In Other News...

I'm trying to adopt a cat! My cat of 15 years passed away back in August and now that I'm settled in CA its time to get a new one. My #1 choice is a gorgeous maine coon called Helen of Troy. She's one of the most beautiful cats I've ever seen. I dont remember how the adoption process goes since I was eight when we got my previous cat. Hopefully it wont take a long time. I faxed an adoption application to her shelter this morning and am going to see her in person on Friday. I can't wait!



Oh, there wont be any gesture drawings tomorrow. Two of the animation supervisors are taking us animation apprentices out to Fuddruckers for lunch! =D

New AnimationMentor Site

Hey guys,
It looks like the new AnimationMentor website is up and running. Guess what? I'm on their Alumni page! That's so cool! It's truly an honor to be featured on the AM site, especially beside some many of the people I looked up to as a student. AnimationMentor is awesome! =D

http://www.animationmentor.com/community/alumni.html

Today's Gestures

Hey guys,

I tried to focus on angles and rhythm during today's drawing session. I think I'm getting better but I'm still not where I want to be yet. I read two of David Coleman's awesome books at work and really like his comments about how drawing from life is like weight lifting. I'm definitely going to buy at least one of his books for inspiration and to study. I also need to get volume two of Drawn to Life.

I'm also working on a Rabbit pencil test at home during the evenings. I have a longer scene in mind, but first I'm going to start out with a walk cycle. I figure that'll be a good thing to start with and if I like it, I'll use it in my longer test. I'm really excited about it though. My mentor has experience in 2d as well and worked on Jane from Tarzan among others. I'm sure he'll have lots of amazing Disney wisdom for me.

Gestures

I'm going to try to go to the life drawing sessions at work regularly. They're a great way to get away from the computer and I really want to get better. I dont feel like my life drawing abilities are up to par and I need to fix that.

The Results

Hey guys,
We got the results of our review at work today, and all of us are staying!!!!!!!!! After March 26th, I will move up from a trainee to an official animation apprentice. The first step to becoming a Disney animator is complete. Now I need to get to work on step two, doing my best to stay once Tangled is finished. =D

I wish today was Friday, so I could celebrate by playing FFXIII for hours but that shall have to wait. For now I'll have to settle for buying some M&Ms from the vending machine.

Most Exciting Month Ever

March of 2010 is the most exciting month ever. This is the month where lots of awesome things are released. There's:
Princess and the Frog on dvd
How to Train Your Dragon
Alice in Wonderland
Final Fantasy XIII
God of War

All of those things are a must see/buy. March is also exciting because it is the month of my final review. It's next week actually, and all of us are nervous. My mentor says I shouldn't worry, but that's easier said than done. There are quite a few reasons why logically we should be kept but nothing is guaranteed. I have enjoyed my time at Disney immensely and REALLY hope to stay. I want to be like the guys there who've been Disney animators for 11+ years. Unfortunately, I don't have any 2d animation to show but I will be including life drawings with my 3d animation. Hopefully my mentor will mention that I can animate in 2d as well and hopefully that skill will make me more of an asset to the studio. There's a lot of hoping involved, lol. I'm not sure when we'll get the results and I'm trying hard not to be on pins and needles until then.

Improvement!

Hey guys,

Sorry for the lack of posts, I've been really busy now that my friends and I are working on production. Our final review is coming up next month so I came in to work today (not that I wouldn't be here anyway, lol) to continue working on my last assignment prior to working on Rapunzel. I looked at my curves and was shocked.

I don't know wtf I was thinking back then but now I see why I was so slow. I was using the worst choice of controls possible, when I could have gotten the same results without having to counter animate everything had I used different ones. I even animated controls overlapping other controls without knowing a more effective/efficient way to get the poses that I wanted. Graph editor-wise, my curves were all over the place and didn't seem to make logical sense at all. In some sections it looked like I was "tweenMachine happy" rather than truly thinking about what's leading and why.

As much as it (really) sucks to have to go through and make sense of this mess, it feels great to see such blatant improvement. =D

Keyblade Master

Drawn at work while waiting for maya to playblast my animation and listening to Passion After the Battle...

A Step Closer

Hey guys,

Today was my first day working on the production floor at Disney! Our new work areas were set up last night and I proudly got to follow the other animators up to the second floor. There wasn't enough space for us to work in the 3d area, so we're sitting over on the 2d side which is awesome! My cube is right outside of Mark Henn's office!!!!!!!!!!

I was also told that I could use any of the 2d workstations in the area since a portable animation disc wouldn't fit with my giant computer desk. I also happen to be behind a capture station, so all I have to do is look past the wall of my cube to watch the pencil tests being shot and played there. How cool is that?!?!?!?!?! Disney is such an amazing place, I seriously love every moment I spend at work!

As an added bonus, tomorrow we'll be issued our first fix it shots and crowd assignments!!!! I'm so excited, this will be my very first piece of production work! =D

Eastern Dragon

Hey guys,
I hope you all had a very merry Christmas! I'm back in Cali after going home for the holidays. The flight was really boring but I at least got this out of it:

Winter Dragon

Hey guys,
Last night I watched Disney's Earth on blu-ray. I always get inspired when I watch shows like that. I love seeing the different wildlife and the amazing environments they live in. While watching the segment on the arctic, I imagined a long haired species of dragon that could reside there. While waiting to go to the airport to fly home, I decided to draw said dragon. I really like how this turned out, even though its significantly more bovine and realistic than what I had in mind.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Painting Update

Hey guys,
Here's another small update on my painting. I really want to hurry up and finish it because I can feel my interest in it draining away. Once this is done I'd love to start a 2d test. I've been watching some of the pencil tests on the Pencil Test Depot and am feeling really inspired by them. I'm not sure when I'll be able to do it though. Now that I have a new assignment, my weekends will be spent working at the studio. I'm really enjoying my assignment so far and am looking forward to spending more time on it.

Elf Launcher!

Hey guys,
I hope you all watched Prep and Landing last night. Everyone at the studio watched it together during the Prep and Landing wrap party. It was amazing getting to watch the show with everyone who worked on it. There's a fantastic sense of community at Disney and everyone was very proud to see it on tv. If you didn't get a chance to catch it, I believe the show will also be aired on Christmas Eve.

In other news, the Prep and Landing project that my friends and I worked on has been released! You can find the Elf Launcher game here on the right side of the screen. We were responsible for all of the animation and poses on Lanny. I animated Lanny's dance cycle where he spins and kind of hops from one foot to another. I also did two poses of Lanny missing the roof.

Somewhat New Approach

Hey guys,
Sorry for the lack of updates on my Mickey painting. We were given the parameters for our next assignment and I've been working on coming up with ideas on what I should do. I spoke to my mentor today and had my idea approved (yay!!!!). I'm not entirely sure it will fit within the designated time limit though. I've imagined it out against a stopwatch and it comes in between 8-12 seconds. Rather that blocking it out and figuring out the timing as I go, I've decided to retry pre-timing on an x sheet. I did it with my Mittens test from last year and a little on Cat Flap, but I didn't really know what I was doing. I watched an awesome lecture on the subject by Eric Goldberg and am excited about trying to do it again.

With practice, pre-timing your x sheets will give you a solid sense of what 12's, 10's, 8's, 6's, 4's etc. feels like and in time you'll be able to pre-time out your scenes accurately with little to no revisions (performance/timing wise). Eric does this for every scene that he touches and usually gets it right in one try 80-90% of time. How awesome is that?! I know it will take years and years of practice before I can become anywhere as good as Eric, but those years of pre-timing practice have started today. =D

Glass Attempt

Hey everyone,
I didn't get very much done today but I really need to start going to bed on time. I took a stab at Mickey's glass heels. Lol, they look more like dirty ice cubes than glass but it'll have to do for now.

The Next Step

Hey guys,
I didn't get much done on this since I'm limited to painting after work. I've started working in color now and raised the saturation on his suit (again). I added a velvet texture to it as well. I also painted the fur and spots on the appropriate areas. Mickey's gloves, face, and shades got an extra splash of color too.

Today's Update

Hey guys,
I'm still working on my Mickey painting and it's getting there! I think I like the darker, less saturated color theme more than the other one. It looks more sophisticated, lol. I could be crazy, but the color in the jpg looks a bit less saturated than the psd file I'm working from. I need to find out what's causing that.
Anyway, I re-colored the red and gold parts of his outfit and added some fur to the color separation between the skin and black. I still need to figure out how to paint glass for those heels. I'm going to redo the spots once I get the fur on his hat/suit to work (its not there now). I'm also in the process of figuring out the whole coloring on Overlay and Color layers process. The colors I pick aren't the colors I get when I lay them down and I'm not entirely sure why that is. =\

Painting Update

Hey everyone,

Here's an update on my Mickey painting. So far I've been working on pushing the values in greyscale. I slapped on some more rough color for the feather, shoes, ring and part of the cane. I'm about to take a break so I figured I'd upload what I had so far. It still has a long way to go. I really need to learn how to paint glass for his heels. If anyone out there knows how to paint and has the time, it would be awesome to get some feedback on this. I really dont know what I'm doing, lol.

Wip

Hey guys,
Here's a look at my wip painting. For some reason I felt compelled to start at 1am, lol. It's now 2:43am and I'm going to bed. I dont think the values are pushed enough to officially add color to this. I just slapped some on to see how it would look. Tomorrow I'll finish adding value to the shoes and feather. I'll also push the contrast and add some highlights where needed. After that's done I'll turn the colors back on and see how everything looks.

Awesome!

Hey guys,
After working hard for last Thursday's review, we finally got the results today. Everyone's going to be staying for the second three months of the Talent Dev Program! Hopefully my fellow TDA animators and I will be moving on to production soon. I can't wait! I also want to do a 2d test in whatever free time I may have. I want to show the guys at work that I can work in 2d as well. I hope to be able to bounce from their 3d projects to their 2d films and vice versa. That would be awesome and would hopefully make me a valuable asset to the studio.

Here's Mickey dancing to celebrate!