Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everyone! Be safe and Gob bless.

With Scanners, Sketches Come

Well, my plate has been a little full through various things. Helping with family, girlfriend, and doing so many artistic projects that I'm pretty sure the tenuous emulsion that's holding me together is pulled to its limits.

You'll see all that in the future.

Right now I'll present some sketches.

Here are some Burne Hogarth inspired head studies:

Home at Last

Well, not final resting place or anything, but out of my brief stint in Columbus. Between preparing for the move and AnimSchool class/work, I haven't had much time to update the blog. That should change now with the added bonus that I now have a scanner, so expect sketches every now and then!

11 Second Club - November '10 - WIP 3

So here is the blocking for my 11 Second Club entry this month. It's a great audio clip from a pretty great movie (Planes, Trains, and Automobiles). Lots of fun to act out through these characters. The "thief" still needs a bit of work and I'm not all that happy with Santa's gallop thing over from the fireplace, but it's a start.

35th out of 256!

I'm slowly working my way up. Top 13%. Of course I see ways I could make this better, but I'm happy with it. I pushed myself in a lot of ways this month. Enjoy!

11 Second Club - October 2010 Entry from Adam Roades on Vimeo.

P.S. I'm still accepting comments and criticism if you have them!

I Can't Actually Juggle But....

As you can maybe see by now, I have some kind of a case of artistic ADD. Or maybe I'm just some kind of masochist. Either way, I'm always bouncing from project to project (probably in a fervor to make something that might impress enough to land me my first job). Currently, I'm juggling three animation projects, I'm starting an animation class Thursday, and I've got several digital paintings in various stages of development. This is on top of the fact that I'm constantly sketching (sorry no scanner currently, so those will have to wait).

Anyway, here's something I just roughed out in the last 20 minutes or so. It's tentatively titled 'The Ones Left Behind".

I have a thing for depressing sci-fi. Speaking of which, I've also got a short animation in super-pre-pre-production.

Happy Halloween!

It's not finished yet, but Happy HALLOWEEN!

(I'll eventually post a series that shows the progression of its creation along with the finished product)

What happened to you?!

This month for the 11 Second Club I'm doing an entry set in a hospital. Though it's a competition solely for animation, I like to try to push myself in other areas of CG in my entries (in areas like lighting, TD stuff, rendering, and post work).

Anyway, this month took me a little deeper into the world of After Effects. My entries normally involve some After Effects work but this got me doing things I haven't done before. I made an animated EKG heart monitor and did a DIY rack focus move. Surprisingly, the EKG part was pretty simple and the rack focus turned out to be more difficult. I tried to keyframe the focal point of the Lens Blur I had set up, but it it just turned into a mess. I tried to adjust the white/black points to do a more "manual" form of changing to focal point. Double mess.

Eventually I just had to have two different images with different static focuses and fade between them. Then I just keyed a gaussian blur on the EKG screen (which was a separate object).  I'm sure there's an easier way to achieve all of this but, for now, this works.

Swashbuckler update!

I've done a bit more to tweak the timing, gave him some more life while he's swinging in, and some various other things. The soldier character's been referenced into the scene now, though I'm still not finished outfitting him in his armor.



As you can see in that playblast, I've set up some lights. So here are a few screenshots showing the lighting setup so far.

Everything looks good so far (within reason). The back ground will be tweaked and other things will be tweaked, but it looks ok.

Alright, things are still looking pretty good.

And then the problem rears its head. Oh my god, look at those eyes and teeth. Black and totally dead. I'm going to need to set up some lights linked just for lighting the eyes or bump up the ambient color on their shaders.

Coming up (after I finish the soldier man and lock down animation), fire using fluid effects!

Mad Max... Future Past... Something or Other

So I watched Mad Max the other day. I think the thing that I came away with most was a certain atmosphere that George Miller was able to create. Even when the movie should have been downright odd or lame, it wasn't. He was somehow able to convey an apocalyptic tone (which sort of gave him free reign to create this anything-goes film) without the typical grey skies and bombed out cities. A lot of the film took place in broad daylight.

It inspired me to try to make an image that conveyed the same sort of apocalyptic feel in a pleasant setting (appropriately a day lit desert). Then, of course, the brain train started rolling and I decided to make sister (or brother?) images: one in modern-ish times and one in the Wild West. Both should convey a sort of personal apocalypse for the characters involved and both are going to use the same setting (yay! less background painting) but in one it's horses and the other it's automobiles.

After 20 minutes of roughing I have this.

I'll track the progress.

Swashbuckler Drop Kick WIP

This is a new piece I've been working on for the last day or two. Using a personally modified version of Josh Burton's excellent Morphy release candidate rig. It still needs a bit of polish and facial animation (eyes!) but it's time to get some feedback on this puppy.

New Blog!

This blog will hopefully be a home base for all of my personal endeavors relating to animation. So far it includes my portfolio and reel and other relevant info for employers or those just looking to say hi.

Hopefully I'll actually keep up with the blog portion. We'll see.

-Adam