MY LATEST MOVIE

Make sure to check out PUSS IN BOOTS this Halloween weekend. I saw it last weekend with the crew and it turned out amazing. The imagery is beautiful, the animation is incredible and it's genuinely enjoyable from beginning to end. Antonio Banderas steals the show again as Puss. The best thing about this movie is it doesn't feel like a sequel to Shrek. They don't even mention Shrek. It really stands on it's own as a great animation adventure movie.
Go see it and let me know what you think.

P.S. If you're curious about what I animated in it. I did a couple shots with the old crazy man in the prison, I did a bunch of shots during the wagon chase, the campfire scene, the golden egg scene, and the giant goose. I came on pretty late in the movie but I got a couple fun shots.

Still Animatin'

Only 2 more shots to go in animation. Then I do a clean up pass. If I want to get the thing done in time for the last Harry Potter movie then I'd better speed up. After the clean up pass I'll fill the colour in and then comes the effects pass which I'm really looking forward to. I started my animation career as a 2D effects artist at Nelvana. Designing effects for numerous saturday morning cartoons. Should be fun.

MOVING ON TO A NEW SCENE

Well here's a background from another scene in my short. Something a little a little warmer than a dark forest.


1. Rough layout

2. Colour key

3. Clean up line

4. Final colour background.

PAINTING THE BACKGROUNDS

Over the past two nights I painted the background for scene 1 of my Harry Potter Short.
For those of you that are at all interested in my process when I paint here it is.
From the bottom up.


1. Drew a rough thumbnail sketch of the shot to get the layout the way I wanted.
2. Painted a colour key which is a very rough, simple, low detail painting that describes the colour
palette and explore the mood of the shot.
3. I then drew a tighter, cleaner line drawing so I could have a better guide to paint. Think of it as a colouring book.
It's a guide so I'll stay in the lines and not go too far off the original idea.
4. Then layer by layer I painted all the different elements of the shot. This is the middle ground where the majority of the action
will take place.
5. And finally here's the final background as it will look in the short which I will animate on top of.

TEACHING MYSELF TOON BOOM

I've been animating in 3D for so long now that I've really begun to miss 2D.
I thought I'd pick up Toon Boom and try and learn the new software so I can start making my own little cartoons. Here's my first attempt at doing a full shot.
It's really rushed and stupid. But it was just a way to get to know the tools.
Dont judge me too hard.