Soundtrack!

*Sniff* Thats my shot!!

Please excuse the onslaught of Rio posts, this movie occupied my whole life for all of last year.

More painting practice last night

I have no idea what I am doing...

Signed Rio Poster Auction

Click image for the link.

 

 A good friend of mine, Rich Fournier, is auctioning off a signed intl. Rio poster for a charitable cause.

From Rich: 

 

"Recently I learned that an old friend from High school was diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia or AML. Having family members who have gone through similar struggles, I know how much of a toll it can take emotionally, physically and financially. In an attempt to help Chris and his family, I am posting an auction for the international poster for “Rio”, Blue Sky Studios’ next feature film, which has been signed by the Animation staff & Director Carlos Saldanha."

 

For more information, please click on the image above, Thanks!

Rio Animation Crew

Here's a group photo of the animation team on Rio!  Including Technical Animators and the Animation Coordinators.

At my previous job, I worked with 

a team of about 8 animators.

Rio float in Carnavale. Rio De Janiero, Brazil

Our film had a float in this year's Carnavale, a 4-day celebration down in Rio.  Our supervising animator went down for it, and I heard he dressed as one of the characters in the parade!  Ha!

More drawings for work friends

Sheldon and Chantelle , for Sheldon's last day here @ Blue Sky.

The Junior Animators.  Done last year but colored this year for going-away gifts.

My first shot on Ice Age 4 starts...NOW!

Art Blocks

These are the 2 Art Blocks for Ghana that I'm bidding on:

Celine Gobinet

Ricky Nierva

I'll let you know if I win them=)

Update:  I won Celine's!  

RiOreos

Whaaaaaaat.

Isaak's NY Journal

Check out my cube-mate, Isaak's personal NYC photo gallery .  His site also has an animation section where he's posting some of the awesome work he's done up until Rio.  Prior to Blue Sky , he was one of the handful of animators that came from Illion Animation in Spain working on Planet 51.

It begins....

In a couple of hours, I get kicked off on my first Ice Age 4 shot .  Not animating on production shots in a while can give you  butterflies.  I remember this feeling starting out on Rio.  But I'm ready to hit the ground running.

 Here's another clip from Rio.   I got to do the last 4 out of 5 of the last shots, starting at 00:47.  Wes Storhoff did the very last shot with the birds flying from the trees.

Blue Sky Blues by Ramon Lopez

Animator Lluis Llobera.

The sculpting/maquette room.

"Last month I took a bunch of pictures about the studio aiming to show something about the people of Blue Sky Studios." -Ramon Lopez

Click either of the images above to check out Ramon's gallery for a peek inside the studio!

Nigel's Song

I'm a huge, HUGE, Flight of the Conchords fan.  So I was super excited to have Jemaine Clement in our film .  Even on boards, this sequence was one of everyones' favorites.  His animation was lead up by Nathan Engelhardt and Lluis Llobera.  Actually, both Animation Mentor guys!  Both amazing animators.

Dice Demo - Learning from the master!

Yesterday , on our work's network, I found a painting workshop video that Dice Tsutsumi (former Blue Sky color key artist and current Pixar art director) gave while he was here at Blue Sky!  That guy is so dang good.  Needless to say, the workshop was amazing, simply demonstrated, and so inspiring that I was excited to give it a go when I got home, as verbatim as I could.

I've been making my way through the Academy Awards' Best Picture noms, and the other night I watched the Fighter, which was great .  Here's my interpretation of Christian Bale's character Dicky Eklund.

Suuuuuper amateur status for sure, and it's nowhere in the ballpark as what he ended up with. But it was fun to learn how he does things.

If you're not already familiar with his work, do yourself a favor and check out his amazing paintings!

On Artistic Growth

" The one thing I have noticed about people who are exceptional in their creative work is that they are always trying to get better.  That's how they got good in the first place.  These people judge themselves against the best work.  They aim for the top."

-Brian McDonald, Invisible Ink

( A book I just finished, and highly recommend!)

Rio Site Animation

Hey wanna see some animation I got to do that won't be in the film?!

Yes? OK go to the Main Rio Site.  Wait about 5 seconds for the main cast photo to dissipate.  One at a time, random characters from the movie will come across the screen dancing.  I did these two guys:

Haha. Party Fowl. The power of homonyms.

Here's the vid ref Garrett did for my dances.  Oh Shikumes.

My cubemate Isaak did Blu, Slemmer did Jewel & Toucan, Keith did the monkeys, and Pete did Bulldog!