New Year's Resolution.

Why, hello there! I know it's been ages! I picked up my Col-Erase literally for the first time in 2 years or so, it feels so good to be back on the desk though. I'm still in the tropical island for those who wonder. It's been more than 4 years and counting, which surprises me more than anyone else as I myself never thought of staying here for a such a long time. Noriko and I also got our first baby in October, and my daughter has been the best thing that ever happened to our life since then. Work has been great as well. I didn't really feel that I could ever call myself as a professional animator 3 years ago as I was so fresh out of school at that time. But now, with a huge help from the company, I feel more comfortable pronouncing my title as an animator more than ever.

Though I wasn't fully happy being here for all this time. As I become more comfortable animating for the client, the job became somewhat more task-like. I started to behave like a mindless robot to accomplish whatever is asked. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not unhappy being here either. Most of the time I get excited over my shots and cannot sleep at night thinking about it. Seeing the other animator's work also never stops entertaining me. It only happens when I get tired or simply burned out. Those shots eventually turned out to be great nonetheless, thanks to the awesome lead Cedric, but I always felt that I lost my initial drive somewhere.

I reckon that's partially due to the type of the shots that I do at work. My initial motivation to get into this animation industry was more for a character driven animation, but most of the work that I did here has been a pure vfx work except for the Rango stuff. Again, I'm excited to do those vfx shots as well, it just happened to be that my affection is leaning more towards to the character piece.

Lately I've been thinking of making my personal piece more seriously than ever, for my own satisfaction and/or for the possible future job opportunities. The fact is that once you start it, it's a lot easier to keep up with it! A lot of good old memories started to come back as well. I'm a keen reader of Walt Stanchfiled's book for all the sudden again!

I thought the year end holiday was a perfect time for me to think about the plans for the next few years, and so did I. Then there's this art themed podcast thing here. I completely forgot where I picked up from but it was on my Read It Later list, so I had a listen. Quite surprisingly the host was talking about the dos and don'ts on making a new year's resolution. What a perfect timing! I believe the show is quite entertaining apart from the fact the he is recording the podcast while he drives, so there's an awkward pause here and there. But anyway give it a try while you are still in the new year's mood.

Enough of my story. I hope you got your own resolution ready to begin a year. Happy New Year to all and see you in a bit.

Influence Map

I don't usually participate those internet meme, especially when I'm not even a member of deviantArt. But I found this very entertaining for both audience and myself as well.

Uwe Heidschötter http://heidschoetter.blogspot.com/

Guilherme Jacinto http://www.guilhermejacinto.com/blog/

Ghostbot http://www.ghostbot.com/

Erwin Madrid http://erwinmadrid.blogspot.com/

Calvin and Hobbes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes

Katie Rice http://funnycute.blogspot.com/

Dylan Forman http://dylanforman.blogspot.com/

Shane Prigmore http://shaneprigmore.blogspot.com/

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

William Trebutien http://singeclub.blogspot.com/

Shiyoon Kim http://shiyoon.blogspot.com/

Mike Thomas http://sketchmt.blogspot.com/

Dave Pimentel http://drawingsfromamexican.blogspot.com/

Walt Stanchfield http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Stanchfield

Rango

So it's finally out. Rango is an upcoming animated feature film directed by the man who created The Pirates of Caribbean, Gore Verbinski. And this is very first time for Industrial Light and Magic to take a crack at making an animated film, apart from the short film named "Work in Progress" done back in 2000. As you might have guessed by now, I happened to be the part of the crew.

It was back in 2002, I saw one of the most anticipated animated film at that time, Monsters, Inc. I was completely blown away by its sincerity of the characters. I never thought I would be moved so much by watching CGI characters acting out on the screen. It was then I made up my mind to become an animator. It took me a while to prepare all the money that I needed for the university, then in 2003 I was in San Francisco biting a burrito.

7 years flew by, I ended up being in a bunch of places around the world. I went back to Tokyo for an unfortunate visa issue, then I gained quite few but trustworthy allies during the time I was in Sweden. Here I am now. Miles away from the equator. Still animating.

The movie won't come out until next year March. But I'm sure those patience would be paid off when you got to see the actual thing in a theater. As much as this movie means to me, this means a lot to all of hardworking talented crews who's involved in making this film.

I hope this triggers some of the new generations to consider their career path to be in the field of animation much alike what Monsters did to me.

Watch gorgeous HD version of trailer at Apple or click here to see it on YouTube for your convenience.

Someone out there.

Yes, I know it's been ages. I'm actually quite surprised to see it's been a year since I did last post. To be honest, I felt my sketches were getting worse and worse, not in terms of draftsmanship or technique but style. I always felt that I was just reproducing what's been done by someone else, not creating something by my own. At some point I got sick and tired of watching my own stuff, and I quit drawing.

A work has been busy as well. It's been almost 2 years since I moved to Singapore. I'm now officially moved in to ILM Singapore and still animating. One of the movies that I worked on will be coming up in theater very soon but I can't talk much about it and the one I'm currently working on either. It's been hectic sometimes, it sure is not an easy job. My hair was and is always gray but I've also learnt how not to sacrifice my life for the job. I hope those sweaty hours that I put into my animation will pay off when I got to theater.

As I see a new way of communication is evolving past few years, I thought of closing the blog once again. But I'm not here to say I'm discontinuing the blog. But I've started to use Twitter instead. It's been quite useful for both communicating and gathering information. Then I thought about those people who is still reading this blog should be notified at some point, right? So here it goes. Though I'm not twitting about anything work related, if you are interested, follow me, or you can always remove from your list as you wish. I will try to follow you back as long as you are not posting 100 tweets a day.

http://twitter.com/atsbomb

No more Pixar class at Academy.

http://splinedoctors.com/2008/12/academy-of-art-and-the-pixar-classes/

It's sad the class is no longer available for students, as myself thought about going back and take the class once again.

I have a mixed feeling about shot animator. I have to admit that I was focusing on creating small exercises for my demo reel to get my first step into the industry. If I was creating my own short film at school, I could have gone more creative in a way, but I don't think I could have gotten where I am right now, which is where I feel settled financially and be creative at home. As opposed to what I did in order to get a job, what I've been doing at real production is more of team work. Dealing with Story point of the shot, hook ups and continuity. That's the things we've been talking about the most at work. I'm not saying we don't need polish for the shot, just saying polish without spirit of the shot doesn't do a job.

I have to admit that I enjoyed the mood they had. That was very competitive to get in to Pixar class. But even before I got in to the class there were a lot of great things happening at PC lab. I don't forget "mentorship" given to me from Denis or Tom who were already in the class at that point. Even after I got into the class I learned a lot from people around me, Tun, KC, Tomo, Hyunjung, Jin, Key and Joe. Something makes Pixar class so special, but by the time I was graduating the school, I felt things were going way too extreme. I saw many people who were just trying to figure out the formula to get in to the class and forget about the point of learning animation. The school was making things worse by narrowing the door for the class in a way, as opposed to what Dr. Gordon intended to.

I don't know what could be an alternative solution fot this. I just feel sad that they've gone. but I also know they're extremely passionate about teaching animation. So I just hope they will be back in some kind of form after they take some break.

4th dimension in our animation.

Today I had a small talk with my friends at work. Then I noticed very important element for animation, or maybe art in general, that cranks up our animation to the next level. Are you ready for this? That is "love".

In this episode we are currently working on, I got my favorite female character that relatively appeals to my eye more than any other characters in the show. So I kept saying the character is cute. Today one of my buddies told me that I've fallen in love with an imaginary character. I went back to my seat and thought about it. then I was like That's it!

Yes he's right! I'm in love with 3D character on my screen. sounds too nerdy eh? But seriously though, I noticed I've completely stopped surfing web site when I was animating that character. And spent time on every single details to get it right even though we are on TV schedule here.

Once we're all done with animation basics such as Timing, Spacing, Follow Through and Ease in/out. At the end of the day it's all about how we project the character's feeling into 2 dimensional screen. In order to do that right, I need to know what the character is thinking, not only surficial level but in more deeper level. If I'm in love with what I'm animating, it just comes natural.

My buddies laughed at me when I was proposing this. well, I agree this kinda sounds too geeky. But I still think "love" brings another extra dimension to our animation, so I'm sharing this with you guys here.

It's been said we'd better not fall in love with our shots because it's not our's, it's director's. But that's another story.

Experiencing TV Production.

Sorry for not having any doodles lately, but I rather have my thought right now.

So I started animating at work. It's quite simple character for kids (nealy primitive if I could say), each episodes run about 1 min, my buddy made a model and rig, I'm taking care of animation but I also have to do rendering as well. So given time for me, which is 3 weeks by now, is not quite enough to get my satisfaction. I was used to spend 3 weeks to finish 300 frames for class. Guess how many time I got here for my first 350 frames. It was 2 days. That sounds more like insane actually, but that's exactly what is happening to me right now.

There's one thing that school never taught us, Efficiency. When I was taking Pixar class at the Academy, the whole environment was so ideal, just so ideal. We got 3 weeks for 300 frames, getting great critiques from teachers, spend some time critique each other and discuss about animation all day long with my friends. I guess not every production has such an ideal environment while they are having multiple projects going at the same time.

Plus, a quality that client expects us to achive is quite low I say. It may not be for all TV production but maybe because I'm working at Japanese production. Sadly but it's true that Japanese 3d animation is poorly executed over the years. I was surprised at the fact that some of supervisor laughing at the importance of Illusion of Life. man.... Japanese should honor the fact that we *do* have great talented animators in 2d production tho.

I would consider myself as lucky just because I still can have fun animating character for kids (well, I like cutie fluffy thingie more than dragons and warriors and stuff). In fact that's really great thing that I can make money by doing what I really want to do, u know.

If some of you found my experience interesting, cool that means I didn't waste my time writing some thoughts on my blog. I would write more of my experiences if my time allows.

I saw some of movies btw, Rushmore, Royal Tenenbaums, Nacho Libre. Man, Rushmore is such an incredible piece of work. I saw Royal Tenens first, and kinda hooked, not strongly tho. Then Rushmore, it's already been added to my list of the movies that I think I'm happy to see before I die.

Animate.

Ok, I'm a bit high right now. But yeah, I will be an Animator for next upcoming project. Wooohoooo! It's not a big feature project, but I'm pretty much excited while this is my first real production experience as an Animator. Whatever shot I got, I will do my best for the shot. Then I will see something I've never been able to see once it's done.

btw, Did I say I'm excited?


Did I?

My thoughts on Rigging.

As I proposed before, One Japanese company wanted to see my rigging skill. So I have been working on rigging last 2 weeks. It's been a while since I haven't done much of rigging these days, so I felt rusty. At the same time, I'd learned some of new techniques, so that was really exciting, too.

As my process goes, I just felt my rig sucks. I thought it's pretty cool at some point, but next morning I just feel so bad. It's like drawing or animation. And my presentation is not that good like my friend told me. It was a bit fast fowarded. I sent them a link already, so I hope the company can see what I'm capable of.

Some ppl might see my strong influence on Disney type of rig and GUI. That's true. Since I've been having strong interests on both Technical side and Artistic side of Animation, I have been always searching the way that advances this new medium, in both ways. Then I turned out really positive on the concept of Broken Rig and Bendbow.

It was just a puppet while back when I was in Japan 4 years ago. 3D animator had only ability to rotate some joints, and some IK. But what 2D animators have been doing is not just rotating the joints. They do whatever things to get the shape on the paper. So compared to 2D environment, 3D animator had a huge restriction.

New techniques like Broken Hierarchy or Bendbow has been introduced a while back. And I think this is really great advancement for 3D animation. Althought I haven't broke my rig that much yet, in a good Broken Rig, Animator can easily have the shape that he/she has in their mind. It's more like pencil than puppet. Animator can apply what they know easily, such as Line of Action, Squash and Stretch and Successive Breaking of Joints. I even think Bendbow brings some life into the model.

I think same thing would happen, In next 3 years, we probably see totally different rig. I'm sure that rig would have much less restrictions. As technologies progress, Animator can have more controls, in another word, Animator will have more responsibility to design things on the screen more than now. It's getting close to the pencil IMHO.


Anyways, here goes my reels. for those who haven't checked my latest Animation Reel, I will post it here as well. I noticed things I need to improve, both on Rigging and Animation. So I'm working on it, but always comments are welcome.

Rigging Reel. 46MB Quicktime Sorenson3
Animation Reel. 17MB Quicktime Sorenson3


Sorry for geeky post. I'm tired now. wanna do some Animations, and yeah, drawings!

Going back to Japan.

Sorry I've been inactive on this blog lately. I have something to tell you, but if you don't wanna waste your time, don't read all of this below. It's all of my excuses.

I got some companies who really wants me as an Animator. But always my degree has been problem. well, actually my degree is not problem for companies but it is problem for U.S. government. Government needs me to have a Bachelor or higher degree in order to get H-1B visa (working visa). It was okay to get H-1B with Associates degree before 911.

I got a previous job at Gateway Japan, right after my graduation of highschool, because I was really crazy about computer and programming at that time. (well, I'm still crazy as you probably know :) So I've never been in a college in Japan. Then I came here but only degree I got at AAU was Associates degree, just because of my budget.

I talked with some lawyer personally, and companies also talked with their lawyer, if there's any way that I could get working permission here. But there seems no way around. I still have OPT, which is 1 year permission to work here legally, but companies don't want to hire the person who will quit in a year.

So now, I'm going back to Japan.

It hurts, actually. Probably it wouldn't hurt as much if company said my skill is not qualified. Personally I don't really care about degree. What I can do is the most important thing for me. But I also know this is how it is. So I'm planning to go back to Japan now, and work/save money, then will come back here in 3 years to finish my Bachelor. I'm 27 years old now. So I guess this will be my last chance.

I really appreciate my family and friends who understand my situation and decided to support me. All of my friends I met in this school is my treasure. Some of them are already kicking ass in the industry. So I don't feel bad at all. I'm sure I will come back. Luckily, one Japanese company is having interest on me as a Rigger. So I'm making my Rigging Reel right now. I'm sure I will post here pretty soon.

For those who is wondering bout existence of this blog, don't worry I won't quit this blog, and I will never stop being drawing junkie :D

Appeal

I saw sign reflected on the mirror in the city one day, and thought the flipped version of character 'g' is really appealing to me. Maybe I'm weird guy that cares about how cute the alphabet is. But when the alphabets flipped as the way they are not supposed to be, don't you feel it's kinda cool? That has great design in its shape I think.

When I saw my friend's hand writing, I thought that's so cute to write character 'a' in the way how it's looks in computer. I mean I know almost ppl write character 'a' in easiest way, and I don't like that shape of 'a'. It's not appealing. Here is her hand writing, she wrote all alphabets for me to show how she handle with alphabets.

I love this shape of 'a', and she even mix capital letter and small letter when she writes sentence. And I found that really cute way to write alphabets. After all these, I was trying to change my style of hand writing, Here is what I had before.


It reads, not well tho. It doesn't have any visual quality for me. I want make it cute in sentence somehow. Here is my recent hand writing.

I changed my shape of 'a' as following my friend's one. And I do mix capital and small letters sometimes if it's gonna look nice.

Well, maybe I'm strange that I care how my alphabet looks like on the notes, but hey, why can't we have appeal on the letters? Make it fun to read at least.

I had big discussion with my friend before that whether we should draw what exactly see in figure drawing class or not. My opinion is that I should not draw what I see in front of me, By saying that I meant that I should make it fun to see since it's my art work. If I have mechanical arm and be able to trace what exactly I see in to a paper, why do I still have to draw anyways? We should use camera then. By using pencil or brush or whatever, we can eliminate what we don't want to show, and exaggerate what we want to show. That's where appealing comes in my opinion.