Full Feature movie: Automatic Idiot

Well, I guess it's about time to post again! xD

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Hmmm... I guess i'll just start off by saying that I have continued to make a ton of 3D animations and mess around with special effects. Because my skill is good enough, I am now working on making a full feature movie, along with 10-15 other guys. The movie is called Automatic Idiot, which you can learn more about here: http://www.freewebs.com/automaticidiot/

I am doing all of the 3D scenes, modeling, and animation for the film, which will definately develope my skills as an animator and graphics artist.

You can also check out the video tests on the movie's youtube channel. :)
http://www.youtube.com/user/AutomaticIdiotFilm

Enjoy!

Matte paintings and animation.

Hey yall.

Well ive been working on alot of things, but here are the most recent...

1: For the last few days I've been working on a promotional video for a forums. Its called the "KKF Oscar Awards" which is like the real oscar awards, except videos are only nominated from people that go to the Knoxskorner Forum. ( www.knoxskorner.com/forum)

2: Ive also been working on some matte paintings/photo manips. They are really pretty awesome, so please check them out. [:
The first one is of a simple view of a city. If you look at the original, and then at one of the changed pics, youll notice I made a construction site on the top right skyscraper which I drew completely by hand.

Original:


Changed1: Please check this one out. It took me a long time to draw out the construction site on top of the skyscraper on the right. :)


Changed2:

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This is a pic of a cave that I messed with...

Original:


Changed:

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This is of a pic that I took up in the mountains. Its of a small waterfall...

Original:


Changed1: (this one is better IMO)


Changed2:


3: I'm also now starting a different stopmotion animation than flight (which I'm still postponing, not ending). Its a spoof on Indiana Jones and should be pretty neat. =D

San Jose and animation.

Alright, so the last week Ive been gone on an awesome trip to the San Jose Mennonite Youth Convention! WOOO! It was pretty awesome AND it got me away from the computer for once. (haha) While I was there I saw the Adobe building and Ebay cite. Pretty cool bonuses.

As for animation, Im starting a NEW music video to the song "500 miles" by The Proclaimers. I love that song and it will be awesome to animate to. I have my first test WIP up on youtube, with the first 600 frames on it.
Here it is -----> CLICKZ HERE FOR ANIMATION

Rate, comment, and subscribe! ^^


Laterz!

Animation and summer.

Well, it has been two months since I posted last, and I have learned a HUGE amount of....stuff.

As you may have seen from my last few posts, I am totally into 3D right now, and yes, I STILL am since 2 months ago. I have learned a great deal, and have a lot of work to show for it. Ill start with some models:





I also just bought a new digital camera, and not just any, a DSLR. :D

It is a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT and it is AWSOME!

Check out a bunch of pics that I took HERE:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9240374@N08/

Heres a sample of two of the pictures:



I have also done some awsome CG animations. Here is the link to my youtube profile, and you can click on the different videos.
http://youtube.com/profile?user=kingku
HINT: The newer the animation the better! I improve with almost every single video. :)

Blue screen, Green screen, CGI, stopmotion.... Updates

yeah, so im not posting as much as I used to, but I just never seem to find the time to post... :P

So anyway, heres an update on stuff that im working on right now.

Any movies?
yes, im making the same movie as I was before, "Flight", but it has been changed a bit, and production is starting to speed up now. It is being animated in stopmotion against a green screen. It will then be put against a CG/2D enviornment. It should be pretty awsome.

Stopmotion stuff?
Well, like I said above, I got some great green screens. Heres a couple of pics of how it looks when it is being filmed (from the camera's POV)
I got 4 greenscreens from michels (an art/craft store), but I only used 2. (One for the background, and 1 for what they stand on) except for the first picture, which only uses a background greenscreen. Btw, each greenscreen was basicly just big poster papers that were green ($1 each).






Anything CG?
Yup, still going at it, and learning the whole time. Its really fun, and ive just finished moddeling and rigging my first character in 3ds Max/Biped!
PICS:

lamppost (anim8or)


Lamp (anim8or)


Ill post pics of the man laterz....

Ive also done some music since the last post, so heres a song or two. :)
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=687828
(click hi-fi on the songs for best quality)

More 3D animation. HUGE UPDATE!

Hey! Ive really been going crazy with the CG lately, and actually bought 3DS Max! It is the best 3d program I have EVER used and it is insanely awsome!

Here is a WIP of my new animation. It is pretty good so far.


And some recent models:



This just a model I made right before I quit anim8or.


And the finished (well not quite) version of the wall thing I started to make.


just the gallows:

More 3D stuff + more

Sorry for not updating for awhile, Ive just not had the time to write...

So I dont think Ive said before that I go through "phases".

So one day I will be "obsessed" with a topic, and a few days later I will find another one to be all excited about.

For example, one day I will be crazy about stopmotion, then:

CGI (anim8or)
Music (FL Studio)
2D animation
drawing
web design
coding

and all kinds of other things, but they always end up with stopmotion. Usually it goes: (for example)

2D animation, stopmotion, drawing, stopmotion, CGI, stopmotion, ect.

But for some reason, that hasnt happened in a whole month! Its all been CGI with anim8or. I have always know that I would end up with doing 3D stuff, just because, what kind of jpbs nowdays can you get doing stopmotion...and in 20 years? Although it would be great, its just not realistic.

So anyway i've been modeling my butt off for the last...many days, and here is what I have come up with.

Its been awhile, but I have updates

Sorry for not posting in a while, but I have some updates for y'all. [:

First is that Im still making the movie, dont worry...here are some pics on how the old man is coming along. :)

Kinda blurry..sorry

heres the armature:

Heres the cloak-made out of cloth with wires on the inside, to make it animatable:

And heres the puppet so far:

This is the first puppet I have ever made using cloth.

And I have been practising with the 3D program, "Anim8or" (www.anim8or.com)

And here are some pics of models I have made.

And heres a short test I made with a model of a man that I made.

Its my first person model, and he has been skinned, and animated succesfully, and I am really happy with it. :D

Layouts for new characters

Well, I got some stuff done on the movie, such as making the BASIC storyboards for it. They were really just made to get the ideas out of my head and onto paper, so I will be making better quality ones later.

Here are 2 pics of layouts of characters. The first one is the main character, and the second is a minor character, whos name for now is hunched man :P .

Ill update more later.

Bad news, Good news, and "Flight"

Well, a couple days ago, I decided to dump the movie for now.

DID HE JUST SAY HE WAS DUMPING THE MOVIE?

Yes. Ive been thinking for awhile now, and I just havent really been getting into it. Ive never really like the plot very much, and some of the new set would be too hard for me to build. Right now I just need to practice animating, and get better at it. Ive already thought up most of a new short, this one will be around 3 min. long, and it is MUCH more in my range. And most of all, I LIKE it. Its not just some dumb story I thought up without thinking. After reading the book, "Developing Digital Short Films", I have learned so much about making better movies. Now, I think I will be able to really make a movie that I want to make.

So this is good/bad. Of course its too bad that I had to dump the movie, but Im really looking foward to this one being better, with more subtext, ect.

If you dont know what subtext is, look it up, in my opinion, no movie can be good without subtext. Ill update more on the movie in a few days.

(Btw, for now, ill be calling the new short "flight". Once I explain the plot a bit, you'll understand.)

^^^^Its partly about this. ^^^^

"Stopmotion: Craft Skills for Model Animation" Book review!

Wuts ^ ! (terrible arrow, I know...)

Well, after waiting for a week, I have finally gotten my copy of
"Stopmotion: Craft Skills for Model Animation"
*Click link for amazon page

So, heres my short review.
Overview:

I think that this book has a huge amount of information in it, that will definately help anyone in the range of starting out, to advanced animators. (though for the advanced animators, it would probably be more of a reference book more than a learning book)

The book covers:
-a brief history of stopmotion
-getting set up with equipment, ect.
-pre-production info-storyboarding, x-sheets, ect.
-information about lighting, equipment, clays, latex, and tons of other things.
-great details on the animation itself
-sound-lip syncing, voice overs, ect.
-post production

Theres alot of other stuff in the book, but ill leave it up to you to find it!

Pictures:
Almost all the pictures in the book are fully colored, and ver clear. They help alot in getting the ideas across.

Highlights:
The part I found the most helpful to ME, is the whole process on making a good armature, and creating molds. I have researched a TON of stopmotion stuff, and been to pretty much every stopmo site out there, but for some reason, I could never really find a CLEAR and EASY to follow tutorial on how to do these two things. There is alot of information about how to make armatures out there, but not with the same quality as the ones in this book.

All in all, I would really recommend this book to everyone, because even if you knew everything in the book, it would still provide all the specifics about everything if you ever needed it, all in one book.

If the $25.00 price tag seems high for you, I would still recommend buying it, or at least finding a used one for cheaper.

Thats all for now, but if I think of anything, ill add it to this post, or posts above. :)

BIG (stopmo) updates!

I went to michaels a few days ago and bought some stuff.

One was some special 1/16" armature wire. Unfortunately they only had one, so that was all I could get, but I can tell you right now, it is some top-quality stuff. As you might know, when you bend a wire, it will spring back a bit, and the more wires you twist together, the springier it gets. Since this is definately a really bad thing in armatures, I wanted to find a way to get around it. Well, I did! This wire has almost NO springback, even with clay covering it. The other good thing, is because of its size, I only need to twist to wires together for each limb, which cuts down on how much wire I need, and of course, it makes it less springier.

I already made an armature (and part of a puppet) out of the wire, but ill post more about that (with loots of pics) tomorrow or the next day. :)

The other thing I got was a pound of skin-colored clay, which I was running out of. (BTW, the brand of clay was Van Aken, for those of you who need some high-quality stopmotion clay).

Im also planning on doing a bit more animation on this set, before taking it down, but ill get to that later also.

Check ziit out!

haha. I made this on flash-gear.com

that site has a bunch of really cool flash things, such as what I posted above. I just found the picture on the internet and added the eyes!

(hopefully the picture doesnt affend anyone, its ment to be funny...)

Switched over!

Well, Ive decided to switch over from the other blog, because once the movie, "The Insane Adventure of Robert and Dan" was over, I wouldnt be able to really post anymore! So now intead of it only being about the movie, it will be able to be about anything else that has been happening, animation wise. So it wont just be me rambling on about anything in my life, it has to be about animation. Also, I have decided to add more pics to the blog! Ive found that people(at least I) like to see pictures rather than just read words on a page.

Hopefully ill be able to post more often like I used to, like around 2-3 times a week.