Unpublished Comic Strip

This was a fun little comic strip I did last year for the first issue of Latino Alliance's El Que magazine.  Unfortunately, the magazine never got off the ground and this had been sitting on my desktop ever since.  Might as well put it up somewhere!

Practice: Layering Animation in Maya

It wasn't long ago that I discovered that computer animation needs to be layered in passes in a similar fashion to traditional.  This was a step by step assignment for my Maya class where we had to follow a specific workflow, including saving multiple versions of our file.  I'm always so used to just "saving," rather than "saving as."  Like my previous post, this serves more as a note for myself to always be aware of this intricate process.

0:01 - 0:04   Third Pass
0:05 - 0:09   Eleventh Pass
0:09 - 0:14   Fifteenth Pass
0:15 - 0:20   Fifteenth Pass (Front)

This was accomplished by following the Learning Maya: The Modeling and Animation Handbook.  Not every pass is included in the video, but I believe the ones I did include serve as a well enough of an example for me to remember.   Since I was still adjusting to this technique, I didn't get to add any personality into his walk.  I do wish to come back to it.

On a side note, you might remember this little guy from a Sony short called The ChubbChubbs.  I obviously didn't make the rig, but I really wish he had a more intricate hand controller installed so I could add some overlap in his fingers...

Breaking Old Habits

So I realize that it's been quite a while since I last posted... and it's only my second update.  Yeesh.  It's been a rough semester, but at the very least, I've still been drawing on the side with much help from a few good friends.  I've been falling into old (and beginner) habits pretty easy, so I can't help but feel a tiddle bit embarrassed every time I get their input.  No matter, I highly value their advice.  Must remember to:

• Draw out with the arm
• Don't get caught in details
• Block out the shapes
• Do measurements for longer drawings - not shorter ones
• Keep drawings thumbnail-sized for 10sec - 1 min drawings

By keeping this in mind, I was able to jump from this 30 second pose...

...to these 30 second poses in just a few hours.  These gesture drawings have really helped me to loosen up.

Additionally, I discovered that thumb-nailing poses first for longer drawings too usually gets me better results.  During this session, I was having difficulty conveying the pose.  I stopped, did a few scratch drawings, tried again, and got a more satisfying result.

Continuing these methods...

Although this is just practice, these drawings are still far from perfect.  At the same time, I'm still trying to break old habits...