¡¡¡Estefan por la victoria!!!

Our senior class film, "Estefan," was a TON of fun to work on. I was lucky enough to be Animation Lead on it, and as a character animator I couldn't have asked for a better film to work on. Tons of fun, great story and great characters. Thanks to Lauren Oppenlander (the creator of Estefan), Jeff Call (the director), Lauren Taylor (the producer), Scott Gwynn (the art director), and the awesome faculty at BYU's Center for Animation for the opportunity.

Last year, right after we finished, we submitted it to SIGGRAPH, and lo and behold, we won the prize for Best Student Project! Also, this past week, we found out that we took first place at the College Television Awards, for BYU's 12th Student Emmy! Congrats to everyone on the crew. I'm super proud of this film.

I thought I'd take this chance to post two of my favorite shots from the film. As animation lead, most of my time was spent managing workload and deadlines for the rest of the animation team, and finishing up shots that were falling through the cracks. But I was lucky enough to get to animate two key shots from the film, and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

This first shot was a ton of fun to do. It wasn't storyboarded this way (it was much simpler, just him looking at her head then looking up), but Jeff and the Laurens thought we could have more of a character moment here, so they left it to me to figure out.

After a while I realized that since Estefan can do anything, I'd try thumbnailing the wildest poses of him examining her head and trying to come to grips with her baldness (and come up with an idea of how to do her "hair"). The shot ended up being about 17 seconds longer than originally intended, but I'm happy to say that everyone loved the new story beat, and it made the cut.


This other shot was the first one animated on the film. It was a big challenge staging-wise, as we wanted to keep him in that bottom corner but still help him feel tense--tough to do when his shoulders aren't even really on screen. 

Also that final pose took a lot of work (and tons of iterations with Jeff's feedback) but I'm really pleased with the end result--the original boards had his back arched the other way, but in animation it didn't feel big enough and was really tough to pose given the lack of room. But once I tried having him turn around, everything kind of opened up. (Props to Josh Whiting, who did the awesome dynamics on the jenga blocks.)

Congrats to everyone on the Estefan team! Viva la Estefan!!!

Wolverine

With such a strong sense of smell, it's a wonder that he can stand to smoke so many cigars...

...good thing he has regenerative powers, I guess.

Inspired, as always, by the awesome Marvel fan art going on at Jake's and Anthony's.

Fan Art Friday: Agent P

Ignore the fact that it's Saturday.

My first video game

Today the game I’ve been working on was finally announced!

Disney Infinity is really gonna be awesome. I’m lucky to be able to work on something as amazing as this.  

What a way to kick off a career, eh?

Honestly, I'm stoked to be able to work on a game that I can play with my kids. I'm very blessed to be a part of this.

Anyway, please like the page on facebook, and this June get ready to play your way-- Infinity style!

Fan Art Friday

Just a quick doodle of Scrooge and the boys.

and good ol' Greedo, for the Avalanche blog.

Ty Carter is giving away half tuition at AnimSchool!

The amazing Ty Carter is giving away some awesome prizes this holiday-- including half tuition at AnimSchool!

Check it out!
Ty Carter Art: Ty Carter Art Holiday 2012 Giveaway!: Over 21 PRIZES will be awarded from December 1st-15th!  Enter today! Prizes (1)  Half AnimSchool Tuition for the Course of ...

Crusty Old Sailor

Crocodoodle

Moving On

We are officially leaving Provo this week, which is kind of bittersweet. We've lived in the same place for a little over 3 years now (which is a HUGE record for us).

What better way to honor our beloved neighbors and friends than with slightly un-flattering sketches of them?

Blathering Blatherskite!!!

When I was a kid, I thought Gizmoduck was the coolest. He had such an awesome techno-suit filled with all sorts of mind-boggling gadgets.

 He even got to activate his suit by cursing! How cool was that?

Man, when I was like 6 or 7, I wanted to be Gizmoduck so badly.

(yes, I had a mullet)

 Problem was, I didn't have a beak, and I wasn't allowed to swear. So I decided to make my own suit. 

I had it all worked out-- white t-shirt with the logo drawn on it, cool 1992 sunglasses, my sister's Barbie car (to act as the tire)...

...and for the arm-band thingies? I needed something long and white... my dad's socks were perfect!!! I would just cut up four or five pairs. He wouldn't mind, right?

I must say, the costume came together better than I expected. I looked just like Gizmoduck! I was ready to save Duckburg! I hoped my dad would like it.

When he walked in, his reaction was better than I could have dreamed!

He started swearing!

I was sooo excited!
I knew that at any minute, a high-tech suit was gonna come bursting through the door and he was gonna become....

GIZMODAD!!!

But that's not quite what happened....