Vicious Cycle by Michael Marczewski

 Tragic commentary on society, with superb computer animation and good basic storytelling.

Vicious Cycle from Michael Marczewski on Vimeo.

Factory window in Maya

Simple polygon model of factory window.

http://animationre-creation.blogspot.com/2012/09/factory-window-in-maya.html

The Gnomon Workshop presents an Evening with Grzegorz Jonkajtys

Polish animator Grzegorz Jonkajtys has an interesting technique in combining miniature hand built sets with CG characters. Glad I made it over to Gnomon to see the talk.

Grzegorz's film credits include Sin City, Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Mist, Rango, Pacific Rim, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Warcraft, and The Revenant. 

His titles were VFX Artist and Lead Animator.

 

(copyright Grzegorz Jonkajtys?)

After such grim short films such as ARK, where an animated Leonard Nimoy type character is trapped on a doomed plague ship, Grzegorz is bringing us a family oriented film based on a Polish character, Teddy Floppy-Ear. 

Teddy, and his friend Hare find out that a toy factory is not all fun and games. Grzegorz slips in some social commentary when the system tries to toss Teddy into an incinerator for having one minor defect, in this case, his floppy ear,

After years of CG work, Grzegorz said it was refreshing to build miniature sets by hand. He pointed out that his hand built sets have a more convincing depth and character than the usual CG backgrounds. This was his strategy in filming "ARK". Grzegorz had his crew do lighting checks with real miniature models so the lighting on the CG characters would match the hand made backgrounds in a more convincing way.

Using kit-bashing and Styrofoam containers, drinking straws and mint candy box tins, Grzegorz and his crew built the charming, and at the same time, frightening world of Teddy Floppy Ear.

http://animationre-creation.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-gnomon-workshop-presents-evening.html

Tardis in Maya 3D

Here's some quick polygon modeling work of a Tardis in Maya and rendered in Mental Ray.

Have to get the "Police Box" and other graphics attached,
along with door handles and dirt and scratches...

Version_02...

I made my own sign art in Photoshop, rather than swipe it off the internet.

http://animationre-creation.blogspot.com/2016/01/tardisv01.html

PreVis Class at Studio Arts

Incredible class I took from Brian Pohl at Studio Arts. 

Brian was a PreVis supervisor at Persistence of Vision studios.

It was a bear using Maya, After Effects, and a little bit of Photoshop. Plus, just coming up with the idea, storyboards and  timing for the chase. In other words, generating content while mastering two software packages. But you can see the result.

Previs Final from Rosko on Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/8208316

http://www.brianpohl.com/

http://animationre-creation.blogspot.com/2012/08/previz.html

The Iron Giant lives! 10 year anniversary reunion

http://animationre-creation.blogspot.com/2009/10/iron-giant-lives-10-year-anniversary.html

Flamingo Roller Skate Waitress in Maya 3D

Here she is, She's still at a rough low-poly stage, her limbs are still separate objects.
 

I don't know why; I just doodled this character the other day,
and she insisted on being modeled in Maya.

 

Here she is with more smoothing, and her legs are a more accurate color.


Did a bit more work on her skates-

 

Here's my goofy Flamingo Roller Waitress again. Trying to get her rig fixed.
Don't worry, they only serve veggie-burgers.

I got this great pose of her using Maya.