At the Beach

I have always avoided doing environments because they scare the heck out of me.  For my character design final we had to turn in two environment sketches, so I was forced to do one.  It surprised me how fun it was, and now I'm thirsty for more!  

Slick Hairdo and a Balloon or two

For the last few weeks I've been trying to decide what I should do for my final project in Ryan Woodward's character design class.  We have to create 4 characters, 2 environment concept drawings, and a story.  Until yesterday I had no idea what I was going to do. I started thinking, what if I did something that had to do with surfing? It's funny because the two things I'm most passionate about are: animation and surfing.  I just never mix the two.  UNTIL NOW. buhahaha!!!

Last week, I pitched two of my story ideas to the BYU animation program to be considered for our Senior film.  One called "Balloon" the other called "Scurvy Threads."  Although neither of my ideas were chosen in the end, I had a lot of fun pitching.  I got a lot of laughs out of people which got me all fired up. It reminded me how great storytelling is.  Everything we do as animators, drawing or programming or animating or whatever, it all comes down to telling a story. All those things are just a means to an end.  When we tell something that creates laughter, an emotional response, or we tell something that resonates within someone, we know we're doing our job right.  It's easy to get caught up in details, and it's refreshing to stand back and see beyond those details and remember the big picture: Storytelling.  Anyway, It was an awesome experience.
I have the whole "Balloon" film story boarded, here's a little section of the boards.

11SecondClub November!

11SC WellWhatNow Vimeo from Allen Ostergar on Vimeo.

Today is the last day to submit for the 11 second club, and this is as far as I got on it.  I've been busting my butt working on it in the last 48 hours to turn it in on time.  Last night, this thing kept me up all night because I would tell myself, "OK, I need to let the shot go and call it good for now because I need sleep and to work on other things." then I would respond, "I'm just going to fix this one thing that is bugging me with the neck at frame 142 etc..." Then hours would pass! So I'm trying to learn about how to embrace the fact that I'm still a beginner in animation, realize that my work isn't at a professional level, and to just do my best on a shot then move forward with hopes that I will do better with each animation I tackle.
I have been learning a lot each time I animate.  One thing I'm trying to figure out is workflow.  I find that again and again, I realize halfway through a shot that I'm kicking myself for not having spent enough time in the planning stages.  Shooting good reference and solidifying the "golden poses" early on is so important!
I came across a really awesome resource yesterday and I wish I had found it sooner.  Victor Nevone, an animator at Pixar has some really good notes on spline hygiene.  He also has an entry about how to go from blocking to splining in the graph editor, which, up to now, is a process I've been trying to figure it out on my own.  Thank you internet!  Check it out HERE.

I used to think 2D/hand-drawn animation was the best, but I'm definitely falling in love with CG more and more!

Thanks to my man John Herzog for camera and lights!

Critiques and feedback are welcome

Ty Carter and AnimSchool GIVEAWAYS

Blue Sky Visual Development artist and BYU Grad Ty Carter is doing a holiday give away with a ton of great prizes!
It's super easy to enter, check it out here:  TY CARTER GIVEAWAY
Some of the prizes are prints of his work as well as Half AnimSchool tuition for the course of your choice!!!

Make sure you check it out guys

robots and maggies and bears oh my!

Here's a few of my assignments from Ryan Woodward's character design class... Maggie Smith caricature on the bottom.  I'm so excited for CTN next week!!! I've got some animations I'm trying to touch up so that I can put together a demo reel to show at CTN.  By the way, I'm participating in a sweet blog that Aaron Ludwig started for BYU character animators. Check it out  HERE

Practice

Yesterday, Ty Carter visited BYU and did a little demo on how he paints, which was awesome!  He made it look so easy, turns out it's not as easy as he made it out to be.  Here's my little attempt. I'd like to keep working on it, but for now, I've got other projects to work on...

Floating assassin chica (animated GIF)

You might have to put your cursor over it to see it play

Another animated GIF I made this this weekend!!!  Soooo much fun I want to make more of them.  I drew the design in photoshop, then brought it into after effects and animated it.  I did the hair using the puppet tool, which took a while, but it was good to experiment with. Here are concept drawings :)