In December, I finished the course “Introduction to Computer Animation with Maya” at the School of Visual Arts. Our goal for the course was to model a toy that we brought to class, then texture, rig, light, animate, and render a video. My toy was the ever cute/terrifying Bob-Omb from Super Mario. The CG animated video above is my final project, a short walking sequence with some appropriate music and sound effects to complete the mood.
Although it has similarities to other creative programs, learning Maya from scratch was difficult. My teacher Alex Cheparev was really great, and having someone teach you makes the learning process much smoother. He works as a modeling supervisor at Charlex in New York, and you can look at some of his work here.
Written by Androsko, December 6th, 2011, Categories: Video
Over the summer, I worked on a music video with Therefore Productions for the group Reformed Whores. The video was for their song “Punch Me in the Face”. I helped with pre-production to get ready for the shoot, then I switched off between camera and lighting on the day of. It was a lot of fun to work on and turned out really great in the end.
The people organizing the Williamsburg Film Festival must have agreed. They selected our project for the music video category, and we were given an outstanding achievement award. I even got to take part in a Q&A after the screening, and there’s a photo after the break.
Sometimes you get the dog, and sometimes the dog gets you. The good parts are 0:00-0:45 and 1:37-2:19. Also your grout might need some attention. “Oh, Gary!”
A few months back, I made some parody Atari game boxes of four romantic comedy movies. They were published in an issue of Kill Screen Magazine, which I posted about here. I figured it was about time to share them in all their high res glory, so here they are; four Atari games that never were for movies that definitely did not need games.
A big thanks to AtariAge for their awesome fonts, which I now use whenever I can. The bride on horseback in “Runaway Bride” comes from this great photo by Steve Jurvetson on Flickr. All the other graphic elements were done from scratch by yours truly.
I tried to cover a number of different box styles. I’m very fond of Activision’s flat, cartoony art and diagonal banners. My favorite is the expanded Atari 2600 silver style used for “Little Black Book”. Who knows what Little Black Book the Game is about or how it would play. It seems that the programmers didn’t actually see the movie.
I’ve been working on a script for an animated short, and I started messing around with sketches for the main characters. This one is a sparrow, and he seems a little gloomy.
Considering I haven’t sketched anything by hand in a while, I’m pleased with how it came out. It’s times like this that I wish I had a Wacom tablet.