..::drew’s blomblog::..

Take a look at Kevan’s website. He answered some questions I sent him about demo reels. Pretty insightful answers. And also pretty cool that he took the time to post them. Thanks Kevan!

-drew

I’m having some issues right now with the links to my videos. The files are pretty large and take a while to load. The best way right now to view them is to right click and download them. This still may take a while, but I am working on the problem and will be over the Christmas break. I know a couple of people have had issues with the putfile.com files and I’m trying to fix those problems. It’s just sort of a round-robin of issues, but all of the links work, the files are just kinda big for the time being.

Happy Holidays everyone and thanks to everyone who has given their comments and critiques on the new stuff. I’m hoping to get a job from the end product, so I’m taking all comments very seriously.

-d

Well, not exactly, but check this article out of the Boulder Daily Camera. Not that that is a very cool name for a newspaper, but the article is good. I never expected to see this in my local paper. The only thing Boulder is really known for is Mork and Mindy and really really really really bad football. It’s really bad. But check out the article. It’s a pretty good overview of the program.

-d

Right click “Save As” to download New Motion Reel

So, after some awesome crits from people, I’ve taken a look at my reel and have made some changes. I’ve cut some things and I’ve also got some pretty primitive renders. I think it looks a little more professional than the previous version. I’ve still got some dialogue pieces in the works and they will be in the final cut before I send it out anywhere. Critiques are more than welcome. I’d love to hear what everyone has to say on this stuff.

Right click “Save As” to download Buzz’d (Work in Progress)

Drum roll please… I’m also giving y’all a special preview of my short. Buzz’d is almost half animated. There is still some work to be done polishing, but I’ve got to be moving forward with the project as a whole in order to get anything done. Also, therea are still the shaders to contend with and final lighting. I hope the story still comes thru in the previews. Consider it a teaser. Oooo, I’m teasing you. I could give you more, but I’m a tease.

Special thanks to Brian Menz, Brett Schulz, and Keith Lango. The input has been apppreciated, the tutorials have been insightful, and the flowers were unnecessary, but made me feel good anyway. The music on the short was provided by the incomparable Gordon Stone. Special thanks to Gordon for permission to use “Close Enough.” I’ve said it before, but I think this piece is perfect for the story I’m telling and just hope that my animation matches the energy of that piece.

Until next time,

-d

Hey all, Brett Schulz has some insight into putting a demo reel together over on his site. Brett’s a pretty cool cat and he’s also got some thoughts on games versus film. With some of this stuff in mind and also some info from some other cats, I’ll have a new demo reel up by the end of the week. Thanks to everyone for their input on my last one. Until then…

-d

So the New York Museum of Modern Art is recognizing Pixar with a show dedicated to the art behind their hit films. I really am glad to see that these amazing artists are being recognized for their work. Just a quick note to let anyone in the area know what’s going on. I’d love to be able to go to the show, but getting from Colorado to New York is a bit of an impossibility.

-d

(image copyright Filmax Animation, 2005)

Here’s a pic from the new film by Filmax Animation, the Spanish animation company that did El Cid. This thing looks gorgeous. I really dig films that totally transport you to another place. Just the way the characters are presented makes me want to know more about them. Everything fits together stylistically and the movement is very rich. Most American films tend to have the same thing going on in them and when something as cool as this comes up, it just has to be checked out. Traditional animation is not dead, and there’s still some amazing stuff out there. I definitely want to get a hold of this film when it comes out.

-d

Some people have called this last week “Thanksgiving break.” I did slip into a poultry-induced coma once or twice, but only to come back and get plugging away on my film. I’ve got over half of the scenes for it posed and timed out. There are also over half a dozen scenes “finalled.” The textures aren’t done and the lighting is just in a first pass, but I’ve managed to get seven scenes fully animated.

It’s exciting and even though I’m busy, I’ve still found ways to watch my favorite videos. I can’t stand Media Player, but iTunes doesn’t have that cool minimize and still watch the video feature. So here’s a work-around. Maya’s web browser is not the best way and it does jump around quite a bit. But the point is that you CAN watch videos while working in Maya.

(inset image copyright Keith Lango 2005. Character copyright Drew Blom 2005.)

Now I know this pushes the argument of whether or not one should listen to music while animating, but when you gotta animate and learn at the same time, there is little other choice. There are times when I can’t do both at the same time, but using the tools available has been a pretty good way to get some things done around here. At the same time, this could be useful for using video reference. Maya is a little tempermental about video file types, but .mov’s seem to work pretty well. I know that this is probably old hat to alot of people who have been using Maya for a while, but I hope it’ll help someone.

-d

I started this over at Spline Doctors, but instead of making this an immensly wordy post, I decided to post it her. It gives me a little more room and it isn’t impolite.

hey guys.

i don’t want to sound like too much of a “fanboy” and i really hate comments that gush just because “you’re on real pixar animator’s website.” with that said, this is really a great piece if advice. when you’re only 12 credits away from being a real college graduate, you start to reflect. i didn’t do animationmentor.com, even though it’s a great program, but it wasn’t around when i started school. i wish that i could just focus on character animation here at school, but (i say this with a lump in my throat) i’m glad that i’ve gotten a more broad education. but at the same time, i’ve had to be more dedicated than (some) others because i have to keep from getting sidetracked on the “other.”

This is a gross analogy, but I used to work in a factory. Several actually. And there is one thing that has really taught me a lot. I’m dipping down into a deep past that at times I wish I could erase, so please indulge me.

The most helpful piece of advice I can give is that if you want to be a good employee, not just animator, it really pays to know what happens to the piece, whether it’s a scene (in the case of animation) or a trailer house (in my former life) before you get it and after you get it. There is so much to learn by looking at what the people who setup the scene for you (layout) and what happens after you. In order to do something “right,” it takes a knowledge of what is going on in general.

The question of which school to choose in this case is really obsolete. It comes down to knowing “thyself.” Know what you want to do. That takes time and figure this out. With that in mind, it doesn’t matter as much where you study, but keep in mind what you want to do.

-d

This was a fun exercise in one of my classes last year. The assignment was (hopefully) to exaggerate the muscles and the pose. This was to help get a sense of drawing from the model and not copying the model. I like drawing like this. It’s really liberating and helped me push some of my other drawings (and consequently my animation poses) to be more expressive. Here’s a comparison of what came from drawing like this.

ps. I finally got the stupid titles to work so that the archiving looks nicer!! Yay tutorials for idiots.

-d