Sketchy Observations...

I decided to start up a new post-CalArts blog. From here on out, all updates will happen over there:

http://sketchyobservations.blogspot.com/

Mainly centered on keeping my sketchbook busy and working to improve how I draw. So zoo trips, my usual people-watching, and the occasional landscape study type posts. Basically anything that takes place after/in-between work-hours. :)

Onto the next frontier....

The Big Wrap Up!

As of Friday, December 17, 2011 at 12pm(after a nice 3 hour session of lifedrawing) I’m a CalArts’ Character Animation graduate! I can hardly believe that the date actually came. This past semester rocketed by and suddenly I’m dazed, but done. Talking with friends we got onto the topic of “No more…”---like “No more attendance rules.” “No more required classes.” “No more grades!?!?”, “No more night classes. My nights are suddenly going to be fairly open--which means I need a hobby outside animating, stat! haha” and it was bizarre waking up this morning and realizing what’s no longer going to be apart of my usual routine. Which is fairly scary to think about, however that's overpowered by how thrilled I am about what’s awaiting me in 2011---I’m looking forward to a nice chunk of downtime, but in January I get to jump back to animating full-time and I’m beyond jazzed about the upcoming workload.

CalArts has definitely become a second home to me, and I couldn’t have asked for a better 3.5 years here. From crazy scavenger hunts that ran until 1 in the morning, the inside jokes("TIMING!", "Tiny hands!"), to the super stressful final weekend before that year’s film was due, to the absolutely amazing summer at Pixar, to all the extremely exciting recent events over the past couple of weeks. Memorable is a very small word to say the least. The people I’ve met are quite the spectrum of characters, and on the whole, they’re all outstanding guys/gals. Wouldn’t have learned so much without my classmates or faculty being there by my side through both the good and rough times. I wouldn’t trade my experience for anything and feel very fortunate to be apart of the department. It’s crazy to think about how much I’ve come, not just within my time at the school, but really in the past 6 years (7 in March.)--- since deciding that being a veterinarian was no longer my dream job, but animation was(though drawing was always my favorite pastime since about preschool). Touring CalArts for the very first time 6 years ago during my high school’s spring break sealed the deal, and now here I am with a BFA and hopefully a very long career in the animation industry!

(This is from my first year camp-out for cubes(2007!)! Aww! Such a long time ago. Lookit our wittle freshmen faces! Back in my day, no tents. haha)

I’m really going to miss all my classmates (under and upperclassmen!), I know I’m going to feel the distance the second I start hearing about class sign-ups, and that first week of classes. Always fun times. I wish everyone the very best of luck on their films and this upcoming second semester! I’m looking forward to Open Show already. And yes, I’ll be visiting as often as possible. Also, I will be attending my actual graduation ceremony in May so I do get to walk with my fellow fourth years who are about to head out into the world and kick some butt. :)

As for what awaits me now that school has ended--I have some very exciting news. In January, I’ll be joining the animation department at DreamWorks in Glendale! Starting to pack up my cube/apartment and will be making the big move after spending Christmas with my family. Excited doesn’t really begin to sum up how I feel!

So a tremendous thank you to everyone who has helped me over the years---all my family, and friends(new and old). And a thank you to everyone who follows this blog and has supported me since I started this shortly after my acceptance to CalArts. I think I might be ending this particular blog since its focus is on CalArts, but I’ll switch over to a new one that I’ll update with all kinds of daily life tidbits---like my misadventures when I try to use my Garmin to find a nearby u-haul store, or how I almost ran into a sliding glass door tonight while checking on laundry! The sort of stuff not covered in a classroom. haha. Entertaining drawings will be involved though, otherwise I'd just have to join Twitter....okay, well, over and out!

(How the department looked yesterday, post-Holiday department party.Woo! Fourth floor!)

P.S. Here's my final assignment for Fourth Year Animation Class(not sure why the audio's all weird, might try uploading it again later. Playback seems to be acting up). Had almost too much fun working on this--especially on the tied-up guy.

P.S.S. Doodled this while waiting for files to transfer. My own lil "Monstrous Nightmare" getting into the spirit of things.

Thanksgiving 2010

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Very happy the break is here and I'm currently back home for a few days! I've been in crunch-time for the past 2 weeks animating away--and up until yesterday, my apartment definitely reflected the craziness that took place. But with CTN 2010 over with, and this past weeks' incredibly exciting events slowly wrapping up, I'm definitely resuming "normal" life. Being back home, eating a very delicious Thanksgiving meal, and spending time with family and friends has already restored some of my sanity. At this point, I'm going to finally post some work:




The above is a collection of work, both done at school and a couple assignments I did during my animation internship at Pixar.

And this test I wasn't able to finish in time to add to my reel that I showed at CTN, but since it's now in the can, I'm sharing it now.

Stay tuned, graduating in 21 days and I've got some major decisions to make in the next few days regarding the quickly approaching future.

Thumbnail sized update

47 days left for this semester....crazy! Not too much to add from my previous post. I'm holding back on posting any animation assignments until the end of Nov. or so for a couple personal reasons, but they'll pop up eventually. Anyways, just to keep things slightly alive 'round here, have some thumbnails since that's about all I have time for nowadays when it comes to drawing (I still have lifedrawing of course, but outside of that....):
A doodle for my new assignment I'm working on. Sadly, the cheese head is no more and has been replaced with some stuff more along the lines of hockey. Tomorrow I'm going to try redirecting the shot back into this type of direction because it veered terribly off course over the past week that I've been working on it. My mood basically matches this drawing when I watch the playback.
This isn't recent, it's from a couple months ago, but while I was looking back in my sketchbook this popped out and I thought I'd share. Still amuses me. Mwhahaha.....
And then a full page of silly doodles of my lil trooper, Kiwi. Just for fun, though I certainly hope to animate the buzzard at some point.

An update of the traditional kind...

Wow, been a little while since I updated. The semester is well under way and I'm juggling the usual work load. I've been too busy to even venture over to the zoo since classes started. It's hard to believe it's already October and the big deadline coming up fast is December---since after that, I'm done with school. So I have a lot to wrap up before then! For now, enjoy my first assignment from 4th year animation class(we finished this a couple weeks ago and we're onto bigger and better looking things):

It was actually a real treat to animate this lil flour sack in 2D. The last time I did that was last January...then it was onto my film, and aside from a couple days of animating in Flash, the rest of the time I was working in Maya. Obviously the summer was spent in the realm o' CG, so I was eager to try the traditional way again. It was pretty nice being able to just draw out a pose rather than having to pose out a sometimes stubborn rig. Just a fun test to get things rolling again...and now back to my current project(coming to a blog near you, by next weekend!):

First Week!

(My final class sign-up! At the time of this photo, I was standing by the character animation table. Photo also taken about 15 minutes before this place was packed! Very happy I got to "beat the rush.")

My class schedule for my last semester, a couple things are changing on here(lifedrawing will be all day now, instead of just morning), but this is basically it:

Acting for Animators	Duncan, Robert	Th 4pm to 6pm
Advanced Life Drawing: The Figure	Lebow, David	T 9am to 12 Noon
2D Character Animation IV	Ty, Ted	T Th 7pm to 10pm
Film Workshop III/IV	Kurtz, Bob	W 7pm to 10pm
Storyboard IV	Lence, Robert	M 1pm to 4pm

Being Wednesday, I've now had most of these classes. The only one that's relatively "unknown" is Acting for Animators, which I've been trying to take for the past two years, but it's usually at the same time as another class, so I'm thrilled my schedule is open enough that I can take it. Overall, going to be a sweet final semester! Feeling pretty stoked about the classes/teachers and am ready to start breaking in my new cube:

Cube 65, top floor North Side! It was really tempting to stay with the same cube from last year, but in the end I decided to stick with my fellow fourth years. Not much else to report, I'll be trying to keep up zoo drawing as well, but that's taking a bit of a backseat this year, in order to give myself as much time as possible to really animate my heart out before December's graduation date. Anyways, first week is off and running!

Year 4 is GO

(Just leaving the Bay Area headed for SoCal as the sun came up.)

I'm almost done unpacking everything and getting settled into Valencia again. Last week was my very last round of class and cube sign-ups(cube 65! North Side, fourth floor, baby!). Crazy as always! Anyways, tomorrow year four kicks off and in honor of that, I decided to finally change my blog banner since the other one has been up since the end of my first year--not quite sure if this one is less of an eyesore...A little shout-out of my film characters from CalArts---Pilot the cat, Otis the croc, and Bot the alien crab-like robot.

I'll update tomorrow night with class schedule details, and some pics from the past week--just need to add a few more home-like touches to le cube, like my animation disc. Okay, over and out!