New Design: 100 % Texan

I don't do design work often, but this one has been floating around in my head for a while.

Show your Texan pride with my new design at http://www.cafepress.com/midnightskydesign.
Cafe Press Midnight Sky Design

I'm Back!

Hi Internet!

I know it been a while... long story short, at the end of October I quite my fast food job to freelance full time. I plan to start looking for full time jobs at studios again after the first of the year. I wanted to share with you my first 3D short commission.

It has been quite a task. I agreed to do this for a couple hundred as long I could use it for my portfolio. (It should be noted though that the client has also sent chocolate from their shop) We went with the understanding that we are both small businesses so we can help each other. I was bit rusty since it been a while since I've done 3D animation. Boy did it take longer than I thought. I have no idea why I though I could get it done within a couple of weeks... I think in the future I might have someone help me with rigging, as the arms where not as functional as I'd wanted. I was also  ignorant of the differences of Maya Lt and Maya... I did all this animation in Maya Lt only to find out it didn't have a renderer.  I had to convert all 24 characters to .fbx files... it didn't all go  smoothly.  In end, lessons learned, and considering  what I was up against, I'm quite satisfied with the end product.

Maybe in a year or so I can redo this and make it even better.

A Ferris Wheel and an Interesting Gif Request

First of all, here are my latest demo reels for Logo Animation and Motion Graphics, improved upon with work commissioned by clients, mostly from fiverr.com where I am currently a Level One seller (almost Level 2).

I had a couple of interesting gif requests this week. One was of a ferris wheel a client created in Corel Draw, I had to bring it into After Effects, and get everything separated into layers. In order to get the seats to be correct, I had to animate them individually and I tried to give them a slight swing. This is a lower res version, it also doesn't seem to want to post to blogger....

Another was a request for an avatar for a forum. They wanted to have Ryu from Street Fighter shoot a Canadian Goose out of the sky... At first I panicked slightly thinking that I had to figure out to hand draw this. Then I thought wait this is for an avatar... most people use pre-made animations.

Problem: how to remove Ryu from street fight footage
Solution: Find a free gif someone already made

Problem: The hadouken attack only goes vertical
Solutions: Have Ryu appear to jump while doing it

I also found a free online gif of a goose flying

Problem: how to make the goose look dead
Solution: In After Effects, use cc scatterize to turn goose to ash

Peeking out of my shell

So, I've been freelancing for a few months now. I've gotten many great clients on Fiverr, and several on Elance and Odesk. I guess it's going ok, although I wish it was profitable enough for me to quite my fast food job, which I now refer to as my "day job". I gained some great experience and growth from working on projects though, and that's more valuable than money for an entry level animator.

So the past couple when I've gone to a couple of conventions there two pieces of advice that stick out as far as job finding:

1. be a nomad, be prepared to go from company to company, and move around

Well, I would be ok with the change company part, but not moving around part. My life is here, my family and friends and most importantly a church I feel comfortable at are here. There will be those that will tell me I will never get a job that way... I never want my career to be the single most important thing in my life.

2. network, network, network

Sigh... this is really hard for me. Most of the time I'm really quite shy and introverted. It seems I'm going to have to come out my shell ,at least some, to get noticed. I'm going to start trying to be more active on social media, and try to put myself out into that great big online world some. So, hopefully there will be consistent blog postings starting soon.

Updates and Freelancing

So after going through my post graduate slump as I call it for a little over a year....
I've started reducing hour at my fast food job so that I can freelance and have more time to improve my portfolio. These are my current portfolios for 3D Animation and After Effects.