Still Life Assignment

We recieved a project to create a still life in 3D and model, texture, light it, and composite it. Marks are solely based on how pretty it is.

I had a number of ideas and kept bouncing around until I came across a simple photograph of a teacup and a daisy on a saucer. If you know me you'd know that I absolutely love all kinds of teas and thought there would nothing better than to model some teacups and hand that in as my still life.

I hand painted the texture on the teacups in Photoshop.. not that you can really see it but I was quite proud of it.

Anyways, here is the final result:

I love it. I hope you do too! I have been focussing on my lighting and compositing skills lately.. hoping to do that as a career when I graduate.

Architectural Assignment

Hey there!

I know this is a late post, but I wanted to post a picture of my architectural assignment. Just because I like it. I will be rendering out an animation at a far more interesting angle sometime in the future.

 

So basically this assignment was designed to allow us to show off our lighting skills in an architectural piece. I fell in love with the fan vaulted ceilings in some cathedrals and decided to make one. I modelled this after the Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, England and relied on my research of cathedrals, Google search, and surprisingly, Google street view. It took me inside the cathedral and I got details that I couldn't find on the regular Google search.

 

This was modelled, lit, and composited in Softimage.

 

Cheers!

Digifest 2012

Hey Guys!

Sorry it took so long to update. A few people have been asking about how awesome Digifest was and truth be told, it was spectacular. There were industry professionals side by side with you in each conference and you could talk to them and introduce yourself.

We only went on the Thursday but it was pretty awesome. Here are some pictures of our adventure in Toronto.

NOTE:
I did not take these pictures. These were taken by the people in the captions below the images. I will be adding my own photos later (because I'm at school right now and left them at home).

@p_melodie from Twitter

@rachesguerra from Twitter

@nympsam from Instagram

@mellybaby from Instagram

(unknown from and e-mail from Digifest)

Digifest 2012 Facebook

Digifest 2012 Facebook

 

I only grabbed pictures from other people whom had taken photos of my classmates and I. If you took this photo and would like me to take it down please don't hestitate to comment here or connect with me @karenwonderswhy.

 

Anyways, the day was super awesome. I learned a lot and I hope that the other attendees had just as much fun.

 



Life Drawing - Extra Classes

For those of you who don't know, the other 3rd years and I host life drawing classes every week in room 2L13L (the 3rd year room). Last week was the first official go at it and it was great. This week we had a special treat.

Our professor Mr. Jackson was convinced to do some break dancing poses for us to draw. We got in a lot of gesture drawings out of this class and it was an amazing experience.

With his permission and permission of those participating in the class, I snapped some pictures for you all to enjoy. Make sure to come next week! We have a lot of fun and it's great to get in as much life drawing as possible.

Action Jackson shots:

WOO! Look at him go! Kudos to him for being able to hold those poses. Lets look at the drawings:

(credits: 1. Tracy Bowley, 2. Alan Bartholomew, 3. Rebecca Bond, 4. Jean-Guy Macleod, 5. Alan Bartholomew, 6. Alan Bartholomew)

Thanks to the participants:

Tracy Bowley
Alan Bartholomew
Kelsey Baxter
Rebecca Bond
Alexander Bessin
Jean-Guy Macleod
Alicia Mouck
and that other guy that left before I got his name.
(I was there too of course...haha)

And special thanks to Mr. Jackson for some killer life drawing reportage.

Here are pictures of people in the class drawing away. Thanks to everyone for participating! It was an amazing session.

Rough Character Model

So turns out I completely forgot to post this on Monday. I posted it on Facebook but forgot to post it here. Anyways, without further adieu, this is my roughed out character. She is now fully rigged (minus the facial rigging) and I can start blocking out my poses with her.

This is my character for my final year thesis animation. She's already got some edits and I will be posting those in a few days. Like I said, she's just the rough.

Time to wake up.

"If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we are not really living." - Gail Sheehy, American journalist.

Well. It's time to grow up. I need to start focussing more on my homework and assignment and stop being distracted by the people around me. They need to do the same but they'll either figure it out or fail. Either way, not my problem.

Our prof gave as a much needed lecture yesterday on being professional and that we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard if we're going to make it in the industry when we graduate next year. I feel like I've been doing a good job and she made it clear afterwards that she wasn't talking about me but it still hit home for me. I could be working a lot harder and I definitely will be.

It's time to wake up. So, from now on, I will be working hardcore. =] woo!

My character will be posted Monday as an update. Cheers!

Want to be a texture artist?

Wow.

So this super amazing texture artist with creds on Pirates of the Caribbean, X-men: First Class, and Harry Potter, has some rock solid advice for anyone interested in becoming a texture artists. Check through this page and others and gain some great tips on getting to where you want to be.

It is also beneficial for those interested in moving from Oh Canada to the Land of the Free. She gives some advice for people wanting to cross borders and it's a great insight.

Here's the link:

http://www.leighvanderbyl.com/texture-painting-faq/

Check out her work, become inspired.

OH! I forgot to mention: SHE'S TEACHING AN ONLINE CLASS! So if you've got an extra $700 American (less if Canadian) laying around it would be a great idea to sign up and learn from a master.

http://workshops.cgsociety.org/courseinfo.php?id=317

Great Advice

Yea yea I know that profs have been trying to drill it in to our brains that it's not about the software but here's another person who says the same thing. As well as a treat at the end.

Lyndon Barrois of Imagine Engine offers the same advice that I have been hearing from my professors and it's honestly just starting to hit home. They say that it's not about the software, it's about what you see. If you see the little details in the animation or the lighting or the texturing (whatever you're into) then you'll be much more valuable.

http://www.animationcareerreview.com/articles/image-engines-lyndon-barrois-offers-advice-about-animation-industry

Learning to see is something that may come naturally but for the vast majority it doesn't, there are many existing animators that are willing to give advice on how to get there.

More helpful advice comes from Brad Bird (one of my idols). Its an old interview but it's just as useful today as it was then.

http://gigaom.com/2008/04/17/pixars-brad-bird-on-fostering-innovation/

Just be open to learning anything. Don't be stuck in your own style and broaden your skills. It's an amazing world out there and no one else can do what we do.

Love it and live it.

Cheers fellow animators! Cheers.

BOOKS! Animation Books!

Oh my goodness I don't know why I didn't do this sooner.

I bought a bunch of books from amazon that were recommended to me from the people at Pixar as well as my colleagues at work and I'm stunned at how much I am learning and I've only just begun.

I have been learning so much it is ridiculous. Anything that is vaguely explained in classes at school is explained in full detail in these books.

Here are the books I've read that have helped me greatly:

Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams
The Hero with 1000 Faces by Joseph Campbell
Exploring Storyboarding by Wendy Tumminello
The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris
Animation Unleashed by Besen and Hallett

I also have The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation yet to read. That is what I am about to read next.

On my future list to get are:

STORY by Robert McKee
Drawn to Life by Walt Stanchfield
Dream Worlds by Hans Bacher
Stop Staring: Facial Modeling and Animation Done Right by Jason Osipa

There are more that I just can't remember right now but I am sure to get those too.

If you're out there thinking that you can just take school courses in Animation and know everything you need to know then you're completely missing out on so many broad ideas and knowledge on the subject from other people in the industry. Your profs aren't the be all and end all. There's so much to learn that they just can't teach you everything in the short amount of time they have to do so. 2 or 3 years isn't enough. You have to read it. I'm certainly glad that I did.

Demo Reel Piece: Stargazer Lillies

Just finished animating and started rendering my Stargazer Lillies. This will go along with the Grunge scene.

I just caught this frame mid-render.

If you're wondering what program I'm using, it's called Autodesk Softimage.

There are 400 frames in this animation but I'm thinking of just cutting in the first 200... All 400 make a loopable animation that just plays over and over if you need/want it to.

This is a project I'm pretty proud of. It is one of my best pieces and I'm excited for it to be put into my demo reel.

The original stargazer animation had the petals overlapping and passing through each other.. plus it just moved too much... This new one will be just overall movement of the flowers in the wind.

I'm excited for it!

UPDATE:

UGH! Have to re-start the render... if you look at some of the petals, they're overlapping... AGAIN! Oi... oh well. Re-rendering now..

Destination: Animation

Animation is my passion.

A lot of people have been asking me how I ended up in this feild. Basically my answer is because I was destined to be here. I don't know whether you believe in destiny or not but I do and I believe that I was meant to end up in Animation.
I was speaking to my mother the other day and she said the same thing. That I was destined to be and succeed in animation. When explaining why she said: "You've been drawing since you could hold a pencil." I remember always wanting to be an artist. One of my first memories is me telling my mother I want to be an artist.

I have found my niche and it is right in the depths of animation production. I have wanted to be an animator since I was a little girl. Other kids wanted to be teachers, firemen, police officers, or engineers but I always wanted to be an Animator. I am thrilled to be studying animation. I work very hard to achieve my goals. I'm at the top of my class and I continue to work hard towards pursuing my life-long goal of being a great animator.

After completing my diploma in Music and Digital Media at St. Lawrence College, I found the animation program at Loyalist and decided that maybe it's where I was supposed to be this entire time. That's how I ended up here. As soon as I got into this Animation program and got into the software I knew that this is where I was always meant to be. I was born to be an Animator. This is my dream.

Grunge Scene - Renewed!

So I've been working on redoing my grunge scene created in school in first semester. I didn't really know anything about unwrapping UVs at the time and was terrible at texturing.

I obtained a summer job at a local studio called infiniteSpaces and they have taught me so much. Particularly about unwrapping UVs and texturing. I love my job.

I decided to revisit my grunge scene. Here is the final result:

My original project was a still that I had used photoshop on but I decided to challenge my compositing skills and compose it in 3D. I started my panning the camera so that anything I did had to be CG.

I'm very happy with the final product. If I had one more thing to add it would have been dust. I will probably add that at a later date.

Let me know if you'd like to see the previous versions.