Thursday, January 31, 2008

JourneyEd.ca....

My mentor this week pointed out to us that Sheridan has a deal worked out with the reseller JourneyEd.ca...

For those of you looking to pick up either a copy of Adobe Creative Suite 3 Master Collection or Design Premium, you can pick up one through the site for 499.98 and 299.98 respectively... they're normally 2766.00 and 1990.00... so that's quite a huge savings. I've also been told that this isn't only an education-only discount that only allows you to use it as a student - both faculty and students can purchase this and apparently use it professionally (or so I've been told)....

Check it out here (make sure to click on the image on the left side of the page advertising the suite for 299)

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Color Script 1.0



Hi all,

This is my first pass at a color script for the film. It's over-representing the parts in the middle so I'll have to add more panels, plus the colors will go through endless tweaking until I get it to feel just right.

I gotta say it's a fun part of the process!

More Layout...



Hey all,

I know some of you are curious as to the progress of the film...

Well.. we've completed all the layouts and are working out the background paintings on the fly... As for animation, we're well into rough animation, and I believe we've roughed out a majority of the scenes.

Anyways, this is a first pass at one of the beegees. Needs quite a bit more work, but pretty much everything does!

A New "Up" Image...



Looks pretty exciting....

Via Upcoming Pixar

Friday, January 25, 2008

Alexander Petrov's "My Love"



Yet another in the Oscar Race...

If anyone can find an online copy with subtitles, please let me know.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Even Pigeons Go to Heaven



One of the Oscar Nominated Shorts this year.

From Today...









Best Of Ottawa 2007..

Just wanted to remind everyone that the Best of Ottawa 2007 Screening is happening tomorrow, at 6PM, in S235.

Also, sorry for the distinct lack in posting lately. The film is a fickle lady who is self-centred, egocentric, and high-maintenance, and in this case I'm very much a doormat.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Oren Haskins...

Check out the fabulous work of Oren Haskins

Monday, January 21, 2008

Peter and the Wolf





Sunday, January 20, 2008

The 10 Minute Film School with Robert Rodriguez...

Found these videos via the FreshDV blog.





Also check out Film is Dead: A Evening with Robert Rodriguez.

Friday, January 18, 2008

An Animation Assosciation...

This blog post by "Paul A. Abdul" has been floating around, suggesting a non-profit organization style Animation Guild for the animation industry. Check it out and make sure to drop by your thoughts on the aforementioned post.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Life....



Feels like its been a while....

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Princess and the Frog....



This image just popped up around the net from Disney's "The Princess and the Frog"

Via Matt Williames.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Schoolism.com - A Review


I recently took the class of a good friend and teacher Bobby Chiu, who runs an online class called Schoolism.com.

As a quick intro, Schoolism runs classes that cater to a specific discipline, that are taught by a professional within the field. Schoolism currently runs three different courses - Character Design by Stephen Silver, Digital Painting by Bobby Chiu, and Caricature with Jason Seiler. I'm sure most of you guys are familiar with these artists, but if not, check them out! Throughout this post is some of Bobby's artwork (unless otherwise noted), in case you haven't seen his great stuff before!



I was able to take the time to go through Bobby's class on digital painting, and have nothing but good things to say about the course and its content. It caters to anyone who wants to brush up on their digital painting skills - from a novice to someone who thinks that they know photoshop inside and out - it definitely has something for everyone.

The class is structured through 9 lessons, slowly bringing you through grayscale and color approaches. This is accomplished through detailed fullscreen videos, each of which is over an hour long. You of course can pause, rewind, and rewatch each video to your hearts content during the duration of the course. The videos are deployed via a flash video embed into their site, with fullscreen mode allowing you to clearly read all of the palettes and follow the instructor's process with ease.



For those who are curious, the course lesson plans are up on the schoolism.com website, but I will post Bobby's class schedule here for convenience:

Lesson 1- Visualizing Through Darkness - Focuses on familiarization with Photoshop and greyscale painting.
Lesson 2- Colorizing from Black & White - Focuses on coloring and image that is first rendered in grayscale.
Lesson 3- Textures Part 1 - Focuses on using traditional textures as a means of creating digital paintings.
Lesson 4- Textures Part 2 - Focuses on using photographic textures to accentuate images.
Lesson 5- The Smudge Technique. - Focuses on using the smudge tool to create a painterly illustration.
Lesson 6- Custom Brushes - Focuses on the creation of custom brushes to suit individual needs.
Lesson 7- Vectors - Focuses on how to create images using vector paths.
Lesson 8- Color Sketching - Focuses on how to sketch straight into colors.
Lesson 9- Color Finishing - Focuses on taking a color rough to a final image.



Where the instruction gets brought to the next level, however, is upon the receipt of individual feedback. Bobby (and this applies to all of the teachers on Schoolism.com) will give you a one-on-one critique of the work that results from your lessons (note: this only applies to the full version of the course - a self-taught version is also available without these critiques at a lower cost). What is also invaluable is being able to view the other critiques from the work that others have submitted within your class. This overall fostering of feedback and learning will no doubt expedite your learning curve - and help you meet other artists in the process.



Another great feature is automatically activated that helps the unmotivated or the scatterbrained - deadlines. The assignments attached to each lesson have a specific due date and are marked and critiqued by the instructor. The deadline reminders come in the form of emails, allowing the user to easily see when they are expected to hand in their work and is an effective motivational tool. This allows you to see where you are, and allows you to stay on top of the work assigned by the course. With specific deadlines, it allows you to finish the course within a finite amount of time while still not demanding enough to take away from any other work that you might be doing as well as the course.

What's also so great about these courses is the lack of prerequisites and the focus on teaching of specific skills. You can go to this online school with any level of skill and be confident in what you want to learn, and learn if from the best in the business. This is, of course, where the model of an online school shines the most.



I have a few more things to add - Marcelo Vignali (work featured above), a wonderful artist who I got to meet while I was down in California is being added to the roster of the already-wonderful teachers at schoolism. Marcelo has quite the resume, having worked on quite a few Disney features in the visdev/layout department, and more recently, working in the same department at Sony Pictures Animation. Marcelo's course, "Drawing Fundamentals," focuses on building strong draftsmanship.


Also on the roster is the infallible Kris Pearn, head of story on Sony Pictures Animation's "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs". Kris is a former teacher at Sheridan and I've heard nothing but praise for his abilities as a teacher and an artist. He will be running a course on storyboarding through schoolism.

With the addition of these courses, I think the dilemma will be more along the lines of which schoolism.com course to take first!

For those who still want to check it out after this exhausting read - check out Schoolism.com.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Chris Sander's "Kiskaloo"



Lilo and Stitch director Chris Sanders has started posting up a webcomic
to his blog entitled "Kiskaloo". He plans to update every Monday. Make sure to check it out.

Monday, January 07, 2008

Curry's...

For all you Sheridan-ites...

Curry's in Oakville has been open for a while now (a week before Christmas, actually) - but a lot of people don't seem to know. It's basically sandwiched near McDonald's and TD Canada Trust near Oakville Place. Here's a map:



It's hours:

Monday - Friday 9am-9pm
Saturday 9am-5pm
Sunday 12pm-5pm

Get on creating!

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Another...





It looks like it will be layouts for the next little while.

By the by, I'll be looking for help with the film production soon. I'm particularly looking for people for voice acting, music, background painting, cleanup, and cel coloring. If anyone wants to help, shoot me an email.

Friday, January 04, 2008

A Layout Test...



Working on Art Direction. It's coming together fast and furiously.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

A Page of Joe

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