Squirrel

Sketch topic on the AM alumni forums was squirrel...

so I scurried to draw this little guy.

Lucky Charms commercial

Yeah boy, time for some movement on this blog. I had the pleasure of working with some talented people at Calabash Animation for a few months. They called me in to work on a Lucky Charms spot where he would be interacting with CG trees in an enchanted Forest of Questions. For these shots I animated all of the trees as well as the camera work.



Here are some of the thumbnails I drew up before getting sucked into the computer. These guys were pretty much a huge mouth with an action line. So the art director and I shot a bunch of reference reading each line to see the poses that the mouth would hit. I felt this has been a weak area in my previous work so I'm extremely happy that I was able to focus on something that was pretty much all mouth.

This shot was pretty difficult making everything read as clearly as possible with the camera rotating around Lucky. I was told to give a sense of being confused without confusing the audience. So in order to keep the attention where it needs to be (Lucky), I positioned the trees to always point in the general direction where Lucky would be at.



I didn't add this shot to the .mov file because all of these trees were blurred out of focus a bit and they were barely moving. The focus of the shot was about Lucky finding the answers to the questions by pulling out his crystal ball, so the trees were faded into the background to make all of the special effects and glowing marshmallow bites stand out more. :)



This shot was cut from the spot but I'm throwing the thumbs in here anyway... they changed the premise behind this shot so that the trees that had the questions answered would turn back into regular trees... the non-enchanted kind.

Shot 5 had a couple changes to it since the thumbnail stage. At first I had him end the shot in a friendly manner, but they actually preferred the more cynical expression.



Then this shot contrasts the previous in showing he's just a friendly old tree who just wants his question answered as the kids run off to catch Lucky with his Lucky Charms into the sunset.

Dentist

...another quickie.

Animation Mentor Graduation!!!

Woooh! I just came back from AnimationMentor in Berkeley, CA. The trip was INCREDIBLE! I finally met many of the students that I've been taking these classes with and I also was able to meet a couple of my mentors from PDI... Melanie Cordan and Mark Behm.

Bobby, Shawn, and Carlos deserve much thanks for starting an online school better then most real schools in my opinion. I don't know any other school where the president would sit and eat casually with all of the students during the reception of a graduation ceremony. I am very grateful to be part of this unique opportunity and know that only the best can come from such motivating mentors and peers. To the guys at AnimationMentor, a huge THANKS!!! You guys rock!

Ooh... here's a link to a news broadcast that took place at AnimationMentor the day before the ceremony: AnimationMentor on ABC News

Plumber

Just a quickie.

Merry Christmas from Jasmin!

My wife Jasmin drew a Christmas card this year.

Check it out, visit, and say 'Hi!' :)