Makin' Stuff Move

Character!

2011-09-10T04:32:00.000-07:00

I can’t not do a post on these. These short movies contain character on a level that most Hollywood movies struggle with today – even with all the fancy CG, score music, celebrities, without a sense of true character and heart even the biggest action scene means absolutely nothing. - just click the images below.

"Audiences are less intrigued, honestly, by battle. They're more intrigued by human relations. If you're making a film about the trappings of the period, and you're forgetting that human relationships are the most engaging part of the storytelling process, then you're in trouble."

Ridley Scott

Jeremy Love

2011-08-04T16:07:00.000-07:00

Here is another one of our concept artists I feel lucky enough to work with, Jeremy Love. Whose work , im sure you will agree, is incredible. Very inspiring stuff!! - just click the image below.

James P Brouwer

2011-03-25T04:41:00.000-07:00

This guys work is kickass, highly recommend popping over to his blog to see his goodies.... great poses and designs. Now all i need to do is get as good as him... hmmm (gonna take a while!)

Pencil Test Blog - the goodness!!!

2010-11-23T18:58:00.000-08:00

This right here is an incredible blog dedicated to animation pencil tests!! Its a real treat getting to see the raw drawings of some of the most celebrated animation in history - its like looking into the mind of the animator. Enjoy!!

Pencil Test Depot

That Rigging Malarky

2010-10-02T04:56:00.000-07:00

Yup its true, I have a weird taste for rigging – while im not particularly advanced I enjoy building virtual machines which come to be the characters we animate. I’m insanely against bloated and slow rigs and believe that a good rig should be expressive, relatively fast in realtime, and simple to animate.

Here is a little test video of my latest facial rig, this is by no means anything fancy. There are no expressions, no fancy node set-ups… this is simply the combination of joints and blendshapes connected through set-driven-keys. The real challenge has been trying to make the deformation as appealing as possible when posing. More testing needed, body rig to come…

I’d also like to thank Andy Thomas, Josh Burton and Dan Harris for their advice and encouragement along the way – thank you guys!!

click me

Back to the madness.

Gobelin Animation

2010-09-01T05:43:00.000-07:00

Damn, I love these guys – what they produce is just outstanding. The simplicity in character design, yet it has such beautiful movement. A lesson to us all - keeping it simple at every layer of development, and bringing these layers together helps to reach a true sense of depth and dimension.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6ZmMjMdrqs

Superb Rig by Josh Burton

2010-09-01T05:35:00.000-07:00

If you’re like me, don’t have much of a life, strange looking and find yourself back on maya animating evenings and weekends – but unable to find a decent free rig, so you try making your own, only to break down in a fit of frustration – crying and screaming and then you accidently run over your neighbour’s cat because your too distressed at the thought of reskinning for the billionth time because maya’s tools are poo?!?! Well look no more… this is an incredible free rig! Especially great if you’re learning animation and need a decent rig to cut your teeth on (or like to learn rigging and enjoy looking what’s under the hood). Plus check out the site for other hidden gems such as Josh’s development on the rig, how he has approached and solved problems and various useful scripts.

If you do happen to use this to some degree, and able to spare a few pennies then please drop a small donation via the link, the time invested in a rig of this quality is enormous. Thank you Mr Josh!

http://journal.joshburton.com/

Express yourself !!

2010-04-22T08:57:00.001-07:00

Sometimes its easy to forget that animation, much like many other art is expression... its ideas...and most of all its opinion. When planning an animation, either to dialog or a mime, we are fundamentally making a statement about how we perceive and understand (creatively) the driving force of the scene and its characters. Its a little like writing a visual diary. Of course, its important not to go off willy-nilly expressing anything and everything… we need to be selective, and faithful to the scene / movie /story / character, but if there is ever a moment when you are given the opportunity to freely express what you feel – grab it! This is why many artists tend to have personal projects on the go - never underestimate the importance and fun of exploring your own ideas and opinions. Recognise that your artistic path does not have to be the same as everyone else’s. This can help us to develop our own personal style and flavour, and make our work unique. So if you have a good idea, or an interesting opinion.... say it loud and animate it proud – because who knows, it may be the next best thing.

Finished: Shower Power

2010-03-31T01:34:00.000-07:00

Well i guess i really should post this up on my blog by now. This is the completed version of my short movie Shower Power. I must thank the guys for all the wonderful responses ive had so far and i was even lucky enough to be feature on Bobby Becks blog. Its usually pretty tough squeezing these projects into our personal life but i found if you pick something that truely gets the animation jazz playing in your own mind – its a little easier to see it through to the end. Enjoy!!

Whats to Come for 2010...

2010-01-01T09:07:00.000-08:00

Greetings and Happy New Year to you ;) How to go into the new year with a bang? Rendering and fighting maya I tell you! I’m sure there is a better way but if your like me, strange, weird and a sucker for the keyframes then this picture below may give you some idea of where ive been for most of the holiday. It’s a little silly I know, but heck – its just animation ;)

Still some development to come, animation fixes, sound design, water effects… all that madness.

Changes in the wind...

2009-07-23T03:23:00.000-07:00

changes changes... much has happened since my last post (10billions years ago). Firstly, Animation Mentor Graduation. Thats right folks, i made it to the end - and what a ride. As anyone who does animation will tell you its never easy but the rewards can be great. To finally meet my fellow students face to face was a real treat. I was lucky enough to pick up the award for Best Silent Acting, it briefly crossed my mind to do a mime for my speech but nerves had taken hold and reduced me to a stiff lump of wood. But in all seriousness the experience was incredible, and the AM events were full of heart and enthusiasm as always. There is something very special about meeting so many optimistic artists and mentors, great memories indeed and certainly more to come. During my visit I was also fortunate to get a tour and lunch at Dreamworks - what can i say to that?!?! - incredible! quite literally amazing, and once again i thank all who made that tour possible.

The second piece of good news, i'll be starting over at Double Negative this September. These guys are one of London's biggest VFX studios having done work on Hell Boy2, Dark Knight, Harry Potter... and more. Starting with 30 people and grew to 500 employees its definitely going to be a change from the small teams im used to in games, but i nervously and eagerly await the challenge! That's does mean i have to say goodbye to my buddies at Rare, who i'll miss dearly. Rare gave me my first shot as a professional animator for which i'll always be thankful for, i really do wish them all the best in their future endeavours. Goodbye my friends, but im sure we will meet again.

Animatic Madness...

2009-03-10T04:46:00.001-07:00

Hey chaps, just a quick post of my final animatic for my short. It was great fun doing this, so much so that i plan on doing a little 2d animation sometime after AM. Getting back into the swing of drawing is such a refreshing change in a world of 3d animation, for granted these are hardly amazing sketches but i hope it sells the vibe and feel of short. Enjoy! (hopefully...)

Linky Link

New Reel

2009-02-26T04:10:00.000-08:00

Its been a while... partly because no one really reads my gibberish, which is probably down to my lack of posts – its a circle of madness. None-the less, here is my latest showreel....as Wall-E would say "ta-dar!"

Next on the list is my graduation short, and if im honest – i have never been nervous about doing an animation until now. Its got to be good or thats 6months of work wasted.

Ideals!

2008-07-22T08:24:00.001-07:00

Its all about the idea guys... all about the ideas! Being able to animate at its most basic level is of course pretty essential, but once you have a grasp on these methods no amount of god like software (or drawing) skills will ever hide poor ideas or bad performance. Check out Matt Strangio's reel for an example of just how important ideas are - and the best part is, his first shot isn't even finished! A cracking character animation reel indeed.

Drawing voodoo!

2008-07-17T07:21:00.000-07:00

Ah its that question again... “why draw? I do 3D animation”. Oh so many moons ago, when i studied animation before Animation Mentor the industry was still focused on 2d, and that was the path i thought my future was going to take. So i signed up for a classical animation course which had a strong focus on life drawing for animators. Eventually the whole industry changed over, 3d animation came along and now seems to be the norm... but is there still and need for the fundamental drawing skills....... absolutely! It is true that you can get by in 3D without drawing, and there are plenty of top animators out there who do, however drawing would be something i strongly encourage you all to do. The real benefit is in posing, taking thing time to sit down and draw a person in a given pose is basically making you study that pose, how the body holds weight and energy..etc. This ability to deliver a clear and readable pose is one of the fundamental building blocks of good animation, and drawing helps you develop just that. Whenever i hit a moment where i can’t quite achieve a particular pose, the chances are is because i haven’t spent enough time studying it. So out comes the sketch book, and off i go. Perhaps the best part about drawing to develop your 3d animation skills is that no one actually has to see your drawings – they are just for you and your own development. Which is great, because if you’re like me and struggle with drawing then it doesn’t matter. What matters is the learning experience and the way you train your eye to see poses, which in-turn will help you deliver clear and precise posing in your 3D animation. Another benefit is after a little practice it will relax your mind, your analytical left hemisphere of your brain will switch off and the creative right side will kick in. In time this will help you reach that point of ‘zen’ where you stop consciously thinking and let the your creative actions guide you. (am i sounding like obi-wan yet?). So yes, drawing isn’t essential, but if posing is something you struggle with or you like to take some time out and let your mind just wander creatively – then i recommend giving drawing a go!

break stuff.

2008-04-22T01:32:00.000-07:00

I admit i have been pretty lazy at updating my blog of recent. None-the-less here i am... writing some gibberish or another. AM is moving on swiftly, and doing an 8 hour day in games then coming home to sit on the computer again is proving to be a little easier than I had imagined. I find the key is to make sure i’m animating shots which get me jazzed, this way after a working day of animation i still have enough energy to pull out some hours in the evenings. Every so often i still get hit by the ‘lazy bug’, but how do i get out of that? Watch some of my favourite films and it soon gets me buzzing. Or in some cases it’s just good to take a break and place myself in a situation where I’m unable to think of anything else, (this usually involves riding down a hill side avoiding rapidly approaching trees). I guess the truth is, we all need a break sometime or another – otherwise without it our little heads would probably pop.

The begining of the madness!

2008-02-23T04:23:00.000-08:00

Hello you amazing people. You have just entered my blog – and you are more amazing for doing so!

I set up this blog some months back before starting Animation Mentor so that i could document my progress along the way – its been some time now so i best get cracking! I’ll also post up some random other pieces connected with animation along the way.

Well i must admit for a long time i have wanted to do Animation Mentor but could never justify the cost. I had already been through the animation education system, studying traditional techniques and then onto finding work in the games industry. However, i found myself continuously hitting a brick wall with my animations. therefore I took the plunged – sold a kidney or 2 and signed up with AM, and I must say.... its very good indeed! Much like anything in life, you get out if it what you are willing to put in – it provides some great tuition if you are willing to invest the time. Students get taught by professional animators who continue to work in the industry – at top studios, are taught the ‘real’ principles of animation and its around half the cost of a super god-like university – i can’t argue with that.

Without further ado – here are some of my recent weekly assignments.