Archive for June, 2007

Roxanne

Sunday, June 24th, 2007

Just got back from seeing The Police at Dodger Stadium.  How was it?  You ever had something built up in your head…that it was just going to be SO great, SO fun, SO cool.  And when you got there, it WAS kind of those things…but then again, not quite those things either.

That’s kind of how The Police were for me.  It was a lot of fun, and very cool to see the band back together and playing a huge stadium show.  And yet.  I walked away feeling like what I had really seen was Sting, who was playing with “those other 2 guys”.

That’s not to minimize Stuart Copeland or Andy Summers, both excellent musicians.  And the band put on a heck of a show.  But in the end, I think Sting has become such a “known” quantity, that hearing him sing those songs…well, he’s ALL you hear.  And not angry, punkish, snarling Sting of the 80’s, but gentle, mellow, rollicking Sting from his solo albums.

I don’t know.  I REALLY wanted to like this concert.  I really did.  And, in some ways, I had a good time.  But the end result is that I walked away feeling like I enjoyed the Foo Fighters‘ opening set more than I did The Police.  Go figure.

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It’s A. . .

Sunday, June 24th, 2007

BOY!

Went in for my wife’s ultrasound on Friday afternoon, and although the li’l rugrat was curled into a ball at the start of the session, by the end, he had uncurled and was giving us the “money shot”.  That’s right – he’s not quite the exhibitionist that his older brother was, but he’ll hold his own (ahem!).

We haven’t decided on a name quite yet, but we have a couple finalists in the running.  I’ll post more in that regard a bit later.

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What just happened?

Sunday, June 17th, 2007

What just happened?  I finished term 4 at Animation Mentor, that’s what just happened!  It’s been absolutely CRAZY, pushing myself this term – always trying to improve my shot, keep production moving forward, and managing my time overall, but getting to this point has been well worth it.

There are a number of things that still need to be tweaked and polished in this shot, for which I’ve written out my mentor’s final critique so I can continue to work on this after the school officially shuts down for the 1 week break.  For now though, I present my final shot for week 11:

Oh, a couple more things:

  1. There’s some kind of compression artifact showing up in this file.  It’s from Quicktime’s compression, as the Maya playblast file is completely clean.  It pops up in the shoulder area of Brussels (the green character) somewhere around when he’s making the chopping motion of one hand into the palm of another.  I’m working on fixing that, but for now, ignore it.
  2. May I just say that to this point, my mentors at AnimationMentor have ROCKED!  Sean Sexton has been a HUGE influence on my work this term, and Mike Walling, who was my mentor for last term was probably the most impressive mentor I’ve had – he really pushed me to improve my work and critically look at every pose.  I thank both of them for their work in the AM program, I really feel that my work has improved tremendously.  Additionally, Ryan Donoghue and David Breaux, my term 2 and term 1 mentors, respectively, both helped put me on this road by showing me the fundamentals of animation and body mechanics.  Both were great mentors to me as well.  Thanks to all of you!  Now on to short film pre-production!

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AM Week 11

Monday, June 11th, 2007

It’s Monday. It’s week 11 of AnimationMentor.com. Do I know where my brain is? Not likely.

Honestly, I’ll probably need to sit down and write a series of posts about AM, it has been that influential throughout the past year of my life. For now, it will have to be enough for you to know that I work hard to show a lot of improvement from deadline to deadline, sometimes getting less than 6 hours of sleep over the course of a Friday and Saturday night. This is the result:

As you can see, some of this is in pretty good shape. The first shot has shaped up really nicely – just a couple minor tweaks to polish and it’s good. The second (marathon) shot…well, it’s doing well in places, poorly in others. Parts of the face are still blocked, mechanically, there’s some major tweaking needed at points. And there will be plenty of final polish that needs to be loaded up over the course of this week to get this baby put to bed.

That said, I’m really happy with how this has been turning out. Considering a year ago I couldn’t have animated a bouncing ball, I feel this progress is pretty amazing.

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Up to Speed

Thursday, June 7th, 2007

So in the interest of bringing this blog up to speed with where I’m at, animation wise, I’m going to start posting some of my past work – some of it is ok, some of it is flat out bad, but it’s all mine, and I’m proud to have finished each assignment…even if I cringe when I look at some of them now. :)

Here’s my most recent finished shot – single character dialogue. I’ll let you guess where the clip came from.

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The Cup runneth over

Thursday, June 7th, 2007

Missed this update last night, but there you have it – The Ducks are the Stanley Cup champions of the ‘06-’07 season. Although I know it was a special night for all the players, I was super happy that both Teemu Selanne and Rob Niedermayer were part of the team and were able to hoist that cup.

First off, Teemu. I could never imagine that a nicer pro-sports figure might exist. I’ve never actually met the man, but you watch him in interviews and during games, and he just seems like one of the coolest guys. Always happy, always a fantastic attitude, always playing for the team. For a guy who’s been around the NHL for…how many years? Drafted in ‘88, broke in with Winnipeg in ‘92, so 15 years…for a guy who’s been around that long, it’s plenty of time to become a jaded ass. For him to stay true to himself, through years of hard work, disappointment and injury, is a testament to his strength of character, focus and determination. And now he’s finally been rewarded. I was really happy to have seen that.

And Rob Niedermayer. Again, never met the guy, but I can remember back to the ‘03 playoffs when he and Scott were playing against each other for the cup. I was at game 6 where Kariya took that MONSTER check mid-ice from Scott Stevens, left the ice, came back and scored, but one of the more lasting memories is the post-series handshake, and seeing Rob and Scott meeting mid-ice. Heartbreaking doesn’t describe it when you realize that Scott would be taking the cup home for a day, and Rob wouldn’t be able to touch it. So with that in mind this year, it was awesome to watch Scott be able to hand the Cup off to Rob after they won. Truly a special moment for their family.

With that, I’ll just say, congratulations Teemu! Congratulations Rob and Scott! And a big congratulations to the Samuelis, Mr. Burke, Mr. Carlyle, and all the Ducks.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue working on my shot:

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Lord Stanley

Tuesday, June 5th, 2007

So one thing I forgot to mention after I set up my blog yesterday is that it was game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals.  If you follow hockey, you know that the Ducks won 3-2, which puts them up in the best-of-seven-series, 3-1.

I don’t mind saying that I’m excited – my dad and I have been going to games since the Ducks were founded by Disney.  There’s been a number of lean seasons, a couple where we thought good things would happen but didn’t, and one where it almost did…but didn’t.  Thanks a lot New Jersey…  :)

Anyway, now we stand at the edge of the abyss, giddy at the thought that only 1 team has come back from a 3-1 series deficit, but sober enough to realize it could happen again.  As the players themselves say – they haven’t won anything yet, still have one more game to win.  Fortunately they’ll have 3 chances to pick up that one game.

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TA DAAA!

Monday, June 4th, 2007

Hey there. Welcome to my blog. I’m currently a student at AnimationMentor.com, nearing the 1 year mark in the program. In the coming months, I’ll be posting here and at the main site (www.pose2polish.com) to “catch-up” and show some of my past work, and keeping things up to date on my new stuff.

In general, I’ll post on all manner of things, from home life, to school, to sports, but the overall focus is always animation, animation, animation. So stay tuned! It’s gonna be a fun ride…

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Hello world!

Monday, June 4th, 2007

First post to my blog. Test.

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