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