Finally finals!

Alright so the quarter ended yesterday for me but I didn't get to finish rendering my full video for one of my finals (it was taking ten minutes a frame and I had 265 frames D: ) and it made me really upset because it was turning out beautifully. My instructor saw what frames I had rendered already and said that they looked legit enough to give me a good grade which was fantastic because I was all kinds of worried about it.

So here are some of the frames that I had already rendered. When I get the chance I'll finish it off and put up the full video. This was for my 3D Visual effects class. (when the particles hit the grass flowers spring up)





My Character Animation final turned out better than I thought it would. There are still some things that I'd like to go back and fix though as per usual like the feet sliding around so much >:[ I'd also like to make it longer, but anyway here it is!


Here's the ref vid! I posted it before but I didn't feel like linking again so here you go!



And last my Anubis statue for Team Production is FINALLY done. I'm glad too because I was just getting sick of looking at that thing. I like how it turned out overall there are still anatomy issues that bug me but it'll do! Click on the image to see the details better!

Graduation 2!

Alright, so another graduation has come and gone and again I had a bunch of really close friends graduating this quarter whom I'll miss seeing everyday very much :< Here's their websites and their demo reels. Give them a look! :]



http://zsa2.com/

Zsazsalyn Deocampo 2010 Demo Reel from Zsazsalyn Deocampo on Vimeo.

ZsaZsa my bff! Major huge ginormous congrats on getting best in show! I was stoked when I heard the news. Good job! I'm definitely gonna miss talking to you everyday in school and setting up the orientation kits over the break will be less fun now D:


http://www.abpositivedesign.com/

Arnel, I'm so happy for you! And you finally got to leave AI lol You've always had really impressive design choices and compositions I'm so jealous! I'm actually really PO'd at whoever decided that you shouldn't get the blue ribbon this show. You totally deserved it, oh well. Keep drawing awesome, keep designing awesome, and just keep being awesome in general!

http://curtisperry.net/

C Perry Demo from Curtis Perry on Vimeo.

Curtis, man I think you've been at that school longer than all of us. I was thinking "Jeez, I don't think I'd ever be able to stick around as long as he has." But you did it and you came out with a sweet reel and now you can move on to other things! All that hard work paid off!


http://www.brandonlinconcepts.com/

Graduation demo reel Portfolio review corrections from Brandon Lin on Vimeo.

Hey Brandon, you're reel was kick ass you did some awesome work and it always made me super envious of your epic skillz! You winning best in show for Game Art was a no brainer you totally deserved it. I'm gonna be looking for your name in the credits of future games! Didn't know you as well as the three above but you still had really badass work so I couldn't help but give you some spot light as well :]

Well that's it! Again make sure to step by these guy's sites and watch their reels!

Mudbox sculpting

So here's a bit more progress on my Anubis statue. I'm adding some finer details in Mudbox which is a 3D sculpting program. It's alot of fun to use because it's more like actual sculpting and drawing than anything you might do in Maya or 3DS Max. However, I do wish I used Zbrush instead only because I've used Zbrush before and there are more people and teachers at my school who know their way around Zbrush better than Mudbox. And also I've never opened Mudbox before so that was a bit of silly move on my part lol Although moving and navigating around in it is identical to Maya and all the tools are there up front and pretty self explanatory so it wasn't too hard to pick up.

Here's a quick little vid detailing what Mudbox is all about:



I wanted to record the entire face sculpt but the computer was lagging too much from the recording so I had to cut it short to get more work done on the model. It's a little hard to tell what's going on as well :\ Anyway here it is! The vid is about 4 minutes long.

Anubis Mudbox sculpt from Christa Carpenter on Vimeo.

Here are some stills:

Anubis model progress

I've been working on a prop for my team production's animation. It's an Anubis statue, I'm not really proficient in modeling but there's only five of us on the team so we all have to do some modeling. I'm actually a bit surprised that it's overall turning out alright considering how horrendously bad I am at modeling. The backlegs have been giving me issues. I think I may just redo the legs. Hopefully it doesn't come to that though because we're on a pretty tight schedule. Anyway, here's a video of me working on the face it's about 7 minutes long along with some stills.

Anubis model progress from Christa Carpenter on Vimeo.

At this point, if my instructor tells me the backlegs are ok I think I'll take it into Zbrush or Mudbox to do some sculpting.

Light my fire

Another assignment for my 3D visual effects class. We had to do a fire simulation. I think I'll go back and tweek the flame a bit and add more lighting to the torch so it doesn't look so flat. I did this really quick in about 20 minutes or so because I didn't have alot of time the day I was working on it. I haven't turned it in yet so I've still got time to do some noodling about with it!



Also, for my final for my character animation class we have to animate a dance for our chosen rig. I'm gonna do this little 5 second clip I found on youtube. Fun times!

Master copy

My finished master copy of a clip from 9. It was an assignment. As always I'm not completely happy with it. I didn't do the rest of the hand movement at the end and he still looks really stiff but as for the overall finished product I'm ok with it.



Here's the clip I was supposed to copy.

Salesman Pete

My 3D visual effects teacher showed us this awesome animated short the other day. I thought I'd share it. I love the fact that it's so stylized and it has an almost seamless blend of 2D and 3D. Check it out.

Salesman Pete from Salesman Pete on Vimeo.

Storm's a brewin'

An assignment for my 3D visual Effects class. We had to create a storm with lightning. I'm not completely happy with it I couldn't get the rain to look right it looks more like snow. The clouds came out decent and the water as well. The lightning could use some work too though.

futuristic venus of willendorf

So I've been planning some illustrations for my demo reel and my website whenever I get around to making it. I wanted to make some really dramatically different illustrations to show that i don't just draw anime characters. I can do other styles and looks too.

The first one is something of a futuristic piece...I'm not quite sure how to describe it but while I was drawing it Fritz Lang's Metropolis and The Venus of Willendorf kept popping into my head so i guess if you mash those two together you'll get something like this:



It's still in the rough stages I'm still trying to decide what I want to do for the background and I may change the dog statues later on.

Art Mafia logos

The animation club at my school just started up and we needed a logo for future merch like shirts or buttons and such so a group of us were assigned to do some designs. Here are my rough logos



From our roughs the entire club voted which one they liked the best and on my pages they liked the cards they best. I personally really dislike the cards my favorite is the very first one in the top left corner, but anyway the president of the club wanted us to clean up the chosen design for the next meeting and from the cleaned up logos the rest will vote which they like the best. Here's my cleaned up version



And one with my favorite logo...because I wanted that one more lol and also because the blank space was driving me crazy. Maybe it's the joker card of the deck heh.

Those pesky werewolf curses...

A piece I did for KaiserWilliams on DA.

The lines:



The finished piece:

Hey Taxi!

An assignment for my Character Animation class. The assignment was to animate a character walking forward and talking. I think the walk cycle turned out alright the legs are still a bit jumpy. The point where the character waves still needs much work and I'd like to incorporate more acting in to the animation as it seems the character itself doesn't really have a ton of life to it. So I'll be working on it over the next few weeks, shoot I might even redo it with a different audio clip (...yeah that's me talking in the vid ha! ) Also, sorry for the poor video quality alot of small detail in the face and body movement is hard to see.



Here is a sketch I did for another artist on Deviant Art. We did an art trade and this was my half. The characters belong to him but the drawing was done by me.

Here are just the lines-


And with colors-

Dynamics

Been playing with nCloth and Dynamics in my 3D Visual Effects class. We've been working on a pirate ship for the pass week or two. We were to make the sails billow out and the ropes swing around as well as animate the ship bobbing back and forth here's what I have so far.



Here's also a test I did before working on the ropes for the ship. It's just a simple bridge breaking and swinging down.

Lipsync warm up

Just something we did as a refresher in lipsyncing in my Character Animation class today. About 45 minutes of work, it could use improving especially with the face overall, but since this was just a warm-up, it's ok as-is.

More Crows development

So I'm really pleased that I've been able to keep up the pace for this. Usually I run out of steam with ideas like this pretty quick and end up abandoning them. I'm hoping to have a definite story for this down by the end of the week. In the mean time here are some character turn arounds and some environment tests. You might need to click on the images to see them full size.

Set Sketch

Well, the other day I was trying to do some storyboards for my production team's cinematic and I was having a hard time drawing out the main villain Set, who is a big red Hippo...guy ha! So I decided to set the boards aside and take the time to figure out his shapes and body in my own style rather than trying to copy the concept artists style, so it would overall be easier on me. I ended up drawing more than I meant to and I rather like the end result.

I'm gonna try and tackle those boards again today now that I feel more comfortable with drawing this red hippo villain.

Crows concept art and Brainstorm Logos

I've decided that I want to do a short moving illustration animation for my demo reel. If you don't know what a moving illustration is well it's a bit hard to describe so instead I'll show you an example.



Pretty neat right? Well my little animation is going to be called "Crows" I've not yet settled on a definite story and for all I know the title might change as well but I can tell you that it will involve a little boy and a scarecrow. Here's some sketches I did today. I'm trying to get a style for it down. I think I want it alittle grittier and a bit more obscure as far as stylizing goes but we'll see.



I've also been working on some logos for my pre-production team. Our "studio" is called Brainstorm Animation which we all decided on last week. So here are some of logos I did. We'll find out tomorrow if one of these gets picked for the logo or if we go with another teammates design. They're alittle rough I'll probably go back and edit them digitally.




And finally just something I sketched while watching the movie "White Out"

New Quarter and new projects

Well a new quarter started up for me and I'm feeling really excited for this new start. I've recovered from my last quarter defeat and I'm ready to jump in to the fray of the Fall Quarter.

I've got quite a few project heavy classes 3D Visual Effects, Character Animation, and Pre-Production team and of course the obligatory Gen-Ed Critical Thinking. I had a fourth project class Advanced Lighting and Texture but I opted to drop that class so I could have more time to spend making my assignments look the best they can rather than rushing to get everything done in time. I'll be retaking that texture class next quarter.

I'll also be working on some portfolio pieces to put in my demo reel. The count down to graduation has begun! I should be graduating in 9 months time if all goes as planned. I already had to push my graduation date back so I could find the time to work on some pieces so hopefully that extra time will give me the energy to work on my reel.

My Animation Pre-production team has me very very excited. My team is working with the next Senior Game Production team. We'll be doing an opening cinematic for their epic stealth/adventure game. I'm really looking forward to animating some battle scenes with the characters that they have designed. I'm usually very apprehensive when it comes to modeling/texturing or generally anything that involves a 3D program but this really has me hyped and eager to work on the project. I'll keep you posted with art/models/animation previews as we go!

That comic concept I mentioned previously is going well my Co-creator and I made alot of Headway with story and character development over our vacation. You can look froward to more work with that also as we get more of that fleshed out.

That's all for now I'll leave you with a couple drawings that I did over my break.

The Monk and the Monkey

So I found this fantastic little animated short while browsing around YouTube today. It's called "The Monk and the Monkey" it's a very well put together short with some superb animation. The backgrounds for this are just breathtaking and it has a very heart warming story to it. It's definitely worth checking out!



Here are some stills!






And the scene breakdown

The Monk & The Monkey breakdown from Brendan Carroll on Vimeo.

Finals week and possible comic concepts.

Well finals week has finally come and gone, this was by far the toughest most mentally/physically straining quarter I've had while being in school. I had four project heavy classes and I couldn't put 100% into either of them because of time and program availability. Many sleepless nights, issues with money, Life in general got in the way as it usually does. I overall only came out with mediocre assignments that I'm not all too proud of and barely passed my classes by the skin of my teeth. Not too happy with myself at the moment.

I already put up my Materials and Lighting final a couple days ago so here's my Advanced 2D Animation final and my Intermediate 3D animation final.

Advanced 2D is far from being finished and it's very unpolished. I have to step away from it for now because at the moment I'm tired of looking at it.

Advanced 2D animation final from Christa Carpenter on Vimeo.

Intermediate 3D final actually didn't come out too bad but I still think it could be improved on.

Lipsync Final from Christa Carpenter on Vimeo.

In some lighter news a friend from school and I are planning a comic project. It was actually from a group project from this quarter and we liked the premise and the idea so we decided to take it further. Here's a few sketches I drew up, it was originally for the group presentation, these aren't final designs for the possible comic but something along the lines I was thinking for these two clans. Anyone from DA might think these look familiar to the Civil War Red vs. Blue idea but...that was purely coincidental. These guys aren't really fighting each other anyway.

Graduation

A couple good friends of mine are graduating this quarter and I just wanted to give them some spotlight here because their demo reels really rocked the portfolio reviews last week. One of them will definitely get best in show I'm not sure which one because that's really a close call but it will almost undoubtly be one of these badass folks. Check out their sites and demo reels if you get the chance you won't regret it.


Minapaulos.com

SMALL -HD from mina s paulos on Vimeo.

Mina! Who's gonna keep me from going AWOL on 3D stuff now? Whooo? I'm gonna miss you, go out there in the real world and kickass and take names.



Rickquemado.me

Demo Reel 2010 from Rick Quemado on Vimeo.

Hey Rick! You definitely showed the school that 3D animation was not the be all and end all of the animation industry. You have some really slick stop mo pieces. I am jealous!




One last epic artist who is graduating this quarter. I didn't know him too well I've really only passed him in the halls on occasion but his demo reel impressed the hell out of me and should really be seen by more people.
Alimination.com

Ali Minaian Website Demo Reel from Ali Minaian on Vimeo.

Suuuper impressive stuff. I think this is one of the best reels I've seen come out of the school in the Game Art program.


Again if you get the chance check out these guys' websites and demo reels. They really have some impressive work :]

Materials and Lighting

My final for Materials and lighting. I really really don't like how it came out, It's garbage ugh... I'm definitely NOT a modeling/texturing/lighting artist, but I spent alot of time on this and stressed for eleven weeks over this class so I figured I may as well put up what I worked on. The model itself is not mine it's from 3Drender.com. The texturing and lighting was done by me.

There's artifacting on the walls and table because I didn't have final gather turned up high enough X[

Kitchen from Christa Carpenter on Vimeo.

Watercan

An assignment for class. Basically light and texture a simple exterior scene with a water can.

I'm pretty satisfied with it. The shadows got a bit blown out I'll need to adjust those later but for now it turned out ok. The textures were nabbed from CGtexture.com

rough animation and sketches

Here are some scenes I've been working on recently. These scenes are about ready to be cleaned up and composited.



I have some minor tweaks to do for this one


This was the walk cycle I was working on in the previous post. Turns out I'm still going to have to revisit this one as the instructor wasn't quite happy with it. *sigh* I've redone this cycle about 5 times now...ugh



Here's a sketch I did while waiting at the doctors office the other day. Just a little something for my Sociology class for my group's Nation project (create a fictional nation and the people that populate it)
she's an engineer chick for a ocean nomad fleet.

And Robin because I felt like it.

animation WIP vid

Hey! So I was working on a scene for my Advanced 2D class and I figured I'd record a bit of it. I'm animating in Toon Boom and the animation itself is just a pretty basic walk cycle. The video is about 8 minutes long. There's also a point in the vid where I stop working for a minute or two because I was at work at the time and I had to ring someone up at the register lol So here it is!

Animation in progress from Christa Carpenter on Vimeo.

walk cycle

Here's a walk cycle done for my Intermediate 3D class. It needs some work but here's what I got so far. Also, it's pretty fast I forgot to loop it, my bad.

3CH

Yo, I was recently introduced to this neat program called 3CH. What it does is generate sentences for illustration/story ideas. It's pretty handy especially when you're having a block or if you're just in the mood to see really random sentences lol XD It gives you a set of 4 themes you can generate ideas from Darwin,Fantasy, Hollywood action, and Urban. It's neat check it out if you're in a block and can't think of anything to draw/write. Here's the link

Here are some themes that came up for me when I was playing with it:

"a meditating serial killer observes a woman in a factory."
"a hairy man with a hat fights with a young gangsta with headphones in a loft." this one makes me lol I don't know why.
"a crying lemur embraces a voodoo wizard in a shipyard."
"a gigantic spider strikes a gladiator in hell." Epic

Photons

Hey! I have a materials and lighting class this quarter which means I'll be doing lots of 3D work in Maya. We played around with photons and global illumination today. So here's the result of that. The bedroom scene is actually a work in progress. It should look much nicer in a few weeks time. The ball and square room, however, was just some practice.





Also, here are a few marker sketches I did over my summer break for some friends over at DeviantArt. The characters are not mine and don't belong to any franchise or company.

15 second pre-production

So next quarter I have to do a 15 second long hand drawn animation for my Advanced traditional animation class. And since that takes up most of the time the second half of the intermediate 2D class was dedicated to the pre-production work for it. Like, storyboards, phoneme charts, expression sheets, character model sheets, etc. So here is some of the work I did for that.

Model sheets (excuse the crappy scan quality I was lazy and didn't want to rescan :\ )-




Expression sheets:




1 of 30 something Exposure sheets ( an x-sheet pretty much outlines everything your character does or says in a sequence frame by frame. So if a character raises his arm, you'll need to write that it starts on frame 7 and ends on frame 15 or something to that effect. It's tedious) -


1 of 4 phoneme charts for each speaking character ( A phoneme chart just gives you the mouth position of each sound in a word) -



Animatic (I'm aware that there is a strange jump at the beginning where the boy is walking down a hall and then there is an over the shoulder shot. He turns his head while he's walking down the hall. I just didn't draw it. It's in the X-sheets though)-



I did not choose the audio clip. It was given to me by the instructor and it's such a lamesauce audio clip I had the hardest time trying to figure out what to do with it :\

That's pretty much all for now. I did have another in-betweening project but I don't want to upload it for the simple fact that I'm not happy with it. Maybe I'll put up some more sketches later on in the week to balance out all the school work I've been posting.