Tentacle Monster

Here is a little 2 second sneak peak at something I am working on. Enjoy.

Always Learning Something New.

I will tell you what, once you become a CG animator it no longer about worrying about make sure you keep up on your animating skills. Nope, its all about keeping up with the new software version that they came out with that year so you can do your bloody job. I mean you'll still be practicing your skills, but your focus will be on learning all the new stuff more so than on the animation as a whole. Traditional Animators in the past had it easy. They didn't have to worry about needing to learn how to use a new pencil every year, they just picked the pencil up and started to draw.

Anyway, I have to now learn to use several different CG animation software. Luckily, they say that if you can learn Maya you can use any of the other software. It comes down to learning all the buttons and going throw the motions- which takes time. Time in which I wish i could use doing something else, like paint.

Dialog

I was going to do the March 11second club contest, but March was a really busy time for me and as such i put aside 5 days at the end of the month to animate the whole 11 seconds. Unfortunately, I should have given myself more time and only got four seconds done. So i cleaned these 4 seconds up and here they are.

Robber Bridegroom Part 3

Here we have the Beat Boards for the Robber Bridegroom story.

THE YOUNG GIRL WAVES TO HER FATHER AS SHE HEADS OFF TO COLLECT BERRIES IN A

NEARBY MEADOW.

A RICHLY DRESSED YOUNG MAN SHOWS UP TO THE MILLER’S HOME IN ORDER TO ASK

FOR HIS DAUGHTER’S HAND IN MARRIAGE.

WHILE THE STRANGER IS TALKING TO THE MILLER, A SHADOW PASSES OVER THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER AND CAUSES HER TO FEEL A CHILL DEEP IN HER HEART.

WHEN THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER RETURNS, SHE IS SURPRISED TO SEE A STRANGER IN

HER HOME AND IN HER SHOCK DROPS THE BASKET OF BERRIES. THE CHILL DEEPENS

IN HER HEART.

THE MILLER HAS AGREED TO THE MARRIAGE PROPOSAL. THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER

TAKES THIS NEWS WITH A SAD FACE, THE GROOM ASSUMES IT IS BECAUSE OF HER

NOT KNOWING HIM AND INVITES HER TO VISIT HIS HOME FOR SUNDAY DINNER.

THE BRIDE DECIDES TO TAKE HER GROOM UP ON HIS OFFER AND FOLLOWS THE PATH

HE TOLD HER TO HIS HOME. THE PATH SOON BECOMES UN MAINTAINED AND THE TREES SEEM TO TRY TO HOLD HER BACK, BUT SHE MOVES ONWARD.

 THE BRIDE COMES OUT OF THE FOREST AND FINDS AN OLD NEGLECTED DARK HOUSE.

INSIDE SHE FINDS THE ONLY OCCUPANT, AN OLD WOMAN. THE OLD WOMAN TELLS HER THAT EVIL MEN LIVE IN THIS HOUSE. THAT THESE EVIL MEN MARRY WOMAN OF THE VILLAGES AND THEN BRING BACK HERE TO EAT THEM.

 THE OLD WOMAN EXPLAINS THAT THE BRIDE SHOULD HIDE, BECAUSE THE EVIL MEN WILL SOON RETURN.

WHEN THE MEN RETURN, WE SEE THE GROOM AND HIS MEN THROW A DEAD WOMAN ON A NEARBY TABLE AND BEGIN TO HACK THE BODY INTO SMALLER PARTS.

DURING THIS PROCESS, THE WOMANS FINGER GETS LOPED OFF AND FLIES INTO

WHERE SHE IS HIDDEN INTO THE BRIDE’S LAP. SHE HOLDS BACK A CRY IN FEAR OF BEING FOUND.

WHEN THE BRIDE RETURNS HOME AFTER SNEAKING AWAY FROM THE HOUSE SHE

TELLS HER FATHER WHAT SHE SAW AND HEARD. HE IS IN DISMAY AT THE FATE HE

HAD ALMOST COSIGNED HIS DAUGHTER TO.

THE MILLER ALLOWS THE WEDDING PROCEED AS PLANNED BY THE GROOM,

BUT BEFORE THE CEREMONY BEGINS THE GROOM IS ARRESTED. THE BRIDE TELLS

EVERYONE IN THE VILLAGE ABOUT THE HORRORS THAT SHE HAD WITNESSED IN

THE ABANDONED HOUSE. THE GROOM AND HIS MEN ARE ROUNDED

UP AND SOON HANGED.

The End

Robber Bridegroom Part 2

As i had stated previously, I was working on the beat boards to the Brother's Grimm Fairy Tale "The Robber Bridegroom". Here are the character designs that I worked up for this story. There are four characters in this story that are important, The Bride: the miller's Daughter, the Miller, The Robber Bridegroom, and The Old Woman.

The Bride

The Miller

The Robber Bridegroom

The Old Woman

Next time I'll post the beatboards for the story.

The Robber Bridegroom

 One of my current projects that I am getting together for my Graduation at the end of March is The story of "The Robber Bridegroom", which is a Grimm Brothers fairy tale. I am conceptualizing out a few of the key Layouts, as well as the four important characters within the story: The Miller, The Miller's Daughter, The Robber Bridegroom, and The old Woman that lives in the house that the Robber Bridegroom and his men use as a home base. I figure she is his elderly Mother who they use as a house slave.
  My hope is to have all of these conceptual drawing done, as well as, the Beat Boards for the story. For those of you who don't know, Beat Boards are Storyboards that cover the main idea of each scene/sequence.

Robber Bridegroom Synopsis:

A miller wished to marry his daughter off, and so when a rich suitor appeared, he betrothed her to him. One day the suitor complained that the daughter never visited him, told her that he lived in the forest, and overrode her reluctance by telling her he would leave a trail of ashes so she could find his home. She filled her pockets with peas and lentils and marked the trail with them as she followed the ashes.

They led her to a dark and silent house. A bird in a cage called out to warn her that she entered a murderer's house. An old woman in a cellar kitchen told her that the people there would kill and eat her unless the old woman protected her and hid her behind a barrel. A band of robbers arrived with a young woman, and they killed her and prepared to eat her. When one chopped off a finger to get at the golden ring on it, the finger and ring flew through the air and landed in the bodice of the hiding woman. The old woman discouraged them from searching, because the finger nor the ring were likely to run away: they'd find it in the morning.

The old woman drugged the robbers' wine. As soon as they fell asleep, the two living women fled. Wind had blown the ashes away, but the peas and lentils had sprung up into seedlings: the two followed the path of plants and reached the young woman's home.

When the wedding day arrived and the guests were telling stories, the young woman said that she would tell a dream she had had, and told of her visit to the robbers' den, her bridegroom punctuating it with "My darling, you only dreamed this." -- or the robber punctuating with exclamations that it was not so in the Mr. Fox variant -- until she produced the finger of the dead girl and showed it to the company.

The robber bridegroom and all his band were put to death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Robber_Bridegroom_(fairy_tale)

Cleaver Fever

Recently, I started to animate for a video game that is in production at the Portland AI. The first character they gave me to animate was a Spider and my first thought was, "oh, no. A multiple legged creature, dear me." But it turned out easier than I had originally thought it would. Here is the walk and bite animation i did for the game.
    

Spider Walk

Spider Bite