Finals are over! On to the next project!

Here's my dialogue animation and my reel from the 487e character animation class. There's still a lot of polishing I'd like to do in the graph editor, as well as actually animating the second character. But hey! It works for now. The dialogue on my reel has a different camera angle than the original-- I had to change the over the shoulder camera angle for the sake of the assignment. But I still like the over the shoulder shot better :P

Also, I finally posted up an animation demo reel on my website!
http://www.gceart.com/AnimReel.html
Check it out!

Sketchbook Update

Here are some sketches from my tiny pocket sketchbook.

I tend to carry it everywhere in my back pocket as a backup sketchbook.

It's mostly filled with doodles of wild people in their natural habitats, rigging and MEL scripting notes, personal notes, grocery lists, and drawings inspired by other artists.

It recently fell out of my pocket and was ran over by a car. But nothing a little duct tape and string can't fix. Some say it adds character!

In other recent news, I'm one of them fancy dot com kids now! I got my website up and running thanks to the help of my friend, Kenneth Hung. I'm still working on adding finished reels to it. Check out the spankin' new links at the top of the page!

A strategy highly suggested for people (like myself) who are constantly caught without a pen.

It even survived the car!

And here are a couple drawings not from my tiny sketchbook.

They're actually quite large, and a pain in the butt to scan.

Skeletal and muscular structure studies done for a life drawing class, taught by Joe Forkan.

Sharks.... With Lasers...

So I've been getting serious about writing this auto-rigging tool and it's slowly taking over my life (or current lack thereof). It's turning out pretty sweet-- I've definitely learned a lot and have gotten way better at MEL and C++. My goal right now is to have something cool to show before CTNx next week. Stoked!

This weekend I had to change up the pace and focus on a video game that a few friends of mine and I are creating. It's being submitted for the Microsoft Imagine Cup competition... but really I just want to make a video game regardless.

Here's a rig I built and animated this weekend for the game. The model was a quick collaboration between Jonathan and I. He modelled the shark, and I added the mechanical stuff. But all the credit for the badass texturing goes to him.

Light Studies & Gestures

A few of the many drawings from the past few weeks--
First two: light and value studies from statues,
Last two: a few gestures from live models

Still gettin' there!
Thanks for lookin'

Nuts!

Reachin' for a can o' nuts




And here are some poses I sketched up last week for the new assignment-- the hammer strike



Cheers!

VGDC + PMC Game Jam animations

This weekend was the VGDC + PMC Game Jam! The Video Game Design Club and the Pencil Mileage Club collaborated, split up into groups, and worked on designing and creating their own video games in 48 hours.
In the game our team created, you play as a ninja-beaver who must fight off hordes of cockroaches to protect a nuclear reactor. We eloquently named it 'Nuclear Ninja Beavers'
I basically took my pre-existing cockroach rig, adapted it to be compatible with the Unity game engine, and animated it!

For your viewing pleasure


Le Breakdown:
1. Walk Cycle
2. Attack
3. Flinch Right
4. Flinch Left
5. Death

I'll post some in-game footage soon. Our programmer friendos are polishing up their code and working on maybe making it playable through the web browser.
Cheers!

Doodles - Stephen Silver style

Various sketches with a few Stephen Silver studies thrown in

Getting Back Into the Swing of Life Drawing Classes

It's been almost a full year since I've been in a formal life drawing class. So far, I've only had the PMC life drawing sessions and the LA Drawing Club to sustain me.

http://pencilmileageclub.com/2011/09/07/life-drawing-schedule/.

http://www.thedrawingclub.com/.

Still, it's not the same as having an instructor on your back to whip you into shape! And now, four weeks and a few hundred pieces of paper later, I found TWO descent drawings! Yes! Count em... TWO!

ONE!

 TWO!

Looks like I have a ways to go. Cheers!

487e assignment 1 - Keyframes

WOAH! Two updates in one day?? Strange, I know.
Vuala! I present my keys for the first animation assignment of the semester: Have your character try to get an item down from a high shelf




I had a bit of fun rigging the stool, too

Pink's - pencil test

An idea for a short 2D animation that I put together over the summer. Now that the year's started again, I'm balls to the wall busy and won't have the time to ink and color it in. So I figured I'd share this little bit of brain vomit with you now!
Anyone who's eaten at Pink's Hot Dogs in LA will have some idea of the digestive consequences.



http://maps.google.com/maps?um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=pinks+hot+dogs&fb=1&gl=us&hq=pinks+hot+dogs&hnear=0x80dd2a74c381cb63:0xf59c53811e60ea4a,Fullerton,+CA&cid=0,0,2934846431347497184&ei=AUFpTqmVCcPQiAKHhJzCDg&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=image&ved=0CAQQ_BI

Opening Act's 10 for 10 Campaign Video

Just in case you haven't seen it yet

A a few months ago an old high school teacher contacted me, asking me if I would be willing to make a video for a non-profit organization in New York she currently works for. The non-profit organization is called Opening Act, and they bring after school theater programs to underprivileged schools all around New York City. Naturally, I said I'd be happy to do it! More experience for me!
The video took about 4 weeks of emails, phone calls, revisions, approvals, and spell checks to create.
Because their 9am to 5pm is my 6am to 2pm, and I'm a college student that likes to sleep in, most of the communication was done via email.
Overall, I would say collaborating long distance didn't turn out to be too much trouble.

It was a pleasure working with Gina Grandi, Suzy Myers, Marie Anderson, and Kate Perkins.

Cockroach Rig

Things left to do:

- IK/FK matching on the legs

- FK/Flight matching on the wings

- controls on the mandibles

No music this time. Didn't feel like YouTube giving me copyright warnings. Plus, you're probably listening to your own anyways!

Expression Test & Demo

A new rig I've been messing around with! A face control system using all skin weighted joints. The only blend shapes used were for the sneer line and cheek puff. I'll tell ya, the balancing was a paaaaain! But I definitely learned a lot. Ideally, I'd like to use this guy for the rest of my 3D animation exercises once he's finished

Music: Top Yourself by The Raconteurs

People Watching

Solitary Preview (playblasts)

It's been a while, but now finals week (month) is over!

Welp, here ya go! My running work-in-progress short film, Solitary. Sorry, none of it's rendered so it's not going to look so pretty. This is the version that was shown during the CSUF film festival last week. Right now I'm in the mood where I JUST WANT TO GET IT DONE! Flaws and all. My main focus over the summer is to finish it so I can go on to the next thing.

Thanks for taking a look and I hope you enjoy!

More Updates

BLAH! I went to edit/add something to my last post, and somehow blogger decided to delete it all.

Oh well.

Internet: 1, Garrett: 0 

 OKAY! First, here's some drawings from last week. Most of them are from the airport. Terminals are a great place to draw people in the wild! And my old printer/scanner has finally knonked out on me, so please excuse the awkward photography

(Please view full screen) 

As for the Solitary project, I'm just trying to crank out as many scenes as I can. Animation has taken priority over everything else. I want to have some solid animation to try and submit to the Dreamworks Critique in a few weeks. After I finish current scene however, I'm going to finally give him some clothes using wrap deformers. It ain't nCloth, but hey-- I'm on a deadline! I also want to submit some nice footage to the film festival, so I'm going to worry about lighting and rendering before nCloth. So wrap deformers will have to do for now. I'm also going to apply some painted textures right quick before next week.

Maestro Leonardo says:

Thanks for readin' bro 

yep... I'm going to go outside now

Solitary update

So the animation portion of my 353 prject is coming along.

A while ago I got some lighting help from CG guru Chris Emersion. Just 10 minutes with that guy and I figured out how I'm going to light most of my film! NOICE! Many thanks to him!

I usually end up using my rig as a means to procrastinate.

I should give him clothes one of these days.

Wildlife Drawing Midterm

Here's a few drawings from my midterm critique for Teener Schmidtzzel's (Tina Schmidt's)  wildlife drawing class. 

Homage to a Tow Truck Driver

Yes, I know it's a few weeks old. But I figured it would be a good note to start this thing off with

I'd like to take this time to give a shout out to Doug, the tow truck driver, for aiding me today in hauling my broken-ass car to the dealership repair. While most people in this society focus on material wealth or social status, you rise above that to enjoy the simple things in life. To you, happiness is a Super Big Gulp at hand and the Anaheim highway winds blowing through your mustache hair— The real color of which is unknown, because it is constantly covered in the grease of the 3000 lb mechanical beasts that you tame every day. While others scoff at you for your job and grease monkey appearance, you scoff right back at them because you know the truth: That the size of your vehicle directly correlates to the size of your penis. And you're driving one of the biggest damn trucks on the road right now, so they can shove it. 
So, I thank you, Doug the tow truck driver. Not just for your invaluable towing assistance and general knowledge of my car, but also for a window into your way of life. Riding with you has unfortunately been the highlight of my Valentines day so far. You go Doug. Keep on truckin'