Space Puppy (In-Space)

A year ago, I finished my junior year at CCAD with one of my finals, from Layout and Timing class, looking like this:

The summer came around and I carefully revised thumbnails. I kept drawing dozens and dozens of puppies and kitties in space helmets to prepare for senior year. In the fall, I punched up my new thumbnails into digital storyboards. Over winter break, the storyboards and keys were timed out. My friend Kevin busted out the backgrounds. By spring break, rough animation was finished. I was done the first week of May. The place I just got hired on at let me use their sound library and microphone. I made lots of alien screeches and whatnot.

There were some little slaps-to-the-face here and there, but I got done. There was flak from from the start - but it was definitely outweighed by supportive friends, family, and faculty. Basically, all I'd like to say is that if the internet finds you here today reading this ranty little post, take it as some inspiration to shut up and go do what you want to do with your time. Whether it be kill 1000 aliens, finish a short film, or write a kinda tacky blog post, who cares! You can do it.

Here's a picture of me after working over a year on one idea:

Think "top-dog", "underdog", and "pussy":
Space Puppy (In Space): https://vimeo.com/93705561

Full Rough Animation + Gif Party

 

Long time no update. March has been full of animating. Before spring break, I finished all of the rough animation for Space Puppy. Now I'm in maniac cleanup-and-color-mode. Here are the roughs:

Space Puppy Midterm Review-Update 3-Minute-Presentation-for-3-Minute-Video

Happy midterms! Here's what I have been up to:

Space Puppy - Class Project Proposal

Birthday Aliens

Here's to cartoon aliens helping me enjoy the last of my last winter break from school.

Another week, another blog post. A lot has happened within the past week - I had a 22nd birthday, I survived an icy/arctic blast of weather (a pipe even exploded on my street, flooding it with water, which was a sight to see), and the animation computer labs at school finally opened. Tomorrow morning I have my last Orientation session with CCAD, and Monday I start my last semester. A-times, they are a-changin'.

The labs opening meant that I got to create this animatic for my thesis project (see below). I realize that the way I created this animatic seems pretty backwards overall - I made the drawings in Storyboard Pro. Finals kicked in, and I never caught the time to time out the frames. My personal computer has one step behind of the school's version (Storyboard Pro 10), so I could not open my file over break. Just before Christmas, I timed out small screen-caps of my frames in Flash. When the labs opened, I swapped newly exported images. The result is this animatic as well as files ready for me to work in. The moral of the story: work with what you have!

The blog where I am posting updates on the project isn't just for me to post in, but also for those who are helping me out. Right now, the team also consists of my background artist/friend, Kevin Deasey. I couldn't be more excited about working with him. Stop by his great blog!

Here's some more links I'll share this week:
1. The latest from Chris Oatley's Art Cast is extra up my alley: http://chrisoatley.com/wouter-tulp
2. Here's a website my friend Don sent me on my birthday: http://procatinator.com
3. Pianos make me cry. Lions (plus Hyenas!) and a guy who hugs them to raise awareness of their lives, plus pianos around 13:00? Not saying that I cried, but this Go-Pro creation is great: http://thehigherlearning.com/2014/01/05/wow-the-man-who-hugs-wild-lions-brought-a-go-pro-this-time-video/

 

New Year Sketch Partytime

Really excited about this new year as a whole. 2014 is the year I graduate college, pack up all of my things, and head out into that strange place they've been talking about in the movies, also known as "the real world." In the meantime, it's only January. And here are some drawings I've been throwing onto my tumblr over the past few days.

Some Happy New Year Drawings:

Marker fun. Abstracted self portrait on the left, feelings on the right.

Space Puppies and Kitties. Practicing being able to draw these guys as fast as possible!
Animating this stuff starts on Monday.

I will be making lots of obnoxious aliens leading up to the short film being finished.

Space Puppy Storyboards + Notes = Launch

Before finals, I worked to get a new, ready-to-go storyboard set for my thesis project. I sat down with my friend, Kevin, to discuss backgrounds and layout. Here are our notes from our discussion. Now that finals are over, I can finally start committing some serious time to this project!

Space Puppy Lineweight Fun Party

One of my few remaining assignments in the beloved Character Design class is this one regarding line weight. We had to take an existing character and draw him/her using 5 different line styles. I chose to experiment with Space Puppy, considering I will be drawing lots of him over the next few months, and also because I am curious as to how exactly he will end up in the final render of my thesis project.

This is definitely an exercise I think everyone should give a shot. The biggest thing you get for it is a better understanding of why line weight is important and appreciated. Also, it instantly forces you to push and pull your line style - something that isn't always at the forefront of our minds!

Space Puppy Thumbnail Revamp

This first week of school was seriously fantastic. Character Design is my new favorite class, I couldn't be more excited about Porfolio, and I should be brewing up something fun in Interactive Design... this year should be fun!

This week I had the chance to talk to my Animation II, III and now Character Design professor about these new thumbnail boards I worked on the last few weeks of summer (after I finished Hardcow).  I did my best to really think some things I'd overlooked through as far as continuity of shots and layouts, but my teacher was able to point out some issues I'd missed even after this new pass.

For anyone who doesn't want to know the ending, obviously, beware of the spoilers (I'm looking at you, mom)!

Some of the critiques I got were to watch the battle flow continuity from left to right. I got some pointers about keeping the ship's crash in the beginning more funny/realistic by having the duo fall down and have all of their ship be upside-down, changing the shot when the alien wave is revealed, adding a POV shot of the puppy zapping the aliens, adding a scary mouth shot of the boss, adding more funny cat things and lots of more places to add anticipation. After some more thumbnails, I will be ready to do some full-scaled layouts and get some backgrounds brewing. I hope to have a finished animatic on it's way (here's my old one)(here are my initial thumbnails)!

Sketch ATTACK! #8 - Space Puppy Returns... Again

Here's the last batch of sketches I have compiled.... for now! More Space Puppy. There's some drawings of storyboard thumbnails in here: I was working on making sure each shot made sense as far as flow and leading the eye from shot to shot. I plan on revamping my initial storyboards as well as the animatic before I dive in.