Mid Year Holidays

In between working on and stressing about my honours project I've taken to doing a little bit of arts and crafts. It's nice to work on something completely devoid of uni value. So here are the end results:

Resin Jewellery

Resin Jewellery

Resin Jewellery

Paper Craft 

Melted Crayon Art

Melted Crayon Art

Melted Crayon Art

Repainted the Lionheart Executioner from WoW

What's a Siggraph?

When I first applied to do a year of study at Honours level, my first thought was that I had no idea how to organise an internship. I have been applying for internship placements everywhere in Australia and overseas with little success. I think that since cheaper work markets (South Korea, China and India) have entered the industry, many of the grunt work entry level positions that we would have once had as the first rung on the ladder; no longer exist in many studios. So then I began to look at 'experiences' that would get me closer to the industry and give me an opportunity to learn along the way.

Before uni started this year I applied to be a SIGGRAPH student volunteer and then in May.......I was accepted.  I'm very excited and also nervous, but more excited than anything. This year SIGGRAPH is in Los Angeles. I'm a member of ACM SIGGRAPH in Australia and was hoping to go to SIGGRAPH Asia this year, but I am well stoked that I will be a student volunteer in LA instead. Being a student volunteer means that I will be working 30hours over the course of the convention, but they have assured us that we will still have time to see and do things. Plus they are putting us up in accommodation and providing us with full access pass to the convention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Sign

 So what exactly is a SIGGRAPH? Its a conference and convention for computer graphics and emerging interactive technologies. But it is so much more. It's an opportunity to meet other animators, programmers and artists from around the globe. Plus it sounds like fun. And they organise special student volunteer sessions just for us. From the 5-9 August at the LA Convention Centre there are panels, courses, an exhibition hall, job market hall plus an animation festival. At the moment all these events are just words on a page so I have no real expectations about what I will see only that I'm sure that it will be worthwhile. To see full details about SIGGRAPH, please click here. 


While I'm in LA I'm also going to attend a Disney Animation weekend which happened to be on at the end of SIGGRAPH. Once I'm finished in down town LA I pack my little bags and head to Anaheim. The D23 (Disney Fan Club) is putting on a retrospective of 75 years of Disney animation conference over two days at the Disneyland Hotel. They have so far only released certain information but I am loving the fact that it is all about Disney Animation and will include presentations and lectures by Disney animators such as Andreas Deja (my all time fave), Joe Hale, Burney Mattinson and Eric Goldberg. Plus voice talents and music, panels and screenings. So that's the weekend sorted. 

http://disneyetc.blogspot.com.au/2009/03/d23-details-announced.html

I stay on in Anaheim till Wednesday that week I think, so one of those days will be spent training it up to Simi Valley where the Reagan Library has a rare collection of artefacts from the Disney Archives on display- from film scripts and storyboards to theme park rides and live action film props. This one is extremely exciting and will be worth the two hour amtrak ride. 

http://english.sina.com/entertainment/p/2012/0629/481615.html

The rest of the time, and it will be summer so everything is open late and it will be light till late as well, will be spent at Disneyland; just cos.

http://disneyland.disney.go.com/au/

I haven't really been thinking about it all over the last few months as I've been focused on my study, but when I start to lay it all out like this, it's starting to sound pretty good.

Brave Fanart

Just spent the last hour or so ripping the guts out of my honours film storyboards to get it into something more manageable, so it was time for a night off- time for fan art. 

This one is of a predictable subject, Pixar's Brave and the character Merida. I really just wanted to get stuck into that hair and see if I could make an attempt at it. 

Plus, the colour combinations are just divine.  

A Brave Step Forward

Pixar's latest film, Brave opened today and of course I had to get along and take a look. There had been a great deal of hype about this film in Australia and this was one of those rare cases when it was actually justified. Brave was more than a wee bit brilliant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(2012_film)

The film itself is a new step forward for the studio as they have created a film that will be taking its place alongside other myths, legends and fairy-tales that have been animated by sister company Disney.

http://veryaware.com/2012/06/review-brave/

The refreshing difference with this film is that it is clear that story is king with focus on developing strong female characters that despite being of a royal family are anything but the typical pretty in pink princess. A full synopsis of the film can be found here. The women in this film are exceptionally well crafted and it is clear that we the audience are watching their story unfold. As the first female protagonist for Pixar, Merida is a fantastic character that we are able to see grow and change throughout the course of the narrative, Merida's growth is complimented with that of her mother who also learns lessons about the priorities of life. One of the nice concepts in this film is that both central female leads compromise rather than surrendering or being defeated. Aside from the familial conflict between mother and daughter, the outside evil in the form of savage bear also has an ending that is anything but typical in this genre of animation. Brave is a film that pushes beyond the blacks and whites of good versus evil and instead delves into the greys of relationships and narrative. 

http://www.justjaredjr.com/tags/random/page/2/

For this reason I found that the film itself was more of an adult film, this is not to say that kids won't enjoy it, but the nuances between mother and daughter and the movement towards acceptance and compromise are notions that rise above the base good versus evil paradigm of the fairytale. Comic relief is provided by the supporting characters of clansmen and slapstick is expertly executed by Merida's three brothers. I was pleased to see none of the superfluous sidekick characters that can get tiresome and in some instances have become a clearly defined afterthought.   

http://teaser-trailer.com/brave-the-triplets/

Although clearly a character driven narrative, the setting of the film cannot be underestimated with the rugged Scottish highlands shaping the character that Merida is and the one that she becomes by the end of the story. There are plenty of long sweeping shots of beautiful scenery, the attention to detail and the interwoven evidence of myth-making in the environment is exceptional as one would expect from Pixar. 

http://pixartimes.com/2011/03/28/first-look-brave-concept-art-also-behind-the-scenes-changes/

The technical aspects of this film are astounding and kudos must be given to those who worked on the protagonist's flowing red locks- my mind blown. The weight of the fabric and the movement of the dresses was also a highlight (Geez I am such an animation nerd) but I did love the fact that although their dresses were fine, they were still heavy and suitable for the climate. I also loved the natural movement and the integration of the bear movements with the human characteristics of the Queen. The attention to detail on the movement and interaction with the horses was also something I didn't expect, but it was extremely good. 

http://www.pixartalk.com/2012/04/meet-merida/

Overall, Brave was a thoroughly entertaining movie that delivered. I laughed and I cried and can't wait to get back to see it again. 

The Return of Fan Art

I'm allegedly on holidays from uni at the moment, but I think that's just a vicious rumour as I've been working pretty hard on my Hons project- follow my progress here.

So to take time out from animation tests I enjoyed a bit of fan art creation based on my latest game craze, Blizzard's Diablo III, which I think might actually end up being the first quest driven game that I actually complete.

Here is my version of my character, a low level wizard, reference image from the D3 loading screen:

Final Image: 

And......eyes open lol. 

Just a Quick Post

Just a quick post, most of the action has been happening over at my Hons blog, link at the top of this page :D

But I did find some progress shots of work that has been done for my Honours project so I thought I would post them here.

A lot has been happening over this past semester and I will update again soon once the stress of the last few weeks of semester 1 has eased a little.

Rocking Research Old School Style

Over the past few weeks I've had to spend a lot more time completing assignments than I have working on my actual Honours film, which is confusing given that the assignments are all about the film and how I am researching different methods and practices to create it.

To get into the swing of research I like to read, a lot. We're not supposed to call this research, it's meant to be called guided reading- but to me it feels like research lol. The main aim of the reading is to supplement ideas or theories I might have in relation to the techniques I might use in my film.I spent an entire day in the library the other day and was shocked to see that I was the only one that was using an actual pen and exercise book (old habits die hard I guess). Everyone else was on laptops or ipads, well at least I didn't have to worry about running low of batteries (only the metaphorical kind, but caffeine usually kick starts them).

Everything in terms of the academic side of Honours seems to be due in the next couple of weeks and I am finding more and more that my nights are sponsored by V Energy drink. We have a methodology presentation on Wed night then a project update presentation the following week, oh and I also have that pesky fine arts elective hanging about too. 

In a weird way I am feeling less stressed than I was at the start of the semester, perhaps because I feel like I kind of have a handle on things in both areas- research and project. This is not to say that either of them is perfect, just that it feels less like I'm pushing jelly up hill, so that's a positive. 

Fun 20min Chibis

Went to see Avengers today, awesome film loved it. So to celebrate it I churned out a couple of fun profile chibi illustrations of myself and a mate as our fave Avengers. Sometimes you just gotta draw fast and for fun, this is the first illustrations I've done in a while that hasn't been for Honours or for uni.

IronShell

Nat of Asgard

Book Cover Practice

Have had a tough week trying to work through issues concerning methodologies to use in testing and researching for my Hons, so tonight I decided to draw something unrelated to uni.

I've been watching Bravo's Work of Art and their test in the past week was to design a book cover for a classic novel that they were assigned. So I asked a mate to assign me a novel and this is what I ended up with:

Done in PShop CS3 with Wacom