Some more Santori

This week I worked on the inbetweens... I adjusted many slow-ins and slow-outs, especially on the head as Randy (Haycock) suggested.
I also put all on 2's and sometimes on 1's, to keep it more alive.
In the end I sketched a rough background: the Santori-studio!

Clip

Il libro 2

The villain! A summoned shadow...

Il Libro

Studies for a short film in 3d (that we've never finished), based on a Lovecraft short story.

Devastation Pose

Devastation... another one from AM class 1. The "actor" is my brother.

sitting sketch

This is my collegue Gabriele, caught in his classic pose...

Tai chi

Tai Chi sketches from AM, class 1. Thanks to my dad for the reference!

Santori again

He needed some clothes!

Santori

sketchbook

Sketches from some months ago... AM, class 1.

Make it Santori time...

I finished this week work on my Santori assignment... I refined my blocking, especially I've removed from the animation a lot of stuff, above all some expressions and some extra poses that weren't necessary and that made the animation less clear. All the feedback I've received from the students, from Doug Dooley and Randy Haycock, was about the fact that the more a character is "cool", the less he moves... and so I've tryed to make it more subtle... there's only one pose for the body, one head turn, one gesture and the glass.
The other issue is to keep the model in shape, keep the volumes (grazie Mauro!): for me this is a very difficult part of hand drawn animation, that in 3d doesn't even exist.
Now the character is less similar to Jafar, because he speaks with a lot of squash and stretch and it's awesome but he doesn't fit to my character. So I think that I added some Lee Van Cliff, some System of a Down and maybe some of me (you always appear in your works!).

Santori

Thumbnails: push

Thumbnail drawings for an Animation Mentor assignment from class 2, bodymechanics... I was the "actor" behind these poses :)

sketch: exhausted

A page of sketches from my first AM class...

LaTigre e la Neve, Alias and Ubik conference

Next week we will give a lecture in Milan on the vfx of La Tigre e La Neve... you're invited!

Another quick doodle

Here another one... like yesterday I didn't plan anything...

saluti!

Calvin and the tentacle

Here's another one... always done with Js GreasePencil tool.
It's very straight ahead: I haven't planned anything! There were no tentacles or boxes at the beginning; I've started with a fast run and continued doodling.
My inspiration is a clip by Jason Ryan I've seen some weeks ago ... I like the way he makes Chicken little slides. There's also some Calvin personality inside.
Thanks to Josè and Mauro for the instant feedback!

Calvin and the tentacle

Doodling with Js_Greasepencil tool

This evening at work I had 30 empty minutes so I started doodling with Js_greasepencil tool, the script by Jason Schliefer that let you draw and animate directly in Maya...
The character is just a little inspired by Calvin, from Calvin & Hobbes.

Calvin doodle

AM students blogs

Now we have A LOT of blogs... happy reading:


AM Mentor Blogs

Jason Schleifer's Blog

Ethan Hurd

Justin Barrett

Bobby Beck

Carlos Baena

Victor Navone

Mark Behm

Mike Walling

Mike Thurmeier

Cameron Miyasaki

AM Class 3 Blogs

David Andrade

Aja B.

Rick Blankenship

Brad Bradbury

Robert Casumbal

Irene Chung

Philippe Duvin

Ernesto Esteo

Lee Fieldhouse

Landis R. Fields IV

Carlos Fins

Hugo Garcia

Matt Gaward

Daniel Gerhardt

Gianmichele Mariani

J Gibson IV

Jeremy Hopkins

Stu Jones aka Vyntax

Anthea Kerou

Jeff Kim

Adam Levin

Jimmy Lyons

David Martinez

Matt Moriss

Adrian Ng

Brian Nicolucci

Michael Plaisance

Eric Scheur

Kenny R

Rebecca

JP Roberts

Phil Rogan

Ryan Scott

David Sloss

Barry T. Smith

Mike Stern

Phelan Sykes

Ali Tezel

Jazz Tigan

Thomas Vanlicht

Sara Wade

Dieter Wagner

Nathan Walpole

Doodlesquad

Derek

David Leighton

Peter Starostin

James Schneider

Dan Segarra

Matt Kelly

Kenshi

Emanuele Pavarotti

Makomako

AM Class 2 Blogs

Mel Milton

Dylan Forman

Christophe DeGregory

Jamie-Lee Bury

Paul Sinclair

Jason Campbell

Jeff Rapess

Otto Schnurr

Eric Stratte

Adam Strick

Keith Patterson

Sean MacNeil

Nenad Mitrovic

Will Kistler

Tomislav Tesla

Traci Plagmann

AM Class 1 Blogs

Aaron Schultz

Alex Lehmann

Aaron Scott

Derek Bledsoe

Ryan Summers

Justin Weg

Megan Hobby

Chad Moore

Sean Dicken

Jocelyn Cofer

Mike Feil

Chris Zurbrigg

Freddy Burgos

Kate Forrest

Pamela Miles

Max Perelman

John Sung

Santori Reblocking

whew... what a busy sunday! I always finish my AM assignment ten minutes before the deadline!
Now my eyes aren't fresh so I can't judge in a clear way what I've done, but I'm quiet satisfied considering that I have still 3 weeks to work on this.
From last week I changed some body postures and the gesture: now there's less movement because as my mentor Randy Haycock told me (and my fellow student Sternio gave me the same suggestion), cool characters don't move much, and he's cool!
For the face I used Jafar from Aladdin as a reference, without the arabian style. I love the cartoon villains!

Santori reblock

Vegetables Sketches

Thumbnails drawings for my Animation Mentor Miss Stewie animation.

The first idea was a bit different: she was drinking a cup of tea... very english. Then I changed my mind on the run... a nouvelle cuisine "misterious" plate could be better for that fussy reaction!

carletto

It's out! It's the last commercial on which I've worked, for Italian market only. That funny character is named Carletto and it has been created by the Jim Henson guys! Yes... the muppets! In fact the previous commercials with Carletto have been done with a real puppet animated by 6 animators at the same time. In this commercials there was some shots that couldn't be done with a puppet and so we have worked on it in 3d! So two shots are live action and all the others are in 3d.

The director is Dario Piana, and Ubik vfx worked at the CGI: I've worked on the animation part and the model and shaders are by my collegue Roberto Clochiatti with. The compositor is Josè Sala and on the set in Romania there was Nicola Scarpinato.

The shots are really fast but we've worked hard on them and we're happy for the result, also considering the difficulties provided by the fact that we had to create a performance believable and similar to the puppet appearence and behaviour.

Watch Carletto

Vegetables

It is the last assignment for the second class of Animation Mentor: Bodymechanics (now I'm in the "Introduction to acting" class).
We had to illustrate a single idea with some contrast in it. I chose this haughty and aristocratic character that is a caricature of someone I know...
I did it this summer, in Sardegna with my tablet pc. Eh... good times!

Vegetables

Tigreneve poster

The poster...

La Tigre e La Neve

The trailer of "La Tigre e la Neve", the Roberto Benigni movie I've been working on all over this year is out... however in the trailer ther's nothing I've done... you have to go to theater!

La Tigre e la Neve

Santori, body blocking_rough

Here is the first rough for the body.
It's not easy because Bill Murray isn't very "cartooney", but I love the movie and this line is funny and subtle...

suntori_time

For relaxing times, make it Santori time...

Body blocking for Animation Mentor class 3 first assignment: to animate a line of dialogue. Mine is from Lost in Translation...