Just a drawing...

So, here's the mediocre animation I promised:

After a ton of deliberation, I decided that it was in my best interest to make my animation submission completely hand-drawn. Although I did put the individual frames together using flash, I really wanted to stick to traditional hands-on-paper animation. It was really labourous as an at-home project *especially the watercolor*, but well worth the effort. I learned a lot. 

So yeah, there are two films. The first is the watercolor film, which looking back on it, is extremely slow-paced and recycles animation far too often. And also, the hunter in the beginning is holding a shotgun, not a stick, and the bear has already been shot. A lot of people seem confused by this, heh. Blame my sub-par ability of story telling =)

The second film I made in about 5 days, give or take scanning time. Some parts look really crude, but I tried to do some challenging things like running and hand animations just to see how it would come out. 

So there you go, two home-made traditionally animated films, just like mom used to make! I wish I hadn't included the first on the DVD, but at least I tried a different approach. 

Calarts Portfolio 2007: The ride of a lifetime!

What a shame I've been unable to update for so long, but spare time has become pretty hard to come by as of late. But I'll try to summarize my experience of putting together my portfolio up to this point.

For one, I wish I had found out about the school a lot earlier. I found out about it in mid-April I believe, but unfortunately that was far too late to apply for CSSSA, which would have really helped I think. And to have more time to put together a portfolio would have been great too, but seeing as I had the little time I did, I focused the remaining months into life-drawing. That early in the game I had no clue as to what I was going to include in my portfolio. I really wanted to make an animation to include, but I didn't want to do it in flash in favor for a more traditional approach. How I would get that together I had no idea, but that would only be supplement stuff for later if I had time. 

I was also battling the idea of which deadline to send to, early or regular. On one hand, early is cheaper and you have fresher eyes to look at your work, and on the other, the late deadline allows for your absolute best and latest work to be submitted. I decided to aim for the early deadline, and if I wasn't fit to send, I'd postpone until mid-December. So Summer approached and I worked as hard as I could to get my act together for my portfolio. So many classes, so many late nights, so many new approaches, so many challenges, but all in all it was a great summer to draw! 

The deadline always seemed to be breathing behind my neck, but when school started, the pressure really started to kick in. The November deadline seemed closer than ever and I didn't have nearly the amount of portfolio pieces I wanted, nor did it look like I was going to get an animation off the ground. In early November though, I was blessed with the chance to visit the school to meet students teachers and make it just in time for the Pixar lecture. Plus I got to meet a ton of Animated Buzz posters in addition to some Calartian Bloggers. An unforgettable, inspiring three-day weekend that I can't thank my parents enough for. I got some good pieces for my portfolio from that visit, and the inspiration to really tackle my ambition to include an animation. 

So I took a couple of days off from school to really make sure my portfolio was ready (plus getting a flash-format animation into video form was harder than you could believe, at least for me..) Thankfully it worked out just in time. 

The week before handing in the portfolio was pure hell though. I'm really indecisive, and I was so split on what to include, in what order, what to throw out, including too much or too little... it was a hectic 8 days~ Luckily fiddlinartist at the animated buzz forums was at hand at the last minute in the forums to help me out, thanks again! 

The trip to the mail office was so nerve-wracking. I couldn't stop thinking how this was really it, I was actually sending off my portfolio. The week waiting for it to arrive to Calarts was also stressful, God forbid it got lost in the mail... It arrived on the 29th safe and sound, and then the waiting began... and continues... 

Although I worked very hard on the portfolio, I can't say I would have left it without changes. I wish I could have taken out some things among other alterations, but for now, I'll have to wait and see. Regardless of what happens, I'm ramping up for my 2008 portfolio, ready to double my efforts for this incoming year. After sending it in, I did take a month-long break, but now all focus is on seeing what I can do to improve.

Unfortunately, I was unable to take pictures of my final portfolio due to time constraints. When I get it back, I'll upload pics. I do have my animation to show off on my next post, so stay tuned for that.

Time to visit Calarts!

Well, my flight is in a good 12 hours, and this will likely be my last access to a computer for the next five days. Can't wait to get there and finally see the campus and the artwork. I'm going to take tons of pictures and bug as many teachers with my awful portfolio as possible. Whats even better, all of this is occurring during a lecture from one of the animators at Pixar and someone else at an advertising animation company!

A weekend full of critiques, life drawing classes, lectures from professionals and animation lockdown! The holiest of combinations for any animator. Man, if one weekend is like this, imagine what being enrolled at Calarts for a whole year must be like! :D

Dear world, I'm in portfolio hell.

*various grumbles among swear words*

The Preferred deadline is like, right here almost. It's just three weeks away! Whats worse, I don't think my portfolio will be up to snuff by that deadline. Nothing I have in it really has a punch in it, at least I think. Add in the stress of college applications and you have yourself one hell of an exciing month coming up. Oh well, I'll get profesional pointers in little under a week, during my trip to Calarts which should be pretty damn exciting. But really, putting together a portfolio while getting piles of homework done is a horrible, horrible thing. Remember kids, get your crap done early!

I'll upload some portfolio considerations given the time. Right now... I got a biology report that needs doin'.

Movies you may have missed! : A Boy Named Charlie Brown

Every now and then, I'm going to dedicate a post to some of my most beloved animated films that may have not necessarily been the most visually stunning or popular films but are still true gems to behold. These movies deserve to be checked out for their merit even without visual fidelity.

I'd like to start this hopefully continuous series of posts with the motion picture, A Boy Named Charlie Brown.

Featuring the theatrical release in 1969, this movie has seen a number of cable-TV re-airings in recent years (well, if you count the early 90's recent). As a child, Charlie Brown was a major influence in my drive to draw, and many of the specials and movies I saw heavily guided my artistic direction early on. Charles Schulz's charming cartoon for this reason is very near and dear to me. But in particular, I feel this movie stands out from many by far.

Not only does it feature a charming story that never needs to go over the top to stay interesting, it is well paced and humorous without needing to be edgy, something modern animated films have trouble grasping. In addition, it features some of the most memorable musicals on par with Disney ones. Vince Guaraldi's Skating with Snoopy and Schroeder's rendition of Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata stand out.

Most importantly, as with many Charlie Brown specials, this film taught a very important lesson: failure. It would be hard to find a modern animated film that didn't have the usual happy or favorable ending serving as the crowd pleaser. But a Boy Named Charlie Brown has the main protagonist fall flat on his face at the end of all his endeavors, but teaches that regardless of one's failures, the world doesn't end. One of my most favorite animated films, A Boy Named Charlie Brown is not a movie to miss.

New Batch.

Well, not new exactly, this is all partially August early September stuff. I'm hoping my next batch is more experimental. Here's the dump anyway-

Don't know how much you guys might follow videogames, but Valve has been releasing trailers promoting their newest game, Team Fortress 2.

However, these trailers stand out from the standard video game trailer in that they feature stunning CG character animation, an attractive style, and tons of humor. These are real gems. Take a look.

While browsing over John K's blog and his interesting perspective on cartoons, I found this french CG cartoon. while the lip syncing is laughable, it's pretty hilarious. I don't know why, but I must have watched it 7 times already.

Holy crap, it's been two months, hasn't it!?

Massive update time! Here's all my stuff from July. I'll have some more recent stuff up soon, but for now, here are some mixed sketches and life drawings. (this is about 30%-40% of all I did)

Some of the proportions are off by a deadly margin in my life drawings. In addition, they aren't... well... creative enough. I gotta make sure to pump some more personality into these! More experimentation!





























































Feel free to leave any and all critiques!