The last push and encouragement for everyone

The semester, without a doubt our hardest school semester, is finally coming to an end. I could say it was the hardest because I've been taking 6 classes every semester since my freshman year and this was the first time I've experienced this kind of workload and constant exhaustion from just 4 classes (Which actually just felt like only 2).

The sleepless nights, at least twice a week
Crazy amounts of stress every time a homework assignment was due
Said homework assignments which were the equivalent of projects
Grand ideas/amazing things we've envisioned turning in but realistically only able to achieve 20-50% of it
Seldom meeting the expectations of our teachers on said assignments
Legs falling asleep , and aching back (Not to mention hand cramps and bad eyesight) from hunching over our animation boards and computers
Loved ones and friends we've all had to neglect in order to stay on schedule
Video games which were left unopened/untouched
Holidays which never felt like holidays

-but despite all that-

We've all by far progressed amazingly and have amazing .mov to show. I'm always amazed at our class's progress and the stuff I've seen my classmates do. There isn't anyone who hasn't tried his/her best at least some point during the semester in order to impress the others and everyone has been impressed by someone's work like wise. Each assignment has their stars, but all of us shine. This semester really pushed us to the next level, without a doubt. Ha ha, I really put on the cheese back there, but it's true.

All thats left is the portfolio and our movie. Good luck everyone, I can't wait.


PS: I have kittens in case anyone wants one.
3 calico kittens up for grabs, PST if interested

PSS: Heres a .gif to make everyone smile since we're over our animations

A Flower for Tulip

Final Animation

Scanning and compositing was done around noonish. Then when I watched it there were lots of choppy parts that kept bugging me no matter how little I paid attention to it. Went back and forth drawing/scanning/uploading. Post production was fun since this was the kind of stuff I do at work. Speaking of work, after winter break I'll demo 2D animation and Maya to my students at the high school, yeaaaaaaaah. I'll model my teaching plan around ACM215 and ACM216 ha ha.

See you guys tomorrow if you're going to the festival, other than that good luck with your demo reels and Kaveh's.

Oh, one more thing. Here's my Pandora e-radio station centered around soothing music and Clear Aesthetics. Relax, chill, fall asleep.

Lulz Before the Storm

Oh Rider, you silly heroic spirit you!


But in all seriousness, backgrounds drawn, animation pencil tested, music created, voice acting...lacking, and my next door neighbor's scanner is in my clutches. First sleep, then...the world.

What was your weekend like?

So heres 17 seconds. Need the transition where Neal jumps from the bush, all tiki like and starts running and when he turns theres a bunch more inbetweens to do. I would have had a lot more done for this and Kaveh's class had I not been indulging in lost joys such as 'hobbies' or 'sleeping'.

Caveman Neal

Thursday and Friday was spent all day and night cooking at work while the weekend consisted of bliss. Sinful bliss, what with deadlines coming up. I must say, this was my laziest weekend since the Semester started. Cleared 2 games, watched 12 anime episodes + 1 movie and finally marathon'd 5 mangas in the course of 2 days.

I highly recommend this list to anyone not currently enrolled in any ACM animation/3D course. Or if you're like me.

Megaman Legends 1
Brave Fencer Musashi (Both for PS)
Neo Toonami
Densha Otoko
Kimi ni Todoke
Ubel Blatt
Lovely Complex
Honeymoon Salad

Neotoonami streams all the awesome anime/cartoons that used to play on Cartoon Network
Densha Otoko is about an Otaku who meets a girl on a train and asks people on a message board on what to do so he can meet her again (Based on a true story)
Kimi ni Todoke is about a sweet girl whos really kind and thoughtful but unfortunately everyone thinks of her as the girl in The Ring.
Ubel Blatt takes place in a fantasy setting and is about a man out for revenge against the nation's 7 'heros'. Betrayal, fights, and twists abound. (Pretty graphic)
Lovely Complex is about a tall girl and short boy, both with height complexes, who help each other to find a boyfriend or girlfriend respectively.
Honeymoon Salad can be downright pornographic at times since it's aimed at an older crowd. It's a story is about a man and the two women in his life. An ex-girlfriend that he still has feelings for despite having his heart ripped a new one in high school, that is now homeless and a woman he sleeps with who has been a victim of a stalker and domestic abuse.

Sleep soundly, vicous T-rexasaur

http://blip.tv/file/get/http://blip.tv/file/get/Tenyearwarranty-jmmarzan_dinosleep571.mov


The lick is sorta anticipation for the HUEG yawn (When his mouth is wide open). Sneak peak of Neal at the end, more to come.

Keys

http://blip.tv/file/get/Tenyearwarranty-Caveman_jmmarzan350.mov


Ooogh, Uggh. Me show Tulip dat Neel has bestest flower.

Neal the Neanderthal

Named my caveman and cave...lady and heres a brief description. Neal wants to impress Tulip with the prettiest flower his eyes have ever seen (almost as pretty as Tulip herself) but things are never easy. The flower is planted infront of D-rex the baddest and dino out there and who also has a taste for cavemen. Chase scene abound!

New animatic incoming. ..

Trip to the Zoo

It was pretty cool drawing animals. These are only my full pages, I'll upload the little doodles in one big file later. Anyone else saw the Hammerkoa? Its this ridiculous bird with a scythe like head running around the bird cage. Found the chimps but they looked so bored and sad that I wasn't in the mood of drawing anything gloomy. From what I hear everyone went as a huge group, I was wondering where everyone was when me and Gabe got there.

It seems that I forgot my charger in class and I hope the lab will be open so I can grab it T____T.

Not satisfied

Its smooth until it hits 3 seconds, and then I just get angry at myself. Soooooo much more I want to add and polish, its not fair. I'll definitely have nightmares about this until I finish it.

So heres my idea for our last animation. Just a fun 30sec chase scene between caveboy and Stupid-rex. Running, jumping, swinging (MAYBE) and nice and simple to work with.

Value practice

Playing with Painter and it's blend modes. Still getting used to coloring with it.

Hmm lots more left to add. Second character frames, inbetweens here and there and then retracing onto a final. Who needs sleep?

Ha ha oh no

After thoroughly reworking my animation I came to realize that didn't like anything about it at all and opted to do replan the animation. Sure I'm back to square one but who has time for sleep nowadays anyway? I didn't have time to scan in my second character talking but his animation is nailed down I think, didn't have to rework him as much as the main guy.

http://blip.tv/file/get/Tenyearwarranty-jmmarzan_roughcharacter1375.mov

Painter Practice

After dabbling with Painter for a few months I finally sat down and tried to do a good job at coloring with it. Spend a few hours getting familiar with the brushes and wanted to do something this. The lineart isn't mine, its from a work in progress game from 4chan, specifically /a/.

2 hours coloring and not animating do'h

Lifedrizzlez

Two of our favorite models. Good shizzle.

11seconds plus sound sheet

Centered it a bit and did tried to do some mouth movements just to get what it feels like.<

11 second Club

Its been 2 hours into overtime and the score is tied 7-7. Quarterback Steve is 5th string and the exhaustion finally gets to him.



http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/may08/winner/

This, by far is my favorite animation throughout the 11second archive. The character design, composition and gestures are spot on and aesthetically pleasing. Creative and feels perfect for the soundclip.

Fooooooooooot Baaaaaaaaaaall

Doodling some characters as stock for later animations.  I liked the idea of having the face-guard being the mouth and using the helmet with the eyebrows.  Then I realized that these guys looked kinda like monkeys or gorillas so I kept playing with it.  

Classmate Cutouts!

Brit, Dave and Sean respectively.  Super fun assignment involving colored paper, scissors and classmates to capture in paper like form.  

The box

Compsitions

Strong Kung Fu

Power Stance

Whats in the box?

OP spots a box, too bad Mr. Crabby crab called dibs on a new home.

Back from the dead

First off is the ball catch and throw. It's too jerky for my tastes but for the moment I'm satisfied until I can get to it tomorrow. I was really trying to push for those arcs, from the swinging head, hips and spine. Gotta push it some more. This animation is basically my situation as of right now. School came in fast and hard, now I'm struggling to catch my breath o_________o;




Next off are from life drawing. One was done in my sketch book (shame on me) and the other was done with compressed charcoal.

Just need to upload my compositions and weekly drawings and I'll be 'kinda' caught up.

The weekend wasn't as productive as I had hoped... o_o;

Rough around the edges

Lots of work to be had, it'll be a fun weekend indeed!

Crit and the Immovable Object

Got the idea while watching my little brother play video games. Our dog, Kristy, was let into the house and no matter how bothersome she was, she couldn't get my bro off his ass.

Andy You're a Star

Cat walk, Maya up in this mother

A walking cat. Huh.

Expression V2.0

Got a new printer/scanner two days ago and the thing decides to be defective the moment I begin scanning. Spent all day and night fighting it and finally got it working this morning. Its missing its tail, I'll find it somewhere >.> Last two frames aren't aligned hence the weird hold.

Expressions 2

Sooo much more I wanted to add into this, but seeing as I just got outta work just a few minutes ago this is all I got from yesterday. I'm really excited to make this guy come to life, needs squash/stretch on it's face and follow through on his tail.

Also-

Everyone's expressions are crazy good. Lifelike expressions ;_;

Vulture thing

Killing time waiting for class to start. Haven't touched my wacom in a loooooooong time so I'm super rusty. Couldn't think of anything specific to draw so I just doodled randomly until the black silhouette produced something interesting. From there I went on refining it with a white overlay and then began rendering it.

It's great practice and it's kinda fun seeing what kind of monsters are subconsciously lurking within your head.

Facial Expressions

First set of expressions. Based off my boss from work, minus the goatee. The chin is pretty off on the last one though.




Second set for the hell of it. Took a doodle from my sketchbook that I liked and worked on it. Dunno if I wanna add spots or not, I kinda want to...and kinda don't! Since everyone turned theirs into .mov I figured I should to, just in case >____>

Second walk

The second walk.

Walking

I'm missing a frame in between where it raises it's foot and places it's foot on the ground. Its pretty jarring and I don't know where that missing frame went. o.o I'll get it on my second pass.

Follow Though Tail

Practice makes perfect, so did the ball bounce again and then added the tail. I forgot my tripod in my car so my pictures are tilted to the right slightly.

Follow Though 2

No spaghetti cats anymore, I promise!

Art 176

My reaction to art lecture today. Not only did I learn something new from my repeat course, but something completely random and incredibly awesome happened right after class as well. This post marks that event.

Follow through

Click To Play

Third version of follow through. I liked the master copy of the cat, figure I should redraw it.

5 Centimeters Per Second

After watching Voices from a Distant Star by Makoto Shinkai I went on a movie watching spree. To say that his movies are touching and heartfelt emotional is an understatement, the story he weaves are absolutely beautiful and the animations he produces (save for Voices from a Distant Star seeing as he basically made it himself and didn't have a staff of dedicated animators) are almost comparable to Miyazaki.

5 Centimeters Per Second really touched me because it echos so much of my own past experiences, current situation and a sad truth about what the future holds. Then again lost of people can say that whenever they watch movies so don't mind me rambling. Its about how people drift apart, slowly and further and further away.

On a somewhat related note; watching the the movies which Makoto Shinkai produces has really inspired me. Spending almost a full year working on Voices of a Distant Star the character design, story, backgrounds, audio recording, CG and animation, mind you all by himself, that really inspired me. It's amazing on what a single person can do. I'm really setting some ambitious goals for myself, so again don't mind me rambling!

Ball bouncing + Heavy weight

My scanner felt like playing a cruel joke on me so the last 20 frames are all from my camera and added. I felt my 2nd bounce went just a little too far and the screen flickers for just an instant.
-Edit-
Fixed a few frames, deleted a few extra ones and added the .mov just in case. Added gestures, spent a good part of my day working on the model I would be using for the rest of my gesture work. I like the simplicity of the example but wanted to push some basic anatomy. Also added the shoe wip. This shizzle is hard.