Recent Flash animation

Here's some animation I've done recently. I can't seem to get anything other than a mp4 to playback properly in youtube. Any quicktime format that actually looked good would only playback t like 3 frames a sec. I don't know how some people post animation that actually plays back ok with you tube :(. Anyway. Here's the first.






This was a little piece of animation that I did for Chuck Gammage. I had a week to complete it and clean up and color all the backgrounds. It was pretty intense. At the end of it I was working 18 hour days with a 34 hour straight non-stop work marathon at the end of it. I'm afraid that last sc might have suffered because of that. Can you spot which on it was? But it got done on schedule.. Just. The client was showing it at an event the were hosting on a friday at 7. I deliver the final cut to Gammage at4:30 on friday. Just enough time for them to burn a dvd and courier it to the client. Even though it was a tight schedule, I'm glad I did it. I think there's a shot or 2 in there that will make it on my reel. And hell. I basically animated a 1 minute short in a week.







This was a commercial that I animated for Moses Media. They basically gave me the concept and i did the boards and animation. Shout out to my partner in crime Troy Little for painting me a wicked background. it really brought the whole thing together. I wish the compression didn't make the beast look so crappy. He was the high point of this fro me. He's kinda of my homage to every Final Fantasy / rpg I've played. I guess he's my Bahamut / Behemoth :). It was just fun animating all those muscles. And yes.. that's me drawing away in my basement studio at the start. Everybody loved the spot. Even if I did think it looked less like a commercial for a video game course, and more of a spot for an animation course. And then the inevitable happened...






Holland college showed it to some game people who thought it was lame because it wasn't 3-d. Now. Did I think it sold the concept of "come take a course in video gaming"? Not so much. But I didn't think it was "lame". But I guess it's not good unless there's 3-d involved. So Moses Media had to get another artist to 3-d it up in the end. I think they were more bent out of shape over the 3-d add on than I was. :) As long as I got paid the client could do whatever they wanted to my animation. Gotta give it to the Moses Media guys (Jason & Beryl) they were a blast to work for. Every time I gave them a decision to make they always went with the one that would look better. Not everybody does that. And it deserves mentioning. I'd work with them again without hesitation.

So that it what I've been up to lately in this world of animation. Have a good weekend!!

Chloe's portraits

My daughter Chloe has recently grasped the concept of facial features and where to place them. It wasn't really a gradual thing, it just kinda happened all at once. One day scribbles.. The next, faces. She likes to draw on her magna doodle so some of the more inspired ones are lost forever. But every now and then I can convince her to draw on paper. here's are soe that I managed to get scanned recently.


Here's one she drew of April. I like how she gave her cartoon pupil eyes. She's been doing that alot with the faces she draws on her magna-doodle. Notice the many pony tail / barrettes around here head. And of course, the random color scribblings on top of everything.
Now this one amazed me. She got the colors and the features. And nostrils too. Nice touch.
So this is her first attempt at me. Drawn with a highlighter (sigh). But it turned out soo well I had to try and scan it. I like my nose and how she positioned my pupil looking up in a worried way. Very me. And hands and motion blur feet to boot! This next one is photoshop's attempt at making it easier on the eyes... Sure...
And last , but not least, is potatoe head Jason. Now this one was draw right after the last highlighter one. I now have eyebrows and fingers on my hands.. My feet are still blurry. I'm not sure what kind of subconscious commentary on me that is. I think the line under my mouth is her attempt at my beard.. or one of the lines is my mustache. not sure. She hasn't developed her facial hair techniques yet :). I liked how she added that one line to the top of the head and told me it was my hair. I mean.. I know I'm thinning.. But that's just ridiculous ;).

I wish I would have taken pictures of some of her magna-doodle drawings.. some of them were amazing. To the point where I thought my wife might have drawn them. I'll have to do that in the future. But all-in-all I have to say these are not too shabby. Especially for a girl who hasn't turned 3 yet. Keep drawing Chloe!!!
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Portrait work..

Here's some portrait work I did over the holidays. The top 2 are April's grandfather. They were done as gifts for the family. Again. I'm poor. So you get drawings. The other 2 were freelance jobs. The grandmother one was constructed from about 3 or 4 different photos as there wasn't really one good photo of her. I had to completely create a section of her face too, which is challenging. Having never met the woman. And the kids were just hard to draw because they're kids. I always seem to mess up the proportions of kids and make them look too old or too baby like. Oh well. The clients were happy.. Which I guess is all that you can hope for.