A Revamp is Coming | Simpleology

Hey Gang-

Been forever since I posted, I know. Look for a revamp of this blog (perhaps even a new blog address) coming in the next couple of months.

In the meantime, I've been doing a lot in 2009 for self growth and development. One of those things (and you'll see some of the books, etc. posted soon too) is Simple-ology. I've been "taking" their free course, Simple-ology 101. It's not rocket science, but it's simple, quick and it forces you to organize your activities to achieve what you most desire in life (one of those for me is a job in animated feature films).

Anyway, they now have a new blog course that I'm gonna check out and thought I'd pass along the info. I'll review it later as I haven't used it yet and have to post info here in order to take it free. So, it's a shameless plug for a product I'm not sure works, but if it's like the 101 course then it's bound to offer up something useful and rewarding.

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

Cool Post About Workflow

Michele Meeker gave us this link during our Saturday QA. This is a goldmine for workflow in CG!

[click pic for link]

Exceeded Bandwidth for AM Reel

Well..looks like I exceeded my bandwidth limit and so my reel will be down until April 19. Please check back then. See, I made an awesome welcome video for the new CLass 1 folks and left it on all their pages. Well that killed my bandwidth limit. Ouch!

First QA of Term 2 | Peer Buddy

our mentor, Pete Paquette, in his treehouse office

We had our first QA with Pete last night and it was AWESOME. The first QA is generally just an introduction of everyone in the class. Looks like I'm amongst some great company of students from various backgrounds. While Pete is pretty down to earth, he informed us he'll be quite the task master [could it be is former stint in The Marines????], but will learn a ton about animation through that "tough love"!

In other news, I'll also be helping out Term 1 students in the official capacity of an Animation Mentor PEER BUDDY. As a peer buddy, I'm responsible for providing feedback and encouragement to seven students assigned to me as well as keeping the community of AM alive and kicking with all students. This is both a great way to give back to the school along with making sure I really cemented what I learned last term.

My New Mentor

We started season 2 at Animation Mentor this week and I've got a brand spanking new mentor for this term. His name is Pete Paquette and he's an animator at Blue Sky studios. He's worked on such films as "Robots", "Ice Age The Meltdown" and the new "Horton Hears A Who".

We've got our first QA with him this evening. I'll let you know how it goes!!

3D Modeler: Arran Skinner

Wanted to give a shout out to my pal Arran Skinner and his mad modeling skills. Arran and I studied finer arts together at the New York Academy of Art. Arran is learning 3D modeling and is off to a fantastic start. He was kind enough to model some boxing gloves for me to use in my exhaustion pose assignment at Animation Mentor. The gloves look AWESOME and def enhanced the final still!

Arran now has a blog chronicling his journey. You can find him here:

arran3d.blogspot.com

Class 112: End of Term 1

So we wrapped up Term 1: Basic Foundations this week. After three months of 80 hour weeks I am trying to get away from animation for the week, but alas...I have been doing some revisions and putting together my progress reel. Next three days...no animating!!! Need to recharge the batteries! We start Term 2: Body Mechanics on Monday.

Huge thanks to my mentor, Victor Navone, this term. He was instrumental in helping me to gain a better eye and sharpen my skills in this art form. Plus, he's just dang fun to have as a mentor and knows his stuff inside and out! An inspiration!

Also, a big thanks to Stephen Gregory. I was able to hit the ground running at AM because of him. I still owe him a drink too!

And of course, the biggest thanks of all to my wife. I could not have endured without her massive love, heaps of encouragement and bottomless patience...THANK YOU LOVE!

And now, for the work:

Class 111

coming soon.....

Class 110

coming soon.....

Class 109

coming soon.....

Class 108

coming soon.....

Class 107

coming soon.....

Class 106

coming soon.....

Class 105

coming soon.....

Class 104

coming soon.....

Testing Posting Content

YES...updates are coming! Just been slammed with work and school. Plus trying to find a way to host videos so they play at speed here. So, here goes a test:

Busy..busy...busy!!!

Man..working full time and doing AM full time prevents me from getting to the blog a lot. Stay tuned for more updates on the classes/work I've been doing at AM. It's a lot of work, but fun! So I just need to find some time to re-cap it all! Soon my fellow animatos...soon!!! =D

In the meantime, I want to know a little more about effective blogging an recently ran across this on an AM mentor's blog:

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

I don't care about making money from my blog, but would love to driver more traffic from the animation community so we can help each other grow!

For now, back to AM homework!

Were The Old Masters Animators?

Fellow New York Academy of Art alum and Disney animator Patricia Hannaway has a great article in the new issue of American Artist: Drawing. Patricia discusses the importance or line of action and gesture in figure drawing, something we're attacking in our work at Animation Mentor with our emotional sketches and 3D poses.

Check out here article here: Draw What The Model Is Doing

Class 103: Ball Bounce Animation *Final* [?]

Here is the final ball bounce I turned in last week. Again, we were t get the weight of a basketball into our bouncing ball and keep it to 100 frames. The only crit on the ball was to add one in-between between frames 44-50 as the bounce up there seemed a tad too snappy/quick. I've done that in this revision below:



*Photobucket doesn't seem to play back the animation at proper speed. Anyone know how to host .mov files on Blogger? My web skills are somewhere on the bottom rung.

Class 103: Excited Pose Revised

So I got my critique back from Victor and he had some fantastic insight into my Stu pose I hadn't even thought of while producing it. The sketches I submitted were well received and Victor enjoyed the fact I had included some context for Stu's excitement along with the props in the final pose. Super glad I included those props and addressed a bit of the dressing in the scene as I got some great feedback on how to better use the props to support the story/emotion.

In a nutshell:

- Emphasize the paper the paper in the hand! Nothing at the moment suggests Stu is excited about the letter, he could just be someone who likes to destroy mailboxes!

- Twist chest more toward camera to help separate the shoulders a bit and to allow for the focal arm holding the paper to be posed a bit straighter and so we can get the paper in the air and call it out to the viewer.

- Bend lower arm more to puller in closer to the torso and point the fist more upward toward the paper helping to direct our eye back up to the focal area.

- Maybe have Stu leaping off the ground!

- Add some paper to the left side.