Want to see my current work?

I update my tumblr most often, but I also have a portfolio site here.

Tumblr Tumblr Tumblr!!!!

These days I'm tumbln'. See you there.

Nintendo Fan GIFs

HAPPY 5TH BIRTHDAY, BLOG!
(That must be like 90 in blog-years, because it feels like you're slowly dying...)

So if you haven't already, you should check out tumblr. It's brimming with amazing art and animation, especially gifs. It feels like a new frontier for animation, in a way. I'm posting more often there these days, and a lot of my friends are too.

Anyways, thanks to tumblr, I've hopped on the GIF Train somewhat. Here's a sampling: a couple of Nintendo fanboy doodles that move.

Hope you like.

Do Bald Guys Use Shampoo?

Do Bald Guys Use Shampoo? from Aaron Ludwig on Vimeo.

¡¡¡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....

Ye Olde SketcheDumpe

These are more like doodles than sketches, but I thought they were fun.

Happy Monday!

Get to work.

Do you follow?

Cut Out the Middle Man

Having kids changes everything. EVERYTHING. For better and for worse.

One example: before we had kids, when we went to church, it usually went like this:

Ahhh. A day of rest!

Now it feels a little more like this:

And we only have two kids!!!

Church used to be about worship. Now it's all about SURVIVAL.
We're hoping God gives bonus points if you and your family simply live through sacrament meeting.

With this in mind, as we prepare for church we only have two goals now:

1. Make sure your kids don't disturb the other members of the congregation so much that they get up and leave in a huff and never come back.

This means bring snacks. LOTS of snacks.

2. Make sure you don't leave a complete mess behind.

NEVER forget the diapers and wipes.

Oh, also, if you can:

3. Try to learn something from the talk.

If nothing else, your scriptures will come in handy as a shield.

One recent Sunday, in our efforts to accomplish #1 and 2 above, we decided to give our son a snack during Sunday School.

The chair next to us was open, so we set a pile of Cheerios™ on the seat and let him at it.

Now, mind you, our son has shown a pretty impressive repertoire of motor skills and hand-eye coordination, so we figured he'd be perfectly capable of grasping a few pieces of said toasted oat cereal and delivering them successfully to his pie hole.

But he's a critical thinker, so he decided to skip an altogether unnecessary step:

So much for goal #2.

Draw Me, round two

As mentioned in a previous post, I LOVE to see people caricature me. I have a lot of cartoony features (big nose, floppy ears, big bald head, beefy lips) so it's fun to see which ones an artist will pick up on and exaggerate.

So without further ado, here are a few more draw-rings of me! Enjoy.

(Whoops-- here's some further ado: Draw Me! I'd love to see your take on this stout, bald animator. Send it in, and I'll put it up with a link to your blog or whatever. rabidmilkman(at)gmail(dot)com. Thanks!)


These first three are from the amazing Jason Kim. Jason is a super-nice dude with talent oozing out of his ears (I've seen it. Kinda gross).

(Love this Sid the Sloth rendition) 

(Baby Ninja Turtle, anyone?)

 Quick story-- back before I applied for BYU's Animation program, Jason and I shared a writing class, and I was so fascinated that he was in the animation program. I jokingly mentioned, "You should email me a list of 'Everything you need to know about succeeding as an animation student'." A few days later, I got an email from Jason with a huge list of things to work on and think about and study in order to succeed as an animation student. See? I told you-- super-nice.

Next we have an awesome rendition by Matt Armstrong, concept artist at Avalanche.

(Run for your lives!!!)

This one is by Nick Beckstead, another BYU alum who has always been super-helpful-- he was kind enough to show my stuff around and give me feedback as I was applying for the Avalanche internship.

Nigel Style is always doing caricatures during dailies. He's churned out a few more of me.

(Future linebacker, if it weren't for those pesky brittle bones)

(I love the lips on this one)

 Nigel's fellow Canadian, Paul Mombourquette:

 And these two are from my trusty carpool companion, Paul Ovuoba:

(Hopefully he didn't draw these while he was driving.....)

Now all of those were great, but my absolute favorite (by far) comes from my cute little 2¾-year-old:

(She very specifically pointed out: "He has no hair.")

Thanks for indulging. Hopefully I'll have some actual artwork of my own to post soon.

DreamGiver!!!

Here it is-- for your viewing pleasure:

DreamGiver was very successful as it traveled through the festival circuit. Some of the more notable achievements are the College Television Awards "Student Emmy", Cannes Film Festival, Anima Mundi, Comic Con, Adobe Design Competition, Angelus Film Festival, Austin Film Festival, SIGGRAPH and over a hundred more!

Again, big thanks to Ty Carter for this awesome opportunity.

And yes, the DreamGiver does look like me.

And no, that wasn't intentional.