Thursday, December 31, 2009

Day 12


Last post of 2009! This is the Janitor character of Pins and Needles.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Day 11

Have a Happy New Year.

Make sure there's none of this on New Year's Eve:

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Day 10


Designed a rudimentary cubicle.



Here's a chicken-scratch (in Maya CG terms) pre-visualization of what will be the most difficult shot in the entire film. The crappy model of the Newsom character is in there for size reference, but in the actual shot he'll be running back and forth, throwing his belongings into The Box. The camera stops at the top of the box when he is about to throw the Panda Bear doll in there (but he won't...because it's quite the Trojan horse).




And last but not least...I promise he'll be out of his seat in the next post.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Day 9

I always thought a little Zen panda plush would keep frustrations away in the workplace (though in this story, something is hiding in that plush).

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Day 8


Animating the Boss's dissatisfaction over the size of his latte. The Boss is a typical overcompensating figure. His office is huge; but the office space where his employees work has a low-ceiling and he particularly hires people under 6 feet to work for him.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Day 7

Shot 21! (out of 100)/haha



Monday, December 21, 2009

Day 6



Far away shot of the Boss and his Assistant, at opposite sides of the office, doing their work for the morning. They are typing. You won't be able to make that out on the small video file, but on a bigger screen, you will. The bottom is a more enlarged version.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Day 5, continued



It's a long walk back to his desk...

Day 5





There's much ado about that button that Newsom finds on his Boss's desk...

Friday, December 18, 2009

Day 4

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Day 3


Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Day 2

Not my idea of dynamic shots, but I tend to animate the small bits first, so I get a good momentum going and I feel like I'm getting stuff done! /haha

Day 2

Not my idea of a dynamic shot, but I tend to animate the small animation shots first, so I get a good momentum going and I feel like I'm getting stuff done! /haha

Monday, December 14, 2009

Pins & Needles- Day 1



The first shot of the film. The assistant Newsom is running to drop off dozens of files (blue) and a latte (pink) off at his boss's desk before he arrives.

I'm going to try animating this entire film in Toon Boom because I love the flexibility in brushes (I always find myself fighting against the Flash Brush tool with its inconsistency in line and all of that)

Pins & Needles: Day 1

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Welcome to Fosho Co. An Awful Place To Work.


Been looking through some office books at Barnes & Noble. I want FoSho Co. (an insurance company) to look like a sleek, contemporary office, but at the same time, very claustrophobic and really uncomfortable to work in.

Friday, November 27, 2009

More Newsom


This NEWSOM is a little heavier than the one on the bottom.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

The Assistant


I might do one or two more passes on this character, NEWSOM. This is the main character in "Pins & Needles," an abused assistant that decides to take revenge on his boss, KORCHIN (see last post). NEWSOM I've always seen as very squashed and turtle=like in design because his boss is always walking all over him and he's got a bit of a back problem. I've also been trying to infuse a little bit of Jack Lemmon expressions in the design (a bit of an homage to the great workplace comedy, The Apartment).

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Who's The BOSS?

Some sketches for "KORCHIN," the torturous boss of my next film, Pins & Needles. I don't know how far I'm going to go with the 1950's cartoon design (see middle pic--big nose and little legs), but it's a style I've always wanted to go further with. I don't want to go too far though, because I've found if I go too cartoony in design it'll undermine the stakes of my story. Maybe I'll land somewhere in the middle,. Pins & Needles is, like Road Test, Flock Off and my thesis film, set in one location (a motif I keep coming back to...I guess it keeps things contained for a 5 minute film). Animation begins December 1st for a summer premiere!



Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Office Space.






Early background design for the next short film.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Watch your back

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Like Stealing a Social Studies book from a baby...

Who would stoop to stealing a Social Studies textbook from a kid? This guy....

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Happy 4th of July.

Have a safe 4th of July. Or the night might end like this:



Friday, June 26, 2009

Gun!

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Choked up

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Cones.


Yeah, I could've drawn em. But I modeled them in Maya anyway. Yes, they'll be used as weapons in the story :)

beeeeeeeeep

you want a fresh one?

Saturday, June 13, 2009

ouch

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Monday, June 8, 2009

don't miss the bus


Pretty much everything in this bus is rigged to be destroyed.

You still won't like him when he's angry

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Friday, June 5, 2009

make my day

Monday, June 1, 2009

Thursday, May 28, 2009

...happy trails

Footsies

BLAM.

Is Officer Dot giving Gabe a wedgie?


You be the judge.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Still here...

Outside, drinking a beer and doing a major rewrite to the final action scene...unfortunately I don't think the drawbridge sequence is on the cards anymore. I'll let Officer Dot process a sentiment:


Sunday, May 10, 2009

Sunday, April 26, 2009

I AM THE LAW.

The re-introduction of Mr. Dot, now Officer Dot.

I AM THE LAW.

The re-introduction of Mr. Dot, now Officer Dot.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Monday, April 13, 2009

Stand-off

DeSeve assesses the damage on his stolen car and goes from 'confused' to 'pissed off.'

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Safety first

After Gabe gets into a car accident, he checks to see if Ash is okay...

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Get off the phone

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Crawl before you run


In this scene, Officer Dot is about to arrest DeSeve but Gabe gets freaked out and drives away. And yes, the animation is very very rough =)

Monday, March 9, 2009

Sunday, March 1, 2009

here you go way too fast/dont slow down/gonna craaaash

In this scene, Gabe takes his eyes off the road for a second and, well, it doesn't look like he's getting Little Ashley home on time...

Friday, February 27, 2009

It's Flash from this point on.




Yup. I'm animating the rest of Road Rage with good ol Flash. Since November I have been animating the film through ToonBoom Digital. The main reason why I got the program was because of the awesome vector engine that has a brush tool that is akin to say, Alias Sketchbook. But all good things must come to an end. I'm probably using the program wrong, but I recently animated a sequence in TB and for reasons too varied to get into here, realized that the entire sequence was being animated on a layer that was for lack of a better word, 'invisible' in the program. In shorter terms: It never existed. Which set me off, considering that I'm on a schedule to get this film out by summer. Luckily, all the scenes I have done are exportable as .swf's so those scenes will not be trashed; they will be imported into Flash and worked on. Yeah, Flash's brush tool really, really sucks but I'll deal with it for the next few months...

Monday, February 16, 2009

Ready to do some damage

Early design for Officer Dot's Interceptor (a.k.a. those "Cop in a Box" cars you see strolling around your neighborhood). This thing will drive straight through a city transportation bus!



Thursday, February 12, 2009

twinkle toes

So here's the first half of the kid's dance moves (as to why she's dancing, read the post below). With time I'll finish up the second half this weekend...gotta watch more hip hop videos

Sunday, February 8, 2009

There's a time and a place to bust a move---this ain't one of them



In the picture ABOVE, the supporting character, ASHLEY (a child who "Gabe" must deliver home, safe) has been kidnapped by "DeSeve" in an act of rage. However, he kidnapped the wrong kid, because ASHLEY is a seriously disturbed 3rd grader. She thinks this entire life or death situation is, like, the coolest, like, rollercoaster ride, EVERRRRR (See the rough dance below). She's truly enjoying the ride, busting a move or two, gets on DeSeve's nerves, and DeSeve proceeds to throw her out of the car (not shown, yet).


Wednesday, February 4, 2009

RAM.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Scene 12

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Things are about to get....ODD

Non Road-Rage related, my friends Mike Carlo and Al Pardo have joined forces to create a new web series: ODD JOB HITLER. The first episode, Pool Boy Blues is up and it gets funnier with each viewing. More episodes are coming ( I'm privy to the other odd jobs that they have in store for the fellow furor and it's going to get more and more degrading for him). So, without further ado, click the image to check it out:

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Happy New Year! Now... ...Why Officer Dot won't be riding a Segway in "Road Rage":




Seriously, I got a little miffed when I saw the trailer for this movie. One of the main conceits of the action sequence in "Road Rage" was to do a car chase with things that you haven't seen in a car chase before: A School Bus and mainly, a cop on a Segway. But oh well. It had to happen sooner or later.