The Polish Phase

Before

After

These animated GIFs from Disney's upcoming film "Frozen" show the comparison of shots from the old trailer next to the shots from the new trailer.  Obviously, they did a lot of reworking and "plussing" to these shots to take them to the next level.  It is a great example of how taking the time to go the extra mile can make a huge difference.  Even the most talented artists and animator in the world will still go back and make changes to their work.  I believe these artists are the best in the world for that reason: they put in the extra work to push themselves when most people would have called their first final draft good. 
For me personally, changing a shot after I've worked so much on it is one of the hardest parts of animating. It's crazy to think that even extremely talented animators at Disney still redo work and throw away work all the time.

Before

After

Animating Shapes

Here's a piece of really fun animation from one of the new Mickey Mouse shorts. If you haven't seen them, you are totally missing out.

I always wonder how such quick and snappy animation can feel so smooth and fluid. One reason is because the animator is "animating shapes." To define animating shapes, I quote Eric Goldberg: "Successful and fluid animation of shapes relies on the tricks hand-drawn animation can exploit in order to keep masses consistent, regardless of reality!  In other words, just because something would occur in real-life one way doesn't mean that animators don't have the means to distort that physicality to get a smoother effect on screen" (Goldberg, Character Animation Crash Course, 165). 

Thoughts on Websites

I am taking an animation class called Business and Ethics in Animation, where we basically discuss topics like networking, jobs, and essentially the "business" side of the animation industry.  It's an awesome class taught by Mike Warner.  We were assigned to make a website to present our portfolio.  I thought it would be cool to build mine from scratch in html because I knew nothing about doing it, here's what I came up with: 
It's super simple, but it's definitely the look that I'm going for. 

 I based my website heavily after a few website from guys in the industry that I think are pretty awesome.  Here are the links to their websites:
Michael Woodside- http://www.woodsideanimation.com/
Kevan Shorey- http://kevanshorey.com/
Here are some things to think about while making an online portfolio

• Keep it simple and easy to navigate. 
• Have your contact information easily accessible 
• Let your reel be the center of attention, maybe even place it in the top middle of the home page
• Again, keep it simple and clean
• Don't forget to include a demo reel breakdown.

I still need a domain name and server to make the website live, I am still trying to figure out the best way to go for those things. If you want to make your own website from html, here's a great resource to get started-  http://lifehacker.com/5790955/how-to-make-a-web-site-the-complete-guide
I personally think that a website is more professional than a blog. However, I guess it doesn't really matter how you present your reel, as long as it is awesome.

Running Jump!

Running Jump Animschool assignment from Allen Ostergar on Vimeo.

Here is an assignment from Class 2 at Animschool. We learned about some of the basics of body mechanics which has been awesome to dig into.  I really grew a lot in that class! I'm also learning a ton as an intern at Disney Interactive! I'll post that stuff later, once I'm allowed to legally :)

Animation updates

Here are some animation excercises I've been doing on the side to get some practice...



Exercise: PhoneCall from Allen Ostergar on Vimeo.

Running Chef from Allen Ostergar on Vimeo.

Practicing a "take" from Allen Ostergar on Vimeo.

I'm super excited because starting in June, I will start an internship with Avalanche Software (Disney Interactive). I can't wait!!!  Here is the current project they are working on:

NY Times Self Portrait?

 

The NY Times is doing an article on BYU's animation program, so they had us do some self portraits for a photo-shoot their going to do of us.  They told us that we were supposed to draw it from a front or 3/4 view.  So that's what I did, a 3/4 view.  Turns out, they changed their mind and only want front view, so mine might not make into the article...  haha

 

 Here are a few figure drawings I've been doing at the open figure drawing sessions they do on campus.  These are 30 Second poses. Some actually are a minute poses.

Blink Exercise

I don't know how to animate correct blinks, so I did a study yesterday morning for 30 minutes or so.  I'll be doing this kind of thing more often.  Animating things just for the sake of learning and studying.