Pics from Sarasota

I didn't take a lot of photos and most of them are pretty crappy. I only had about 30mins outside campus, haha.

Women!
Hotels!

House!

Coast!

Beach!
Students!
Edwin cradling his subway!

Good enough.

Pics From Ringling

The brand new main building. The first level has a workout room, a cafe, the admissions office, and things I didn't find. Second level is home to the incredibly active career services and financial aid offices. The third level belongs to computer animation complete with one 2d lab, 3 3d labs, classrooms, and three or four video game centers (where new games will be set up for students to tackle).

I didn't expect a school known for its 3D animation to have a 2D lab like this. When they closed the Disney studio in Orlando, all of the drawing tables went to Ringling. Kyle says some of them even had left behind drawings from Brother Bear. There's about 20 tables and five (?) shooting stations.

What amazed me the most had to be the CA labs! HP comps (like the ones used in the industry) with 30" Monitors (puts the TV we had in Dinnaken to shame!) and 6"x8" Wacom tablets. There are three labs each with about 20 stations. I didn't get a chance to see what the actual class rooms are like but this definitely leaves a good impression.


The CA level of the main building is covered with posters of movies/games that Ringling grads have been a part of. Shown here with Kyle. Some of the titles include Mulan, Ants, Shrek, Monster's Inc, Cars, Over the Hedge, etc. It's a pretty impressive walk of fame.
Cafeteria. Food is probably more or less like UDS.
Inside the cafeteria.


On my visit I had the chance to talk with Jim MCampbell the CA program director. We chatted a long time about which school I should go to and which schools I shouldn't go to, un hum! Seriously though, Jim is passionate about the CA program at Ringling and has taken the time to constantly improve it according to changes in the industry.

I was also fortunate enough to be visiting right after the seniors finished their thesis. Everyone was busy applying to the big name studios and game companies. Industrial Light and Magic was interviewing a few of them on my last day. EA games was also on campus reviewing portfolios to decide which students to interview today. One of the Seniors has a phone interview with Dreamworks tomorrow.

One of the EA recruiters was talking with two of the CA teachers. Kyle and I were close by so someone started talking to them about how I'm trying to decide on a school. All three of them started to repeat "Ringling" over and over. It was quit funny. The two teachers seemed really excite and were trying to tell me all the good things about Ringling. Turned out all three of them graduated from Ringling, went on to work at Disney for years, then one went to EA while the other two came back to teach. The two teachers were really friendly and most importantly, very enthusiastic about the program.

Overall here's a list of what I liked about Ringling:

• High-end technology and amazing labs
• Enthusiastic Teachers
• Motivated Students
• Very organized and aggressive career services office
• High employment rate after graduations
  
• Program interactive with industry needs
• Many Many recruiters
• Lower Tuition (If there's room in the sophomore class, I can graduate in three years)
• Balance of 2d verses 3d (many illustration classes possible for electives)
• Beautiful Campus, Sarasota seems more happening than Valencia
• Also, all incoming students will receive a Powerbook Pro thanks to a generous donation
  

CalArts vs. Ringling

Which one which one?!

I've talked with industry professionals, graduates from both schools, plus others and I'm getting things like:

"If you got into CalArts, why would you even think of any other school?"--MCAD Senior


"Ringling is the number one 3D animation school in the nation!"--Ringling Freshman


"CalArts focuses on more content than Ringling"--Pixar Director


"70% of my graduating class was hired before graduation...i've come across way more ringling grads than i have cal arts grads out in the field. "--Ringling Graduate


"Ringling is a rising star, especially specializing in 3D.
You know enough in 2d design and animation now and you can learn a lot more new things, IF you think that you would like working with computerized environment.

And Calarts is..
Well, was....based on 2d training with 3D on the side. I am not sure how they function now.

For sure, they go with more art school approach.
It all depends on what you want to learn."
--CalArts Graduate

"It now depends on what you want to study and where???"--CalArts Instructor

"Calarts would be a great experience for you, I'm sure! If you think
you'd like to focus on doing things all digitally (with Maya and such) and get training for what you would do on a feature film
type project, Ringling would be better, I think."--CalArts Graduate

And the list goes on. Both schools are great, it just depends on if I want to focus on character animation or 3D animation. Ringling is the best for 3D animation and CalArts is the best for character animation. So where does that leave me? What would be the best choice for finding a job in the future? The tuition is $22k/ year for Ringling and $31k for CalArts. Is the CalArts reputation worth the $9,000 on tuition alone?

The truth is I really want to go to CalArts but the facts are saying Ringling is just as good if not better than CalArts in terms of education, reputation, and cost.

Hm...............................................................

Well I'll be down in Sarasota next week from Monday to Wednesday to see it for myself. Fortunately for me, the seniors are turning in their thesis right before I get there which means Kyle has time to show me around and introduce me to some other seniors. Should be fun.

Concept Designs for Reelworks

Here are some concept designs for an upcoming job at Reelworks. None of the design was chosen except for the phone :(. Soyeon the Great worked on this job too. She kicked my butt big time. I would show some of her stuff here but I'm not quite sure if that's legal haha, so just go to http://www.yellowshed.com to check out her work yourselves. Every time I work on a design assignment I realize how much I still need to learn. There's a lot more to do before I enter school.

It's been going really well at Reelworks. Lately it's been so busy I haven't had any time posting. I've moved on from practicing with old Keys to actually tweening for a current job--a sequence that's about the controversy around Fois Gras in California. So my first paid tween is actually drawing Arnold Schwarzenegger. I've also been doing pre-production designs and color models. Overall Reelworks is giving me a lot of opportunities to hone my skills.

Two interns are coming from Canada and France this summer. The Canadian girl is from Sheridan (Ouuu) and the French guy has really great stuff on his site (www.fbussiere.com). I'm pretty excited to meet and work with them.

More Color Models

Totally Awesome Dude!

Some color models for Reelworks. The images are a little warped but oh well.

Accepted x 3!!

I've been accepted by CalArts and USC! Woo hoo!

CalArts sent me a package on Monday. It said 'congratulations' on the outside. I couldn't believe it! I was so excited I jumped up and down and kept on saying "Oh my God! No Way!" in front of my mailbox. The neighbors probably thought I was nuts!

At any rate. It was such a great moment. I've been wanting to get into CalArts for so long the school itself has become an icon of success. To be accepted by CalArts says that one of the nation's top animation schools believes I have what it takes to be a successful animator. It makes me more confident about my decision to pursue a passion. Up until now I still lacked reassurance--something that proves to myself that I have the talent and determination and that pursuing animation is not some naive and selfish dream.

The family got together and had a mini-celebration together. My cousin and I got a bottle of champagne and a cheesecake. After wine and dine we sat around and talked about which school to go to (Ringling or CalArts). Aside from the package I also got some letters from CalArts, USC, and SCAD. I was so excited I haven't really bothered to open the other letters (I figured they probably needed some documents for financial aid). My dad joked that I should open the letter from USC, that they probably accepted me too. "CONGRATULATIONS," it said! What a surprise! I wasn't even expecting a response from USC this early. That had to be the highlight of the evening.

So now I have gotten into all three programs I applied for (computer animation at Ringling, character animation at CalArts, and masters of animation at USC). The tough part is choosing where to go. My top two choices are CalArts and Ringling. I need to visit Ringling and do more research before reaching a final decision. The question now is what's the next stage? What must I do in the next few month to papare for school so I measure up to my talented classmates?

Life is a bliss.

Accepted!!!

Front of the envelope:
Back of the envelope:

Accepted by Ringling, yay! Party time. Well maybe not; it makes me more impatient to hear back from CalArts and USC. I need to reply by March 23 or ask an extension until May 1st.

Everything they've send me so far has been so well designed. There's also a mini sketch book included in this acceptance package that has student work printed on the inside cover and the word 'create' on the front.

Like so:
Here's Ringling's information catalogue:
Although these things don't say anything about Ringling's character animation program, they do leave a very nice impression.

Illustration Friday: Hide/Moleskine Pages

Hide! The creep uh...men, are coming to get you!

Latest in the sketchbook. Watercolor and Sennelier oil pastels. I overworked the paper a bit so there's some damage on both pages. The pastel page is smudging a lot 'cause the sketchbook has been traveling with me. The colors are also a little off because of the scanner.

More Tweens; Moving on from baseball

Here are two roughs from my latest tween practices. I just finished the mouse sequence which is from the same animated spot as the baseball pitcher. Now I'm working on the bird sequence from an old Hershey's commercial (see the commercial at Reelworks.com). My first three sequences have all been related to baseball; it's refreshing to do something different...makes me think of chocolate syrup.

I always have Bruce (director/key artist) check my breakdown drawings before doing rest of the tweens. It's really helpful to see him correct my roughs--putting down the red marks of shame--as I like to call it. It's also easier to see the motion when someone else is flipping the drawings for you, ya!

I'm getting a lot faster and my line quality ain't bad.
Still so much to learn though.

Illustration Friday: Communication

Here's a quick doodle for this week's IF topic. I wanted to try some cutout designs but I didn't have any textures ready and just overall ran out of time. So here's the drawing as it is.

I just realized the hawaii drawing also has my contact info on there, OOOPS. So please don't stalk me either...

Hawaii Here We Are!

Here's a sketch from Hawaii. This is the Kona airport (Jan 7th). It's the first open air airport I'd ever been to. I couldn't believe the weather when I first got out of the plane; it was the perfect mixture of humidity, wind, and sun--quite different from the dry freezing Minnesotan air.

I drew this while waiting for our flight to Oahu; we flew to the Big Island then had a connection flight to Honolulu. Marivic is a Philipina girl whom I sat next to on our flight to Oahu. In the half hour flight she told me everything about her marriage and social life. Please don't stalk her--or rather, just don't let her know you got her info from me :P. Seriously though, leave the sweet girl alone or I'll kung fu chop you into pieces>:)

Other Stuff

Some 1min gestures from drawing lab tonight (vine charcoal on brown paper):

Here are some character designs for an upcoming project at Reelworks.

Some Tweens

Here's a frame from my first tweening experience. This is a character from a previous project at Reelworks. The blue pencil is a rough tween. You can see the searching lines I've made. Here's the cleaned-up final:Doing clean-ups is so hard on my eyes. At the end of the day my eyes feel like they are focused in opposite directions and I probably walk around like I'm drunk.

I tested the roughs using a regular flatbed scanner and AfterEffects. The finals were ran through the animation scanner (?) then cleaned and colored (like a cell) in US Animations. USA is so much faster but it's great learning different ways of testing. People at the studio are teaching me so much!

Pretty cool seeing my drawings colored and animated!

Here's the next tween; a sequence from 28 years ago. The keys are so old the paper has turned yellow. Bruce says it was his first tweening assignment. Anyway, here's one of my roughs:
Baseball seems to be a theme for my training :P

"Animators are the bottom feeders, so the inbetweener is the lowest of the low."

Ek training at Reelworks while keeping up with my regular work and figure drawing schedule is not simple. I'm at Reelworks from 9ish-4ish and then go straight to work or figure drawing until 9ish pm. It's not leaving much room for other things like scanning drawings for this blog. I suppose I should just make random words bold to keep some aesthetic interest in this blog...

I'm learning so much from Reelworks. I finished my tween sequence today and tested it with AfterEffects. Bruce the director thought it looked pretty good and asked me to move on to clean up. I thought I've been drawing for ever but it turned out only to be 16 frames (including the keys) which is less than a second and a half (on twos). At any rate I did good work and it was cool to see the drawings in motion.....so much better than that Dig animation I made with tracing paper and a camera (I'll put it online someday).

Todd, my unofficial teacher, gave me a crash course in AfterEffects today and now I feel like an AfterEffects guru (just don't ask me to demonstrate anything yet). But seriously, Todd was great at teaching me; he gave me a thorough introduction and now I feel pretty comfortable getting into it. I just need to practice and play around until I realize how sophisticated AE really is and become intimidated by it again.

Reelworks is a great environment to work in. It's a small company so everyone is pretty casual and familiar with each other. Though I'm not being paid for training, I still can't believe I can just spend the whole day drawing and doodling designs...it's been great.

Aght, dat b et fo now. I'll post some drawings this weekend.
(The bold looks terrible, what a bad idea...)

First Tween

Today was my first day and it was very sloooooooooooooooowwww. I was tweening a baseball pitcher. It took me about three hours to do three drawings. Well that also includes the time I spent listening to other's suggestions and instructions. I hear 1 hour per drawing is normal for Tweening and that a beginner could take up to 3-4 hrs on one. Nonetheless it seems I was pretty unproductive.

I had to get used to the light table. It's pretty neat drawing with the right equipment but since I had to draw with a sheet placed on top of two key frames, the key drawings just over lapped and it was a little hard to decide where exactly the middle drawing should be. I had to constantly flip the three sheets of paper, which, I guess, is the way it's suppose to be done.

Spoken like a true newbie.

It's also a little awkward to picture the motion of the images verses focus on one drawing. I had to imagine how each movement will take place, how the volume of an object or body part distorts with the foreshortening, and things like that.

Overall it was a really good first day, though my performance could probably have been better. People at the studio were every helpful and friendly. The studio is located in uptown and has a staff of only 5-6 people. It's pretty amazing how such a small group can pump out such great work!

Tweening Training

"Good news everyone!"

I will start training as an inbetween artist starting tomorrow at Reelworks (http://www.reelworks.com), an animation studio located in Minneapolis. They specialize in traditional character animation. From their site you can view some of their digital and hand drawn commercials for Mall of America, Hershey's, Bestbuy, United Way, and many more.

I am really lucky to have this opportunity and am definitely excited to start training. Since I've never had inbetween experience, I've got to give it all I've got. For those of you who don't know what 'Inbetweening' is, Wikipedia it.

I'll keep you posted!

Illustration Friday: Sprout!

Here's my entry for this week's IF theme. I wish I had a better scanner but this will have to do for now.

I'm just sent out my application to USC which means I am done with all of my applications! Woo! Now it's just financial aid stuff and waiting. Ringling will give me a decision by the mid-end of this month--so not that far away. Then I'll hear from CalArts and USC mid-end March.

In other news:

• I was in Hawaii for 8 days from Jan 7th-14th
• I turned 21 on the 8th of Jan, had great time(s) celebrating with family and friends.
• I took the GRE, got high enough of a score for USC, but nothing high enough I want to mention :-/
• I don't think I'll be going to China in the spring, due to many issues and complications that make it inconvenient to go right now.
• Now that the apps are done, it's time to get back to the drawing board!
  

Illustration Friday: Red

A quick doodle for Illustration Friday. I've been kinda busy lately so this will have to do for now. Cheers!

Illustration Friday: 80's

Life in the Valley!
Here's a storyboard page I did for the independent movie Regular Joe
The scene is an explanation of why the main character's birthday is never remembered at his work place.

The original concept was that the receptionist/office worker shown here is a gum-obsessed valley girl type. Regular Joe is a live-action film but all the fantasy and flashback scenes are done in cutout animation meaning we animate cut-out photographs using compositions in AfterEffect (much like the Guinness commercials). When I photographed the costume design, however, Gene the director decided the valley girl look isn't appropriate for the work place.
So we ended up not using the valley girl idea.
For more info on Regular Joe or director Gene Landry, go to http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0889145/
I'm there too!

The model for the costume is my good friend Alona, we had fun doing the shoot, haha.

License Follow-Up

What do you think?

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody!

Now that the holiday hustle and bustles are over with I have more time to draw & post. I've been feeling really unproductive but hopefully I'll get back in the rhythm of things.

In other news, I sent out my portfolio to Ringling today. USC is the only one left. I still have to take the GRE for that--ew!

Here's a little something I did for my mom. She gave it to her boss as a Christmas present.