Uhh... it's coming along.

I scheduled to be done with modeling by now, and I should be getting on rigging, but ehhhh vacation. In any case, I finally downloaded 2012, and I've been getting used to it's grayness.

Here's how the full model is looking right now. It still needs some work... mostly on the lower half and the head. Hopefully I'll get to actually finish it all up this week so I can get to rigging it already.

Working on a 3D thing? Yeah...

To keep productive over the winter break, I decided to try my hand at 3D modeling again. I already had a 3D model of Toby in the works, so the plan is to finish that, rig it, and then try to animate it.

Only time will tell if everything I'm doing is completely irrevocably absolutely wrong! Oh well.

Here's how it's looking so far:

Pretty neat, huh?

I wanted to give you guys a better picture, with the full body, but turns out my Maya 2010 license expired today! Woohoo! I guess its a good excuse as any to finally download 2012. Haha...ha...

Expect better updates soon.

End of the quarter--- status, Orlando?

Well, guys, it's been some work.

As of the end of Fall quarter, I have every shot animated, which is right about where I wanted to be.
The animation itself is there, but there are a couple of shots (13 comes readily to mind) where I would definitely want to revisit and polish before I deem it ready for clean up.

Coupled with that, some shots would definitely benefit from some in-betweens and breakdowns, so that's pretty much what i'll be focusing on next quarter. Also, I hope to get layouts finalized (thanks to Jina) and music finalized (thanks to Charlie). I also want to see if I can get intro-scene animation done as well (thanks to Jina and Rachel). If all goes well, I might even be able to start on clean up.

As for winter break, I'm kinda hoping to focus on some side-projects, such as finishing a Toby Maya model I've been tinkering on for ages now and maybe getting more some practice on Maya and Flash animating. Portfolio pieces, maybe?

Anyway, I wouldn't want to leave you guys without a final .mov file to look at, so here's how shot 17 looks now:

I'll keep you guys updated on anything Rock Candy related going on over break!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

HAHAHAHA I'M NOT POSTING SHOT 13

Actually I am.
But only because I promised.

Shot 13 is definitely my least favorite of any of these. I animated it without running reference, and I sped through it in the three hours last class.

In any case, it's definitely not the final version. I'll re-animate most of it next quarter. Right now, I wanted to finally finish the last shot that was missing from my film. I can show my professor that yes, I do have every shot animated and ready to be cleaned up, technically.

The rest of this final weekend will be animating more on shots 17, 4, and a few other short ones if I have the time. Right now, my priorities are 17 and 4 just because they're the longest and more complicated ones left (with the exception of 12 and 13).

Til next time, guys!

Shot 12 - newly refurbished!

After some critique, I decided to revisit shot 12 and time it out different.

The order of the tugs and pulls are redone, and there's a couple more in-betweens to smooth the actions out.

Right now, I'm still busy on shot 13, but I hope to post my progress on that over the weekend.

Shot 12- BONUS POST!

Over the weekend, I got along to finally animating shot 12 and 13.

Shot 12 is pretty much at a point where I could work from, and shot 13 has like... two drawings in it.

Anyway, here's how shot 12 is looking so far:

I'm hoping to make quite a lot of progress this week, animating shot 13 and fixing up shots 17 and 4. Possibly 12 if I have the chance.

As always, suggestions and critiques are welcomed and encouraged!

Shot 16 completed!

Spent most of this week furthering shot 16.
Here's how the finished shot came out:

This weekend, I'm gonna be dedicated to finishing shots 12 and 13... mostly because they're the only two I've put off almost entirely. I'll probably be working on them for most of the week as well, haha.

Look forward to seeing those later!

Toby sketches!

A little page of sketches I drew of Toby during short story class.

These aren't exactly masterpieces, but I thought it was worth posting.

Anime Toby needs to chill

Toby's got some s'plainin to do!

Hey!

So... slow week for work, but I've got something to share.

First off, shot 2 is pretty much finished. More so than last time, anyway. I took some feedback and worked on a few things that weren't looking too nice before.

Also, I've been working this week on shots 6 and 7.
Shot 6 was featured a few weeks ago, so here's the final version, followed by the still unfinished shots 7 and 8... just for treats.

Til next week, guys!

Shot 2! Pass 2!

Y'all remember shot 2 from a while back, right?

This is how it's looking now:

I decided to add the bit at the end with him turning to go after shot 3 and better tie in to shot 4:

Anyways, shot 2 is looking good. I have some shoulder and weight issues I need to work on before it's 100% to my liking, though.

Right now, I've rough animated every shot besides 12 and 13, and I'm going in for for my second pass on shots 6, 7, and 10 with in-betweens, breakdowns, and all that good stuff I was missing before.

Til next time, guys!

Wanna see some more?

Been working pretty hard lately.
I'm not quite at the point I wished I was at, but I feel I've made good progress (15 out of 21 scenes rough animated).

Anywho, here's a couple more shots I animated. The first is shot 6, where Toby sneaks off after grabbing the diamond. After that is shot 7 for continuity's sake, which is when he bumps into Schmigg for the first time.


Storyboards:

Animation:

Hope you all like! By the end of this week, I hope to have the rough animation done (minus the intro shot) and I'm going to get started on doing a more refined pass starting with shot 2.

Later, guys!

Woops, didn't do any work today.

I've been pretty on schedule so far, but I find that I generally do most of my work for my film on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays.
I could do Fridays, but I usually sleep in to make up for any long nights in the past week.
And I could do Saturdays, but I always spend too much time cooking or cleaning or something and by then, the amount I could get done if I go to Montgomery Hall to work goes down considerably.

Today, that happened, and now I feel crummy.
I'm going to try to make up for it by drawing out a couple of layouts I missed and maybe doing the helmet-head turn arounds for Toby and Schmigg. They're the two main characters, and the only re-design they went through over the summer was that they now have helmets. Despite this, the helmets have not been properly locked down on a model sheet, and I feel that's pretty important, and should have happened by now.

Speaking of layouts, however, I'll treat you guys to some preproduction art today.

I feel that I'm alright with backgrounds, but coloring and lighting are not exactly my forte, so I decided to have someone I trusted could do it well do it instead. Jina was really helpful, and my professor really liked her stuff!


That's the main cave where Toby first finds the diamond. I wanted it to be welcoming and well-lighted; warm colors and general niceness all round.

This is the cave where the two miners fall after fighting for a while. Generally a pretty dark and dreary place.


Til next time, guys!

Shot 2 rough animation!

Hello!

Seeing as I didn't post anything yesterday besides that poster, I figured I'd make it up for anyone curious in seeing how the actual animation part of my film is coming along.

So here's shot 2 from my film, which was the first I worked on.

First, the storyboards:

Shot 1 is completely different at this stage, since I prolonged it more over the summer for a much neater intro pan. Shot 2 is relatively unchanged in the animation besides me adding a helmet onto Toby's character design.

With a helmet on him, I felt that I solved two problems:

1- It added a little more interest and personality in some scenes (like in the video you'll see below, where his helmet falls over his eyes and he needs to adjust it)
2- He's a miner. He kinda needs some head protection all up in this.

Here's my rough pass animation for the shot:

Over the course of last year, I fell into a more gesture-y style of animating, with less of a focus on keeping the shapes consistent and more on the body language. So far, it's been working out alright for me, and in my next pass for the shot, I'll focus more on shapes so that he doesn't go crazy all up in everything. I've also grown to like straight-aheading animation in between keyframes (rather than going by 8s, then 4s, then 2s...). I think it gives more control over mistakes that show up, making them easier to spot early. The animation is more fluid and makes it feel less controlled as well. I dunno. I like working like that.

Anywho, so far I've rough pass animated 8 out of 21 shots in my film. Several of the ones remaining are relatively quick, easy shots, so I'm hoping to have most, if not all, of the rough pass done by the middle of next week. After that, I'll focus on a tighter pass that'll add in some arcs, secondary actions, follow-throughs, and all those neat little principles that aren't quite being represented here yet. Also shapes. Lockin' those down a little better, too.

So far, I'm pretty on-schedule. No stressin' as of yet.

Til next time!

Let's just kick things off, shall we?

Hello everyone!
Welcome to the Official Rock Candy Production Blog! 100% legit Rock Candy coverage! At least once a week! Actually scratch that! I'm not sure I can commit! But stuff will be happening! On here.

It will be delicious.

To introduce myself:
My name is Orlando. I'm a senior-year college student at the Savannah College of Art and Design, studying Animation and Storyboarding!

Here at SCAD, Animation majors are required to produce a 30sec+ senior film in the medium of their choice. They go through a concept development class to prepare before heading into animation. For Traditional 2D, they have a quarter to animate the film and another to clean it up, ink it, and color it. There's also a Post Production class now (but my year is not required to take it).

My film is titled "Rock Candy". It is the charming tale of a little cyclops miner named Toby, who finds an enormous whopper of a diamond while digging one day. Greed gets the better of him, but will he be able to keep this gem a secret from any of the other miners? Hmmm...

The poster says otherwise...

The poster was inked and colored and shaded and beautified and basically entirely done by Jina Noh. I did do the initial sketch, though. Anyway, she's my girlfriend and totes BF fo' eva, and you should totally check out out her blog at http://jayensbook.blogspot.com/ because girl got some serious skillz, yo!

She's also helping out with layout, inking, and coloring on the film! Isn't that awesome?!

You should also check out my own blog at http://odditystew.blogspot.com/ because that's kinda cool, too. I haven't updated it in a little while, but it'll pick up again soon.

Anyway, look forward to some rough animations coming your ways soon, along with some neat production arts and sketches!

Later!