Earthsea!

Via Enrico's Blog, the new Tales from Earthsea trailer, directed by Goro Miyazaki.

Make sure to check out the translation of Goro Miyazaki's blog as well.

Also, if you get a chance, check out Dream On Silly Dreamer. It's definetly worth seeing and is now available to order on DVD.

There'll be new work up soon this week. I'll try to keep updating every day no matter what!

In the meantime, check out these cool peeps:

Aaron White
Andrew Shek
Normand Lemay
Joe Park
Mark Andrews

One more thing that I just thought about -

Steve Hunter at the Pixar visit revealed that the next project in the Pixar pipeline is a Pete Docter "monster movie." He also said Andrew Stanton had something in the works but couldn't tell us what it was. On a somewhat unrelated note, check out This interview with Jan Pinkava, former director of Ratatouille. Also, apparently Pixar is catching up with Nasa in terms of computing, and Steve Jobs says the sale of Pixar allows him to focus less on Pixar and more on Apple.

Over and Out!

Disney Visit!

Ric Sluiter from Disney visited today. He talked about how he definetly felt that Disney was going to return back to 2D, specifically referencing the fact that they would start producing 2D Oswald shorts. He also showed some pre-production art on 'A Few Good Ghosts,' a feature that was canned in mid-development. He told us that he is currently working on Chris Sander's American Dog (the story goes something like: "American Dog tells the story of a dog named Henry, a famous TV star, who one day finds himself stranded in the Nevada desert with a testy, one-eyed cat and an oversized, radioactive rabbit who are themselves searching for new homes."), and even answered a question about how Rapunzel, Unbraided (whose story goes something like this:"Sick to death of storybook endings where true love conquers all, a frustrated witch brings two romantically-challenged teenagers from the real world into the classic fairytale, and transforms them into the legendary long-haired heroine and her gallant prince.") was coming along (Glen Keane's tests were apparently stunning).


Some stuff from American Dog (via Jim Hill Media that was shown at Siggraph:



Here's a test shot from American Dog via Ain't It Cool News.

Some stuff from Rapunzel Unbraided (via Jim Hill Media as well):





And I found these shots off the Character Design Blog









He had some really cool art direction stuff to show off, such as the artists that inspired the style of several films (such as A.J. Casson for A Few Good Ghosts). No pictures were allowed, but it was definetly cool to see them come down.

Pixar Visits!

Hey there.

Shot some photos of the peeps (Steve Hunter (Former Sheridan-ite!) and Bob Scott) visiting from Pixar today.

Here's a photo of the two of whom I speak anyways (with Steve on the right and Bob on the left):



Check out the 'do! (he's one of the three caballeros! (See The Incredibles DVD for more info!))



I don't know if I'm going to be on shaky ground for posting these next few photos, but suffice to say that these images are by Pixar artists and are all Copyright of Pixar. They are not my work, I just wanted to post them because I thought what they showed was cool.



Bob maquette.



A Bob "Model Sheet" that helped keep the animator's on model.



Some facial expression examples that the animators were given to stay on model.



A wicked close-up of the image before.



Storyboard.



Blocking.



Pose Test.



Final.

I started paying attention and stopped shooting at this point. Sorry for the crappy images - I didn't want to use a flash so they're kinda noisy. Ok, really noisy.

Laters.

[update] So I just wanted to say that as of today I'm being considered for a story and art intern at Pixar. I had a great interview and Bob, Steve, and Dawn, who all seemed really enthusiastic about the quality of the artwork coming out of Sheridan. I'll keep you updated on this for sure!

The development of a layout

I really liked layout class this year. Piotr Bielicki has been really inspiring and has really solidified in my head the fact that I want to be involved in either story or layout when I get out of this crazy thing I've gotten involved in (a.k.a Sheridan).

I just wanted to show the work I put in to finish a final layout. On this particular one I went through the thumbnail storyboard, 6 roughs, one clean line, and one marker rendering to arrive at my final layout.



The first one is literally just basic shapes and basic perspective, the idea is to point toward one central focus point in the image. I make notes to myself at this point and the drawing's all very rough - I try to keep loose as long as possible and not rush to the final image - which creates more mistakes.



The second image I start tying the detail down on the buildings, and fix the background to something more appropriate. I felt the clouds were a little 'too much' of a one directional thing and it basically hurt the eye.



The third image I started going with a curvilinear thing on the right and the left, with the foreground element on the right being its own seperate entity.



This image I start really nailing the lines the down, with the detail becoming more clear to me.



At this point I thought it was the final image when I started (hence the cleaner line on the rooftop of the building on the left) but I started making scale mistakes so I decided to keep loose and rough out the detail, only better this time.




This final rough is basically a loose version of the final. I moved the building on the right over so it would frame the character and keep him a tad more subtle. I also made the scale work a little better and made the detail a little clearer overall. Robin said she liked this better than the final clean line version.



Here's the clean lineart. I didn't do the text and the framed character, as this was just a trace off for the rendering. The assignment called for each element on it's own individual layer, so the character appears on that.



And the final marker rendering.

Yes, I realize I'm stupid. But I like layout.

Gonna go to sleep now, got the group film screenings to go to earlyish tomorrow!

Layout!

Me likes layout.

Summer Life Drawing

Just a quick post -

If anyone is in town (Oakville) for the summer, life drawing will run on (probably) Wednesdays from 7:00PM - 10:00PM in C139. The cost is $125 for 14 weeks (May 1st to August 4th). The forms will be ready probably Monday. Sign up in D100.

Ellenora and Subway Drawing

To confirm that yes, the pythons were real.



One thing that I want to improve in a lot is cafe sketches of people's faces. I'm gonna practice it a lot this summer I think.

Snakes on Kosta, Toby, and Nonna

For some reason there was a python at school today.

Two of them.

Nonna's face is classic.

One more Bazo post...

The group films are due on Friday - so here's a quick preview of how the Bazo Station looks like at night.

Hope you're looking forward to the screening like I am!

And now for something completely different...

I've been working hard on a storyboard for Layout class - we're to board an entire sequence that our teacher has scripted. Here's what I came up with, sorry for the quality of the scans, hopefully the panels are still readable.

Click on the below panels to see the full breakdown. It's split into 8 pages.

Over the Hedge

I had the chance to see an advanced screening of Over the Hedge today (but didn't make it to the Stop Motion Primer unfortunately). I was told it wasn't a finished version of the film (there were still some scenes with non-rendered animation tests), so the press was asked not to review it because it was only a workprint. But that doesn't stop me from giving my impressions of it today.

First off, a short film 'Final Flight', directed by Sheridan Grad Cameron Hood and Kyle Jefferson preceded the screening of Over the Hedge. The plot is essentially a working class businessman waiting at a bus-station who is approached by a baby bird and consequently feels obligated to teach it to learn how to fly. My only impression that stayed consistent throughout the film is that it was painstakingly heartfelt, to the point where it felt overdone. I really like the concept for the film, but the execution could have been much better, in my opinion.

Onto the movie - The film starts out with RJ, a racoon, attempting to gather junk food for himself until he decides to steal some from a bear. Upon being caught, he is forced to gather the same amount of food that he stole in one week or else he will risk his demise. Cut to him finding a pack of misfits (i.e. family) comprising of a turtle, some skunks, porcupines, and a squirrel who spend the year gathering food so that they can hibernate through the winter. The plot turns so that RJ uses this gatherer-centric 'family' to suit his needs. The plot literally plays out exactly like one would estimate from there.

This is my main problem with the movie - entirely predictable once it's clear what RJ is to do. While I particularly like RJ as a character both in design and animation, as well as the comic-relief squirrel (which in my opinion was done with real charm), I couldn't help but find the movie very typical. The lack of pop-culture gags and a true attempt to create an original story with a strong message is definetly a good step for Dreamworks, and I would definetly bring a child to see the movie (who I think would enjoy it immensly), but I doubt I'd seek out the movie again for a second viewing.

Probably a 3 out of 5? Ratings are cheesy...

Two Models

Two models in costume today.

Handed in the better one =/

Michael Dudok De Wit

Hi there,

I've been a big fan of Michael Dudok de Wit after I saw his work at last year's Ottawa International Animation Festival. Seems that two of his shorts have popped up on YouTube. They're two of my favorite animated shorts.

Monk and the Fish



Father and Daughter



I have a DVD of his stuff. If I have time I might try to upload Tom Sweep to YouTube as well.

Also, on This site, Acme Filmworks has posted 5 of Michael Dudok De Wit's commercials for AT&T. Check them out, they're pretty cool.

I emailed him a while back about his first film, called "The Interview", which he did for his graduation. He told me that he plans to release a DVD with his work that will include this as well as a new short, called "The Aroma of Tea." I bet it will be available come Ottawa this year.

On an unrelated note, the trailer for Meet the Robinsons came out today.

Derek

One drawing of Derek from Today.

Drew Lightfoot

For those of you who are going on Tuesday to the Over the Hedge screening, the NFB is holding a Stop Motion Primer course with Drew Lightfoot, an animator on Corpse Bride. It's 7PM at the NFB building on 150 John Street. It's $15 for the general public and will answer questions like:

How do you plan for motion with no key frames? How do you make characters jump or fly? How do you ensure models stay still between shots? Is video assist necessary? What kind of equipment can you use to record?

Definetly worth sticking around in Toronto for.

Jen

Just the one for today.

Ron

I never am able to draw Ron for a whole pose. His conversation is far more interesting.

Big Studio Year-End Rush

Seems that there's going to be a free screening of Dreamworks' Over the Hedge for animation students on April 18th at 10 am in the Varsity Cinemas on 55 Bloor Street West, Toronto. Guh! Why so early?



Also, it seems that Pixar, who is hiring animators and fix animators, is going to give Sheridan a little visit on April 26th, and will have a Q&A session between 11am - 1pm. Definetly psyched about this!

Two Models?

One model in costume, same model nude and 'creatur-fied.' Ten Minutes Each.

Also, the first one is just a morph drawing. Nude Model, using reference.