Figure Drawing

I've been lucky to be able to do lunchtime figure drawing during lunch at work.  We're also lucky to have Karl Gnass instructing the classes.  It's great to get back to physically drawing on paper, and I've learned a lot from Karl so far.  Here's a post with a few of the drawings over the past year.

"The Croods" Work-in-Progress Screening

Had a chance to watch the work-in-progress screening of The Croods today.  It's amazing!!! I really can't wait to for everyone else to get to see the final film next spring!

Class 5 Week 12: Over and Out

Well, coming to that time again.  End of Class 5.  Great time with a great mentor, Boola, this class.  Here's the traditional end-of-class Progress Reel.

Now for a much needed and appreciated week off :)

Class 5 Week 11: Last Hurrah!

So this is the last week for the mammoth 2 character dialog shot.  Gotta say, it was a lot of time to get to this point.  Adding it up, its touching 720 frames of animation each weekend.  Between this and animating cycles all day, I'm starting to see key frames in everyday life ;)

Pretty happy with how it turned out.  The last shot still needs some work, but I guess that's what the next class is for!

Madagascar 3 Opens in Theaters!

 

Well, opening day!  I spent slightly over a year working on this film.  I really like how it all turned out - probably the best one of the series.  It's always fun working with the PDI crew again!

They've been releasing a bunch of clips in the last week - so here's a short bit from the big car chase sequence that shows some of my work.  I animated all the crowd traffic - which was quiet a challenge with a giant SUV of zoo animals already careening down the road.  I also had the chance here to animate the driving cycles as well that went into the cars.  Enjoy!

Class 5 Week 10: Refinements and Other Niceities

 Lots and lots of work into this week's assignment.  The goal is to have it final and ready to go - that way the next week (yikes! only one week left) can be just the final little polishing touches.

Made some decently big changes in the timing, giving the Sign Guy's first take to have another beat to breath.  Also kept motions, such as turns or looks, moving across the cuts.  Cutting on the action really helped it feel like one continuous action again.  

Other touches are adding in weight to the props, overlap/drifting on holds, refining the mouth shapes, and not for nothing - the Briefcase Guy was always missing ears previously :)

Still not sold on the Briefcase Guy's final pose/action.  I feel that I've done the "timid jump" too many times to repeat it again...planning to experiment with him holding more still.  I'll try to sell that pose with his expression, or possibly have him drop the suitcase....