Last Life Drawing Day

Today was my last official day of classes. It was pretty bittersweet, really. It's funny: I've been looking forward to graduating for a while, and the finality of it is only now sinking in. I kept thinking of all the "last times" I had today. (Ex: Last time at the loop campus, last time using my CTA pass, last time using the open labs, last time getting caffeine from the Starbucks across the street, etc.)

I was running around getting signatures for my graduation release part of the day, but had the chance to sit in on the last day of life drawing with one of my favorite instructors.

I think the times were 10, 10, 10, 15. Apparently the last one is a yoga position called the mermaid. I can only dream of being that flexible! 

I'm super rusty, but it was a lot of fun heading back to ye'old life drawing room. That's definitely a "last time" I'm sad over. 

Capstone paper

After six(ish) weeks, my research paper is finally complete! I had the help of some amazing friends in terms of proofreading, and I can finally say it's finished! 17.5(ish) pages on the history of animation and where it's heading. Deep stuff, I know. It was so hard condensing it to such a short paper! Yet, I swear when I print it out it feels like a book.

I'm sorely tempted to pass it out to people on the train and downtown for all to read.

I also failed to mention the fact I bought stickers of my work! I used Moo.com, and they turned out amazing. I only recently ordered my business cards, so they haven't come yet - priorities, I know - but I'm in love with these babies.

Sorry for the image quality - my phone is showing its age!

I'll have art coming along soon, I promise. School/work have been fighting for my time, and the stuff I do have I can't show yet.

Blood, Sweat, and Tears

Here are some screenshots from the film I worked on as part of a team animation course. It was eleven weeks in the making, and in the final two days we were able to make everything come together rather nicely. This film has everything- 3D animation, 2D animation, and 2.5D animation.

There were a lot of frustrations, but overall I really had fun working on this. I'm so appreciative of all those who contributed- we had some extremely talented people in the class (some of which graduated now), and I'll miss working with them a lot!

Smorgasbord of Sketches

Alexis, Bonnie motion studies, and some life drawings. Wish I had something interesting to share, but alas!

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!

Alexis

Work done for a team animation project for school.

The look of the film is going to be based on works by Yuriy Norshteyn, as well as the Deathly Hallows tidbit from Harry Potter.

Speaking of. I saw Part II today for this second time, this time in 3D. It only got better the second time, be it in terms of emotion, VFX, what have you. And the score is just... fgkhdfglkhg. Lovely.

Bonnie Final

The end of the quarter was today; here's the final turnaround of my model!

Front close up.

Side close up.

Ambient Occlusion.

(Rendered in Maya Software)

Misc Pencil Sketches

It's the last week of the quarter, so everyone's in the same boat- rendering, fixing issues, and rendering more. As a result, I found myself sketching a bit while waiting around for renders to finish. (I have to say- I'm really loving the pants on Bonnie. Props to my teacher who suggested the change!)

This quarter was very "heavy" so to speak, with two advanced courses and a special effects class. But next quarter opens up a bit, and I'm excited/sad to be in the second to last quarter.

Plus, the weather is starting to stabilize and be warm consistantly, so bring on summer! I can't wait.

Also: I saw Kung Fu Panda 2 a few weeks ago! It was gorgeous. I prefer the first one in terms of character development/story, but this one was absolutely lovely in terms of visuals and continuity of design. Everyone should go see it!

Another 3D Bonnie WIP

My Bonnie model is slowly but surely getting done! It's rather shocking how much I've enjoyed modeling her, as I really struggled early on with the various aspects of modeling. Nevertheless- having finished the UVs last week, I started texturing her on Wednesday. Haven't touched her face yet, but the clothing is coming along. I also gave her a basic rig, and overall I'm really excited with how she's turning out. I'll be sure to post the final renderings after she's complete!

I can't believe it's June already, and the quarter is almost done- May went by so fast! Lots of animating being done these last few weeks: my 3D final consists of Moom having some issues getting his mailbox open. Hopefully it'll be good for a larf.

Maya Poses

Some poses done for my animation course. Looking back, I really would like to clean up the silhouettes to make them read more clearly, but this was a really fun assignment overall. Next up is power centers!

Materials & Lighting Final

My 3d diner, finally finished! Only 11 weeks in the making: two weeks modeling Debbra, four weeks modeling the diner, three weeks of UVs/texturing, and a week to light/render, leaving week eleven for the stress to melt away. (Rather, attempt to fix render issues, most to no avail.)

Close up of Debbra's front.

Phew! Bring on winter break.

Hero Exploration

Some sketches from a short animation I did. I needed a superhero who's cape could blow "elegantly" in the wind.

Style Sheet

A style sheet for my characters, Rose and Wesson, done for my Drawing for Animation class.

Meet Wesson

Here's the rough version of my expression page for the quadruped star in my animation final.

A member of the K9 unit, Wesson is playful and, despite being good at his job, lives for the downtime between cases.

Time Flies

Ho, boy. School started not too long ago, and we're already at midterms next week. Lots of projects and animating, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Here's a layout assignment from my 2D class. It's done on animation paper, so I had to crop it quite a bit due to the small size of my scanning bed. The concept was a man looking at a deep pit.

FiveTwelve

I was backing up my hard-drive yesterday, and I found a whole slew of folders from my freshman year with stuff I'd completely forgotten about! This is one of my favorites. It was for an image manipulation class, where we had to create a DVD cover celebrating an aspect of Chicago.

(Five Twelve is how many home runs Ernie Banks hit in his career - 21st on the all time list.)

Facials and Gestures

These are assignments from Acting for Animation. The first is a facial expression page drawn from a list of given emotions. The second is an emotion study: Debbra opens a letter informing her that she won a million dollars. But upon reading the fine print, she learns she owes that much.

First Character Model!

My first character model! I'm super happy with how she turned out, and am finally starting to feel comfortable in Maya. Having said that, I had my fair share of error messages which made me want to pull my hair out. Good old technology.

She's about 3,700 polys, with simple UVs laid out for the head and hands. For the record, I like how her shoes turned out a lot.

Uhg, Modeling

I finally finished my car! While it's far from perfect (I'm seeing verts in my sleep, I've spent so long fixing them), I'm pretty happy with it- especially with it being my second model... Never mind the fact it looks like a toddler's toy! This went a long way in solidifying my preference on modeling v. animation. I did like experimenting with Image based lighting, though. ("Experimenting" being the key word- don't you like how shiny it is!)

Our next assignment is to either make a complete character or model a head in Zbrush. Decisions, decisions!

TLM study

Drawings from The Little Mermaid for an Acting for Animation assignment. (I adore this movie like no other!)

Debbra Poses

This is the layout for my Acting for Animation assignment. Given a list of actions, we had to create gestures unique to our characters.

Oh, and we also had to come up with a "theme" song. Debbra's is Human League's Don't You Want Me. It's like the song was written for her!