aniMattic

iPad drawing

2011-12-11T11:12:00.001-08:00

I got an iPad this week. I hope that it will help me do more drawing. I'm not one of those artists that loves the tactile feel and physical process of painting. But I am all about convenience. Once my stylus comes in it will be very handy to do some sketching and not have to deal with all the paper. This little mess was done with my finger in bamboo paper by Wacom.

Back-hoe operator

2011-06-06T20:34:00.000-07:00

I did some sketching in Photoshop tonight, and I like what came out! These are some concepts for the supporting character in my backhoe story.

I really like the extreme characterization. I don't usually push things this far. If he stays this extreme, I'll have to re-work the dragon somewhat to fit this style. As I translate my characters into 3D, they invariably slide away from characterization into a more realistic style. I think this is an almost inevitable symptom of the "realness" of working in 3D. You can't cheat the same way as in a drawing--at least not without making your model a nightmare to work with!

RAWR again

2011-05-27T22:37:00.000-07:00

This little guy was dreamed up by my son. You'll be seeing more of him, hopefully. He has a better chance of seeing daylight again, since I already have a solid story outlined for him. He was done in AM. Below is one of the iterations he went through. This one was done in Sculptris (a great free digital sculpting program). It has some appeal, but I was afraid it didn't have enough range of expression in the eyes.

shot 2 blocking B

2010-10-31T21:39:00.000-07:00

extended the action for this shot.

Regular 'ol animation

2010-10-07T12:58:00.000-07:00

I finally took a little time to play with PAP 4.0 today. It's pretty intuitive (for something as complicated as animation, anyway).

shot 2 blocking

2010-09-26T18:50:00.000-07:00

Shot 2. Lunch arrives.

toads1blocking*

2010-09-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

I'm finally animating! I had to very consciously make myself stop tweaking and begin animating. I can tweak and nit-pick with the best of them, but I need some practice animating. So here is a first-pass blocking render of the first shot. Isn't it exciting?

You will notice that the toad just "jumps" from one place to another. Right now I have simply blocked out the action with rough timing. I think I will try to make myself block in the entire project before I do any "real" animation. I am not doing an storyboards for this project, so I'll really be discovering a lot of the action as I block the shots. I don't want to get bogged down in detail of animating just yet.

*toad project shot 1 blocking pass

Crunchy!

2010-09-20T19:14:00.000-07:00

Whoa! Than looks Crunchy!

Here's a WIP and a bit of a spoiler. From this you should be able to gather what this short project is about.

Project Attention Deficit Disorder

2010-09-15T21:10:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am starting a new project. I will pick up on the previous one (or at least use the models I created) sometime down the road. But I want to do some animation, and the project I had in mind with the fisherman and the pterosaurs required too much setup and prop building. I am going to try and focus on something simple (two characters) and very animation based. It will be a chase between this toad and his intended lunch.

New art direction 2

2010-09-01T22:08:00.000-07:00

I worked on the smaller pterosaur today. I'm already much happier with him. I liked him before...now I like him a lot! I am taking this in a much "toonier" direction than I originally intended.

New art direction

2010-08-31T22:08:00.000-07:00

This weekend we took a trip. And while my wife drove I put on my "art director" hat and did some sketching. I realized that I was not pushing the designs of my characters far enough. My characters always loose a little of their edge when I translate them into 3d models. And my designs this time were mostly pretty tame. So I reworked several of the characters (and invented a new one). I will have to redo some work. But based on my revisions of the first character I'm confident I'll have a better end product.

I think the new design speaks for itself...in a scary, freakish voice.

Smash

2010-08-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

He reminds me of the Incredible Hulk in this pose. Just a little update about...not much. I did some tweaking today to improve his proportions and I worked on his facial control rig earlier in the week (evidenced by his glowering eye brows).

Design a fabulous ray-gun: go to NZ!

2010-08-12T23:19:00.000-07:00

Weta is hosting an interesting CG design competition. This is one example of their fine work. The winner of the competition gets to go to NZ to meet the designer at Weta.

Color Schemes: Part 2

2010-08-05T22:40:00.000-07:00

In a previous post I mentioned that I was going to use a color scheme generator to make a color palette for each character in this project. There are four major characters, and each has its own palette based on the master palette in the center. These palettes turned out quite a bit more lively than I anticipated. This is either going to push me into much brighter color territory than I anticipated, or I will deviate from these palettes as I texture. But whether I stick rigidly to these or not, my thinking has been greatly expanded by using a palette generator.

This is a bit of a digression from my previous rant about rigging suspenders. Last night I spent a few hours fiddling, and I have rigged the suspenders so that they stay "ok" in most situations, and have a few controls to tweak them to perfection after the main animation is done.

The beauty of doing a project like this alone is that there is always something else to do if I get tired of working on one aspect of the project. But it is dangerous because there is always something to "fiddle" with that may not make any real progress!

P.S. Here is a link to a bunch of other color palette tools. I haven't tried any of them out.

EDIT: I did some playing with texture maps based on these colors, and the results are not happy. I think I will need to do a lot more testing to determine if these will work. As palette they look ok. But, in the words of my venerable brother, "Don't let an automatic palette generator make you make bad art." Such wisdom.

The suspenders are killing me

2010-08-03T22:46:00.000-07:00

I like suspenders. I don't wear them anymore (thought I did go through a phase in college...) but I still like them. There is something very manly about a hefty pair of braces.

Image via Wikipedia

The epitome of manliness. (Note the suspenders!)

But they are a PAIN to animate. They seem so simple... but actually they are very difficult to work with. The body of this character is very flexible. Each bone of the body affects the shape of the body, and the suspenders somehow have to remain on the surface of the body shape as all those bones move around.

If I wanted to do it by brute force (meaning meticulously animating the suspenders manually) the rigging would not be a problem. But I'd rather spend some time rigging ahead of time so that I could just tweak the suspenders to keep them looking good and not have to focus on them during animation. If possible.

I am cautiously optimistic that I can make them look good enough for my purposes. But I don't want to spend too much time on suspenders. How much effort is the aesthetic advantage gained by suspenders worth? Would my time be better spent giving him a belt and forgetting the suspenders altogether? Probably. But I won't give in quite yet!

Plastic Animation Paper: free

2010-07-28T09:52:00.000-07:00

I've played with the demo version of this software, and it is quite user friendly for a paper-less drawn animation workflow. The developers have released the full version of the software for free, no strings attached. I'm not sure if I have any readers at this point, but if I do, maybe you'll be interested in this.

Free download page
Thanks to Speaking of Animation for the news!

Back to basocks

2010-07-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

I took a break from animating last week to make a few more sock creatures. I only remembered to take pictures of one of them, and here he is!

Smiley

2010-07-24T20:31:00.000-07:00

Who's your dentist?

This is a WIP shot of the last major "character" of the project. It may end up having dozens of cousins, uncles, etc., but he will be the main attraction. It is loosely based on my memories of other artists' depictions of actual pterosaurs. So I guess that makes him (her?) authentic!

(What, you don't see the resemblance?) Image via Wikipedia

I did decide to go with a bold red color scheme for this one. It will have quite a bit more color once I do some textures for it. But that probably won't come for a while. I hate making textures, and sometimes they make animating less responsive, so I may wait a loooong time before I do them. Or if I get inspired, they may come sooner! I still have some more work to do for this. I see a medium-large crest in his future...

You're going down!

2010-07-22T21:28:00.000-07:00

"You're going down, hand control bugs!"

I spent about an hour reassigning points to the bones in his hands. This will result in smoother, but not perfect deformations. But with the level of realism I'm aiming for, a few funky finger creases won't bother me. I thought I was going to have to reinstall the rig because of the hands. But I found out I just didn't understand the controls for the fingers! So after tonight I will turn my attention back to the pterosaurs and the zeppelin (which I haven't really shown yet).

Color Schemes

2010-07-17T20:50:00.000-07:00

When I started working on this project I wanted it to be very "pretty." I tried to be deliberate in choosing my colors, instead of just randomly slapping different colors on different parts of the characters. The result was this outfit, which we all now know and love:

(Yes, I also mourn the loss of the suspenders, but I didn't want to fight them through the whole animation process. Only a few new frontiers per project, please.)

Back to the point. Today I discovered an online color scheme chooser. Using my base inspiration (the orange shirt) I made this monochromatic color scheme:

Kind of uncanny how closely my previously picked colors matched the generated color scheme! But it gets even more interesting. Here are shots of the critters I created for the project:

(In the interest of full disclosure, I tweaked these colors to match the palette, but the original colors were very similar. I just didn't remember the exact colors after-the-fact when I made the screen grabs.)

And finally, here is an overall color palette I generated based on the starting color (the orange shirt):

Yup. There's the shirt, there's the pterosaur, And there's the shark. I wonder what color the next major beastie in this project will be? I really was not planning on having a bright red critter, but now that I look at this palette, I'm seriously considering it. But will my artistic vision over rule the generated palette? Only time will tell.

Stretching

2010-07-16T20:51:00.000-07:00

There are a few pose tests just to see how the rig reacts. So far, pretty nicely. There are a few strange things going on, but it look pretty nice to me.

Flight

2010-07-15T21:09:00.000-07:00

well, the rigging went faster than I thought it would, thanks to TSM2. And my old wing rigging system works better than I remembered it did. So I have flight. and wings that fold and crease nicely, even when the pterosaur is in all kinds of crazy poses (those will come later). But for now, I am happy... and I need to go to bed.

Argh! It was supposed to loop so you didn't have to click "play" over and over. Sorry.

The Dark Night

2010-07-14T20:26:00.000-07:00

In creating models to animate, there is a dark period. Modeling is enjoyable. My drawings or imaginations gain three-dimensional form. After modeling comes boning, rigging, and smart skinning. The controls for 3d are easy to think about as "bones." A bone to move the arm, leg, etc. But it isn't always easy thinking about where to put those bones to make my creations move like they should!

After bones, a rig must be created to animate the model. The rig is the controls used to animate the model. Most models get stuck in modelling limbo for a long period of time. (The oil shark was a notable exception. No legs/fingers/toes makes things go much quicker!) And then rigging a pterosaur... But after the night comes the morning! (Maybe he'll be done this week.)

Trusty Animal Sidekick

2010-07-12T19:45:00.001-07:00

Every fisherman needs a faithful pterosaur at his side!

(P.S. It will have eyeballs when it is done.)

...RAWRR!

2010-07-07T21:23:00.001-07:00

Dun-nuh, duh-nuh, duh-nuh-nuh-nuh...

2010-07-07T13:29:00.001-07:00

He Moves!

2010-07-04T14:09:00.000-07:00

I now have a partially rigged face and skeleton. It's a nice milestone, but it shows me a lot more than needs work, too.

Happy/Angry Eyes

2010-07-03T21:12:00.000-07:00

I'm having fun with this guy. When the character begins to have expression instead of being a lifeless manikin, it is so great! He even has ANGRY EYES!

Fisherman

2010-05-27T14:31:00.001-07:00

Another project I'll probably never finish... But at least I'm branching out this time. I deliberately tried to exagerate the proportions this time. The character-type is not original (hulking gorilla-like tough guy) but this type of character is original to my work. Oh, and he pilots a zeplin while he's fishing!

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

2009-11-10T21:45:00.000-08:00

I usually avoid literary criticism. But after I discovered this literary "gem" on the shelf of an airport bookstore I couldn't resist. A week later (online library reserve system to the rescue!) I cracked open this little "masterpiece."

Let me preface this by saying I don't normally read zombie/horror fiction. The genre is usually an excuse for gratuitous violence and gore. But the combination of classic literature, and zombies? I just had to take a look.

At first I chuckled. The juxtaposition of Jane Austen and zombies was hilarious. But as I read on, I found myself chuckling a lot less. Although the fate of the ever-annoying Mr. Collins almost seemed appropriate. (That's as close to a spoiler as I'll go.)

The text was about 80% original Austen with only 20% of the text dedicated to Zombies. So the book was mostly the original Pride and Prejudice interrupted by brief interludes of assaults by and/or slaying of zombies. But as I read on I found myself skimming through the zombie parts so I could get back to the "action."

Although I had not previously read Pride and Prejudice, I was thoroughly familiar with the story from the various film interpretations. So on the rare occasions that the action got good, I was never afraid anyone of consequence would come to any real harm, since the original plot was preserved in this book. The zombie victims began to feel like the red-shirt-wearing crew members from Star Trek--new characters introduced only to be killed off a page or less later.

The zombie element also introduced some other problems. The main characters could not be substantially altered, so the addition of their new mighty-zombie-slayer skills often clashed with their established character from the original. Just try imagining Jane Bennet as a vicious zombie-slayer. It doesn't work much better in the book.

In short, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is not a good zombie thriller. Neither is it the original Pride and Prejudice. If you want my advice, read the original. And if you want some zombie-slaying action, look elsewhere. But I'm afraid I don't have any worthy recommendations.

Old Sock News

2009-09-14T18:09:00.000-07:00

The Frog is back again! This low-quality test is a page from the alphabet book i'm making for my son. Maybe I'll even get it done by his Birthday...we'll see. I have about five letters done so far.

My Review of K200D SLR Digital Camera & 18-55mm II Lens

2008-11-02T07:48:00.001-08:00

Originally submitted at Abes of Maine

The PENTAX K200D, perfect for developing digital SLR users, offers an easy-to-use interface and incorporates award winning PENTAX imaging technology. With 10.2 megapixels, this DSLR features many of the advancements that are incorporated in the PENTAX K20D, including a 2.7 inch LCD monitor, Custom ...

Excellent for hobbyist/semi-pro

By Matt the traveler from Greenville, SC on 11/2/2008

Pros: Fast Shutter Speed, Consistent controls, Nice Features and Settings, Rugged, Easy to Use, Excellent in Low Light, Good Battery Life, Great Resolution, Wide ISO range, Good sized screen, Works with old lenses

Best Uses: Outdoors, Portraits, Home, Travel, Pics for Video Slideshows

Describe Yourself: Photo Enthusiast

I have used the K-200 to get shots for video slideshows, as well as during travel. Takes good pictures, even in low-ligt due to high ISO range. Grain is acceptable even at high ISO setting. Accepts old Pentax lenses, but works best if they have auto exposure (manual exposure is a hassle with old lenses).

(legalese)

Eye can see!

2008-04-26T06:33:00.000-07:00

I decided that I needed to move ahead sans buttons, and give Mr. Hanes some eyes. Quite the dapper fellow if you ask me.

Mr. Hanes

2008-04-17T18:47:00.000-07:00

This is Mr. Hanes. He is my latest weird sock creature. I actually made him over a month ago, but he has no eyes, as I have no buttons. I found socks by the pound, but I am sorely lacking in buttons. Maybe he will never have eyes. I guess that depends if he is destroyed by my son or not before I get some buttons.

The Frog is back

2008-02-27T21:44:00.001-08:00

I am playing with the lighting on my frog. I constantly go back
and forth between a more "realistic" ray-traced look (example here) and a cartoony, flat shaded look.

Excuse the lable. This was a screen capture and I didn't notice it until after I had uploaded the image.

Flags of Europe

2008-02-21T12:14:00.000-08:00

I've been cleaning out my computer and I ran across this unused animation I did for a video. It's just flags of Europe waving and fading from one to another. I have a higher quality version I may replace this with later, but it is not rendered. Enjoy.

Ending Global Poverty

2008-02-18T19:52:00.000-08:00

I don't usually get political on my blog, but this one annoyed me. The following is a letter I wrote to the Editor of our local newspaper. By the way, I forgot to mention that this bill was sponsored by our good friend Barak Obama. Kind of shows you where is priorities lie. (Drat! I forgot to mention Obama in the Editorial!)

Dear Editor:

I have just become aware of a bill passed by the U.S.House of Representatives, the Global Poverty Act (H.R. 1302).The lofty goal of this bill is to reduce world poverty 50% by 2015. Although the goal of reducing world poverty is a noble one,this bill is the wrong way to do it!

This bill is essentially a tax levied by the United Nations directly on U.S. citizens. The money will not be in our control, and it will not be benefitting our nation. The estimated cost of this bill is $845 billion by 2015--that is 0.7% of the national budget!

The bill passed by the House does not even solve the problem it addresses. This bill merely orders the president to find a way to end world poverty. This is absurd! Last I checked, congress was supposed to create legislation, not the president. Assuming this is even a wise course of action (which I doubt), the House should be doing it, not abandoning their responsiblities to the Executive branch.

Our economy is in bad enough shape witout giving hundreds of billions of dollars a year to the UN to spend as it sees fit. We are a compassionate nation, and reducing poverty is worthy goal. But the Global Poverty Act is NOT the way to do it!

I urge you to contact your U.S. Senator and the president and tell them to stop this bill.

I give you, O select few who read my blog, the same admonition: educate yourself and take action.

Joe's Goals

2008-02-13T19:34:00.000-08:00

Joe's Goals is a nifty little on-line daily goal tracker. I am one of those people who need a way to make myself accountable, or I get very lazy. I just got an accoutn here, so I don't know how well I'll do at it. I haven't made all my goals public yet, but I added a widget to my sidebar so you can see how well I do in general. You can chart positve and negative habits and it keeps a graph. I only listed on negative habit, because I dont' have too many vices...other than being lazy!

Animation Test

2008-02-05T17:37:00.000-08:00

Here's a short animation test I did a while back.

Anti-Spam!

2008-02-04T20:36:00.000-08:00

I added a link in my address bar to an anti-spam page. It has a list of randomly generated email addresses, and a circular loop link at the bottom of the page. Theoretically, email address spiders get stuck in a loop filling spam lists with thousands of bogus addresses thus causing consternation to spammers. Don't know if it works, but I like the idea, so now if a haples Spam-Spider comes by my site, WHAM-O!...it probably isn't really that dramatic, though.

New Sock Critter

2008-01-26T15:02:00.000-08:00

This is my second sock creature--a Socktosquid

Demented Sock Critter

2008-01-06T19:04:00.000-08:00

I found a book at Barnes the other day about making sock animals. It's pretty Cool! Anyway, this weekend I made a Sock Creature. It is a blue-tongued polar rhino. It doesn't have a name yet.
I'll be making more of these guys as I have time and as I find cool old socks.

Christmas Cheer

2007-12-03T18:49:00.000-08:00

I made a poor artistic decision, and made this to go alongside our Christmas picture that we're sending out. After spending several hours completing it, I realized it looked terrible next to our picture. So I replaced it with a border that I made in Photoshop in about 10 minutes (and it looked 300% better, too). Sometimes 3D doesn't make it better. But it wasn't a bad image in itself. It reminds me of the early 3D renderings that had real reflections, and blew my mind away as a kid. So here it is for your viewing pleasure. And if I don't blog again before Christmas, have a blessed Holiday, and remember why its called Christmas.

Another New Project....

2007-10-19T19:59:00.001-07:00

Yes, another new project. Sadly for Twitchicus the frog (see my last couple of posts) I have come up with another story. This one will hopefully be a graphic novel some day. I shall not reveal too much right now, but here is the sketch of the main character that inspired me to think up the plot. I have had two previous attempts to create animations involving samurai rabbits, and both failed for various reasons--the fact that they had no plot not being the least.

But this time I've got a plot--dozens of index cards full of plot. But what I don't have is time... :( So you may not see much of this lagomorphic Ronin for a while.

I'm afraid NaNoWriMo will not be part of my plans next month. The imminent arrival of my son will keep me very busy in November. I am trying to edit the novel I wrote last november, however. So maybe a few more of you will see that if I get it done.

Lost World

2007-07-11T18:48:00.000-07:00

I've been working on an image for a contest on the Hash, Inc. Forums (an animation software forum, not drug related). It includes my latest character, Twychicus the Frog. He is traveling through the land of his ancient forbears.

I'll probably post an update in a day or two. I need to tweak a few more things.

A Frog on a Moped

2007-06-22T22:14:00.000-07:00

I had too much time free today (don't tell Ellen, or she'll make me work harder!)

A New Character (again)

2007-06-18T19:02:00.001-07:00

Here's another character I've been working on. I've started rigging him so hopefully I'll actually get some animation done with him before too long.

WRAAR!

2007-05-21T17:22:00.000-07:00

Here's a mechanized war machine I created a few months back. It was based on a sketch I did years ago. Amazingly, I have actually produced a finished image with it...

A little reward for the three people who read my blog occasionally :)

Here it comes!

2007-04-14T16:46:00.000-07:00

After almost three years of marriage and finally beginning the adoption process, it happens...

Due early November. We're really excited and scared and everything in between. But God is good and he gave us just the right baby at just the right time.

Ratatouille

2007-03-25T19:11:00.000-07:00

It looks like Pixar is doing it again!

Valentines Day

2007-02-14T18:31:00.000-08:00

A character for my wife's V-Day card.

Sometimes Change can hurt...

2007-01-05T18:59:00.000-08:00

...but this time it didn't. I switched to the "New" blogger and my blog looks exactly the same. I did however cancel my website hosting with GoDaddy.com, and now I only have a blog. The portfolio sections of the site are gone.

I have also done a little work on a character from a while back. My happy little faun.

I've been tagged...

2006-12-31T11:09:00.000-08:00

John tagged me. I decided to participate for once.

My Childhood Ambition: Cowboy, pilot, animator
My Fondest Memory: Hard to choose: The month in Australia after I got married was great.
My Favorite Retreat: A walk, preferably in a good park, but roads will do (as long as there's not much traffic).
My Wildest Dream: Being a great story teller in animation, illustration, or novels. (can't decide which to do)
My Biggest Challenge: Being a proactive leader in my home
My Alarm Clock is: Lime-green battery powered Timex indiglo with a four minute snooze, given to me by Ellen on our first date.
My Perfect Day: A fall day of hiking in the blue ridge mountains with my wife, followed by a nice dinner at a restaurant.
My First Job was: mowing grass
My Most Decadent Indulgence: Buying Half-Life2. (I haven't given in yet...)
My Inspiration: I'm not very inspired...
My New Years Resolution: None yet.
My Ideal Companion: my wife, Ellen
My Favorite Color: Blue.
The Last Book I Read: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (that's the last one I completed)
How many Books did I read in 2006: I don't keep track, but probably 10-15.
My Ideal Home Would be: Adobe finished straw-bale construction with a flat roof that opens through french doors to my bedroom. Preferably in a beautiful location.
I am Expert at: making mashed potatoes (so I'm told)
My Funniest Joke: Did I tell you about the book I wrote? The ten most humble men in the world and how I taught the other nine.
My favorite Animal: Cats, any rodent or lagomorph as long as it has a weapon
My favorite Breakfast: Eggs over easy, with hash browns and bacon
My Favorite Snack: sour cream and onion potato chips
My Favorite NEW TV Show: Lost
My Couch: Green, with uncomfortable fold out bed. Paid for it by removing from the house of the previous owner.
Your Greatest Fear: I don't worry about things much...
Your favorite Entertainer: ?
Your Favorite Meat & Veggie: Chicken and steamed broccoli
Worst Person in the World: Bill Clinton. Can't stand that guy.

December

2006-12-16T19:51:00.001-08:00

I haven't posted anything since my glorious conclusion to the first phase of my novel. (see post below) I do plan to post my novel at some point. I know that it needs much revision before it will be complete. I have sent it out privately to a few people to get some feedback on. And I'll probably read it myself in a week or two and see what I think of it. Then maybe I'll try to revise it to make it ready for the general populace.

The last two days of November were big days. On the 29th I finished the novel, and on the 30th I finished my last day as a car salesman. Already that job that occupied the vast majority of my waking hours for five months seems like an old memory. On the 4th I started a new job working in the workshop of a manufacturing company. Instead of selling cars, I started drilling holes of various sizes in pieces of metal. All day long. Ten hours a day... but only 4 days per week! The reality of a three-day weekend every week floods over me like happy sunshine (in liquid form, of course, or it couldn't flood).

The advantage of that, is that I have every Friday available to work on getting over to Croatia! I have a day to call pastors and schedule meetings, and a day to work on my presentation, or study, or whatever I need to do. (and then still have a weekend afterward!) This new job is a wonderful fit, and I'm thankful that God used a man from my church to provide it for me. I can now provide for my family, see my wife more than occasionally, and get ready for the mission field.

Now all I have to do is get to it!

Gerard just smiled.

2006-11-30T00:14:00.000-08:00

Those are the 50286th, 50287th, and 50288th words to my novel entitled The Inn at Crossroads. It is 3:18 am, and I am finished. I'm glad next November is an whole year away!

I'll probably be posting my novel soon for anyone who is interested. My wife will probably edit it to eliminate any gross grammatical errors, but the heavy editing will wait--a long time.

More and More Words

2006-11-24T20:22:00.000-08:00

I have not done any writing for two days. I still need about 19,000 words for my novel in the next 6 days. I was getting a little despondent, but then I figured out what is going to happen in the rest of my book! I was telling Ellen about it, and as I was talking I had an epiphany, and figured out the rest of the plot. It is only a loose outline, but now I can concentrate on producing lots of words and not have to worry about how the story will unfold.

NaNoWriMo continues

2006-11-21T20:58:00.000-08:00

I've been plugging away at Nano Wrimo for a while now. I haven't written every day, but I've kept up with my word count by writing a lot on days I do write. It has been an interesting experience to work on my own novel. On Sunday night I exported my novel to a text format, and found out that I had written over 120 pages of double-spaced fiction! It was a milestone to realize how much I had written. Reaching the milestone was the result of a 4400 word-in-two-hours sprint on Sunday evening. I've probably never written so many words in one sitting before.

I also have a new respect for successful authors. It is difficult to write. I have had a general outline of events that need to happen in my plot, but I was having trouble getting to them. So Sunday night when I started writing I go an inspiration to shake things up. I also needed some action to get myself out of the pit of endless dialogue. (it's amazing how easy it is to fall into lengthy, pointless dialogue!) But in the course of that brainstorm, I wrote one good action filled chapter, and then when I got done, I realized I had fundamentally changed the circumstances that would lead to the next plot-point in my plan. So that's why I'm sitting her blogging about my writing instead of writing. Because my inspiration derailed my plan and now I have to continue to adapt to get back to (or ignore?) my previous plan. It makes one wonder how much of good fiction is planned and how much just comes in the writing and has to be cleaned up later. I guess that is where editing comes in. I don't even want to think about editing! Fortunately NaNoEdMo doesn't come until February or March.

writingwritingwritingwritingwriting

2006-11-04T18:35:00.000-08:00

Nanowrimo is under way, and I'm on target for word count. So far my story doesn't stink, but I need to beef up the action. Too much talking going on right now. I'm about to seriously injure on of my characters. That injury is going to create major stress for my main character to deal with just before things begin to go really bad... it's kind of fun messing up your characters' lives! I think I pity them too much though. I need to cast more hardship and chaos into their lives or no one will want to read it. Who wants to read about things going well? How boring is that?

NaNoWriMo Approaches...

2006-10-29T19:28:00.000-08:00

As November 1st approaches, I'm getting excited and nervous. I'm actually planning ahead! I don't know if I'll have a full outline, but I have plotted some major points that I want to cover. I'm sure I'll deviate once I start writing, but at least I think I know where I'm going to start out.

No news on the new job front. I'm still waiting to hear back from my prospective future employer. If nothing changes I'll be selling cars a little while longer.

The title of my novel? Crossroads Inn

NaNoWriMo

2006-10-21T20:34:00.000-07:00

Check this out!

I've been thinking about writing a novel for a long time, and now I may actually do it. Next month is National Novel Writing Month. I think I am going to try to it. (Provided I get that new job and have more than two hours of waking time outside of work, that is.) If you want to join in, comment please.

I already have a seed of an idea that needs much fleshing out. I will not divulge the content of that seed at this time, but I'll try to post snippets of my progress here at AniMattic.us. as I begin a rapid and furious attempt at a novel next month.

*an inspiration*
I'll add a link to the NaNoWriMo website in my links section!
*end inspiration*

That's all folks! Join in the fun.

Besides, it's a lot of fin to talk about "Nanowrimo" and have people look at you really funny and say, "What?" I know, because that's how I reacted when my friend told me about it last year.

Wandering from my original purpose

2006-10-05T21:00:00.000-07:00

This blog was orignially conceived to host my professional art and animation. Since I have gotten away from freelancing and have had less and less time for art due to my work situation, I have had nothing to blog about. So this blog is going to spread it's wings a bit and wend its way o'er a wider range of topics than animation and my own personal art. Hopefully this will mean more frequent updates so that the few people who check my blog will occasionally be rewarded by a new post or two.

A little exercise

2006-08-06T18:40:00.000-07:00

I worked on this a bit on my day off.

Cars

2006-07-18T06:30:00.000-07:00

As usual, I have been negligent about updating. I've been very busy lately, due to a new job that requires me to work a lot of hours. I'm selling cars at Spartanburg Dodge. The car business is a funny thing. Everybody needs one (or more) cars and everybody wants a nice car. But what everybody wants and what everybody's credit will allow are often not the same thing. This is where the challenge comes in. As a salesman, I have to help the customer fall in love with the cheapest car that they like. If I try to sell them a car that is too far above their budget, they either fight the price down (reducing my profit) or don't buy the car (even further reducing myprofit). But if I can find a car they like and can afford, we're both happy. They have a car they like and I can bring home bacon.

A New Character

2006-05-03T18:36:00.000-07:00

Right now I don't really have time to dedicate to a big project, but I felt like I needed to work on something. This guy is a faun I've been sketching variations of for a while. I'm pretty pleased with the way he turned out. I think I like him because he reflects my original sketch pretty well. I'm planning on toon-shading him. He doesn't have a story yet--I think I'd just like to put a really good, flexible rig in him and use him for animation exercises.

The Archer

2006-04-13T22:46:00.000-07:00

While I'm working on story ideas for these characters I thought I'd start to do some conceptual art to see what kind of style the images will be. This methold replicating stained glass was done in Photoshop. Whether these characters are toon rendered in 3D or hand drawn (which I haven't decided yet) I should be able to get a similar feel using PS and/or After Effects to polish them up!

Something New

2006-03-29T19:55:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted any images in a long time, so I'm putting this trio up. Out of a number of sketches, these are the first to hit on something I really like. They are a bit rough, but not too bad considering they were only 1" tall on the margin of some notes:) I'm trying to think up a project for these knights to inhabit. I have a few ideas brewing, but it may be a while before I settle on one. I need to do a lot of exploring and refining to do still, but these guys are heading me in the right direction.

The Waiting Game

2006-03-29T18:56:00.000-08:00

After my last post I spent a week or so furiously modeling and rendering a few examples of what my picture book will look like. I then eagerly sent them off to Brannon at Portland Studios so he could send them off to an editor who is interested in the book...and then I waited. And I wait still. (And will continue to wait patiently.) That is the hardest thing about freelance. Waiting on the verge of a big project--not wanting to start so as not to waste effort, and dying to start on a good project--is killer. It takes much patience.

p.s.
I think the other hardest part of freelancing is having cool images and not being able to show them off without risking the project.

Freelance Work

2006-03-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

Today a step was made towards the approval of a storybook proposal that has been in limbo for months! It's a fun book for little kiddies--a counting book. I have some concept art, some character models, and I've gotten a lot of good feedback. Unfortunately I can't show them off yet, as I'm intending to sell the book. But one day, if the book gets sold, everyone can buy the book and see them! There might even be a website devoted to them! That would be fun.

The Joys of Website Ownership

2006-03-03T20:57:00.000-08:00

One of the blessings of having a webpage is having things break for no apparent reason. The link for the DivX version of Radio is not working. I tried a quick fix but was not successful. Hopefully I'll be able to fix it soon. In the mean time, please check out the QT version of Radio. Unfortunately, it is larger than the DivX version. :(

The Were Rabbit

2006-02-11T16:06:00.000-08:00

I just saw The Curse of the Were Rabbit today! Make like the bunnies in the picture and see it (if you haven't already). It felt different than the 30min. Wallace & Gromit films, but it was very good. All the characters were incredible. They were all different but fit the style so well. There was also a nice preview of the next Aardman film, done in 3d, but with the classic Aardman style. It looks pretty good.

Short Film Update

2006-01-08T13:26:00.000-08:00

I've added my short film "Radio" to the Short Films page. Enjoy.

Ta-Da!

2006-01-04T21:21:00.000-08:00

My new website is up and running. I still need to add a a few pages, but the bulk of the design is done. (I'm an illustrator and animator, so I decided to go with simple in designing my site). I'll be adding some nifty links soon. I've run into a lot of nice animation-oriented blogs lately.

3D Still Gallery

2005-12-31T11:37:00.000-08:00

I've got a temoprary 3d still gallery online now. I'll probably be updating it soon, but the link won't change. 3D Gallery

Coming Soon...

2005-12-29T16:59:00.000-08:00

I just purchased my web space from godaddy.com. Soon, very soon, I will have my full site up and running!

A few more images...

2005-12-26T10:16:00.000-08:00

While I search for a permanent solution to post my work I'll continue adding some to my blog.

Captain Barnstorm

2005-12-24T12:36:00.000-08:00

Captain Barnstorm is here to save the day! I don't know what he will save it from or how yet... but he will!

Portland Studios

2005-12-24T11:21:00.000-08:00

I've added a link to Portland Studios, the illustration and design company that I'm freelancing with. See the "links" section to check out the site.

Joe the Plumber

2005-12-24T11:05:00.000-08:00

This is Joe. Joe is a plumber. He's the "star" of a 2 minute short film I made last year, entitled "Radio."

The Beginning

2005-12-24T11:02:00.000-08:00

This is my first post to aniMattic.us! It will soon be a place to display some of my 3d animation and artwork. Have a good day!