What I did instead of other things

So this is what I did in class today, since I finished my final project already anyways in that class. I took the final to another level and put it to music.
However it's glitch music so most people might not like it. Actually it's a maxdata computer booting up but it works as music.


Music:

Boot on Maxdata (Valentina Vuksic) / CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

Puppet Animation for Motion Graphics

DM 340 Motion Graphics
Puppet Animation
Images from online 
textures from Lost and Taken
idea from L.M. Montgomery's The Story Girl

Trailer Spoof

Trailer for Grave Encounters
Using After Effects I added myself as a ghost to the cast.

Motion Graphics!!!

I'm in an Aftereffects class right now and am loving it currently we are working on puppet animations.
Our last project was a logomation.
I got Mercedes Benz for it.


The next one I'm doing an adaptation from a short story in the Story Girl by L.M. Montgomery.
It's the story of the Orchard Ghost.
Here is a newspaper I made for it.
I used a texture from Lost and Taken a vintage newspaper and Photoshop to make it.

So more will come soon!

Back to School

So the school year is starting and It's my Junior Year! Guess what that means. JUNIOR PROJECT!!!! anyways we had pitches on the first day of class which I pitched a story called Lydia. This was not picked which I'm actually kinda glad cause I was nervous about being a in charge of a story my first time out.

Here's some story beats from the pitch

And a little concept design

I will however be working on a project which was pitched as lifeless and is going to be a stop motion but that all I'm going to tell about it. I am on one of the two person teams with Mike Ackerman, who is an fabulous animator, so the final product should be pretty good. 

My teacher does want me to go back to my pitch for my senior year but with a more refined story.

So here's to the new school year, may it have lots of great animations.

And Good Luck to everyone else as they start their school year.

Finals Finally

I finally have some ample internet time and am putting up my finals

This first one is why hand drawn is not my strong suit. Anyways it's an audio clip from drop dead gorgeous. This was done for my Toon Boom final. 

Next is my 3D animation 2 class final. It was done as a professional workflow as a group. My class mates and I worked on a scene from seinfield with free character rigs. I had two scenes from it.

This one is my stop-motion final, in which we had a screen test of our self portrait puppets.

South Bend, Indiana

This last week I was on a mission trip in South Bend. This is my 4th year of going in the past 5 years. It's amazing to see how much the town has changed. Last year i didn't go and in that time it seemed to become a meaner harsher town. Of course this could be that my "lenses" had broken as the movie Waltz with Bazir explains. I could have been just seeing the world in my own happy way and not paying attention to the bad things in the world. Anyways, this mission trip has always had a major impact on my life and has shaped me greatly. This time around it broke my heart to think this will be probably the last time I will be there. The last time I will be able to see these kids, some of whom I remember from the first time I went. During the demonstration about hope at the vbs held by prairie camp I came to a realization. The balloons that the kids were releasing really were a true representation of our hopes and dreams. So of those kids will have what they wrote down come true and they will soar high just as their balloons did. Others will get hung up on the first branch in their way what ever it my be (drugs, alcohol, or what ever can destroy their goals). Some of those kids will break free from what is ever blocking them to excel and continue on their way, but even then they could run into something else that prevents them. The point is, our hopes and dreams can be lost and changed very easily. It can hurt to think about all those kids who may seem to have no future, but as prairie camp said, "Hope is knowing that no matter who you are, no matter where you are, God loves you and is with you". I truly feel compassion and love for these kids who it seems their own families don't feel that way about them. All I can do now is pray for them to have a brighter tomorrow and maybe someday I will run into them again.
Good bye and Best of luck Keller Park community and maybe someday our paths will cross again.

Assorted Artworks

So here are a couple of pieces I have done this last semester.

This first one was done because I was rather upset at the speed scanner, so my outlet a drawing of course.
Next was done with my friend Ben Kroll giving me the ideas. First I just threw paint on the paper and then looked for what it wanted to be.

This one was also done with Ben Kroll. He gave me the prompt of gnome and then also did his own version.

This final one was done at 1in the morning because I couldn't sleep. This was just the image in my head and I had to get it out.

End of the year

So another school year has ended and all the projects have come to a wrap up. I'll be putting up my final projects through out this time and possibly my work from this summer. I hope to make a paper dress, and do some  photography of the defiance area.
We had our animation showcase in which my evil twins 10 second club won honorable mention. My groups 49 hour competition won out of the 5 entries from out college.  Also my puppet won the best brass armature puppet.

crunch time

Well as finals week come up close again it's the time for crunch time. Not for finals however since I only have two of those, but the spring showcase. Before thursday I have to have my puppet finished, a hand drawn lipsych animation, and preferably a philosophy paper done. Right now I'm trying to get my mind around doing philosophy but as you can tell I'm failing at it. Truthfully I would rather be making my book or ghost or something for my stopmo animation. Did I mention I love stop motion animation, especially the fabrication of props and the puppets. I would really like to be a set designer someday for stop motion animations. I don't even mind this crunch time it's really what I live for it's exciting and makes me feel like I'm actually doing something. Well I should get back to that paper so I can have that done before my friend gets back from work so I'm actually free to hang out.

49 hours competition

So there is this competition through Indianapolis that is for animation. There are 5 teams from the University that are competing in this. So I'm super excited. I wanted to stop motion but I just really wanted to be involved and get some experience. My group is the VBAMF!. It's our initials what were you thinking it meant? Anyways, tommarrow we will be given a theme at 6p.m. and then we have til sunday at 7 p.m. to post our animation on vimeo. So this will be a lot of work but worth it. The film department is videoing us working and doing interviews and a documentary on the whole process. That should be interesting too. So I should get to bed soon since I have such a busy weekend coming up. I'll go to bed when I finish my sophomore review demo reel it's exporting at this moment. So I think it is done and I'm going to get to bed now.


Here is the demo reel. Yeah It's basically stuff that was already on here but I thought it might be nice to put up

Peep Execution

We were given the theme of yellow peeps and told to let out any easter frustrations. tada! this is what i did. I did however feel weird riding the elevator holding a microwave.

Side and Front view Flying Machine cycles in motion

Spiderman Jump

Free rig from creativecrash.com
Using reference video of my friend Matthew Weener.
I did this over spring break and had a lot of fun doing this. People enjoy watching you animate I found out too.

This is the lighting change that my friend Matthew Weener made.








The final edit or at least what i think is the final edit right now. I might come back to it and sweeten it again.

Evil Twins Stopmotion

Our theme this week was evil twins. I based it loosely on the cursed video from the ring and used the theme song of Samerea in it.










ENJOY the Creepyness!

Pilot for aircraft

here are the initial sketches

the final sketch is this guy

 lame animation that i thought was funny at 1 oclock in the morning of my character

I'm working on making it better and adding a walk cycle (kinda)

Here is the animation of the character. It's really a exploration of what my character can do with it's rigging and that is not very much.

More stop motion!!

first up is the video of animating emotion into flour sacks. It's a tradition with 2d that cares over to stop motion that disney started that if you can animate emotion into a flour sack you can animate emotion into anything.
I animated the angry one and Joel Lofgren animated perky. Have fun!

This second video is of a walk cycle using a trainer puppet. I also had to include my clay press mold character.


 

Side and Front View of flying machine

Here is the front view of my flying machine.

Toonboom aircraft

I have set to work on my aircraft for my toon boom class.
These are my sketches

I have decided to use the first idea more and here is the video of what I have so far.

Toon Boom Morph

So I'm just learning toon boom. I started out using flash back in high school and yeah Toon Boom Animate Pro is amazing. You have no idea until you use it. Anyways I drew the letter L and had to make it morph into something as an exercise of using the morph tool. It's fun and neon.

Animation 3: Stop Motion

So I'm just finishing up my second 10 second club piece for class.
The first one is an intro for our clay mold characters and was shot backwards.

The second piece is on the topic playing in traffic. 

J-Term break

If you thought that it couldn't get anymore slower or unproductive than J-term you were wrong. Now it's J-term break and I've done absolutely nothing  to show for. The only thing I really have been doing is working in the library (yawn) and doing movie makeups on myself.  I really liked the makeup in tron so I thought I would try it.

This one is of Quorra from Tron Legacy

and this one is Gem also from Tron Legacy

And today I did the alice in wonderland Avril Lavinge makeup
So this is all I have done really this week. The most productive thing I did was paint the floor of the green screen in our soundstage at school.

?

So why is it that the thing that was only supposed to be a joke is my highest viewed page. There are 30 page view, I know sad but I'm not a real blogger, and all the post contains is . I don't understand it. Well anyways.  My friend Matt has been working on photoshopping some pictures of me and just finished a music video with my other friend Matt so I'll put a link to his blog in my sidebar for you all to check out when he gets more put up.
Here is the music video. My friend's Kevin, Tyler, and Jordan are the actors in it. Enjoy.

http://www.victoriousrecovery.blogspot.com/ -Matthew Weener

http://www.miserymirth.blogspot.com/ - Matt The Nelson

J-Term

   So it's currently J-term right now. I should have made a post before this since I have a lot of free time, but J-term makes you lazy. There is just something about J-term that makes you just do what you have to and nothing more. It's really actually depressing, cause all you do is go to 1 class, work if you have a job, eat and go to bed. People tend to not hangout as much during J-term for some reason we all just become hermits. However it you have amazing friends like I do you can always find something fun to do. We have been sledding and exploring. There is an awesome snow fort that we played in that some people made. Besides that I've spent a lot of time in Becker hall which is the place where animation students practically live. My friends have work to do there and I just watch them be productive while I do nothing of worth while. Thats why I drew a sandwich. Actually the real reason is because I'm in a relationship readiness class and we were to ask our friends what we could do to be a better friend. Of course my friend Matt had to to say I wish you would make me sandwiches. So I was like you better be careful what you wish for and then i just started drawing a sandwich.
    Anyways, I'm super excited for the next semester to start. I get to take stop motion this semester! This is what I've been waiting for. My Mom got me a mini sewing machine and a glue gun for christmas so that I can work on my puppets for class. Also I have 2D toonboom class this semester and 3DII : maya character design. I can't wait, and I'll be putting up stuff from class as I go along.
Well thats all for now. Enjoy a sandwich made with artistic love.