Fennec Fox

Here's a picture I made for a friend to help decorate their new apartment. I *think* I remember her mentioning, in passing, that she really loved foxes. Man, I hope it was foxes. I hope foxes don't freak them out.

In other news, I've started my last term at Animation Mentor this week! So animation (or at least most of it ) should be done by this summer. I'm finishing off the program with Keith Sintay! Someone I've never had, but have kept in contact with , since I started. He has both 2d and 3d animation experience, which , for me, is always a good thing!

Tuke

I've been busy with the film of course and some freelance recently, so just a quick random one from me this week, just as an excuse to keep the blog updated!

Newsie

Cheryl: "I dont like this one because you are promoting smoking."

Dually noted, Smoking is bad for your health kids!

Her mom.

Thanks for the all the kind words below. After the last post, I got a request to sketch her mom , Sally Jupiter. So here she is! In all of her ridiculously costumed glory! What's the point of the skirt, really?

And you heard it here first, Bobby Chiu plans to don a black bananahammmock & blue body paint as Dr. Manhanttan this year as SDCC, so be on the look out for that. Thanks for steppin up to the plate Bobby!

Laurie Jupiter

Work on the film continues, in the mean time here's a sketch I did tonight of Jupiter from the Watchmen. Not the greatest movie ever, but entertaining nonetheless. If anything, it makes me want to finally crack open the book I got for Christmas. What was her power again? I'm not even sure she had one. Meh. My prediction though is a TON of watchmen cosplay at the comic con this year. I can't wait to see who has the balls to go as Mr. Manhattan!

Also, I stumbled upon these pretty cool interviews with two guys whose work I admire. The first one with Joe Moshier and James Baxter.

Animated Views- Joe Moshier
Animated Views- James Baxter

I met Joe Moshier last year at the San Diego Comic Con at his Conduct Happiness booth. Suuuuper freaking nice dude, and extremely humble about his work. I mean, this guy is one of the most prolific in the industry, and there was was zero ego. Total fanboy style, I kind of gushed to him about his work. Said embarassing, ridiculous things like "Damn you look young! How old are you?" Instead he preferred to rave about other artists he worked with.

It's cool to read in that interview about how he fell into character design at Disney, basically being asked to design pigeons on the Hunchback of Notre Dame production. Obviously it snowballed from there and he went on to design characters exclusively. There doesnt seem to be many interviews with Joe online so check it out!

Latika

FINALLY saw Slumdog Millionaire w/ a packed house tonight, it's fantastic! But you already knew that. The soundtrack is killer too.

Film Update!

I'm still busy pluggin away slowly on my film, Better off Undead. But I just wanted to put up some frames at various stages of completion. It's a lot of hard work and can get exhausting at times, but it's really exciting to see it start to come together!

That is all for now, more to come soon. Thanks for looking! Now back to work!

**On a side note, I love coming across interviews with certain lumanaries that get you motivated, or inspired. This morning its from Walt Disney:

The answer, according to Disney is: Invent your own job; take such an interest in it that you eat, sleep, dream, walk, talk and live nothing but your work until you succeed. Then you may take on a hobby or two if you feel so inclined.

“All this talk about my making a lot of money is bunk,” declares Disney. “After 10 years of pretty tough sledding, I am now making a moderate profit on my products, but every dime I take in is immediately put back into the business. I’m building for the future. And my goal isn’t millions; it’s better pictures.

“I’m not interested in money, except for what I can do with it to advance my work. The idea of piling up a fortune for the sake of wealth seems silly to me. Work is the real adventure in life. Money is merely a means to make more work possible."

WORD!

Coraline Production Art

My buddy Chris Turnham recently started a blogsite showcasing some of the beautiful work he did on Coraline. Drop by and check it out!

Coraline

Go see it and remind yourself of what made you want to get into animation in the first place.

Congratulations Turnham!

One more

Keeping w/ the same theme, here's another Freddy Moore rip-off superheroine, based off of Julie Newmar's Catwoman, apparently dealing with a little bit of holiday weight!

WW

To help keep my sanity, tonight I took a little break from my film to do something for this week's Art Jumble topic. Wonder Woman, via Freddy Moore.

Check the archives on that blog for tons more Moore deliciousness. Put together by Pedro Daniel. Alright, back to the film! Thanks for dropping by!

This just in......

....2D Animation is #$%@ing hard!

Turnarounds

Whew, last post of the year! I'm gearing up for animation on my film for my final term, which starts on the 4th. I've been solidifying and locking down designs on the break. ( And catching up on 30 Rock, so good!) So here are parts of the turnarounds for my 2 stars, Remington and Penelope!

Also as a bonus I'll share with you guys this totally charming present Cheryl received from her sister , Vanessa! Hahaha! I love it so much!Have a safe and fun New Years everybody! See you next year...

Happy Holidays...

.....To you and yours! Looks like someone's been a bit naughty this year!

And if there's anyone still following along, I've finally added a soundtrack to my short film ! It's spotty in places, but that's only because I'm terrible with scoring, turns out. Bonus points if you can guess where the music is from !
...And with that another term comes to an end. It flew by like always but I felt like I've learned a lot. Finally even learned the basics of Flash which I've wanted to do for years! Next term is supposed to be all animation, which means I'm still scared to death!

Thanks for all of your comments on it so far. And a big big thanks to Mark Pudleiner for being a constructive, accomodating mentor, and helping me to make it better every week.

Layout!

Hey guys! For those interested, here's the latest pass of what my short film is looking like. Quite a few changes since my last post, and right now its a mixed bag of revised storyboards and layouts. And to be honest, I'm a little insecure in my abilities to make strong backgrounds, so I'm taking a simple approach with them! I feel like its all starting to take shape. And like I said, our term is starting to work on layouts, which means everyone's starting to make the jump to 3D. So there's a little sense of isolation for me. But friends in my term stay super helpful and seem genuinely excited to see a traditional short in progress.

I've also been learning the value of showing it to as many of my peers as I can. I've not only incorporated ideas from my mentor, but from other students at AM, friends at work, blog commenters.

So thanks for all of your comments on the last pass. I really get a lot out of them. And as always, your thoughts, good or bad, are welcomed again! Encouraged even!

Thanks for takin a look!

**Heres a shot of Mark and I in class, going over the finer points of short filmmaking. Screenshot from Tom Lubanovic's blog.
In other random news, heres a sketch I did tonight to get away from the film for a bit. Such a cool character, And I dont even really like Lucy Liu.

Yup, its Uncle Manny fight night again this weekend, probably his biggest one yet versus Oscar DelaHoya! So I thought I do a quick ditty to keep with tradition.Go Pacquiao!

Storyboards!

Hey everyone! Here's a rough pass at the whole short. I'm tryin to learn flash at the same time , so please mind some of the rougher edges. It's still early on but critiques are welcomed of course, and there are also 2 different endings that I'm trying to settle on. Let me know which you prefer.

Thanks for looking!

Yes we can.

Its high time we get someone who inspires people!

**Update 11-14-08, 8: 43 PM**
WAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Oh so what, You're making a film now?..

...Dude tooootally!

My new mentor for short film class at Animation Mentor is ...

Mark Pudleiner ! He's perfect for me right now because Mark has spent time doing both 2D and 3D animation, and storyboarding. He's now animating at Ken Duncan's studio. Check out his blogsite for some awesome work in all 3 disciplines. And here is his animation career in a nutshell.

I know right?!

Speaking of my short film. Things are finally starting to begin to get started. And guess what? I already have deleted scenes!! Tons of them! Let me explain, the way it worked was, week 1, we had to pitch 3 ideas. Though on our break, I had thought of a story with 2 characters I really wanted to tell. I plotted out beatboards, and turned it in. First feedback I get, its waaay too long ( no suprises there), and the short has to be around 30 seconds. So after brainstorming with Van, an awesome and super helpful AM student. We come up with a way to take the epic, take a good chunk and just tell that part, and have it still feel like a short of sorts.

Anyway, here were the first pass rough beats for the aforementioned "epic". I still kinda like the story, so maybe someday still, when I have an army of more talented animators.
Uhhh. whats with the numbers? Glad you asked! Here is the outline that corresponds with the visuals! If you are so inclined.
The short short that ended up spawning out of this, and that we start boarding this week, will be what I'm working on all term. I also mentioned before that it'll be in 2D, which I havent done in forever! Are you scared? Cause I am!

Stay tuned for the pandemonium!

Today for lunch....

More Rem & Pen!

And Panda Express.

Remington and Penelope

So its still early in development, but these are most likely going to be the stars of my short film. Remington the little zombie boy, and Penelope!

I haz an interview!

Here's an interview I did recently with Randall Sly & the Character Design blog.

http://bobby-pontillas-interview.blogspot.com/

Though I am terribly out of place amongst the amazing lineup of interviewees , I hope you enjoy it anyway. Thanks for puttin it all together and choo-choo choosing me Randall !

And as per request, I'm posting the latest DnD fighter done for my friend and work-wife Paul Zimmer. Meet Tim Tumbler, human fighter and the group's designated metal head. And yes, that IS a sword, of pro..... **ahem correction, SHIELD of protection, behold the blue glowy bits! It should also be of note that this image was made to switch out weapons as the adventure progresses!This one was fun in a weird way because Paul literally stood behind me art directing every detail as I drew.
"Now on to the nose..... like that?"
"Longer, even longer, no shorter , more pointier." " Oh no that strand of hair wouldn't curl like that, make it more unkempt, put split ends if you need to."

Ahhh, it was nice to just turn my brain off and stroke the screen.

Save your appetite

Its a Beautiful afternoon for a picnic!
And please enjoy my fresh, new Reel for dessert!

All Rendery!

Whew! So I've been spending my waking hours finishing up this shot! Here's how the render turned out, though I know I'll want to go back and tweak more things when I look at this later. I'm pretty fried right now, hope you enjoy it though.

Here's where it was in blocking (One of several blocking passes! At this point I'm just trying to get Brett to buy off on the acting first. We went back and forth and there were a lot of different iterations at this stage.)

Here was some rough shot planning for it.
So there goes my term 4. Brett Coderre was awesome. Extremely particular about acting choices. I learned so much this term about working within a pose, text & subtext, etc. I must've watched this brilliant Doug Sweetland lecture a half dozen times. So much great info that it probably won't fully sink in until later.

After this is a week off. Then on to short film which I'm super pumped about! I've got a few solid ideas as to what I want to do, and I do know that I want it to be hand-drawn! Talk about biting off more than I could chew!

09/04

For today's (yesterday's) skip lunch and draw-a-thon.

Also, check this out if you havent already!Sketchbook with original sketches by 50 great artists being auctioned for Primary Children's Medical Center.

What an amazing thing to do ! I ran into Randall Sly (who, incidentally, runs the Character Design blog) at the comic-con while we were waiting in line for Eric Goldberg to sign our books. I told him how much I loved and appreciated the CD blog. We chatted a little about animationy stuff and he showed me a sketchbook he was taking around the comic-con, collecting sketches from various artists. I thought oh wow thats a cool idea, I should totally do that. But I had really NO idea how selfless his intent was . What he's doing is nothing short of amazing, inspiring, and my hats off to him.
We parted ways and I pointed him in the direction of the amazing Joe Moshier (who was just around the corner, down at the Conduct Happiness booth.) Do check it out, its obviously for a good cause, and you get an amazing collection of art to boot.

I skipped lunch for this?

Generic cute girl, check. Hula Hoops, check. No BG, check. I think I've even used this pose before (Up there! In my blog header even!). Yep! This is as creative as I get folks! Happy Monday!

Lunchtime Sketches

Bubblegum Contest

Hey all! Here are some sketches done during lunch this week.

Yesterday my Mom told me she visits my blog everyday. To see more posts and read people's comments. I asked her why she never commented herself. She said "Ahhhh I wouldnt know what to say." How cute is that. Mom. It's me , cmon.

Alright so, tonight is my Animation Mentor q&a. I'm gonna plead my case and try to convince my mentor that keeping the "belly bump" at the end of my animation test is an idea worth keeping in. Wish me luck.

Usain Bolt

Thanks for your feedback on my work in progress shot everyone! I really appreciate it!

Here's a lunchtime sketch of one of my favorite moments of the Olympics. Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt celebrating way before he even reaches the finish line, and still breaking the world record. He broke two more in the 200m and 4x100 relay before the games were over.

Here's another memorable one:
Cuban TaeKwonDo Olympian kicks referee in the face. What?! Such a horrible thing! Poor guy.
I just wish it wasn't such a funny picture. I dont think I could've posed it any better. The formation of his hands lead me to believe that he was actually a few microseconds late to kung-fu block it, or catch his foot or something.

Well so, to make it relevant to this blog (and so I dont go straight to hell) , I'll try and break down why I think this image works so well. And I'll try to keep the giggling in. Wait. Just. Give me a second........Okay, whew. Here goes

click for bigger image.

I couldn't fit this in the picture but there is also a little bit of overlap on the tie. Which, again, also follows the line of action.

Awful sportsmanship, kinda awesome image.

Shot Update

Finally, an update on the Pontillas/Coderre collabo! About 3 weeks and 1,000 changes later, here 's what I turned in yesterday.

Obviously, lip sync still has to be done, mechanics polished, and a I got a few other change requests (I'm changing the end so it doesnt feel like she is pushing the dude back with an invisible pregnant belly forcefield) . But I'm gonna hit the ground running because I got 3 more weeks until class is up!

For Macy !

In Reverie

Wasn't that the name of an old Saves the Day song? Ha, I dont care what you say, I still love those guys.

Also, here is some rough shot planning for my new 2 person dialogue piece.Zenner said:
"try to keep us updated about the shot :)"

Totally man! Heres what I turned in yesterday for layout:

SDCC !

We're back from San Diego! Check out some of the photos we took here !