My final reel for MS:Animation 1

Right click and download! Please give me feedback!

http://www.designersfrommars.com/GRoss/final_revised_640x480.mov

Disco...Pt. 1

This will be my first attempt at doing a Satuday Night Fever walk cycle. I hope I'll be able to expand this into a few moves. First...the sexy steamroller!



cWalk17a on Vimeo



cWalk17 on Vimeo

Walk Cycles....

i never thought doing a 3d walk cycle could be so difficult! I'm trying to do a couple before my Tuesday class. I'm hoping the more of these I do, the better I get. I think it's called practice but I can't be sure...

I already did one for class and fell flat on my face. Here it is...don't ask what's going on...please...really...just....*sniff sniff*...you're so cruel....



walk2_12 on Vimeo

And here's my next shot. Getting better but still to poppy and not enough weight...practice practice!!!!



walk4_6 on Vimeo

UPDATE: I'm going to try to post some looped clips in a few days...sorry for the short clips!

Walk Cycles....

i never thought doing a 3d walk cycle could be so difficult! I'm trying to do a couple before my Tuesday class. I'm hoping the more of these I do, the better I get. I think it's called practice but I can't be sure...

I already did one for class and fell flat on my face. Here it is...don't ask what's going on...please...really...just....*sniff sniff*...you're so cruel....



walk2_12 on Vimeo

And here's my next shot. Getting better but still to poppy and not enough weight...practice practice!!!!



walk4_6 on Vimeo

Version with frame counter...

Here's a new version with a frame counter in the corner....let's see if it can be read. Converted the keys and working with smoothing it out. I found that the areas where I really tried to break down the curves in linear mode became kinda messy now. The areas where I had maybe two or three poses were much more manageable. I'll have to keep it simpler next time.

I'm running out of space on vimeo, so one of the previous posts might have to be deleted...no biggie.



caveRD3_curves3 on Vimeo

Another test....

So, just for the hell of it I decided to convert to curves a little early. I was surprised to see things working out quite well. I think animating this way is going to be easier for me cause it's more like drawing with paper. Working out the key poses, breaking it down...and then letting the computer do the uncomplicated inbetweening. Once I figure out a simplified work flow so I can do this at a good speed will make animating much easier...



caveRD3_curves1 on Vimeo

Next iteration....

Here's my next run. I switched it to linear keys to clean up my arcs...but there's still some "swimming" happening. 3d is so prone to the swimming effect I think most animators spend all their time just trying to get rid of it. Anyways, if you view it please e-mail me or comment. I'm cleaning up the arcs as we speak and I'll post my progress later tonite...



caveRD3_Linear4 on Vimeo

Starting over....

Sometimes it's better to start over from scratch. Redid the timing. Going to do an experiment and switch to linear to clean up my arcs before converting to splines....here's the stepped pass....please comment...



caveRD3_timing4 on Vimeo

Drawings....

Some stuff from Costume Carnival, my sketchbook and from class.
























UPDATE: I'm sorry about the quality of these images. They're mostly on my big drawing board and I don't have any way to photograph them without getting the shadow of the camera in there. I'll try to do some better ones and replace them. For now, please don't kill me!

Beautiful 2d animation I had nothing to do with....

Found them both on this site...a nice site for those of us who still love 2d animation...

http://handdrawnnomadzone.blogspot.com/

And here's some more animation by James Baxter. He's an awesome animatior that my friend Hanna pointed me too. I was such a Glenn Keane nut I didn't even know who this guy was! He's pretty awesome...

Banned Xbox 360 Standoff Ad

Banned xbox commercial. Funny and unsettling...

Sack Trap round two...

Here's the next iteration...so tired. Still trying to smooth it out. Then it's onto secondary action and offsetting things to loosen it up....



Sack2 on Vimeo

Sacky Trap -Rough Pass...

For critique...



Sacky rough2 on Vimeo

The Nutbra...

Not safe for work, but funny as hell!

http://www.devilducky.com/media/34116/

Recent drawings....

I posted some of my stuff from clothed figure drawing workshop and quick studies on my other blog. LINK

Here's some stuff from the first and second class of clothed figure drawing...I have some more recent stuff I'll post within a week.

Sacky Animation...

I need a critique on this...please do!



Sack Animation on Vimeo

Eyeball assignment

Had to do an eyeball assignment for class. I've had to do an assignment like this before and I hated it. For some reason though once I added the little green guy and the ball for a head the project became a whole lotta fun. Anyways, here it is.

Oh, my Dad has bugged me a lot about seeing my 2d stuff. I'll try to put some up within the week. The quality's not so hot, so I might have to recapture some of it. Patience....



Eyeballs... on Vimeo

BB Project...

Final to come later...



3 balls project. on Vimeo

Frank Miller's 300...The Movie....

It's hard to say what this movie is going to be like. The trailer itself leads me to believe it's going to be pretty faithful to the frank miller novel, but anyone who knows the story is aware that it has some flaws. I hope they make at least a few changes to it.

They did go the bluescreen route with the film, a la Sin City. A good choice. It's amazing to see what a hybrid of real life and technology can bring to the screen. It's almost become something of a reinvention of what cinema means. Past the spectacle and onto the story itself.

Blah blah blah...

UPDATE:

The trailer was taken down from Youtube...but here's another link.

Viva la revolucion!!!!!

http://www.ste.ag/2006/09/25/300-movie-trailer-frank-miller/#more-1866

Pretty interesting art work...

I think this is all graffitti art...but it looks kinda like photoshop too...nice stuff..

http://vhm-design.com/

More background work....

Mark and I sent this back and forth a few times. I think it looks great, so hopefully we'll start animating soon.

Tiki Heads...

Here's some tiki heads I drew in my notebook.

Little Children

What makes a movie appealing? Is it the actors? The images? The soundtrack? The story? I think it's a combination of all of these. Story is probably primary, but I have seen some films that lack any direction whatsoever and they still hold some merrit to me.

I just saw two very interesting films, Night of the Hunter and The Asphalt Jungle. I'd say "Hunter" probably falls in the category of having a severely flawed story, but the main character was completely amazing and the cinematography was brilliant. Asphalt Jungle was really amazing too. The film was made in 1950 but it plays like French New Wave cinema. Neon lights everywhere and raw, uninhibited on-location cinematography. I've always been a big fan of film noir and I highly recommend checking these two films out.

Here's what led me to write this post. I just saw the trailer for the new film Little Children. I have no idea whether the film is going to be any good, but the trailer is an amazing piece of editing, images and soundtrack. Very inspiring and worth watching multiple times.

I think good trailers are ones that don't just show funny clips or sexy images or big explosions. They tell a story on their own, captivate and excite. Yeah, I do hate watching trailers, but they do have some merritt in that the good ones tell you how to communicate quickly and effectively.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/littlechildren/large.html

Possibly Final Background

Mark Chun helped me a bit with the colors and some design. I tweaked it and added some more trees and leaves. I think this might be the final, but I have to let Mark see it first.

The leaves will be chopped down by the Safari Dude.

Richard WIlliams on youtube....

Lots of clips of him talking about Roger Rabbit, The Thief and the Cobbler and more. Very cool...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VpT5Xa2cDk

Jungle Background...

For the Monkey and Monk project, we've decided to do a voice test. Since Mark was doing quite a bit o' work, we decided I would do the background design.

I have a background in photography, so I thought this wouldn't be such a big deal. Yikes! It's hard! Here's my first pass. If you come across this page please gimme some comments please! I'm working on more of the shrubbery, but I could use some help on rendering the foreground elements...

Update: Just found this guys stuff. Layout artist on Sleeping Beauty. Beautiful!

http://www.gallery21.com/

Building a new site...

I've been trying to build a new website for a while now. My girlfriend helped me with the last one and I was pretty happy with it. But I feel like it's time to try something new. I need to put up a ton of new work anyways...

Here's what it's going to look like.

http://www.designersfrommars.com/GRoss/new/

More Sketches....

Just some random sketches...

More sketches coming soon....

I just scanned in a bunch...should be up soon. Also, my parents have been bugging me to put up some animation, so I'll try to get the whole youTube thing working ;)

Nice blog for 2d animation....

Lots of tips abound here. I still haven't gotten through the whole thing!

http://handdrawnnomadzone.blogspot.com/

If this dosen't inspire u....

I don't know what will!!!

Radar Men From The Moon

Fun quick animations....

I was inspired by Pascal...so I think I'm going to try to do a few of these each day. They take me less than a half hour to crank out and they're fun!

Sad walk

GumDrop

Pascal's blog

Sketches from Monkey and Monk....

Here's some sketches I thought were fun...

I'm with Stupid!

Web site almost up again....

My website it being redesigned, but I decided to put up my old web site just to have something in the space...

http://www.designersfrommars.com/GRoss/

Pencil Test of Glen Keane's "Beast" transformation...

Glen Keane has really been an inspiration for me the past year. Here's a pencil test of the transformation animation from "Beauty and the Beast". Interestingly enough it appears he's using a grease pencil or china marker to draw with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cDC9ExkZYE

Monkey and the Monk

I've started working on a Flash project with a friend of mine, Mark Chun. Check out the blog here:

http://themonkeyandthemonk.blogspot.com/

The ten commandments of Freelancing

Helpful for all you freelancers out there...

http://sthig.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/03/the_ten_command.html
http://sthig.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/02/top_ten_ways_to.html
http://sthig.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/02/top_10_ways_to_.html

And of course, how to deal with "difficult" clients...

http://www.zefrank.com/punc/

How they did "A Scanner Darkly"

Click Here!

It's pretty interesting. You can pause the movie too...so check out all the note sheets they included...

Top 25 Calvin and Hobbes strips...

I can't believe I haven't seen some of these. I stopped reading them after I got out of high school. However, I do remember the story about the raccoon. That one always made me cry a big wet one...

Click here!

More doodles...