So excited!

Oops, it's been a while since I've written here.

NEWS:
* Documentary is all done! It's going to be air mid June some time. Struggled through the final stages, but learned lots during the journey.
* Bought a Canon 500D which I am really enjoying. Decided to give photography a try and now I'm spending my weekends taking pictures and learning how things work. Currently shooting through a 18-55mm lens, gonna buy some more lenses as I get better.
* Worked at Tangata Whenua TV for a few months on a show about animals. I was using a program called Anime Studio 6, both rigging and animating characters. I was working there until two weeks ago when suddenly ... I got a job at Weta!
* Started working for Weta on a TV show called The WotWots! I'm working as an animator on season two of the show and absolutely loving it. Hard work, but definitely awesome.

So! In short, now I'm living in Wellington with two bags of clothes, a camera and my bike. Everything is fantastic! I don't have a computer at the moment so I can't upload recent work/drawings/animation/photos. I'll be buying a laptop soon when I move into my new flat, then I'll share some new stuff. Exciting!

New job!

Doco is almost done! Putting on final touches through out this week.

Starting a new job tomorrow working with my buddies Mikey and Dane at Tangata Whenua Television. Working in Flash and animating short stories for kids.

This will be my first time I've worked in Flash professionally, so I've been cramming my head with revision and learning as much as I can before tomorrow.



Tests are fun!

25 days

25 more days left and I'll be finished the documentary! I'm pretty happy with the progress and how everything is looking. I'm looking forward to getting this done and getting back into 3D. I miss Maya! :(

My buddy Rick has been helping me out with some backgrounds for this project as well. I provide him with the layout, he sends them back completed. Here's an example of where we're headed with the first sequence of 3.



Then after a few moments in AfterEffects, we end up with something like this:

SH002_BG.mov
(4.3mb)

Not what I'd call final, but gives a good example of where I'd like to head with all of this!

OK, time for bed.

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. :>