Just ran across this site today on the AM forums (thanks for the link Maria!) and wanted to share it with all of you. It’s a site dedicated to image and video references for digital artists. They have walks, jumps, cats, etc. Not sure if it’s something that just started or how often they do update, but it’s definitely worth checking out. What would be great feature to add on would be the ability to upload user content, but nevertheless its a very useful site. Link follows below:
Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Just a quick post to say that I added a couple of new links. I’m sure most of you know of them already but just in case you didn’t…
First up is Animator’s Resource – Great site for keeping up to date on anything animation-related. There’s a lot of info about animation on there and links to a huge number of animation-related sites.
The other is Speaking of Animation – Another great site started by some animators over at Dreamworks. They have podcasts, interviews, and some great tips about character animation.
Definitely bookmark these when you get a chance.
The new year has started already so it’s about time I get started on some personal tests again. The last couple of months I haven’t been animating much (read as: at all) at home, just been taking a break to re-charge for a bit.
First up is a shot I did for the 11 Second Club back in May and I’ve been meaning to get back to it. I’ve gotten some good feedback from friends so hopefully I’ll get this finished up soon. Below is a link to the version I submitted.
Link: 11 Second Club Shot
I know this isn’t exactly animation-related but there’s a new TV show coming up this season on TNT based on RN’s called HawthoRNe! Big deal to me because my wife, sister, and mom are all nurses as well as a good amount of my friends. If you know any nurses then pass this on to them, they might get a kick out of it. The preview is below, enjoy!
Earlier this week I attended Inspire Days over at the Disney Animation Studios. It was a pretty awesome day full of panels, tours, and portfolio reviews with lunch provided. Also got to meet up with some other AMers that I have’t seen in a bit and meet a few new ones. Different people came and talked about their respective departments and how they related to each other which was very interesting to hear. The tour was pretty cool going through the studio lot and animation building, although I had been there before. The portfolio review was one of the big reasons I went and I got some really cool feedback on my reel that I can’t wait to apply. Good timing too because I planned on starting a new dialogue shot this week so I’m totally inspired to apply some new things I learned as well as the old lessons that I’m reminded of.
I’ve really got to thank Bryan Chojnowski for putting this up in the AM forums, no one really knew about it till it was posted up by him. Thanks man!
So last week I recently finished up Jason Ryan’s webinar series on fundamentals. Really great stuff and I learned a lot. It was pretty refreshing to hear about these concepts again after graduating from Animation Mentor and working a bit. Kinda makes you want to jump back in and start anew with some personal tests for learning.
It was also very interesting to see his workflow using flipbook for planning and then going into Maya. I never really attempted it before, but I think I might with my next test. I can’t really draw very well, but it really makes you think about how your animation is going to work throughout the shot before laying down any keys. If anything I’ll learn a bit more about planning which is something you can’t really learn too much of.
Sorry for the lack of updates these past few weeks. I was pretty busy putting my demo reel together for the AM job fair a couple of weeks ago. That was my self-imposed deadline to get my shots ready so I was kinda in crunch mode to get it done in time and I’ve been polishing the shots a bit more since then. I’m pretty much done with it now, so if you like you can check out my updated reel by hitting the demo reel link at the top of this page or clicking the link below:
I’ve also put up the polished version of the Girl Fight dialogue clip that you can find on the Animation page up top or by clicking the following link:
In other news today, a bunch of teasers got released for the Superbowl. Check ‘em out below:
Yesterday marked the last day for the animation clean-up crew at the Jim Henson Creature Shop. I was only there for a short time, but it was a great experience. The crew there was very friendly and super helpful. I also learned a ton about cleaning up mocap animation and I’m thankful for that. Getting some solid experience cleaning up mocap was one of the main reasons I wanted to work there. Overall I had a great time working there and I hope to work with all those guys again sometime.
Thanks for the good times guys! 
Went through and fixed some problems that were going on with my blog, most notably the comments links should now work on the main page of my blog and I updated to the most recent version of WordPress (with no hiccups, whew!). Also updated the links over there –>
If you run into any other problems please let me know!
Hope everybody had a great holiday weekend! Had a great time myself with family and friends I haven’t seen in a very long time. Went out and did some shopping too, yeah that was kinda insane actually…can’t believe how long lines were just to get a parking spot at the local big box store or mall!
On the subject of animation, I got some really helpful notes from some friends on the dialogue shot I’ve been working on. The overall consensus is it looks to a bit too busy and to push for more feminine gestures. I’ll definitely get on that and re-block it before taking it into spline. I won’t have much time to touch it this week though because of crunch time at work. So I plan on continuing to work on it next week after the show wraps.
Thanks to everybody that sent feedback my way!