Review: How To Train Your Dragon

Awesome. Just awesome. Dreamworks has definitely taken a big step forward with How To Train Your Dragon. Everything on it was way beyond anything I've ever seen come out of Dreamworks. All the technical stuff seems a lot further along, in terms of hair, skin, textures, and effects.

The animation was amazing. Toothless (the dragon) was especially really beautifully done. I find it hard to discuss that without going too nerdy on you so I'll just leave it at that.

But most importantly, the humor works, and it had a great story. The characters were very well executed and you really felt for everyone. I couldn't have hoped for a better movie. Watch out Pixar.

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Walkcycle

Well before Lost, I completed my 2nd go at a basical walk cycle. It's missing some in-betweens but I just wanted to get those steps down first before I tried anything else. It's in the gallery. But here it is anyways. [caption id="attachment_56" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Walkcycle #2"] [/caption] Based off the guide from the Animator's Survival Kit.

Sketchdump - 10.22.11

Had a pretty productive day today artwise. I decided to go out to the city today with my mom and sister for the weekend farmer's market at the Ferry Building. Originally I planned to just take BART back home after that while they went to the Cal football game at ATT Park, but since it was such a nice day and I had my sketchbook I decided to stick around and wander for a few hours while they were at the game. We grabbed some sandwiches at the farmer's market and went up to the 2nd floor of a pier were there were some free benches for us to sit on while we ate. I took the opportunity to do a couple of sketches. The first one was of the Ferry Building Clocktower from where we were sitting. I hadn't really gotten my hand warmed up yet so the top of the tower got kind of jacked up in perspective. Tried to fix it, but its still messed up. This one was a quick sketch of the terminal building from where we were sitting as well. I don't usually draw buildings or architectur...

Class 2 Shot 1

Hey what's up minimal readership? I'm finally done with my first animation for my second class. But first, I'll rewind a bit. My new mentor for this class is Martin Hopkins. He is trained in classical animation from Sheridan College and has transitioned into 3D, with his entire professional career pretty much at Dreamworks Animation for the last 13 or so years. He is currently working on Shrek 4, which he claims isn't as bad as you would think and is better than Shrek 3; which I haven't seen. So far he has been pretty great. He sometimes gets out of his chair and acts out something on the camera for you to see instead of just relying on drawing over our frames. His inputs have gotten me from my initial blocking pass up to the polish of the final (although he hasn't seen that yet). Anyways, here is my progress from blocking to final: You might also find this pretty interesting. After we set some keyframes, this is what we use to refine and polish our animations. ...

Frame by Frame

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