Edinboro University Animation at CTN Expo 2012

Edinboro was at the CTN Expo this year. I had been feeling nostalgic for the old campus last year, but could never find the time or the wheels to get out there when I visited NE Ohio.

Instructor Michael Genz was there; he had moved to Edinboro back in the '90's I believe; had a nice chat with him about the program, and the snow:) Doucette Hall is still the heart of the animation and graphics departments. It even looks like the old cafeteria is still there too.

Anyway, my department chair Dori from Woodbury let me know Edinboro was there. I saw my name on their banner of Distinguished Alumni quite a few times. It gave me a nice boost after feeling worn out from CTN. For modesty's sake, I only posted one close up shot of my name with Warner Bros. and Woodbury; two of my best achievements. Nice to be listed with Bill Waldman from Warner Bros. and Dave Filoni from King of the Hill. (I only did some freelance for Tom T Productions.) Some people say my head was swelled up enough after that;)

Argyle type pattern made in Maya, w/ Photoshop

Needed a pattern for a character's scarf, got stuck trying to create the pattern in Photoshop alone; and Illustrator is not my best thing.

Started in Maya, took a polygon plane, and rotated it 45 degrees, RMB to select faces, assigned a new Lambert to every other face. Took a screen shot and opened it in Photoshop. Had to use Edit-Transform-Scale and stretched it vertically to get the diamond shape. Duplicated the layer and reduced the opacity, moving it over to get the diagonal patterns. Had to experiment with Image-Adjustments-Hue/Saturation and Brightness/Contrast. Try it, you'll like it!

Diffusion of Innovation

Found this interesting, on how quickly, or how slowly people accept new technology. I've been guilty of being on the slow end, but I'm trying to stay ahead. Just like everyone else right?

Copyright http://www.learnmarketing.net/diffusion.htm

Technorati Claim

BJ8FJP47RBD7

Blog views down Again!

Well, views of this blog have taken another nose dive. Who evaluates these things?
Is the information on this blog not worth anything?
Should it be organized in a better way?
Someone please let me know!

Female Iron Man in secret tunnel

Here's a stylized female "Iron Man", stalking through a tunnel under some super villain's lair. Maya primitives comped together in Photoshop. I think this character is more appealing, less arousing. I added her to the tunnel from my last post.
Still a lot of work to do.

Evil Tunnel

Evil tunnel, experimenting with lighting in Maya and Mental Ray;

Work in Progress.

Johnny Sokko Iron Giant Mashup

Sorry, I couldn't resist this; I'm surprised no one else has done this before. (Maybe it's a bad idea.) Or no one remembers Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot.

Anyway, What If Hogarth Hughes and Johnny Sokko had to trade robots for a mission?
If you remember, both robots get blown up at the end... Or did they?
It would be even scarier if Giant Robot and the Iron Giant had to fight each other; who would win?
I know, I should get back to work. Just blowing off steam from the CTN Expo
http://www.ctnanimationexpo.com/


With apologies to the Toei Company Ltd., Mitsunobu Kaneko, Brad Bird and the crew at Warner Brothers Animation. (All artwork copyright Toei Company Ltd. and Warner Brothers Feature Animation.)

CTN Expo 2012

Quick snapshot of Woodbury's stop motion set up, created by Ric Heitzman. Canon Rebel EOS camera with DragonFrame stop motion software.

Election 2012

Better late than never, I want to refer anyone who finds this blog to a quote from the film "1776".

"Don't forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor." I believe the quote continues as-"that is why they will follow us."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068156/quotes?qt=qt0443110

Whether John Dickinson actually said that is up for debate, but it makes sense why people vote the way they do.

Personally, I didn't hold out much hope for President Obama. When I saw how much campaign money he accepted from Wall Street, I thought the celebration was over, even before he was sworn in as President. Getting rid of Bush, and cleaning up the mess the GOP had left for the last 30 years would take time, and any non GOP replacement would seem to be an improvement. The wars, the influence of big money trampling civil rights, and the bank bailouts rolled on with just about the same momentum.

On the other hand, a Romney victory would lead us back to more of the same war, corruption and incompetence of the Bush presidency.

Biased? You bet. I'm tempted to join the angry, noisy minority that tries to rule this land.

But I don't have the energy to carry on like that, and I have to live with people the next day.

Blog Value

The numbers on this blog have dropped. According to business models, I must not be doing this well. I see now that a blog has to make money, be an authority on some subject, or offer some meaningful contribution to society. I've also read via Google search that Google reviews the value of blogs, and then resets their value. That may explain the drop. My goal is showing some expertise, and offering something constructive.

This blog is about animation, art and teaching. The bounce rate is high, according to Google Analytics. Most of the visitors are new, they seem to look around and then leave. I need more comments, more feedback, even if its just about selling a T shirt.

http://www.google.com/analytics/


http://www.myblogvalue.com/

http://www.blogcalculator.com/

http://blog.valuecruncher.com/

Happy Halloween Skull sketch

Having a good time seems to be a big gamble these days. Did the "Gambler" in Sketchbook Pro with the "Y" symmetry turned on.

Turing pattern generators

Finally, some cool Turing pattern generators. Have to use screengrabs to get them into Photoshop. Should be able to convert them into Illustrator curves to send them into Maya to create geometry. Still want to get them into Flash, later. The texrd.com website has a very cool free software. My hat's off to them.

http://www.texrd.com/

http://www.supracodex.com/processing/gray-scott.html

Commander Kitty!

Guilty pleasure time again:

http://www.commanderkitty.com/

Enjoy!

blogger pageviews lost

"Well, THIS is embarrassing." I realize Blogger is free, but my blogger pageviews have been lost. Computers have been taking a dump lately, maybe the "Martians are due on Maple Street"?

Ya get what you pay for I guess.

Flamingo Rollerskate Waitress for the Holidays

Updating her rig to get more appealing poses; a lot mistakes I missed. I've decided she's more like a Knick-Knack character from Pixar. Had to delete history, freeze transforms, etc. Using Mental Ray helps give her a better look. Need to give her eyelids, better hands and more blend shapes. So early Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays. Lord, I hope so.

Flamingo Roller Skate Waitress returns

Here's my goofy Flamingo Roller Waitress again. Trying to get her rig fixed.
Don't worry, they only serve veggie-burgers.

Chuck Jones: 100 years

All this, and the space shuttle too! What a day. That's not all folks.

Factory window in Maya

Simple polygon model of factory window.

PreVis

Incredible class I took from Brian Pohl. Brian was a PreVis supervisor at Persistence of Vision studios. http://www.brianpohl.com/

https://vimeo.com/8208316

It was a bear using Maya, After Effects, and a little bit of Photoshop. Plus, just coming up with the idea, storyboards and  timing for the chase. In other words, generating content while mastering two software packages.

3 Point Perspective

Quick sketch out of my head while having lunch at the Choza Mama across from NBC. Tweaked hastily in Photoshop, work in progress. Mister "show biz" indeed! I was daydreaming about some seedy, tropical getaway place while having some grilled chicken and salad. Just trying to show my students how important it is to try to capture an idea, or just a mood, and then develop it. Looks like I have to follow my own lesson first!

Basic polygon modeling tutorials

Here's some basic polygon modeling tutorials on screencast.com http://www.screencast.com/users/roskotron

Online Comics-Intrepid Escapegoat

Guilty pleasure time! I finally got to read the first adventure of the Intrepid Escapegoat by Brian Smith. http://www.briansmithcomics.com/news/I missed it on free comic book day. Classes start Aug. 31st, so I'm squeezing in some goof off time. The Intrepid Escapegoat is the copyright of Brian Smith http://www.comixology.com/ 

Olympic Phoenix

I watched practically none of the Olympics, but I enjoyed the closing ceremony performances. Seeing the Phoenix rising while the Olympic flames were going out moved me to sketch this up starting in Autodesk Sketchbook and finishing in Photoshop. Nice to think the flame will keep going...
( The Olympic logo is  the copyright of the International Olympic Committee)

10,000 page views!

Thanks to all my readers for taking this blog to 10,000 page views. A very modest number for a blog, I guess. While I try to provide technical and artistic material here, it does turn into a scrapbook, or just a grab bag for things that are on my mind. Keeping focus is tough, but working with computers and animation takes me into areas outside the regular studio situation. Thank you again for sorting through all that. Thank you to the Animation Guild for setting up the computer lab, and to Woodbury University for allowing me to teach, and get my hands on some amazing technology.

Early Basic Maya work

Okay, a chicken walks into a bar...Basic polygon modeling and lighting to show students how to get started.

After the Fox animated opening credits

Dick Horn animated these titles for the Peter Sellers movie "After the Fox". I always liked films from the 60's with animation in the opening credits. Dick also worked on "Yellow Submarine. "http://www.animatormag.com/archive/issue-12/issue-12-page-25/

Flamingo Dancer roller skate waitress

A flamingo waitress on roller skates, but I got this great pose of her using Maya. Haven't worked on her in a long time, was having trouble with her rig.

Cabin

Missing Canada already...

Labyrinth built in Maya using Turing patterns

Took a Turing pattern off the internet, converted it into an Illustrator file, then imported it into Maya. From there, lofted the geometry from curves. Done!

Three Musketeers minus one

Herman Bear and Obsidian as swashbucklers! Ruff sketch

Captain America sketch art

Hello, was traveling around Parry Sound Canada, here's a quick sketch of Captain America

Memorial Day commemorative dog-tag art

Artwork I did for one of my first clients in LA: commemorative dog-tags of WWII, Korea and Vietnam. I appreciate the sacrifices made by all soldiers. The decisions made by our politicians, not so much.

Over the Mountain characters as Green Lanterns

Gaia, Obsidian, Cubcake and the Bio-Soldier are accepted as alternate, "backup" Green Lanterns. All, except for the Bear. Stay tuned to find out why!(Green Lantern copyright Time/Warner/DC Comics, Over the Mountain characters copyright Ken Roskos)

What's new in blogging?

I am experimenting with a new blog. I'm trying to post something everyday. I'm also trying to learn how search engines and bots find blogs. I'll see if this gives the new blog more popularity. http://adorablediabolicals.blogspot.com/

The 99%

This is a job for...

Logo design in Photoshop.

Remembering Andy's Armenian Burger near Universal

Miss that lamb sandwich wrap he made. They paved paradise, put up a parking lot. (Photo courtesy of Bill Ohanesian)

Over the Mountain #4 Rough Comp

Blog baby, blog!

Okay, here is a cover for Over the Mountain comic #4

Happy New Year 2012!

Pressing on, even tho' things are falling apart.

These guys are cool though.

The Strange Case of Dad’s Missing Head