villain

Action Test | August 2008 | :20 second
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Oy. Long time no update. To be fair, this is a 20 second animation with 2 characters and I did do quite a bit of animation in between (game cycle tests & whatnot). Anyway....this is an example of an animation gone wrong. I had it all planned out (I thought) and then things expanded and just never quite worked, and instead of going back and scrapping what I had (or at least parts) and finding a better solution, I just trudged through what I have now and it hoped I could "work it out". Well, it was becoming more apparent that wasn't going to happen so I decided last week to finish it up this month to at least an acceptable state and just start a new animation. Plan your scenes kids!

peyote

Dialog Test | April 2008 | :09 second
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Another up. This one was really fun. I liked the sound clip and I enjoyed the Sergio rig. This is another sound clip from Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. I cranked this one out pretty fast ... doing all this animation this year has started to help me speed up a bit. I'll probably touch all of these before they go on any sort of reel, but I'm liking them for the most part.

shakenbake

Dialog Test | April 2008 | :03 second
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Holy crap ! I finally get a new animation up within a month! This was a fun one using some real old characters I made years ago. It took me awhile just to get used to using them again, but I definitely did more with them in this animation than any previous animation (at least the main guy). I did a little light textuing in this one, but ... yeah ... I'm no texture artist. Maybe it'll get spiffy'd up for the reel. The sound clip is from Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

smokin

Action Test | March 2008 | :16 second
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I have no idea where the last 8 months went, but here's a new animation. This was pretty fun, with the biggest problem being the props. Lots of transfering of stuff around. I may come back and add some FX to this shot, but I really want to work on another animation, so that's getting shelved for now, maybe for a reel. This was another good animation where I pretty much worked on it every day for the past few weeks.

scissors

Action Test | July 2007 | :14 second
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I really like this animation. Had some great feedback from people on it, and it really just came together nicely. I planned it out pretty well and pretty much followed my thumbnails pose for pose, and it made it pretty easy. I also polished it longer than I usually do, since I had great feedback to keep pushing me. Best of all, I really got a groove going and worked on this daily. Some days more than others, but much much better than my last animation. Time to move right into the next one. Stay tuned.

vampire

Dialog Test | May 2007 | :14 second
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Once again, not much of a gear change huh? I've actually been dabbling on this animation since like Janurary, but only putting in 30 minutes here and there a week. This last week I decided to finish it up and move on. I'll just leave the description of this animation as being "this is what happens when you drag out an animation for almost 6 months". I could work some more on this, but it's become such a pain in the ass I decided I'm calling it (for now at least, maybe it'll be cleaned up someday).

actiontest

Action Test | October 2006 | :04 second
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Well ... so much for that gear change. On the bright side, I can play guitar again! Anyway, this is something I've actually been doodling on for awhile after canning my last animation a few weeks into it. I just wanted a little run/jump/slide/land type of continuous motion exercise. I really need to pick up the pace. Football, Hockey, Snowboarding, Guitar, Work, Beer, Animation, Running ... not enough free time in a day to get in all I want. Anyway, the guilt is starting to pile up, here's hoping ...

pitch

Action Test | July 2006 | :05 second
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Well, I couldn't decide on the last thing I was working on so I rolled right into this one after a couple days. Overall I think it turned out great. I may have gone a bit overboard on the ending ... which has mixed reviews (however none of them consistent, odd); however, my focus was mainly on the pitch itself, which has great reviews. So, after trying different things over the holiday weekend, I wound up with this and decided moving on was the best choice of action. Anyway, time to work on a new project, I'm hoping for a gear change, we'll see if I can come up with something (man it's hard to do for yourself).

look like hell

Dialog Test | June 2006 | :10 second
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Hah! So much for "cranking things out". This animation came about because I couldn't make up my mind what to work on, so I just picked the last soundfile I had been tinkering with and worked on it (albeit slowly). I decided to get a little tricky with the mirror. That made it a bit harder to animate since I'd sometimes have to do test renders to see the reflection. Having to work from two angles, and whatnot also was odd. I sort of just hammered most of it out the past couple weekends. I don't like doing that and would rather work on it more frequently. I think I'll be more focused on this next animation ... which is already in the thumbnailing stages.

backside 180 mute

Action Test | February 2006 | :04 second
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Well, since this has been taking up all my free time this winter, I figured it's only fitting it becomes my next animation. Now I know I could have done a more flashy inverted trick or some crazy camera angle where you could barely tell what the guy's doing, but dammit, I like backside 180 mute grabs. Anyway...this wasn't more than a simple test really. Pretty quick once I finally worked on it this past week. I hope to get more animation done in the coming weeks and back to cranking things out. Stay tuned.

pillar jump (of death)

Action Test | November 2005 | :05 second
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Another two months, another animation. This was simply an action test. I was trying to push the looseness of it all. I really like the beginning part and the ending shaped up pretty decent. Getting any sort of weight on the landing took some doing for some reason, not quite sure why. It never looked heavy, only faster for some reason. Maybe it's the somewhat awkward position it comes down into. Anway, time to get back at it and pick up the pace.

simply evil

Acting Test | September 2005 | :12 second
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Wee...well, this one took a bit long than I had hoped (rock climbing ... it's addicting, what can I say?), but I'm pretty happy with the results. I wanted to do a dialgoue test that was more subdued, so I went out scouring the net for good wavs. This is the first one that just sort of hit me (like most do ... ya just "know" almost right away). Anyway ... the lipsync with a hinged jaw character was a bit of a challenge...especially with the large number of words in a relatively short time. I sort of dubbed it "muppet sync." By the way, the audio is from Halloween. Alrighty, back at it to start a new project.

jedi beer trick

Action Test | July 2005 | :22 second
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Ok, this took a lot longer than I thought. I could tweak it for another two months (weekend/nights spare time of course, not two months solid.) I wanted to do an fun action animation ... so I came up with this little exercise. I can imagine this guy humming his own theme music while doing this (because that's what I'd be doing.) Anyway, time to get crackin' on a new one ... enjoy this in the meantime!

Update 09/13/05 - Bob Nadeau was cool enough to take this animation and add sound to it! Check it out! \mm/ (updated original link)

buttcheeks

Acting Test | March 2005 | :12 second
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Another acting test with a sound clip from a classic 80's movie. I finished most of this quite some time ago, but never put it up. Today I took the time to fix a couple small things and re-render it out and throw 'er up. For this animation I wanted to get Elmer (dude on the right) involved in some sort of dialogue. There are some things I would have liked to add to this animation, but unfortunately my character design & rigging wouldn't allow for it. Anyway, I'm about to start a new animation (planning already!) ... so there will more soon. I may put up some of the animated cycles I've been working on as well.

zombie walk cycle

Cycle Test | December 2004 | :01 second
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Decided to do a quick cycle this time for practice, if nothing else. I used the Lowman Rig again (I really like this one). It was actually harder than I expected, but I'm pretty happy with the outcome. I got some great critique on this one to make it better than it was, so that helped. Looking forward to starting something new. Have to do some thinking about what that will be though.

good is dumb

Dialogue Test | November 2004 | :06 seconds
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Here's my second try for trying a new rig. Package Man is pretty well known. Overall it's a pretty good rig. My biggest problems with it would have to be the finger sliders (just do not like that for fingers), and the mouth setup is a bit of a quirky variation of the Osipa one. But overall ... good stuff. Anway, this guy is one of those "calling it done" ones. I've drug it out over a month (should have been no more than a week or two) ... but I have Counter Strike:Source and Online Poker to thank for that. Anyway, I decided I was better off just finishing up what I have here and moving on to something new than dragging it out by changing large chunks.

wax on, wax off

Action Test | September 2004 | :08 seconds
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Decided to try out a different rig on this animation to see how well other's work. This is the Lowman rig you can get here . Overall, I really liked this character / rig. Anyway, as far as the animation I wanted a fairly short action to try and polish as much as possible. I know (at least I hope) after a few more animations I will look back and think "I could have done this better" ... but for now I like it. For what it's worth, this action is a combination of all three sections where the Crane Technique appears in The Karate Kid. After the main action and timing was blocked in, I went in and added my own twist. Reference pays off kids, but don't make it your bible!

sit tight

Dialogue Test| July 2004 | :08 seconds
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On my past few animations I've had some sort of prop or object that the character interacts with. Sometimes it can become kind of a crutch, only being able to come up with ideas with a prop in hand, so I decided I wanted to do a new one without a prop, relying on just the character himself ot help sell the shot. There's a lot of hand movement in the scene, but I think it fits the dialogue well enough. The sound clip is taken from "Big Trouble In Little China." Kurt Russell's finest hour.

blindman's bluff

Acting/Action Test | July 2004 | :16 seconds
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New animation involving two characters this time. I enjoyed animating a scene with more than one character, even though it does require that much more work to keep the actions in sync, and even though you can cheat a lot, there are still a lot of restrictions put on you due to spacing. I tried to keep the animation snappy and cartoony, and hopefully somewhat humorous.

fireflies

Acting Test | June 2004 | :08 seconds
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This is a little acting test that I did mostly over one weekend. It has been three weeks or so since I animated something new, (new website and all) so I found this little sound file from one of my favorite movies and had at it. Probably the hardest part of this was deciding on what acting choices to use in such a short amount of time. I sometimes want to do to much and have to pull back.

box lift

Weight Test | May 2004 | :09 seconds
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The very first box lift I tried ended less than ... good. A few days back I was watching the reels of a few animators and notice some really good looking box lifts and decided to give it and new shot. Anyway, it came out quite a bit better this time. The box is hand keyed.

he's an idiot

Acting/Dialogue Test | April 2004 | :09 seconds
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I re-rigged my hunchback model to follow Jason Osipa's facial setup to try it out. I got the book for Christmas and figured it was about time I opened it. It was great .. I absolutely love the approach. Highly recommend it. Anyway ... this is a little soundclip from Back to the Future. It's not the most dynamic piece I could have taken ... but I tend to take things that make me laugh my butt off over things with more energy.

Plunger Exercise

Action Test | March 2004 | :23 seconds
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This is a cartoony action test with my red guy trying to unclog a toliet. I was going for snappier animation and a good deal of object interaction. You may have noticed the stark backgrounds in all of my animations. Well ... they aren't going to be getting any better in the near future. Why the heck would I want to model an entire bathroom?!?

tequila shots

Action Test | January 2004 | :18 seconds
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This is a parody of Chevy Chase from Caddyshack. Good scene. Good movie. Go rent it. Anyway, the main focus of this animation was just object interaction. I used this Grab script off Highend3d.com. I believe it was written by then Big Idea people. Great script ... make object interaction about as painless as you could expect. As far as the animation goes ... this was also my first animation with filmed reference, so I learned some things from that...what to do as well as what not to do.