Update and TRAILER!

So just a rough update of what I have been up to recently. My time with Reel FX has officially ended. It was a really great place to start out and I got to work on two really cool projects with some really great people. But budgets and whatnot meant that they couldn't afford to keep me around for the next project. So I am on the hunt for my next home at the moment, no idea where I will end up, but we shall see. Life is an adventure and it is time for the next stage.

As far as the movie that I worked on, it is called the Book of Life and the trailer came out today! So everyone check it out, it was a great project and I am incredibly happy to have gotten to work on it. I am so proud of everyone who was part of it. I think all of you are going to be super surprised when you see it in theaters in October.

Pandas animation tricks #19

Hey everyone! It has been a long time since I posted anything. I have to say that finishing up on Free Birds at Reel FX was really tough. We had a lot of long hours and a lot of stuff to accomplish. But we did it! Now I am back to regular hours on Reel FX's new film, Book of Life. That means I finally have some more time to get back into making videos and posting things up. Hopefully I will have a few months before we get into crazy town on this new film. As far as the video for this time around. I felt like I would talk about something I actually had trouble with when I was first learning animation. That problem is posing out a character that is both appealing in a 2d image plane but is also built on a solid foundation in cg. You will understand more as you watch the video. If you guys have any questions feel free to ask. I love hearing from all of you!

Pandas animation tricks #18

Hey guys, I am back with another video, this time I talk about a trick that will help you edit your graph editor curves more quickly and more accurately than scaling. In certain situations this is a far superior method and it is something everyone should have in their back pockets. Hope everyone enjoys!

Update on whats been going on with me. I moved down to Dallas and I have been at Reel FX for about 3 months now. It has been a really great adventure, starting out working on a movie is an amazing opportunity and the film is looking pretty funny. Everyone is really gonna enjoy it I think. Sorry I haven't made a new video in awhile, you know, new job, moving, getting settled, it all takes awhile. But yeah, things are going good, and hopefully I can get back into the swing of things as far as making videos goes again. Now that I am used to my new schedule.

Reel FX

Hey everybody! So, I have a big announcement. I landed an apprenticeship position at Reel FX in Dallas Texas. Not a whole lot more to say than that. I am really excited to be heading back down to Dallas where I will get to see some of my old college friends. I am also excited to work on Reel FX's new movie Turkeys. I am prepping for my move right now and will be starting at Reel FX in early September. Landing that first animation gig was really tough and took a long time but it finally happened. I have to give a huge shout out to all of my instructors and friends over the years who encouraged me and helped me improve. Special shout outs to Randy Hayes, Angelo Sta. Catalina, Tal Shwarzman, and the ever incredible Mike Walling. These guys really gave me their time patience and energy to help me improve and answer my dumb questions. I cant thank them enough.

Daffy Duck Walk Cycle

Hey guys so I thought I would go ahead and give you an update with whats been going on with me and why there was Pandas Animation Tricks video this last month.  But first! I want to share with you one of my favorite looney tunes walk cycles, honestly there are a lot of really great ones.  This one in particular has always been a personal favorite though.  Why I think this cycle is amazing is because of the wonderful angles used by the animator.  Daffy is off balance the entire time even as he steps forward he is never quite catching his weight correctly which gives the feeling that he isn't as strong as he would like us to think.  But we not only get this wonderful forward facing angle but some great straits in the arms and hand which provides some great contrast to his puffed out chest.  The other great thing about this walk is the timing of the steps.  I love how the feet slowly pull up off the ground then snap forward into the front position.  It is a wonderful visual gag that really sells the spirit of the whole short in just this walk.

So, about the video for last month.  I am sorry about not getting one up for you guys.  I got really busy dealing with some personal stuff this last month and only now am I coming out of the crazyness.  So I am planning on having a really nice video for you guys late next week.  I have a couple of really good ideas and it is just a matter of picking one out and prepping anything I may need.  Anyway guys until then, have a good one and keep animating!

CTN

Hey guys! I know I haven't posted much of anything for awhile now, been busy. I got a few things in the works though. In the mean time I thought I would share with you all my adventures at CTN! I am not much of a shutter bug but I did grab a few pictures so I figured I would go ahead and share. I did a lot of really cool stuff at CTN. I think I could have done more cool stuff but I had a lot of fun just seeing a bunch of my fellow ianimate students. You guys are AMAZING! I had a lot of fun meeting you guys in person, it was a long time in coming. I also met a few ianimate instructors around CTN and got to say hello which was amazing. They are all great guys. Beyond that I got a few reviews, had my soul crushed. Did a lot of talking. Met a ton of really cool people from all over the world. Bought some art, and heard a couple of really great talks. So, let me go ahead and share the few pictures I took.

I got a bunch of pictures of these little statues which were pretty cool looking.










So this is a bit of a story. The ianimate booth was about 30 feet from the glen vilppu booth. After awhile Angleo Sta Catalina, Darrell Vasquez and I decided to go talk to him. We went over and started asking him about his work and his process for doing his AMAZING figure drawings. He opened up a new document and talked through his process as he drew us an example. It was pretty amazing. We also saw a few original pieces of his. I got a couple pictures right after that happened...



That is Angelo, he is standing in front of glens booth making a crazy face (as usual). You can see glen in the background, he is the older gentleman, he is a great guy by the way, very pleasant to talk to.



This is Darrell holding one of Glens books that he had for sale. Also making a crazy face...seems to be a theme here.



Finally the last picture. This is Me with Ron Clements and John Musker! I had just been to their panel where they had a lot of amazing stories to share and just a lot of behind the scenes info and art to show. After that amazing panel they ran off. I started walking around the booths again and went outside to get out of the crowds and they were just standing outside! I was like OMG! So I asked them if I could get a picture, they were super nice about it and I am very grateful they were willing. Needless to say this is my favorite picture by far!

Rio Comparison and some General News

Password is: education

I found this video over at the 11 second club so I am sure a few of you have already seen it. However it is worth posting again since it is great to be able to see the reference and thought process that goes into making these great, great shots. I would like to thank Jeff Gabor for posting this video because it is going to really get the animation community fired up, I know I am.

Update about whats going on with me.

So, workshop 5 of ianimate ended this week. It was a pretty amazing workshop I must say. I had Mike Walling, who is an amazing guy and a great animator. I wound up doing an old clip I found months and months ago which fit the bill for the workshop. It was actually a clip that was in my "must animate pile" so that was really great. I had a really clear vision as far as the emotions and the beats I wanted to hit and the shots are coming along. I have a lot left to do on my shots before they are finished. I would say I am 60 percent done. I know I am not going to be able to finish everything over this 3 week break but I figure I will get as much as I can done. After I get the shots all splined out and cleaned up I am thinking I am going to post up some videos from along the process. The video reference, The blocking, and the final animation. I think I may even toss the layout in as an extra, so you can look forward to that. As far as next workshop I am going into the final workshop at ianimate, which is pretty exciting. I am going to be working on my reel. I will be polishing up some old work and making a new shot to fill in the gaps that my reel currently has. All in all, I had a great time this workshop and hopefully I have just as much fun the next workshop. As far as the blog goes. I have 2-3 different ideas for the next pandas animation tricks video I just need to sit down and make it. Sadly I have been having technical problems with my recording software so I will have to figure that out before I can add any new videos, so it may be a little while, we shall see. Anyway guys thank you for reading, I really appreciate the support. Reading the great comments I get really makes making my videos worth while so thanks a lot for that.

Pandas animation tricks #10

On this edition of Pandas animation tricks I am talking about tracking spheres. A quick little trick that can help refine the spacing of an animation in the later stages of spline and polish. Not much to say about this one other than, I hope you find it useful.

In other news I am about to wrap up workshop 5 of ianimate. It has been a great workshop thus far and I have really been enjoying myself. One more workshop to go and I am ready to jump back into the fray.

One of these things is not like the other.

Even though I never draw I got into the mood today and did some bird drawings....and a squirrel. I just thought it might be fun to share some of my sketches since I almost never do that. As for other stuff. ianimate workshop4 is over but I have a ton of work to do on my shots. I have a to do list which is a mile long but what else is new? As for next workshop I have 3 weeks to settle on the piece I am going to be slaving over for 14 weeks. I have a clip which I really love but I figure I might snoop around a bit and see if I cant find something that speaks to me more. It is an unlikely outcome but you never know. Sometimes these things just scream ANIMATE ME! Anyway I am going to try to finish up these workshop 4 shots in the next couple of weeks and do a really nice render for each shot. At that point I will make a video of my shots and post it up for all to see.

The Work! The Work!

So I have finished my first workshop at ianiamte! Woot! Actually I finished it about 3 weeks ago and I am just now getting to posting this stuff up. I think it is time for a bit of a recap (since its been so long). My experience at ianimate so far has been pretty positive, I must say. I had Tal Shwarzman as my instructor and he was awesome. He was strait to the point and called us all out on any bull we were trying to skate by with, and I loved that. It was tough though, I gotta say my second shot especially was a rocky, rocky road. I only just got it to a point where I feel like I should be sharing it. I still got a couple tweaks to do that will be hard to notice once implemented. At least for the non animation savvy. I have met a ton of really cool people at ianimate and some just amazing talent. Really top notch guys at this place and I have a feeling most are going to be pretty successful in the animation world eventually. As for the site it was a bit of a rough start but the kinks are pretty much worked out now and everyone is settling in. We are starting to get a lot of neat rigs now which is great. Having access to some top notch, user friendly rigs is just an amazing resource. I just Started Workshop 4 last week which is full body acting. That is going to be interesting I have to say. My instructor David Hubert seems like a pretty cool guy and I hope to learn a lot form him. I don't have much to say about him yet just because we have only had a couple classes. Needless to say I have high hopes for my next couple of shots I will be working on and since I have already started my block of my next piece that enthusiasm is definitely needed. I am going to try to post more often than I did this last Workshop. That way I wont have to do a gigantic post like this again....

About my shots for workshop 3....

In workshop 3 we do two shots which are close up acting shots. We can do whatever we want and use whatever rig we want. It basically splits into two shots at 7 weeks each to complete them. Now this was pretty rough on me because of two things 1. I am a very very weak actor. I have been studying more and more into acting than I ever have before. I am very comfortable now with physical motion so acting is the next stage of my animation learning. 2. I am weak with facial expressions. I have a really hard time posing out nice appealing natural looking facial expressions. When you are doing close up facial acting those two areas are kind of important. Needless to say it was pretty rough. But I learned a ton on both shots. The second shot most of all. Probably because it was a female character and I have done so few of them up to this point. Also the whole issue of me not being a female makes it hard to really dig into that mind set. It was an uphill battle the entire time. But I think both shots are OK. Neither are ground breaking in any sense but both are fairly solid and I am proud of a lot of the work I did. Anyway I will stop blabbing. Please enjoy my shots and if you have any comments or questions please feel free to share.

Pandas animation tricks #4

Hey guys this video is about my general maya set up. I also show how to set up your own selection buttons using a mel script and a quick run through of layers and how they can be helpful. In the video I talk about setting up maya to adjust all viewports at the same time but couldn't find the setting in the settings/preferences section. I found it though and to change that setting you go to settings/preferences - Timeline - update view- then select all instead of active. Anyway guys if you have any questions for me about this stuff let me know. Its pretty simple stuff but people were asking so I figured I would go ahead and throw this out there. I don't know what I am going to do for the next one but I am going to try to make it pretty cool. That is enough about this, onto general news.....

So to catch up with what I have been doing for the last couple weeks. I started Ianimate and have been animating my first shot which is really close to being done. I am working on the lip sync and having a horrible time trying to get it to look right. I have done it, started over, and done it again, multiple times. Part of the problem is my lack of skill with lip sync in general. The other problem is the design of the character I am using....giant chin. For you animation friends out there you can maybe see how that might be a problem. On the brighter side I have started planning on my second shot which should be a lot more fun than this last one since it isn't so stoic and strong and a bit more loose. Ianimate in general is pretty cool! I have met a lot of cool guys who are producing some great work. The couple of dreamworks guys I have talked to are super cool and my instructor Tal is a class act all the way and its been a treat to be in his class. Besides a number of tech problems that I have been dealing with, either with the site or the conferences its been a pretty cool experience so far. I have never been in a group of animators who are so skilled and into animation as myself. That change is so welcome I can hardly express it in words. The push to get better is so strong being around animators of that class that I have really started to probe at where my weaknesses are and thinking about how I am going to remedy those and push beyond my current level. That is awesome! Because I haven't had that drive since I worked on stuff for Tart at the Art Institute which was well over a year ago now. As for the job hunt there has been a bit of a dry spell as far as industry work is concerned. I keep seeing the same five jobs which I have already applied for popping up. As usual nothing at entry level and everyone is looking for at least 3 years of experience. I am not going to let it get me down, all I can do is keep working, pushing, and hoping that I will eventually get so good as an animator that people would be nuts to not give me a shot.

Hey everyone just putting up a post because I am excited to announce I am now a student at ianimate.net the new online animation school created by Jason Ryan. Its an online school that is much cheaper than animation mentor with an interesting program. It gives you one on one time with actual animators that are in the industry right now (mostly dream works guys) and they are going to be giving us specially built rigs and stuff which is cool. This is basically going to burn a hole in my butt though because I now have to get a part time job to cover the monthly payments needed to cover the course. I think though given the people involved it will be worth it. I had been telling myself that after I get a job as a game animator somewhere I can go ahead and go to animation mentor because I can afford it at that point. I decided to go with ianimate.net because I can afford it NOW and it will allow me to add things to my reel which will help me get a job sooner. That also means that I have to finish my game reel by the end of this month. That is kind of a tight deadline but hell I have done more with less time so lets do this thing! Oh and the classes start on the 16 of September I think so after that I am going to start having a lot more updates on my blog. it might actually turn into something people will want to read!

New location same old tricks.

So the need for a place to post and get feedback has become apparent. Since I graduated school more and more I have been secluded into my own little world away from any good solid animation critiques. Realizing that I decided to post up this blog. As I work on various animation I will go ahead and post videos up here to share what I am doing. If I do a good drawing or some kind of comic or something that will go up here as well. To start off I will go ahead and post up the link to my website you can go see any of my current stuff up there. glassanimation.com