Dialog Test

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.

Disney Animation

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....

Gift Test

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!

Foster family

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 :)

 

Benjamin

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.... 

2-D animation!

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!! 

Gedo Senki

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!

3-D dialog test

I finally finished my 3-D dialog test! Well, I was working on this for a while and I still need to do some changes. But this was such a frustrating and struggling test for me!!! This was my first 3-D test and it was difficult at first to put 2-D animation skills into 3-D animation. I also had to learn how to animate in 3-D. I think after learning stepped keys and dope sheet helped me a lot to try to think more 2-D principles into 3-D animation.



I also got a amazing amazing feedbacks from James Lopez. Here is the drawings he did for feedbacks. These are so inspring!!! Amazing!!!!!!




So now, I am inspired and ready to go back to animate!!!

Animal drawing

It's been a while since I posted last time! We have finals now at school!! (Anyone remember being at school...?)

Anyway...I took Tina Schmidt's animal drawing class this semester. She was a amazing artist and a great teacher! I enjoyed her class a lot. Great class!

Here is one of the animation challenge I did this semester. The challenge was a character picking up a heavy object and throw out to the window. This was my first idea, I made my girl character throwing her baby brother out to the window, but his dipper gets stuck and his poop comes out to her face and she runs away. However, there was someone, who wasn't very happy with the idea of poop and throwing a baby away...so I changed my idea, and here is the animation. Any critiques are great. I still have a problem containing the same weight and also I don't see very entertaining in this test, so I don't know if I should keep working on this and put this in my reel.....mmm, so that's it!

burn out....

Every semester, there is always a time that I feel like I burn out. Right now, I feel like I am buring out. I feel like I am running a looong marathan that never ends, cannot see the light!!

I got a very exciting email from Pixar the other day. I sent my demo-reel for animation internship last year, and they kept my materials, since they liked my demo-reel. They emailed me that they are looking for animators right now and would like to see my updated demo.

I right away sent them my updated demoreel. and very excited! It's Pixar! The company that everyone wants to work for today! Unfortunately, I didn't get the position. Maybe next year, or 2 more years, or 3 more years later I will. Never knows.

But deep inside of me, sometimes I feel like I will never get a job. I look my stuff, and feels that it looks aweful that I will never get a job. I don't know that every art students feel that way, too. I need to trush God more....believing that someday I will get a job that I always dreamed of.

mmm....I feel like burn out. I feel like I need to rest a little bit to get more energy to keep going...

Owen ;)

I know that this image doesn't do anything with art. This is my boyfriend, Matt's naphew, Owen.

I think kids are so increadible. I've been working with kids for almost 4 years and I learn from them a lot. Especially about acting. Kids are very honest with their emotion and I can see the emotion so easily, and all the expression is so appealing to me.

When I animate, I love to animate kids, it's because their expression is very appealing and expressive. I love this picture and how his expression is, I can see what he is thinking, how curious he is. It was his first time to go to beach ;)

test

 

First post

Just testing!