Versatility, Here I Come!

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

The Mighty Hunter

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:

New Lip Sync

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

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

Updates

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

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...

What am I doing with my life?

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

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.

Dog Lightning!

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!

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

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!

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

Long time no see...

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....

Interrogation

And with that....I'm done

24 Hour Chalenge

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!

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


Till next time,