Merry Christmas!

Oh my, been a very long time since I have updated this place!

Lately, I've been working at home on tidying up my portfolio. I've set myself a deadline to try get everything sorted by early next year, including new website, demo reel and business cards, etc! So far things are coming along well, but still a while to go yet.

I've also been working on a project resulting in me working from home for the next 6 or so weeks. I can't say much about it just yet, but I'm tasked with doing 90 seconds of animation with a lot of creative freedom. It's a bit daunting, but it's coming along well. Attached are some story boards I did to help give me a feeling of some of the scenes I need to create.



Will be posting more work in the new year as I get them done for my portfolio. Until then, Happy holidays, everyone!

Butts

Just a quick update tonight, I should be in bed! Did a drawing of a friend while talking to her over the interbutt. 20 min sketch. Hi Kate!

Also did some doodles for my brother, he wants a design to have printed on a T-shirt for his mates stag-do party. His nick name is apparently 'Jonny No Bum'. So far its been pretty fun thinking of ways to show this, will post finished version soon!

Current work contract finishes soon which is a bit of a shame. I've been enjoying myself while helping the class of ANFEB09. Ahh well, I'm moving onto a small freelance job, working with 2 other guys animating a series of clips for a documentary. Pretty cool opportunity (thanks, Aleks). 2 more months of employment, yay.

Cafe animation scene is almost done, just tidying up the second half of the animation, then onto lighting and rendering! Hooray. New scene involving the Goon rig is also being worked on, but that is ages away from anything.

Holidays are good.

Graduated last Thursday from Uni. Finally got my piece of paper that said 'Eddie can use computers' and some other little surprises too which will go nice on my CV.

Saw District 9 (awesome) and the Avatar 15 min free preview on Sunday at the cinema (really awesome). Inspired me to get back in Maya, spend some time working on some new animation since I haven't really done much lately. Teaser image below!



Touched up my walk cycle. After spending some time away from it, I can see a couple of things that I need to fix. I'll call it finished for now, will address minor issues later. Also, need to work on colours for rendering out as movie. H264 codec severely lowers saturation when I compile. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? Either way, I need to fix. Although small file sizes are nice, I'd rather have more colour.

Nothing much else to report. Starting work again as a tutor this Friday, should give me enough time to get some new scenes done and help fund my next mass mail-out of DVD's looking for a job, hehe.

Hello

I found some time this week to attempt a walk cycle animation. I wanted to make a plain and simple walk cycle, before trying bigger and more ambitious things with Moom.

The mail room clip I planned out two posts ago got very boring, very quickly. I need to sort out my concepts and not use scenes that don't interest me past the drawing stage. Walk cycles are quick and fun, usually taking about a day to finish, with rendering and post work done the following day.

Anyway, heres the link. Click me!

Still a couple of tweaks to be made, I think his contact 'jolt' is a bit too violent. Also his arms still don't look natural to me.

3 weeks left at work. Hopefully starting new job right after working with pals Mikey and Dane. Also, tractor is rigged, fat kid is abandoned (poor design on my behalf). Only small projects in the works at the moment, meaning I actually finish them. :>

I hate winter.

I'm in town at work, right? I get inspired, loads of ideas, characters and colours flying around my head, I get excited about leaving work and racing home to splash these ideas into Photoshop! Arriving home, I remember my bedroom is a FREEZER. It's WARMER OUTSIDE most of the time, completely destroying any and all previous inspiration. I hate winter, I can't wait for Summer to come back so I can draw in my room again, with out having to wear gloves.

Tonight I forced myself to try and sit in front of Photoshop and draw, this is what I ended up with. I'd really like to enter the HCM challenge over at CGTalk, hopefully I can get some more work done and then I can actually give it a decent go.



Apologies for the excessive use of noise. I don't like it either, but it's late. I'll fix it another day.

Also; job is great, learning lots and really enjoying this 'eating when I'm hungry because I CAN AFFORD IT NOW. YES. AWESOME.'

Until next update (unless my hands haven't frozen and snapped off in the mean time).

Some time off.

This past week I've had some time off from class, so thought I'd try make some stuff.

First up, new character time. Aiming for just a head for now, rigged with curves and points of influence, rather than having blend shapes. Well, I'll try mix the two, but I'd like to learn more about a different type of facial setup as I already know the basics of blend shapes.



He's a bit red, probably because I'm a bit noob with using misss_fast_skin_maya shader and it's many options. Anyway, he's very fresh, with lots of optimising and character waiting to be sculpted into him.

My tractor has also had a revamp, now with (almost) working suspension and stretchy bits and pieces. Check it out here.

Also my animation using Moom (re: previous post) is keyed out, I'll be moving through animation passes with I find the time. I'm trying to stay busy with multiple projects so as not to lose interest in individual pieces.

Progress!

Awesome week is awesome.

I substituted the Gnomon DVD with a DVD by Jeremy Birn on lighting and shadows, definitely a good watch. Only about 1/4 through the lessons, will be watching the rest of them this weekend.

Also have been planning out a new scene to animate using Moom. I drew up a concept of a scene, then a few doodles of some of the action that will take place.



Blocked out the scene in Maya.



Also, I start work at my new job on Tuesday! Woohoo! I'll be working as a tutor assistant at the university I just finished from. It's only part time, but it's a start. Gonna be great! :D

Woop.

My previous blog had to be wiped because of me being stupid. I remembered I had this Blogger account from years ago and decided to use it instead! Check out the post below, it's from like, 2007 when I was playing around in Anime Studio Pro. That program is pretty cool, but I lost interest in it too quickly to get anywhere.

I posted some fan art I did of Go Girls on my old blog, so have added them again to this one.



Goals for this week:
* Work on Burger Fuel prospectus drawings.
* Watch the Gnomon outdoor lighting DVD.
* Plan out a new scene to animate in 3D for demo reel.

I've also finished watching a DVD on learning the Fundamentals of Mental Ray. There is so much I want to do with it. For now, a beginners render using Moom will have to do.