Ross’s Animation Blog

Hey

Heres my current demo reel for April. Im still working hard to add new shots and improve this thing as much as i can.

crits, comments, feedback, random emails…. all welcomed.

A couple of weeks back I made the trip over to San Francisco to attend my graduation from animation mentor and it was totally awesome. 

It was a pleasure meeting all my classmates aswell as the AM founders Shawn, Bobby & Carlos. It was so cool meeting everyone in person and geting to chat a little aniamtion with them.

The graduation, in true AM style was a ton of fun and featured a few of their awesome mentors aswell as a speech from non other than Pete Doctor, which totally blew me away!

While I was in SF I was lucky enough to be invited along to a tour of pixar (thanks Bryan!) hosted by Victor Navone. It was so cool to see around the studio and the crazy cabins the animators work in.

I cant believe my time at AM is over. I’ve learned so much in a short period of time and I’ve been lucky enough to have been mentored by really great people aswell as being in class with some super animators who i have learned a lot from.

Here are a few pics from my trip the pixar ones are thanks to Bryan Megan

Hey

Here is my animatic for my short film . I know my drawings are really rough but hopefully they are clear enough to understand the story.

Before I move into layout Id be really greatful for any feedback on whats working and whats not working. Even just tell me what you think the story is about. That would let me know if things are clear or not.

Thanks

Hey long time no post.

So class 5 has started a few weks back and I was happy to meet my new mentor this term Elliot Bour who is very cool.  This class is about learning how to develope your own short film and exploring ideas which is really exciting.

So i thought I’d post so cool Mr Bean clips Ive been watching lately. Its so amazing how Rowan Atkinson communicates 99% of his emotions in pantomine and very clearly too, so much so that theres almost no need for him to speak. When he does its only there for comic effect.

The Library

The Hospital

Exam

And a guide to dating

Hey so today was the last submission for the two character shot in class 4.

Heres what i have right now, theres still alot of room for improvement in the face and body polish oh and the tie i havnt dont the tie yet

Class 4 was alot of work but i really feel like I’ve learned alot and made big strides in my animation education in the past 12 weeks.  Which looking back is really satisfying to see in such a short timescale. I know i still have lots to learn and looking around at the work of my classmates the standards is super high.  Huge thanks too to my mentor this class Kevin Koch his crits are totally invaluable.

anway heres my assingnment as it stands right now, still in need of some more polish.

hey So I’ve been pretty slack in posting updates over the past few weeks due to the work load at AM and a few other things.

The two character shot has been a ton of fun and needless to say work too, much more work than i imagined. Animation wise and technically theres just so much more to think about but thats all part of the fun right?

Theres two weeks left before i have to submit this for a final time and im in that horrible place of splinedom right now where everything is looking alittle swimming and in need of tightening up.

One thing im learning with this shot is that having a real systematic approach to your workflow will help you meet your deadlines and work efficiently. Somthing im not practicing as well as i should

Theres just so many things to fix its very easy to start fixing one thing notice that somthing else is alittle off and work on that for a while and see another glitch elsewhere and move onto that. Rather than working in passes or checklists where you can gradually refine and refine over trying to get one area perfect and finding out later you need to change it due to some other factor and the time and effort is then lost. In my case its much easier to say all this than to actually do it although I am trying!

Anway here is my assingment so far, its very rough in places and there are some contraint issue that are still on the ‘to do’ list as well as a million other things

One other thing I’ve been trying on this assingment is not to stay too long in stepped mode. Usually i add a lot of detail in stepped and then switch the whole thing over to spline and fight the mess for a bit. This time i tried blocking in the key poses and a few breakdowns then going straight into spline and working making good paths of action and interesting motion.

I think in some ways this has worked better, its much easier to see where the eases and over shoots need to go and see how the motion is working which can be lost in stepped. Your also not giving your self that false sense of security with stepped where everything looks snappy but in reality it might not be. Anway im sure developing workflow is something that doesnt come over night.

Just heard about this the other day and it sounds pretty interesting.  The awesome Jason Ryan who has given a few lectures and demos at AM,  is setting up his own video tutorial site. Its tough to tell if this will be a keith lango VTS type system or if its more of an online class room like AM but whatever it is im sure it’ll be great.

Here are some of my facial pose sketchbooks from this class, these are always a ton of fun to do.

Hey so it’s been a week or two since my last post but I’ve been busy working on my two character shot for AM. Heres what I have for now its really early layout / blocking stage right now but feel free to leave crits or comments.

Disney are currently showing 9 mintues of Ratatouille and it looks pretty fantastic to say the least!

Get it while its still on the Disney Site. I believe its only going to be shown for the next 24 hours