HITHER, THITHER, AND YON

Layouts

2011-06-22T15:55:00.000-07:00

Quickly for a friend...

A simple doodle done at work...

2011-01-31T14:48:00.000-08:00

...Illustrating a workflow. Meh.

Trying something more realistic...

2011-01-30T21:11:00.000-08:00

And having mixed results. Moving on...

Disney sketches...

2011-01-18T21:44:00.000-08:00

Just sketching. I have always liked Meg and Merlin. One day, I shall do animation tests of both these characters.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-11T15:49:00.000-08:00

Let's celebrate with a life drawing dump, both old and new!

piano man

2010-10-16T17:50:00.001-07:00

Penance

2010-10-14T14:57:00.000-07:00

Update, and Upgrade.

2010-09-14T10:38:00.000-07:00

Hello all.

I'm sorry I haven't been around for the last month or so. A lot's been happening over here, however, I haven't forgotten about you.

As you can see, I upgraded to the new version of blogger, AND I put my portfolio online. The link is to the right, under the information about myself. Keep checking there periodically, as I will be adding a few things here and there.

As for what I've been doing, let's just say I've been working to improve my skills in several different areas, and have had to focus to do so.

I promise art in the future.

Hope you are all well.

Experiment

2010-08-10T17:24:00.000-07:00

I recently upgraded to cs5. I'm digging the new brushes.

Faces

2010-08-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

Some faces of Vasilisa. More coming.

Houses

2010-08-10T12:29:00.001-07:00

In the original story of Vasilisa, there is a house owned by the fierce witch Baba Yaga. It stands in the middle of a forest on chicken legs. Here are some concept sketches of the house my friend Alonso and I did a looooong time ago.

Saving the world...

2010-08-10T12:08:00.000-07:00

One spelling mistake at a time.

Exercise?

2010-08-07T15:36:00.000-07:00

Been doing yoga lately. Sometimes I wonder if these yoga people wish me a swift death.

Vasilisa turnaround

2010-08-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a basic turnaround of Vasilisa, the character in what was supposed to be my third year film. I'm going through that work right now, so stay tuned for more stuff from this Russian folk tale.

Sweating...

2010-08-04T18:13:00.000-07:00

Roofing

2010-08-02T12:55:00.001-07:00

July 30

2010-07-30T11:15:00.001-07:00

Trials of the Day

2010-07-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

Decided to give this personal comic thing a whirl.

Working on something...

2010-07-27T15:48:00.000-07:00

Here's a sample image...

It has happened...

2010-06-14T00:31:00.000-07:00

Facebook has finally sunk its teeth in me.

....And here's a random sketch, courtesy of scribbling in photoshop!

Been doing a lot of behind the scenes stuff lately. Learning 3D, writing ideas down in screenplay format to board later, looking for work. Hopefully next week I'll have a better internet connection to post my film with. Woot!

Ancient History

2010-06-05T16:29:00.000-07:00

I JUST GRADUATED!!! Well, technically I graduated about 2 weeks ago, but who's counting? It feels awesome to finally be out of school! It took 7 years, but it happened.

I've been looking through my stuff lately, so here's a post of drawings from the past. Some of these I may have posted before, I can't remember.

Screen caps of Out of the Blue

2010-05-07T13:37:00.000-07:00

Here are some screen caps of my fourth year film, Out of the Blue. Still fine tuning it before I post the film online.

color script

2010-05-07T13:30:00.000-07:00

Obviously with a film about color, one needs to make a color script. After I storyboarded the film past the beat board stage, I worked on this. I limited myself to a very strict color palette for most of the film.

The first image is a worksheet demonstrating the colors I chose to represent each of the three colors. All the colors you see in this script aside from the secondary colors are based of these initial choices. The nice thing about working digitally are the hex codes adobe has in all their programs. It makes the transition between photoshop and flash a breeze.

Original beat boards for 4th year film.

2010-05-07T13:21:00.000-07:00

Here are the original beat sketches that I used for my fourth year film. Drawn with crayon and colored pencil.

Book Cover

2010-03-04T20:41:00.000-08:00

I was recently asked to provide a book cover illustration for a children's book in a friend's film here at Calarts. The title is called bunny goes to town. Here's what I came up with.

It was pretty fun to work on. It makes me want to make a film with all these animal characters.

Oh yeah, it says "Written and Illustrated by Amy Anderson". That's the name of the character in this film who is responsible for creating this book. It sort of haunts her future projects with its chipperness.

Link LIVES!

2010-01-27T13:56:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures from last week's character animation gallery show. Some friends and I collaborated on a Zelda themed project. It was really fun. I made the master sword, the boomerang, bombs, and the bow and arrows. John Dusenberry made the tunic and hat. Eddie Moreno made the shield and the bomb bag. Joe Johnston made the maps and paper documents. And Lord Nick Desimone made the hookshot, as well as the heart container. He also supplied the glass cases and the gamecube where we had zelda available for anyone to play. It was a lot of fun.

Trees

2009-11-26T15:25:00.000-08:00

Just playing around with some trees.

2008-05-12T10:00:00.001-07:00

OMG! OMG! Update! UPDAAAATE!!!!

2008-03-08T16:27:00.000-08:00

Yeah. I know. It's been forever and a day. Almost a year, in fact. But here's a post for you guys.

This second year at Calarts, has been really hard for me. First year, even though I complained of long hours and lots of work, it was generally straight forward as far as what I was to accomplish. This year, there is no real goal in mind. I came into this year eager to work, but I didn't know what to work on. I already made a film, what now? Should I basically keep going down the same path and make another one that has no real value?

So rather than create a film with little meaning, or one that doesn't teach me much, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what I want to accomplish with my films here at Calarts. Each film, of course, is a learning experience. Ideally, I'd like to take that learning experience and hopefully create something of value with it.

So, I've been doing a lot of stuff this year that I'm not necessarily used to. For example, I spent A LOT of time in the story phase of things. Last year, my story was basically get a boy from point A to point B. This year, I'm trying to actually say something with my work that may find resonance in a context outside of a student film. Whether it will be successful or not, I have no idea. All I know is that even though I'm really behind on everything, I'm pretty proud of my story work. I consider story to be my weakest area, so this year I decided to focus on it.

Also, I have a tendency to render things to near completion. It's an almost anal-retentive quality. You guys could probably tell from the layouts I posted from my last year's film. This year, I'm trying to explore a more loose, graphic style. This switch from realistic thinking to flat graphic thinking is more painful than I thought, however it's also exciting. Currently, I'm designing my backgrounds, and I'm experimenting with minimalism, since my character designs are basically cartoonish abstractions of human faces. How much do I need in order to get the story across? How much can I omit? And most importantly, how do I compose all the elements in time to get the strongest storytelling image possible?

Animationwise, I decided to animate in Flash. I've been wanting to learn Flash for a while, but it never really seemed to suit the quality of work I'm used to. With this film being a break from my typical style, I decided to use Flash to see what it could do. It's actually a pretty interesting and, dare I say it, fun program to use. The "symbols" feature, is really a time saver that I wish existed in other forms of animation. However, I could see where Flash would be impractical, but for the style of story I'm telling, it works remarkably well. I'm still exploring my backgrounds, but I think I will compose them in Adobe Illustrator, because it's also a vector based program like Flash, but one that offers more flexibility for texures, line quality, etc. With Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop, and After Effects all included in CS3 the compositing process should be more streamlined than in the past (in theory).

On top of all those new things that I'm trying, I'm also not too concerned about length or even finishing my film. Of course, in a perfect world, I would have my story done and finished at 3 minutes for the open show. But I've come to the realization that the learning process is more important than the finished product. And since I'm doing so many new things with this film, I feel that if I even finish it, it will be an amazing accomplishment, moreso than if I was to do a traditional "Tom-type" film.

Let's see, what else..... Oh yeah! And I got a bright and shiny Macbook Pro! It's awesome! My first computer ever! It's name is Lily. She's beautiful.

Here are some character designs (in Flash) and inspirational material that I'm using for my film. The backgrounds are From 101 Dalmations, Triplets of Bellville, and a book callse "I Go Out". The character and layout sketches are some of my first forays into creating art on a computer. Ahhh.... technology.

2007-07-19T13:19:00.000-07:00

Oh lordy, it's been a while.

I was going to post my film, which is as finished as it's going to be, but I'm having difficult compressing it. So when I get back to school and have the software, I'll post it.

I haven't been doing much this summer except for catching up on some much needed rest. I've been itching to start doing art again, but for some reason I have a block. I was going to attend life drawing sessions around town this summer, but I either didn't have the funds to pay, or the time. sigh. So unproductive....

Anyway, one thing that was productive this summer was that I went to the Platform Animation festival a few weeks ago. For those who don't know, Platform is a brand new international animation festival, and the only one hosted by the U.S. in a long, long time. And it was held in Portland! Which was an awesome thing because not only could I attend, but I got to introduce a few friends to the city I love. To my knowledge the festival was a big success and it will hopefully be held here in future years. You can view the films that were included, and other tidbits at platformfestival.com.

At the festival, I attended a few lectures on portfolio making and half the portfolios shown were from recent Calarts grads. I was so proud. And about a whole third of the student films at the festival were from Calarts kids too.

School needs to start now. I'm excited to get back, even though it's in the black hole of Valencia.

Oh, and congratulations to the animation freshman of next year! I know a few of you guys have posted on my blog, so congratulations on acceptance! I'll see you in fall.

I'm a nerd.

2007-02-25T01:35:00.000-08:00

I was browsing Wikipedia for my daily dose of knowledge, I found this really cool video. It's Ferrofluid, which is basically magnetically charaged particles (like iron, or any other metal type) in a suspending fluid (like water, oil, etc.). When strong magnets are placed towards it, it reacts in some fashioin. It's amazing. Think of all the artistic potential for weird fountain sculptures and stuff. Awesome. I think right now, It's used primarily in robotics and lubrication.

I swear, Wikipedia rocks.

Just some thoughts...

2007-02-19T11:56:00.000-08:00

So I have to take a break from drawing to charge my ipod, so I thought I'd enter a little blog entry.

I started animation about a week ago. It's going relatively well, but it's quite difficult. I have a hard time keeping loose with my character, so a lot of the time he moves very rigid. I'm only in the rough stages right now, so maybe in cleanup I'll try to assuade this. I think all of the first years have started animating already, which is cool, but I hear from people that some of the upperclassmen still haven't started. And they have more than a minute and a half to fulfill. I hope they start soon. They say that if you don't start by the end of February, you probably shouldn't even bother.

Now that I'm in the stage that brought me to this school, I'm finding where most of my interests lie. I really enjoy layout and conceptual design. That's what everyone says I should get into after school. I don't particularly like the storyboard phase, but I may grow to love it during my time here. Animation is a really difficult, but once you get in the zone, the hours fly by. And if you get your scene right, it's amazing to see your drawings move. But it's a lot of tedium to get there. The initial story phase is really exciting because you can just let your ideas run wild, but again it's also difficult because you have to pick one, and flesh it out to a level that you can handle and that makes sense, etc.

While I am most interested in the design area, I don't want to set in stone that that's what I want to end up doing after school. I want to get better at all the stages and then pick from what I enjoy most when I know more about everything. Then I feel I can make a more informed decision as far as what I want to REALLY do in this exciting field.

Blah... Enough of these "thoughts". How about some action. Enjoy!

My friend Eddy and I couldn't stop laughing at how absurd this is! We are bad people.

Steve Macleod's interesting discussion.

2007-02-13T03:26:00.000-08:00

http://clockroom.blogspot.com/2007/02/calarts-style-john-k.html

Steve Macleod, a Calarts fourth year, has an interesting discussion going on about John Kricfalusi's ideas of Calarts. I would suggest you all check it out (that is for some strange reason you frequent my blog more than Steve's. Ha!).

Other than that, just finishing up my layouts. I'll post more when I finish more. I'm kind of half taking a break.

More layouts

2007-02-11T19:23:00.000-08:00

More layouts. Meh. There are a few things I need to fix in these ones, because they're going to be layered on top of one another (foreground, midground, background). If you see some pixelation or weird highlights, that's because my photoshop skills leave something to be desired. Not quite final, but close.

First of many layouts

2007-02-10T21:10:00.000-08:00

I did these yesterday. It was very relaxing to actually render something to relative completion.

2007-02-09T02:14:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah, and I'm considering getting a computer. Ideally, a 15" MacBook pro. I need something that can handle a number of image programs simultaneously and still run smoothly. Plus, Macs are just plain cooler. If anyone has any other recommendations beside the Macbook Pro, let me know.

PS: Thanks Mom and Dad for the loan. It helped enormously.

Previs DONE!

2007-02-09T01:50:00.000-08:00

I finished my storyboards and story reel last week. I was kind of nervous that my reel would be too long, but when I timed it out in final cut pro the way I envisioned with my storyboards, it only came to a minute and fifteen seconds. Sweet! So I have about 15 seconds of flexibility. In terms of time, I think I'll be fine.

I started doing final layout yesterday evening, and I'm already about a third done. I haven't inked them yet, becauseI want to get some final advice as far as camera moves and overlap from my teachers before I spend all that time inking them. So have some sketches. It's going a lot faster than I envisioned, which is good because I have a lot of layouts. I the the average freshman only has about 10 to 15. I think I have around 20 or 25, and I'm envisioning them inked rather than just drawn. We'll see.

I wanted to show you guys a portion of my storyboards. I'm rather proud of them, surprisingly. Storyboarding is my least favorite phase (so far) in the film process...

This is about the first third of my film. It may seem like a lot of boards for a minute and 30 seconds, but I posed out a lot of action, so it goes pretty fast.

On a side note, the character animation show was two weeks ago, and that was a lot of fun. I met the Kricfalusi, who I mentioned down below. Interesting character. Let's see, what else. Oh yeah, Animator Angus Maclane from Pixar came to talk to us last week. He was very cool and gave us an inspiring lecture almost solely devoted to hands. Check out John Dusenberry's blog (link on the right) for more details.

A lot of people thought I looked like him, which I thought was kind of funny. John's blog has a pic of him. You be the judge as far if he looks like me or not.

Hey, maybe if I look like him, I could potentially be more likely to work at Pixar!

Feh.

The time is NOW!!!!

2007-01-22T20:31:00.000-08:00

So I'm giving myself a deadline of the end of this week to totally capsulize what I'm going to do for my film. Recently, I've had a crisis of faith in my original film idea (spider), and have been entertaining ideas about some characters I designed for other classes last term, namely the witches from one of my first posts and the roaches that I posted recently. Now even though I enjoy their designs, I'm having trouble coming up with a compelling story to put them into. Pete Docter (the director of Monster's Inc.) came to give a lecture today, and he says that all the ideas for films at Pixar have started from an idea communicated verbally rather than a design. A "what if," statement if you will.

I only have designs right now, not ideas.

Maybe I'm thinking about it too much. It's only my first year film. But I want the film to work well so it has a good chance of being in the Producer's Show. But more importantly, I want to be happy with it. Sometimes high standards lead to pain.

But enough BITCHING!

The Character Animation art show is coming up this thursday, and many of the students posted stuff on the halls of the Calarts main gallery. It's amazing to see so much art on the walls. Typically at the art shows here, there's only a few pieces of bizarre (but sometimes interesting) art on the walls. For this show, there are probably hundreds of drawings all over the walls, so much so that it's encroaching upon the music department's space. People are even using the support pillars to post their stuff. It's amazing. I'll post some photographs of the opening when it happens. It's kind of interesting as well to observe a massive show mainly focusing on cartoons next to a secondary gallery near the main gallery, there's an art show opening as well that is basically a video display showing pornography. Interesting juxtoposition. This school is strange.

I'm going to post stuff in the show as well, but I need money for resources in order to do so. Sadly, money is something I don't have at the moment. Hopefully before Thursday. Grand ideas be damned!

John K. HATES YOU!!!

2007-01-20T20:55:00.000-08:00

John Kricfalusi, the mad genius behind such shows as "Ren and Stimpy" and "Ripping Friends", hates YOU! For proof, read his blog, specifically, THIS!!!

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/01/dan-gordon-and-what-makes-cartoonist.html

Hey, John K! If you're reading this (which is unlikely considering the amount of time devoted to inflating your own ego) Ren and Stimpy was fun, but I would hardly call it entertainment that enhances people's human experiences as you so lovingly define as the goal of "cartoony" cartoons.

PS - I am not bitter just because he disses Calarts...

PPS - *Sob*

2007-01-20T03:51:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah, and here's another must see clip.

This was done by a Calarts 4th year, Alex Hirsch, for a Critical Studies Class. He's absolutely brilliant with story. You'll be sure to see this guy creating something groundbreaking in the animation world in the future.

Some Art

2007-01-20T03:27:00.000-08:00

Here's some recent life drawings and some old perspective assignments from last term.

My life drawings are totally off in terms of proportion, but I feel they have a lot of attitude. The perspective assignments are old, and rather academic, but I felt like posting them anyway. The one with the roaches sitting around the table is my favorite. I'm thinking of developing this into a film idea.

But that is not important! What is important, in fact what is so important it will change your very meaning of existence is THIS........

It's algebraic. Like, totally Rhombus.

Woot. I would write more, but I'm all worn out after scanning in all that artwork. Phew.

Meaner than 1000 hornets...

2007-01-14T23:36:00.000-08:00

A small update. Here are two sketches I did last term for my film that I've been meaning to post for a while. I'm still having issues with the boy's design. No matter how much I sketch, he always comes out the same. Very generic. Character design is definitely my weakest suit. However, I kind of like how he's turning out in these sketches. More like a design element than a character. However, I feel that the audience will feel more for him if he had an actual face a personality. If anyone reads this, are there any resources one would recommend for this sort of thing?

I've been browsing the forums at Mario Furmancyk's homepage (Mario's a fourth year character animator), and there's an interesting discussion going on about the relationship between Calarts as a school and the character animation department. There seems to be a lot of animosity between character students and the school in general. If you want to see people's opinions, follow this link...

http://animatedbuzz.com/forum/

Feel free to post what you think here as well. All two of you who may read this blog.

In my opinion, I feel that the character animation students feel that they have some superior form of entitlement being that they belong to what historically has been the most successful program at Calarts. But I feel many are blind to the fact that other forms of art feed animation. Many users in the forums argue that Character Animation is the only school that offers practical knowledge to the aspiring artists rather than a bullshit education. It's almost to the point where Character Animators are so full of themselves that they can't see the talent around them. There are amazing musicians, actors, directors, and more at this school that the character department isn't utilizing properly, because we focus so much on our films rather than artistic interaction with this school. I think it's rather unfair to judge so quickly when you haven't experienced both sides of the equation.

Calm before the storm...

2007-01-10T10:17:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm back at Calarts (huzzah!). Right now, I'm very casually working on stuff, but mainly I'm just taking it a bit easy before classes start next week. I saw the movie "Children of Men" last night. It was an excellent movie. I highly recommend everyone see it. It's not for the faint of heart, though.

I was originally going to see the movie in Oregon with my girlfriend, but we both couldn't find the time or the cash to see it. Oh well, at least I saw it with a few Calarts buddies. It's based on a book, and according to a certain bookworm I know, the book kind of blew. But the movie, was intensely good, with excellent performances by the actors, and amazing production and camera work. It definitely deserves an oscar, or two.

In more news, Apple (my newfound God in a world of false idols) unveiled it's new revolutionary device a few days ago. I was expecting it to be a new type of cell phone, and it was. But what a cool cell phone it is. If I could afford the 500 dollar price tag, I would be in the line right now. Basically it's an ipod, cell phone, and advanced web browser all in one. And you don't need a stylus pen or those tiny cell phone buttons that the blackberry has. It has a touch screen interface, and a really advanced sensor system designed to make it very intuitive to use. It also can run OS X. It's amazing. I'm in the market for a new phone (mine finally kicked the bucket recently after five years. It was a good run), and I would definitely get this one if I could. It comes out in June.

Follow this link to see Steve Jobs introduce the iphone to the world at the Macworld conference in San Francisco. I couldn't find a way to embed this. Sorry.

http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/j47d52oo/event/

Man.... I'm a nerd. But I guess nerds rule the world.

Small update

2007-01-04T21:43:00.000-08:00

Well, happy late New Year's to everyone and very late Holiday greetings and such. I've been working my old retail job all break, so I haven't had time to do art stuff. Well, I have, but being the bad person I am, I've been using my time more for video games than film preparation. I figure I won't have time for video games once spring semester starts again, so might as well indulge, right?.

Twilight Princess and Okami are the two games that have consumed my soul.

Here's a good all-encompassing video of Okami (all of this is in game graphics)...

And I'm sure all of you have heard about Zelda: Twilight Princess, but here's some great in-game graphics to look at...

I wanted to get Final Fantasy XII, but sadly I couldn't afford it, and probably couldn't have found enough time to do it justice anyway. Maybe during summer. Funny how I managed to be immersed in two different games with wolf's as main components in the story. Hmmmm...

Anyway, I should be getting back to Calarts soon. I have do deal with registration difficulties. Excitement deluxe.

Frequent update STRIKES!!!

2006-12-02T23:14:00.000-08:00

As promised, here's some concept art gathered from various sources that I'm kind of looking at for my film. In there there's some Sleeping Beauty art, Nightmare Before Christmas, Fantasia, and art from a game called Limbo. Right now I'm just wrapping my head around the ligting and how they stage things. In my final film, I want a feel somewhere in between Sleeping Beauty and Limbo. I'll post more stuff soon.

On a side note, I went to a Glen Keane lecture today. He was speaking about spirituality at a church, and while I'm hardly a religious person, I went. It was very interesting to see a person who you admire and respect professionally describe what they believe and how they work. Many different people work differently, and Mr. Keane finds inspiration in his faith. Cool, but I can see how other people would think differently. It was amazing how fast and accurate this guy draws! He can draw such characters as Aladdin and Beast in a matter of a minute or two. Absolutely amazing!

Oh, and for those of you who don't know who Glen Keane is, he's pretty much THE animator at Disney (well, between him and Andreas Deja). He's been a lead animator on such films as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and pretty much every other contemporary Disney 2d film.

2006-11-29T17:24:00.000-08:00

Aha!!! You thought I was dead, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU!!?? Well, as close as I may have come to death, right now I am most certainly alive. Or at least display certain signs of not being buried in the ground.

I have artwork! Haha! Much of it is from the beginning of the term that I've been meaning to post for a while. Some crappy life drawings and some concept art I've been doing for my film. I feel like I've gotten worse at life drawing since I've been here. It's really frustrating, because I feel that life drawing is now my weakest subject. Whatever. Most of the life drawings are 15 minutes or less.

I found a film idea finally. I'll let you guys have three guesses. Eh, actually let me just tell you. It's about a boy... WHO GET'S SQUISHED BY A GIANT SPIDER!!! HAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!! Yes, I am very funny. But seriously, it's not really an amazing story, but I wanted to focus my first year on learning animation and layout, and then later in my Calarts career taking it a bit further. So my first year film is more about dramatic lighting, action, and design. I feel if I focus on that now, I'll be better set later.

Right now I'm refining the storyboards and creating concept art simultaneously. I have a lot of images that I'm drawing inspiration from that I'll post here eventually, along with more conceptual art that I'm doing for my project.

Other than all that artistic stuff, things are pretty good. Crazy busy, but good. I'm both excited and disappointed that the first semester is almost over (just two weeks left). Excited because it means rest and seeing my friends and family in Oregon, disappointed because I know I won't be focused to do any work up there. My girlfriend and I have been having issues over this whole long distance thing, so it will be nice to see her again. I should use the Christmas break as an opportunity to rest before the storm breaks loose second semester.

Ummm... yeah. That's all I really have to say right now. I'm going to try to post more frequently (so much for once a week).

I aten't dead

2006-11-29T17:02:00.001-08:00

Business as usual...

2006-10-18T12:21:00.000-07:00

I don't have any significant art to show you guys, but I thought I would update anyway.

This week Calarts students get to see an advanced screening of Flushed Away. While I don't anticipate it being all that great, I'm still pretty excited. Next week is the crazy Calarts Halloween party. I'm really excited for that. We also get to see an advanced screening of the Nightmare Before Christmas in 3d at the Disney Feature Animation facility in LA. I hear there's going to set pieces from the original movie. I don't know if they allow cameras, but if so, I'll try to take picturess.

Phew. This school rocks.

I'm still struggling with a film idea. In my last post I was mentioning being inspired by the Limbo game. I did some sketches involving a boy and a giant spider ala Return of the King. I'm pretty sure it can work withing 90 seconds, but the difficulty in animating a spider may prove too difficult for my first year film. But I still want to storyboard it and see what my teachers have to say. I've also had a number of ideas lately leaning towards a more abstract vein. One in which the character interacts a lot with the background (the background being an entity and antagonist, not just a pretty layout). I'll have to wrap my head around this idea more to see what comes out. And of course, there are still a bunch of little gag ideas I have too.

I've been in a mood to draw prostitutes today.

Sloppy seconds...

2006-10-06T21:57:00.001-07:00

Soooo.... second time posting. We sure do get lots of work done 'round these parts.

So I've been thinking of first year film ideas lately. From what I hear from past students, the best way to make it easy on yourself is to keep things simple. So all the film ideas I've been entertaining lately have tried to be simple. However, I have come to one important realization. Simple isn't simple. It's really difficult to think of an idea that not only works within 90 seconds, but also is something that I'm proud of. I've been looking at the past producer's shows to get ideas of what first year films work.

The ideas I've been thinking about originally focused a lot on gags, and a lot less on atmosphere. I want my first year film to be a framework towards the direction I want to grow while I'm here at Calarts. And I don't think I can do that with gags. I was browsing the internet today and came across a game trailer for a game called Limbo ( http://www.limbogame.org/ ). I was both fascinated and irritated that I found it. Fascinated because it offers the simplicity and style that I'm naturally drawn towards, irritated because I had an idea very similar, but now it seems people will think I got the idea from this teaser clip. However, seeing the clip really inspired me to do something different, but within the same vein. I'll flesh this out over the next couple weeks and let you guys know how it's going. I'm excited because I think I have my film idea down. But it's fairly complex for a first year film.

Anyway, here's some art to look at. Nothing fancy, just mainly some really rough character/story ideas, and some character designs for storyboard class. Enjoy.

A blog? AMAZING!!!

2006-09-30T15:49:00.000-07:00

So yes, I guess you could say that I finally succumbed to what many out there call.... technology. Considering since I worked really hard to get to Cal Arts, I thought I would create a blog to explain what I'm doing here. So here it is.

Uhh.... I guess I should start posting stuff huh? Well then.... let me tell you the tales I've been up to:

Once upon a time, in a land far south of Oregon, a land SO rich of sunlight and the gentle smell of Eucalyptus you could kill a cold just by breathing, there was a school. And at that school, there was a boy. Not an ordinary boy, oh heavens no! This boy is an animation student. Today, he finished his second animation assignment. Oh the joy he felt watching his simple, nondescript cylinder bounce up and down with delight. Now, while many of you may scoff at this poor boy's fascination with such a simple act, consider this: ANIMATIONS IS EFFING SWEET!

In addition to this cylinder, the boy has also been assigned to such work as character design (which he swears he will post later), story creation, and the mildly stimulating shape design. So far, this brilliant boy, this model of fortitude has kept on top of these works like a fly on poop. But who knows what will happen in the next few weeks. Will he succumb to the vices of.... friends? Or will he lock himself up in his cube and animate until his hand bleeds? Only time will tell.

Tune in next time for part two of "The boy at Calarts"..........