Spare some change?

2 weeks ago, I was pushing an all nighter, my wife contracted an awful stomach flu, so I was up the night after trying to help her feel better, and because of work and 3D classes, I was sportin' a rockin' beard. The morning of my wife's illness she was meant to volunteer at a local school, but she couldn't cancel because she didn't have anyone's cell phone number...I offered to run out there and talk to her co-worker there. I hadn't slept more than an hour or two in 2 days and I was fully bearded. When I get there, Misha's co-worker, Teresa, recognized me (thankfully) but the principal of the school apparently believed I was a homeless man about to attack her...or a brown bear up on his hind legs and wearing jeans. So he ran out and pulled Teresa away before I could fully explain Misha's condition. This is a depiction of my state, and I don't really blame that principal too much. If I saw a guy like that hanging outside my school, I'd be concerned. But its damn embarrassing to be mistaken for a hobo abductor.
Additionally, I fell violently ill along with Misha. I couldn't eat for three days and all I did was expel from both ends of my body (TMI...sometimes at the same time). I vomited so violently, that my stomach muscles ached for days, it hurt to laugh and sneeze. Most awful first night of illness...the rest of the time, my head was swimming and I couldn't sit up without getting dizzy.

Pixelated

Just dipping my toes into pixel art...its really intriguing. I might start a series working like this.

Pixel Churchill (Flash CS4 - May 2010)

Conducting Gloves

I've figured some things out recently in my 3D animation class (such as picking up and attaching objects) and I was able to complete this animation within 6 hours today from scratch. From modeling the gloves through to animating them. I still have some work to do on them...the fingers are still a little stiff, imo. I'll have to fix that next week. Anyways...this is one of my favorite projects to date along with the swing and peg-leg walk from earlier posts. Enjoy!

Here's the same video but from the opposite camera angle.

Walk it off

Sorry...I got bogged down with work and baby stuff. I'll be even more busy in the next few months as I'm working on a bid for some freelance that will take me into September. Hopefully it won't interfere too much with the birth of my baby boy in August.

I was working on this inbetween deadlines, but haven't got too much done. Its meant to bolster my animation reel with some more walk cycles, but its not finished.

In the Third Dimension

DERP! I got overloaded with work for the past few weeks. Misha and I took a trip to San Francisco earlier in the month, and to prepare for it, I had to finish a deadline 5 days before it was actually due, which is like a 1/4 of the work time I have for each quota. I was literally working all the way up to just a few hours before my brother Mark picked us up for the airport (thanks again, Mark!). Ever since, I've been having to scramble getting work finished, preparing our condo for sale and working on my 3D class finals, one of which got lost by me accidentally saving over it. So I had to recreate a whole new figure for my 3D modeling final last weekend on top of finishing a deadline for today. And that's my lame excuse for not posting anything for a while :D

So because I just finished my 3D animation final, I'll post one of those...

This is done using the Biped tool in 3DS Max...for those who don't know the program, basically the program itself creates a pre-made skeletal structure of a human so you can attach it to specific 3d models. I didn't have a 3d model to attach to, so I just animated the skeletons.

My final also included a walk cycle of my design...

I spent a long time trying to understand the intricate details of this program, and there are a lot of weird technical flaws and things that just don't naturally flow for a 2D animator. So I had a hard time picking it up. I've started to get the hang of actual movement of the biped, but I'm still working out the kinks of object interactions. This walkcycle doesn't necessarily interact with anything, but it was difficult to keep his feet from going through the ground.

"Swing" 3DS Max
"Pirate Walk" 3DS Max

Messing around with Sketchbook Pro again...

Messing around with the painting side of Sketchbook Pro. Did I mention I love this program?

Lazy cat days are almost over...

Yeah? Another baby post! Its gonna happen every now and then...you're just gonna have to get use to it. Its my sketch blog and I can do what I want. And since the baby is the biggest thing in my life right now, its going to start effecting my sketch mind.

I can see Tuck is probably going to have issue with the newborn...poor guy. I feel bad for him. The middle sketch was the initial drawing of this batch. It was sort of a "Holy nuts! I'm a dad?" then I placed Tuck in it as an afterthought and it spawned these cliché baby/cat interactions.