And since I did the walk cycle, it has been placed in my demo reel:

Every so often I run into an animation job description that wants me to include a walk cycle. Okay. Haven’t done one in a while, so BAM:

I admit it. I’m a nerd and I love Doctor Who. Last Saturday I was feeling rather frustrated with my creativity and directed it at my sketchbook. Out came Amy and Rory, the Doctor’s companions. And the sketch itself (below) seemed fairly decent and what I usually don’t do is follow through with a proper “art” piece out of it. Okay, since I was fooling around with Illustrator, let’s see what we can come up with.

I think it came out fairly well. You know, minus my problems with drawing guys coupled with drawing hoodies. Putting that on my list of things I should practice…

You know what I’m proud about? This picture:

Granted, this is 4 years old, but it was my first shot at modeling, rigging, texturing, and lighting… this is pretty cool to me. This was part of an assignment for 3D class in my undergrad and there was an entire story behind this, but it was never completed due to the school having only one lab dedicated to 3D use and there always being something going on in that room. And maybe also for the fact that rendering was painfully slow, slow processors, no render farm… that sort of thing.

Thought: maybe I should finish this off. Update it. Model things more nicely. Texture it well. Light it correctly. Animate a small vignette. Yes? Yes!

Still here. Still no job in the creative field, even though I’m trying super hard and sometimes it gets a bit discouraging at times. But that’s okay. I’ll eventually get there. Keep doing what I do and get better at it.

Momentarily, I’m taking a break from animation to focus on refreshing my memory with Adobe Illustrator. Playing with features and following some tutorials on maximizing the use of certain tools like using 3D. It’s pretty cool and a nice breather.

Sample of stuff I was mucking around with.

larisaskai via Instagram

I should never be allowed to walk into a Wal-Mart or a Sam’s Club (or anywhere that sells discounted DVDs). Usually there’s a treasure trove of films and tv shows I haven’t seen since I was a kid and I feel compelled to buy out of nostalgia. To be fair, I bought Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers a few years ago, but just recently found DuckTales and TaleSpin.

At first it was for nostalgia sake and as I sat down and thought about it, it’s an interesting perspective in terms of animation. Okay, so the animation is a bit shady in many places. I have no clue what the inbetweeners were thinking, but hey. Story wise, it’s pretty imaginative. I mean, who always wanted that gliding saucer that Kit Cloudkicker has? Or Sky Pirates? Turning garbage into brilliant inventions to save the day? Eccentric billionaire duck on adventures with his nephews?

…Or maybe I’m hanging a little too much onto nostalgia. I’m fine with that.

Summer is really getting away from me. So much to do and then try to add some personal animation projects in the middle of it… Busy girl.

I’m probably going to type this a thousand times, but when I create something like this little thing, I try to pick out an action or a theme that I know I’ll have problems with. This time I chose something that would really get the character moving and shifting some weight. I also wanted to incorporate some “cartoony” element (hence, the overdramatic tip-toe) So, why not sneak around?

I’m overall happy with what came out of it.