One Year at AnimationMentor

Hello everyone out there!
Its exactly one year I have been studying at AM and its unbelievable to see how far I have come. It feels good to see I have made a lot of progress since the rough pencil tests I did before joining. At the same time, its shocking to see how time flies by, it still feels like its been just a couple of months back, that I was getting ready and curious to get in and start to absorb all I can.
I want to thank AM, their mentors, staff and my AMer buddies who make it THE most awesome educational experience. I have two more classes to go and really looking forward to what magic is in store for me.

Now on, I'll update my blog frequently, so if you are interested, do visit and I am sure you wont be turned down by a really dusty old post ;)

- Chai'

Class 4 finito

This week was the last for Class4 and here is the animation of the 2 character scene assignment. Class4 was a huge step towards understanding acting and getting more deep into animation. I thank my awesome mentor Greg Kyle and my super-helpful classmates and other AMers who gave a lot of great feedback on this.



Feel free to comment :)

Finished Acting shot

Its been more than three weeks since the new term started and I am having a great time playing around with facial animation for the first time ever. We had to complete the shot we started with one person dialog in the last term. So after these three weeks, and the weeks in the term before, its finally complete.



Along with the animation, We had to do some facial poses. This is an exercise to get the essence of the emotion in the face on Bishop - the rig. Here are some of them.


Now its time to start afresh with another dialog animation, interesting times ahead !

Class 5: Advanced Acting begins

The advanced acting class started three weeks back and I am enjoying every bit of it. This term we will get to know how to finish a dialog acting test complete with all the facial acting and the final polish. I was very excited about this term since this is where we get to complete a shot without any limitations.
My new Mentor is Greg Kyle. He is a character animator at Laika Studios and is a very open guy. We had three Q&As till date and I am always looking forward to them. He has worked at ILM previously and worked on a lot of films.
So far this class has been very interesting, every week learning something totally new !
Looking forward to starting my next animation..

Trailer for "9" comes up

This is a must watch trailer.

"9" is an upcoming animated sci-fi movie. Its a story about a group of ragdoll characters which with their leader "9" have to defend the legacy of life on earth from droids and robots who have taken over our planet in a world past human existence. The trailers show some person/being who has supposedly created the warriors narrating it.
Its will release on 09/09/09. This is one of the most kick-ass trailers I have seen in some time.

Follow the link - http://www.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/9/

"NY Freaks" go to Africa

A week ago I watched Madagascar 2 and it really lived upto my expectation. The story in the first movie is taken further on an interesting journey. The film is a treat even before the movie starts, the penguins attacking the boy in the dreamworks logo is damn funny and got me ready for what was coming.
The animation is just awesome. The backgrounds and sets are pleasing. Character designs of the new characters (other than those from Madagascar1) introduced in the film dont seem to have much novelty though.
Alex, Marty, Gloria and Melman going to their own place - Africa. The new world they discover, the surprises in store for each keep the movie fresh. The other characters - the Penguins, King Julian and the monkeys guarantee laughs for their escapist plans, ritualism and worker-union problems respectively.
I felt the old lady from the first movie was over-used. It was good the first time she is seen in the safari, but keeping her doing all that repeatedly was tiring. The Lion story reminded me of The Lion King and was predictable. Apart from these things, the movie rocks :) I will recommend it to anyone wants to laugh out loud. The kid on a seat next to me just couldnt stop laughing !

Sketch: "Mystically Mundane"

A quick sketch on paper I did around a month back.