Hi everyone, sorry for the delay of the posts....I have a good excuse...Matt and I had a wedding in Hawaii last week! We are husband and wife now! We were engaged for almost a year and half. Here are some of our engagement photos...(I know this is a art blog, but I loved the work our friend Matt Lin did! Thanks Matt!)
And after many plannings for a year and half, we had a wedding in Kauai, the beautiful island. We had 53 guests from Japan and main land, and it was so wonderful to see all my family and friends. We laughed, danced, cried, and it was one of the best moment. (Especially after all the stressful time!)
These are pictures of rehearsal dinner (we had Japanese kimono on that my mom made for us...)
It has been more than a month since I updated?! Even though I haven't updated, I am still learning a lot about animation everyday with a struggle:D
I was animating scene of ducks, and it was a whole other world of learning how birds move. I had never really drawn birds before, and the way they walk was a lot different from how we walk. First, I tried to study their anatomy as much as I can, like how their wings tuck in to their body ( this was most mysterious for me, because it is hard to see what their wings are doing since they have a white body) After that, I also watched the movie, "Babe" to watch how they walk, run, turn. I watched it frame by frame, and here are some studies I did at first, ( I had no idea what I was doing. I was just trying to draw how they move..)
Then, I animated it. Then, the duck looked like a toy duck. It didn't move like an actual duck! I showed it to Mike, and he taught me some important things that changed my drawings a whole a lot. He told me to find "where is the movable part in their body?" Also "how do their feet tuck into their body?" They were the very important questions to ask myself when I was studying from movement. So I did some more until I felt like I got it,
And I just animated one duck, and it looked a lot different! But then, they looked too realistic, I had to make it look believable, at the same time, it's still animated. Here is the final animation I did....
Another challenging part was the direction of the whole group. After animating 5 ducks, I had to pay more attention to the direction of the whole group. Even though they are doing different movements, the group has to feel like it's one unit. Also Mike wanted to show that there are many ducks everywhere, not only 6 ducks.
So here is a list of what I learned in how to animate animals from this scene....
1. Research Research Research!
2.Where is the movable part(the part that doesn't change, like the cranium, chest and pelvis)? And how those parts connects and move?
3.What is the skeleton? What is the structure underneath?
4. What is the skin like? How does it feel? Loose? Rigid? Rough? Feathered?
Lastly, one important thing was instead of analyzing movement too much, I had to take the role of a duck, be a duck, and animate that experience, not what a duck looks like. That's the wonderful thing about animation, you get to become anything, and share your experiences with others, and that's why I like to animate.
Here are some new sketches I have done recently... I realized that I really need to observe people and capture the feeling, not only the movement. And it is very hard...!
I am sure many people are wondering what I am doing now...( especially from friends from school) I am still animating and drawing everyday! I am actually interning at July Films, and I am very lucky enough that they asked me to work on one of their new projects as an animator. So... for the last few days, I have been doing some experimental animation for one of the characters! To me, it is my first experience just to see all the process from the concept art to story, character design, layout, and animation.... it's very inspiring to see other artists working together. There are some really talented artists, and everyday it's very inspiring to see all of their work. The problem is.....I get frustrated with myself.
Animation is so deep, it shows so much...when I get frustrated, Mike says that he can see my frustration through the animation. Before the test animation I am now working on, I was working on this test for a few weeks, and I had a very hard time animating it. I did the scene over and over and over and over.......and it still didn't have enough energy. I finally finished....and there are still many things that have to be improved, but for now, I think this is done.
I guess I realized that I need to enjoy every step I take as I grow and appreciate the struggle. Why is life is so hard sometimes......?
Last night, I watched one of the wonderful TV show, "Panda ko Panda." The show was created by Hayao Miyazaki a while back before he created Totoro. The story was about a girl who doesn't have parents will meet Panda family, and they decided to be family together and start living together. It's very silly, but it made me feel how wonderful and simple life is. I wish there are many TV shows like this today. I couldn't find long clip of it, but here is a really short clip of the animation. If you can find a whole TV show, I will recommend to watch it! The little panda looks like a little totoro ;)
Finally, everything is done! ( almost...) My mom was visiting from Japan, and I finally graduated last month! Although, I have one more class to take during the summer, now I feel more relaxed and feel much better. Hooray to all the graduates!
It's been a very stressful time for me, with graduation on the horizon and everything. I was getting depressed and angry like a hungry and tired kid. It also caused my animation to suffer. When I was depressed, my art was also reflected it. I was working on my dialog test at that time, and I could see that I just lost it. I lost the motivation to even work on it, and the animation also stopped shining, it became dead. I wasn't sure if I even should put this up, but I thought you can see how lifeless this is.
After i was done with this, I critiqued myself. The part that I should work on the most right now is, the force. I can see on this test that I was forcing her to move a certain way, instead of bringing her to life. The force was so unnatural. I was ignoring the natural force, and I was making up the force I wanted and made her move my way, and it showed how lifeless she is. I was forcing her to move where I wanted and the result was a puppet.
So all this was said, I am feeling better. And I am still not fully okay. I am still scared. But I realized it is okay to be scared. It is okay to curl up one day and not do anything. It's okay that I am not okay. And I felt much better.
After the dialog test, I was doing some inbetweens for Mike's short animation. It was my first time to do only inbetweens, and I was so scared to mess that up. The point I learned most from the experience was timing. How he put the timing, or how he timed it just amazed me. My eyes cannot really see it yet, but I could feel the difference.
I am frustrated with timing right now. My timing tends to be so even, or my eyes just cannot see it! I felt like "well, my eyes cannot see it! So I might not even be able to an animator ever!!" Because I know there are some people, who is just so good at timing (like Matt) They naturally just get the timing right away. And I am so opposite. I don't get it right away.
I am working on a just simple action test. I did this one straight ahead, and I shot it with my timing, but it didn't look right. It didn't look like there is life. It still looked so forced.
And I tried every other timing, like putting ones' two's, ( that's what I thought), and I asked Mike for feedback, and he just changed a few timings and it looked much better, (he must have a magic hand) it looked much better, and I was so amazed. I wasn't sure if my drawings or poses were wrong, but it was more about timing.
This is not finished yet, I fixed his right leg, shifted more forward so he doesn't look like he is falling forward as he reaches the ball, and I am doing tie downs to show his cloth or show the shapes to reinforce the force. ( That's what mike said, but I am not really sure how to do that yet, but I will learn hopefully...) Action is hard for me. I cannot think, even though I act it out, I cannot analyze it and I get confused, it's frustrating! I guess everything is frustrating in animation. But Mike said that frustration is the growing part, artists never take no for an answer. So I will not say to myself, " no, I can't do it," but say yes, " I will get it someday." I just have to be a little bit more patient to myself....
It has been a very difficult time for me lately. After the gallery opening, my car broke down, and all the pressure to graduate and getting a job actually started to get to me. I'm sure every college student goes through this time, the fear of going into the real world.
The stress and pressure actually got worse when I couldn't go to my internship. I felt like I wasn't learning, going forward. Then I realized that I just have to keep going, and keep working hard. Here is a character for a dialog test that I am working on right now. I was inspired by this cute little girl's voice, and I made a character named Zoe,
Matt and I are also visiting his family in Northern CA. He has a 7 month old nephew, Luke, and he also gave me many inspirations. Here are pictures of me observing him....
Here is a picture which made me laugh....I guess they both are reading together,
I'd like to thank everyone who made it to Matt and my gallery! We had a great time and I hope everyone enjoyed our work. Here are some pictures that we took,
It has been almost two months since I began interning at July Films, and I am very grateful that I have this opportunity to learn more and more. It is not just about learning animation techniques from Mike, but what sort of artist I am and want to become, I am learning a lot from him. He doesn't force me to be any one way, he's very encouraging in getting me to develop my skills in a way that will bring my individuality into my art.
These few weeks have been a little bit busy, since my chemistry class started (awww...) and Matt and I are having a gallery opening this coming weekend... we are trying to put together, and trying to finish some more animation by then....hopefully, we are going to have some flip books on display...
The last few weeks, I have been working on one scene, which has been teaching me a lot about animation. At first, I realized how I have been watching a lot of cartoons and animation, but not many live action or photos. I was forgetting to observe life more, which is so important in animation. I realized observing life is so basic in animation. When we animate, we need to see if the animation is truth, real, and believable. Erick Larson once said that "How you do, what you do reflects who you are." Glen Keane mentioned that "it can be from photos, newspaper, look at life. Look what the face does." Dan Hofstedt said "Act it out! Discover what humans do in real life. Find out the truth about the moment" Many young animators and I still do a lot of overacting animation. I realized that the basic point to avoid overacting is to observe life, and not just make things up in my mind. I need to really listen the character's thinking and motivation.
I got permission to put up some scenes I have done at July film, so here are two different versions of my animation.
This was a scene, the boys were throwing the leaves, excited and celebrating. I had to think about what the leaf feels like, how excited they are, the energy they have... And this was straight ahead animation. At first, I animated all the characters, trying to think about delays of body, what is leading the action etc... and I showed them to Mike.
And he said it needs the breathing part in animation when they open the arms. I didn't get what the "breathing" meant at first. I experimented different ways to see how it looks. And one day, I was re-animating the middle boy, and it worked! Instead of making them stop in the end, it needed many slow in and slow out. But it was all depended on the action. When I tried the same thing to other boy, it didn't work. It looked too soft. So I had to try several different ways to make it look just right for each action. And here is what I have right now...
This is not finished yet. I still see the hair popping etc....but the experiment of animation for this scene was a great learning experience. I just had to be more careful with each action. What is the truth in the moment? It has to look believable. Now I have to animate all the leafs...the effects animation! I will post more when I learn about effects animation!
Reminder! Matt's and my gallery opens this weekend, Saturday 17th, at 6pm. I hope everyone can make it and enjoy our art and food!
I just finished my second week at July Films, and each day, I learn so much! I also started animating this week!! Hooray! My first animation at July Films!
I animated a very short simple scene for their film. It was a scene of four kids watching a soccer game sitting on a tree limb, and they basically just turn their head. It was simple, but at the same time, I have learned much from the simple scene.
First, how do we make a group scene? Each of them should move differently from one another while at the same time, the group should have their own composition. The group should work as a whole, but you don't want them to all do the exact same thing.
I also tried to do a straight ahead animation. I usually do pose to pose animation, and it made more sense to me. But Mike did an animation demonstration for straight ahead animation, and it was very appealing to me, too.
Mike said that action is usually animated straight ahead, and acting like a dialog test will be pose to pose. Here is the process how he animates an action scene in straight ahead...
-First, he acted it out few times. "How strong the force is?" and remember the sensation you felt when you acted it out.
-Then, he started the animation. He doesn't use the back light, because it is hard to see the form with multiple drawings showing through. He just keeps animating one after the other while constantly flipping. "Don't spend too much time on the drawing: you need to be in MOTION when you are animating!"
-After he animated the whole thing, he shot the scene with even timing ( like shot it all on 2's or 4's) to know the spacing between the drawings. Then looked at the timing and figured out how many frames to hold each drawing, and adds inbetweens if needed.
-After all the timing is right, he will tie down the drawings (still keep flipping!) and finish the scene!
His animation has so much life in it after all. It is loose and the character is more alive.
After finishing my scene, I did a little test of a fox's tail swooshing back and forth to practice the overlap and timing of the soft material. Right now, I am trying to pay more attention to negative space, delay the timing of parts of the animation, and overlap! Hope this week go well, too!
UPDATE: THE COCONUTS AND CHICKEN FEATHERS GALLERY HAS BEEN MOVED!!! That's right, the gallery was double booked, and the gallery opening date is now Saturday March 17th at 6pm. So please let people know if they don't check my blog regularly.
First of all, I want to thank God so much for what I have right now. My internship at July film started from last week, and it's the greatest learning opportunity I have ever had.
Mike Nguyen, the director and owner of the studio, has been teaching another intern from Calarts and I about animation. Mike has been giving us animation presentations, they're not about how to animate nor techniques or anything like that, but it's more about animation theory, and the thought process.
One thing that really hit me was animation is simple. Animation occurs from forces, which can be a physical force such as gravity, or internal forces. Internal forces come from our inside body, and depend on our emotion and motivation.
When I was at school, I felt like I was caring about techniques too much, like about all the 12 principles, timing, secondary action, and acting, etc... But it shouldn't be acting. It should be real feeling, and it's from inside of us. And like everyone is different, every animator has different ways to animate, and it creates different unique animation, which makes us artist. When we put all of ourselves into the animation, the animation will shine to audiences. The 12 principles are important, but to bring it to the next level, we need to think of why we use them, and there's no rule for how to apply them. It all depends on the scene, and experimentation is required if we want to become something other than good draftsmen. We shouldn't try to copy the work of other animators, each animator has his or her own life experiences, so we should develop our own animation based on our personal observations and experiences.
So, that's some of the things I've learned from Mike's teaching. From now on, every week, Mike is giving us an animation presentation, so I will try to share it in here, too.
At the same time, I am relearning how to draw. Until now I was drawing from drawings by other artists, and I didn't draw enough from real life, so my poses have become cliche'. Mike has also suggested I try drawing with a different line quality to keep the energy in the drawing and to communicate the force in the pose. So now I'm trying to adjust my way with his, and keep working on it until it clicks. I have been drawing over and over the characters from their film. I am having so much trouble and I have been frustrated. But I can see the improvement in just one week since I started. Hopefully, I am going to begin animating this week...
The second thing beside the internship, Matt and I are having a gallery! The opening reception will on Saturday Feb. 17th, from 6pm at Cal state Fullerton, Exit gallery. Everyone is always welcome to our gallery. It's also going to be open from the 19th to 22nd. It's going to be about animation, drawings, sketches, some actual filmed animation, and maybe some flipbooks. Matt 's style is a bit more cartoony than mine, and he's also working on 3D animation. It should be a lot of fun, and we'll have food there.
Anyway, I hope everyone can make it to our gallery!
It has been a loooong time since I updated...awwww! I was also traveling to a few places during the winter break. In the beginning of December, I traveled to Indonesia for my friend's wedding.
It was very great experience and gave a big impact in my life. It was my first time to visit a third world country, and I was able to buy practically anything I wanted ( because everything was very cheep!) but at the same time, there were so many poor people. If you go outside, kids are on the street everywhere. Every time I saw them, it hurt my heart. Some of them would begin to dance or sing then beg for money. And here I am post holiday-feasts, complaining how I am fat and want to lose weight.
After the trip to Indonesia, I went back to Japan for three weeks, spent time with my family for Christmas and New Years. And then returned home only to fly off the next day to a new location with my fiance and his family, we went to Hawaii for vacation, and we did some wedding planning there... And I am back now! With all the jet lag, I was really tired, but now I am adjusted to this crazy weather in California.
And it was a little bit crazy before leaving to Indonesia with all the finals and internship interviews, I didn't have time to put up my final dialog test....so now here's the final result....
One more very very exciting thing! I got an internship at July Films! I went to visit their studio a month ago, and met Mike Nguyen and the artists at the studio. It was very inspiring. All the beautifully watercolored paintings are on the walls, maquettes in cases, color keys on boards, animation desks everywhere, and people were so nice. They reviewed my portfolio and reel ( I was very nervous...! ) and they accepted to have me as an intern. I am very excited and at the same time very nervous. I am starting from next week! Wish me luck!!! Also check out their website and the trailer for their film, http://www.julyfilms.com/trailer.php
This is my new dialog test that I am working on. I've been working on 3D animation for a while, and I just wanted to do some 2-D again, and it's really really fun...This is a really rough key drawings right now. She is saying "here is a dipper. Which I am not allowed to change, but I've seen people do and it's gross!" She is showing her baby brother's dipper to her friends and telling them some secret about it.
I just saw some pictures from old Disney studio in Florida. And it shows the pictures of animation desk we use at school now! And this reminded me so much about passion about my dream.
Here is the website... http://victor-ens.blogspot.com/2006/09/visiting-disney-animation-in-1994.html
This guy, he visited the Disney Studio in Florida when he was 14 years old. When I was 14 years old, I bought a book called, "Disney's Animation Magic" by Don Hahn. And there was a picture on the back, all the artists infront of the Disney Animation Studio in Burbank. Since then, I always dreamed of what's the place would be. ( Also because I was so so far away, I was in Japan!) .
And on August 1st, 2005, I was able to visit the Disney Studio for Siggraph 2005! And I was so overwhelmed. All the pictures on the wall...all the artists...all the animation tests that they had.....it was one of the most exciting day in my life. Every time I pass the studio, it gives me chill and encourage me to work harder and harder. ( Because my fiance lives very close there now...)
I was reading The Illusion of Life today. And there was a quote,
Only animation is magical. This is its appeal. The creative artist can make something here that exists and breathes and thinks for itself, which gets back to our test of all great art: does it live? Techniques can be copied, mechanics can be duplicated, and even the drawings themselves traced, but the spark of life comes only from the animator. His taste, judgment, and ideas are unique with him and his animation. It is a highly individual effort.
Someday, I want to make the great magic happen....
After I got too close to this test, I took a break from this. And finally, I finished to revise. It was great to put up this on ACME online, and all the feedbacks from Proswere very helpful. I also got feedbacks from Justin and Mike, and it was very helpful, too. I realized the ending was not clear enough, and I've should re-do some keys. So I finished. And there are still many things that should be improved, but for now, I decided to move on to next test!
Right now, a group of us at school are working on a project for PSA, promoting Foster Parent. We put each positions to work on this project for a month, and it has been very great! It's really fun to work together in my group. Everyone has different ideas, and everyone seems very excited about it ;) I really enjoy the class. ( Dana is awesome!)
I am doing a character design and also animating. We are forcusing on one girl's view, a girl who still has a hope in happiness, around 5 or 6 years old. Our teem came up the final design, ( I will post again..) and this has been fun :)
Hi, even though I posted his medel sheet in previous post, I revised him again, since I got a great feedbacks from pros on ACME, and I also could see the improvment from the first one. At frist, I didn't even thought about the basic Basic part of drawings, the line of action!! So I redid it, and also I tried to design his hair better. James Lopez also mentioned how the eyes positions, and it was so hard! I tried, but I still feel like there is something wrong with his eyes.
James said, the eyes are the window to our soul. I hope someday I can draw like him....
Since I came back to US, I had been working on my 3-D Dialog test for a while. ( The monster one...I've been working on the test almost for 4 months and I am sick of it!!) Anyway, I got sick of it, so now I started working on my 2-D dialog test that I was working on before. I think it's very nice to work on 3-D and 2-D at that same time. It reminds me of enjoyment in animation! I enjoy more traditional animation than computer animation. Maybe because I don't know enough about computer animation yet, I get more frustrated with 3-D animation. Especially re-doing all the works get so confused!!!! Like, putting back to stepped keys and then try with spline....and start getting all mixed up and all the keys are all over and I don't know which was keys and breakdowns and inbetweens AND AND!! My brain hurts!
Anyway, so it was very fun to draw him today. Drawing is so much fun!!
I just got back from Japan a few days ago!!! It was great! I spent time with my family and friends, and also there were 2 great things!
First, I went to see "Gedo Senki" (English title is "Tale of EarthSea") I don't know how many people know about this movie. It is a new Studio Ghibli movie, directed by Hayao Miyazaki's son. They just opened it, and I went to see it....it was ..... ok. The story was confusing, also the characters were not that great. There weren't any characters that the audience connected with. The whole movie was more violent, many kids in the theater were saying, "kowai~" ( means "scary~") .
There was also a big gallary opening in Tokyo, with many great art works from Disney. All the art works were from Steamboat Willy up to PeterPan. They had original cells, storyboards, Animation drawings, and background painings. It was a very big gallery, roughly 500 pieces in size.If anyone is going to visit Japan, they will have the gallary until Sept. 24th. at Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. It was very inspiring!
