Well.... I have to confess, even though I said I was leaving Animation Mentor for a while, I never went back to finish the program. After all, the main goal was to land a job in the movie industry.
Looking back at this blog I think it actually has a good beginning and a very dramatic ending. So, after been inactive for a very long time, today I decided to close it with this last post.
That does not mean that my journey end here, there is always a lot to learn. As I always say, the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know.
This blog is a testimony of what happened when I decided to actively pursue my dreams. After 4 years working at Dreamworks as an animator, I still remembered all the enthusiasm and excitement I was feeling those amazing months, and can not help but feel gratitude with that younger me. I had to make some sacrifices along the way, but today I'm enjoying the fruits of it.
So, what can I say: Dreams keep you energized; Goals keep you focused and on track; But neither one of them means anything if you don't do something about it and pursue them.
Here is my first demo reel as a professional character animator.
Ares Deveaux Demo-Reel 2011 from Ares Deveaux on Vimeo.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Leaving Animation Mentor for a while
Well... it has been a hard decision, but I will leave AM for a while to deal with all that moving to California implies. So many things are going on in my life right now that I can not put my 100% on the assignments so I decided it was best if I just concentrate now on my big change and then continue with my short film.
My new demo reel
I selected just what I think are my best animation clips, because as they say: a demo reel is as good as the worst of the clips.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Class1-3 Progress Reel
Well, here is the My latest Progress Reel. It includes everything form class 1 to class 3 in reversed order. The last assignment "Line of dialog" is a work in progress because the facial animation will be done in class 4.
I hope you like it.
Thanks to all my mentors and fellow students for all the help!
I hope you like it.
Thanks to all my mentors and fellow students for all the help!
Line of Dialog
I had been waiting for this assignment since the day I started Animation Mentor: Acting!!!!.
Well at last I was able to concentrate on making the character express emotion. Still with just a few face control, but acting never the less. acting was important on the previous assignment but I was still too distracted by the body mechanics.
As on the others I taped some video reference but this one have some interesting information I do want to share with you:
First of all, this animation thing can be addictive and if you are not careful you will gain wight, so first lesson, reserve time for exercise. I have gained about 20 pounds since I started AM.
Ok... I want you to pay attention to the text... the white one is what the character is saying, the black one is what the character might be thinking, what they call the subtext. The interesting thing about that is that one should not animate the words but the thoughts, the ideas. that helps a lot when making acting choices.
This is one of the first blocking:
I had to many similar hand gestures and some of them where a little bit cliche, so I decided with the help of my mentor to brake it up a little bit more.
When I went to spline I encounter my first gimble lock in Animation Mentor. It is definitively a not fun thing to have, but I managed to get around it.
Well, and with this I got to the end of class 3. :D
Well at last I was able to concentrate on making the character express emotion. Still with just a few face control, but acting never the less. acting was important on the previous assignment but I was still too distracted by the body mechanics.
As on the others I taped some video reference but this one have some interesting information I do want to share with you:
First of all, this animation thing can be addictive and if you are not careful you will gain wight, so first lesson, reserve time for exercise. I have gained about 20 pounds since I started AM.
Ok... I want you to pay attention to the text... the white one is what the character is saying, the black one is what the character might be thinking, what they call the subtext. The interesting thing about that is that one should not animate the words but the thoughts, the ideas. that helps a lot when making acting choices.
This is one of the first blocking:
I had to many similar hand gestures and some of them where a little bit cliche, so I decided with the help of my mentor to brake it up a little bit more.
When I went to spline I encounter my first gimble lock in Animation Mentor. It is definitively a not fun thing to have, but I managed to get around it.
Well, and with this I got to the end of class 3. :D
Pantomime
This one was a challenge. I had to try to recreate a scene and express contrasting emotions without facial expression, just pure body animation. I acted out the actions in front of the mirror and in front of the camera to use it as a reference and came up with this blocking:
I had a lot of fun animating the waiter which worked like magic from the beginning. but the other guy was a different story. I had to take in consideration that only one of my character should be doing something important at a time to make the silent dialog work, but I wanted the main guy to do so much stuff that the animation was getting to busy. at the end I had to delete a lot of the details I had him doing to make the animation more readable and believable. Moving holds was another thing that I had to learn how to achieve. Too still and you would perceive the character as rigid or dead, too much motion and it would not be a moving hold, to even motion on the holds and it would feel to CG. Moving hold can be tricky.
I had a lot of fun animating the waiter which worked like magic from the beginning. but the other guy was a different story. I had to take in consideration that only one of my character should be doing something important at a time to make the silent dialog work, but I wanted the main guy to do so much stuff that the animation was getting to busy. at the end I had to delete a lot of the details I had him doing to make the animation more readable and believable. Moving holds was another thing that I had to learn how to achieve. Too still and you would perceive the character as rigid or dead, too much motion and it would not be a moving hold, to even motion on the holds and it would feel to CG. Moving hold can be tricky.
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