New Walking In Circles Episodes

So I have up until now been posting each new episode of Walking In circles as it Debuts here on my main blog. To keep things nice and organized what I am doing now is posting them to the new Walking In Circles page on my blog, which can be found in the pages column to the right. I will be posting all of the newest production art, episodes, Krag Cams and any other juicy tidbits on there for you to check out! Be sure and check back for new content every Tuesday!

Black StormTrooper update!

http://thatsmoo-say.blogspot.com/2011/07/coming-soon-black-storm-trooper-iii.html

Check out this minor photo update hot off of the set of the next episode of Black StormTrooper, coming soon (we hope).

As you can see my good friends Donald Faison and Musa Brooker, as well as my super talented wife Yaoyao are having a ball getting this latest episode on the way, its going to be something else!

Sorry about the lack of actual animation being posted on here recently, I have just been busy on a bunch of as-of-yet-unfinished projects. I promise I will get back to my personal stuff as soon as I can, I still have Lego Lost episodes to make, Cartoon life lessons I want to do, as well as about 300,000 other wacky ideas floating around my brain. All things come to those who bare with me.

Also, as an added bonus for continuing to check out my blog, here is a little sneaky image that will be appearing in the next episode and causing some trouble!

Walking In Circles Episode 1: Party Up

watch it, laugh, sound off in the comments!

Walking In Circles Premiere

Last night I was most fortunate to attend the premiere of the soon-to-be-hit show Walking In Circles. It was quite the spectacle having all of those people in one room knowing just how much time and effort went into the producing of this show, not to mention the financing. It was equally wonderful to see the clearly deserving cast and crew get to take a moment in the spot light, sit back and see what they had made and how well the audience responded to it. I am really proud to be a part of the show and I will update on here when episode 1 is released and for the other episodes as they come out. Be sure and Like the show on Facebook and follow along on Twitter to show your support!

whew, busy couple of months!

http://www.whosay.com/donaldfaison/photos/37268

check out this special preview hot off the set of Black Stormtrooper 3! It is going to be the citizen caine of lego stop motion films.

These last few months have also been made busy by the fact that I have been working very hard on some top-secret CG happenings for the epic web series Walking In Circles, which is set to make it's debut sometime in July, stay tuned for more announcements on that and check out the teaser bellow!
*update* full trailer now available!

BlackStormTrooper

So recently I have not been posting too much, and the reasons are two-fold. Number 1, I have been sending my demo reel out and focusing on gaining a toe hold in the industry, and number 2, I've been working with Donald Faison (IMDB) on his awesome BlackStormTrooper series (!), and that has been keeping me pretty busy. Episode 3 is shaping up to be awesome though! Black Stormtrooper and Jack Move are going to take their first steps into a much larger world! If you haven't yet checked Black StormTrooper out, go to Shundigga's channel on YouTube and check it out! It's awesome for any Star Wars fans, Lego fans, or fans of general awesomeness!

LEGO Lost Trailer

Hey readers, I know that some of you out there were probably as big of a fan of the best (in my humble opinion) TV show of all time, ABC's LOST. Well since the show ended there has definitely been a hole in my TV watching soul that has not been filled yet. As a hobby I started to recreate some of my favorite characters and props from the show out of LEGO using the art of CGI. The aim was to eventually create either a short film, game trailer or movie trailer paying homage to the most finely crafted TV show in history. I got as far as creating a whole bunch of assets, a lot of the major characters like Jack, Kate, Sawer etc etc (none of which are rigged yet) and had to stop due to pressing deadlines and such in other areas of my life, so here is the work so far. I want to call this project temporarily shelved because I really do have a huge desire to finish it, but that will have to wait until some other commitments get taken care of first.
 *Update* Teaser trailer now available. Comments and feedback please!!!

Dharma Van, in LEGO!

Dharma Van wireframe

The plane that started it all; Oceanic 815

The ill-fated raft

"Were gonna have to take the boy"

Raft details. Those are oranges in the crates.

Walking In Circles, Amazing new web series about dragons and stuff!

Hey all, so you may remember a while back I posted something about working on a dragon character for an upcoming web series - Walking In Circles. Well shooting is well under way and going swimmingly as I understand it, and now promotional material is beginning to surface, so check it out on Facebook, Twitter et al, and leave me a comment to let me know what you think!

New Animation combining 2D and 3D (In the most minor way possible)

So this latest addition to my demo reel is a little lip sync test of Charlie from FX's It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia which uses my Stu(like) rig in 3D with Maya, and a 2D animated mouth done in Digicel Flipbook.

Comments welcome! Please rate and subscribe to my Youtube channel as well for more! and if you want to show love go ahead and "like" me on your facebook page!

2D Animated Shot - Cartoon life lesson

This shot is a little idea I've had milling about in my head for quite a while, in which a hapless little 2D cartoon fellow shows us the wisdom that cartoons have imparted on us. Mostly through pain. Lessons like, if you run over the edge of a cliff, don't look down or you will plummet, or tiny umbrellas do nothing for you against giant falling boulders, or just don't ever buy acme products. So this one is the first of that series, demonstrating the lesson; if you are holding onto a heavy object which is imminently going to pull you down a hole, let go of it.

This shot like all my 2D work was achieved with Digicel Flipbook.

New Demo Reel, and also it's my Birthday!

Hey avid readers, so here is the latest update to my demo reel, I have a couple of new things in there, including some 2D animated shots achieved with Digicel Flipbook (among which is the previously teased pelican shot) and a small snippet (actually not even, its a test shot) for my Evolve CG Heroes and Legends Contest entry. It has certainly been a busy couple of months since my wife and I started out reteaching ourselves animation, and it has been a lot (and I really mean a lot) of hours and dedication, but I am very glad I put those hours in, and I want to thank my supremely talented and wonderfully supportive wife Yaoyao for not ever letting me slip. Thanks babe - It will all be worth it soon!

All 3D elements achieved using Maya 2010, Thanks to Josh Burton for creating the Morpheus Rig!

Upcoming 2D Animated Shot

So I am currently working on a 2D animated shot for my show reel using Digicel Flipbook. This is a little teaser image of the shot which happens to involves a pelican. I would love to hear feedback in the comments section!

Turbosquid.com - Over 1000 Dollars Profit!

Hey avid readers, just a quick note before I was heading to bed, I checked my Turbosquid.com sales, and saw that I had just passed the landmark of $1000 earned. People often ask me if it's worth posting their models on Turbosquid, if you can really turn a profit or not, well I have been a member since 2009, but I have only posted up about 40 products, most of which are in the $20 - $50 range, and I have amassed a thousand dollars from those sales alone. If you wanted to make a living off of the site, I would say that you need to be posting a new product daily for about 6 months (keeping the quality and usability high obviously, nobody wants a model of "your house from when you were 5" that has no textures and is 5 million polys). When I was posting a new City themed product every couple of days for a month, my average monthly profits rose from about $40 to about $100, so do the math.

that is all avid readers, I hope that this has given anyone with doubts about Turbosquid a bit of insight. In my humble opinion it is WELL worth doing, especially if you have models that you have already made, it cant hurt to throw them up there. Sure they take a large chunk (40 - 50% depending on your seller level) but in the end, its pure profit off of something you have already done, so why not.

Anyone with experience using Turbosquid, please feel free to register your opinions and experiences here in the comment section, I would love to hear about it!

YouAnimator.com Daily Featured Animator!

Everyone who reads this blog knows that I am a huge fan of the work done over at YouAnimator.com in creating a community for us character animators to gather, share thoughts and feedback and learn from one another. I was honored to find out I had been featured as one of six top animators of the day, thanks a bunch guys, and please continue to grow and build the site, it is a guiding light for a lot of us animators who were stumbling around in darkness before!

New Lip Sync Animation! Featuring Sir Ian Mckellen!

My latest animated piece, a short lip sync to the voice of Sir Ian Mckellen, in a scene from Extras opposite Ricky Gervaise. Feedback much appreciated! (made in Maya 2010 using the Morpheus Rig by Josh Burton)

Lip Sync Animation

Here is a short clip featuring the voice of Matt Damon impersonating Matthew McConaughey while on Letterman back in 2006. The point of this exercise was to practice not only dialogue and acting but also bold posing. This was my first time using the Morpheus rig, and I have to say, I am more than impressed. I think Morpheus might be my favorite rig ever actually. The morphing features are great and very flexible, and the rig is actually exceedingly usable too. As ever, feedback on my animation is more than welcomed.

Pixar's Luxo Jr - New Animation (by me)

So here is some new material, I have wanted to animate Luxo Jr - the lovable little lamp that is the face of Pixar Animation Studios - for as long as I can remember, so I finally just sat down, modeled and rigged the character (in Maya 2010), and I have animated him in this little short!

Evolve CG Challenge: A quick demo of my character rigs

Hey all, so the Evolve Challenge is really heating up, with loads of great talent pouring in with their contributions. My own entry was going to be in the concept art category, but I realized I wasn't fooling anyone, I am no concept artist, I am an animator! so I rigged up some quick dummy style characters and set about animating the story I had already laid out for my now abandoned illustration. This is my first piece of progress, a little demo of the character rigs in action. I forgot to demo all the features, like the foot roll attributes on the centaur, and the paint weights was awful on the shoulders, but I have now fixed that. Anyway, enjoy! (PS: I am in no way a rigger so be kind)

PARKOUR!

 So this is the second animation from my Body Mechanics Class, PARKOUR! (ever since that episode of 'The Office' I am compelled to add extra emphasis to the word "PARKOUR" - See the CLIP)

So yeah, here is the animation, it's still a teeny bit rough, but I'm pretty happy with it overall - as always, any comments, feedback etc are very welcome!

YouAnimator: Show Your Animations - Sweatbox

I have just begun catching up with uploading all of my various little slivers of animation all over the internet, and I have found that above all others, the best way to get useful, immediate, usable feedback on your work has to be Sweatbox. It is a section of YouAnimator.com devoted to work in progress pieces. I uploaded a play blast I was working on and within 5 minutes got a very long, detailed comment of ways to approach the shot and add flare to it. If you guys don't have anyone to critique your work, I would most definitely say throw it up on Sweatbox and see what happens -  and don't worry it's all very friendly!

Check it out here!

Evolve CG Contest: First doodle worth posting (actually that's debatable)

Well I am tired, been working tirelessly on the "Class 2: Body Mechanics" portion of my demo reel development, I haven't been able to devote as much time to this challange as I would like to, but here is a doodle I was doing the other day. It begins exploring where I am taking my Faun character (David to the Centaur's Goliath).

Oscars: Toy Story 3 nominated for best picture!

...As well as Best animated feature, achievement in music written for motion pictures (original song), best motion picture of the year, achievement in sound editing and adapted screenplay.

The Pixar team certainly deserve it, Toy Story 3 ranks way in the upper echelons of my Pixar favorites list. It sits proudly in the pantheon of greatness also occupied by Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Wall-E. This movie was an achievement visually, on a story level, and just as an exercise in great sequel making.

I think it's high time the stigma surrounding animation as legitimate cinema was broken down, and Toy Story 3 should (though probably won't) be the one to do it.

The competition is stiff this year, Toy Story 3 would have to beat out; 

- “Black Swan”
- “Inception”
- “The Kids Are alright”
- “127 Hours”
- “The Social Network”
- “Winter’s Bone”

- “The King’s Speech”

- “The Fighter”

Can they do it? Sound off in the comments section!

*update* Ok so as suspected The King's Speech took home best picture, but Toy Story 3 did pick up best animated feature, which again, was not much of a surprise.

Animation Mentor Animals and Creatures: Master Class

Animation Mentor, already the leader in online character animation education are upping their game once again, with the new Animals and Creatures Master classes. In this course you get to work with 3 new rigs, designed by geniuses from ILM, Tippet and Sony Imageworks. The Cat, The Dragon and The Ogre. The course also provides matchmoved scenes so that you can have your creatures interact with live action characters without needing to worry about tracking and building up geometry.

This seems like a great idea but I wish it was something that was integrated into the program rather than creating a whole offshoot. Now when I finally get the money in my hands I have to decide which type of education I want, acting with bipedal characters, or creature feature. But that means trying to predict which kinds of jobs will be available in the industry a year and a half from now, which is hard to say. I suppose the focus is good in that it will give students a really concentrated learning experience and allow people who don't want to do dialogue and weight lifting etc to just do what they want.

For all the info head over to the overview page here.

I'm a little on the fence about it, what do you think? sound off in the comments section!

The Carlton Dance ftw!

Second bit of animation for the body mechanics portion of my Animation Foundations Course, The Carlton Dance. Does what it says on the tin.



I am still working on it, I'm going to do some other stuff and come back to it with fresh eyes, but for right now, marvel at Carlton, doing what he does best. being an idiot.

Evolve CG 2011 Challenge: Heroes and Legends!

So the excellent Evolve CG conference is doing another CG challenge this year, and the theme is Heroes and Legends. So you can expect a lot of God of War style entries, much like the call for submission image you see above.

This year I finally have some spare time on my hands and will be tossing my name in the hat. I decided to take the story of David and Goliath, and put an ancient Greek spin on it.

In my story there is a tribe of fauns (half goat half human) who have provided the weapon making services to the King of Crete for centuries, owing to their unique talents as blacksmiths, crafting the finest weapons of the age.

When the Centaurs from the neighboring valley become jealous of the Faun's wealth and success they decide they want to muscle in on their action, so they send the biggest, meanest behemoth of their clan to wipe out the fauns and destroy their village.

The faun people are alerted to the danger in time and quickly select a champion from their village to face the intruder. Though diminutive in stature the little creature has speed, cunning and the superlative weapons of his people on his side.

My piece will focus on the two facing off right as their showdown is about to begin, and will depict both warriors ready for battle, and draw on their different emotions for dramatic posing.

Head over to http://evolve3d.net/forums/ to check out the competition and enter your own take on this epic subject! I will be posting my progress on here as well as in the forum, so keep an eye out!

Maya 2010 Student Edition - Full licence!

Thanks to my brilliant and boundlessly talented (not to mention fabulously beautiful) wife Yaoyao - her blog - I have been dragged from the stone age that was 2009, into the somewhat more iron aged 2010.

She won a competition that granted us a lifetime licence to use Autodesk Education Suite 2010! This amazing package includes Maya, 3D Studio Max, SoftImage, Mudbox, MotionBuilder and Sketchbook Pro. In short, thanks to my wife's incredible artistic skills we are set for life software-wise.

So now all my animations will be done using Maya 2010, and I am comfortable because it is still one year behind (I always hated using the most up-to-date thing)

Run Stu! Ruuuun! (Class 2 begins)

The first excercise of class 2, a character run.

Semester 1 is done, bring on the next one...

So here it is, the progress reel for "semester 1" of my self-taught animation course "Animation MEntor" if you will.

Maya 2009, Photoshop and After Effects CS3 were used to make this, as usual.

Body Language Character Poses (Featuring Stu!)

So I'm having fun posing up the new Animation Mentor(style) Stu(style) rig I made. The point of this assignment is body language, and if anyone wants to hazard a guess as to what emotion each pose represents, you know where the comments section is.

Character modeled in Maya 2009, rendered with Mental Ray, and composed with Photoshop Cs3

New Look for 2011!

I was looking at my blog the other day, and thinking that since I am streamlining my efforts these days into becoming a successful animator and not so much just messing about with random little projects, that my blog should outwardly reflect that single-minded determination. So I did a little revamp. That old banner was stinking up the place. Enjoy the new site!

Oh and just a quick note - all of the rigs that I have been using of late bare only a superficial aesthetic resemblance to the ones used by Animation Mentor students, but I can assure you, I made them all from scratch, and with only the betterment of my animation skills in mind, I intend no copyright infringement or any such thing.