What is this?!

2011 Animation DemoReel

2011-09-02T21:51:00.001-07:00

My Current Reel!

Cal brunker

2010-06-16T07:11:00.001-07:00

Just gotta put it out there that he is now my role model for animation!

I can't even explain how much he inspired during class 3. His passion for animation just spreads out and really reaches to everyone.

I gotta admit, during class 3 I was in a little bit of a rut. I kinda forgot why I was into animation. But after shifting how I think of animation. Try to tell a story, instead of just moving things for body mechanics, it totally changed how I look at everything.

Cal helped me do that switch, and answered my questions beyond what I expected. His awesome skills in story telling helped me do that.

Now I'm a bit sad that I am taking a LOA. But I think it is necessary so I can really absorb what I learned in AM, take some time to shift my thinking, and animate a shot that I'm not afraid to throw away

Just animate!

2010-02-08T13:11:00.000-08:00

One thing I realized that I do is just sit down and watch my animation play blast. That isn't a good habit of mine lol.

So during one of our q and a's my mentor said don't just look at ur animation too much. U'll get to attached to it, you won't notice things that are wrong etc. It didn't hit me till today.

Just watching it won't make it better! I have to actually work to change things!

Story is KING!

2010-01-18T13:06:00.000-08:00

I remember watching a Pixar documentary talking about how story was always the most important part of the movie.

Same goes with animation. When I first heard the phrase.. story was king. I was a little bit bummed because then it seems the story department did everything to make an amazing pixar movie.

But after reading more of Drawn to life, I realized animators have to remember it too, and embrace the story.

The reason why we have to embrace it is because everything we do has to relate to a story going on. you can break rules, cheat etc on things just to get the story across.

Each pose we do (story poses mainly) needs to relate to whats going on in the story. It needs to show what type of character they are, need to show the mood they are in, and it needs to show the action. Everything in the animation needs to have a reason.

Even if it is as simple as tying a shoe. Tying the shoe might mean something in the story, it might help develop the characters own story. For example, a character is tying his/her shoe because she wants to go out and play with her friends. This might seem very dull, but it can mean a lot. It can show that this character is behind her friends, thus making her feel left out if they all get in the car and left her. It can also show that she might need a lot of time to tie a shoe, thus showing her young age and not being able to tie her shoe. (Gah bad explaination, but I just really needed to type that all out lol)

Spark of Inspiration

2010-01-13T18:05:00.001-08:00

Man during work today I was reading Drawn to life, then something just hit me. I just felt super inspired, and was thinking about what the character is thinking.

I know you read a lot this in the books, about y characters move, there is always an inner meaning to it. After I got that inspiration, I just watched some gobelins films, and it just made sense to me. I could feel what the character was feeling, I knew why there actions were there, everything went together.

But man I lost it! What a feeling it was! I felt very light and happy during work, but when I got home it just went away. Maybe thats all what I needed. That small enlightened period for me to always search for this things what animators desperately want. That spark of life, where everything goes together.

maybe the sketching helped, because now when I watch tv, I look for angles in poses, trying to refine the poses, trying to get the gesture more clear. I just need to get in a habit of that. Its very fun, but really tough to spot out in day to day things.

Man i can't explain the feeling I had when I was watching those films, I hope it comes back again lol. But anyways I'm not just gonna sit here and wait for it to come back, I'm gonna do what Mr. Stanchfield says and look for it, instead of just sitting back waiting for it to happen.

Cheers!

Enchanted

2010-01-12T08:49:00.000-08:00

About a week or 2 ago I couldn't stop watching the movie Enchanted. For some reason I was glued to it.

In my opinion the acting was amazing. It was a real eye opener to me about sticking to character, and how it really effects what the character does.

One scene that stuck out to me was when the princess was in the real world, and sat next to a hobo. Man super awesome! The way she fell down into sitting. Very princessey and over exaggerated.

The way she uses her hands, always up and cutesie. Amazing! And it wasn't over done either. Another thing I noticed is that she never really walked normally. She was most swaying around, very gracefully, and never had a "vanilla action"

Then later on in the movie, when she went to the ball she wanted to impress a guy. This was out of character, but it came at the right time. This is the part where she transitioned from thinking she loved prince charming, but actually loving the guy from the real world. So much here... Lets see if I can type it all out ha.

- The change was so dramatic because the whole movie she was all princessey, at the end of the movie, she wasnt to energetic, and she seemed to care more about her actions trying to impress the real world guy

- it also shows the difference between the two worlds, i just love the contrast there.

man i had so many ideas about it but i forgot them all.

Ha anyways i just wanted to type it all out so I can analyze things more :P

K.I.S.S

2010-01-06T22:38:00.000-08:00

Holy Freaking Crap. This is probably one of the most toughest thing for me to grasp.

I've been in the basement just thinking of ideas to animate a 180 turn (for two hours!), and I came up with pretty fun stuff imo. After finally deciding on one, and celabrating by jumping around I went upstairs and decided to go onto TC.

I told one guy there my idea, and he said just try to keep it simple. More simple. He said just focus on the assigment.

Dude! I'm so glad someone said that too me. It hit me pretty hard, but not in a bad way, but in a inspirational way.

It's just tough as a student trying to keep it simple, because in all the books you read, they always talk about whats driving the character internally. But what we have to do now for this assigment is just do a 180 turn. Thats it. No story behind it, just pure mechanics.

Believe it or not, this reminded me of something in Drawn to Life :P. Walt Stanchfield always talk about getting the gesture right. Don't worry about the fine details of the drawing. Its the same as this assigment. get the basic mechanics right when ur studying them. Then later on.. add all the good details.

Also in our q and a. My mentor, Morgan Kelly, said a really good point that I will probably remember. Keep the idea simple (duh) then later on you can expand it. I never thought of it like that. Because if u already come with very specific details of what u want ur character to do, you can't really branch off of that and improve. I need to work my right brain more!

Basically... Simplify Simple.

Yummm AM is starting up

2010-01-04T18:59:00.000-08:00

At work I was counting down the hours until the AM site will be up.

Man what a refreshing feeling! I was feeling pretty slushy and uninspired during the break. (Maybe because I kinda forced myself not to animate lol) But man I can't express how wonderful it feels to have access to the site and getting connected!

One thing that helped me stay out of the dumps was Drawn to Life. This books is just... a;ldkfjal;dfjasdl;fkjljasldkfj! Man I freaking love it. I really love how Walt Stanchfield isn't really talking about the mechanics of animation. (We are getting a lot at AM). But he is talking more of the deeper side of animation IMO. One of my favorite sayings is.. "Switching mental gears" or whatever it is. And how much he empahises on getting the gesture down, instead of just a pose.

There are a few sayings that will always stay in my head..

- The pose should all work together. Like soup, there is one main taste, but all the small little tastes make a big difference. Without them, the soup won't be the same. Its the same as a pose, the main focus should be the center of attention ofcourse, but don't forget about the hands and feet gestures. They are the like something something that really adds a lot! (This helped me a lot because I ignored the fingers a lot)

-Don't look at the pose, look at the gesture. When posing/drawing something out. Don't worry about how the arm/leg/ finger look. Draw out the broad details, then go into the smaller details.

-When singing, don't think of the pitches of the song. Try to tell the audience a story. Same with animation, don't think of just the pose, think more of what the character is feeling in that situation. The pose is there for a reason, and it is there to tell a story.

-Most golden poses has a main focus, attract the audiences eye to that.

- (goes with above) The character is mostly thinking of one thing of a time. If a character is opening the door, have the whole body with it, make sure the audience knows what is going on

- Vary timing, and poses in your animation. Like music, not all of music have the same beat with the same amount of impact

Man that only covers like 1 page of the book. I'm definentaly going to re read this book. Very inspirational and deep

(Sorry for my super bad grammer I'm just typing what I'm feeling instead of the small details! lol)

Class one done!?

2009-12-19T09:41:00.001-08:00

I dunno how to feel about this ha.

I'm happy I learned a lot in class one. But I am afraid to move on. Feels like there is a lot of stuff to learn, and its scary how fast school is going.

Just to think of it.. Only 5 more classes?! Then after that I have to look for a job? That insane! Time is gonna fly, hopefully I can learn the most out of it!

And here is my work from class 1!

Thinking caps

2009-12-11T15:40:00.000-08:00

I realized I always wear a hat while animating ha. I guess I like to think of it as my thinking cap!

It keeps all of my amazing ideas underneath my hat, so they all won't float away! haha dunno

I just like the feeling of a hat on my head. And its nice cuz it covers my hair.

Double bounce walk cycle

2009-12-03T19:26:00.001-08:00

GAAAH! Its so tough to get this double walk cycle down. I'm only blocking it!! gaH!!

AM Started

2009-09-29T21:16:00.001-07:00

Having a blast

NOOOO!

2009-09-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

Doesn't seem like I'm gonna get Maya until after AM starts. Man that is depressing.

Its actually really frustrating because the first few weeks are going to go over the basics, so I'm going to learn them over again, but I won't be able to animate them.

The worst part is that I can't really do anything about it. So I'm losing precious animation time with AM just because the company didn't order enough autodesk software.

Darn Studica. This is really bothering me.

I feel deprived from animation

2009-09-18T19:57:00.000-07:00

Basically what the title says ha.

I haven't animated in like 2 weeks man! I'm not used to this I wanna animate. But I can't because Maya isn't in yet :(

Waiting for Maya 2010

2009-09-12T07:23:00.000-07:00

So I guess I'm on a break from animation until I get to order the package with Maya, Mudbox, 3ds Max etc.

But man I wanna animate! I had this idea in my head for a subtle animation, and I really wanna see what I can do.

It is a 4 second dialogue piece, and I think I have a pretty good idea with it. But it tough now because I don't really have anyone to bounce ideas off of and see how it is. Thats why I can't wait for AM! There will be a be a bunch of students, and hopefully they would wanna listen to my ideas ha.

But other than animation, I've been longboarding in my freetime. I am real glad I got into that, because its a good exercise and its a good way to get my mind out of animation. It makes my life more balanced. I don't want to stay on the computer all day and be a zombie. Longboarding makes me feel alive, and its just plain fun and makes me smile.

Animation mentor!

2009-08-25T15:49:00.001-07:00

In one month! So excited

Haha and one cool fact is that I found a good silhoutte mirror in my room. It's a poster with a poster frame on it!

While rocking out, finding poses for my new animation, i found out it was a good mirror. Then I realized, it shows a good outline.

And yea just having fun this summer! Cuz its probably my last summer vacation. Because on AM no summer break, and then looking for a job after that.

But what a great summer. Had tons of fun!

Inbetween the story poses

2009-08-03T20:31:00.000-07:00

Right now I am stuck.

I am watching my animation starting to form up after my breakdowns, but it feels like something is missing.

I've been thinking about it alot, but how can you add character inbetween the golden poses?

I know every pose should tell what the character is right, but its so freakin hard.

Because you first need to have everything mechanically correct right? Also you need to have arcs starting to form, and weight etc. Thats a lot of things, and it limits what you can do with the character it seems.

What if you character is shy, and very cautious of trying something and you have him in a situation where he has to swing a golf club. Ofcourse how he approaches the ball, and the anticipation of him swinging, and the end is gonna be the golden poses that show how he is.

But what about inbetween that. Like the action of the golf swing. You still have to follow the arc of the golf club, you have to be able to show he is balanced on his feet. How can you add character to that?

Haha after thinking about it, you can have his eyes squinting, and have his body a little bit ackward looking. like not in a arc like golf swingers have.

Wow the animation I am working on has no personality..Haha always the problem with that. But its a good mechanic exercise! haha

Drawing

2009-06-27T08:18:00.000-07:00

Right now, side to my animation, i am just practicing drawing some sketches of figures. I always wish i could draw, and i never really attempted it because i was to shy if someone saw me drawign you know? Because I have a lot of good friends that are freaking sweet at drawing, and I was pretty bad ha.

But now I don't care, and I'm gonna be drawing figures because I need to find a way to store all these poses and people in my head. I can recognize stuff when I am like just looking around that intrigues me and I try to get the movement of it. But then after that i forget it.

So I am hoping the sketches will help me keep those ideas in my head

Planning

2009-05-20T18:42:00.000-07:00

The past few days I made myself not go into Maya and try to set up the scene. This is because I know if I open up Maya I would just start chugging away to see progress.

But one thing that I learned is to make sure you know everything you are doing. Like making a longboard skateboard. I was real anxious to start building, but one thing my teacher taught me was to become patient. I need to make sure that I know everything that I am going to do before I even touch the wood.

I trusted my teacher, because he knows how to work the tools and know wood better than me. I read blogs on animation that say PLAN EVERYTHING out. I thought I did, but i did not know my scene enough.

Also another different thing about wood is that, once you cut it, you can't restart. So after realizing that, I wanted to make sure everything was good to go before I did anything to the wood.

I need to approach animation like that too, because I always thought I can redo it, plan it out. But I never do.

So i've learned my lesson. I thought I did, but now I believe I get the point ha

AM FALL TERM!!!

2009-05-06T19:08:00.001-07:00

SO THERE!! I GOT ACCEPTED!!

References

2009-05-02T08:08:00.000-07:00

So basically what I realized is that instead of just filming my references, I should be looking at more references of like professionals on youtube to see how they do things.

Because right now, with my ping pong shot I realized I did a lot of things wrong with my reference. This is because I did not know ping pong to way other people do so I guess I did it "wrong"?

Also after looking at a fellow friends Nate's blog it inspired me to do that more. I liked his lion video references ha

New email = New blog

2009-05-02T08:05:00.001-07:00

Basically the title ha