Working on new demo reel.

 Just a few shots and some rendering away from having a completely new demo reel in the next few weeks. Thought I'd put this fun shot out there for people to see in the mean time.

Also, still tinkering some more Doctor Who sprites, and will be animating one shortly. Finding myself drawn to the baddies of the series, it'll be Prisoner Zero... and probably the Atraxi soon afterward.

There's a crack in the world.

Finished Animation Mentor a few weeks ago, and I took a bit of a break from finishing my new demo reel to play video games--League of Legends has begun to consume my waking life.

The Tardis to your left is my first attempt at doing some pixel art---well, not 'the' first but the first one anybody gets to see.

I'd never cared much for Dr. Who in the past, and only remember being confused by the few random episodes I've watched as a child. But the roommate, Vince, indoctrinated my into Series 5 with the 11th Doctor and I'm now completely hooked. Don't know how he stacks up against past Doctors, but I dig Matt Smith.

Now, it's back to working on the reel so I can find animation work someday soon. And, it goes without saying, more Dr. Who sprites are forth coming.

Back to School Progression 2

 Been a few months since I've posted, mainly because I wanted to get the final version of my first assignment done for chronology. I'm near the end of a visit home to Saskatchewan to visit family and I'll get the last two of shots up after this weekend, once I get back to Vancouver and render them out. Don't think I'll go as in depth with the process of my other assignments---unless there's any demand.

The workflow for the other two assignments were not completely dissimilar to this first one, so I would be repeating myself a fair bit. I keep trying to experiment and keep, or improve upon, what seems to be working.

At the end of this second last term, I find myself trying to work most specifically on polishing and getting from blocking into the animation portion of my shots while still being able to like what I've got. Believe me, it's more difficult then it sounds.



Hope everyone had a grand ol' holiday season!

Back to School Progression 1

It has been a few weeks, and I've decided to start logging my progression through the animation school I have left. Finding myself newly invigorated now that I'm back working on animation assignments for Animation Mentor, I'm putting as much time and into it as I can (without going a bit mad) to make sure that this time my demo reel will actually show the current extent of my ability. So far, I don't believe that my current reel does---and that's not just my emotional artist negativity speaking.

For this term we have three assignments to practice and showcase out ability with body mechanics & physicality. I've come up with three very different, fun ideas for the limited frame count we have to work with. The first of which is a shot with the Stewie rig provided by the school where the character's swinging a sword around like he's some hot stuff, then gets it caught in a stump.

The first things I always do when planning from scratch (without being provided story boards, script, or a story reel) is to verbally try to describe the scene and draw some staging thumbnails. I do this as the simplest form of trying to visualize the scene in my head and because I feel that if you cannot describe something simply, you probably aren't going to be able to easily animate it.

The next step was then to check out YouTube to see what kind of reference was already out there, like this clip here:

There's a ton of good stuff out there for understanding just how the body is moving during a sword strike, but it seemed to be either too rigid & instructional, or chaotic (and just a bit off). In stage fighting and movie clips, for instance, I know that the performers are actually trying to hit points just outside the other actors' bodies to prevent possible injury, so it was throwing me off a bit when studying the actions for anticipation & follow-through. Actors tend to stop before the end of  natural follow-through (effectively 'pulling their punches'), and would unconsciously look off to the side of what they would have us believe they are aiming for. One way they get around this in movies is by sometimes selectively cutting frames around an action (to really snap someone's head, or fist back) by removing that ease-out of action that slows a staged sword fight and keeps the performers from injuring one another.

So the next step was to figure out some choreography. I had a few simple beats I wanted to hit during the course of the shot: 1. Start away from the tree stump; 2. Focus on the stump; 3. Move within striking range; 4. Strike the stump, getting the sword caught it in; 5.  Have trouble pulling the sword out; and 6. Finally pull the sword out, launching it into the background---these last two I turned out not to have time for, so I came out with the idea to have my character hurt his hand when striking the stump as a quicker (and less common) reaction.

I recorded some video reference of me swinging around my badminton racket in our living room (trying very hard no to be anywhere near my roommate's awesome flat screen), and then compiled my favourite takes into one video file. From there I thumbnailed the most appealing actions, trying to narrow down some choreography and studying the movements. I had more then I needed, but that's better then having less then you needed (as you can really see in my first blocking pass, I didn't have enough thought into the idea to have his hand hurt when blocking and mostly fudged it since I was running late on time).

Finally, it was time to get down to business and I gathered my prop sword and stage, and built the stump. Then blocked it out!



It always takes me a fair bit of time to do the initial blocking all the way to the end. I find that if I don't key (and actually animate) every part of the body at this point, it just starts to cause problems later on when I'm not playing the video from pose to pose. This stage is all about planning ahead, and making sure I have a firm foundation to lay my animation onto. Mostly I found that I needed to have more poses on the sword swings, and some more action at the very beginning for people viewing this first pass. Plus, that sword sticking swing needed work.

Next, while fixing up the poses I had critique on, I added in my follow-through, ease-in/out, anticipation, and breakdown poses in. I also backed the camera off a smidge so that swinging the sword didn't break the frame (which I may do again slightly if this change in the next stage).



This stage takes a fair bit of work and decision making on a much more minute scale as I build from the core of motion up, through the body. Re-blocking is definitely when I really start to enjoy myself and get lost in the work because I'm not starting from nothing at all.

There wasn't a single previous pose that I left completely the same as the first attempt in blocking because, as I'm adjusting and adding poses around one, I will invariably need to adjust the original pose to slightly/much better fit the overall action I'm building. And this is something that I believe makes a piece of art stand out. When an artist becomes afraid of changing what they've done before, they're unable to be decisive on the minuscule scale needed to make an attention grabbing piece.

Anywho, enough of that. It's time to get back to it and finish off this shot this week. No more time for ramblings.

Aahhhhh ...Autumn.

Fall has finally hit Vancouver, and I'm enjoying the hell out of it!

Been back, after a few hiccups in the administration process, at AnimationMentor.com for a couple of weeks and it's enjoyable to get back into the swing of animation school. There should also be another post later this week to get some critiques for my first assignment's blocking, before I take the shot any further. I was definitely getting lazy when left to my own devices for projects and deadlines.

Not that I've just been sitting around, staring at the walls. And, although my roommates and I have a massive list of horror movies we want to get through this month, there's always something that needs getting done. Including trying out new ideas and techniques for digital painting (with varying results):

What to do... what to do....

Thinking really, really hard.

This past week has been fairly hectic and fun with Siggraph in town (I had to spend some time down there looking for the elusive secret to being invited to work with a studio) and some great friends came down to see my roommate, Vince, and I---which helped to make my new city feel a lot less lonely for a few days.

With all the goings on I didn't find myself answering the question I started out Siggraph with. Which is: "In which studio do I want to work?"

A huge shift from my attitude towards scaling this mountain of a career search when I first arrived in Vancouver, which was more along the lines of: "Who would have me?" Over this past month, and a bit, I've done my research, had an interview, or two, and have been lucky enough to speak with several people in different areas of the entertainment industry. And some of the stories told to me have opposing opinions about the same studios, which just leads me to believe that, mainly, studios just can't please everybody. That also may be another reason why I always encounter that wall of resistance when applying to a studio. Not only do they want to find a person who fits the position talent-wise, but you need to fit in at the studio.

It's hard to tell what goes on behind the curtain and who the people are that frequent the halls of your favourite studio. Even the 'behind the scenes' footage you see here and there is often a bit more cheerful then normal for public show. I was thinking about all this today while revisiting a video I had seen on youTube: 

These are clips to a short film produced by a japanese animation company (Studio 4ºC) played to a fun song. My personal favourite studios in japan are Studio 4ºC (who have done a miriad of different types of productions from shorts, to music videos and movies) and Madhouse (who have an even more ridiculously impressive list of productions) due to their unique graphic styles. Plus a gritty story coupled with general wackiness always seems to win me over. And if I were a 2D animator, I'd be spending my spare time learning japanese to apply to these two. But regardless of how much I enjoy the final products of these animation houses, it doesn't tell me anything about the day-to-day operations and people working there. For all I know all the majority of the staff there could want to be farmers, but just found that animation pays better.

Now that brings me to the best piece of advise I'd received at Siggraph, and that was to study the animation style of the studios I have my eye on then apply that to a clip for my reel. The big reason for this is that you may, perhaps, have an impressive animation reel but your style could be no where near what they are looking for. If that is the case, a studio may be more likely to choose someone closer to their established sensibilities. At some level I had understood this on my own, but only the most basic ideas: "Don't have characters swear when applying to studios who specialize in childrens' entertainment." or "Show physical movements to video game studios." After hearing this I have been spurned to finish up my newest animation clip, with many ideas for what to work on next.

I've also been told from several different sources that the only control I have in this type of employment search is over my show reel. It's about time I started to truely take that control to show people what I can, and want, to do. Even though I may not be entirely sure what, specifically, I require from a studio (having been an animator for a little more then a year is not long enough to know that); I find that just translates to having a greater amount of choices.

My Scary Vancouver Move

I've been talking about it for ages, and always knew I would make that leap out to Vancouver. Not only is it a good idea for someone who intends to work in the entertainment industry, like myself, but I've always been attracted to the coast.

For all my scheming and dreaming, once it really did come time to move I was caught by complete surprise. The opportunity arose when my friend, Vince, needed a roommate or else he would loose his place while I needed a place to start out in Vancouver. And, having moved to Calgary on my own right out of high school nearly twelve years ago, I know how valuable and rare it is to have a friend already in a new city.

Old apartment in Calgary.

Throwing all my stuff together in a U-Haul, and get my rump ready to go in under a month was a huge mental challenge for me since the normal trend is to analyze and over-think nearly everything I do. A combination of mental anguish and mini-panic attacks dotted my whole last month in Calgary.

And, now that I've had a few weeks in Vancouver to settle in, I look back. I'm amazed at how many little things just came together and worked to my benefit. Almost like I was supposed to move right then and there. Such an odd feeling.

Next on the master list is to prepare a new piece for my demo reel before Siggraph 2011 (right here in Vancouver), then getting prepped to finish my Animation Mentor studies, and, finally, to find work of some kind--not in that order. Preferably getting my foot in the door with an animation company right out of the gate.

New view from back porch.

 We will just have to see if I used my luck up in the move or not.