How to train your dragon, new clips

Posted on March 6, 2010
Filed Under Animation | Leave a Comment

If you are not worried to see to much of the movie before it hits the theatre, have a look at that new teaser and “Forbidden friendship” a 2mins long shot of the encounter between Hiccup and Night Fury.

How to train your dragon

There is something really striking in those clips and I really wonder how this is gonna work out in the final movie. A lot of the shots are lit by an overcast sky and most of the colours are desaturated except for a tiny amount of shots like “Forbidden friendship”. Since not all the shots are similar, I guess it is a deliberate choice but that’s a really odd one especially from Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois. Is it how they translate watercolours in CG?

The movie is out in few weeks, I can’t wait!

Oops I was about to forget the link to the “How to train your dragon”’s blog
http://howtotrainyourdragon.tumblr.com/

Autorig tutorial prep work 04

Posted on March 4, 2010
Filed Under Animation, Modeling, Portfolio | 2 Comments

http://www.vimeo.com/9936173

This time I am modeling the hands. I am not looking at references yet, just blocking out the shapes.

You will see me starting from a cube, which I subdivide manually to extrude faces and create the fingers.

I push the details on one fingers then duplicate it to create the other ones. Very often you will see me going from low poly to high poly using the 1 and 3 keys in maya 2009.

and here is the second pass
http://www.vimeo.com/9924238

Third pass, refining the shape, cleaning up some edges, adding more detail

“Parka blog” art books review blog

Posted on March 1, 2010
Filed Under Animation | Leave a Comment

Flickr Video

I don’t need to read review websites before buying “Art of” books but I still love browsing this website for reviews of books I wouldn’t usually buy.

Parka blogs

Rapuntzel “Tangled” first teaser

Posted on March 1, 2010
Filed Under Animation | Leave a Comment

A first teaser for Disney’s “Tangled” finally surfaced on the net.

I am really liking the painterly rendering. It reminds me a lot of “Monstre à Paris”.

Autorig tutorial prep work 03

Posted on February 28, 2010
Filed Under Animation, Modeling, Portfolio | 2 Comments

Here is the nearly final model. Click on the picture for full screen version.

I will work on the hands tomorrow.I am still not entirely happy about the junction between the chin and the cheek bone, the eye/nose area also need a bit more work but that should be enough for the Autorig tutorial.

Autorig tutorial prep work 02

Posted on February 27, 2010
Filed Under Animation, Modeling, Portfolio | 4 Comments

http://www.vimeo.com/9780845

Here is a video showing the modeling process for my tribute to Pixar’s “Up”.

You can double click to see the video in Full screen but if you first click on the Vimeo logo you will be able to see it in full 1600×1200. You might also be able to download the video from Vimeo, it is in Xvid/Divx, sorry I don’t have Quicktime pro but Virtual Dub or KMplayer allow you to go frame by frame if needed.

[...] Read more

“Waking sleeping beauty” documentary

Posted on February 26, 2010
Filed Under Animation, Business of animation | Leave a Comment

“Waking Sleeping Beauty is no fairytale. It is a story of clashing egos, out of control budgets, escalating tensions and one of the most extraordinary creative periods in animation history.

Director Don Hahn and producer Peter Schneider, key players at Walt Disney Studios Feature Animation department during the mid1980s, offer a behind-the-magic glimpse of the turbulent times the Animation Studio was going through and the staggering output of hits that followed over the next ten years. Artists polarized between the hungry young innovators and the old guard who refused to relinquish control, mounting tensions due to a string of box office flops, and warring studio heads create the backdrop for this fascinating story told with a unique and candid perspective from those that were there.

[...] Read more

“How to train your dragon” Nicksclusive

Posted on February 20, 2010
Filed Under Animation | Leave a Comment

Do you want to see something new from “How to train your dragon”? Here is a sneak peek from Nickolodeon

La dama y la muerte (short film)

Posted on February 18, 2010
Filed Under Animation | 3 Comments

La dama y la muerte

There are so many short film coming out all the time and I have so little free time that I tend to miss on a lot of little gems especially when the provided screenshot doesn’t do justice to the work.

“La dama y la muerte” (The lady and the reaper) is one of those short films I would have missed if my friend Dan didn’t tell me about it. I love the design of the characters especially “La muerte”, the wacky layout and storyboard, the cartoony animation, the lighting. This reminded me a lot of the wackiness in “The emperor’s new groove” which is a very good thing.

http://www.dailymotion.com/videoxc5h85

actually… even my friend Jamie told me about it since it was animated in 3dsmax and rendered in his favourite rendering engine Mental ray

Website:
http://www.theladyandthereaper.com/

Production blog:
http://www.theladyandthereaper.com/wordpress/

“Monstre…” again

Posted on February 8, 2010
Filed Under Animation | 4 Comments

well well well, it looks like “A monstre in Paris” is still going despite all the problems the production went through and that s a good thing since what I saw at Annecy few years ago was really really cool

Matt Jones on “Monstre à Paris

TC1100 vs Ipad

Posted on February 7, 2010
Filed Under Animation | 3 Comments

Which one of those:

- supports Adobe Flash out of the box
- allows you to listen to music while doing other tasks
- allows you to run hundeds of professional applications
- has up to 1.2ghz processor
- has more than 50 gb hard drive
- allows you to draw with a real pressure sensitive pen
- doesn’t force you to buy an expensive Apple computer to develop applications
- comes with a free docking bay with keyboard
- costs less than $200 on Ebay
- came out 6 years ago
- is actually a real computer

Fresh and not so fresh ideas

Posted on February 7, 2010
Filed Under Animation, Graphic design | Leave a Comment

It is amazing how often the same ideas have to keep coming back in movies ….. no I didn’t mention Avatar…. well I just did .. The same ideas keep coming back but where the issue is the most acute is with student short films.

Last year I had an interesting conversation with Cedric Villain from french animation forum “Fousdanim.org“.

As a 2008 Annecy short film award winner, he was invited to participate in the selection of the 2009 Annecy nominees and went through 50 hours of program. After such an experience, he confirmed that the same topics or even stories kept coming back.

The reason I want to talk about this today is because my friend Joost posted a very very cool short film which really stood out aesthetically for me but not so much in term of story. Without further due here “Pivot”

http://www.vimeo.com/9178331

Because I have been into design in motion for quite a while, I immediately thought about the Psyop arrows from the Lugz campaign which in 2002 led to the …. the “arrow craze”…. Every motion design video had to have its variation at that time and even I came up with my own flavour. The Robot on my modeling showreel was supposed to fire them in an explosion of colours ala DeBlob.

[...] Read more

Overdoing it

Posted on February 3, 2010
Filed Under Acting, Animation | Leave a Comment

Avatar’s producer Jon Landau made a very interesting comments some time ago and a lot of people failed to understand what he was talking about.

Here is an extract from the article published in the Australian http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/titanic-director-james-cameron-grabs-films-holy-grail-in-new-film-avatar/story-e6frg8pf-1225766563195

To me, it’s the exact opposite,” Landau says. “Our goal on this movie was not to replace the actor, it was to replace the animator. If you think about it, what a great actor does and what a great animator does are antithetical to one another.

“A great actor withholds information. Dustin Hoffman in All the President’s Men can sit there and do nothing. No animator would ever allow that, they would put in a twitch. So our objective was to preserve Sam Worthington’s performance and have that be what you see in those characters.”

As animator we find it difficult to keep our characters completly still. Because we get paid to animate and because we love to see animated things we feel compelled to add twich, eye darts, shoulder raise. Top Disney animator Mark Hen made a similar comment in one of the Animation Mentor lectures and more recently the good people from the “Speaking of animation”.

The reason I am bringing this topic today is because I found a very cool clip that will illustrate something very similar.

The modelling industry has very specialised professionals called “Body parts models”. Don’t believe me? Hit the link (http://www.bodypartsmodels.com/home.html). Those people get hired for photo-shoots mainly when nice looking hands, arms, shoulders, bums …. are required. They are obviously cheaper than full body models but do the trick for close ups. Now the problem is that very often those “body part models”, similarly to animators, just… just overdo it! Instead of “straight acting” their part, and just display what they are supposed to display, they feel compelled to “hit the pose” and come up with the most over-the-top gesture or poses that will justify their pay check.

Now I have a very cool clip where you can see one of those models illustrating this perfectly. Pay attention, well, how could you not pay attention to the silly hand gestures of the woman holding the Emmy award on the right hand side. It is so over the top that Ellen DeGeneres can’t help mimicking her towards the end of the clip.

“TACHAAAN!” short film

Posted on January 28, 2010
Filed Under Animation | 3 Comments

http://www.vimeo.com/8723796

The short film finally surfaced. Really, really nice. I think the pacing is a bit off in places but it is still very appealing visually.

[...] Read more

Annecy 2010

Posted on January 27, 2010
Filed Under Animation | 3 Comments

Craig Penn’s showreel

Posted on January 22, 2010
Filed Under Animation | Leave a Comment

I rarely go to CGTalk but looking for tips on rigging I came across that really cool Animation showreel from Mill/Framestore animator Craig Penn. He has everything that people would recommend to avoid. Fully rendered shots, funky Frutty Loops sounding music, animated titles ;-) . I still think it is great and I must admit that I love his low proxy pig animation on the end titles. Brilliant!

http://www.vimeo.com/7020377

Faking it

Posted on January 16, 2010
Filed Under Animation | Leave a Comment

“Fake it until you make it” they say. If you are interested in personal development and want to see some individuals pushing through their comfort zone to become the exact opposite of what they have been until now to eventually participate to a competition where they will have to pretend to be someone else.

From Kickboxer to Ballroom Dancer, Ballet Dancer to Wrestler, Webdesigner to Surfer, the series aired few years ago and is now available online for the UK residents. A lot of fun!

One of the funniest would probably be the one where a country boy fan of Haendel and 17th century french painter Poussin is challenged to become a Graffiti artist in few weeks. Getting ready for his new life he tells his mum: “I will have to pack some working clothes” to which is mum replies “you don’t have working clothes” ;-)

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/faking-it/4od

No matter your background, with the right mentors and a serious boot camp, you can achieve pretty much anything.

Gaston the TV series

Posted on January 13, 2010
Filed Under Animation, Character design | Leave a Comment

Gaston

Gaston, my all time favourite comic by Franquin is finally airing on french TV. I wasn’t too excited when I heard they would be using After Effect rigs to give life to the useless intern but Normaal did a really nice job I must admit.

http://www.gastonlagaffe.com/anime/serie/

I would also like to mention an other one of my favourite comics, Leonard. That one has been given the 3d treatment by Ellipsanime and is looking very cool!

via Castuka and Henk

Related post:
Gaston Lagaffe by Franquin

Drawing reverse engineering

Posted on January 8, 2010
Filed Under Animation | 1 Comment

Rad "How to"
I just found that great website via Spungella.

RAD SECHRIST is a story board artist at Dreamworks who uses his blog to share some excellent tips on how to reverse engineer life models or finished drawings. I haven’t checked the entire website yet but that sounds amazing!!!

http://radhowto.blogspot.com/

Isn’t that Rad?!

Thanks a lot Rad!

“Alma” finally online

Posted on December 20, 2009
Filed Under Animation | 2 Comments

http://www.vimeo.com/4749536

Story is not ground breaking but the shortfilm is a very enjoyable experience.

How to train your dragon, new clips

Autorig tutorial prep work 04

“Parka blog” art books review blog

Rapuntzel “Tangled” first teaser

Autorig tutorial prep work 03

Autorig tutorial prep work 02

“Waking sleeping beauty” documentary

“How to train your dragon” Nicksclusive

La dama y la muerte (short film)

“Monstre…” again

TC1100 vs Ipad

Fresh and not so fresh ideas

Overdoing it

“TACHAAAN!” short film

Annecy 2010

Craig Penn’s showreel

Faking it

Gaston the TV series

Drawing reverse engineering

“Alma” finally online

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