The Animation of Adam P

Jake and the Neverland Pirates

2011-02-17T23:40:00.009-05:00

Jake and the Neverland Pirates (the show we've been working on at Mercury Filmworks) aired this week. Here's a full episode! Check it out before Disney sues whoever put it on youtube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aHZm-cOYzg

alive...

2011-01-25T00:37:00.003-05:00

What's this? A post!? I am sorry to say I have neglected this here blog of mine for the last 8 months or so (as graduates often do), but I've been keeping busy on other things. Well, mostly just work actually. But it's fun work. The show airs next month, and Disney's started showing stuff from it recently.

Voila: http://disney.go.com/junior/pre/index.html

That's All Folks (or is it?)

2010-04-30T23:52:00.003-04:00

Well guys, 4th year (and my post secondary education) is over, and I've got to say, it's been a blast. I mean, high school for the quiet artist type like me was not the most enjoyable experience, but coming here where all the quiet (and some not so quiet) artist types from around the world have gathered to do what we love was the best decision I ever made.

The program here was a little hit and miss, but the atmosphere and the people here have made the last 5 years the best I've ever had. Non-animators don't understand when I tell them that I spend every waking hour at school and still love it, but I guess what they don't realize is that we are all doing that. While other college students go to lecture halls filled with hundreds of people they will never talk to, and then spend their off times getting drunk enough to forget how boring their homework is, we go to an open studio space, hang out, draw, and try to figure out how we can make a living doing it. I think that is an amazing way to spend our college years. And the people in our class of 2010 have made it all the more amazing.

Being with the same hundred or so people for the past 4-5 years has been an incredible experience. Looking back on it all, I've kind of thought of our relationships with each other like this: In Art Fundamentals, we became acquaintances, strangers, with common interests (which, considering how weird our interests were was a pretty big deal). In 1st year, we became friends. In 2nd year, when we got our open studio space and really started living at the school, we became a family. In 3rd year, when we had to work together on a group film, we became a dysfunctional family. And in 4th year....well...I don't really know. It feels like I'm moving away from home again. It feels really weird to be leaving this place behind forever. Its kind of a relief to be done, but I'm really going to miss this place, and especially the people that have inhabited it. But I guess there's no sense dwelling on the past when the future could potentially be even better.

I was fortunate enough to get a job at a studio in Ottawa called Mercury Filmworks and will be working on a very cool looking TV show, the details of which I should probably not disclose here. And it seems that many of my Sheridan bretheren will be joining me in a couple weeks, which is awesome! I had contacted the studio pretty early this year and was able to land a job even before industry day, so I guess preparation and persistence pay off. Although part of me wishes I could stay in a state of limbo and relive the past five years over and over again, another part is excited to move on and start my career. And Mercury seems like a very cool place, and with some of my old classmates being there as well, I think it will be all the more awesome.

I think I recall about 5 years ago my high school guidance councillor thought I was nuts for going into animation. I had pretty good grades so I guess he thought I was going to go to university to get a fancy degree in business or something like that. I mean, why have a fun, art based career when you can sit in an office and type in numbers all day, right? But a relatively smart guy going into animation? He thought I was crazy. Nah, I'm not crazy. Crazy are the people who choose their careers based on the size of the paycheck. Crazy are the people who spend 40 hours a week doing something they hate for money. Money doesn't matter. Money is just something you have in case you don't die tomorrow, and if you give it any more value than that, then you've got it all wrong. I'm not crazy. I'm the only one who's not crazy. Well, not the only one. I can name about a hundred more not crazy people. And its been a pleasure working/hanging out with/growing up with every one of you. I wish all of my classmates the very best of luck in the future and I sincerely hope we'll meet again some day. (reunion in 20 years, anyone?)

Cheers,

Adam P

Carol of the Elves (alternate music)

2010-04-30T23:42:00.002-04:00

Carol of the Elves (Alternate Music) from Adam Pockaj on Vimeo.

My 4th Year film again, this time with music arranged by U of T student Trevor Hewer. It was a collaboration between Sheridan animation students and University of Toronto music students to work together to make a soundtrack that we actually get legal rights to use on our films. Thanks Trevor!

Carol of the Elves

2010-04-12T19:26:00.002-04:00

Carol of the Elves from Adam Pockaj on Vimeo.

Well, I finished the film last friday, so here it is. I may be tweaking a few things here and there over the next couple weeks, but this is pretty much it. I had a lot of fun making it, and I hope you have fun watching it!

P.S. I recommend Vimeo for uploading videos. The file was almost 300 megs and Vimeo took it like a champ. I think most video uploading sites limit it to 100megs, so if you want to keep good quality, Vimeo's the way to go

The First 30

2010-03-09T12:19:00.002-05:00

The First 30 from Adam Pockaj on Vimeo.

The first 30 seconds is now DONE. Although since its mostly just a zoom in to a background its not that much work. I've still got a ways to go before the rest will be complete.

Another 24 Hour Film

2010-03-02T12:46:00.001-05:00

24 Hour Film from Adam Pockaj on Vimeo.

Decided to take a break from the film by making another one. This time the word of the day was: curiosity.

Rough Animation Reel

2010-02-25T12:30:00.001-05:00

Rough Animation Reel from Adam Pockaj on Vimeo.

The rough animation for the film is essentially complete. I'm kind of refining things a bit during cleanup, so hopefully it will look a bit better in the end.

What Happened on Virmire

2010-02-21T22:54:00.002-05:00

Well, I just recently finished playing through a game called Mass Effect, and it got me thinking. Video games are awesome. And not just in a "that was pretty cool" kind of way, but in a spine tinglingly good, amazing storytelling kind of way.

Mass Effect, like Fallout 3 (another game finished recently) had a better story than most films, books, or TV shows I have ever seen. And I think the reason for this is simple. Storytelling can lend itself better to video games than any other medium. In a film, you've got to cram in as much story as you can into two, three hours tops. But a video game can be thirty hours long. A story can be so much richer and more complex when there is more than enough time to tell it.

Although few games have caught on to that, a couple (namely Mass Effect and Fallout 3) certainly have. The stories are so good, and there's character development and plot twists that rival the best Hollywood films. And because you spend so much more time with the characters, it has an even greater effect.

And especially in RPGs like Mass Effect, a lot of what happens in the game is based on the player's choices. Entire story arcs are often affected by what the player chooses to do. Sometimes its simply how other characters will react to what you say, or sometimes its a matter of life and death. In Mass Effect, there's a planet you go to called Virmire. There's a part where two of your teamates are in trouble and you have to choose which one to save. And the one you don't dies! And not just "oh, we'll bring him back to life with a phoenix down," but actually dies for good. I remember how big a deal it was when Aeris died in Finaly Fantasy 7, but in Mass Effect, you have to choose which of your teammates, and you can't save both. That kind of thing can never happen in a film. You just watch what the characters do, so there can only be so much emotional involvement. In a game, you are the main character, and its how you act around the other characters that determines what the story is going to be like. There are a whole lot of other WTF moments that happen on Virmire, as well as at many other times throughout the game but I won't give anything else away.

On top of all that, there's still so much more to come with video games. Books have been around for millenia, and films for a century, but games have only been here for a few decades. They are only in their infancy in comparison.

Basically, my point is, video games get a bad rap for being a waste of time or money, and the people who play them are generally looked down upon by film buffs and book enthusiasts, as if they are a lesser form of entertainment. But they shouldn't be. Don't get me wrong, I love films and TV shows and books too, but video games certainly belong on the upper tiers of entertainment with them. And if you don't think so, then you obviously haven't played Mass Effect or Fallout 3.

Feb 8 Reel

2010-02-08T23:32:00.002-05:00

A few more additions. Still need to update the sound fx.

EDIT: I've been told the videos aren't loading for some people. I think it has something to do with blogger's video uploader. Here's another version that should work:

Carol of the Elves, Feb 8th Rough Cut from Adam Pockaj on Vimeo.

BGs

2010-02-05T00:24:00.002-05:00

Some background paintings. It was slow going at first but I'm starting to get the hang of it. The whole painting thing, I mean.

Feb 3 Reel

2010-02-03T01:53:00.001-05:00

More progress...

Scene 026

2010-01-13T23:19:00.003-05:00

The first "finished" scene from the film. I'll probably be tweaking a few things, and I think the BG needs work. I don't know if I mentioned this but I am drawing it all on paper, not tradigitally as I had previously said I would. I kind of like the scratchier lines, not that normal people would even notice the difference. It was coloured digitally in Digicel Filpbook, with two tone, and a slight gradient over the whole character which I think looks cool.

There's a better quality version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWX21Jiy_jw

Electropolis Online (for real this time)

2009-12-19T23:53:00.002-05:00

Electropolis from Kevin McCullough on Vimeo.

This was our 3rd Year Group Film that we made last year. My group members included: myself, Adam Trout, Allison Neil, Amanda Stocker, Dan Seddon, Dawnson Chen, Debbie Yu, Dimas Mohammad, Giorgio Mavrigianakis, Hank Choi, Jason Walmsley, Kevin McCullough, and Ki Eun Suh.

Just in Time for Christmas

2009-12-18T19:23:00.001-05:00

A BG painting from the film. Santa's workshop from the outside.

Rough Cut With Some Animation

2009-12-18T19:16:00.003-05:00

The most recent rough cut of the film so far. Mostly layouts with really rough poses, with a few scenes rough animated. Some of the sound effects are out of sync as I haven't updated them in a while

Almost Final Character Designs

2009-12-04T00:32:00.007-05:00

A bunch of designs for the background characters that will not be used in the film because they are too individual. I don't know why I didn't think of it at the time, but as slaves it would be more likely that they would all wear the same uniform. Duh. I might keep the faces though.

I tried a bunch of variations on the costumes, one that would ideally work for all the Elves. And ended up with something like this:So, here is the official uniform for Santa's little helpers. Note the addition of pants on the male version. He originally had red and white striped tights too, but it looked a little fruity.

And here's Mr Claus. He's less wide than the older version (posted a little while ago), and I think this one is a lot more animatable. There's also more of a hip connection than there used to be.

Animation Test for the Ol' Film

2009-12-04T00:26:00.003-05:00

A little animation test I did before starting any animating on the actual film. This was done completely digitally in Digicel Flipbook. I was planning on doing my entire film in it, rough animation, clean up animation, colouring, etc, but after doing a cleanup test today I'm beginning to have doubts. The perfect laser line you get from cleaning up the flipbook way sounded good in theory, but it really drained the life out of the drawing. I'll give it another shot tomorrow, but if it doesn't look good I might be doing it all on paper after all.

Layout/Pose Test Reel

2009-11-24T21:00:00.002-05:00

This is the layout/pose test reel for the film. Layout (background drawing) was the part I was dreading the most, but it turned out to be somewhat less excruciating than I predicted. All the backgrounds are drawn now, however the character poses on this reel were pretty rushed. The actual animation pose tests will be a lot more refined. This was a good way to see how things work (or don't work) one step closer to the final film. There are a few things I'll have to adjust between now and the end, but this is more or less what it is going to be like.

Electropolis Online

2009-11-04T23:23:00.007-05:00

Our 3rd year film from last year, "Electropolis" will be online from November 6th to Nov 15 for the Puchon international Student Animation Festival. Due to swine flu they decided to make the entire festival online, so that it can be accessed from the comfort of our own fallout shelters. You can check it out here .

EDIT: okay, it turns out you have to create an account on the PISAF website, and even then it doesn't seem to be working. I'll get back to you on that...

EDIT: okay, I'll be honest, I have no idea how that website is supposed to work. If I figure it out I'll keep you posted

EDIT: okay, it doesn't seem to work for me in Firefox, however, it does play in Internet Explorer (albeit not very well). So, if you want to see it, you can create an account and watch it in something other than Firefox.

Quote Unquote Final Leica Reel

2009-11-02T10:49:00.002-05:00

Well, this is the quote unquote final leica reel that we had to hand in today. I will still probably tweak a few things, but this is more or less what its going to be. The screening will be on wednesday (at noon, I think) in the SCAET building. Personally I can't wait. I've only seen a few other's leica reels so far, so its going to be cool to see everyone elses.

Mr Mittens' Big Day

2009-10-26T18:46:00.002-04:00

This past sunday was the first annual Sheridan Animation 24hour Filmmakingathon. Basically, you come in at noon, they pick a theme from a hat, and either individually or in a group you make a very short film in 24 hours.
Me and Nathan partnered up. The theme was 'revenge.' And, our first idea ended in failure after about 12 hours. It was about a chef in a restaurant who gets pissed off when a picky customer keeps sending food back. It was bordering a minute and a half long, had 3 or 4 main characters, plus crowdshots. It was more complicated than most 4th year films. Oh, and after assembling a leica reel, we realized that it sucked horribly. So around midnight we started over with a completely different idea and went nuts with it.
All in all, I'm glad we were able to come up with a story and characters and animate the whole thing in just 12 hours. Actually, it was more like 10, cause we finished 2 hours early (if there is such a thing as finished).
So, enough with the excuses. here it is:

A Little Life

2009-10-15T21:53:00.010-04:00

A little rusty...

Leica The Third

2009-10-05T23:20:00.003-04:00

This is the third leica reel so far, although only the second that I've posted. This is my favorite version so far. I'm going to show it to a couple teachers this week in the hopes of getting it torn apart

In Living Colour

2009-10-03T19:16:00.004-04:00

A couple quick colour studies

Also, you have no idea how weird your character designs are until you draw what their skeletons would look like

11 Second Club September 09

2009-10-01T13:22:00.003-04:00

I guess I didn't have enough to do this month, so I entered the 11 Second Club September 09 competition. They give you an 11 second long sound clip and then you have the month to animate to it. At the end of the month you submit it to the website and then everyone votes on the entries. Voting should be open for the next 5 days I think.

So I worked on this for a few hours here and there throughout the month. It was my first time entering, and it was pretty fun. I wasn't planning on entering the October competition, what with the film and all, but the sound clip is too good to pass up. We'll see if I can do it in time.

As for this one, there really isn't much going on story wise. I didn't plan it out much. It was mostly just a test in paperless animating. It was done entirely in Digicel Flipbook using the Cintiq Tablets at school. This is how I plan on animating for my film, so it was good practice.

EDIT:
Turns out it placed 11th out of 141 entries. A lot higher than I was expecting. Thanks to everyone who voted and commented. Although I doubt I'll be revisiting this piece, its all good advice that I can be sure to be wary of next time

Film Stuff

2009-09-24T22:00:00.007-04:00

So, 4th year is underway, and so is preproduction on the ol' film. For those that don't know, it's tentatively titled: "Carol of the Elves," and its about the Elves revolting against Santa Claus. Here is the Pitch Package from this past week:

I also have a rough preliminary leica reel I did a couple weeks ago. I'm making a new one as we speak with a lot of refinements and more exploration. The first pass was basically just to get the idea down. Now I know what you're thinking: 'why would you put your leica reel up so early? Don't you want your story to be a surprise?' Well, the thing I learned about film making from last year was that if you try to keep your story a surprise, the only surprise is going to be how bad the film turns out in the end. Only after showing people and getting harsh critiques did we learn what worked and what didn't (and there was a lot that didn't). So yeah, I would encourage viewers to critique the hell outta this thing if you have the time. Constructive criticism is always welcome. Or, if you want the story to be a surprise, then you don't have to watch it.

So behold, Carol of the Elves version 1.0
(p.s. its REALLY rough so hopefully you can at least understand whats going on :P)

Animation Test

2009-08-11T19:55:00.007-04:00

Didn't have much to do today so I did my first animation test for my film. Just an elf running. It took a few tries to get it to look like a run, it's been a while since I did one of those. It is kind of on the fast side, though, could use a few more drawings.... This was done entirely in Flash. I'm planning on doing my whole film tradigitally (that is, drawn frame by frame, but on the computer). As much as I like the tactile feel of drawing on paper, this way is a lot more efficient. Immediate feedback without having to waste time at a line tester, not to mention not having to scan anything. I'll probably do it in Flipbook rather than Flash as it has a pretty good pencil tool. It's a good thing I'm getting all this practice drawing with a tablet at my co-op.

4th Year Film

2009-07-30T23:47:00.004-04:00

I figure its about time I updated this blog o' mine and what better way to do that then with my concept for my 4th year film. I've had 20 something ideas over the past few years including a few in just the past couple months (actually, I had another one today too), and I'm finding that sticking to one is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. But I've gotta settle, so I'm pretty sure this is the one I'm going to do:

The Elves, right, they're fed up. They've spent decades enslaved in Santa's sweatshop making toys for greedy little children, while Santa goes out and gets all the credit, all the glory, not to mention all the milk and cookies. So they've had it. A few elf revolutionaries stand up to their evil oppressor and fight to free their race once and for all. But Santa isn't going to take that sitting down.

It's basically an action movie with a familiarly lighthearted setting, but told with a serious overtone. Sweet, sweet contrast. No dialog, it will be set to an awesome rock version of a classic Christmas melody (not unlike the work of Trans Siberian Orchestra), and will probably have three main characters, the Leader (who may be female, to keep it interesting), the tech expert (a dork of course), and a crazy warrior/fighter elf guy. And Santa is going to be a beast. Think the incredible Hulk with a beard.

I don't really have much yet, I've been extremely lazy this summer, aside from animating all day at co-op. But I hope to have at least one first pass on a leica reel before school starts. I think I may also create a new blog to chronicle the process of making this thing, so as not to weigh this one down with tons of rough ideas and crappy leica reels. I'll keep you posted.

Here's a quick poster thingy I threw together. As you can tell, I put a lot of effort into the background :P

Bloor Cinema Screening

2009-05-27T23:22:00.009-04:00

Mark Mayerson, the second year animation teacher has been awesome enough to organize a screening of some of the Sheridan College student films at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto. About an hour and a half of films from the 3rd and 4rth year of the BAA Animation program, as well as some from the Computer Animation program will be shown. And, Electropolis is among them, along with several other awesome films from our year (including a couple of my personal favorites; Higher Education and Hog Wild).

The screening will be on June 9th at 7:00pm, and again on June 10th at 9:30pm. Admission is $5. So if you're in the Toronto area and have nothing better to do on a tuesday or wednesday night, come check it out.

Assuming it was recieved in time they will be showing an updated version of Electropolis that we've been working on since school ended. This one is a lot tighter with a few scenes redone, some continuity and flow issues fixed, and an overall much more solid feel to the whole thing. So come and see it on the big screen. Until then, see some screenshots on the small screen:

These are some of the scenes that I had a hand in. Some of them just rough animation, some of them all the animation, and only in one scene did I do everything myself. Originally I was supposed to do four scenes but ended up contributing to ten or eleven or so. Them's the breaks. But so did alot of my other group members. It was very collaborative.

Anyway, check out Electropolis at the Bloor Cinema in a couple weeks. For full details check Mark Mayerson's blog here. You might have to scroll down a bit.

Eyes so glad I have them

2009-05-11T20:01:00.002-04:00

So, I was walking from work to the train station today and couldn't help but notice along the way that there was this guy welding something to the back of his truck, and he wasn't wearing safety glasses. Now, my father is a carpenter and I've worked in a couple factories, so I know that using a blowtorch without wearing eye protection is stupid. And I assumed that anyone that actually did welding for their job would know that. As I was thinking about how that guy was an idiot, I boarded the train back home and opened a book I haven't touched since last summer. Its this collection of Leonardo DaVinci's notebooks containing his observations on life, nature, art, the universe, pretty much anything, it's pretty neat. Anyway, I opened it up to where I left off some 8 or 9 months ago and by some strange coincidence the page I was on was talking about eyes. Although he goes into detail for several pages about how eyes work, it was more his introduction that, how should I say it... caught my eye?

"The eye which is the window of the soul is the chief organ whereby the understanding can have the most complete and magnificent view of the infinite works of nature.

"Now do you not see that the eye embraces the beauty of the whole world? . . . It counsels and corrects all the arts of mankind . . . it is the prince of mathematics, and the sciences founded on it are absolutely certain. It has measured the distances and sizes of the stars; it has discovered the elements and their location . . . it has given birth to architecture and to perspective and to the divine art of painting.

"O excellent thing, superior to all others created by God! What praises can do justice to your nobility? What peoples, what tongues will fully describe your function? The eye is the window of the human body through which it feels its way and enjoys the beauty of the world. Owing to the eye the soul is content to stay in its bodily prison, for without it such bodily prison is torture.

"O marvellous, O stupendous necessity, thou with supreme reason compellest all effects to be the direct result of their causes; and by a supreme and irrevocable law every natural action obeys thee by the shortest possible process. Who would believe that so small a space could contain the images of all the universe? O mighty process! What talent can avail to penetrate a nature such as these? What tongue will it be that can unfold so great a wonder? Verily none! This it is that guides the human discourse to the considering of divine things. Here the forms, here the colours, here all the images of every part of the universe are contracted to a point. What point is so marvellous? O wonderful, O stupendous necessity - by thy law thou constrainest every effect to be the direct result of its cause by the shortest path. These are miracles . . . forms already lost, mingled together in so small a space it can recreate and recompose by expansion. Describe in thy anatomy what proportion there is between the diameters of all the lenses (spetie) in the eye and the distance from these to the crystalline lens.

"The eye whereby the beauty of the world is reflected is of such excellence that whoso consents to its loss deprives himself of the representation of all the works of nature. The soul is content to stay imprisoned in the human body because thanks to our eyes we can see these things; for through the eyes all the various things of nature are represented to the soul. Whoso loses his eyes leaves his soul in a dark prison without hope of ever again seeing the sun, light of all the world; How many there are to whom the darkness of night is hateful though it is of but short duration; what would they do if such darkness were to be their companion for life?"

From: Leonardo DaVinci Notebooks, Oxford University Press. pg 105-106

Quite the introduction. He didn't even get to the scientific part yet. But man, I never realised how great eyes are. It's like, we've always had them so its so easy to take them for granted, but man, eyes are freaking awesome! All the images of every part of the universe contracted to a point. That welder is probably going to be blind soon and he has no idea how big a mistake that would be. It makes me feel sorry for people that are blind, because they are really missing out on what is whithout question the greatest of the five senses. It was a grey, cloudy day in Oakville today, and I was glad to be able to see it.

EDIT: what's with these non-art posts? My blog is tuning into...a blog (shivers)

Third Year Retrospective

2009-04-25T18:43:00.003-04:00

Well, 3rd year of BAA Animation here at Sheridan is done, and since I have nothing else to do for the first time in 8 months I guess I'll offer my thoughts about the year to anyone who might be interested.

Overall, man, what a ride. It was probably my favorite year to date, and although the workload was substantially higher than anything I've ever experienced, I still loved it. From the beginning we were really lucky to have a great concept to start from (thanks to Dan), and even more lucky to have a great group that was willing to work their hardest to make it work.

Our class in particular had it kind of weird from the start, because although all the other classes (there are 5 classes per year) stayed the same and had all the same people in it from previous years, people from our class (group E) were mixed around with people from another class (group D). I don't really know why they did that, cause they still had the same number of people in each class. And then after that, some people chose to switch between the classes throughout the first week. In the end, we ended up having more people from group D in our class then from group E. So a lot of us didn't know each other very well, and some of us had never even met. I don't know why all this happened to just our two classes, but I'm glad it did because somehow we ended up with some of the most talented and hardworking people I've ever had the privilege of knowing.

Our group consisted of: Adam Trout, Allison Neil, Amanda Stocker, Dan Seddon, Dawnson Chen, Debbie Yu, Giorgio Mavrigianakis, Jason Walmsley, Kevin McCullough, Ki Eun Suh, Hank Choi, Dimas Mohammad, and myself. Not only did we work really well together, but we genuinely enjoyed eachother's company. We hung out a lot outside of school, and we even had a group spaghetti night. I think it is key that in order for groups to work really well together that they have to enjoy working well together. But at the same time, you can't be afraid to challenge people and tell them your opinions on their work. And they have to be willing to accept all criticism and try to improve it for the good of the film. One of Kevin's shots where there are around seven people dancing on screen and this one character slides in and does the robot, I mean, he redid that like ten times. Because he would do it, it wouldn't be good enough, we would tell him, then he would fix it without complaining. That happenened many many times, and it ended up being one of the best shots in the film. We all have to be willing to accept any criticism and know that it isn't a personal attack, but that it is only to make the film better.

Story wise, we had our work cut out for us. We had an amazing concept (a walking signal from a traffic light wants to be a dancer), and we did everything we could not to screw it up. We explored our story to a redonculous extent. We had one version where there was this city of electronic entities that lived behind the traffic light and he got banished to the 'recycle bin' and he met this handicapped sybol guy and they had to save the world, etc. We had this other version where he had a family that lived with him in the traffic light and he went out into the real world and walked around and his absense caused traffic accidents. We had another version that was extremely dark, where he was a slave along with all the other walking signals and there was this traffic enforcer guy that was basically a traffic light with a cape...anyway, sorry for rambling but my point is, we didn't dwell on anything. We tried so many different options and directions, and each of these verions (as well as several more) were not just ideas, but were brought to full storyboard states, or even leica reels. Hank, our story supervisor would have an idea that the rest of us might be a little unsure about, so he would make an entire leica reel from scratch in one night just to prove a point. We were relentless in our attempts to make sure that the story worked well and did the concept justice.

Technically speaking, our film is certainly not the most cohesive or consistent. There are significant differences from shot to shot in the way the characters look, the way the backgrounds were painted, and the animation style. We noticed the 3rd year films last year often had problems like that and we tried so hard to not let that happen, but man, it was tough. We had over 15 characters so mastering them all in such a short time was next to impossible, and because crowd shots and dancing animation were a lot harder than we anticipated, we had to struggle just to get it all done, let alone done well.

But in the end, we're pretty pleased with how it turned out. We think. We're not really sure how good it is because we've been working on it for so long, but it recieved some good reviews at the screenings and it won an award for what the judges thought was the best 3rd year film of the year (although since B1's 'The Auction" was shut out of the top three, it leads me to question the value of the judges opinions). Now we're just going to touch it up a bit over the next couple of weeks to prepare it for festivals and stuff (and for that reason the film will not be put on the internet for a while because that would disqualify it).

So, uh, yeah, sorry to bore you with words (although technically this is what blogging is supposed to be), and I guess I'll just leave any 1st or 2nd years (or anyone interested in getting into animation at Sheridan) some pre 3rd year advice:

-Make sure when you pick your story at the beginning of the year, to pick something interesting. Something unique and different. Something that no one has ever seen before, though something with enough familliarity that people will be able to relate to it. If you are lucky enough to have something like that to choose from.

-Make sure that your group enjoys hanging out with eachother. If there are problem members that insist on fighting with eachother, find some way to make it work. It will hurt your experience if you don't get along with your group.

-Show your progress, especially story progress, to a lot of people. Always show new versions to fresh eyes. Anyone that knows about your story ahead of time will not be able to give a genuine opinion.

-Be prepared to redo everything. Story, character designs, paintings, animations, everything. Nothing will ever be right on the first try. If you are not willing to accept criticism and redo your work, then you will not make it in this business (or any business for that matter).

-Prepare to finish early. Because everything, and I mean EVERYTHING takes longer than you think it will. If you schedule rough animation to be done by week 10, it will not be done until week 11. I gaurantee it. No matter what it is, no matter how much time you give yourselves it will always take longer. Someone (if not everyone) WILL always be late. That, I promise you. So plan to get everything done at least a week or two earlier than it has to be, that way it might get done on time.

-Be organised. We weren't. In fact we were probably the least organized group in our year. And as a result I was finding out the week before the film was due that some scenes had barely been started. I think there were 3 scenes that were done from scratch the day before the film was due because I didn't know until then that they hadn't been started. If we payed closer attention unwanted surprises like that would not have happened. And unwanted surprises are not fun (especcially the day before the film is due).

-Use all your time you have to your advantage. I think were were the only group that spent the majority of our Christmas vacation working on the film. Most people just chilled or worked on their internship portfolios, we worked on the film. As a result we had an extra month of story work that the other groups didn't take advantage of. The film would not be what it was if it weren't for that.

-Avoid crowdshots and dancing animation. Man those are difficult. And an audience isn't going to care how hard it is to do crowd shots cause they see crowd shots everyday in real life. I mean, if you have to do them then you don't have much of a choice, but be prepared to work your butts off.

-Have fun with it. It's just a cartoon.

Thanks to everyone that helped make the film happen, thanks to Alexis Marsh for composing the music from scratch in the last two weeks and for being awesome about taking criticism, and thanks to all the other groups in our year who I think raised the bar for 3rd years to come and for being a constant inspiration to us all.

Demoreel Take 2

2009-01-29T16:35:00.002-05:00

2009 Animation Demoreel Revised from Adam Pockaj on Vimeo.

Version 2. Basically the same thing, just with different music (no lyrics this time) and the frame blending on the stop mo stuff fixed.

Also check out my online portfolio at: http://adampockajportfolio.blogspot.com/

Or the official Sheridan College Internship Portfolio Site at: http://animation.sheridanc.on.ca/portfolio/2010/pockaj/

Film Stuff: The Discard Pile

2009-01-24T00:49:00.004-05:00

No less that 2000 discarded storyboard panels, some of which are seen here, all of which were at some point an integral part of our story, none of which are there now. The story has changed substantially, almost every week for the past 3 or 4 months. Come to think of it, its been over a month without any major story changes. I guess that means we're almot satisfied. There's still some work to be done on the leica reel which I may or may not post at some point, and then we can start actually making the film.

I think my last film related post was about the pitch presentation. The only thing from that story that remains is the bare bones of it. It's still about a walking signal that wants to be a dancer, but that's about the only thing that has remained constant. It is much, much simpler now. We cut out the entire electropolis world and are focusing a lot more on the character and his effect on people who take life too seriously.

Check back in half a year and we may have the finished film up and running.

Purple

2009-01-24T00:41:00.002-05:00

I've been taking this extra digital painting course at school, so been trying out a few techniques. I don't really know what this is supposed to be about, I just kinda started drawing and this is what came out. I kinda like this approach to art, not a whole lot of planning, just letting it tell you what it should be. Not really a suitable approach for draftsmanship though, just fun to do on the side.

Demo Reel 2009

2009-01-16T00:44:00.003-05:00

Animation Demoreel 2009 from Adam Pockaj on Vimeo.

My 2009 Demo real as it is. There are some things I would have liked to have gone back and fixed, but time is short I'm afraid. Gotta keep moving forward...

A "Reel Breakdown" should be posted sometime within the next few days.

Dialogue in the 3rd dimention

2009-01-15T01:23:00.008-05:00

3D Dialogue Animation from Adam Pockaj on Vimeo.

Semester Six is off and rolling. Having spent half of the Christmas break working on our beloved leica reel for our film, I have neglected to post recently. Here's something from last semester that I added a bit to during the break. A dialogue scene in 3D. It's still looking pretty mechanical and there's some weird lighting stuff going on near the end, but its probably as finished as its going to get for the time being.

"Andy Rig" by John Doublestein, One Eyed Green Guy rig by Mike Watters.

Audio, of course, from 'Dumb and Dumber'.

Action Analysis

2008-12-16T11:27:00.009-05:00

Finally finished my Action Analysis. A 30 second leica reel with one seen (precisely 5 seconds in length) fully animated, cleaned up, coloured, etc. It took ages to finalize everything buts it's nice to finally have something that's finished. Now we have to do it 80 more times for our film next semester...

This is the 30 second leica reel version with the 5 seconds intercut into it.

Action Analysis Animation from Adam Pockaj on Vimeo.

And this is just the animated 5 seconds.

Blogger and Youtube were being weird and making it 7 or 8 seconds, and in slo mo for some reason, so I tried using Vimeo to upload it. I think I will be doing that from now on (although it did cut off the last few frames).

Semi-Almost-Complete-Rough-Clean-Action-Analysis-Animation-Thing

2008-12-03T02:51:00.003-05:00

This is what I've been working on all semester. I mean, plus the whole group film thing. These 5 seconds will be brought to finished colour in a week or two, so check back soon.

Mo Stop Mo

2008-11-14T01:27:00.004-05:00

robots in disguise

Stopmo

2008-11-04T00:02:00.006-05:00

Stop Motion assignment. I guess my inner animator decided that this assignment wasn't hard enough so it bumped the camera and broke the puppets arm off 2/3rds of the way through. After that it was being held on by will alone.

I thought it turned out pretty good, until I saw Dei's version of the same assignment and realised that I might as well quit now.

Here's an older assignment of cars bumping into eachother. It was kinda tough cause they had to follow a very specific path and crash at an exact frame number.

Also some Stop mo tests.

Puppets were made by Cuppa Coffee Studios in Toronto.

Nupastels Are Neat

2008-10-31T23:37:00.008-04:00

We did colouring in life drawing class today. It was quite cool. The technique the teach taught us works really well.

Our Film: Electropolis

2008-10-23T19:59:00.023-04:00

The main focus of 3rd Year is a group film project. Last week we had to put together this here Pitch Package and present our story to the rest of our year. It went well, we recieved some constructive criticism, and almost everyone seemed to get the concept (which I was afraid might go over some people's heads). So, uh, yeah, this is my group's film: Electropolis. It is about a walking signal that wants to be a dancer.

I did not do all of the artwork in this, everyone in our group is credited under the specific drawings that they did.

My group members include: Myself, the vociferous Hank Choi, the tranquil Allison Neil, the humble Dimas Mohamad, the composed Jason Walmsly, the reserved Ki Eun Suh, the casanova Giorgio Mavrigianakis, the elusive Debbie Yu, the bearded Adam Trout, the charismatic Amanda Stocker, the uncanny Dawnson Chen, the instigator Dan Seddon and the rational Kevin McCullough.

3D Walk Cycles

2008-10-17T22:33:00.004-04:00

My first (actually, it took about about four failed attempts to get it to this) 3D walk cycle. I like doing 3D Animation a lot more than I thought I would. Modeling was a little boring and I seriously doubt rigging will be my thing, but animation is....well...animation. It's really not that different from 2D animation. There is a bit of a learning curve and it takes a little while to learn the buttons and controls and how to use the graph editor, but after that it's all the same as hand drawn. I think so anyway.

I have a bad habit of always doing generic walk cycles, so I did another one, this time with more character to it. He was supposed to look like he has to go to the bathroom really badly, but it turned out looking more like he has a stomach ache. It'll have to suffice.

Both of these were modeled and rigged by Mike Watters.

Naked People

2008-10-09T23:12:00.006-04:00

A whole whack of life drawings. Some really rough, but hopefully expressive gestures, some normal ones, and some with shading.

Action Analysis Rough Design Pack

2008-10-01T00:52:00.008-04:00

So, third year is off and running. It was a pretty slow start but it's getting busier now. All this junk is from my Action Analysis Rough Design Pack. The Action Analysis is a big assignment that spans this semester that will eventually consist of a 30 second working reel, part storyboard, part finished coloured animation with effects. My story is about a hotdog vendor who gets his hat stolen by a racoon. This is partway through the design process. Some of these drawings are pretty bad and will definitely be replaced for the Finished Design Pack which will come a little later.

In other news, the group film is going swimmingly. A little to well, actually, we haven't had any major fights yet, so I guess we're due for one soon...

I'll post some stuff related to the film later...

Extra Life

2008-09-11T22:44:00.002-04:00

IN 3D!!!!!
Yup. Modeled and rigged by Mike Watters, I presume. Animated by moi.

Coming to a Close

2008-08-16T14:30:00.005-04:00

Just some character I've been drawing lately. I tried playing around with colour (something I definetely need to do more of.

Also, a drawing of Uncle Stan from the sort-of-annual Pockaj family camping trip a few weeks ago.

Also, on a side note, only 2 weeks left of summer, and it appears Group E is no more. A few of my classmates that I've talked to have different schedules, so I assume they broke us up and sprinkled us amongst the other classes, as we thought would happen. Third year is becoming interesting already, and it hasn't even started yet.

EDIT: It appears some people from Group E have been switched with some people from Group D. I have no idea what purpose this would serve, but we may soon find out.

The Princess and the Frog

2008-08-04T22:16:00.002-04:00

Okay, blogger is being stupid today, and is not letting me upload images, so I'll put up something else that recently came to my attention. There is finally a trailer for "The Princess and the Frog" on Disney's website! I don't normally use exclamation points, which means I'm pretty excited about this. I grew up on the 2D Disney musicals of the 90's (The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Alladin, etc), so this is a pretty big deal for me. It doesn't come out for over a year, but I'm pretty stoked. This one film is going to have a huge effect on whether or not 2D will ever make a comeback, so here's hoping it will be awesome. The link is here

Caturday...

2008-07-12T13:28:00.001-04:00

Dogs too...

Pen Stuff

2008-06-25T14:18:00.004-04:00

Some more cafe drawings. This time in pen. I was trying to focus more on poses than on caricature this time.

More Cafe Drawings

2008-06-13T16:57:00.002-04:00

More of my weekly exploits at the Quinte Mall. Its a good way to get those bad drawings out of me.

Cafe Draawings

2008-06-07T15:29:00.002-04:00

Some more cafe drawings I did at the mall the other day. I'm going to try to make cafe drawings a weekly occurance for the remainder of the summer.

Cheese for the World

2008-05-27T15:01:00.005-04:00

Well, looks like I'm working in a cheese factory this summer. It reminds me on a constant basis how important it is to stay in school, so as not to end up doing this for the rest of one's life. I'ts no animation job, but the breaks are long and frequent (which means I can start reading books again) and it will make next year seem all the more sweet. In the meantime I've been doing a bit of art-related stuff. Not as much as I should be doing, but enough to keep me occupied.

I'll be honest, I can't wait for September. Despite the various horror stories I've heard about 3rd year, I have a feeling it's going to a lot of fun. It will definitely be an experience. So, I shall try to keep the art coming over the next 3 months (wow, May is already over). Have a nice summer everyone!

P.S. Here are some cafe drawings I did at the mall today.

Beak And Muzzle

2008-04-07T23:55:00.005-04:00

The beak sync animation added to a partially cleaned up version of the muzzle sync.

A long overdue life drawing post

2008-04-05T23:21:00.017-04:00

A bunch of life drawings from the past couple months including costumes and creature creation.

Graphic...

2008-03-27T01:08:00.003-04:00

For painting class we had to do an interior, and it had to be in a graphic sort of style with no lineart. Which, in my opinion doesn't look as good and takes significantly longer than making it painterly and realistic, but hey, we live in a Flash world, and Flash doesn't like painterly and realistic. Whatever, c'est la vie. Who needs creative decisions when we can let technology tell us what to do instead.

The Pen Is Mightier

2008-03-09T00:37:00.002-05:00

As legend has it, our storyboarding teacher John Williamson once animated a scene in "The Iron Giant" using a sharpie marker. I thought I'd try ball point first.

Nothing special, just an itch that needed scratching.

Quick Sketches

2008-03-08T23:54:00.007-05:00

These are a couple characters from my storyboarding assignment (the Western thing I think I mentioned before).

So, the awesome Charlie Bonifacio did a guest lecture at school last week which was amazingly awesome and oh so inspiring. One of the points he discussed was to do warm up quick sketches. Basically just put a pencil to the paper and see what comes out. You'll often find that a character you're working on comes to life all on its own. I decided I like drawing in ballpoint pen, so I used that to do some quick sketches of one of the characters from my storyboarding assignment. It was a character that I wasn't really interested in, but drawing after drawing he became more real and alive to me (I guess that sounds kind of corny...). After this page was filled, I had a sudden urge to animate him. So I did.

Rough Muzzle Sync

2008-03-04T01:08:00.004-05:00

This is the muzzle-sync assignment. Same as before, but with a character with a muzzle. I will be finishing the other character in a little while, until then it's just a held drawing. Also, the two are talking to a third character that is so lightly roughed in at the moment it is difficult to see. So there will probably be several versions of this popping up in the coming months. The audio is from "Jesus Christ Superstar."

Super...

2008-02-13T23:04:00.005-05:00

So, this is my first lipsync assignment with a human character. We had to take an audio track with some sort of legible dialogue, and animate a full body character to it. Behold the aftermath. (the voice is Sarah Vowell of Incredibles fame, borrowed from one of the bonus features on The Incredibles DVD).

Super Sketches

2008-02-12T00:11:00.001-05:00

For the next animation (which should be up in a few days) we had to take any audio track from anywhere and animate a character to it. Then the next two after that will be the beak and muzzle characters with the same criteria. For this human one I have a superhero that doesn't feel very super. I did a bunch of rough designs and fused them with the character from my walk/run animation, so it's not totally original, but I think it fits with the soundtrack I chose. Plus, some thumbnail drawings trying to figure out the animation. It's changed alot since these were done. The animation is due in two days.

Not So Goodfellas

2008-02-12T00:00:00.001-05:00

For this character design assignment we had to make 2 animal characters, one with a beak and one with a muzzle to be used in our upcoming animation assignments. I wanted to do animals that aren't done very often, so I chose a walrus and a peacock. Walruses are weird. They have feet, but no legs, so making him stand up was a challenge. I still don't really know how he is going to walk. And peacocks are neat cause they have a cool design to their faces, and the tail will be fun to work with. The walrus is a crime lord and the peacock is sort of his second in command. I can't wait to animate these guys. As for what soundtrack I'm using, well, that's for me to know and you to find out. (hint: it's not from Goodfellas, despite the implication of the title of this post).

Maya in Review

2008-02-11T23:58:00.001-05:00

I decided to not be lazy, and added the spokes.

Western Speed Painting

2008-02-10T23:49:00.001-05:00

This is a digital "Speed Painting" of a street in a town, Old West style. It took about 1 hour. I plan to make several more and finish one into full colour in a week or so.
You may be seeing some more Western themed stuff over the next little while. A huge portion of second year is devoted to making a leica reel in one of three time periods: Medieval, Victorian, or Western. I chose the latter.

My Very Second Attempt at Maya Ever

2008-02-03T02:30:00.001-05:00

For our first assignment in our 3D class we had to make a hard-surfaced object. I made a pennyfarthing. With magical invisible spokes. Yup.

My Very First Attempt at Maya Ever

2008-02-03T02:25:00.001-05:00

So, we started 3D modeling in January. This was my very first attempt at something. It's kinda, sorta, not really a TIE Inteceptor from Star Wars (from memory). For the non-animationers seeing this, 3D modeling is basically sculpting using a computer program (Autodesk Maya 2008, in this case)

Life

2008-02-03T02:09:00.001-05:00

Several life drawings of varying length.

Mondays...

2008-01-21T00:19:00.001-05:00

My first shot at lip sync (besides last year's "meow"). I think the sound clip is from Office Space.

Lots of Life

2008-01-20T23:26:00.000-05:00

A whole bunch of life drawings of varying times, some muscletacular studies and some old animal drawings from last semester (including a pony as per request by a certain friend of a certain brother of mine).

Holiday Fun with Via Rail

2007-12-22T09:44:00.000-05:00

Well, last weekend was full of excitement and adventure. An enormous blizzard makes commuting 250 kilometers much more interesting. Apparently cold makes trains stop working. With a 5 hour delay at Union Station I figured I might as well make the most out of my time and draw all the happy, joyous people that were so enthused with Via Rail's preparedness for December snow. Maybe I'll colour it someday.

Also, to celebrate the holidays (and 1000 hits on my blog [I guess that means I'm not the only one who's looked at it]) here is my final project for our 'beloved' art history class. My buddy Nathan (link at the right) and I made a leica reel movie trailer for a film about Michelangelo and the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It's very rough around the edges and the voices are far from perfect, but considering short film leica reels normally take 4 months to complete, and this was done from scratch in 4 days, it'll have to suffice. Merry Christmas!

Expression Change Animation

2007-12-17T19:48:00.000-05:00

This was the final assignment of the semester: the Expression Change. Basically we had to show thought by depicting a series of at least three expressions. I learned something from this. From now on, I'm going to make my animations shorter. I always make them too long and as a result they end up with rushed inbetweens, unfinished drawings, and I think it would be better if they were shorter and a lot more refined. So that's what I'm going to do from now on. Of course, I said that last time too....

Walk and Run Animation

2007-11-24T13:29:00.000-05:00

Probably my biggest animation assignment ever. It's the first time I used multiple shots (8 to be exact). It was fun to do, but I'm relieved it's over. I just wish I could have finished inbetweening it and adding details. Maybe next time.

Anyway, this is my Walk and Run animation. 3 and a half weeks of my life put into 42 seconds of film. It's a crazy, bizzare, stupid thing to do, but that's what makes it so beautiful to me. I really couldn't see myself doing anything else for a living.

What Makes it Royal again?

2007-11-11T00:08:00.000-05:00

It's that Royal Winter Fair time of year again. Here are some drawings of some animals. And people. The funniest looking animals of them all.

Character Designs

2007-10-28T23:23:00.000-04:00

Character design for the last animation assignment, and a couple sketchbook pages (mainly character designs for the next animation assignment).

P.S. I just uploaded a better quality version of my head rotation animation from 1st year. It's back in the same post.

Weight Lift and Toss

2007-10-25T20:32:00.000-04:00

The Weight Lift and Toss Animation assignment. With a little bit of secondary action. Sorry.

Even More Life

2007-10-18T01:39:00.000-04:00

More life drawings. Mostly 5 minute drawings. Conte on newsprint, in case anyone was wondering.

More Life

2007-10-18T01:33:00.000-04:00

A bunch of 30-second drawings.

Wave Boat Sack

2007-10-01T20:09:00.000-04:00

The first animation assignment from second year. I used a non-youtube way of uploading this time, hopefully it works.

Life

2007-10-01T20:03:00.000-04:00

Life Drawing. Glad to be back at it.

The Matrix is so.....whoah...

2007-09-09T23:54:00.000-04:00

Was watching The Matrix the other day. Here are some attempted carricatures.

You will experience financial trouble in the near future. That'll be $16.

2007-08-30T22:30:00.001-04:00

One last post before school starts. One of my first attempts at colour. I think I need to pay more attention in painting class...

Not too lazy

2007-06-19T18:24:00.000-04:00

I haven't been too lazy this summer. I've actually done some drawing (even some animating). These are rough character designs. Some from my 4th year film idea (starting early), one I'm doing for my brothers friend, and some from a story I'v been working on since I was 11 years old. I'll hopefully make a few more posts this summer, possibly a new animation in a few weeks.

More Life Drawings

2007-05-04T19:03:00.000-04:00

More Life Drawings. That's it for life drawing until September. Unless I can find a place for it here in Belleville.

One Down, Three to Go

2007-04-30T15:11:00.000-04:00

Well, First Year Animation is now over, so I now have 4 months of work, sleep, and video games. Hopefully some drawing will manage to creep its way in. It's nice to not have 10 hours of homework every night anymore, but it won't be long before I'll be itching to get back to school. What can I say, I love it there.

Cat Walk

2007-04-10T03:04:00.000-04:00

A four legged animal walk cycle I did for school. It took a surprisingly short amount of time to do. A lot less than the head rotation anyway. It turned out alright I think. His legs spread too far apart though, and his tail is too long. But I'll give him a break, he's only human.

The Process

2007-04-10T02:40:00.000-04:00

I thought I'd show the process of getting from the preliminary stages to the final product of this character design assignment. So here it is. After the design was good to go (it's a Wolf Pirate, by the way), I first did the rough drawings using a coloured pencil (Prismacolor Col-Erase, Tuscan Red to be precise), any colour works fine. Blue is industry standard, but I prefer Tuscan Red. These drawings should be as rough as they need to be.

After that, using a light table (a white plexiglass surface with a light shining behind it) I traced only the good lines with a graphite pencil. A couple "levels" touch-ups in Photoshop, and voila, the "Clean Up Drawings":

Then, using my secret Photoshop techniques, the clean up drawings were digitally cel painted. The colour of the outlines were changed in some parts as well.

So there you have it. Cooking with Adam. Animation style. Tune in next week when we'll make a key lime pie that's so good, it'll make you wanna to slap your mama.

Random Stuff

2007-04-04T22:02:00.000-04:00

Here are a few rough sketches of stuff. The Pirate Wolf is for my next char desing assignment (still in development). The other is just someone flying. No reason really, just felt like flying.

There's also a painting I did a long time ago. Pretty much the only painting I've done that I actually liked. Guoache on illustration board.

Name's Hades, Lord of the Dead. Hi, how ya doin?

2007-04-04T21:17:00.000-04:00

This is my Head Rotaton/lip synch/expression change from school. This took around 65 hours to create. 65 hours for 12 seconds of screen time. Anyway, enjoy.

P.S. It's Hades, from Disney's Hercules (1997).

Animals are neat

2007-03-17T19:29:00.000-04:00

Yet another char design. It is a cheetah that happens to be an Olympic runner. How original. Also a rhino I drew at the Toronto Zoo yesterday.

Ball and Tail Animation (again)

2007-02-01T17:09:00.000-05:00

Okay, now I think I know how to properly post video, so behold! The mighty ball and tail! More comming soon.

2007-01-21T21:00:00.000-05:00

This is my first attempt at putting video on my blog. It is my Ball And Tail animation. I spent 50+ hours on it and it came to a total of over 350 drawings. That was a busy 2 weeks.

Life Drawings

2007-01-21T20:54:00.000-05:00

Here are some of my recent life drawings. Yeah. That's about it.

Evil Scientist

2006-12-17T10:55:00.000-05:00

Ah, the final model sheet for my Evil Scientist character, named after a really mean teacher from elementary school. I thought it was pretty good, but then I went to the screening of the 4th year Leica Reels for their final films, one of which was about an evil scientist, and his design was much better. My favorite Leica Reel of them all was called "A Peach for the Teach." It was a simple story about a peach and an apple fighting for a teacher's attention. So simple, but it was so cute and so funny and the characters were so well defined (even though they were just fruit), and the ending was perfect. I hope she doesn't change anything between now and the end of the school year. It was pretty much flawless. I can't remember the creator's name though...

Bones

2006-12-17T10:49:00.000-05:00

Here are some bone drawings for my Life Drawing class. A noticeable improvement over the not-so-good hands and feet. The teach thought so too.

Small Winged Angel

2006-11-12T13:41:00.000-05:00

And finally, the finished expressions/action poses for the Small Winged Angel character. This was my first attempt at cleanup using Photoshop. I think the expressions turned out okay, but the lines are somewhat unclear in the poses. This is probably the last you'll see of her for a while. I'm starting on my next design: an evil scientist. I love evil scientists.

C+ Hands and Feet

2006-11-12T13:36:00.000-05:00

Here are some more hands and feet. I tried using crosshatching to shade them, but according to the Prof, I need to show more form with it. C+ XD. Oh well, there's always next time.

So much homework

2006-10-26T09:24:00.000-04:00

Uggh. Soooo muuchhh hoommmeee woorrkk. But I just got 600 bones from a bursary I applied to, so, it's all good. Amazing what filling out a couple forms can do.

Anyway, this is a Disney-esque leading lady type character. I'm thinking of a story for her, but I don't have time to put serious thought into it yet. I'm stil not satisfied with it, but it'll have to do for now. Also, some guoache paintings of skies/clouds. Didn't scan too well.

2006-10-15T19:59:00.000-04:00

Ah, finally finished my first animation assignment! I had a little free time this weekend, so I did some hand and feet drawings from an extra-life model. I'll have to do 12 of each in two weeks for Life Drawing class, so this was a usefull practice.

Rough Character Designs

2006-10-05T17:37:00.000-04:00

Here is a character design I've been working on. It's going to be a sumo wrestler. Sorry if they're hard to see. Most of my rough sketches are in Col Erase pencils which don't scan too well. I could clean them up with graphite, but that would take effort. I'll try and get something of a better quality uploaded from now on, but I'm a little busy with school work right now.