys

Long chair modeling timelapse

Posted on April 3, 2010 | 1 Comment
Filed under Education, Modeling, Portfolio, Short film

What are you supposed to do on Easter bank holiday, work on your short film right?

Here is a series of timelapse video where you can follow me modeling one of the main props for my short film.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/10620178[/vimeo]
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/10629348[/vimeo]
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/10642272[/vimeo]
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/10649139[/vimeo]

Today I am gonna tackle the cartoony rigging of this guy so it ties a bit better with shot 12. I am keeping in mind to make the props looks a bit more wonkey but the rig could help for that.

Related post:
Short film blog category

Shot 12 final
Props done

“can you draw the nose without the nostrils?”

Posted on March 31, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Filed under Drawings

Tonight was my last drawing class for this term and once again my teacher decided to give me a hard time.

I have had two teachers this term. One that would pat us on the back congratulating us on our work: “you are doing fine”, then would disappear for the rest of the hour to probably smoke a whole pack of cigarettes or hang out at the school’s café while, I, would share the teaching of Andrew Loomis and Glen Vilppu.

The second teacher has been trained at a tough russian fine art school and would instead draw with us and try her hardest to teach us life drawing but there is one big problem, she is a very good artist but she completely forgot what it means to begin in life drawing. Very often she would come to our easel making completely useless comments. “The proportions are off, imagine you saw that person in a restaurant, wouldn’t you be scared? can you see why is wrong now?”. Of course not! If I could i would correct it! Man this drove me nuts. Luckily once in a while, the ramblings would be followed by some amazing tips….

This week, she noticed I was really struggling drawing the subtle changes of shadow of the nose and asked me: “can you draw the nose without the nostrils?”…. well of course not and why would I? When you have two big black marks right in the middle of the face, why wouldn’t use them as landmarks?

After nearly 20 minutes of rambling and argument she eventually drew a simplified representation of the nose using shaded planes…. man THAT was useful! I had seen similar drawings in the Loomis books but completely forgot about it. If you can break down the face and probably the body in term of planes, things are so much simpler and you might not even need a model anymore.

Here we go, as Glen Vilppu would say, I have now got one more tool in my life drawing toolset alongside my knowledge of anatomy, proportions, volume and “academic observation”.

I just found a great link to most of the books you need for life drawing. Check out Alberto Ruiz’s amazing blog:

http://processjunkie.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html

“Shower power” short film

Posted on March 30, 2010 | 6 Comments
Filed under Animation, Animation Mentor, EA, Friends, Video Games

I just realized that I never featured my friend and (ex)coworker Dan Carrey!!!

Here is his short film. “Shower Power”
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/9982267[/vimeo]

You will also find Dan’s showreel on his website
http://www.bluepencil.org.uk/DanCareyShowreel09.mov

We definitely had a bunch of top animators at Rare. Here is also Peer Lemmers showreel if you didn’t know his work:
http://www.chicop-animation.com/demoreel.htm

My current animation lead, Neil Parkinson, is also a very inspiring animator/modeler/rigger/concept artist. Don’t be surprised about the crazy amount of skills, all my coworkers are Jacks of all trades at EA which can be a bit overwhelming sometimes.

Neil is currently finishing rendering his short film so in the meantime check out his reel:
http://www.neilparkinson.com/

Well while I am at it. I think I should also feature our local concept artist Burt Ross. Ross is a crazy Scottish guy who can be pretty loud when he plays Fifa at lunch. He also happens to be really talented at what he does, namely Concept art and Storyboards.