More random pics from the Studio

Blue Sky Halloween

Here are some pictures from the Halloween party/Costume contest we had at Blue Sky last week.  Pictures by Travis Price

I think I'm done

Today I finaled my last shot on Rio!  I'm moving on to marketing and promotional stuff for the main characters.  These should include TV Spots, commercials, teasers ,etc.   And this month already marks my one-year anniversary at Blue Sky!  Insane!

I still count my blessings and feel incredibly lucky to be here, working with so many folks who I consider superstars.  You have no idea!!!

Heres a cool little blip on Blue Sky from Greenwich Magazine.
Yes.  Greenwich, Connecticut has it's own magazine.  Lord knows why.

More Rio Characters!

Ironically enough, I never got the chance to animate the bulldog.  But everyone else I touched.

"Halloween Treat"

…at least that’s what the subject of the email that fellow animator Anthony Travieso sent out to the department this morning. I’m featured along with animators Nick Bruno, J.P. Sans, Pete Paquette, and Scott “Pimpcane” Carroll.

Co-Worker Update!!!

 Marcelo Sakai

 Michael Richard

 Brandon Kern

 Laura McGowan

 AJ Conrad

 Sheldon Kruger

 Audrey Bagley

 Rich Fournier

 Jason Martinsen

 Brad Regier

 Pete Devlin

 Guido Muzzarelli

 Matt Hasselman

 Kevin Koch

 Sebastien Bruneau

 Steve Dahler

 Anthony Travieso

Wes Storhoff

Tom Grevera

The first set is HERE.

New Rio Poster

B-Day Card!

Here's the B-Day card I worked on w/ Bruno for Mike Thurmeier, one of our directors on the next Ice Age!

Blue Sky Rubik's Cube Championship

Rubiks Competition 2010 (part I)- Blue Sky Animation Dept. from Nate Wall on Vimeo.

For about a month the animation dept had Rubik's Cube fever!  It's over now, but check out the next installment to see who ended up winning it all!

Desk!

50 % !

My Anim. Sup Galen and the Director Carlos.  Hammered.

Whoa!  Sorry for the severe lack of updates everyone! (And anyone who even follows this blog anymore.)  I've been super duper busy animating on this film.  So what little free time I have has been spent enjoying NY w/ good company, and watching the World Cup.  We are halfway through animation production on Rio! I'm continuing to meet lots of amazing folks here and am really loving busting our asses on this film w/ them.  Hope everyone else's summer is goin well !

Back to work I'll talk to you guys in a little bit!

Our first trailer!

Today the first trailer for our movie came was released!  I can't tell you how thrilling it is to see it fully lit, shaded, rendered and out for everyone to see!  I remembered , back at Arena Net, when the very first trailer for Guild Wars came out and how excited we all were for the public to finally see our work for the first time.  Such a gratifying feeling.

The voice for Blu ( the bird who can't fly) is Jessie Eisenberg (Zombieland) , who is awesome.  He brings so much appeal to the character, and I love listening to his reads.  I did have small quick shot in the trailer, so don't blink or you'll miss it.  It's around the 1:28 mark and looks like this:

Haha. Yeah!  Super simple shot but I worked like the dickens to even get it working right.  When I animated it I was thinking about a story workwife-Joe told me at lunch about the first time he went bungie jumping.  He was all super casual about the whole ordeal , even up on the platform he was chill, until he actually jumped and it suddenly hit him that he was free-falling, and he let out the loudest, balls-dropped, shriek and (when he told the story) he made this crazy, panic-stricken face.  That's that face right there.

Anyway,  the trailer, everyone at the studio is super excited about it.  For me, seeing it out there, that same gratifying feeling I talked about , gave me a huge boost.  I'm in the middle of a shot right now which I'm really wrestling with.  It's a big shot for me so naturally I've put a lot of pressure on myself, too much pressure.  There is so much amazing work being done around that I can't help but be tough on myself.  To the point where  it starts to become detrimental.  It's the kind of thing where you feel like you've had a pretty good grasp on this artform,  and then you come in and are suddenly are surrounded by superior talent.  Immediately you feel like you don't know sh*t.  And then you feel like a teenager, all awkward and unsure.  It's just growing pains man, like animation puberty or something.  Every time I start a shot I try my best to make it awesome, and by the end  I'm just trying to get to a point where it's, like, not terrible.  And trust me I'm not fishing for compliments, if you've seen the work being done here, you'll see that I've got a ways to go.   All of this is all something  I should write more about later, when I come out on the other side =).  

Anyway, off my soapbox, we're getting to make films here for crying out loud.  We're all stoked!  Check out the trailer HERE!

Some of the crew when our trailer went out earlier today.

Entourage

When the director comes around to see our work, he's usually rollin' deep.

Animation Dept. Meeting

Love At Arm's Length

Check out this short film a few of the super talented animators here at work did last weekend for the NYC 24 hour Film Race!

Animator Geek-Out Moment #457

I'm currently getting to animate on a shot that hooks up with another animator's who worked on Simba, Mulan, & the Beast!  I grew up on these movies!  These movies ARE my child/teenage-hood.

Big fan!  Big fan.

Authenticity

Monsieur Degas

 At the Met. 

The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer 

Cast in 1922 from a mixed-media sculpture modeled circa 1879–80

Goodbye and good luck, Coats!

Misc. April

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art!  The highlights for me:  The Rembrandts,the Arms & Armory wing!

View from the MET stairs.

Cherry Blossoms at Central Park

And back at work, since I can't show anything, here is a checklist of the shot numbers of what I've done so far!  I know, the pic is mundane but I can tell you that the ones marked "120" are a doozy! They are sandwiched between this amazing animator, and this amazing animator!  Both are like rockstars to me.  The pressure was definitely on man and I put everything I had into them.

Spring!

I lost about 20 minutes of work at the end of the day when Maya crashed, and that's OK because...

...Its gettin warm out here!!!  Word on the street is that there are cherry blossoms blooming in Central Park!

In other news, Animation Mentor updated their main site, check out where some previous AM students have ended up on the Alumni Page, including my fellow Blue Skyers Brandon and Lluis!