Artist - Patrick Schoenmaker

Of course I had to find out more about that Indy drawing. You can buy this at the Indy store of course and they have this to say:

Acme Archives has pursued some stellar talent to bring Indy fans a new series of limited edition fine art lithographs, including this fun animated take of a classic Indy scene by artist Patrick Schoenmaker. This 13"x19" fine art giclee on paper, limited to just 245 pieces, depicts the tooned-up Indy and Marion staving off the darkness in Raiders of the Lost Ark's Well of Souls. This piece makes you wish we could see a fully-animated Indy adventure! Each print is hand numbered and comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. About the Artist Currently living in Utrecht, the Netherlands, Schoenmaker is studying animation and has drawn several comics appearing in such magazines as Break Out! and Stripnieuws.

One of the best sites for Indy news is theraider.net, which has more artwork and links to his blog and portfolio site. Here a sample of his work:

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I miss 2D...

I know most of us here are doing 3D animation and it's awesome, pays bills, etc. etc. but damn do I miss traditional animation. With the impending release of Indy and my being an Indy nerd I was browsing through the new Indy shop and found this "Escaping the Tomb" giclee. Imagine this fully animated in feature quality with awesome sound and music.

Sigh...

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Critique - Manager & Kiss

First your Manager Shot:

you know what cracked me up? After all that time waiting you probably expect pages of critique but I actually have pretty much nothing to say, you're almost done! Yes, almost. :)

First off: the screen right hand movement around x151 feels a bit fast, 3 to 4 frames longer would help if you can shave it off somewhere.
Then, how the screen left hand grabs the pen around x333 feels too soft. Not that you have to have a giant grip on it, but just a bit more than what you have now. Towards the end what you could do is lower the thumb so it rests on the pen.
Last thing, the tie. It feels like cardboard. Look at x 211 for instance, how it rotates screen left. Give it a "gravity" pass. :)

The section "... much of anything else for that matter..." is really nice, well done!!


Of all the different version you showed me, the original #4 was the best one (even though I have a few issues with it as well). The pullback in the other version doesn't work for me either. Just like you said, it looks like he's preparing for projectile vomit and to me it's also like mouth to mouth resuscitation.

Not having seen the clip for a while gave me fresh eyes though. I have to say I'm not a big fan of the beginning anymore. Even though I like the idea that they look around to see if anybody is catching them, it doesn't read as strongly as it could. Right now it's almost as if they are checking how the audience is. Look at x72. He looks almost confused. You have to push the sneaky feel. Plus having them stand in the middle of the boat isn't helping either. If they would hide behind something, that would work better, like a life boat or something else that could be on the deck.
But what doesn't work for me at all is how she is bent backwards during all this time. The time from x150 to 200 could be cut and used at the beginning with them finishing a step behind the boat, checking if anybody saw them. With the boat rocking back and forth you could have them kinda trip over each other, loosing their balance and he catches her before she falls. That way they end up in each other's arms, and that's when he goes for it (or her).

I know that's quite a departure from what you have, it's just my 2 cents. What do you guys think?

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Squash and Stretch

I know that you guys are into character pieces and not bouncing balls anymore, but squash and stretch can be applied to many other situations besides cartoony balls, such as walks, faces (here and here) and in this case a jump. Plus I just wanted to post those images because they're awesome.

Another thing worth pointing out for those who will or want to do a jump. Don't forget to fully extend the legs (or whatever the character uses... arms?) during the lift off and to extend the limbs before the touchdown as well (unless there is a specific reason for NOT doing it).

Squash

Stretch and full leg extension

Another leg extension before the touchdown

And squash again

Images found via Haha.nu @ ejphoto

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Insight - Creating a rigged CG character by Michael Kiessling

As I was adding Michael Kiessling's rigs to Animation Buffet I also checked out his tutorial section and he has two pdfs about the process of creating his rigs, from modeling to rigging to texturing, etc. Since he wrote it in 2005 you can imagine that the tools have a changed quite a bit, but it is nevertheless an interesting insight into that process. Go to his "tutorials" section and look for "Insight - Creating Enemy Soldier", which is the 70+ pages long pdf (the Wolverine one is much shorter).

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R.I.P. Jules Dassin

Do yourself a favor and watch/rent/buy the movie Rififi (orig. "Du rififi chez les hommes"), to me Dassin's best movie (although "Topkapi" is great too) and mother of all heist movies (again, that's just me). After all the heist preparation you get to witness 30mins of no sound and music during the actual heist. It's fantastic!


The Digital Bits got a nice review and Netflix got it right here.

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Björk’s “Wanderlust”

Very cool looking music video for Björk’s “Wanderlust”. Head over to Carton Brew for all the details of this live-action, stop motion, CG and puppetry mixup.

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Carlos Baena's Blog

If you haven't already, besides Jeff's site and many others, make sure that you add Carlos Baena's blog to your bookmark and daily visit habit.

I may ramble and rant about many things pretending to know what I'm talking about, but you can believe what he says without questions. :)

First up a great post about "Status/Personal Space". I love this picture he posted.


The composition, the composure of the two people, invading the personal space, etc. cracks me up, so good.

Next up is a fantastic post about "Demo Reels". If you want the latest and greatest info, then read this post.

So go on and head over to Carlos Baena's blog and bookmark it.

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Critique - Walk and Monkey

Hey,

nice work!

Norman walk first, let's check out his left leg. From the beginning till x3 the leg feels to straight, you could have it start bending a little so that it transitions better into x4. Right now going from x3 to x4 it looks like the leg pops into a bend pose. Adjust the foot roll for a smoother transition. Same goes for the other leg. And make sure your feet are not slowing down the backwards translation before they get off the ground. Seems like towards x13 the foot slows down, with x16 and 17 not moving back at all and resuming at x18 a tiny bit.

Two little things, I would rotate his wrists a bit so that (looking through the front camera) you see less of the palm. For example screen left hand at x1. Compare this frame with x16 and when you let it play there is a lot of hand rotation going on. I would rotate as far back as x26 for you x31 position. Same idea with the other hand.

The other thing is his shoulder around x4, 5 and six, how it leads the arm into the swing. Delay the shoulder so that the arm swings first. That's it.



Now the monkey. Great start! What stood out were the bobbing head and the feel of having the butt area being separated from the chest area. The head is not going to be so separate, it's more like it's going with the body motion of up and down. I checked some reference on bbcmotionmotiongallery.com ("monkey walk" search) just to be sure and that's what I'm referring to. It looks pretty similar to what you have.
If you're going for that type of monkey walk (first one), it feels like the butt would go up and down during the back leg steps. In your clip it feels like the part right above the butt is not moving up and down at all.
As you move from blocking to polish, don't forget to offset the limbs, the legs will finish the step before the hands.

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James Baxter Animation Lecture - Day Two: Technique

Stop whatever you're doing, go to Seward Street and read through the James Baxter Animation Lecture. Here's a little snippet:

Body Acting

Muppets are James’ favorite example of acting with just the body. Without any facial expression they’re able to communicate the attitude.

In order of importance to James in animating a scene:

* 1. Body Language
* 2. Expression
* 3. Lip Sync

The body is the heaviest part of a character and therefore takes longer to change direction (see Inertia below). To try this out with your own body, move your head left to right 6 inches. Takes a relatively short time. Now try moving the same distance with your torso. Takes longer.

It’s not that heavier things move slower, just that it takes them longer to get up to speed. That’s what will make it look big. If you animate heavy objects slowly all the time, they’ll just look like they’re moving underwater.

In contrast, small characters take less time to accelerate and decelerate.

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Mr. Blake's Art Diary - Part 2

As mentioned, here's part 2. Looking back, it's a bit weird to have so many links of Mr. Blake's site in one post, as if it's a mirror of his site. But that's why I'm linking to his site and not the final destination. Total disclaimer post but I just want to make sure that you guys go visit Mr. Blake's Art Diary, since he did all the research. Since this is part 2 the posts are getting older and older (2006), but that doesn't mean that they are obsolete.

- first up, "Matchbox", a maya tool that mirrors your character's poses. Follow the link for video demos as well.


- want to add some better lighting in AE after the render? Check out "Normality & Reality"

- "Elastik" adds squash and stretch options to your rigs

- "Sketch Pose" - this tool is awesome! I remember hoping that someone would do this (since I'm too retarded to so :) )


- "UI Editor" is a very handy tool for a character GUI


- "My Mental Ray" - all you need to know about mental ray

- this tool is awesome: "Copy Set Driven Keys" - name says it all


- head over to "Adelaide Grey's" production diary for an inside look of this is coming together

- "ezMark" sounds very cool. I can't test it here on this machine, but as long as you can step frame through your scene while using this tool, can only be awesome

If you are an animator and want to draw reference points on your monitor but don't like using markers, then this tool is for you! ezMark is a simple utility that lets you draw directly on your screen - on top of all applications. Some of the ways you can use ezMark are:

* Use the preset circle brush to trace your animation and check your arc
* Draw over your reference animation on screen to study them
* Doodle!

- you can't point enough to Keith Lango's site. Mr. Blake mentions "Breakdowns" but I highly recommend that you check out all his tutorials


- lighting tips

- mental ray tips

- Justin's "tweenMachine"


- great CG shorts, Mr. Blake got direct links to the movies and to the plog


- this was posted before but is another one of those that should get studied over and over. Great
hand poses. Tedious stuff to do but very important, check it out.


- 1994 article on "Animation Tricks":

Hesitation The final step of a proof is a sort of punch line to a scene. To get the viewer involved I don't just move the shapes directly in place; I sometimes make them pause a bit before final positioning to build up anticipation.

As you can see, still valid today.

- "Color Toy" is very cool tool, I also recommend "Color Schemer"


- "TWiki" - great collection of links to maya tutorials

- you might have seen those, but come on, go through them again: "Glen Keane Notes"


- Renderman references and tutorials

- Occlusion lighting tips

- maya dynamics tutorial

- oldie but goldie: "eyes"


- "logitech orbit cam" (funny)

- A classic and still awesome: "Ryan Film's Ryan vs. Dorkman" - official site here


- Google's "Sketchup" tool, free 3D modeling tool

- "Planning Animation" - great notes by Paul Mikulecky

- Want drawing lessons? 34 pages right here

- Itchy Animation's article on "Light Theory", which is coming out as a book soon

- Christopher Evans' huge muscle reference library, as well as many other tutorials and MEL scripts on his site


- great collection of animation tools, software and desktop tools


- awesome character designs by Jeff Merritt


- "MELwin" is a Maya UI creation and script editor

- "floating channelbox" script

- "Doron Meir's Acting and Animation" article (and more)


- Francois' studies of lighting

That's it. Once more you gotta love the web. All this information at your fingertips! A huge thanks goes to Mr. Blake and his blog, make sure you add his site to your bookmarks.

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