Hey Sam, I posted!

SO work is finished and computer built, all that is left now is to get working!

Seasonal Job

Its been a while since I posted so I wanted to just show that I am still alive and kicking. I check both my email and this blog almost everyday even though I have nothing to post. I managed to get a small seasonal job to hold me over till I get my license and it took me a while to get used to working once again(you know, body fatigue, sleep deprivation, and overall a zombie state of mind) but I seem to be waking up and with D day coming soon, (getting my drivers license) I need to have my resume and web page all updated so I can really start on my job search.

Hopefully I'll have some new stuff to post soon.

Sort of...

I managed to find a job at a publishing company, which means I am not going to be having as much time on my hands as I have been. So I have decided to post up my new website even though I am not entirely sure of the new concept. I will try fixing it up more once it has been updated. My main goal is to make a site that is easier to update then the one I have now. I don't like having to redo my site in photoshop, then transfer it to dreamweaver whenever I want to update. So hopefully I can make something a bit more update friendly this time around.

More concepts

So I spent this morning making a few more web page concepts based on the lighthouse silhouette. I think I am going to try and come up with a few more concepts not based on that piece just to see what I can come up with.

Web Site

Its been a while since I posted, but I really haven't had much to put up. I have been experimenting a lot with painting and have to say I still need some practice, but overall I am happy with how much I am learning and how each different piece seems to get better and better.

I have also been trying to come up with some new concepts for my web page. It's been really hard with no one to ask opinions from and to bounce ideas off of, but I guess that's just what happens when you leave that art school environment. I have mostly decided to go with the lighthouse theme, it's just setting up the page the way I want and coming up with a look for it. So you might be seeing a few posts of my ideas for that coming up a lot as I brainstorm over it.

Bubbleing Fish

My big hard drive was fixed after it stopped working, that's a relief. So now I can still continue with my lighthouse piece.

I have been watching a lot of tutorials on flash but I can't seem to find any beginners ones on animation, or at least on the things I can't seem to figure out. A lot of the basic beginners tutorials out there have to be payed for. So I have been doing a lot of self teaching and a whole lot of scratching my head in frustration. That fish scene might take longer then I thought it would unless I can figure out how to merge my separate animated images into one scene. If it comes down to it I will just have to animate everything in the one file....but that will be annoying if I want to do any resizing or moving in the final picture. I know it can be done, I have done it before in my flash class...but I seem to have forgotten.

Ahh well, here is a simple looping animation of the fish bubbler.

Fishtank

The job search is taking a it longer then I want, mostly because there is a lack of studios in my area to apply to. So I decided I need to revamp my portfolio and web page and fast. I want to make a generalist 3D reel and add a graphic design page to my site. Actually I want to redesign my site entirely to something a bit more simplistic.

I also started working on an idea for a small flash project I want to do. Its just an image with a small looping animation. Hopefully I can get it done before this weekend. The 3D clock pendulum scene has run into a few problems with the volume fog and the chain rigging. I am going to have to play with that a bit more before I get it right.

Anywho, here are some concepts I did for the flash picture, I hope it comes out as cute as I see it in my head.

Chains

I finally graduated and got home. Unfortunately it has been a bit hectic with moving back and getting a new car. Not to mention all the family get together for the 4th of July. Hopefully it is now all over so I can get back to getting some work done.

I got this idea for a simple piece that could show off some good lighting skills. Its just a pendulum from a clock chained to the ground, sort of a 'stopped time' concept. One of the first things besides sketching out the concepts that I needed to do was find a good tutorial for making chains. I did manage to find one and as I figured there is a very easy way of making them. The tutorial even shows how to rig them for easy posing. I am going to have to play around with the chains a bit to see what is the easiest way to pose them and wrap them around objects, but all and all it seems my scene is going to be simple to model. Its just the lighting that is going to really be difficult.

The tutorial is by Mike Nuts and can be found at 3dvalley.com.

Demo Reel

So here it is, the most final of my demo reel to be displayed at portfolio review. I can't say that I like it, actually I have watched it so many times that I hate it. Even so I am still a little proud if it.

Of course I want to redo it...but that's for later, to many other things that need to be finished first.

Graduation Blues

Been a bit busy getting things together for portfolio review so I haven't had much time to work on projects. What free time I do have has been going to watching the first season of Batman Beyond that I had bought a few days ago(I love that show).

I ran into a few bumps on the Lighthouse piece, mainly with procedural textures on the dock. I will have to look up some tutorials on wood textures or something because I really don't want to have to go and texture every plank on that dock separately. I had never planned on texturing the dock to begin with so it has lots and lots of pieces and that would just be annoying to have a photoshop file for each. I could save some time by only making a few files and just rotating them around and such, but it would still be a lot of work, and I should really learn procedural textures.

This is an older piece I am going back and revisiting. I want to try and texture him, though he wasn't modeled that well so I am wondering if I should just start from scratch on him.

Lighthouse

I made a light house a long time ago. I decided to finally try and texture it. Its coming out OK...though I have a lot to learn about unwrapping.

Slashed

So I decided to cut out one of the lip syncs from my demo reel. It was a hard decision, but I think that the audio I chose turned out to be a whole lot more animated then the character was. I might go back and try to redo it with a different rig, one that stretches more and doesn't look as stiff as the LoMax character comes across. It always looked like a wooden doll to me, I think that is why I have such a hard time making it look lifelike.

Pictures in Stone

A friend and I wandered around the city taking pictures of some of the cool looking architecture. I think I might take my old SLR camera and go back and retake some of these with black and white film. There is just something about real black and white photos that really capture the texture of a picture.

Animal Sketches

Some pages for my flatwork port. I just found a whole bunch of animal drawings I had done a while ago. Looking at these reminds me on how much I need to work on line quality. I hate when some people can draw a scribble and it still looks like the most amazing scribble in the world, and then there are people, like me, who try to draw something and it just looks like a plain 'ole scribble.

Yeah...yet another thing for the 'to do list.'

Hallway

So I finally put textures on that hallway scene and mostly have the lights figured out. I am thinking it is still to dark in the back, but with my textureing job there are worse parts to the piece. I'm not to happy with how it came out, maybe I will have to revisit it for a 3rd time.

Modeing

So I decided that the first thing I am going to do after graduation is make a generalist demo reel. I figure that most of the companies that are willing to hire a just out of school no experience animator are smaller companies that are probably going to be looking for a more well rounded artist. So I have been scavenging around my files for 3D models. Just today I went back to my dolphin boat render and redid the textures and made a camera rotation for it.

Another Run Cycle

I didn't get much done over the weekend except working on a really old scene that I had wanted to fix up. I'll put some renders of it up tomorrow once I get the volume lights looking a little better. I also got some gesture drawings done and took a few photos of the buildings around the city. It was a fun trip...except for the sunburn.

And here is a quick run cycle I did...its a bit rough, but it was nice practice. I need to work more on run/walk cycles.

That Bar Scene

I have been working on this bar scene animation on and off for months now and every time I go back to it there seems to be more things that need fixing. I can at least say that the animation itself is finished as far as getting the story down. Now it's just a matter of going back and exaggerating and fixing all those issues that I never noticed before.

Since I started this animation so long ago many of the problems come from the fact that I have learned so much since I started. I have been temped just to start from scratch and reanimate the whole scene. Unfortunately my demo reel is due next week so I really don't have the time to do that. Maybe I can try redoing it sometime in the future. It would be interesting to see how much I have improved.

Surfur Girl

So I was scrambling around trying to gather all my doodles, drawings, scribbles and any other flatwork I could find. I ripped all the pictures off the walls and scoured all the sketchbooks I had from the past few months trying to put a decent flatwork portfolio together. I still don't have any decent gesture drawings, though I have plenty of animal sketches.

I put together a bunch of my surfer girl drawings, she seems to be everywhere in my sketchbooks at the moment.

Squirrely Rig Jump

I decided to play with the Squirrely Rig by Josh Burton. It's a pretty nice rig and the character is very cute. I did a simple jump test with him, the tail needs some smoothing out but it was a lot of fun to make.

Beginner Tutorials

I tried another of those really beginner tutorials from 3DTotal (The Basic Modeling Techniques in 3ds Max tutorial by Michael Bauer) to see if I could learn anything. I figure I need to know the basics before I can really move on. I was happy to find out that the tutorial pretty much covered things I already knew, though it did show me a few ways of getting certain things done quicker and easier, which it always a plus.

Textureing Troubles

I need to learn how to unwrap and texture. I tried making a simple scene so I could practice, but it seems teaching myself better texturing skills is going to be a much bigger project then I originally assumed.

It's going to have to be an 'after graduation' thing...

Falling In deeper.

I think the one problem with critiques is the more you get the more work that needs to be done. It seems everyone has their own take on things and how things should be done. More then that though is that the more people you show your demo reel the more problems people seem to find in it. At this rate these animations will never be done.

But as I once heard from someone who obviously had experience in these types of matters, "Animators never usually finish anything, they just run out of time."



I managed to add some simple animation to my credits scene. The animation is only on half the screen because the other half will be black for the text to go on. If I get the chance I will try to animate it more, but I think this scene is at the very bottom of the 'to do list.'

The Sneak

So I started working on this last week. I have most of it down, it's just the second part of that turn I can't seem to get right.

Jotting

Welcome to The Jot, my personal blog made to keep track of my daily doings.