Box sliding on ice
Back to the basics again with a simple box sliding on ice.
Author: admin
One more model started
One night I saw the very cool looking character above and decided to model it on the spot. I keep hearing people talking about taking breaks from the computer but for me the problem is more about concentration than breaks. My girlfriend Alicia couldn’t believe it but I told her I would stay awake till late ;-). It has been 5 hours so far, let’s see how long it takes me to finish this guy.
Sculpture class old stuff unfinished
Here is a selection of work I did for the past few years in my little spare time. I always wanted to finish them at home but they usually end up drying on the shelves and break. Before throwing them away I thought it would be a good idea to keep a record of them. I don’t remember the name of the models and I feel terribly bad about it.
I uploaded a recent portrait some time ago Amanda
I completly forgot about that portrait until I found it hidden in a corner of a room. This portrait is one of my best. I am very pleased with the general shape of it. The foundations for a good portrait are already in place, I would just need to shape the eye lids and the ears and call it done. Pay attention to the sternocleidomastoid this is the stuff that will make a portrait more believable
For that one I had in mind to have a tiny woman on a huge plain box. I never closed entirely the box and the head fell on the floor hence the flat skull 😉
I don’t really enjoy poses where the model lays flat but I found that one very interesting at least for the lower part of the body. I really wanted to finish this piece but with no model it is always difficult and it ended up drying then crack. Too bad
That one could have been a very nice piece. As often for a full body I started to refine the legs, bum and back until the session finished.
I saw the light
Today was the kick off for the European Animation Mentor gathering and let me tell you something….. This first day was AWWWWESOMMMEE 😉
We started by a 2 hours visit of Passion Picture, then Smoke and Mirrors, followed by MPC and ended by Double Neg. Now as Character animators what do you think was the highlight of the day? Passion Picture? Close but not exactly that 😉
Remember Animation Podcast number 10 and 11? Eamonn Butler, Disney’s Animation Supervisor on Chicken Little and Dinosaurs? Does this ring a bell. Well if you have a good memory you remember that he surprisingly left Disney to try different things?
Guess what? He now works for London based Double Negative!
Instead of giving us a simple studio tour he pretty much gave us a full animation lecture showcasing some of their recent work!
I lost a bit faith when I realised I wouldn’t be able to get an US visa that easily but having Eamonn Butler in London is a bit like having Brad Bird in town so I am not too worried anymore. Let’s just stay in London then!
Blue guy wireframe
Here is a set of pictures of the blue guy in wireframe in order to get some comments from my peers modelers. Let me know if you see some weired edge flow.
Keith’s post “Breakdown can be such a drag”
I read that one quickly few days ago but it resurfaced on my screen today thanks to Aja’s post on AM forum.
If you have read Keith tutorial on “Organized Keyframing” (refered as Pose to Pose tutorial by some) and don’t visit his website regularly, then you might have missed something very important:
His new Free web tutorial.
This is now the most important animation material for CG artists and everything you will ever need to know is there.
“Don’t reinvent the wheel, learn from 2d animation” I keep repeating myself.
You might as well jump onto Victor Navone’s new tutorial
As a summary, when planning your shots, think about the 12 principles again, think about what leads the motion, what settles first, where is the anticipation, and build all those informations in your poses. Drags, overlap must read clearly in your blocking.
After those 2 great posts, we have no excuse to do crappy animations.
Back to 3dmax
Since I started AM I had to give up on many things and 3d modeling is one of them. Since we are at the last week of class3 I finally found a bit of time to work on this little guy. The design is from Daniel Martinez Lara www.pepeland.com from his short “Changes” which I highly recommend.
I am pretty much done with the head and will probably start the rest of the body tomorrow night. If anyone is interested I used the edge loop workflow with the basic 3dmax7 tools.
Class 3 Last Q&A
Robbie’s impression of Princess Fiona
This Q&A was the last one, the longest one to the point of nearly getting booted out by the website and the funniest ever.
We had the frustrating echo problems again but we got to hear Robbie sing a song at the guitar then do an impression of Princess Fiona. Michelle went through everyone’s work for this term except for the missing in action Salem. Carmelo couldn’t stay too long because of his TV work and eventually got booted out from the website just before his turn.
Too bad I didn’t manage to record Robbie’s song, it would have easily ended up on Youtube.
I want to thank Michelle for this great term and all my classmates. I was with most of you since Class1 and will miss you dearly for the next 3 month. Luckily some of use use Skype and the flashmeetings to stay in touch.
This term didn’t go according to plan once again but with Keith Lango’s training I should be ready to kick some butts by January. This break will allow me to strengthen my animation workflow but also to go back to modeling and lighting in my favourite package and also to get back to life drawing and sketching.
I am hoping to come back very strong and even have my own character designs for the Short Class.
Rock on!
First acting shot blocking +
Here is the blocking+ for my first acting shot. Except the mouth open/close we don’t have any facial controller yet. He is supposed to be holding a towel with the right hand but I don’t really know how I am gonna go about that yet.
