IT'S BEEN A WHILE...

It's a been a while since I've updated this ol blog of mine. For the past year, I have been busy finishing my first year of grad school. I've been working on a 4 minute CG animated short for my thesis with a great group of people at AAU. Unfortunately, I won't be able to post much about the film for a while. But for now, here's a viking I'm working on:

 

R.I.P. MICHAEL DANCKERT

My sister's brother-in-law tragicly pasted away recently. He was an amazing person and had that rare quality of being instantly trustworthy. He was extremely hard working and giving. I didn't have time to do this drawing before the memorial, but after hearing all the stories about Michael, and how many people he touched, I felt compelled to make something. So to anyone who is reading this that was close to Michael, I hope this helps you heal and reminds you of all the great things that made Michael Danckert a great person. Rest in peace, Michael.

DIALOGUE TEST

This is a test that I have been working on recently in Maya. I used the Norman rig and the audio clip is from "Anchorman: The Legend of Burgundy". Any feedback is more than welcomed!

"FLIGHT OF A PHOENIX"

My final year at CalArts was a huge challenge for me. I had a huge decision to make with my film. I spent the major of my year trying have my cake and eat it too; I wanted to have a film with a great story and I wanted to have top notch animation. It took my four years to finally figure out that I can only do quality work when I am focused on one thing. My story suffered because I wanted to rush into animation, and my animation suffered because I wanted to have substance to my story. When April rolled around, I came to the realization that I couldn't animate the story I was trying to tell without either the animation or story suffering. I had to make the decision to either have another animatic, unanimated film, or to just animate my film characters in a simple situation. The "film" above is the animation that I was able to do in the last two weeks of film time after I abandoned my original film. It was truly a hard decision to make, but I want to be a character animator and I am going to pursue it no matter how many hardships it brings my way. Anywho, hope you enjoy it!

FINALLY... SOME NEW STUFF

Wow! It's been forever since I've done anything with this blog, so I have finally gotten around to updating it a bit. I took a break the other day from working on my CG stuff, and drew for the first time in forever. Hopefully, I can post up some of the other things I drew sometime soon, but for now, I hope you dig the new look of the blog.

CHARACTER ANIMATION GALLERY '09

For this year's Character Animation Gallery, myself, Chris Sturgulewski, and John "Duze" Dusenberry collaborated on a piece of James Bond inspired art that we called "From Valencia With Love". (Picture of all three of us next to our piece at the show above) Each of us did a group of drawings inspired by characters from the world of James Bond. Here is the logo from our piece and the drawings I did for the piece. Enjoy!

LOCKDOWN '08!!!

Yes, it's that time of year again! CALARTS Character Animation is hosting its annual (6th, if I'm correct) 48 Hour Lockdown on Friday, October 24th, at the stroke of midnight, which would technically make it the 25th, but who cares. The theme of this years lockdown will me drawn at midnight, and then participants will have 48 hours to animate a short film that integrates the theme. Previous themes have been "Lollipop," "Snow," "Candy," "Tube-sock," and "Piranha." The Lockdown is open to anyone who wishes to participate and the show will probably be on the weekend after Halloween. I will post updates as I get them. (Oh ya, I just realized that I forgot the "HR" in the poster, but everyone got the point, so whatever.)