Ferd Reel 2008

Here's a compilation of my most current animation work. I generally avoid including motion editing samples in my reel because I prefer to showcase my keyframing skills. However, I may edit it in if I were to apply at a studio that do motion capture work to demonstrate my experience with it.

Although I have worked with motion capture, I've never considered it to be animation - motion capture is a tool where you're given data to manipulate that was provided by another performer or actor, whereas in animation the animator IS the performer and actor.

Me personally, I find doing keyframe character animation provides the most rewarding experience and more often than not, much better results.

Verizon: A Thoughtful

This the full version of the Gorilla animation I worked on at Charlex for a Verizon commercial spot. The character was set-up by an incredible rigger, Steve Mann. The animation is about 3 seconds long, but only small segments of it were used in the actual spot.

Def Jam X-Video

This is the first cinematic I worked on (at EA Chicago) involving motion capture editing - A promo video for Def Jam: ICON. The first draft of was started by another animator and when he was pulled away, I took over all animation resposibilities, often with little or no direction... because there was no animation director until halfway in production.

I had to heavily keyframe this mocap data because the actors' performances were awful and "floaty" - ironic, since mocap is supposed to capture the "realism" of motion. Somewhere in the middle of this production, it was decided that these characters will talk and have facial expressions... so a rudimentary facial rig with 25 bones was created. We did what we could given the extreme limitations.

Animation Mentor: Spring Semester 2008, Class 01

My first semester of Animation Mentor just concluded. I learned more in 12 weeks than 2 years in art school as far as character animation goes. My mentor was Nicole Herr, an animator from Sony Imageworks and have worked on such films as Stuart Little, Surf's Up, and Speed Racer.

I plan to attend in the second semester, but I'll need to take a break from it this summer seeing how we may be in crunch mode at work.

Life Drawing 04-29-2008

20 minute pose. The only one out of all the drawings from this week's session that I felt turned out ok.

Life Drawing 04-15-2008

These are from this week's life drawing class. The head study is my first, real attempt at portrait drawing from a live model. Both are 25 minute poses.

Character Sketch

Just another sketch done while waiting for a long playblast.

Street Sketches 1

As part of my effort to "return" to my artistic roots, I've started doing sketches on top of life drawing classes. Here's this weekend's sketches from around my neighborhood in Lakeview, Chicago. I'll be doing a series of these and posting them every week.