More Jim

Just a small update - I continue work on my Jim pieces, though the walk cycle is progressing at a much better pace than the dialogue. Here's how it looks right now. Getting close!




I already feel wanderlust for a new piece, something longer, and actual film, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea if a single line of dialogue is slowing me down. Must keep working!

Jim stands for...

Just a small update - work continues on the Jim Dialogue piece, and I've started a walk cycle with my Jim Model as well, just to keep my brain exercised. Here's a playblast of the dialogue:




and here's an in-progress of the walk:

More more more

Always working on something, as I always say. I felt like I couldn't look at the viking animation anymore and decided to shelve it for now. Of course, that's not to say that I won't revisit it in a month's time (and probably look at all my keys and just think "What was I doing?") but for now, I needed another thing to look at.

So! There is a particular little scene that's been rolling around in my brain for a long time, and I'm taking this chance to finally get it out and into Maya. If you are familiar with webcomics, you've no doubt heard of Penny Arcade. They've worked together with Wizards of the Coast to help promote the newest version of Dungeons and Dragons by playing real games and recording everything and releasing it as a podcast. Oh, the nerdity! It makes me so happy to hear them roll their d20's. Anyways, one of the player characters to spawn from this union is a REAL character, going by the awesome moniker Jim Darkmagic, of the New Hampshire Darkmagics.

A coward, a jerk, a potent wizard with a budding fan base, Jim is hilarious in any situation. There is a particular quote from one of the podcasts that I've picked out, and I'm attempting to animate the short scene. I've already done a passing job of modding Norman to create Jim, and time and patience allowing, I'll be doing two other characters as well. A bit much work for a short scene, but if this is successful, I imagine that other animations based off the scenes in the podcast will follow shortly.

Here's what I have so far:



Jim Darkmagic and all related characters are, of course, property of Penny Arcade.

Viking update #2

And more progress is being made. Hit a roadblock with the poses near the end, and I'm switching to detailing and smoothing the beginning keys until I puzzle out how to finish the whole thing.

One of the biggest things I miss about being an animation student is having the luxury of students and teachers around you the whole time. It was supremely wonderful to have a useful critique every week, and now that I'm a graduate, I have to rely on my own network for outside opinions. And, really, that's the hard part for me. I have no confidence in my talents, and as such, I'm slow to show anyone my work, because they'll obviously hate it, and think me a terrible artist, etc, etc.

I understand that it's mostly silly, and that I need to get over it if I wish to be a better animator. Actually, writing this post has already helped, and upon finishing it, I'ma upload a playblast, and get some help.

Time Capsule

Now that I'm done with school, animations and the like are forthcoming to this site! It will be my only slice of the web devoted to my work, as I don't think DeviantArt likes works in progress in video form, and really, I've had enough gay Naruto porn and Sonic fanart to last me for several lifetimes.

Stay tuned to this space!