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Animator Roundtable part II

Posted on August 18, 2010  | Leave a Comment
Filed under Animation


It is now out! …. I just have to warn you that it is a bit shorter than the previous one 🙁

Dice Tsutsumi on the Chiustream

Posted on August 16, 2010  | 2 Comments
Filed under Painting

If you lost track of what is happening on the Chiustream, here is something you shouldn’t miss!

“Sketchtravel” co-creator, Totoro forest project co-initiator, Toy Story visual development artist Daisuke Tsutsumi (Dice) was very recently interviewed by Bobby Chiu on the Chiustream.

Dice is an incredible artist and I was amazed to hear that he also spend a lot of his free time painting and drawing from life. This makes a lot of sense as there is no other way to keep improving.

With Sharon Calahan, Bill Cone and the other “Early bird painters” they usually wake up around 5am to meet around 7 and go painting in the country side for a couple of hours before going to work.

Just as a reminder, Bobby Chiu also spend 2 to 4 hours every morning on very specific exercises in order to develop his skills.

As a bit of trivia, we learn that Dice is married to Ohayo Miyazaki’s niece which he met when they were 6 years old.

You might need to register to watch the video but you will also have access to Peter deSeve, Aaron Hartline and other top artist’s interviews.

By the way, I just came back from the Edinburgh Fringe festival in Scotland and did a bunch of sketches which I will post very soon. I still haven’t had time to learn watercolour so don’t expect anything too fancy yet.

Related post:
Light and colours

BAFTA Young game designers

Posted on August 11, 2010  | 1 Comment
Filed under EA, Video Games

My buddies game designer Gary Napper and concept artist Burt Ross got recently interviewed about the game industry and their role in the game development process. Check that out, you will see some of the earlier concept from “Spare parts” and Ross  look really sexy in that familiar Tshirt 😉

Back from California

Posted on August 9, 2010  | Leave a Comment
Filed under Drawings, Portfolio

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

Pixar motion blur

Posted on August 3, 2010  | 1 Comment
Filed under Animation, Education

Historically there are only two types of motion blur, 2d and 3d. The 2d one is post processed and the  3d one is done at rendertime. 3d motion blur is much more accurate but takes a lot of time to render.

Two years ago, Doug Sweetland gave a talk at Annecy where he explained how much effort it took to achieve a good looking motion blur and I would like to share with you some screenshots I took a while ago.


Nicolas Marlet workshop!!!

Posted on August 3, 2010  | 2 Comments
Filed under Character design

Character Design blogpost just announced a new training and workshop with Dreamworks Character Designer Nicolas Marlet, check this out

http://characterdesign.blogspot.com/2010/08/who-wants-to-watch-nicolas-marlet.html

Megamind Comic-Con trailer

Posted on August 3, 2010  | Leave a Comment
Filed under Animation

After visiting the San Francisco branch of Dreamworks yesterday and getting to see a bit more of the story, I am getting very excited about Dreamworks next feature “Megamind”.

The movie is only coming out in November but they just released some new footage for the San Diego Comic-Convention.

Watching that trailer still won’t reveal the entire plot but at least you will get introduced to a new character that will take a very important part in the movie. Check this out

Available for work

Posted on July 22, 2010  | 2 Comments
Filed under Animation

I am reaching the end of my contract at EA Brightlight and “Spare parts” is looking great, getting an amazing response from the press. I have been putting a lot of hours into the cutscenes this week and with the sound, compositing and full environment they will look amazing. At 800 MS points or $10 on PSN, I think you should buy the game for the cutscenes alone!! 😉

My current contract is finishing mid Septembre and I have a one month notice so if you know a company doing cartoony games, TV series or even animated feature and looking for an animator with generalist skills in Maya, direct them to my showreels and portfolio section!

I am flying to LA and San Francisco on saturday but will be back the second week of August.

Thank you!

Christopher Meledandri interview

Posted on July 22, 2010  | Leave a Comment
Filed under Animation, Business of animation

I just found that very interesting interview of “Despicable Me” (DM)’s producer Christopher Meledandri. Some very familiar names popped up! Alright we knew that co-director Pierre Coffin was “Pat and Stan” creator but did you know that the original idea was from Sergio Pablos? Did you know that the character design had been handled by no less than Ratatouille character designer Carter Goodrich??? and yes “Lorax”, an other Dr Seuss book adapted for cinema release has finally been announced.

Check this out

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=67456

The movie has finally reached $145M after only 2 weeks by the way. No bad when you take in consideration that it is fighting for screens with Shrek 4 and Toy Story 3.

Related posts:
“Despicable me” triumph

“Spare parts” interview

Posted on July 22, 2010  | 1 Comment
Filed under EA, Video Games

Our game designer Gary Napper just came back from San Francisco where he presented our game “Spare parts” to reporters. Want to find out what “Spare Parts” is about?

The robots at the bottom in the background are performing some of my “idle animations” by the way.

Oh there is also an other video with more gameplay on Gaming Truth
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0xFmgtthMo[/youtube]

Related posts:
“Spare parts” WIP showreel
EA “Spare parts” E3 teaser

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