New Freelance Assignments - 11-03-2021
Long time no blog post, well most of what I have been up to has been applications and some personal projects (which I may or may not post soon). But I was recently contacted to do a graphic for a new youtube channel called Creative Crits, which is a DnD channel within the same vein as Critical Role. I have been contacted to work with Liquid Luck Studios, which I have worked with previously, to create help create an opening animation. So far, I have been modeling, texturing, and blocking out some animations for the channel.
Completed Senior Short - 05-29-2021
Modelling and Texturing - 02-11-2021
So, after going over the lack of finalized character props with the team. I was assigned to make Muerto's scissors, which I modeled off of concept art by Eli Chess. I initially modeled the scissors at the beginning of February and after receiving feedback from Eli, Melissa Yarborough, and the rest of the team I also moved ahead texturing the prop. I also worked to texture some of the suburbia location, the exterior of Old Man's house, and worked on the sidewalk and the road for the exterior, both of which were modeled by Kyle Maurer, in Substance Painter.
The semester has come to its conclusion, and all our hard work has paid off. We completed our first short, as a team. There definitely are ups and downs, but I thoroughly enjoyed working with my team to create The International School of Reaping, lovingly referred to by our cohort as the I.R.S. For those interested please check out our short at
Animating Parts of a Scene - 01-24-2021
Even though I had initially meant to stay on more the modeling side of the production, I decided to do some animation and early blocking for the short we're working on and I got assigned 3 shots from Scene 05. I blocked out the cameras and initial poses so I can go forth and actually animate throughout.
Finishing up more props - 12-05-2020
As we get close to the end of the semester we needed more props to be modeled out and textured. I made the curtains and the chairs, UVed, and textured them. Overall, I was working with the rest of the environment team to finish up the Old Man's interior for the house. Some of these props might not make it into the final version of the short, but it is important to have a variety of props for set-dressing.
Texturing Props for the Environment - 11-20-2020
We are getting closer to rendering out our first scene and we need to get more props and environments textured for the short. I collaborated with Skyler on the UVs for some of the plants we have in the scene. I brought the plants into Substance Painter and did a lot of blending on various layers to get this striped light green color across the plants. I also received feedback that the pot needed some more variation so I added some light brown at the top of the ceramic texture.
Blocking Pass for Scene 06 - 11-03-2020
Although I did not sign up for animation, I still wanted to practice my skills, and, seeing as our group has been split up into smaller teams, everyone will be animating a few shots. I was assigned some of the shots from scene 6. I plan on putting some more animation on Shine's ears, but since this is early blocking I wanted to focus on motion. An initial critique we received from the professors was that there needed to be an insert of Grim looking disapprovingly at the kids which is where the next shot comes from.
Dressing the Characters - 11-01-2020
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So I have continued to make some adjustments to the character's clothes. I eventually had to pass the final pass of Dia Mau's clothes off to Eli Chess. For the initial design for Dia Mau's dress, I collaborated with Sonya Tran and the concept art she made for Dia Mau. Unfortunately, Dia Mau was ultimately cut from the short but I still thought I would include Dia Mau's clothes in the blog. For Grim's cloak, we wanted a ruffled collar/bib, that might still need some work as we go along. I like the way I was able to get Grim's cloak to drape over the character.
Texturing the Bus - 10-23-2020
I went into the bus and textured the object. I went with an overall purple color, as our team decided. Austin, who had initially modeled the bus, had to deal with a personal emergency and so finishing the bus was passed off to me. I also had to make a set of windows for the bus. Overall, the bus was not extraordinarily difficult to texture. It was needed a set of purple metal, rubber, and a few variations on a metallic grey, all of which ultimately needed to converted to toon textures.
Working On the Bus Interior - 10-20-2020
Earlier in the semester, we had thought we weren't going to show the bus interior, and the person who modeled the bus hadn't modeled out what was on the inside. I also had to go in and clean up the bus model a little bit, cleaning up the few n-gons there were. We wanted the bus interior to be grounded in reality, but still, sort stylized and cartoony. I wanted to match the colors that we had decided on for the bus which was a dark purple.
Grim Rigged - 10-06-2020
Grim's rig was done entirely in Human IK, as are the rest of the characters. The only major adjustments I went with for the rig were increasing the size of the neck joint handle, as the broad shoulders obscured the handle. We could potentially run into an issue with the cloth as we seem to be moving away from having simulated cloth on the minor characters. I don't entirely know how that will work with the baggy sleeves we were thinking of doing for Grim's cloak. I also attached a walk-cycle so you can see how the rig functions.
Character Texturing - 10-01-2020
I wound up passing off the final pass for the character model to Ara Ugarte-Franco, instead, I focused on texturing and rigging Grim. I primarily used Substance Painter to get the create to more nuanced bone texture primarily focusing on the hands, as that is going to the majority of the character that we wind up seeing. I also intend on rigging the character and using Marvelous to make a set of clothes for Grim.
Prop Modelling - 09-14-2020
So, we are fully in the swing of things again. In the semester we are coming up on our midterms and we've been doing a fairly significant amount of work. The environments team is probably the largest in our 18 person group, as my cohort is comprised of a lot of modelers and sculptors. This fact alone makes work hard to come by. If it were not for the fact we have 3 full scenes to model, we might actually have to squabble for things to model. Environments is headed by Kyle Maurer and we are currently basing our environments off of concept art by both Eli and Destiny. Below, I have a fully-modeled prop that will be seen inside the classroom setting. Overall this took about a day to model and figure out the cloth in Marvelous Designer.
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Testing out Marvelous Designer - 09-10-2020
The FX team hasn't exactly 'convened' as of September, and since we are expected to have a fully rendered scene by the end of the semester, someone has to go ahead and start trying to figure out cloth. Tia obviously has more experience than me in regards to Marvelous Designer; however, as team manager, Tia already has a significant amount of responsibility. Especially in terms of making sure we get our 3D animatic finished. So, I've gone ahead and started testing out Marvelous. So far, I have made a the little bib you see in Grim's concept art.
Managing a Portion of the 3D Animatic - 09-06-2020
I think one of the odder parts of this semester is coming from the summer where it doesn't seem like many people where actually working (not that that's an issue, it's summer break after all), to being thrust into an environment where are workload is exponentially higher.
We have been tasked with completing a 3D version of our animatic to get a sense of camera angles and timing. As someone who was also part of the initial story-board team, I get to spearhead the parts of the 3D animatic I helped to board. On my team for this are Carter Klassen and Gillian Griffiths, who I have both worked with before. We delegated the work out into shots so none of us would wind up being overloaded with work. I also worked on one the larger fight scene as we needed more people on that than expected.
Unfornately for me, it seems like our professors haven't taken the 3D animatic into account, in terms of progress. Don't get me wrong, I completely understand wanting us to be further along than we are. I actually expect that from a production class. But, we did make it clear before our 3D animatic presentation, following initial critiques that we needed a 3D animatic before proceeding, that this was something we all worked on. I think, moving forward, we will be pushing for more consistency between shots. At the time of initial animatic production, we didn't have finalized base models for characters aside from Muerto. All I can really do is get back to work and hope that my work is recognized next time.
Grim's Hands - 09-02-2020
One of the few pieces of Grim we actually do see are his boney hands. So therefore, I've gone ahead and modelled some skeletal hands for Grim to be used down the line. At this point, I am passing Grim's base model off to Gillian Griffiths and Melissa Yarborough for a final pass and rigging.
Base Models for Grim - 08-30-2020
Over the summer, I made slow, but steady progress on Grim's base geometry. According to the design, we won't actually be seeing much of Grim's 'body', making his base design much more of a coat rack if anything else. In case we can't figure out cloth for whatever reason, I also made a base mesh, which you can see on the left which we can go in and sculpt. I also wound up adding a lot more geometry around the arm pit region.
So, it's about... halfway through the summer before my senior year of college, which is pretty damn intimidating. I've been doing some free-lance work for some local companies looking to advertise their products, which I will probably post some updates on later once I confirm that I can with said companies.
I'm finally getting back to work on the short. I've started Grim's base mesh and have been taking diligent notes during our meetings. I'm not sure anyone actually reads them to be perfectly honest. But it's there for anyone in our group should they need it. Although, I was hoping that I myself would have gotten slightly more done by July. I guess I needed a bit of a break from schoolwork.
Working over the Summer - 07-12-2020
Character Finalization and the End of the Semester - 05-10-2020
To start off, I wanted to showcase the design I created and pitched to our group which was approved and give some explanation to the choices I made surrounding the character conceptualization process.
As discussed previously, it was suggested I try to push the shapes even further. Because we still want to keep a bit of the triangular/coffin-shaped look to the character, the shoulders are very angular, whereas the head completes the top of the coffin. The team really seemed to like the foggy, vaporous foot at the bottom of the cloak. I also added a ruffled shirt to the design as it helped to integrate the bow tie that we decided on into the design. I kept the color scheme relatively simple, sticking to blacks and muted greys/blues with the exception of really saturated red accents to imply a face.
What I find interesting about this character is that it has the capacity to be very minimal in the need for modeling as the figure is mostly obscured. The character will also require the need for some effects work considering both the cloth and fog will need to be simulated.
Finally, I want to go over our plans for the summer and where I am, in terms of my work. So, we are currently deciding on what day were are doing our meetings, but it seems fairly likely that we are going to continue our weekly meetings on Friday. As previously mentioned we are likely moving to have smaller teams and team leads, streamlining the production process. Over summer break, our goal is to create a 3D animatic to further visualize our shots.
While at this point I am not going up for a "team lead", I am currently practicing my rigging and lighting to potentially go down that direction. Speaking of rigging, I am working on creating a rig the character mesh I created earlier in the semester. The only thing I am waiting on, is a decision as to whether or not we are using a Human IK or TSM rig, as our team has mulled over both. I have made some progress on a standard Human IK rig. I am also creating a few more base meshes for other characters and, now that I no longer have to focus on character design and storyboarding, I can move over to working on background props and texturing. Fortunately for me, Skyler Logan helped to UV the base mesh I made earlier, so whenever we need to sculpt it we can.
Working in an 18 Person Group - 05-02-2020
I intend on keeping this section rather brief, because, I feel fortunate to report, that, on the whole, I think the group has been working really well together thus far. This is in no small part to our group's ability to work together even in times of stress, as I am writing this, much of the world has seemed to come to a bit of a stand-still in the midst the COVID-19 outbreak and pandemic. Our team seems committed to working remotely and have adapted well to the transition.
As is usually the case with group work and especially working remotely, there have been some minor and I expect there to be some minor cases of miscommunication; however, I don't think it is necessarily a cause for concern at the moment. I have tried to pitch the idea of having a few people work together to coordinate the move our team is making to having smaller teams or departments. While this idea has been met with some pushback, I still maintain and believe that the conversation around this was necessary and important at this time. We are moving to a place where a team of coordination will be integral to overall group cohesion and resource management and even if this position does not come to fruition, I will not regret having raised the point.
Further Character Conceptualization - 05-01-2020
While I have touched upon character design and character conceptualization before, at this stage in the short, I have been told to focus my efforts on this character. The character, which we have dubbed Grim, is a teacher at the International Reaping School, or I.R.S. As previously mentioned, Grim has undergone a lot of character changes, some more significant than others.
Starting with the drawing on the top right, we see a design that's fairly similar to another one on the bottom. At the time, were still leaning into this idea of having Grim with super-angular shoulders and the idea of the character being sort of incorporeal. Looking at some of the other designs, you see some drastic design changes. This is partly because, after speaking with Paul Conner and Howard Cook, two of our professors here at the DAC who are supervising our senior productions, it was suggested that really focus on working the shapes of the character and making them even more stylized and angular to help convey the character's intimidation factor. They also suggested really differentiating the head away from the character's body and shoulders; before, Grim was supposed to appear as a hunched over character. While these are not the finalized character design for Grim, my work on Grim is a pretty good indication of my openness to feedback and my ability to collaborate with the input of a variety of different artists.
Storyboard Alterations - 04-28-2020
As I mentioned previously, there were some alterations and boards that I made that unfortunately made it into the animatic. Still, I thought it would relevant to a discussion of what I did on this short. While I would obviously have liked for these altered boards to have made it, I am still very happy with the product our team put together.
Ironically, the character that is shown in the boards below, La Muerta, has undergone significant character design changes since these boards were produced and her design now pulling more from Vietnamese folk religion, the Heavenly Mother (Địa Mẫu), to differentiate her from one of the main characters. Sonya Tran the character's redesign.
Finalized Short Animatic - 04-27-2020
As a team, we worked to finalize the concept for our senior short, for which we are using the working title I.R.S., which stands for International Reaping School. I helped to create some of the storyboards you see in the animatic. While a few of my storyboards were cut, you can still get the main focus of the story and the emphasis on the characters. I plan on uploading the images that were not selected at a later date. For this collaboration, I worked alongside Melissa Yarborough, Ana Orduna Mancera, Aracely Franco-Ugarte, Josh Castorena, Eric Wencel, and Sonya Tran. All of us also collaborated with animatic revisionist Tia Van who worked to time out the animatic and look for ways to make the story clearer. I have a great amount of respect for each of these artists and collaborators and I feel extremely confident about this short moving forward, know just from the amount of passion and dedication I see amongst my peers for this short.
You can find the link to the finalized version of the animatic on Tia Van's Vimeo account, I will also attach a link to the video below:
https://vimeo.com/407413763
Conceptualizing Characters - 04-25-2020
Over the course of education at the DAC, I was lucky enough to work take the Pre-Production Story class, where we really worked to create a narrative for our senior thesis. While we have a variety of characters in this short, the character that I have worked the most on, in terms of conceptualizing and finalizing their design, is Grim. Grim is supposed to a teacher, while he does have aspects of his personality that are intimidating or gruff, I still wanted him to look somewhat approachable. I had to find a balance between making him appear menacing and authoritative and making him not too threatening.
Below you'll find two early concepts we had for Grim, on the left you have part of his initial redesign which took place later in the semester, the illustration on the is the earliest formalization of Grim's concept. As a team, we debated over whether Grim's shape should be more triangular in nature or more coffin-y shaped. A bow tie was added to break from the traditional depictions of a Grim Reaper.
Base Mesh: - 03-30-2020
One of the assignments I was tasked with was coming up with a base mesh for one of the main characters. Melissa Yarborough drew the official concept art for Muerto, a character initially conceptualized by Aracely Ugarte-Franco. Eli Chess and Melissa Yarborough also made base meshes for this part that we will be going over as a group. While we, as a group, decided to go with a different base mesh, we elected to keep the mesh I worked to translate to be used for one of our background characters.
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Step 1: Story Boarding - 03-25-2020
Here are a few storyboards I created over the course of working on the Reaper School Short.
