Birthday

It's fun being a poor artist-- for birthday presents, you can just draw a picture of your friend or relative, wrap it up, give it to the birthday boy or girl and call it good. (It works even better if it's a picture of them that you give.)

So, happy birthday, oh small, winged niece of mine. As always, watch out for birds of prey and bug-zappers.

Christmas Gift Tip of the day

Draw Me!

I love caricatures..... and I particularly love caricatures of myself. It's fun to see someone else capture little features or expressions of mine that I know so well. It's a blast getting a glimpse of how other people see me.

Recently at work they started a "Caricature Door" where everyone on the animation team posts all the drawings they've done of each other (but had previously kept hidden). It turns out I'm one of the more popular subjects. That means either I'm really fun to draw or really easy to draw (or both). Either way, I love it.

And I'd like to issue a challenge-- send me your drawings of me! I'm sure any of you who know me have secret sketchings of me that are in some old sketchbook somewhere. Or even if you don't know me, whip up a sketch anyway and email them to me! I'm going to be keeping a page on this blog called "Draw Me!" where I document all such sketchbookery. Send them in! rabidmilkman(at)gmail(dot)com

This might seem a little self-centered, but that's not the intent. I just laugh really hard when I see an awesome drawing of myself in all my stout-and-bald glory.

So here are a few draw-rings of me from friends and co-workers.

 The first is from Nigel Style, animation guru at Avalanche.

This beauty came from Thomas Estrada, my mentor at Avalanche.

And this of course is from the late, great Scott Gwynn. I say late because he missed our carpool this morning.

Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue!

© Disney/Pixar. For review purposes only.

Nerd.

More fishmen silliness.

This is Betty.

She's looking for a date. Any takers?

As you can probably tell from my posts this week, I'm absolutely loving being a part of the Fishmen in Top Hats blog. There's inspiring stuff from talented friends posted every day. It's a great way to motivate me to try to step it up (and have fun while I'm at it).

Anyway,  I'm gonna plug it again-- if you're not following Fishmen in Top Hats, you're a slimy old curmudgeon.

And Betty would like to meet you sometime.

That's right. I went there.

Space Nudist

Spock Puppet

I love me some Muppets.

The Truth About Scarecrows....

Scarecrows aren't trying to be scary. The name "scarecrow" is a label given them by crows to garner public sentiment for themselves (and more corn). Scarecrows aren't even trying to scare crows. They're just hanging out in the field, arms outstretched, waiting for someone to give them a big hug.

Done for the Avalanche Software Art Blog's Scarecrow theme.

Happy Halloween!

Baby's First Crime Scene

My son Quinn recently started crawling, and he is instantly all over the place. After reading Hergé's TinTin for the first time (love it), I'm getting visions of Quinn going to faraway lands hunting down ancient treasure while narrowly escaping the bad guys.

I mean, he's crawling, right? Practically there!

So I whipped this up for the Fishmen in Tophats blog (I'm guessing it's pronounced "top-hats" and not "toe-fats") .

Are you following us yet?

It's O-fish-al

So for a long time my favorite blog has been Fishmen in Top Hats, featuring the doodle-a-day talents of Scott and Jeff.  The premise is basically to post just about every day, keep things fun and creative and just have a good ol' time.

Well I'm lucky enough to be a part of that now! Wahoo! Hopefully I can keep up. (Also joining me in the rookie ranks are Jonny and Joey.)

This is my first post there.

Head on over there and give us a follow!



Now.



No, really, I mean it.



Do it.



Why are you still here?

Mo'

From The Sartorialist:

From The Whiteboard:

Prosthetic Proboscis

Thankfully we now have the technology to assist the olfactorily-challenged.

Done for the Avalanche Software blog's "Cyborg" theme.

White Board Doodles

Recently I've re-discovered the joy of drawing on white boards. It might even be my medium of choice. I might just have to put together a sketchbook whose pages are actual white boards...

Target Practice

This is my maiden voyage with the Avalanche Software Art Blog! I'm way stoked about this-- that blog has always inspired me, and now to be able to contribute (somewhat) to it is awesome.

Recent Random Happenings Presented in Sketchbook Form

My daughter just turned two just a few days ago (hopefully the terrible two's aren't quite this bad).

...
My wife hails from central Utah, where they have a Scandanavian festival every year. You meet lots of interesting folks there. Whether or not you draw them well is another story.

...
I just started my internship at Avalanche (Disney Interactive), and I must say I'm absolutely loving it. I've learned so much there already in such a short time. One of the fun parts is sketching people on the train/bus.

...
I said this today:

Looking for someone to sketch?

Look no further than your local baby! Sketching babies is better than sketching adults for the following reasons:

• They are cuter (provided you've passed the two-month mark and the newborn "old-man" look is gone).
• They don't charge modeling fees.
• You don't creep them out by staring at them intently for 2-5 minutes at a time.
• They don't move around much (especially if you swaddle them really tightly with a velcro blanket).

My Two-Year-Old Watches Way Too Much Animation

For Mother's Day, here's a daddy-daughter comic (inspired by true events):

(click to enlarge)

Can't compete with the father-son hijinks you'll find over at Anthony's blog.

Comics = Therapy

Here's a quick, sketchy, aliased comic for ya.

Click to enlarge!

Tangled Gestures, Part 1

This morning I sat down for a couple of hours and sketched some quick gestures from Disney's Tangled. Most of these took about a minute or two, done in Adobe Flash.

2011 Character Animation Demo Reel

2011 Character Animation Demo Reel from Aaron Ludwig on Vimeo.

Caminar

Here is a rough walk cycle test for the main character of our senior film, "Estefan". (I always want to call it our "señor film"...)
He is the greatest hairdresser in all of Spain... and by Spain I mean the universe.

Estefan Walk from Aaron Ludwig on Vimeo.

More to come shortly.

DreamGiver Premiere!

Wednesday, March 2, 2011 at 10 a.m.

This is the premiere of the newest BYU Animated film: DreamGiver, directed by Tyler Carter.

Special Guest:
-Internationally Acclaimed Disney Art Director Bill Perkins will share his experience from films such as Tangled, Bolt, and Aladdin after the screening. It is sure to be a treat and a one of a kind event.

Other Events in the program:
-From Dream to Reality (a behind the scenes documentary on the making of DreamGiver)

Admission is free but seating is limited to the Dejong Concert Hall's occupancy. It is suggested you arrive no later than 30 minutes in advance.

See you March 2nd!!

Thanks Coach!

I feel like I've lost an uncle or something...

829 hours and 34 minutes later....

....we are done! Since May I've been working on Tyler Carter's film DreamGiver. Most of the film is 3D animation, but I got to be a lead on the 2D sequence of the film. We had a daunting task-- finish 50+ shots in practically one semester-- but we did it!!! We had an awesome team of animators and clean-up artists who really took this film as their own and made miracles happen.


In my humble opinion, this is one of the most beautiful student films I've seen (and trust me--that's not because of anything I did). I have been truly blessed to be a part of it, and to work with such amazing artists.

I hope to update my demo reel soon, and then I can share a festival-friendly post with you. Hopefully you get a chance to see the entire film somewhere as it makes its festival run over the next year or so.

Thanks Ty!