Oscar Sanchez, Attorney at Law

Yes, first update in a while. While I've been away I have noticed that there's this thing called 3D animation, apparently it's pretty big right now.
Ya so, I've decided to dedicate myself to learning some of these 3d things. Primarily I've been working on stuff in ZBrush. This is my second attempt at a model zbrush. I call him Oscar Sanchez, he's a lawyer, he's Mexican, he's not very tall...at all.

Head Model in Zbrush

Concept Sketch

I have the ambition to actually rig this guy and animate him, but considering that Zbrush meshes as detailed as this one are typically not easy to rig its going to be quite the challenge. Currently I'm going to stick to working on his head and seeing if I can get that move before I get into the rest. It's a big challenge considering I've never rigged anything this complex before but I figure even if it fails I'll have a completed model and had learned something. We'll see...we'll see.

Here's a jungle man and some drawings I did on a cough syrup bottle when I was sick a few weeks ago.

A Newie

So this is it, the finished 4th year film, in its two minute 44 second entirety. Really I probably spent maybe the last three or four months of the eight we had working on this, the first semester being spent juggling with different ideas of which none seemed right. I never did come up with something that I stuck with that first semester. Instead I decided to go the route of building the film more or less scene by scene, doing rough thumbnail boards and taking out scenes and adding new ones in all throughout the process. I even managed to squeeze in a few changes after my scene timings were locked for the music and the clean animation was done.
Did this work? Maybe, sort of...in a way. In other words... I don't really know, it resulted in a different sort of film than what would have come out if I had a solid board that I stuck to from the start. This way of working was more satisfying to myself, I could see the film unfold and new things come out as I was making it. There wasn't any issues with looking at the same idea for too long and loosing sight of the focus because the idea would change in whichever way I would decide that day. It was definately a more interesting way for the creator but how was it for the viewer... maybe not as interesting. It's kind of the equivalent of animating straight ahead vs. keyframed and planned. One is more fun to do for the animator but usually results in incosistencies, the character becomes half the size and completely off model by the end of the scene. On the other hand, planning and keyframing is kind of boring, you know exactly what's going to happen before you draw the bulk of the drawings but the animation is more likely to look whole and consistent, it is more likely to convey the meaning it originally intented to with greater precision.
Maybe the last year of school was the wrong time to experiment, it seems like the smart move to take all the knowledge you gained and do something tried and tested. That seems like a good idea, but when does that stop? How do you stop yourself from repeatedly doing the things you already know you can do? A failed attempt is better than no attempt at all, that's all it really comes down to.

Film is up at youtube here

An Oldie

In light of it being so close to the end of my time here at the Sheridan, some nostalgic thinking has entered my brain. Nostalgic in the sense that I found this story reel the other day and thought, why not upload it to the blog? If not just to avoid scanning or doing something new but to look back, to reflect, to ponder, to be disgusted and perhaps mildly amused.

This story reel was done in 2nd year as our major story assignment for one semester. It still stands to me as one of the better things that I have done since being in school. Looking back at this there are a ton of technical errors in terms of axis changes, timing and continuity. Despite these errors it is still somehow is more engaging and amusing than a lot of the story stuff I have done since. This is kind of a crappy thought because I have done reels and storyboards since that I have put several times more effort and energy into than this one. Yet every time I look back at the story things I've done, this piece is way more appealing, direct and clear in its intentions. Ever since a short period in second year, the task of creating an effective story piece has been a great challange, not technically really but conceptually. There isn't anything brilliant about the concept in this reel, its simple as could be in terms of any kind of actual story stucture but it's execution seemed crystal clear to me while producing it. Achieving this feeling of clear intention and execution has been far more difficult since, maybe it just seems that way, the stories have gotten, admittedly more complex, the projects, larger in scope. I guess what I really learned in school more than anything else is that artistic inspiration isn't just something made up by art history professors but is really the single most frustrating element of doing anything creative. You can try all you want and work harder than you did before but it won't mean anything unless there is cartoon light bulb thats glowing over your head. Why this light bulb isn't on all the time is the most elusive of questions.

Sad, yes, but true... no? Yeah, whatever.

To the humble Humans of planet Earth, from a simple Martian...

I did some drawings.

Adventures in Time + Space

This is a little composite shot which I made for my 4th year film. It'll probably look mostly like this when its finished. Though the character design itself is one from my boards and will probably be more animation like in the end. It does not have a title yet, I was considering putting a title to this image and making it a kind of poster but I haven't thought of one yet. I'm not even really sure what the film is about but I think I'll know once its done.

the big head