In Pursuit of Danitopia

Life drawing level up!

2012-01-11T04:48:00.000+01:00

Howdy people of the interwebs! Ah my first post of the year, I've got a good feeling about 2012, big things will happen. Not in an apocalyptic way either - good stuff, bound to happen. Just wait and see ;-).

Well, better late than never, here's my last 7 "Art Workouts" for 2011 ;-)

Art workout 2011, Week 46 of 52

Art workout 2011, Week 47 of 52

Art workout 2011, Week 48 of 52

I did a two day life drawing workshop at the Maleny Arts Retreat which was fantastic. Here you can see a bit of my progress - particularly in relation to lighting with charcoal. The first one I've really emphasized getting a thicker, stronger outline on the contours that should be in shadow, also trying to keep a good amount of contrast around a specific focal point (the head). The second pic I was really working on getting a nice tonal range overall and concentrating on matching shadow tones through the drawing. The third one I've focused on getting my flat tone strokes to roll around the "tubes" of her body to get more of a sense of 3D volume.

Art workout 2011, Week 49 of 52

Here's my first ever watercolour painting! Lot's of experimenting and feeling my way around here, but enjoyed the medium none the less. There's some parts of this painting I like, but overall you can see my tentative approach hasn't quite worked. I can tell a key aspect of learning water colours is to generate a lot of free flowing confidence and be open to the accidental randomness that occurs. Defo will be playing with a lot more watercolour in the future!

Art workout 2011, Week 50 of 52

Popped out the old SLR for bit of a play after spotting this guy jumping around my herb garden pots. I think maybe the pots are a great refuge for these little guys as the little frogs tend to get eaten by the great big toads we have around here :-(.

Art workout 2011, Week 51 of 52

Art workout 2011, Week 52 of 52

And last off here's some doodles I threw together at the WoodFord Folk festival at the end of last year. Random inspirations from the many interesting characters wandering around. Drawn with a Biro and I added a little bit of tone in Photoshop. I usually stay away from most photoshop filters, but I have to say I quite like the "Splatter" filter - I find myself using it often to break up that CG look of many brushes, looks quite nice like colour leaping through the texture of paper. Right on!

Adieu!

-Dan

End of 2011, what a year!

2011-12-26T07:50:00.000+01:00

Evening folks!

I hope everyone had a fantabulous Christmas and rearing up for a rip roaring goodbye to 2011! I'm off to the Woodford Folk festival over the next week to hang with some smelly hippies and soak up some awesome vibes :-D. Here's some quick samples of what I've been up to these last few weeks:

Some Look development for my short "A Grey Matter":

Art Workout 2011, Week 42 of 52.

Art Workout 2011, Week 43 of 52.

Storyboarding storyboarding storyboarding. I've been working hard on really nailing the telling of my short's story and I've been experimenting with loads of different ideas. Here you can find some recent boards (just some random samples, these aren't consecutive panels). I'm making great improvements with each iteration, progress is being made! :-D

Art workout 2011, week 44 of 52

Here's a digital portrait of my good friend Jim, who unfortunately passed away several years ago. For me, the time of mourning has passed, and I wanted to paint a picture celebrating the lovely energy in which he lived his life :-).

http://www.kineticdan.com/wiki/index.php?title=Idea%27s_for_the_animated_short_-_notes
Art workout 2011, week 45 of 52

More notes! "Ideas for the animated short" is a great book I absorbed to keep myself thinking about all the elements that come together to form a really great short. Defo worth a read!

Well I've still got 7 workout's to do by the end of the year :-S. Ah well, the folk festival well surely inspire many a drawings to share first thing in the new year ;-).

Adios amigos!
-Dan

The old man is a com'n

2011-11-19T04:03:00.001+01:00

Howdy!

Here's some more of this year's art workout and some development of my short film! Firstly, I've been working hard on the new model for my short film's main character - check out some turnarounds with pose tests here:

Art workout 2011, week 37 of 52

Also, I've finalized the design of my second character, a cute little dumbfounded frog:

Art Workout 2011, Week 38 of 52

Art Workout 2011, Week 39 of 52

And also, for the occasional break away from my short - here's a few random doodles:

A bizarre long necked frog:

Art Workout 2011, Week 40 of 52

The lizard captain! He's a salty veteran sailing endlessly across the soft sandy desert of the vulture isles.

Art Workout 2011, Week 41 of 52

Cheers captains!
-Dan

A Grey Matter concept work

2011-10-25T10:50:00.001+02:00

Yoyo!

As I'm devoting myself fully for the time being, all my time of late is spent developing "A Grey Matter". Exciting times!

Art workout 2011, week 33 of 52.

Here's a photoshop painted concept for the frog character in my short, whom I have affectionately named "Wibby". This one was created with photoshop's "natural" brushes set. Not quite the look I think I'll go for, but defo worth the experiment.

Art workout 2011, week 34 of 52.

So here I'm starting to nail down a final design for my main character. I must have drawn this guy 1000 times, so I got together all the best drawings, my favourite nose/hair/head shape, and amalgamated them all into this design you see here. The linework/rendering style is inspired from the very excellent short "The Backwater Gospel".

Art workout 2011, week 35 of 52.

I've been very busy boarding for my short. Exploring as many ideas as I can, grabbing feedback from peeps, then hitting the boards again. Boarding is redoarding they say eh? I'm revealing a few panels here but still keeping most of my cards hidden ;-).

The creative habit notes - by Twyla Tharp

Art Workout 2011, week 36 of 52.

As I'm sailing under my own guidance and self discipline, I thought I'd go over my notes when I read this great book by Twyla Tharp. She doesn't sugar coat anything, just giving clear and practical ideas about generating ideas, keeping organized, inspired and focused in whatever creative path you're heading on. I'd recommend any creative characters out there to give it a read!

Power on comrades!
-Dan

short film character development

2011-09-25T07:13:00.001+02:00

G'day fellas and Sheila's!

D'oh, been a while since my last post. I've been on the most amazing adventure humanly possible on 2 wheels! My wife and I rode our BMW Rockster all the way from Adelaide to Brisbane via the great ocean road. So between packing up in Adelaide, the 2 week trip and resettling in QLD, my lack of posts can be forgiven methinks! Well anyway, got my paintbrush and sweat band - check out what I've been up to keeping fit with my "art workouts":

Art Workout 2011, Week 31 of 52.

Art Workout 2011, Week 32 of 52.

What's with this recurring old man? Am I seeing double? Why is he so grumpy? Who wears a monocle... really? WHAT'S HAPPENING!?!

This is some development for my short film I'm creating. I'm taking the dive and committing the next 3 months to really fleshing out the pre-production and base assets. Gonna be a long haul, but hey, can't be a cog my whole career, every artist should have a baby that can really call their own. This old man, combined with an idiotic frog are indeed my babies, which sounds wrong and confusing, but get used to it, if you're following this blog you'll see a lot more of them :-D.

*Top secret* "A Grey Matter" Script revision *Top secret*

Art Workout 2011, Week 33 of 52

Yeah I'm an arsehole and hiding my cards. I've been working hard on revising the script for this short's story, but I'm not keen to share it online, you'll have to wait a couple years until the film is finished :-P.

hugs (yes even it you are a stranger, sorry about the B.O.)

-Dan

A winter Ride!

2011-08-21T09:07:00.009+02:00

Yo!

Art workout 2011, week 29 of 52.

Well this week I've really delved into something quite different :-D. I borrowed Sam Baker's GoPro camera (basically a tiny camera with an attachment, in this case a giant suction cap with pivoting arm), and spent half a day with it and my trusty motorbike out in the Adelaide Hills. I really had a blast experimenting with different ways I could put the camera and stage shots, I had about 1.5 hours of footage by the end. The next big step was editing it all down to a few minutes, choosing what to keep or kill, linking with some suitable audio and doing some shaky cam Stabilization too. Lot's of firsts which is probably what made it so much fun! I'm really happy with how it turned out and I feel I really captured the way I love to ride, cruising around twisted mountain roads :-D.

For those interested, the bike is a 2003 BMW R1150R Rockster being ridden around the Adelaide Hills in South Australia. It's filmed with a HD Hero Go Pro, motorsports edition and edited with Sony Vegas. The music is the song "From the morning" by Nick Drake.

Art Workout 2011, Week 30 of 52.

And here's a doodle from my sketchbook. Getting into production on a short film has been playing around in my head quite a lot of late, and here's me playing around with a little bit of character development for it.

-Dan

The Spirit Gala

2011-08-09T15:24:00.004+02:00

Greetings!Art workout 2011, Week 27 of 52.

So here's the final result of that layout test I did two posts ago! This is my final version which I've had printed for the Sala festival and will be exhibited to the public in the Foyer of Rising Sun Pictures here in Adelaide! Woot!

Art workout 2011, Week 28 of 52:

Film Lighting: Talks with Hollywood's Cinematographers and Gaffers - notes

Here's another week where I'm substituting visual art for a bit of theory and sharing notes I made while reading the above mentioned book. It was all pretty technical live action lighting thoughts, but I found a few golden nuggets of knowledge in there and added them to my Wiki. Maybe a nugget of gold useful to your fine self also? By the power of pork flavoured marshmellows, I surely hope so!!

Woot!
-Dan

Awww Koala hug!

2011-08-04T03:21:00.003+02:00

Howdy!
Art workout 2011, Week 26 of 52.

This week I tackled the very intimidating challenge of doing a caricature of my awesomely lovely wife. It really ignites your nerves working on a reimagining of a loved one, luckily enough,she really liked it :-D.

Peace out!
-Dan

The treehouse party!

2011-07-27T15:55:00.004+02:00

Howdy ho!Art workout Week 24 of 52.

Jeepers I'm behind on my Workouts! Here's a rough layout I did for a digital painting I've got planned for a small exhibition here in Adelaide. Fun/intimidating to work on something for the public!

Art workout 25 of 52:

Week 25 I've decided to twist the rules and submit something that isn't artwork at all, but a bit of research I did about bird flight mechanics. There's a very interesting in depth article here: http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/42/1/141.full which I found a great source of understanding on how birds maneuver mid air. To help myself really get a grasp of it, I translated the article from Oxford genius speak, and boiled it down into some simpler points jotted down that doesn't scare my limited intellect nearly as much. I then published that up on my personal wiki I added to my website: http://www.kineticdan.com/wiki/index.php?title=Dan%27s_Oxford_Journal_flight_notes. Anyone animating some complex flight may very well find it interesting!

On the topic of the wiki, I have to say I'm really enjoying fostering one on my own. It's like having my own personal online encyclopedia of stuff I've learned/found to continually add to. In all honesty, I stole the idea from a very talented colleague I work with, Eric Bates. So far I've been adding any interesting links I've found online, and starting to compile my own personal collection of notes and tidbits. For example, I went to an interesting lecture by an excellent Oil Painter, Robin Eley - you can read the notes I took here.

Cheers ladies (and possibly fellas).
-Dan

More Primate doodlings.

2011-06-25T09:22:00.002+02:00

What do we have here...

Art workout 2011, Week 23 of 52.

Time is of the essence. That's why with every playblast/render/publish I take advantage of it and doodle away. Some of these may or may not have been drawn in long meetings ;-). I've been playing around with the idea of developing a modular set of monkey men, hence all the relentless primate focus! Call it RnD ;-).

-Dan

More naked ladies

2011-06-20T16:28:00.003+02:00

Well hello...

Art workout 2011, week 21 and 22 of 52.

I've been at some more life drawing, so I thought I might post up some recents. I've changed my approach here and there as I gained so much at Kevin Chen's life drawing workshop
I attended back in April. It was absolutely amazing, so wonderful to see a real master of his craft working away and talking about his process as he went. I think the biggest point I came away was about breaking down elements into simpler, more graphically strong parts. For example, working with straight lines and "C" curves and avoiding "S" curves or complicated lines and shapes. This really forces you to think of the form as more of a series of intersecting simpler shapes instead of weirdly unrealistic 2d shapes. I've also picked up his preferred pencil - A HB Conte pencil with a long tip shaved down with a razor. This long tip gives you the ability to quickly turn it on it's side to make soft wide marks which is much nicer for shading than my usual cross hatching affair. Still applying what he taught us and absorbing it, will be interesting to see my future life drawings and how that knowledge melds into my style!

-Dan

Gregarious Gremlins going gaga!

2011-06-13T08:40:00.004+02:00

Greetings!
Art workout 2011, week 20 of 52.

This week I put together this kinda silly picture to open my updated website. So if you are terminally bored, why not visit it? Just click one of the titles at the top of this blog! It's all integrated now ya see!! Woot! My website's still a wip, so if anyone has any comments or suggestions, feel free to shoot me a crit!

This was a really fun little picture to put together and is actually my first drawing created in Photoshop from scratch (usually I start from a scan). I really loved the quick ability to rescale and distort things here and there as I went, and pretty much approached it the same way I'd do so with a lightbox - started with a really scratchy layout to begin with and added layers (pages) and cleaned up and worked upon each layer one by one.

-Dan

Self Caricature

2011-05-29T13:40:00.002+02:00

Greetings!
Art workout 2011, week 19 of 52.

This week I decided to try my hand a caricature. To make sure I don't insult anybody, I thought it best to test out my first one on myself (I'm only mildly embarrassed). It was a lot tougher than I thought, I know it's all about seeing what's distinguishing and exaggerating those elements, but it was a challenge to gauge whether I had a big forehead/eyes wide apart/small eyes etc and I did quite a bit of trial and error trying to put myself together. In the end I feel like I've got something that still resembles me but hopefully I can get some more extremes in my next one!

This was also my first time using the "wet" brushes in photoshop which was quite a nice experience. Not sure if I'd use them for a painting from scratch because they tend to mix a little strangely, but it works nicely behind a drawing and keeping your outline. Lately I've really been enjoying drawing while having a TV series running too, I've been rolling through "Star gate universe" which is some nice ambiance to have while getting mesmerized in some doodling! Anybody else do that? Of course, I mean watching series on DVD as I don't condone watching TV commercials at any time :-P.

Peace out yo!
-Dan

Monkey sketch dump

2011-05-23T14:30:00.006+02:00

Yo!

Art workout 2011, week 18 and 19 of 52.

Monkey's are my favorite thing to doodle lately!. Here's a few strange and interesting fellas + a gal.

Hope your future week is splendid and flea free!
-Dan

Get a life. Drawing.

2011-05-09T14:20:00.006+02:00

Morn'n to ya!

These last two weeks I've been attending some life drawing sessions, nice to get back into some traditional materials and improve the eye + hand :-).

Art workout 2011, Week 16 of 52.

Art workout 2011, week 17 of 52. A pregnant model, jeepers it was tough! Pretty happy how this one turned out considering all that foreshortening.

Thanks for stopping by and keep drawing everyone!!
-Dan

Snapped some birdies!

2011-04-26T09:41:00.002+02:00

Hola!

Art workout 2011 Week 15 of 52.

This week I took bit of a break from all this digital painting took my DSLR out for some bird shots. These are taken in the parklands around Adelaide city along a very enjoyable bicycle ride to the beech(such a great city for cycling!). I love that rim lit lighting you can get once the afternoon sun gets low at the right angle.

-Dan

The grumpy frog king

2011-04-23T16:16:00.002+02:00

Yoyo!Art workout 2011, Week 14 of 52.

-Dan

9 Monkey heads

2011-04-10T15:23:00.003+02:00

*Pats readers on head*. It's a new greeting, just trying it out ;-).

Art workout 2011, week 13 of 52.

Ahh I'm behind a week! All this moving interstate thing has slowed me down! Here's 9 Monkey heads I sketched on the plane on my flight to Adelaide.

Sleep now, ciao!
-Dan

General Alcazar's night of shame

2011-03-28T13:06:00.004+02:00

Atten-shun!Art workout 2011, Week 12 of 52.

"General Alcazar went from relieved to perplexed, hiding deep his terror during the evening. His new allies weakened so quickly to forbidden nightly pleasures. Does the survival of the empire really depend on these unfavorable men?"

Tried a different approach with this one, I really wanted to some more convincing lighting: so I kept all 3 light sources on their own respective layers in photo shop to focus on them seperately. I really liked the flexibility I had later down the line to modify the colour and intensity of the lights independently. Nice! I quite like having different lighting setups and expression on one side of the face to the other, creates some very interesting ambiguity in his mood.

-Dan

Aye, it be a pirate paint over!

2011-03-23T00:14:00.001+01:00

Heya Skallywags!

Art workout 2011 Week 11 of 52.

I've been thinking for quite a while that I'd love to go back and improve the texturing/modelling from an animation test I did back in animation mentor. This week I decided to take a frame from that animation and paint over it, experimenting with some of the changes I might make. Another cool project to go in the "maybe one day!!" pile ;-)

-Dan

Thanks to technology, we've never been so social!

2011-03-16T04:12:00.002+01:00

Greetings bots!
Art workout 2011 week 10 of 52.

-Dan

A hike through the mushroom kingdom

2011-03-06T15:01:00.006+01:00

Hola!
Art workout 2011, week 9 of 52.

Today Brent the chicken footed frog man decided to take a refreshing hike through the mystical land of mushrooms. The fresh air of his pond was getting to him. Some musty air infested with spores is exactly what he needed....

Also, any animators out there looking to soak up some inspiration should definitely stop by the marvelously new Reel Barrow!
-Dan

The Camp fire

2011-02-28T13:29:00.002+01:00

Hey Groovers!Art workout 2011 Week 8 of 52.

Just a fun little painting, I love playing with Silhouettes :-D.
-Dan

shape restriction doodles

2011-02-21T01:07:00.005+01:00

Bonjour!
Art workout 2011, week 7 of 52

This week I decided to play around with bit of an experimental drawing exercise: The idea is that the shape of your next doodle must fit into the contour of the previous doodles. This forces you to use shapes that you wouldn't ordinarily imagine to form characters. Some of them are successful, quite a few are quite pants :-P. Fun approach though! I quite like how it encourages your eye to meander it's focus picking up ideas a long the way.

-Dan

Smoking monkey painting

2011-02-16T11:43:00.004+01:00

Greetings primates!

Art workout 2011, Week 6 of 52.

This week I decided to do a quick speed paint (probably about an hour) of this charmingly grumpy monkey smoking a fag. Technically I approached this painting a bit differently than usual, and kept my tone (a grey-scale layer) separate to my hue layer (just the colours overlayed on top) to make me concentrate on tone more. Was an interesting experiment as it's easy to get distracted by choosing colours, but this forces you to look back at your tonal layer often and identify spots that can be spiced up with more contrast.

-Dan

Motorcycle Knight painting

2011-02-10T01:01:00.007+01:00

Howdy strangers!

Art workout 2011, week 5 of 52.

This week I decided to paint up an older sketch I did of this motorcycle knight fella. Had lot's of fun and this is the first time I've consciously made an effort to apply colour temperature as I'm painting (pretty much just means that the brighter the light, the less saturated the colour).

-Dan

BMW R1150R Rockster Sketch

2011-01-31T03:38:00.007+01:00

Good evening puppies and hellspawn!

Art Workout 2011, Week 4 of 52

This week I decided to challenge my perspective skills a little more and sketched up a drawing of my meaty little motorcycle. It's a BMW R1150R Rockster that spends too much time sitting still with all this rain we're having. Although I may just go out for bit of a cruise today! Woot!

-Dan

Very cool short film maker: Nick Cross

2011-01-26T13:45:00.005+01:00

Hello hairy hippos!

Check out these very cool short animated Flash films by the independent film maker Nick Cross. Almost does the whole thing's by himself! What a champ!

The Pig Farmer from Nick Cross on Vimeo.

Yellow Cake from Nick Cross on Vimeo.

I'm really impressed with people who really get out there and do there own thing. He even does his own funding drives and sells prints etc as he goes along. Check his blog: http://pyatyletka.blogspot.com/

-Dan

Distractable Dean Sketch

2011-01-26T13:27:00.004+01:00

Allo Armadillos!
Art workout 2011, Week 3 of 52

Just a fun little setup. Challenged myself a little bit too much with the perspective, would be fun to paint this one up and tighten it up some day!!

-Dan

Awesome Flash Websites

2011-01-19T03:34:00.003+01:00

Yo ho and a bottle of yum!

I trawled the web looking for some funky flash websites and found some really awesome pages, check these out:

http://www.mauriciostudio.com/

This is a very cool site for the portfolio of Mauricio Guimaraes. The idea of presenting it over a landscape is just fantastic. I love how it encourages you to explore without throwing a big fat menu at you. Such a great moment when you follow the rope up to the air balloon :-D.

http://www.gettheglass.com

It looks like this site was developed to encourage kiddies to drink more milk. They actually made a whole board game out of it, funky eh? Art looks really cool, it's a weird interesting blend of 3D characters and what appears to be a physical miniature sculpture for the set. Nice!

http://ecodazoo.com/

Another website focused on educating the kiddies. This one too has a fantastic open atmosphere which encourages you to explore. Nicely done in 3D too! Great idea of telling mini stories in little pop up books. Love how they let you explore them from all sides too, and check out all those details revealing the papery/cardboard materials they're made from. Very fun art :-D.

I would love to get into some of this online interactive stuff sometime, looks like loads of fun :-D

-Dan

Big chicken with wedding couple digital sketch.

2011-01-17T00:10:00.007+01:00

Heya pork pies!Art Workout 2011, Week 2 of 52

This week I had some house keeping to do as I needed to do a picture for our post-wedding thank you cards. So here it is! Just a bit of fun with photoshop drawn directly with the tablet. Quick and easy fun :-D.

-Dan

Old man Reanimated!

2011-01-11T14:23:00.008+01:00

Not in a freaky back from the dead via green glowing syringe way, more in an old animation I got around to touching up and rendering :-D. Ahh lighting and rendering, what will I do next to hide my animation flaws from you? Check it out by clicking on this funky portrait:

I feel like he's a pretty darn good improvement since I left this piece as my Animation Mentor assignment back in February last year (check the old post here). I can really see where I've progressed in controlling my overacting and natural motion since animating realistic owls on "Legend of the Guardians". I actually had a big elaborate ending planned, but in a desire to get this piece patched up and finished, I decided to end it swiftly and keep it as more of a simple performance piece than an elaborate story. I sketched up an alternative ending that I brainstormed with the very artistic Darren that you can check out here (to be honest, the idea is mostly his :-P ). Would be fun to add this sometime, but there's zombies smashing through my window and if I don't apply some kind of gruesome violence to them, they'll surely consume my brain.

-Dan

Pompous Ms Peach Painting

2011-01-10T10:53:00.007+01:00

Yo green peas!

Art Workout 2011, Week 1 of 52

This week I decided to do a speed painting. This was from an older sketch and I threw the colours on over the top in about an hour and a half. I used photoshop and really enjoyed experimenting with different brushes here and there to try and get a variety of textures over her different features. I've been throwing ideas about making a modular character design so this was bit of an experiment to see how a seperate add-on mouth could possibly work with a female design. Kinda does look transvestite-ish though :-/.

And I'll leave with a quote that keeps coming back in my mind:

"In this world there are two tragedies: One is not getting what one wants, the other is getting it. The last is much worse." -Oscar Wilde

-Dan

Wilkommen to 2011! Art Workouts begin..

2011-01-03T14:25:00.012+01:00

Heya peoples!

Well here we are, another year, more challenges, more change! Wow, how big was 2010? I feel like my animation has really improved, got to work on an awesome film, and greatest of all, I married the woman I love :-D. So what's in store for 2011? Time to ease off my obsessiveness and keep more balanced I believe. Find some mental/physical, animation/real world, introvert/extrovert equilibrium.

So one of my big resolutions is to keep myself producing my own art. So I'm committing myself to creating a finished 2D artwork roughly once a week, in an effort to keep those drawing/creative muscles pumped:

Pah! Who keeps their resolutions you may say? I'm definitely not the only one who is seduced by the mistress of procrastination, weighed down by the heavy chains of excuses and injected by the lazy, lethal sedative that is "conserving energy". That's why I'm asking you to keep me accountable to this resolution, follow my progress and feel free to press this button if I'm not maintaining my artistic upkeep:

Yes it's true, just push this button on your screen and I get a small electric shock in my anus. It's incredibly painful, so please... please... only press it if I'm falling behind with my weekly "Art Workout". So I've got 52 to produce this year. I'll keep it pretty open, I might do a drawing, digital painting, storyboard, drawn animation, or maybe even something creatively written for a blog post... whatever inspires me that week.

Keep inspired,

-Dan

Dialogue Animation - Jack Nicholson from "As good as it gets"

2010-12-07T14:10:00.007+01:00

Heya happy campers!

I got around to adding some finesse, lighting and basic set to this Animation Mentor Assignment I worked on earlier in the year. I used mental Ray's Final Gather for the lighting which gives a pretty good result considering there isn't any textures at all in this scene. I pushed the colours in After effects a little, along with adding a subtle bloom and some film grain, as well as the Depth of field behind him. This piece can be seen in a higher resolution on my updated showreel here.

Still open to crits if anyone has any thoughts!

Animation MEL scripts and tricks for fancypants workflow.

2010-12-02T08:06:00.015+01:00

Heya hens and hatters!!

I thought I might just write up a post sharing all the extra tools I use regularly to help animate and speed up workflow in Maya. These are all either MEL scripts or custom keyboard short-cuts that I absolutely rely on every time I animate. If you'd like help on how to setup custom user shortcuts or use MEL scripts I'm sure it's easy enough to find in the help file or by seeking the prophet that is google :-P. For the custom user shortcuts, I've put the command line in "inverted commas". This post is a bit more techy than usual, so if it's all a bit dull for you, just scroll down the bottom for a cute little frog picture :-P.

I love animating just in the viewport and throwing keys all around the timeline. So here's a few shortcuts I use for animating without having to get into the graph editor or do any time-snatching right clicking:

Converting a selection of key types on the timeline:

Convert to Spline: alt + ctrl + z "timeSliderSetTangent spline;"

Convert to Linear: alt + ctrl + x "timeSliderSetTangent linear;"

Convert to Stepped: alt + ctrl + c "timeSliderSetTangent step;"

Convert to Flat: alt + ctrl + v "timeSliderSetTangent flat;"

So hitting any of these will convert all the keys in a timeline selection to that respective tangent type. I use these often when blocking and it's easy to double click on the timeline (selects all active range) and then hit one of these to convert your whole animation into any tangent type in a fraction of a second. I often convert all my stepped keys to linear when I'd like to add some breakdowns, then swap back to stepped again when I've created all the breakdowns I want. When I'm first converting to spline, it's handy to force extreme keys to flat to stop them overshooting in unpredictable ways so I can get around to fine tuning in the graph editor later on. There's no fancy tech here, just getting faster control for blocking without taking my eyes off the viewport ;-).

delete keys in selection on the timeline: d "timeSliderClearKey;"

Clears whatever keys are selected in the timeline. Faster than right clicking on timeline for it.

Add 1 frame: ctrl + + (plus key) "timeSliderEditKeys addInbetween;"

Remove 1 frame: ctirl + - (minus key) "timeSliderEditKeys removeInbetween;"

Simply pushes all the keys after the current frame forward or backward by one frame. I only ever use these when I'm blocking in a straight ahead type fashion. It's quite satisfying just bumping a hold up and down by a frame per click.

Smart key MEL script.

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/marketplace/scripts-plugins/animation/c/abxsmartkey-2011

It was originally Mike Benson who introduced me to this script, he claimed "you won't know how you ever lived without it!". He be right. When enabled, it means whichever channel you select in the channel box, it will only display that channel's keys in the timeline and will automatically show only that channel's graph in the graph editor. It's great when concentrating on one axis at a time when polishing and adding minor offsets. I find it's best to turn it off when I'm not needing it, so I've given it a quick toggle shortcut key:

Smart key toggle: ctrl + shift + S "abxSmartKey;"

Another script I'm eternally grateful for that Mike introduced me to is this little one which enables you to toggle the NURBS curves display on and off via a short-cut key. This is obviously handy for animating when your rig's controllers are made of curves and you want to swap their visibility back and forth swiftly as you test how a pose looks.

pt_toggleNurbsCurvesDisplay.mel (not sure who wrote this, wasn't me but I thought I'd host it if anyone wanted it)

Toggle Nurbs curves display: ` (that's a tilda) "pt_toggleNurbsCurvesDisplay;"

For polishing, I'm dependent on another great little script which most animators probably already know, Auto Tangent. Find it here: http://www.comet-cartoons.com/melscript.php . I love it for selecting several keys at a time and just dialing in a softness value and it generally gives a pretty satisfying result at best guessing how you want your tangents plotted across your keys. I've got a custom short-cut key for this one too:

Auto tangent: Ctrl + alt + q "autoTangent;"

One last script I can't live without is Hamish Mckenzie's ZooSetmenu script (it's part of Hamish's ZooToolbox script which you can find here http://www.macaronikazoo.com/ ). Once you've created a "Quick Selection Set", this script allows you to select that group very quickly and easily. You just have to select any object that belongs to that set, and hit a defined key and it'll select all objects in that set. Very useful for instantly selecting every controller on a character, or all the fingers, or all the facial controls in one shortcut (as long as you've created the sets first). Make sure you have "select previous/current set" under default behavior after you've installed it (found by holding down the short cut key and left clicking, then select "control window" from the marking menu). There's also some nifty tools in the control window to help manage your sets.

Select all of quick selection set: y "zooSetMenu;"

also: y (release) "zooSetMenuKillUI;"

One last little trick I use is to source a fraction of a frame to create an in-between when you've got fast motion and a key on every frame. Sometimes I wish a pose on Frame 213 was just a tiny bit closer to the one of 214 for example. In the current frame value (just right of the timeline), you can enter partial frames like 213.3, and that'll draw the frame that is %30 between frame 213 and 214. You can now middle mouse click on frame 213 and set a key with the desired controllers selected and you now have that pose on 213.

Well that's all the tools I use regularly, if anyone has any questions about them feel free to ask and I'll do my best to confuse you less :-P. Also, if anyone would like to suggest some anim tools they use often, I'd love to be introduced!

Also, here's a little sketch I put together on a Sunday Arvo a while back:

Over and inside-out.

-Dan

2010 Character Animation Showreel!

2010-11-21T01:36:00.008+01:00

Woot! New stuff! Click here to download my showreel and check out some of the shots I did on "Legend of the guardians".

Also, any Australians out there looking for an opportunity to support our industry, click below (just a quick petition, takes 15 seconds to fill out!):

http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/saveourfilmindustry/

Jade and Violet in the strange climate.

2010-09-22T16:10:00.005+02:00

Here's a painting I just finished based on a rejected video game concept I came up with a few years ago. I actually started this painting about 4 years ago, and I've just been coming back to it every few months and tweaking it. I've been making such a concerted effort to finish things that I begin so I'm glad I finally got it to a finished state!

The idea was pretty much a very Zelda-esque game about 2 Sibling turtles who travel upstream from the lake they live in, to discover the source of poisonous water that is polluting their home. They end up travelling to a great city where aquatic creatures have learnt to adapt above ground and are living a life of technological Luxury at the expense of all life in the water. Jade and Violet must solve puzzles to introduce environmentally friendly ways to replace all the technologies the strange city folk have become dependant on, despite their abnoxious ruler who tries to counter their actions at every turn. Jade, a master farmer, must use his knowledge of botany to cultivate various plants, trees and mosses as tools along the way. His sister, violet, uses her artistic ambiton to earn money along the journey: Busking for loose change and selling photographs of exotic wild fauna.

On the animation front, I've been beavering away at getting some animations finished as I should have a new showreel to share in a few weeks. It's exciting stuff as I'll be able to show some of the shots I did on "Legend of the Guardians"!

Stay tuned!

-Dan

Still getting a bit of time to make an inappropriate picture.

2010-05-31T15:39:00.007+02:00

I call this one "Hobos get all the chicks". It'll hang in the Tate one day.... Possibly.

-Dan

BTW, anyone looking for some great animation tips should check out my Lead's very cool blog: Brendan Body's Blog

AM Class 4, Finito!

2010-03-22T11:18:00.003+01:00

Well I handed in my assignment at the ungodly hour of 2am last night, so now I'll be enjoying a relaxing break, working my nails off to receive money instead of giving it away :-P. The assignment this week excludes all facial anim and lip sync, that is supposed to be done in the first few weeks of Class 5. Check it out:

And here's the trailer of the film I'm working on at Animal Logic(the trailer was made before I started, none of it is mine :-P):

Well that's it for now! I really want to fill my evenings with more study and drawing so I imagine the next few months will fill this Blog with more pictures/rambling and less animation :-).

Peace out and thanks for visiting!

-Dan

Got your acting pants on?

2010-02-28T07:28:00.005+01:00

Here's my blocking for my next AM assignment, a Solo Dialogue piece:

I love animating to Jack Nicholson, this line of dialogue is awesome :-D. It's great to be working on a piece that isn't swapping around with parent space/IK/Fk all over the place like all my previous assignments, polishing this baby should be much easier! (BTW - I don't condone polishing babies.).

Here's the vid ref I took, including the other takes/audio that I passed on:

In other news, I'm back to work for a few months :-(. I've just moved down to Sydney to work for Animal Logic on a short contract! :-D. Should be fun, I really look forward to learning more about doing photo-realistic animation and getting into some bird flight mechanics! Woot! *Runs around room flapping arms*. So if my blog suffers a lapse in posts, you'll know it's because I'm very happily being whipped by Pharaoh guards contributing a few small bricks to a giant Pyramid of a feature film.

And here's a life changing quote:

"If you have fat friends, there are no see saws.... Only catapults."

-Dimitri Martin.

Hugs to all! (and a kick in the balls).

-Dan

There are ants in my underwear.

2010-02-11T01:36:00.006+01:00

No, there aren't any ants in my lingerie, but I like the title ;-)

Well here's how that Pantomime assignment turned out:

I've played around with adding a little bit to the ending, it's in stepped just because it's still kind of an experiment at this stage. Hopefully I'll get time to go back and refine that bit down the track! Starting dialogue this week so really starting to enjoy the blissfully hypnotic action of listening to the same bit of audio over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over... and over.

Just a bunch o sketches from my sketchbook from the last few weeks.

And here's a very cool link one of my classmates sent me, it's an awesome Spanish short film "The lady and the Reaper":

http://212.227.136.88/press/

-Dan

Skull in hand?

2010-01-12T05:50:00.009+01:00

Wahoo I says. Wahooooo! Acting! The animators dream! Woot! I feel like I've been getting back to basics and body mechanics for the last year and now I'm getting back to acting (which is what I was doing when I first started AM, but hopefully a better animator now!). Here's my progress on my first acting assignment, which is a silent piece where we need to simply show a character going from one emotional state to another.

I went for a really simple idea for this one as I wanted to focus more on getting a great performance instead of getting carried away with a grand story (as I always do :-/ ). Even still, I get impulsive urges to make this scenario more complicated but I have to repress it, Grrrrr. It's loads of fun animating my own character and it's something I haven't done in a loonngg time! I've fallen behind with the rigging though and I'm still rigging as I'm animating (see how the facial expressions are symmetrical? That's because I haven't split up the left and right blend targets yet :-P). Wouldn't have rigged it without the help of Advanced Skeleton and Zoo CST though! Wow, I can't believe I started modelling this character about 3.5 years ago, just had him on the backburner and pulled him out now and again to touch him up. Great to see him finally coming to life!

Here's my vid reference exploring a few ideas and some sketches exploring some poses!

And here's a Sea creature, wid ids wittle baby-waby! Oohhhh Cooooot! Last weeks AM sketchbook theme was "Baby sea creature".

In other news: a tree fell in the forest but nobody heard it.

-Dan

Those beady eyes, bless every one!

2009-12-28T04:04:00.007+01:00

Hello people of earth!

I trust everyone is powered up on fruit mince pies and ready to party the rest of the year away? Woo! With it being summer down here in Australia we don't get the quintessential snowy vista outside on Xmas, most houses here don't even have fire places. Nope, for me that typical image of Christmas is a giant bowl of pink prawns with a hundred little beady eyes staring back at me. So I'd like to dedicate this post to all those little crustaceans that lose their life in the name of delicious cold treats! Ho ho ho!

As I'm on a break from AM for a few weeks, I haven't been getting a huge amount of animation done, instead of been focusing on pixels instead of graphs and getting down with mental Ray. You can check out 3 re-rendered shots that form the first half of my new, slightly shinier showreel:

So next week I'll be getting into my pantomime acting assignment! Hopefully I'll have my new Old man rigged by then (You *could* say that I'm procrastinating now :-P). In other news I've really been enjoying scribbling some heads while my lovely Fiance is watching DVDs:

Ahh end of 2009 only a few days away! I've had a really amazing year, it's going to be hard to top! Hope everyone loses loads of unwanted brain cells over new years!
-Dan

Ye Pirate animation be finished yet ye skallywag?

2009-12-14T08:30:00.010+01:00

Aye it is!

Check out the final polished anim here:

I had a splendid time exploring when and where to push the exaggeration with this one. Generally I tried to keep the motion somewhat realistic/believable, except for the extreme motions I tried to push and exaggerate more than is natural for stronger impact. I reckon they could have been pushed further but was fun playing around with that none the less :-D

So I'm officially half way through Animation mentor! (streamers fly in the air and those crackery things also go off which goes into a child's eyeball, but he wasn't very popular anyway). So next I'll be getting my tights on for some acting classes! (Tights aren't compulsory... but I was wearing them anyway). But I've got a few weeks off in the mean time to get some rendering done. I like Rays, they're totally mental.

Oh yes and here's a strange drawing I did:
There's a sketchbook jam thread in the Animation Mentor forums, last week's theme was "Undiscovered".

-Dan

Some ugly faces and a decrepit old man

2009-12-08T08:21:00.007+01:00

While my cannonball piece is simmering away on the back burner I thought I might share some other stuff I've been working on. Here's some sketches I've done recently, I just threw some tones over them for fun:

My favourite is that sad old man on the bottom right. Look how blobby he is! If I was antimating him I'd totally have him sitting on a couch giving a depressed sigh followed by several seconds of wobbly fat settling around his torso. Heh.
I've also been rigging a character that I'm preparing to start animating next year. Early days still - I decided to do a scared pose because the only eyebrow blend target I've got is up :-P. Been setting him up with the generously free advanced skeleton that the gentleman Mike Paech put me onto! Nice work! I'd totally recommend it if anyone's throwing together a rig, haven't started animated with it yet but it seems rock solid! Still have loads of work to do on this old fella but if anyone has any design concerns, I'd love to know :-).

I'll have my final pirate piece to show next week so stay tuned!
-Dan

Blog update: Now with more filth!

2009-11-30T03:25:00.006+01:00

Heya people!

I made a few updates for my blog (notice how this column is a little wider? Ahhhhh space to breath :-P ). This mostly involved dirtying up the BG a bit and integrating my blog into my website! So now if you ever want to find my blog, don't go to the unbearable complex and illogical http://www.kineticdan.blogspot.com, just simply go to: www.kineticdan.com. So:
Remember www.kineticdan.com
Remember www.kineticdan.com
Remember www.kineticdan.com
Remember tibet
Remember www.kineticdan.com

Also, with my lovely Fiance's new job (she's now a vet at Australia Zoo!) We've moved out to a bush cottage near Landsborough, north of Brisbane. Here's a photo from our back porch where I can enjoy a cool breeze and sunset view for my afternoon shift:

Great little office to animate from, and there's definitely no distractions. Nosireee! No neighbours except for the snakes and ants! hehe. Errr. Anyone who know's me should get my gmail-chat/MSN/Skype details as if I don't get enough human contact, I'm bound to end up like this:

Inspirational stuffing! Your head is like a turkey's bottom!

2009-11-26T02:45:00.007+01:00

Well I thought I should break up all these assignment posts by filling a post with a whole bunch of inspirational links and stuff I've come across the past few months:

Here's a link my Mentor (Elliott Roberts) shared of Steven Spielberg talking about how directors should know what they want down to the last frame and how animators are forced to think about that by the nature of our art. Makes me giggle to see a young Steven Spielberg :-P. There's loads of great stuff on his blog and I especially like his examples of poses with good silhouette, but with overlapping elements (you don't always need to open up all the negative space and have all limbs coming out of the body like egyptian haieroglyphics :-P ), that page is here.

Here's two short doco's about Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr Fox (and how he directed the animators by acting out the video reference himself!) and Bill Melendez (creator of Charlie Brown, interesting because he's a big influence on Wes!). I came across both of these on Ethan Hurd's Persistence of Vision blog.

Olivier Ladeuix has also come across some super spiffy concept art pages HERE and HERE.

Ah well, that's enough for now, I've got animating to do!!
-Dan

Yahaarrrrrr..... cough

2009-11-16T00:30:00.008+01:00

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! (I realize how geeky it is to say that, but I read treasure island not too long ago... and... well... if you don't like geekyness then LEAVE! :-P ).

Here's some work in Progress of my big cannonball piece! Everything from 200 onwards is the blocking for my next assignment so you can see how the thrilling crescendo comes to an angry climactic tantrum :-). Woah, that Pegleg keeps it challenging! I've rigged it so that the hips are controlled by the rotation of the pegleg whenever it's on the ground, I never thought I would miss just being able to grab a pair of hips and put move then whereever I like (ahem!!). Really means I have to plan so thoroughly and have no choice but to move everything according to how it would move in reality, jeepers!

I'm really enjoying working with the Norman rig, shame this will probably be the last one I do with him for quite a while :-/. I particularly like the simple bendable arms for creating subtle curvature (still need to abuse this some more) and being able to quickly hide the limbs which really helps for polishing the torso!

Man, I really can't help but push these assignments to mammoth sizes, hopefully it'll keep me much more in control next term when we only do 1.5 assignments per 3 months :-S. I just watched a lecture from Jason Ryan and he's so into his simple flipbook stick figure anims for planning, I miss things being simple, would love to throw some simple ideas around when I get the time and stay out of Maya :-P.
-Dan

A pirate's life for me!

2009-11-02T07:21:00.013+01:00

Heya guys!

I've just finished the blocking for my next AM assignment.! Check it out here:

I tried to layer together some challenging exercises, so here's my pirate with a peg leg-carrying a cannonball across a swaying ship. This is part 1 of 2 so there's a bit of a story which won't really be revealed until I block my next assignment a few weeks away. The set is all proxy at the moment, and eventually there'll be a nicely detailed ship wall with cannons and everything, but just for now you'll have to use your imagination :-P. The grey blob is just temporary until I model a smashed hole through the hull :-S.

Check out the planning here:

There's some pretty interesting stuff there at the end that I found on Youtube, would you believe I found someone who had bookmarked over 50 movies on youtube of people with peg-legs? Bizarro! I actually had to go and record some extra video reference after this batch, took me a while to lock down exactly how I wanted this to play out.

Some planning thumbnails:

I've also been updating my showreel, check out the latest version HERE. I've got some rendering issues to fix up on the first shot but I'd love to hear any feedback!

-Dan

Motorbikeness, now with more frames!

2009-10-26T03:13:00.004+01:00

Yoyo people!

Here's what I've submitted for my polished version of my motorbike assignment! This has been a really fun one and I'd love to keep tweaking it, hopefully I get some time soon! I really enjoyed the challenge of a character physically persevering through something almost encumbering. I learnt loads about timing and I'm starting to become more comfortable with moving things slowly (not everything has to snap!) and how it can be fun to keep some things more subtle which can actually help exaggeration by providing contrast for somewhere else. Those knees were proving to be a pain to lock down so I just went ahead and tweaked the rig to make it easier. The thigh actually stretches automatically so I can keep the knee down automatically, nobody has noticed yet (heh heh). Will be interesting to see how Elliott crits it!

Tune in over the next few weeks, I still have to render this sucker (it also looks much better bigger and at higher res :-P ).
-Dan

Motorbike folly, blocking

2009-10-14T04:50:00.005+02:00

Yo ho!

Here's some progress on my Am assignment! It's been pretty fun just working with a simple weighty scenario and It'll be interesting getting into splining and adding some trembles and stuff. Only 1.5 weeks left to finish all the polishing :-O.

I modeled the bike based off a Triumph Bonneville, classic bike :-D.

-Dan

motorcycle folly, my next AM assignment

2009-10-07T03:52:00.008+02:00

Yo pigs, cows, ticks and the rest!

Here you can find the planning packet for my next AM assignment! So it's plenty of lifting a heavy motorcycle for me for the next 3 weeks! Check out the sketches first and the Video reference should become fairly self explanatory!

-Dan

Back to the action!

2009-10-01T01:51:00.012+02:00

Howdy ho to all punks and greetings to the rest!

Well my six months of indulgent travels is over and I'm settling back in Australia getting ready to return to an unhealthy routine of spending too much time in front of the computer and obsessing over animation :-P. I'm back at Animation mentor now and starting Class 3 "Advanced body mechanics" with my new teacher Elliott Roberts. He has some Bluesky cred under his belt and worked on the recent Iron man too. Now he's working at possibly the coolest games company I can think of, Double fine, creators of Psychonaughts! Not to mention of got some ridiculously kick ass students in my class too, I'll learn heaps this term! Well I've got some animation to show too, so hopefully that'll make up for my lengthy absence!:

The new: Bob et Bobette compilation reel.

Here you can find a compilation of my best sequences from the film "Luke and Lucy: The texas rangers" (In French"Bob et Bobette: Les Diables du Texas" In Flemish: "Suske en Wiske: De Texas Rakkers"). This was a truely awesome film to work on and was my first forray into the animated feature film. It's based off a popular series of Belgian comics by Willy Vandersteen who worked closely with the creator of TinTin. The director, Wim Bien did a fantastic job and I'm amazed how well the film turned out compared to the budgets of US features! Working at Luxanimation was great and living in Luxembourg was a pretty amazing adventure in itself! If I find the time, I'll make an updated version with subtitles :-S

Well I'm off to film some reference for my next assignment, Adios!
-Dan

Eh you, WAKEUP!

2009-09-03T19:33:00.005+02:00

In a desperate attempt to stop my blog falling asleep, I thought I might upload some average , poorly scanned drawings. I've enjoyed having some extra time here and there for drawing and I'll have to upload some more soon!

-Dan

India flavoured pixels...

2009-05-20T00:13:00.005+02:00

Yo yo!

With all this traveling it's been a bit tough finding time for artyness, but I thought I might upload some of the nicer photos I took while in India:Classic Taj. I love how the crowd recede into the perspectiv to the centre of the frame, a nice accident!
It's unusual how often in India you see old world ideas still being used along new technology, these two vehicles are a great example! I love how black and white photography really emphasizes the texture of surfaces
Here's Robyn looking very contemplative in the very spiritual jain temple of Ranakpur near Udaipur. This place was really amazing and to be honest, impressed me more than the classic Taj!

These crazy monkeys were everywhere. I've actually captured him here, split seconds before he made an impressive leap up to a branch hanging above. You can even kinda see him contemplating it here.

If I stayed still long enough, these Chipmunks just ignore me and I managed to get in some nice close ups. Plenty of photons from the strong desert sun helped plenty too!

Well Robyn and I have done all our preparations for our big Europe road trip and we're actually booked to take our car over to France on the very tomorrow. Exciting stuff!

-Dan

Where in the world is Dan?

2009-04-05T17:22:00.003+02:00

India!

Please forgive my lack of posts over the coming weeks as I'm off being amazed/disgusted at the crazy part of the world where I'll be smelling incense one moment, sewage the next, then delicious curry, then something dead. I'll see how I go over the next few weeks but posts might be scarce until I land back in London and have some more time (beginning of May!)

Until then, keep checking ;-)
-Dan

AM Class 2 Progress Reel

2009-03-24T14:00:00.004+01:00

Heya guys!

Click the pic below to check out my shiny and rendered Progress Reel for this finished quarter of animation mentor!

Wow, what a term. It's really been great committing extra time to AM due to have a part-time job, it really makes the difference and gives you the opportunity to really challenge yourself with some bigger pieces. Overall I think the biggest things I've learned in this term is about how much better extra time spent planning will affect the quality of your animation. I've really enjoyed experimenting with blocking methods too and I particularly like the technique of straight ahead blocking your main poses (as long as you have a solid plan) to get more natural transitions. I'm really surprised at how much fun I've had animating such simple characters too, was really fun coming up with some pantomime acting and it was great practice telling a story in nice quick timescales.

-Dan

It's finito!

2009-03-23T03:56:00.006+01:00

Well, almost.

Here's what I've submitted for my third and final assignment for Class2 of AM. Woah, I really bit off more than I could chew with this one (I've gone %50 over the frame range, and it was just supposed to be one character described as "A simple dance move"). It's turned out OK, but I really felt the pressure to get it finished. There's a gag at the end that I never got time to get in and I feel like many of my choices could have benefited from some more exploration.

Ah well, now time to render it! (Still open to crits though).
-Dan

The Marketing commences!

2009-03-16T05:20:00.008+01:00

Heya guys!

Click the pic above to check out the new website from the film I worked on in Luxembourg! I'm not sure if they're definitely doing an English dub, but if they made an English website that's pretty promising! There's no trailer up yet and I can't say I'm directly responsible for anything there, but it's a pretty good sneak peek!

-Dan

Boogie!

2009-03-05T01:24:00.006+01:00

Heya guys!

Here's my blocking for my third assignment for Class2 AM! Still pretty early on, I've got 3 more weeks to finish it off! The brief for this was just to do a simple dance move, so I've probably gone pretty overboard with this one :-P.

-Dan

I'm addicted to close ups!

2009-02-17T14:19:00.005+01:00

Just love how having a small point of focus really draws the eye on a certain feature, I love it! Here's a bunch of recent photos (mostly close-ups!):
These 4 photos were taken on 7 miles beach just near Byron Bay. My only non close-up, the sea was throwing out some pretty crazy shapes as it crashed against the shore. I especially liked this one!
Love the way those little vines wrapped around the branches. Great colours on the leaves too!
There's a little crab hiding in amongst those sand balls, I imagine you might need to zoom in to see it!
That's a blue bottle, apparently has a very nasty sting on those hanging tentacles. My fiancee didn't seem to mind picking them up by their inflated heads though :-O.
These 3 photos were taken at the Mt Glorious national park just near Brisbane. I call this bug rupert. He prefers the name Tom. I repress Tom and still call him Rupert.
This skinky thing let me get surprising close to take this photo. I'm about 3 feet away!
Love the contrast I could get with this nice little new shoot!
This photo was taken at a party. I'm really enjoying photography in darker areas now that we have a camera that goes up to ISO 1600. A friend gave me the very good tip of switching to Black and white too as the extra grain and poor colours from High Iso actually add to the character of the shot.

-Dan

Windipoo!

2009-02-09T09:27:00.006+01:00

Yo!

Here's the blocking for my next AM assignment. The task is to animate the Stu character with no arms, walking through some heavy wind. Check out my first pass stepped blocking here:

I did heaps of planning for this one, including this crazy pre-vis:

First off I was looking for a good rhythm, so I actually recorded myself tapping on the desk - each tap roughly representing a main action (a step or any major movement). I was looking to find an interesting variety of beats throughout the whole piece, with a nice overall building arc. I edited my favourite bits together which gave me a great way of quickly juggling the overall timing of the piece. I then imported this into Maya and blocked out my main motion, trying to really get a feeling that this guy was so close to winning, but fails only just. I ended up deviate a little from this original plan, but I came pretty close, I'm really happy with the result!

Crits and comments welcome!
-Dan

BTW, I updated my website by throwing dirt all over it, check out www.kineticdan.com and tell me what you think!

Who likes dentists?

2009-02-02T04:16:00.007+01:00

Heya people of the Box (I don't discriminate against people who live in Octagons, you are welcome too. Those stinking people who live in Circles, damn you all to hell.)

This is my first AM assignment for Class2! I still need to make changes pending on my last critique, but before long I'll make a nice render and re-upload! I'm pretty happy how this turned out, but I'd really like to improve how he treats the top step. I'd like to make him more cautious about it, A good friend (Daz) suggested that he shouldn't touch the top step at all, and should just leave his foot hovering above. I'm thinking more and more that he's right, anybody have any ideas?

You can check out the video reference I started with here:

I can definitely see by body mechanics improve with this assignment, this is by far the best hip animation I've done to date!

crits welcome!
-Dan

New Camera! Canon EOS 1000D :-D

2009-01-23T07:00:00.004+01:00

Hello people of the box!

As my Fiance and I are planning on doing so much traveling this year, I bullied the financially pragmatic part of her brain into submission and convinced her we should buy an expensive new camera. Here's a couple new experimental shots I've taken:
Ahh, soaking up some Australiana wildlife while we're back here. These beautiful rascals (rainbow Lorikeets) are often prowling around the bird bath at my mum's house.
Yes, my mum's place encourages all sorts of wildlife. This guy terrified me as I was trying to sleep. In the dark I could hear something moving right next to the bed next to me (Slithered through the window!). I think he was just trying to nourish his animation skills (notice Preston Blair's book on the bedside table :-P).
The next day a crazy (but cool) snake guy came to take him away. I was astonished at how mellow this snake was, this must have been the first time this wild animal had ever been handled by a human but he wasn't fazed at all. I felt guilty for having the fella taken out of his habitat :-(. The guy said that bulge in him was either a possum, or possible someone's small cat!
This stick bug was hanging around the path leaving Mitchelton train station. I think the only thing running through his head was "I'm in perfect camoflauge, nobody can see me!". At least he stayed perfectly still for getting his picture taken :-P.
A friendly local Butcher bird. Watching me closely as it's Juvinile youngster had a bath.

Well, I look forward to taking many a nice photo this year! Our rough Itenierie this is starts 1st of April -> India, London, Scottland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Prague, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France (possibly a trek through Luxembourg?), Spain then finally somewhere in Portugal (if our little Fiat Punto makes it that far). Woot!
-Dan

SpongeBob square pants from yesteryear

2009-01-23T03:50:00.007+01:00

Back in 2005 I worked on a Spongebob Squarepants game for Nickelodeon. It was a cheap project, dodgy script, all I have left are rough playblasts. I should be ashamed. I'm not. This is awesome :-D. We were animating at 30 seconds per week with no storyboards, just a maya scene full of characters and a giant audio track. To be completely honest though, this was one of the most inspiring times in my career thus far. I think the thing that made this a really great experience, was when we had our weeklies and all the animators got together to show their work and give feedback and critiques. The anticipation of having our work screened and critiqued really gave me an awesome inspiration to perform. Click the picture above to view!

And here's some Viva Pinata2 animation I worked on. W a really fun project to animate for. Often with game animations, you get really quite restricted by the game design, but a big element of VP's design is that it's fun to watch all your Pinata's going about their business in your garden. This gave us quite a lot of freedom and almost every animation was like a little performance piece. Here you can see a variety of animations like falling asleep, becoming sick, taunting, grooming, fear, cheering, flirting, disappointment and also idle animations when the little guys are standing around bored. These were done about 2 years ago when I first started at Rare.

Click the pic:

-Dan

Some photoEditing!

2009-01-12T04:52:00.003+01:00

I was sorting through some old photos and thought I might have some fun by pushing them a bit in photoshop. Check it out!:
This is a line of Daffodils in Bath, UK. My Fiance is a massive fan of this kind of colour isolation technique, I thought that line of flowers would make a nice centre piece. They nicely compliment the beautiful yellow sandstone bricks that most buildings in Bath are constructed with.
This is up in the Peak District just off the DoveDale walk in the UK. I went for a dark silvery colour scheme. Makes me kind of look adventurous out on a steely horizon like some Solo traveller. The biggest thing I did to achieve this affect was to cut out the chubby tourists also wandering around on the mountain just right of frame :-P.
We were hanging out in Brighton in South East UK when the whole town was overtaken by a Biker Congregation! I couldn't help but take this photo of Antique bikes and give it bit of that "Old Damaged photo" look. Gotta make myself some coffee stain textures to layer over it :-P.

It's been quite fun editing the photos in this way, brings a fun new dimension to photography :-D.
-Dan

Silver is worth more than gold!

2009-01-05T14:59:00.005+01:00

Heya people with hair and lungs!

I across Steven Silver's "artcast" the other day. Very positive dude, he talks alot about keeping creatively fresh and about being motivated and staying inspired. He has plenty of great ideas and I recommend checking them out:

http://www.silvertoons.com/silvertoons/podcast.xml

Every great artist seems to have a zen Aura around them. I wonder what comes first, the Zen or the talent?

I also found this blog that's really great reference on so many levels. The idea is that they just post a long thread from a particular movie, filled with screen grabs of various shots in the movie. It's just great for making some quick observations on composition, colouring, shot choice, camera work, lighting or even coming across an interesting facial expression or pose:

http://moviescreenshots.blogspot.com

Marvellous stuff!
-Dan

Some Stu poses!

2008-12-15T07:27:00.003+01:00

Heya guys!

Long time no post! Geez, with all this moving across the world, working and AM I haven't posted in almost a month :-O. Things are starting to settle down a little and I'm looking forward to having much more time for posting next year :-D.

These 4 Stu poses are representing Strength, Balance, Exhaustion and Concern. These have actually been much more fun than I expected (Despite the kindergarten rig and gargantuan head). It's been interesting learning about getting a balance between physical plausability and design.

-Dan

Storyboarding course, final assignment!

2008-11-05T10:15:00.005+01:00

Heya guys!

Click Here to download the pitch for my final assignment (sorry about the length, it's a 104mb DivX .avi that goes for 15 min :-S).

I really bit off much more than I could chew with this assignment and this is closer to a rough first draft than a final board (some of it very VERY rough :-P ). It was a very late night and a huge challenge when I recorded the pitch, I hope it's comprehensible :-/. My story still needs a lot more breaking before it'll be solid (it's more like jelly now), but I feel there's a story worth telling somewhere in there. I'm pretty keen to hear anyone's comments, please contribute! :-D

This course was awesome, I feel like I could do it over again and I'd still learn loads.
-Dan

Dan is an Ultrageek

2008-11-03T17:17:00.005+01:00

Here is the proof :-P. LuxAnimation took us to EuroDisneyland a few weeks ago, I was totally geeking out at anything Pixar :-P. I'm sure there was a 23 year old philosophy student from paris inside that Remy suit thinking "Jesus, why is this grown man so excited about a big pretend Rat?".

The Nemo ride rocked :-D.

Excitement in Week3!

2008-10-21T14:22:00.004+02:00

This week we had to come up with a pose that conveyed "Excitement". I didn't have much time so I just went for something obvious but strong. Times a bit tight until I get this storyboarding course finished and Bob et Bobette is pretty pressing too... Geesh!

-Dan

First AM assignment!

2008-10-12T18:53:00.006+02:00

This is how my first 3D poses turned out. Ahh, the pleasures of posing with a gargantuan head. The silly guy couldn't look down at the table without poking himself in the eye so I had to improvise :-P.

Storyboarding - Schoolism style.

2008-10-09T18:01:00.007+02:00

Curious as to what this guy is thinking about?

Click HERE to see his story...

This is my Week 6 assignment for Kris Pearn's storyboarding course. The brief was to do an chase scene in about 100 panels, which was motivated by story. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, I took one evening to come up with the story then a flurried weekend of drawing to do all the panels (geesh!). A spent another evening adding grey tones and blur. I'll have to update it with all of Kris's Changes and reupload sometime. If you guys don't know what schoolism is, check out http://www.schoolism.com/ .

Can't believe how much I've learned from this course, Kris is such an excellent teacher. So dedicated too, I don't know how he juggles us pleb students in amongst Supervising story at Sony.

Very open to comments/crits for any further improvement!

Chow!
-Dan

AM week 02 -sketches

2008-10-09T16:44:00.004+02:00

Heya guys!

Here's some sketches from my first real assignment from AM. We were to go to a public place and do some quick sketches, was an excellent experience. It really made me realise how little observing I do now a days. All those times I've spent waiting in bus stops and airports and sat bored. What a waste! I'll have to get a mini sketchbook so I can take up the opportunity everywhere I go :-D.

One of them needs to be posed with a 3D rig. Most people prefer 5 so I'll probably go for that! Although I really feel like doing something with some contrapposto :-/

which animation student are you?

2008-10-09T16:37:00.005+02:00

As I'm returning to so much study lately with Schoolism and Animation mentor I found this article interesting and a good laugh. Actually, everything on her blog is interesting and she's got entertaining sarcasm to boot :-D.

http://karenjlloyd.com/blog/2008/09/16/which-animation-student-are-you/

I think almost everyone at AM seems to be "The Keener". Makes so much difference when everyone has so much respect for the teaching body.

-Dan

My website is up!

2008-10-02T14:37:00.009+02:00

After a few days of convincing the hosters that I wasn't fraudulant, I've finally got my website up! It's a bit rushed and most of the links are broken, so you probably shouldn't bother visiting:

http://www.kineticdan.com/

enjoy!
-Dan

Note! It doesn't seem to work with firefox at the moment! Will be fixed ASAP (probably a couple weeks away :-P ).

Why Doesn't Dan watch TV?

2008-09-26T19:02:00.004+02:00

Answer: "Well over a year."

Sometimes I get strange looks like I'm a bizarre Amish man when I say I don't like watching TV. Don't get me wrong, I love TV shows. I watch plenty of downloaded shows and love every season I have of Scrubs. I mean, I'm in the storytelling business for Pete's sake (I'll have to work out who this "Pete" guy is sometime).

I heard a statistic that in Australia people watch 7 hours of TV per week on average, a modest number. Generally it's seems like about 1/3 of TV is commercials, so that's say 2.5 hours per week. So that's roughly 10 hours per month - Seems like a bit, but it's not that bad. Over a year that would be 120 hours, so let's say 120/24= 6 days a year non-stop. Now if Joe Blo starts watching TV at 5 years old, and watches until he croaks it at 75, that's (70 years *6 day) 420 days in his life that he spends... not just watching TV.... JUST WATCHING COMMERCIALS!

That's "Well over a year".

If I really need know what the most fashionable shade of pink lipstick is, I can do my own research and find out, I don't need to be told 10 times a day.

Rant over.

Viva Pinata 2: Twubble in Pawadise!

2008-09-26T18:46:00.007+02:00

Heyhey!

A game I worked on has been released and it's not a half bad game! I only worked on it for about 3 months and it was actually a lot of fun (once you got past the terminal lack of rigs). I animated the giant Rhino (easy to see because he's so big) and the small bird (difficult to see even if you squint). Check out a review here:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/40308.html

The first post

2008-09-26T18:41:00.004+02:00

Now to warm up the crowd, please give it up for... Phil!:

"Hey folks, thank you, you're very kind it's great to be here.."
Claps die out.
"Ummm."
Dead silence.
"I got nothing."

In Pursuit of Danitopia

Life drawing level up!

End of 2011, what a year!

The old man is a com'n

A Grey Matter concept work

short film character development

A winter Ride!

The Spirit Gala

Awww Koala hug!

The treehouse party!

More Primate doodlings.

More naked ladies

Gregarious Gremlins going gaga!

Self Caricature

Monkey sketch dump

Get a life. Drawing.

Snapped some birdies!

The grumpy frog king

9 Monkey heads

General Alcazar's night of shame

Aye, it be a pirate paint over!

Thanks to technology, we've never been so social!

A hike through the mushroom kingdom

The Camp fire

shape restriction doodles

Smoking monkey painting

Motorcycle Knight painting

BMW R1150R Rockster Sketch

Very cool short film maker: Nick Cross

Distractable Dean Sketch

Awesome Flash Websites

Big chicken with wedding couple digital sketch.

Old man Reanimated!

Pompous Ms Peach Painting

Wilkommen to 2011! Art Workouts begin..

Dialogue Animation - Jack Nicholson from "As good as it gets"

Animation MEL scripts and tricks for fancypants workflow.

2010 Character Animation Showreel!

Jade and Violet in the strange climate.

Still getting a bit of time to make an inappropriate picture.

AM Class 4, Finito!

Got your acting pants on?

There are ants in my underwear.

Skull in hand?

Those beady eyes, bless every one!

Ye Pirate animation be finished yet ye skallywag?

Some ugly faces and a decrepit old man

Blog update: Now with more filth!

Inspirational stuffing! Your head is like a turkey's bottom!

Yahaarrrrrr..... *cough*

A pirate's life for me!

Motorbikeness, now with more frames!

Motorbike folly, blocking

motorcycle folly, my next AM assignment

Back to the action!

Eh you, WAKEUP!

India flavoured pixels...

Where in the world is Dan?

AM Class 2 Progress Reel

It's finito!

The Marketing commences!

Boogie!

I'm addicted to close ups!

Windipoo!

Who likes dentists?

New Camera! Canon EOS 1000D :-D

SpongeBob square pants from yesteryear

Some photoEditing!

Silver is worth more than gold!

Some Stu poses!

Storyboarding course, final assignment!

Dan is an Ultrageek

Excitement in Week3!

First AM assignment!

Storyboarding - Schoolism style.

AM week 02 -sketches

which animation student are you?

My website is up!

Why Doesn't Dan watch TV?

Viva Pinata 2: Twubble in Pawadise!

Yahaarrrrrr..... cough