Syd Mead interview on BoingBoing!

If you don't know who this guy is...;)

If you're going to watch one of em, watch the last one where he talks about blade runner. All of them are pretty good though.

Short interview with Angus MacLane

http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/889/889568p1.html

It's not a very long interview, but he does say something that I try to keep in my mind whenever animating...

"It's funny, people say it's 3D animation but really it's just 2D animation in a 3D medium."

And here's an interview with a story artist from Pixar, including some boards:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wall_e/news/1741889/exclusive_the_storyboards_of_wall_e

Always helps to have a goal, right?

Post #151....

Yep. I totally missed that last post was number 150.

It's pretty amazing to me that I've been able to keep this thing going. I originally started it to my folks could keep up on the things I was studying in school. But now I realize it's a great way to see how far I've come in my animation and my drawing.

To celebrate, my revised reel!


Graham Ross_Reel_7-1-08 from Graham Ross on Vimeo.

Glasses Redux...

This exercise always bothered me, so I decided to go back to it. Tings I was thinking about were simplicity and figuring out how to avoid giving him "pivot butt" by keeping him locked in the seat.

Recently I've started to try simplifying the number and frequency of keys I have in my animation until I hit the polish phase. I think it's pretty easy to get caught up in the details while you're in IP (in progress phase of animating). However, like drawing, if you don't have good structure to begin with, you're not going to have much of anything in the end.

Something else interesting. The "before polish" was at the beginning of m Pixar 2 class. The "after" is now, after having taken the whole class.

Please note I dont think this version is completely finished. There still needs to be some breaking up of the body, but overall I'm happier with how I solved it.


WITH:


Glasses_withPolish from Graham Ross on Vimeo.

WITHOUT:


Glasses_noPolish from Graham Ross on Vimeo.

The fine art of polish

Something that I'm trying to incorporate into my work flow is polish. Polish is your final pass on your animation, where you go back in and tweak your splines and clean up any bad bumps. It's something that's expected in my classes and on the job I can imagine.

Problem is that there's little documentation on how to polish. I'm hoping someday someone will write a good tutorial on approaching polish on a scene.

Anyways, just for fun, here's my one person dialog exercise before polish and after.


1 Person Dialouge - No Polish from Graham Ross on Vimeo.


1 person Dialouge from Graham Ross on Vimeo.

UPDATE: Here's some good resources I found. Here and Here, both courtesy of Keith Lango.

Black and White films of moving anatomy

I can't embed these videos becuase they're lisensed by Getty images, but I can at least provide a link:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7928381862503591651&ei=buleSLeVBJaMrgOM77yKDg&hl=en

It's x-ray clips of bones moving within the human body. The ones on feet are amazing. Does anyone know where they're from?

First walk test....

So since I'm going to the Academy of Art I'm supposed to complete this thing called a "thesis". I know I know...but it's fun to rig and model and light....and then animate!

Anyways, this is my first test with the rig. I'm not even gonna show the front view. I did it pretty fast so it's still kinda bumpy in some parts, but I'm pretty happy that the little guy actually moves! I'll do a more polished one soon. Promise!


First Walk Test... from First and last name on Vimeo.

Keeping Motivated

http://zenhabits.net/2008/06/the-ultimate-guide-to-motivation-how-to-achieve-any-goal/

New(er) Demo Reel

Just did a newer version of my demo reel with a dialog test.


Graham's Updated Demo Reel 5_2008 from kungfu hampster on Vimeo.

Just realized a lot of my portfolio pics are reposts. I'll save the for my portfolio site. I should have that site up and running soon. It'll be meant strictly for potential employers. Yay!

Drawings Part 2

Here's a few more. More ta come!

Drawings

I recently compiled a new demo reel, so I shot a lot of my old drawings and such. I'll be posting a few of em a day, since there's a lot. Here's round one...

Ollie Johnston 1912-2008

New Reel

Just put a new reel together for some internship submissions. Enjoy!


Untitled from kungfu hampster on Vimeo.

Composition in Horton Hears a Who....

Very interesting articleon composition of the frame within Horton Hears a Who

http://virgiliovasconcelos.com/index.php?language=en&sessao=blogger

Animatin'...

I'm working on doing my new reel for intern submissions. Here's a few things I'm working on cleaning up. Of course I'll post the reel once it's done ;)


Untitled from kungfu hampster on Vimeo.


Untitled from kungfu hampster on Vimeo.

Zoo drawings...

Went to a workshop by Joe Weatherly. Check out his site sometime. His book on animal drawing is a must-have!

http://joeweatherly.net/

More sketches...

Trip to the zoo....

Here's some inkblot drawings a a few sketches I made at the zoo recently....