AM Newsletter

Here's a little bit of a interview/post-mortem of the making of my Animation Mentor film, Better off Undead!  Thanks for showcasing it AM!

 I remember trying to get this film done last year, in time for Valentine's Day, and I didn't even come close!  So it's cool this was posted now.  It's funny to read this interview and scroll back just a few posts in the past and read how frustrated and disheartened I was going through it at first.  Melodramatic much?  But what's really cool is reading and remembering how many people, both good friends and strangers, offered to help me out.  I would get messages from people asking if I needed any modeling, animation, lighting help.   That was so awesome and I'm super grateful! 

As an aside, a little after I finished Animation Mentor, I posted it on CG Talk, and I was contacted by a talented artist named Jason Walker who said he wanted to do the environments for my short!  We went back and forth a little bit but he eventually got too busy with school, and I eventually moved out here.  But he did send me these initial lighting tests and I was already blown away!

Ceej

 

Missing home.  

Happy Valentines Day!

Schoolism: Assignment #3, Fleshing out Prof. Jetsam Khandro

 

   

  

 

Caricature Show

See some drawings I got to do for Blue Sky's caricature show here!

 http://bobbyinnewyork.blogspot.com/2010/02/caricature-show.html

Schoolism: Assignment #3, Fleshing out "The Makalu"

 

  

 

 

  

  

 

More development to come!  Brief description on this guy 3 posts down.

Schoolism: Assignment #3, Pt. 1

This week's lectures focused on head construction and caricature.  The first part was to draw a specific person from a photo, as realistic as possible, taking in all the info we can.  Here's my bowler hat guy.

Then we were  toput that photo away and create 3 new caricatured variations side by side on the same page, based on the circle, square, and triangle.  Fun stuff!

Here are just a few other misc. studies.  Check out pickle nose!

 

 The other half of our assignment will be to begin to add more character, clothing and personality to our Jeckyll/Hyde characters. By week 5 we will then just pick one of those 2 characters to take to completion throughout the nine weeks.  

And this isn't really supposed to be anything, it just came out of trying to customize new brushes.  But it was inspired by Demoiselles D'avignon Pablo Picasso, one of my favorite paintings, which I finally saw 

recently at the MOMA.

 

Winter

Schoolism: Assignment #2

Our assignment throughout the rest of the course is design Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde....

"They can be from any time period, past present or future. Create a new take, a new style on the characters."

My story involves Professor Jetsan Khandro, a Tibetan Biologist.  Who spends his waking hours, on the outskirts of Repula (a small village in the shadow of Mount Everest) , attempting to track down substantial evidence of a creature the locals call "The Makalu."  A bear-like Cryptid said to inhabit the base of the world's highest mountain.

This week the assignment was to start the thumbnail silhouette phase of our characters.  I normally don't ever have the discipline to sit down and do this.  But these were fun to do, and I definitely found better ideas for shapes than I would've had I just sat down to do a single drawing.

 

Schoolism: Assignment #1

Tonight I did my first assignment for my Schoolism class with Stephen Silver.  Our task was to design a character named Jerry Loomy based on a set description.  Here's a few bits from the description.

 Jerry Loomy.  

Used car salesman boss.
A cruel, moody ,high strung, dishonest man.
Stocky Build around 5'4".
A large round head with deep set eyes and sunburned skin, and a patch over one eye.  

Receding hairline with a pony tail.

Here's my Jerry. I would totally buy a car from this guy.

And the initial small sketch I started from:

Based off of the description , I turned to our adorable friend Danny Devito for inspiration.  Who doesnt?! 

And while I'm sharing, here's a little Illo I did for Cheryl as a Christmas gift. 

She really does sleep w/ the dogs like that.  But how could you not with a face like this?

In other news, I think I'm just about done with my first animation test at Blue Sky.  I know, its been pretty kick back so far.  But this year is gonna get super busy fo sho.  Have a great week!

Back to School. Ism.

Hey everyone!  So yeah, things are going great at Blue Sky!  Been busy moving so sorry for the lack of art here.  But no worries! This Jan 7th , I've signed up a course at Schoolism .  I know, more online classes!  For some reason, I can't get away from them.  I'll be taking the Character Design class with Stephen Silver.

  I had a small stint at Gas Powered Games designing, but I was mostly animating.  Taking this course is an attempt to give my design process some structure, discipline, and some direction.  And I also work better with deadlines =) .

Soooo hopefully, fingers crossed, we aren't in hardcore crunch yet!  Hahaha!  ha ha. Oh god.

Stephen Silver's blog

Keep up with me!

Hey everyone!  Thank you for your support and words of encouragement!  I've been busy packing so no new art for now, but I've decided to start an additional blog here:

http://bobbyinnewyork.blogspot.com/

It's mostly meant to keep my friends and family updated on how things are going with me in New York.  But you're certainly invited to stop by occasionally.   It might get a little more personal than this blog at times, but eh, Who cares!

Movin' out East....

Hey Everyone! Have a seat, I've got some pretty big news..

I'm proud to say that I've accepted an offer from Blue Sky Studios, for a full-time position as a Character Animator!!!

For me this is HUGE. Anyone who has known me, knows that it's been a big dream of mine to work in feature films. In the past couple of years I've worked extremely hard to make it happen, busting my butt at Animation Mentor at night and at ArenaNet by day. I also had the good fortune of having peers inside and out of the studio, who got my reel in front of the supervisors. Which I'm forever grateful for. I don't have any previous film experience, so Blue Sky is takin' a chance on me. I'll be moving out to New York in November, and working on their next film Rio.

Needless to say, I'm really gonna miss all my family & friends in WA and all my co-workers turned good friends at ArenaNet. Movin' out to NY on my own is gonna be a little scary, but should be a fun adventure right? Wish me luck! Keep checkin in, I'll let you all know how things are goin from time to time!

Fall is here

Its getting chilly but its still sunny out, the best kind of Washington weather!

Color!

Finally got around to the color for the sketch below, I hope she digs it!

Slurp!

Happy Friday!
Here's a initial sketch for a little illo I'm doing as a gift for my good friend Barbra. She owns a little Yorkshire Terrier named Milo. Check back soon for some color! This thing will probably change a ton as it goes along.

While you're here, allow me to point you in the direction of an awesome blogsite my good buddy Jamaal Bradley started up this week. Pencil Test Depot is a killer repository for some pretty amazing animation pencil tests from various films. GAHH! Sooo good!

heartbroken

Wild Things

Hey everyone! A while back I had the honor of being asked by Cory Godbey to contribute to the site, Terrible Yellow Eyes, a blogsite comprised of art based on Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. TONS of brilliant work already there. Well I finally found the time and courage to work on my piece! Hope you like it!

Heres a step-by-step for those interested, mostly my mom .

So...... I met my hero this weekend !

Me and Glen Keane at the San Diego Comic-Con!

Pretty awesome right?! This was right before the Walt Stanchfield Panel. After waiting in line for long while, the panelists start to show up in the front. With my eagle eye, I spot this dude from afar in shorts and a cap, and I realize Oh sh*t its Glen Keane! He looked like a kid with his little backpack!

I muster up the courage to approach him and ask if I can get a quick picture. I turn to him, a little verklempt, and go, " Man, You're my hero Glen." He stops , takes a moment to look down at my badge and goes "Well thank you , Bobby." Like, super sincere y'know? So I told him his work was the reason I aspired to become an animator, which is true. He shook my hand, and my friend Tirzah took the picture. I said thank you one more time, made sure the picture wasn't blurry, and squirmed away. Aw man, I didn't think I would geek out like that but I felt like a little kid.

Check out more of my pictures from the comic-con here !

Thank you!

Oh man, thanks so much everyone for checking out my film!! It really is a great feeling to get some positive feedback after working so hard on something.

I don't know about anyone else, but for me, it's extremely nerve-racking the minute you make your film available for everyone to see. Its like, you take a deep breath, press the "Post" button and either people might get a kick out of it, or everyone will just go silent and be like,".......The hell was that?" And maybe I still got a lot of those, but I dunno, this thing was about 2 minutes and took me just under a year, so I can't even imagine a director, who has spent 4-5 years working on a 90 minute film, on opening day. Scary.

Anyway, if I'm gutsy enough, expect more posts where I ramble on about more of that stuff, but I 'll try to at least include a drawing.

BTW, I also posted a few pictures of my Bay Area trip last week over in my photos section (flickr) !

Better Off Undead !

Finally! As promised, here is my short film, Better Off Undead! Whew, It's just crazy to see months and months of work fly by in seconds. Seconds!!

Well so, I started Animation Mentor Jan 2007, took classes on and off for about two years, and today I'm off to the Bay Area for the AM graduation. I'm super excited to graduate and meet my class, mentors, and all the other students, from around the world!

I'll write up my thoughts about it in the next posts. But for now I just want to thank everyone who helped me out these past couple of months.
Some of you know that I ended up getting placed in a tough situation and I appreciate everyone who got in touch with me to offer up some help or give an encouraging word. I won't forget it man and I hope to return the favor someday! Godfather style!

Please enjoy, and as always, thanks for watching!

Better Off Undead ! from Bobby Pontillas on Vimeo.

Long walks on the beach

Hey guys! Here's something I did tonight for a birthday gift . I'm not much of a painter (obviously!), but there you go . I had a few guidelines to springboard from, but I just wanted it to put the recipients in a good mood whenever they look at it! Maybe you will too, which is why I wanted to post it.

And I know I keep saying this, but, film comin soon! Promise! Just lower your expectations a little!
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On another note, this Friday is Kevin Dart's Seductive Espionage: The World of Yuki 7 show at Gallery Nucleus! Check out that rockstar lineup! And oh man, recently I was fortunate enough to be invited to have my Yuki sketch included in the show!
Which or course meant, getting it framed, and matted, and stuff. Which I've never done with my own art before. Oh and pricing it, which I'm not used to doing either. I guess when you're a newbie like me you're just thinkin, who on earth is gonna pay for this? Anyway it goes on for about two weeks, It was a little too last minute to get a ticket down, but if you stop by take some pictures!

In the bag!

After a little more than two years (on and off, I started Jan 2007) ,I'm finally done with my courses at Animation Mentor! July is gonna be a busy month. I go down to the bay area for the AM graduation, and then the weekend after after, is the San Diego Comic Con! Time flies when you're busy!

Here's a roll call of my final class, with Keith Sintay as mentor. I had the pleasure of sharing this class with some really , really skilled, hard workin' people. I felt like I was behind the whole time, seriously. But everyone was unbelievably supportive, and humble, and friendly. Same goes for all of my terms at AM though, I gotta say I made some good friends every class, and now half of my facebook are AM people.
I've been spending my waking hours polishing the 3D animation, so unfortunately I have no new drawings worth showing. But I thought I'd post some character sketches I did last year when I was working at Gas Powered Games. Grandpa Caruso and Surfergirl ! Grandpa was alot of fun, and I remember trying design surfergirl after my fiance, Cheryl. Both versions ended up not getting used for the project, actually, nothing ended up getting used, but thats another story altogether =). Still, it was a fun project, a great (albeit short) experience, and I worked with some great dudes.

Check out waaay more awesome work from this project on Raf's blog!

Yesterday I finally finished up some freelance work with Nickelodeon too! It was actually a lot of fun. I didn't know what to expect working with a bigger company like Nick, but I worked with a real cool art manager that "got it" and acted as buffer between myself and the Nick head honchos. I appreciated that.

I'll post up the film as soon as I get it in presentable order! I promise! Along with some tidbits on the things I learned, struggled with, little victories, in making the film. As humble & simple as it is, this term was chaotic! As you might know.

See you soon! In the Bay OR SD!

Yuki 7

Man! The lack of updates means I'm super swamped with my short film. I haven't been able to draw much, outside of freelance, and it's killin me. So tonight I decided to step away from Maya and sketch this little piece of fan art. I'm sure you've done so already, but in case you haven't, check out my friend, Kevin Dart's trailer for his new book coming out soon called , Seductive Espionage: The World of Yuki 7. The trailer was directed by Kev and Stephane Coedel.

The book was written by another friend of mine , Ada Cole, and made with the help of her hubby Dan Cole! Congrats you guys!

Ah, and a couple of good friends and I also went to the Sasquatch Music Festival last weekend which was awesome and I'm totally burnt. I'll upload some pictures to my Flickr soon!

3D blocking!

Finally! Here's a show-able rough blocking pass. It's come a long way but I've got about 6 -7 weeks until the term ends, so I still gonna have to scramble to flesh this out, then polish it up. Which really has been insane, I'm sprinting to get it done. I've also had the good fortune to pick up some freelance character design for Nickelodeon , so between that , my day job, and this film, my schedule has been brutal ! But I can't complain. This is what they call character building right? Alright time to hit the sack. More soon ok?

BTW. Pacquiao for the win! Speaking of Brutal!

Also, big thanks to Danny, Katy, and Rich for all the maya help so far!!