Wow time has sure flown by since I last posted! I’ve officially wrapped up on Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel . I had a blast animating on it and met some great friends in the process. Lately, I’ve mainly been getting some much needed rest.

But, I do plan to start writing more regular posts again soon. In fact, I just wrapped up an amazing weekend attending the CTN Animation Expo in Burbank so I’ll post about that next. Until then! 

This has already made the rounds on Facebook, but I thought I’d repost it because I’m just a sucker for all things inspiring! Plus, animators usually benefit from some good old fashioned inspiration so I hope you find some in this as well.

A friend at work sent this to me so I thought I’d share. It’s a nice interview with production designer K.K. Barrett who talks about his film work. Some of the directors he’s collaborated with are Michel Gondry, Sophia Coppola, and Spike Jonze. There’s some great stuff in here…from his journey starting out as a drummer in an early punk band to his design and thought processes for several films, including the upcoming Where the Wild Things Are. Definitely worth a look!

I’ve been insanely busy at work the past couple months and unable to post anything. But, tonight is different! Here’s the latest trailer for the film I’ve been working on:

Until next time! 

So here’s a relatively simple workflow tip I picked up at work. It’s probably something that’s totally obvious to a lot of people out there, but I actually never thought of working this way. Ready? OK here it is: If you’re blocking out your animation in step mode, try using IK arms. Then when you’re ready to spline, just snap the FK arms to the IK arms and switch back to using FK (more on switching in a second).

Why do it this way, especially if you prefer to work with FK arms in the first place? Am I trying to say using IK is better than FK? No, not at all. Both have their uses and everyone has their own preferences for using what they choose. But in simple practical terms, it can be faster to manipulate one controller on an IK arm than three on an FK arm. This can simplify things when you get feedback changes you need to turnaround fast. It also goes well with working in step mode since the focus is usually more on poses and timing and not so much on the inbetweens at this point.

There are obviously some caveats in order to benefit from using this approach. First, you need a way to snap FK to IK (and vice versa) to accurately match what’s been blocked out. Some rigs have this built in or you can check HighEnd3D.com which has some free downloadable tools to do this. The other thing is I’ve primarily used this approach when I’m blocking out the main key poses and breakdowns (not the inbetweens). I like to refine and polish the arms when they’re in FK so I can take advantage of the natural arc abilities that FK affords.

I realize people have different ways of working so animating this way may or may not appeal to everyone. I’m still trying it out myself, but it’s definitely come in handy when dealing with blocking revisions that have to be turned around quickly.

So things are trucking along at Rhythm & Hues. After 2 weeks of training I’m already knee-deep into my first shots. I’m really enjoying the experience so far and it’s every bit as challenging as I had imagined. I feel like I’m swimming in the deep end, but that’s a good thing. There are so many talented people working here and that really pushes me to try and put up my best work possible. It feels like a big jump going from games to film (maybe I can even blog about this later on). But, I think the last several years of working in games and especially the training I received at Animation Mentor helped prepare me for working on features. I still have a long ways to go, but I’m looking forward to seeing how this journey plays out!

Wow life has been crazy busy for me for the past couple months! I’ve moved from San Francisco and am now living in sunny Venice, California. It was definitely tough to leave a city I love so much, but I’m really enjoying the new adventure at Rhythm & Hues. I especially love that I don’t have to get on a freeway to get to work! It’s nice to finally start settling in and am now enjoying some of the things Los Angeles has to offer. One of the first things I did was attend the Milt Kahl event last month which was totally amazing!

Well, things are starting to ramp up at work but I’m hoping I can still post here as regularly as possible. Until next time!

The winners of the Spline Doctors challenge have been posted. First Place went to Chris O’Hara, Second Place went to Daniel Huertas, and Third Place (as well as my favorite entry) went to my old Animation Mentor classmate Brandon Beckstead. Congrats you guys!

The contest was a really great idea and I hope they do more stuff like this in the future so I can participate! In the end, I only had time to submit my pencil test (which they graciously included on the compilation video) because I’ve been super busy with relocating to Los Angeles. But, I should be settled soon and back in action!

I’m pleased to announce that I accepted an offer from Rhythm & Hues Studios in Los Angeles! I’m going to be animating on the sequel to Alvin & the Chipmunks. I’m really excited for this new opportunity and in some ways feel like I’ve come full circle. I started my career in live action films (in both camera and editorial) and to be returning as an animator is really exciting. It’s also kind of ironic…when I was in grade school the first talent show I ever participated in was doing a little number with 2 other kids as Alvin & the Chipmunks. Funny how things work out. I plan on being a lot better this time around!

So I decided I’d give the Spline Doctors animation challenge a go. I know I still have some work to put the final polish on my “Gettin’ Out” test but this sounded like a fun opportunity (and I intend to finish Gettin’ Out right after that). I came into this late so it will be tough trying to make the April 1st deadline. But, either way it should make for a fun test and a chance to learn something new.

I decided to do something a little different. Instead of having a character doing a performance to Christian Bale’s rant, I thought it might be interesting to focus on the person getting yelled at. In reality it was the Director of Photography, but for my test I decided to make the guy a grip.

This is just a simple (and very rough) pencil test done in Flash…I actually prefer to use Flipbook but my version only holds 300 frames and this clip came in at almost 20 seconds. So even though the drawings are nothing to write home about, I think it at least gives me a good idea of what I want the test to be. See what you think…feedback is always welcome.

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