Lost in translation (layout refined)
Here is a new layout pass with few camera changes and animation tweaks so the story is a bit clearer
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/16200084[/vimeo]
Category: Portfolio
Chico Chica Boumba
It is really annoying when for NDA reason your only showreel is a very old one that doesn’t reflect your current skills but it is even more annoying when you realise that you kept sending your old showreel despite the NDA being lifted month ago!
A year ago, I got to work on a really exciting pilot for a french TV series with a bunch of seriously talented artists. Chico Chica Boumba is a 52×3’30mins produced by Angouleme based studio “2minutes” and directed by “Intervalists” Cédric Babouche.
Working on that pilot was a bit of a shock at first, with all those squash and stretch, smeared frames, the style of animation was radically different from anything I had done before and the pace was so much faster but having some very experienced french TV animators working with me made the experience a lot easier. The show is very funny, the songs and voice over very catchy but more than anything it has that french visual flair I was hoping to be part of one day.
Without further due here is the pilot for Chico Chica Boumba, sorry I only have the french version. There has been a bit of editing on my shots and I will post the original ones later on.
Ah by the way, the first season is in full production and I am back in Angouleme to finish it.
Related post:
Back from Angouleme
Chico Chica Boumba teaser
“Listen Philbin”
While polishing the spine of Bishop in that shot I realised that I had completely lost the original acting idea and I would probably be better off restarting from scratch but I still think it is still worth posting it.
Yes the right forearm intersects with the body and the left hand is still really rough, I have never said it was finished! 😉
Spare Parts Gameplay
so we have a new gameplay trailer, a poster and a Facebook page!
ah I wish you could see the cutscenes…..
Related posts:
Spare parts” interview
Spare Parts E3 2010 teaser
WIP showreel
Edinburgh Fringe festival
For my coworker and environment artist extraordinaire John’s birthday, we went to the Edinburgh Fringe festival this week end. The town is soo pretty that I will have to come back and do more architectural drawing.
Back from California
With my hero Mike
I just came back from California and I am completely jet-lagged 😉
This is the second time I visit San Francisco and Los Angeles but having been invited to visit some of my favourite animation studios made the trip much more special.
I had decided to focus mainly on my sketching skills this time and try to apply what I learnt during the past seven month. My knowledge in anatomy and proportion combined to 7 month of intense life drawing practice helped me to make the most of those very long journey on bus and subway. The Santa Monica/Downtown LA journey was probably the most fruitful since people tend to quickly fall asleep and not pay attention to that one guy with dark glasses and hat screwed on his head, frenetically moving a pen on a tiny notepad, in a corner, at the back of the bus 😉
If I lived in LA, I think I would take the bus everyday, the passenger always presented amazing features to capture and every ethnicity and age range was on display.
Here are some drawings and pictures from my trip. I had brought some watercolours but eventually decided against using them. I didn’t want to ruin the sketches with poorly chosen colours. I need more experience with those however….. the reason why some of the sketches don’t have any shading, is because I still intend to colour them at some stage 🙂 I just found a great video tutorial with Jason Seiler that could prove useful. Jason Seiler/Schoolism
Forgive the poor line work, I was using a cheap Bic cristal and those don’t allow much thick and thinness. I had in mind to buy Glen Villpu’s favourite Namiki Falcon fountain pen but at $180 a pop at Flax, I eventually decided against it. It is only $120 online. Still very expensive for a fountain pen but the nib is really really flexible.
Here we go, that’s it. Enjoy
[ps] if you don’t know Matt Jones, check out his work, he has some really nice sketches on his blog
http://mattjonezanimation.blogspot.com/
Related post:
Sketchcrawl material
Light and colours
I came across some Dice Tsutsumi‘s Toy Story3 color script thumbnail this week end and was blown away by his understanding of colours and lighting!!!! As rought as they are, all the information is there for the lighters to start their work. Amazing stuff. This guy is a rendering engine equipped with all the radiosity features you can dream of!
Check out the subtle nuances in the shadows, the reflected light under the chin of Buzz and Woody, the contrast between cold and warm hues.
This made me want to go back to oil painting and experiment with those things on Monday. This is only my third painting so please forgive the basic technique. I am pretty much self taught. I spent most of the time on the right shoulder, trying to get the highlight and reflected light. The model kept moving so I wasn’t able to do much work on the legs. Really enjoyable!
Related post:
Lines and colors
Game showreel 2010 wip
Game showreel 2010 / Quicktime H264, NTSC, 11Mo
Well since some of my work has gone public with the release of the Spare Parts trailer, why not create a new temporary game showreel!? 😉
You will find it in the Showreel section of my blog
http://www.olivier-ladeuix.com/blog/portfolio/
Disclaimer:
No motion capture data was harmed in the making of that video.
EA “Spare Parts” teaser
Spare parts EA
The teaser for the game I am currently working on at EA Brightlight is finally online. You can even find a HD version on Gametrailers!
This game and the team I am working with are awesome. I have only been in the game industry for few years but making a downloadable XBLA/PSN game is probably the closest thing to what it was back in the mid 80s/90s. Unlike the 70 and upward teams most games require nowadays, in a project of that size, every team member can truly participate to the direction of the game.
All the character animation has been done by Neil, my lead animator, and myself.
Related posts:
Lee Sullivan
“Shower Power” shortfilm
Working at EA Brightlight
Life drawing obscurantism
Some time ago, my friend Annes sent me a link to a different Life Drawing class that I would possibly enjoy more than the one I am currently attending and everything finally made sense.
In life drawing, there seem to be a predominant “school of thought” that believes in learning by pure academic observation. That “London Atelier of Representational Art” (LARA) in Clapham Junction, even goes to the extreme of forcing you to draw using a “Sight-size method”. As they describe it, here is how it works:
“the artist first sets a vantage point where the subject and the drawing surface appear to be the same size. Then, using a variety of measuring tools – which can include strings, sticks, mirrors, levels, and plumb-bobs – the artist draws the subject so that, when viewed from the set vantage point, the drawing and the subject have exactly the same dimensions.”
I think “academic observation” is very valuable when drawing from the model but as Glenn Villpu implies it in his theory and instructional material. This is just, one tool!
How long is it going to take you to finally be able to work as an animator, illustrator, storyboard artist and draw from imagination then? Years and years and years and years!
Why not instead, add more tools to your toolset. Why no try to understand the underlying structure of the figure? What about learning proportions and the different parts of the skeleton but also the few muscles that shape the surface of the skin? How to represent the figure in simple geometric shapes?
What about learning … the Structure!
The big problem with the “Academic observation” approach is that you only discover the elements of the structure through experiencing them, this can take a very long time. It is what I would call “brute force life drawing” teaching. But there is a smarter way!
K. Anders Ericsson, Ralf Th. Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Romer published a great paper a while ago, about “the Role of deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance”. The paper is a bit dry so you would be forgiven to skip to something a bit more approachable and that great article from CNN called “The secret of greatness”.
What those articles try to demonstrate is the importance of having a plan when learning and focus your practice on specific areas. This is what they call “Deliberate practice“. “Brute force” learning is great but it is definitely not the deliberate practice sort of approach.
Where can we learn about structure? well Glenn Villpu is the obvious start, then all the AWESOME blogs, Dreamworks storyboard artist and life drawing teacher, Rad Sechrist, is part of!
Rad How To
Analytical figure drawing
Advance figure drawing
The Art Center
Reading those blogs and learning what is on display should help you improve tenfolds!
I would also recommend Andrew Loomis pdfs as a start actually and this great 1890 book by french Dr Paul Richer
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k205846w.planchecontact.r=richer.f145.langEN where he shows the relationship of the head height to the rest of the body.
To finish this post, here are my two last drawings from my thursday class:
Contains nudity
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