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Aardman’s “Pirates” behind the scenes

Posted on December 5, 2011 
Filed Under Animation, Character design | Leave a Comment

I think we need to thank Sony for backing up Aardman on their next stop motion feature and allowing them to come up with such a great looking movie! The environment, the props, the character design, THE BOAT!!! Man this must have cost a fortune!!! I hope the quirky British humour gets a good response from the broader audience and not only animation fans. “Napoleon Blownapart” ;-)

Pirates movies, who doesn’t like them anyway??

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Related post:
Aardman “The Pirates” trailers

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Scarecrow model packet

Posted on November 29, 2011 
Filed Under Character design, Education | 3 Comments

Here is some of the stuff I have been working on lately. This is a rough “model packet” for one of the characters from my take on the “Wizard of Oz”. A “Wizard of Oz” that would take place in Siberia.

A model packet is a document that gets handed to the 3d modelers so they can take a design and turn it into a full 3d model. It can range from 5 to 18 pages depending on the complexity of the character or how much direction the modelers need.

There is nothing too complicated for that one but that was still pretty challenging. It is still very rough for the time being, I will post a cleaned up version very soon. Right now the arms and nose are not detailed enough for the modelers to do their job. The eyes also need to be worked out as they wouldn’t communicate eye direction. I will probably go for cartoony eyes like the last drawing.

I hope you like it!

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Pixar “Brave” new pictures before trailer release

Posted on November 14, 2011 
Filed Under Animation, Character design | 1 Comment

A new “Brave” trailer should be hitting the theatres and our computer screens tomorrow. In the meantime, here is a series of shots from the movie.

Hit the following links for higher resolution pictures:

via Empire online
Via Bleeding cool

On a side note, I wasn’t too far off with my modeling and the hair on Lord Macintosh is looking really fun.

Related posts:
Low polygon modeling
Pixar “Brave” D23 concept art part 2
Pixar “Brave” D23 concept art part 1
“Brave” Concept art and teaser

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Bobby Chiu new free painting tutorial

Posted on November 2, 2011 
Filed Under Character design, Drawings, Education, Painting | Leave a Comment

Bobby Chiu is a very good artist, a very good businessman and still a very generous guy.

I hadn’t followed him for a year or two and while looking for Photoshop painting tutorials for a friend I found that “new” video he posted well … last year.

Unlike his old painting videos, in that 190 minutes long tutorial (9 parts video) he explains his whole painting process from the original scanned sketch to fully rendered. This is probably similar to the paid videos you can get when attending his online art school Schoolism.com.

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Since this is a free video, I am also posting my notes, feel free to add comments to these.

Water creature fishing

1. Bring the scanned sketch onto a layer in multiply mode, Bobby work at 33% of the final res
2. Open a second window not the navigator in a corner at about 12% to get an overview
3. Create a backgrond layer in dark grey
4. Add a new layer inbetween sketch and background and work on the tonal values of the character, we establish the base tone.
5. We create a new layer for the cast shadows
6. We create a new layer for the Colors in Color mode

Part 4 Lets bring the lights in:
1. We have been roughing out until now but it is time to zoom in, to add more detail in normal mode
2. Upmost layer in Normal mode we add the light so the sketch disappears

Part 7 Adding a secondary rim light

Part 8 Make an overal Levels change to make the painting much lighter. I would actually do the exact opposite so the dark area would have more details rather than creating flat dark areas… strange workflow

Ah and while I was getting ready to post this….. I just received a notification that Bobby Chiu posted an other AWESOME video interview with Pixar story artist Alex Woo. Alex was Tom Gately’s substitute teacher at AnimC last week and the class had a really fun time with him. Alex is a gesture drawing teacher in San Francisco and his class is usually sold out month in advance, he also holds a very popular class at Bobby Chiu’s Schoolism

As a side note, using the 75qs0 promo code when registering on the Schoolism website, you should get a nice discount and it will also help to fund my Philz coffee addiction ;-)

Related posts:
Dice Tsutsumi interview
Bobby Chiu interview

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Aardman “Pythagasaurus”

Posted on October 26, 2011 
Filed Under Animation, Character design | Leave a Comment

Check out that great and probably new Aardman CG shortfilm, it is so funny! Great visuals, funny quirky dialogues and sounds (cavemen with zippers, who would have thought!). I hope they do more like that one.

“Outside a volcano has happened!”

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This reminds me a bit of an old but great shorfilm by an other British studio “Studio AKA”, for the Natwest campaign.

I can’t stand Flash websites…. how am I supposed to embed anything?

Here is a link then… very sexy…:

Marc Craste’s “Mr Lucky”

Related posts:
Studio AKA keyword search

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Spare parts cute designs

Posted on October 15, 2011 
Filed Under Animation, Character design, EA | Leave a Comment

My ex-coworker Ross Burt posted some of the character designs he created for Spare Parts.

The cute robots weren’t selected for the final game but I really loved them. We did model one of them and I got lucky to animate the green one with spray can nozzle head on the far right. Those who know me will rightaway understand why I fell in love with that little fellow ;-)

Spare Parts Heroes and Villains

Related posts:
BAFTA Young game designers
EA (category)

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Pixar Brave, more concept art

Posted on August 30, 2011 
Filed Under Animation, Character design | 2 Comments

Some more concept and visual development work for next year’s Pixar Brave has been shown to the public at Disney D23 last week.

I would have liked to see some Lord Macintosh designs just to finish the model I started a while back :-( The Wise woman is looking really cool.

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Related post:
Brave concept art and teaser

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Brave concept art and teaser

Posted on June 29, 2011 
Filed Under Animation, Character design, Modeling | 7 Comments

YouTube Preview Image

Pixar just released a teaser for next years feature Brave (previously titled The Bear and the Bow) along with some character designs.

Those designs have definitely a Pixar feel to them as they immediately remind us of The Incredibles or Up. Some commentators compared Lord Macintosh to Muntz and the Wise Woman to a Carl Fredericksen in drag :-)

My favourite are actually Lord Macintosh and the Wise Woman as they are much more graphic than the other character. As a matter of fact I have decided to model those two in order to better understand the Pixar style and improve my modeling skills.

I modelled Lord Macintosh in Maya starting from a plane and using the edge extrusion technique in order to quickly create some edge loops then refined the base shape by cutting faces, merging and moving vertices around. Nothing too fancy. I have some experience with that type of modelling but I think I will try the Zbrush approach for the Wise Woman. My friend Richie just showed me the work of Tom Parker, an incredible Zbrush modeler that can knock out a piece in less than two hours.

Here is the timelapse, I only recorded the first few hours as the final “vertex cleaning/edge rerouting” pass is too tedious to watch. I hope you will find this interesting, the video is a sequence of automated screenshots hence the choppiness.

via http://www.cartoonbrew.com/pixar/brave-characters.html

Related posts:
Modeling blog category

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Smallriders is finally online

Posted on May 11, 2011 
Filed Under Animation, Character design, Friends | 5 Comments

Few month ago I was telling you about a short film made by two of my Chico Chica Boumba uber talented coworkers.

Smallriders, Chloe Blocktaels and Joan Delmont’s short film is finally online and I am loving the final product.

The short was finished in Octobre and we have had to wait a loooong time but this was really well worth it. Joan is not interested in 3d anymore but I would love to see this as an animated feature or a TV series. The animation is really good and the character designs are very appealing. Ah I should also congratulate Benjamin Meyer who was in charge of the rendering or he will kick my butt ;-)

Really nice work guys, you can be really proud of it!

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Related posts:
Smallriders, first teaser
Chico Chica Boumba pilot
Back from Angouleme

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Kung Fu Panda 2, trailer 2

Posted on March 5, 2011 
Filed Under Animation, Character design, Modeling | 3 Comments

I CAN’T WAIT!!!!!

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and something I just found. A top french modeler took one of Nico Marlet undone designs and modeled a nasty croco. Actually, judging by the colour scheme, it could be a good guy.

I have a fascination for cartoony crocos I have to say. We have a pretty cool one in the show I am working on (sorry can’t show) but his facial rig doesn’t allow for broad expressions. I will have to investigate how to rig cartoony beaks and long jaw one of those days. Ah for the story, Michel Guillemain is now at Dreamworks LA on … Kung Fu Panda 2 ;-)

ah some interesting links. Yes I have the bad feeling they only took the first story and put a 2 at the end, in the line of the Die Hard series, hopefully it is not just the overcoming of a new enemy.
on writing for Kung Fu Panda
Nicolas Marlet interview

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Sketching with Jason Seiler

Posted on September 25, 2010 
Filed Under Animation, Character design, Drawings, Painting | Leave a Comment

The jury is still out there on the importance of being good at drawing for CG animation but to me, being able to quickly convey my ideas through rough sketches or a series of thumbnails is one more tool to a CG animator toolset therefore acquiring drawing skills should be one of our goals. It is also a great party trick! ;-)

I lived in West Africa for a while and there were many circumstances where I couldn’t pull out my camera but no one minded when I fired up my pens and pencils. My skills weren’t that amazing at that time but once I have a bit more experience with watercolours or maybe gouache, I am hoping to travel again for a month and fill up an entire sketchbook.

This brings me to great video I just found on Schoolism.com:
“Sketching with Jason Seiler”.

There are thousands of free sketching videos on Youtube but they are always too short or not exactly what I am looking for so $25 for looking over Jason’s shoulder and listening to his process is a bargain. It is also a great introduction to the great training Schoolism is offering.

The video is a bit less that 2 hours long and you see him sketching in the street and at his desk, demonstrating the importance of breaking down the subject into simpler forms and shapes, thumbnailling, crosshatching, digitally painting on a TabletPC, ballpoint sketching and applying watercolours.

On a minor note, each artist has their own style and I prefer cleaner lines to the more fiddly Jason uses when sketching, in the watercolours section he didn’t really explain his thought process and how he selected his colours however, I would still highly recommend watching those videos if you are trying to develop your sketching abilities.

You will probably need to register to access the website but don’t worry it is really quick.

Related posts:
My drawing category

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great Disney links

Posted on August 22, 2010 
Filed Under Animation, Character design | Leave a Comment

I was busy collecting some references for my shortfilm today and found some really good Disney links.

Animation Background. As the name implies, you will find a large collection of old classic Disney shorts/features and also more recent backgrounds. It is so cool to finally be able to take a close look at those beautiful watercolours.
http://animationbackgrounds.blogspot.com

The Art of Disney Animation
http://artofdisney.canalblog.com
That one is mainly in french but you will find a lot of artwork from the house of the mouse, among them a larger collection of colour scripts from Toy Story 3 than was had been available in the past.

and 2 more links that have been around for a while but a lot of people don’t know about.

The Pixar blog
http://pixarblog.blogspot.com/

Upcoming Pixar
http://pixarplanet.com/blog/

oops I was about to forget a great resources if you intend to do some research on old Disney short films
The encyclopedia of Disney Animation shorts. A great website if you want to track a Disney director or artist.
http://www.disneyshorts.org/sitemap.html

By the way, does anyone know who was the main character designer on Jungle Book, Sword in the stone, 101 dalmatians, Robin Hood and other features sharing the same angular look? With my colleague Karim we are not able to agree on this. I am aware Milt Kahl reluctantly became character designer but I am pretty sure he was only drawing in that very characteristicstyle. For some reason Ken Anderson keeps coming back to me but I can’t find any information about it. Any idea?

Related post:
Dice Tsutsumi on the Chiustream

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Nicolas Marlet workshop!!!

Posted on August 3, 2010 
Filed Under Character design | 2 Comments

Character Design blogpost just announced a new training and workshop with Dreamworks Character Designer Nicolas Marlet, check this out

http://characterdesign.blogspot.com/2010/08/who-wants-to-watch-nicolas-marlet.html

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The Art Center

Posted on March 21, 2010 
Filed Under Character design, Drawings | Leave a Comment

Rhino crit

If you like the Radhowto blog you will love the Art Center. A blog sharing ideas and tips from Artists to Artists. The contributors are no less than some of the best artists in the industry: Florian Satzinger, Rad Sechrist, David Colman, Louie Del Carmen….

http://theartcenter.blogspot.com/

Thanks Annes for the link!

Read more
Drawing reverse engineering
“Paperwalker” Florian Satzinger

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abAutorig overview, how to create a rig in 5 minutes

Posted on March 17, 2010 
Filed Under Animation, Character design, Education | 10 Comments

[update] if you found that video through Google and missed the Pyro abAutorig tutorial make sure you check the following series of posts for a full tutorial with audio explanations and skinning tips. Original post after the link]

abAutorig Pyro tutorial Part I

The following video is a quick 5 minutes intro to the excellent abAutorig mel script.

Double Click on the Vimeo logo to get the full screen video in full HD res.

Related post:
abAutorig Pyro tutorial
Autorig tutorial preparation work part 04
Autorig tutorial prep work 03
Autorig tutorial prep work 02
Autorig tutorial prep work 01
Low polygon modeling tools

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Gaston the TV series

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

Gaston

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!

YouTube Preview Image

via Castuka and Henk

Related post:
Gaston Lagaffe by Franquin

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“There is no such thing as a Gruffalo”

Posted on December 20, 2009 
Filed Under Animation, Character design | Leave a Comment

Gruffalo

Gruffalo


Some of the best European Animation Mentor graduates worked on that great looking Christmas short film done for the BBC by Studio Soi in Germany. The Gruffalo is a very charming child story books created by Julia Donaldson.

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[...] Read more

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“Lost and found” Amandine Pecharman

Posted on December 3, 2009 
Filed Under Animation, Character design | 4 Comments

Amandine Pecharman

Amandine Pecharman

Amandine Pecharman, production designer on Studio AKA “lost and found” posted some really cool concept designs on her blog. Check it out it is really really nice.

http://amandinepecharman.com/

[...] Read more

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Double Duck, Topolino

Posted on November 20, 2009 
Filed Under Animation, Character design | 1 Comment

Double Duck

Double Duck

During my summer in Angouleme, I met a lot of very cool people and one of them was an italian artist that kept talking about his time at Disney which I found really intriguing as Disney doesn’t have an animation studio in Italy but the Disney he was referring to was … a very different one.

[...] Read more

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“Paperwalker” Florian Satzinger

Posted on November 20, 2009 
Filed Under Character design | 2 Comments

Paperwalker

Thanks to Jean Denis Haas at Spungella, I rediscovered the work of incredible Austrian character designer Florian Satzinger. I got acquainted with his work through an interview on Character design blogspot few years ago.

[...] Read more

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