Day and Night Final Renders of Alley Set

Final Scene Render

Key Chain Prop Test

Testing out a rig for a key ring that will be used in a group film at school. Tends to crash the computer if its a quick side to side shake so I'm still trying to figure out what movements will work best.

Dumpster assignment

Rendered Set

Continuing with the Rendering and Modelling

Phone Cable Redone with nCloth

Found this had much better self collisions than nHair

Test Render of Set

Render Test

Rendering out a prop from our Final Film to make sure the textures are working.

Curtain Test for Group Film

Dynamics test with Particles

Cord Rigging Test

3rd Year Texturing assignment

Texturing assignment from 3rd year

Hit and Pitch Linetest

A line test from 3rd year animation class

Making an Animated movie...in Flow Chart Form!

CLICK HERE for full sized version

Motorcity Animation Preview

I love looking at animation from start to finish. Something about the rough stuff just looks great.
Motorcity Animation Preview HERE

planes of the head

Download all the images HERE

Joanna Quinn: How I Animate

Joanna Quinn on Drawing

Encouragement from Pete Docter

Pete Docter joined Pixar 22 years ago, and since then he’s had a major hand in hits including Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., and Up.

Middle school teacher Martin Kelsey wrote to Docter in 2009, asking for some advice to pass on to his students.

Docter’s reply was all encouragement:

What would I tell a class of Middle School students?

When I was in Middle School, I liked to make cartoons. I was not the best artist in my class — Chad Prins was way better — but I liked making comic strips and animated films, so after High school it was no surprise that I got into The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), a school that taught animation.

CalArts only accepts 25 students a year, and it attracts some of the best artists in the country. Suddenly I went from being one of the top artists in my class to being one of the absolute worst. Looking at the talented folks around me, I knew there was no way I would make it as a professional. Everyone else drew way better than I did. And I assumed the people who were the best artists would become the top animators.

But I loved animation, so I kept doing it. I made tons of films. I did animation for my friends’ films. I animated scenes just for the fun of it. Most of my stuff was bad, but I had fun, and I tried everything I knew to get better.

Meanwhile, many of the people who could draw really well kind of rested around and didn’t do a whole lot. It made me angry, because if I had their talent, man, the things I would do with it!

Years later, a lot of those guys who probably still draw really well don’t actually work in animation at all. I don’t know what happened to them. As for me, I got hired at Pixar Animation Studios, where I got to work on Toy Story 1 and 2, direct Monsters, Inc., and Up (due out May 29th this year).

So, Middle School Student, whatever you like doing, do it! And keep doing it. Work hard! In the end, passion and hard work beats out natural talent. (And anyway, if you love what you do, it’s not really “work” anyway.)

Good luck,

Pete Docter

Glen Keane’s art

drawing by Milt Kahl

Little Mermaid Line Test

Found this while stumbling around the internet. I love the look of line tests with all the rough lines. It just feels like it has so much energy and you can feel how thick her hair is with all the heavy dark lines along the bottom of her hair.

Sketching at the trailer

A Sketch of the area around the trailer

Why Fan Service Is Good Business

Check out this article in Forbes magazine about how listening to fans can benefit gaming companies and ensure brand loyalty.

Forbes Article

Epic Movie

Click on the picture below to check out the trailer for a movie called Epic. It's by Blue Sky studios, who did the Ice Age movies. 

Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling

• #1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
• #2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.
• #3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
• #4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
• #5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
• #6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
• #7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
• #8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
• #9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
• #10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
• #11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
• #12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
• #13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
• #14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
• #15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
• #16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.
• #17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on - it’ll come back around to be useful later.
• #18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
• #19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
• #20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?
• #21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?
• #22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

E3 2012

So the epic E3 has come and gone yet again...leaving all of us gaming nerds psyched for the year to come. There were sequels to long running game series like Resident Evil and Halo, reboots like DMC and Tomb Raider and even a company blending a MMO with a TV series. I figured with the Expo over I'd talk a little about what I'm the most excited about. The blending of the TV and film industry with the gaming industry.

 Over the years we have seen this just beginning. Since video games first came out, people have been making games based on TV and movies. Then came the porting of video games to the big screen. With both of these there were usually issues when they crossed media. TV writing didn't always lend well to an interesting game and games most certainly didn't have stories that could stand alone as a film without the interactive element. Over the years video game writing has become very grand and much more detailed than in the past. Games like Skyrim, InFamous, Killzone and MANY others created sweeping, dramatic, and even sometimes, comedic stories. But even with these sweeping story lines, removing the interactive element seems to take something away. Now a gaming company and SyFy network want to try and blend the media. In 2013 SyFy will launch a TV show that will take place in one city in the USA and, simultaneously, an MMO shooter game will be released that takes place in another city, but on the same time line. The actors from the TV show were recorded and shot and modelled into the game so they can cross media. For example, one of the main characters in the video game starts in the MMO and then after a couple weeks ends up in the other city on the TV show.

This idea has apparently taken 4 years to plan and sort out and I can only image the problems that have arisen and the walls the creator must have faced. The first one through the wall is always the bloodiest and this person is most certainly breaking through a wall to a new idea. I would love to think that this is the future of gaming. Especially as an animator. I would love to be able to take part on a project like this and be able to cross industries. Meet the talent and workers of both media.

Check out the video links below to see an interview with one of the actor's as he gives a detailed description of the project, and the trailer that was shown at E3.

Interview with Grant Bowler (one of the actors in the series/game) 

Defiance E3 Trailer

Life Drawing Sketchbook

Emperor's Groove Doodles

Some doodles I did while watching The Emperor’s New Groove. One of my favourite Disney movies.

Hand Drawings

I was bored the other day so I yanked out my old art history textbooks from Queen’s University and did some doodling

Random Drawing

This what comes up in my head when I’m bored :)

Clown Concepts

Some studies and sketches for a character assignment. The character is a retired clown that works in the produce department of a grocery store. He’s very old and cranky and misses his old job.

Short Stop at the Zoo

A couple quick sketches while I stopped in at the zoo

Trip to the ROM

Some sketches from a trip to the ROM…I’m a bit of a Dinosaur nerd if you couldn’t tell ;)