Chips and Solstice

New Project

2012-01-17T18:17:00.000-08:00

So, I'm making a mobile game with a friend of mine.

Started a new blog dedicated to it

ch-ch-ch-check it out

http://offswitchgame.blogspot.com/

Life Drawing Tuesday #3!

2011-11-08T19:09:00.001-08:00

I'll post something more exciting soon

Versatility, Here I Come!

2011-11-06T19:11:00.000-08:00

I used this weekend to learn Maya and try to get a little more well rounded. Here are some tests I put together:

Week 2 of Life Drawing

2011-11-01T19:05:00.000-07:00

Week 2! I keep getting there late because of work, so I miss most of the poses. I'll try to find more stuff to post so this doesn't just become a life drawing blog, haha.

Back into the swing of things

2011-10-25T18:50:00.000-07:00

Trying to get back into the swing of going to life-drawing every week. Still a little stiff, should get better once I'm back up to speed.

The Mighty Hunter

2011-10-17T16:40:00.000-07:00

The Mighty Hunter

2011-07-13T17:02:00.001-07:00

So, for the past couple months I've been working on my undergrad thesis film. Almost there! Just thought I'd post some progress stuff here.

Here's a rough B+W cut of the film! Only one more shot to animate.

I colored one frame from each shot to get a feel of how it's all going to flow. I'm really happy with the look. The backgrounds were painted by the great Edward Rowan:

Green Lantern

2011-06-16T13:48:00.000-07:00

It's been a while...

I'll post some new animation soon.

Web Site

2011-04-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

Hey,

Just finished putting together my website.

Check it out:

www.martywalkeranimation.com

New Lip Sync

2011-04-10T11:38:00.000-07:00

Haven't updated this in a while. Working on something big!

Here's an acting piece I did a couple weeks ago:

Updates

2010-10-22T08:47:00.001-07:00

Hey, so I recently got a better capture of the clown animation and realized I haven't updated the blog on that rope climb animation. Here's how those stand right now.

Baby's First Wish

2010-09-20T14:08:00.001-07:00

Baby's First Wish from Marty Walker on Vimeo.

So we finally finished this!

There's a few things I'm going to tweak over the next couple months, but for now...this is it...enjoy...

Rope Climb Progress

2010-08-07T10:54:00.001-07:00

Speaking of the new capture station, here's something I just shot. The rough keys extremes and breakdowns for the rope climb animation. I really like the method of planning I did for this (the bottom three videos on this post). By doing that straight ahead pass, and the "pendulum pass", I completely figured everything out before doing the real animation. The pendulum pass was especially great. It's like, "Do this animation using only the timing and spacing, while still having it read."

Capture Station 2.0

2010-08-07T08:39:00.000-07:00

So, I'm staying at a friend's house. I didn't feel like taking the foam-core construction that is my home capture station so I rigged up a new, more portable one. This time instead of building a box, I just taped my webcam to my tripod.

There's the basic setup. This one both works better, and was easier to make than the last. Now I can adjust the height and have better access to the camera's focus ring.

There's really no instructions...I just taped it to that arm....

I'm almost disappointed I didn't think of this earlier.

Captures about as well as the last one.

What am I doing with my life?

2010-08-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

So, I've been doing a lot lately and haven't been posting it here. Silly me!

I started my Independant study in animation a couple weeks ago. Here's the first project. Three weeks of work. I'm somewhat happy with it. I'm a little worried about the readability, but overall I like it. When I went to capture it I had left the actual ball animation at home, so I just did it quickly in Photoshop afterwards.

Oh! And the 2D Studio Tem project is coming along fairly well. We're about half way done with the animation. Here's the progress version.

Now then. I just started on my second animation for the independent study and have decided to document my entire process. Mainly so I can really see the flaws and benefits of it. I've decided to start off a little differently. I'm doing my thumbnails full size on crappy paper so I can really see the relationship of the drawings right off the bat. I just did a straight ahead pass on 2's 3's 4's 8's and 12's really fast to see how I'd tackle it naturally, before thinking about what the Keys, Extremes and Breakdowns are. It was pretty fun, and I kind of like how it came out.

After running it by some professors I edited the first pass. Then I did this quick pendulum pass to really plot out the arc and spacing of the head.

Now to start keying stuff out for real

Clowns and Cats

2010-07-03T21:33:00.000-07:00

Finally finished tying down the clown animation. Just gotta run it by a few people then it's off to clean up.

...probably...

And another shot from the genie animation!

Oh, and here's the animatic as it stands.

Marty Learns to draw cats 1

2010-06-17T15:49:00.000-07:00

What's one thing I learned at the workshop this weekend?
I suck at drawing big cats.

In light of this, today I pulled out every animal anatomy book I could and studied large cat skeletons and muscles in hopes that the mystery of their faces would slowly unravel.

They're starting to!

I couldn't get to the zoo, so I drew these from a video. That's a little better than photos, right?

maybe....

I'll be going to the natural history museum tomorrow, and the zoo sometime next week to get some real life drawing done.

Animal Workshop

2010-06-15T15:09:00.001-07:00

As Promised, here are some of the drawings I got from the animal drawing workshop I went to this past weekend.

Hopefully over the break I'll be able to make it to the zoo/museums to do more studies.

Dog Lightning!

2010-06-14T08:47:00.001-07:00

Just a little update on the clown. Fleshed out all of the rough inbetweens and I'm running it by everyone I can find before I tie it down. Should be done soon!

Another test for the genie animation. I'm pretty proud of that lightning.

So, I went to an animal drawing workshop in New York this weekend (taught by Joe Weatherly). It was pretty awesome, I got a lot out of it. I'll probably be posting some of the sketches up here soon.

Animation Weekend!

2010-06-01T16:10:00.001-07:00

So, I guess I'll be update frequently with all of the animations I'm working on. This weekend was nice because all I really had to do was animate. Got a bit done, too!

I made the throw more clear in the clown animation. I still haven't inbetweened that part, so it's a bit choppy. Just wanted to make sure it read. I also tweaked some stuff in the other parts. Made the run in faster, and made his legs scramble at the end. Overall I like how it's coming.

I finished the puppet tests for that genie animation. pretty excited about how flexible they turned out to be. There are parts where it's a little obvious that they're symbols, but overall there's chance for more life than one would think.

I also got a chance to do more of that sprite animation. It's for the credit sequence of a 3D short some friends and I have been working on. I'll be sure to post it up once that's done

Spritely Clowns

2010-05-26T19:21:00.000-07:00

Hey guys

Just figured I'd update with a little side project I've been playing with to keep my head on. It's still in it's beginning stages and there's a lot I need to fix (he throws a pie in the middle there...people don't seem to read that, so I'll need to make it clearer), but overall I'm happy with how it's coming out.

On another note, we just wrapped up animation on this one short, and we're in the middle of rendering and special effects now. It's looking pretty cool. I'll let you know when it's done. But here's a taste for now:

While this is all happening I'm in pre-production for another short that should be finished by the end of September. It's a flash animation about a genie who's master is a toddler, and he has to figure out what the baby wants so he can go grant the wishes and go on vacation. Here's a sneak peak at that:

it's not a lot, but it's really just a test to see if the flash puppet for the genie is working properly.

I'll probably be updating more as next quarter progresses.

Best wishes,

Marty

Animation galore!

2010-01-06T14:34:00.000-08:00

So, here's the project I was working on. There were a LOT of changes made since I last blogged about it. Most noticeably the switch from hand drawn to symbol animation. I'm not a fan of symbol animation, but we had to scrap it half way through and I ended up doing all the character animation myself in 5 days. Do I want a cookie? Sure.

So, my friend Fenia and I are planning to do a stop-motion piece this summer. I've been playing around with it, trying to get a good workflow, and used to the medium in general. This was my first attempt.

Note: Duct-taping the camera to the table does NOT keep it steady....

Funny story. Originally at the end something was going to fall on the coil and kill it (as seen in the next one). My camera decided not to take the last couple pictures and stopped right after the crawl. It didn't ruin it as a study, but it did take away all of the entertainment value. The camera stole my punchline!

I then ordered a tripod. Which Came today!

Here's my second stop-motion experiment. I was testing out a way to use props and remove them in post. It didn't work out that great because the focus was different from picture to picture. Gotta find a way around that.

Anyway, next time I'll probably show some CG animation.

Till then

And by tomorrow I mean next month...

2009-12-03T14:24:00.001-08:00

So, hopefully I'll post some of my stuff more frequently. I have more to show than you'd think

Long time no see...

2009-11-06T18:06:00.000-08:00

What have I been up to?

I'm currently heading up animation on this little project a group of students at my school are putting together. Here's a pencil test of one of my shots. I'm hoping with the cool coloring technique in photoshop this piece is gonna look bangarang.

I'll probably be updating with other stuff I've done recently tomorrow...and the next day....expect a post a day....

We built an Animation Desk

2009-06-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

So, my friend and I built an animation desk! I got the idea to do it after stumbling upon this blog a couple months ago. Of course, with no tools or experience with wood I never thought it's actually happen. That's where my buddy Chris came in. He had both! And...did most of the actual building while I was the one who deciphered the blueprints and dictated the measurements.

Anyway!

Here are some pictures

Here's the finished desk in it's collapsed portable form. It was awesome because a lot of the measurements we did were based on guesses and it worked out perfectly!

We actually had to completely improvise the legs in the back that lock into the dowels, and it turned out to be the most sturdy part of the whole thing. But cutting that hole....was a pain....

The light fixture was really hard to find for cheap. I had just so happened to bring this gooseneck clip-on lamp with me and we decided to give see how well it would work as a backlight and:

SHAZAM!

SHAZAM!!!

So psyched!

Now, here's some technical stuff:

This is the blueprint we used to build it (found at the Hand-Drawn Animation Equipment blog)

One thing I wished it had come with when I was out buying stuff was an actual supply list to build that thing. So, here's what we needed.

24 x 48 (3/4 in. thick) piece of Aspen
From which we cut:

1 24 x 34.5 in. sheet (for the desktop [A])
2 9 x 1.5 in. pieces (for the part that you put the dowels in that the back legs rest on [D])
2 21.75 x 2 in. pieces (for the sides of the bottom structure [C])

3/4 x 6ft x 6 in plank of...I don't remember what kind of wood it was...but it doesn't really matter...it looked similar to the aspen
From which we cut:

2 15.5 x 1.5 in. pieces (for the back legs [B])
1 32.5 x 1.5 in. piece (for the bottom part of the back legs that rests on the dowels [E])
2 34.5 x 2 in. pieces (for the front and back of the bottom structure [F])

1/2 in. dowel rod
2 1.5 in. hinges
2 3 in. hinges
4 corner braces
4 regular braces

Tools, and such
Jigsaw
Table Saw
Wood Glue
Clamps
Drill

That's it, really.

All of the parts cost me $50 in total. As opposed to buying one for $300-$500. The most expensive thing I had to buy was the disk which was $102 (which includes shipping).

The Hardest part, obviously, was cutting the 16.5 in. hole in the desktop. We actually cut it a little too big (...and lumpy...), but the disk fits and spins well. It just has a bit of wiggle room.

Till next time,
Marty

I made a capture station today

2009-06-21T17:03:00.000-07:00

So, I'm roaming the internet trying to find good ideas as to how to rig up a cheap capture station when I stumble upon Sunny's Blog, and his post on how he converted a lightbox into a capture station. Awesome, right?!

So, here's pictures of mine. It's not exactly like Sunny's, but I kept to the same basic idea.

I made it out of a beat up old piece of foamcore that I found lying around, some duct tape. It looks really crooked in this picture....but that's really fixable...

Cut holes in the side and taped pieces of vellum to help distribute the light.

The only part of this I had to buy was this webcam, which worked out nicely because I used parts of its package to mount it snugly to the top.

Here it is with the lights on. I tested the video feed and it works remarkably well!

Problem is I don't seem to have a program to actually capture animation with. TVP animation only seems to want to acquire images from a scanner, and Premiere CS3 doesn't seem to capture anymore. Of course, I don't know my way around those programs very well, so it's possible that I just missed it.

Another Mermaid

2009-06-19T11:58:00.001-07:00

GET IT?! She's acting like a fish! HA!

I started drawing mermaids again. I think this is the last one for a while. I'm still not all that great with Watercolors, but I rather like how this one turned out. Probably the last mermaid for a while.

Lord Bravery

2009-06-14T13:56:00.001-07:00

Playing around with watercolors...

Interrogation

2009-06-09T14:10:00.000-07:00

And with that....I'm done

Just a Sketch

2009-05-16T05:21:00.001-07:00

Coming up with characters for my next animation...

24 Hour Chalenge

2009-04-18T07:28:00.000-07:00

So, I got first place in the 24 hour challenge! Woohoo!

the 24 hour challenge is where the animation majors at my school get together and spend the night at the school. While there they have 24 hours to do any of the specified challenges. One of the challenges was a 12 second traditional animation. I started this around 9 AM on Friday morning, and finished around 5 AM Saturday morning (with very frequent breaks).

Jerry's Fantasic Journey!

2009-04-15T09:41:00.000-07:00

New animation for you guys. First project in Intermediate 2D animation. Just a walk across the screen, pretty simple

Till next time,

Laugh with me, Jocko!

2009-03-26T13:44:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I've been drawing Freakazoid stuff so much. This one was really fun to do; I haven't used charcoal in ages. This is a Gutierrez, one of Freakazoid's enemies.

I couldn't find my digital camera so I had to scan it which is why it seems so cramped. There's about half an inch of drawing that got cut off.

-Marty

Super Teen Extraordinaire

2009-03-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

I was experimenting with a new way to color using markers for the flats and going over them with colored pencils. I kinda like the result.

...Anywho...

Failed my review because I don't have enough final finished pieces, so I guess I'll pull out the bristol more often instead of just drawing in my sketch book all the time. Here's the first of the new era.

-Marty

It's been a while

2009-02-22T13:19:00.001-08:00

Playing with Markers

2009-01-19T19:54:00.001-08:00

So, I have an assignment coming up that will require some coloring. I usually handle all of that digitally, but I feel like doing stuff by hand's less of a hassle these days. No printing costs. Just no undo button. I guess it's really a choice between the two.

Anywho, It's been a while since I've posted, so here are a few highlight sketches from this week.

Look! Up in the sky!

2009-01-10T19:05:00.000-08:00

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...

Mr. Incredible's worst fear?

So, Boom Studios is putting out comics based on Pixar movies. The first series will be a story about, you guessed it, The Incredibles! The first issue comes out March 25. Hopefully they'll be awesome.

Captain Curtain Revisited

2009-01-03T20:24:00.000-08:00

I was messing around with the Captain's model today after reading some articles on Appeal.

I kinda like it, but he looks a little too young....

I'll probably color that face, though.

EDIT: I did...

Dear Michael Paulus,

2008-12-28T13:50:00.000-08:00

So, I've started doing my intensive anatomy studies again. I'm going to try to find an anatomy museum to go to and draw.

After a while of reading and serious anatomy drawing I decided to play around in the style of Michael Paulus.

Here's Drawing of the Joker I did a couple days ago. And his skull.
Anatomy of a turkey?

And today's observations/studies

Praise Team

2008-12-20T18:57:00.001-08:00

Nothing too crazy today, just more life drawing. I'm getting more stylized with these. I don't know how good of a thing that is.

More from Panera

Panera People

2008-12-17T16:50:00.001-08:00

I've been uninspired when it comes to drawing weird pictures... in the mean time I've just been doing some life drawing!

You guys should comment with ideas on what I should draw.

(b'' )b

Anyway, here's what I drew today!

I went to Panera for lunch today and drew people.

...My Cat...

I really want to go on a drawing adventure to the zoo over break!

45 second gestures.

Enjoy

BLAMMO!

2008-12-16T19:16:00.000-08:00

Here it is! The Blammo animatic! And with that, I end this quarter at school!