Maintaining 4 blogs was getting a little crazy, and with all the wordpress themes out there, it seemed like now might be a good time to get back to this blog and distill some of the best of what I’ve posted and improve upon it.

Right now I’m looking into both decent wordpress themes that support multiple tabs as well as exploring drupal as an additional content management system where I can put out tutorials in a more user friendly way.

I rarely post anymore due to time constraints and a general lack of time to do much animation work..I’ll get back to this blog soon (as soon as I fix some server problems/hosting issues/wordpress security issues)In the interim, I’m blogging at animationaac.blogspot.com and decidedlynonepic.blogspot.com

More progress….a lot more polish, sharpening up arcs, timing, etc. Hoping not to build upon existing problems.

Sadly, it’s the last week of the APT session, so I’m endeavoring to get as much done as possible. Right now, I’m continuing to tighten up the weight and timing a bit, watching the fluidity and rhythms of the arcs, and starting to address the facial (super rough pass right now)…the ending is still in that awkward post-blocking phase, but my first priority will be to tighten up the timing/moving holds on that and get back to starting to refine the motion.

Now that my?  project is over and I have a little time, I’ll be updating the above link periodically as I try to finish this anim…feedback is always welcome!

I got to a point in this animation where a friend suggested I rethink it, as I swapped in the chef rig halfway through. Above is my initial sketch of the idea. I changed it from a table situation to someone tying a tie, then turning around….I was given the suggestion of making the chef do something that a chef might be doing, to strengthen the character, so after a bunch of sketches, I ended up with the situation below..

After listening to the clip a bit more and talking to fellow animators, I think it’s time to move on from this one…I think it will never get beyond just being a dialogue fragment, now matter how much context I try to add.

I put together a quick showreel of the work done this term in class at the academy of art. Congrats to Joseph Lee who nabbed himself an internship at Pixar!

I just heard Stormfront Studios closed it’s doors. Best of luck to all the talented people turned out on the street. If any former SFers read this blog, email me and I’ll do my part to pass names around. With the demands of next gen teams and hardware, this business is more volatile than ever.

Interesting interview/article about it all.? 

After a bit of burnout with animation, I recharged a bit by revising the animation gui at work (I know…pretty geeky)

After experimenting with some web 2.0 flashy graphics, I came to that realization that simple is best..designing symbols is a challenge, as they have to read completely clearly at a glance.

One of my favorite apps I used to use in my design days, expression, is now a free app. I like free, and while not as robust as illustrator in some ways, it’s a fantastic vector drawing tool that allows painterly effects.