MERCENARY HQ

Kai concept

2010-08-31T11:43:00.005+10:00

Doing more development of General Kai, my villain character.

He's lived for 3000 years. Poor little tormented bugger.

A most peculiar man

2009-10-06T09:29:00.003+10:00

Went to the park to get some fresh air, sat on the bench with my sketchbook, and came up with this.

Probably the best update for my villain character to date. Not sure about the hair though....might be a nice idea to use as a "younger version". When I took the sketch home, added in the colours and came up with a good hair style for his older self, as you can see on the left.

Top right: concept for his mid-"monstrous form"

Supanova 2009

2009-04-04T22:09:00.005+10:00

(from left to right) Great Teacher Onizuka (GTO), Vash the Stampede (Trigun), Deadpool, The Joker

The Joker vs. The Batman

Best female Deadpool ever

Hangin' with Super Saiyan 4 Goku

Why so serious?

The Joker (me) meets Todd McFarlane

This convention needs a better classic criminal.
And I'm gonna give it to 'em!

Hospital Film ~ Scene 02

2009-02-03T21:14:00.001+10:00

Hospital Film ~ Scene 02 from Dave Smith on Vimeo.
Rough version of scene 02.

Hospital Film ~ Scene 01

2009-01-27T22:32:00.005+10:00

Hospital Film ~ Scene 01 from Dave Smith on Vimeo.

Work in progress development of Scene 01 of my current film project.

Modelling Jaz Part 08 - Complete

2008-11-06T18:36:00.006+10:00

Jaz in 3D ~ Model Test from Dave Smith on Vimeo.

Introducing the fully modelled, textured, rigged and weighted, Jaz the Brox (Fox).

Had large deal of trouble with adding manipulators and controls. The guide I followed contrasted to Darren's notes, so I found myself have to make do with what I could achieve. Hopefully, there is enough there so I can animate him to dialogue.

Will need to create blend shapes, but that is not required for this class. The next stage will be for my own benefit.

Modelling Jaz Part 07 - Texture nearly complete

2008-10-14T22:16:00.002+10:00

Jaz, after texturing (including Sub-proxy)

Darren seemed pretty happy with the model. He recommended some extra geometry around the leg, shoulder, neck and base of the tail. I still need to fix up the textures, since they're fairly crappy (mainly in the shoe area). The luxury I guess is because he has flat colours, though I may need to add some forms of shadows, or creases, in the clothes for that added touch.

Front View

Back View

Modelling Jaz Part 06 - Model complete

2008-10-13T15:31:00.002+10:00

Front view

Side view

Back view

Sketch Battle ~ Dave and Ben

2008-10-10T14:47:00.004+10:00

It begins

Ben's reply

My reply

Drawn by myself and Benjamin Drake

The force is strong with this one.

Modelling Jaz - Part 05 - Nearly Done

2008-10-07T22:44:00.003+10:00

Front view of Jaz - Smoothed preview on left, low-polygon almost-done rendition on right

Perspective View of both low-poly and high-poly model

Side view

Modelling Jaz - Part 04 - The Body

2008-10-05T21:54:00.005+10:00

Jaz, complete with shirt, pants and shoes (half

Side View

Next is lofting the arm and tail.

Modelling Jaz - part 03 - The Head

2008-09-30T14:34:00.003+10:00

Jaz - Front

Jaz - Side

Jaz - perspective view (including Sub Proxy model)

Modelling Jaz - part 02

2008-09-29T14:40:00.003+10:00

Model sheet of Jaz

Modelling Jaz - part 01

2008-09-28T23:07:00.008+10:00

For the last assessment for CGI Modelling, I will be making Jaz, the main character to my series concept.

Revealed this drawing (and a few others) to Darren last Tuesday and he was happy overall with the design, since he's fairly animation-friendly already.

A consideration is the clothes, which are intended to be baggy. My choices are either to model him without clothes (nude rig, not anatomically nude) with the intention of adding cloth simulation later, or design the clothes to be more rigid.

I may go with the latter. I can always build another rig of Jaz, should I want to add cloth simulation, which would be interesting.

Hunter ~ Modeled and Textured

2008-09-19T15:04:00.006+10:00

Done!
At least, I hope its' done. Done enough, I guess.

The Hunter - modelled and textured...not very well, but not bad for a first try.

3rd Person view

Close up

Another view

Background modelling and texturing was done by my group member, Jessie.

Second Opinion

2008-09-16T20:46:00.008+10:00

Ok, Maya doesn't suck....too much.

Sketches from today's class on rigging. We had a model to demonstrate....so it's the first chance I've had at life drawing this year.

Talked with Darren about the Hunter model and he showed me again how to properly UV texture. I felt more confident this time, and following his demonstration, I was able to fully unwrap the model, ready for Photoshop texturing.

I was originally angry and frustrated cause of how complex UV texturing was. Despite having a lesson on the subject, I was unable to follow Darren's "quick-guide-to-UV-texturing-over-four-hours" and missed many steps that left me bewildered.

I'm quite grateful to Darren for taking the time to show me the process again.

So, Maya doesn't suck....completely.

Wall-E, Jaz and Eve

Edit 17th Sept

Textured face ~ Freaky eyes

Observation

2008-09-09T17:23:00.002+10:00

Maya sucks.

Nuff said.

Made this after class today, on the beautiful Wacom Cintiq's. Good to know I can always make things like this in record time, compared to modeling and texturing one character over the course of several weeks.

CGI Modeling Game Concept - The Hunter (model)

2008-09-06T21:20:00.002+10:00

Front

Side

Back

CGI Modeling Game Concept - The Hunter

2008-08-31T19:11:00.003+10:00

Concept sketches of the Hunter

Front and side view reference for modeling

Scenes from a Journal II

2008-08-26T16:44:00.003+10:00

Jaz - various poses (and an angry chibi in the bottom left corner)

Concept sketches from video game concept for class.

CGI Modelling is becoming confusing and frustrating. I imagine once things pick up, it should be fine. I am looking forward to eventually modelling and rigging my own character.

Just wish I didn't have to get up at 6am in the morning just to sit through 4 hours of talking.

Bleh.

Scenes from a Journal

2008-08-19T21:56:00.002+10:00

Jaz (after a decisive battle)

The techno genius, Andre, and his trusty tool, a monkey wrench. However, he does not use the wrench for battle. He believes it is a tool only for making and unmaking things, nothing else.

Of course, bad things can be built with it. But also good things as well.

Surfers Paradise, as of 14th August 2008. A McDonalds sits on the corner of the street.

Chapter 2: The Revenge

2008-08-14T15:37:00.004+10:00

The saga continues.

Commenced 2nd Semester of my Post-Graduate degree, Graduate Certificate in Visual Culture. Will be smooth sailing this time round with only one subject to attend (CGI 1 Modelling). So far, we've modelled a hand, a face, conducted a quick 300 word assessment and an exam.

Exciting.

The holiday break was a mixture of relaxation and freelance work.

Relaxation naturally entailed a large share of TV watching, anime/cartoon viewing, video game playing and procrastination. All of which for the sheer purpose of being lazy.

Freelance work has been interesting: I was asked by iOnline (the same company I did work experience with) asked me to assist them with a new project involving a Casino Game. It was a lot of fun, and looks to be in its final completion soon.

I'm also currently involved with the new $oopah Nin10Doh! Flash collaboration, a sequel to Nin10Doh! released earlier this year. The first one had been a lot of fun, and better yet, I was introduced to Chris "Kirbopher" Niosi, who wrote and animated the TTA (TV Tome Adventure) Flash series I really enjoyed. He asked me to assist in the sequel and I was more than happy to oblige. I'm looking forward to how this one will turn out.

Recently am working with Moket on a new educational game project. Jarrod, a former graduate, and myself have provided designs for the characters at this stage. While early days, I'm interested to see which designs they decide to go with.

Very exciting.

My own personal projects have been slow at this stage (procrastination, ha). I've yet to commence animating the Hospital film project I wrote for last years Visual Analysis and Critical Reflection class. I also do have a new draft for a potential sequel to Begone, Little Wolf, which I haven't titled yet.

I suppose without the feeling of urgency that University provides, my own projects tend to sit idly. I want to make a film this year, with the possibility to be entered into this years graduate screenings.

However, this may be unlikely.

Alternatively, I just need to make a film just for the sake of making a film. If I want to make a mark in the entertaining world, a fresh film is needed. We'll see how this pans out.

In regards to my own Series concept, a new updated draft of Episode 1 is in the works and feels more promising than its previous incarnations. With a bit more focus this time round, I should be able to construct a more solid bible for presentation.

More as this develops.

End of Chapter 2.

New Demo Reel

Animation Ahoy!

2008-04-23T12:35:00.006+10:00

The saga continues.

Presented my Genre and the Moving Image pitch last week, which I reckon went fairly well. I presented my investigations on the Science Fiction genre, and therefore pitched a concept for a 1950's Science Fiction parody animation, thusly named: It Came From Across the Universe.

Just a matter of seeing who would wish to assist me in bringing it to fruition.

For Visual Analysis and Critical Reflection, I have decided to investigate the spectacle of the Gold Coast Hospital. It was an idea concocted by myself and my mum (who happens to be a nurse), and would allow us to come up with an animated concept to detourn (divert) the hospital spectacle.

I paid a visit to her ward last weekend to do some sketching, observing the atmosphere, looking for symbols and such. The other nurses didn't seem to mind, and mum was all to happy to assist by pointing out various aspects.

It shall be interesting to see what we could come up with to detourn the spectacle (for better or worse).

CGI Animation is most interesting. We recently finished the task of animating a lamp rig, particularly Luxo Jr. made famous by Pixar Animation. Here's my submission:

It's a lot of fun bringing to life that in which has no life (or so we think). The movement still needs some fine tuning, and ideally I would like to put in a dust particle effect to create the look of 'debris'. Took me some time to fix up the light-linking though, since light seemed to shine out the back of Luxo Senior's head.

Amusing, but not the effect I required, so it looks better this time round.

It's both fun and frustrating to apply the principles of animation, for which I originally applied to hand-drawn elements, into a 3-dimensional universe. There are benefits and disadvantages with such ease and options, and I can see why it's important to spend the time needed to get it right. You can tell the difference when someone has just tweened two key frames in the timeline, compared to someone who's practically animated frame by frame.

Nonetheless, it's a good experience. Just hope it can score me a job.

Blogged but not Forgotten

2008-04-15T18:14:00.003+10:00

With my recently restored internet, I'm figuring it would be excellent (and a challenge) to continue updating my blog with my latest happenings, even if just for me.

For those who do read up on my blog, I thank you for your support.

As an update from my previous blog, I was wrong in assuming the extra task required would be a film project. In some sense it is, but it's meant to be apart of Genre and the Moving Image, which will be in the form of a second assessment for task 2 or 3. The third assessment is an audio-visual project (essentially a short film, or an animatic) to present to our teacher.

Since the audio-visual project is meant to be about our chosen Genre to investigate, Begone, Little Wolf 2 will not be scheduled as I boasted before.

So far, it's been merely keeping up with my required tasks: assessments, animation tasks, keeping on schedule. The usual hoo-ha.

I've had small inkling to do another short film, but with no major uni-based requirement, I feel no strong need. The ideas keep coming, but I'm hesitant to begin another short film project in the event that I feel it is too difficult and quit, or get side-tracked with other commitments.

However, with our CGI-Animation teacher encouraging us to improve, collecting video clips and pushing for that little bit more, I begin to wonder if I'm doing myself an injustice. Many of my CGI clips I have made seem...average. Adequate, you could say. Enough to get a good mark, but not fantastic.

I wonder if I should be pushing myself that little extra mile, just to see what I can do, what I can prove. I stare at the short animated lamp I have recently made and think "what more could I do? What else can I push to get more feel?" But quickly it is replaced by the same feeling, "Ah, she'll be right".

I guess the same could be said for my animation film projects; that while I feel the need to test my skills again, I feel safer by not doing one.

A portion of which is because of the anxiety I felt during last years movie-making experience. While this time, it would be made entirely by myself, there's still that worry, that possible stress of having to work on a film by myself.

Perhaps this is mainly superficial and will eventually pass and bring on that need to make a new film. Slowly but surely I find time to develop new ideas and concept, ones in which could be achieved by my lonesome.

I want to be an animator. Perhaps it's time I prove it.

On a side note, Visual Analysis and Critical Reflection is turning out to be an experience in itself. I illustrate with this drawing.

Captain's Log Stardate 1108.1

2008-03-10T13:23:00.008+10:00

Been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, so please excuse the nerdy blog title.

First week of university was successful: attended all the classes to get a basis for what is to be my mission objective for the next 6 months.

CGI1 Animation looks to be a fun course, filled with animating pendulams, balls and models in Maya.

Visual Analysis and Critical Reflection looks like a course intended at taking a look at one's self; one's inspiration, desires, artistic fluency, where it comes from, where its going and how it may affects one's art.

Genre the Moving Image looks to be fun, since it is hosted by Peter Moyes, a crowd favorite among my classmates.

Only complaint I have is the extremely large bill associated with this degree. Courses for this post-graduate degree aren't as cheap as they were in my undergraduate studies. A dissapointment.

Affordable, fairly painful, but a disappointment.

Originally it was intended for me to complete one of two courses of theory, both of which I had completed in my undergraduate degree, so naturally I requested another theory course instead, ie. Genre and the Moving Image.

However, it seems that is still not the case.

I recieved an email from the post-graduate administration office to be informed that I need to also complete a further post-graduate objective, as to be discussed with my supervisor (or my course convenor, since I don't have a supervisor). This has puzzled me somewhat.

Considering I am only required to do 4 "expensive" subjects this semester, it seems odd that the university would require me to conduct a further task for them. At which this task is undecided yet.

My initial thoughts considered the possibility of commiting to another short film idea, but am unsure if this would be the case. Perhaps this objective may be more subtle; a journal log, concept for a film, a thesis maybe.

I've set up a meeting with my course convenor tomorrow to properly sort out the required objective. I am already required to develop a project for Genre and the Moving Image as well as Visual Analysis and Critical Reflection. To be committed to a third project as well....I just don't know.

However, perhaps it is the push I needed.

While there is still some left over feelings from the completion of the short film I made last year, I have toyed with the concept of keeping the tradition alive by moving forward with a new short film project. For those keeping track, I had declared before to commence work on another animated piece to continue on from a work I did in Year 2, The Stone.

Instead, I have considered the possiblity of a better concept to concieve.

Begone, Little Wolf 2

For starters, this will not be the final title of the film, merely its production name for the time being. Some could argue its a vain attempt to take the same concept and try to relive (or enhance) on the previous film. Not quite so however.

The challenge for this film would be in its story and stylisation. Since its a sequel, its a continuation of the previous story, and thus would provide the challenge to see if I can create a story that not only continues from the previous film, but could somehow stand alone, for those who haven't seen the first film.

Artistic wise, I wish to deviate from the full animation I tried to focus on in the previous film and be more "arty". More shading, less movement, more character. A greater focus on the mood and environment to create meaning and feelings. Ambitious as always, but it would be nice to see if I can be capable of handling a far more direct, versitile (and more difficult) role.

If I am to commit to a project, this would be my choice. Once again, this comes down to whether this short film project can coincide with my other post-graduate project commitments or may eventually be filed under "to be considered".

And at the end of the day, it could make a nice couple of drawings to have in my folio.
I'll keep posting as to how this concept progresses.

11 Second Animation

2008-01-29T17:25:00.001+10:00

Just finished this recently. I'd started key-framing and planning out the animation well over 2-3 weeks ago, but sort of let it sit in the background as I dealt with other tasks, namely getting work.

With some animation jobs round the corner, I wanted to come back and finish this before things got too busy.

The concept was inspired from a nifty club called the 11-second club, designed to encourage animators (of all styles) to animate a character (or characters) around an 11-second sound clip from a film. I remember my friends Liam and Gemma doing 3D skits for the November entry, and figured it was worth doing just to simply test my skills.

While it's not traditionally drawn on paper, its drawn in Flash using a graphics tablet. I'm rather proud how this turned out all up.

Comics and Cartoons

2008-01-08T23:50:00.000+10:00

Greetings comrades.

I apologise for the lack of updates/submissions since after Christmas. For most part, I've been focusing on getting a bread-and-butter job to support myself while I attempt to breach the world of animation.

But I've been drawing though.

Started working on a short 11-second skit of my fox character speaking a line from some movie. Figured it would be good practice before I commit to making a sequel to my previous film, "The Stone". That project is currently in the planning stages. Unlike the previous one, I want to see what my skills from the last 12 months has granted me through planning and making an animated film.

Today's journal entry however, is centered on my experience today.

Cartoons and Animation Seminar

My friend Gemma had received a job invite from a nice fellow named Mark to help out with one of his children's seminar entitled: Cartoons and Animation. Basically, the kids guide to comics and cartoons.

I'd helped Gemma the week before on aspects of Macromedia Flash as she was required to use the program to demonstrate animation for the class. However, his laptop was not functioning for the day, so she asked if this friend who taught her Flash (myself) could bring his laptop and come along to the seminar (with the insentive of being paid).

Thus, I had a job for the day.

We eventually arrived at a community hall south of Queensland without too much hassle. We met with Mark, got set up and waited as the kids pile in.

The seminar reminded me somewhat of when I went to the South Bank Library to attend a similar cartoon teachings. Only difference was pretty obvious.

These kids couldn't care less.

They consisted of a small group of only boys, early teens, skateboards in hand (they were skating out the front when we arrived) and naturally very...boyish. While I didn't pay much heed, it did disappoint me somewhat that the boys weren't really interested in cartoons at all. Just skateboards. Go figure.

Mark had them create a collaborative character on the white board. The creature became a strange fat-monster with one funky ear, a cape, bear arms, an eyeball on his stomach, a cigarette in his mouth and a penis on his head...AND in the usual place (which both were gratefully removed). All of which followed with laughter and chortling. During that time, I did my own rendition of the creature:One such event however, made me raise an eyebrow. One boy, who seemed interested in my work, posed a challenge to me: draw a picture of love. This peaked my interest and took his request, taking the time to draw a picture of love.

And it came out like this:
Having been in a relationship, the aspect of love I portrayed was the warm caring bond between a man and a woman. Touching, huh? 20 seconds it took to draw.

We then traded drawings and I quickly saw the boy's image didn't seem to embody what I perceived to be love.

It was just a naked woman. She had speech bubble saying something, but I can't remember what.

While I can accept to some degree that he was a young boy, many years before the true concept of love, women and life would sink in, it made me raise an eyebrow that this boy, at such a young age, considered love as a nude woman, perhaps deriving the "sex" aspect of life we see in television and the media. That love, in his eyes, was merely a sexual act or image.

That, or he was just goofing off. Either way, I thought it was worth noting.

The attempt had been to get the boys to come up with their own character and background, for which we could scan onto my laptop and edit in Macromedia Flash. Sadly, it came down to me making a rendition of the monstrous character on the white board, and use a previous background drawing made in a different class, as provided by Mark.

The finished animation was their character riding up a skate ramp, doing a back flip and running down the other side. Surprisingly enough, this fascinated the remaining boys. They had me correct the animation by having their character ride a skateboard and were otherwise quite impressed by it.

After which the seminar ended and both Gemma and I departed with Mark to get some late lunch, talking about the class and about animation, cartoons and such. Despite the kids having learned little, Gemma and I learned a lot from Mark about potential job opportunities. Should Mark need our help again, it will be interesting to see how the next seminar turns out.

Closing Thoughts

While I mainly stayed out of the central doings of the seminar (as it was officially Mark's job), it was nice providing help with the animation portion of the class. Gemma provided her artistic talent with the whiteboard, and even took the approach to keep some order in the room.

In some ways, I felt bad I may have upstaged Gemma, as it was her initial job in the first place. She had since told me however, she was glad I was there to keep her company. And I was glad to have been there.

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

2007-11-06T23:22:00.000+10:00

Wolf Movie Update

Success. Tomorrow marks the final stage of Team Wolf's short film project. Once our sound editor/designer returns with the final sound file, we'll export the film and present it to the teachers.

Begone, Little Wolf will become an official short film.

It's been an extremely tiring, emotional and excruciating process. One that has taught me many important factors in the world of animation. It has taught me the importance of being a director and the responsibilities of that role. While I hadn't played the director as well as one should've, I've understand a smidgen of the responsibility that comes with the title.

I've learned to work with others, despite their faults and tribulations, and myself with my own annoyances.

Pre-Production

I see now that my original 1st year vision of a 5 minute animation piece, starring up to 8 characters, with lots of animation, was a scary ambition. Storyboarding and cutting the film down, especially during production phase, has made me see that even a minute of animation can be long and tiresome.

It hasn't deterred me per say, but it's certainly an eye-opender.

Animation

Has been a fun experience, despite the long hours. I've enjoyed animating the various sequences, especially during the action scenes, which allowed me to test my understanding of the principles of animation.

Post-Production

While not perfect, my knowledge of such programs as Adobe After Effects and Premier has increased dramatically. I now know the difference between standards definition (1024/576) and high definition (1920/1080). Compositing has been a fun but irritating experience, one of which I shall improve when I being new projects down the track.

Final Thoughts

My 3 years at Griffith has taught me a great deal about myself and my future goals. While it has shown me that my dream cannot be easily achieved, it has shown me a potential path I can take that will either lead me there, or land me close enough.

I desire to continue improving, drawing, animating and creating stories to share.

One frame at a time.

Screenshots

2007-10-26T21:33:00.000+10:00

Colour scheme was developed by Poh-Ling, my partner, and we're currently in the process of colouring all 9 sequences. The program we've used is Photoshop (mainly version CS2). We officially have 4 sequences remaining, and have since done some test renders to check out various settings and visual effects for the final export.

Here's some samples from the movie:

Sequence 6 Scene 5 ~ Wolf and Sam

Sequence 8 Scene 4 ~ Wezz in action

Sequence 8 Scene 5 ~ Showdown

Coming to Theatres

2007-10-26T18:12:00.001+10:00

From the creator of such hit movie posters as 'Emily Does Dallas', 'Invasion of the Boob Monsters' and '28 Minutes Later', comes the third installment in the superhero saga.

Starring David Smith as Peter Parker and Benjamin Drake as Eddie Brock/Venom.

The Greatest Battle Lies Within.

Life Drawing at the Museum and Zoo

2007-10-06T22:12:00.000+10:00

A collection of life drawing we did during our visits to the Museum at South Bank and at Alma Park Zoo.

These ones are from the museum. They had a funky exhibit set up that had many animals walking along a path, varying from the smallest animals (spiders, urg) to the largest (a Polar bear, ooo).

These ones are from Alma Park Zoo. Was more difficult to achieve, due to the fact most of the animals wouldn't stay still. Except for a lama with a funky doo.

Wolf Project

2007-07-24T16:02:00.000+10:00

LAYOUTS
Been working away merrily on the Wolf film project, thusly titled: Begone Little Wolf (or else Title Pending until we come up with a final name).

The main task over the holidays we'd set was to focus on finishing the layouts for the end of Week 1. My task was to draw up the layouts for the flashback sequence at the start of the Wolf movie.

This is the roughs of the Hut interior, the home of the Wolf. The angle of the scene was to give the sense of dominance and weakness of the Wolf's position.

This is the final coloured version. Added emphasis on shadow and detail. With the help of Post-grad student, Patrick, added in some textures and fixed a fresco effect over the final image.

Next, is the close up image of the lantern that is a repeated shot throughout the flashback. I planned out the roughs before hand, getting a sense of perspective, drawing back on the emotion of dominance and weakness.

As before, fitted in some textures and added the fresco effect.

Cutting Edge - Day 3

2007-06-20T22:07:00.002+10:00

The Last Straw

Arrived on time and met up with Kristie, the supervisor. First up, she introduced me to Mark, who worked in the sound department. This was short-lived however as a client then came in and I was forced to head back to Kristie.

I asked if the 2D or 3D department was available, but they were too busy to take on students. So, once again, she plopped me down in tapes and left me under the guidence of Kel. I ended up sitting on a stool in the room, awaiting Kristie who had informed me it would be an hour before she could get me back into the sound department.

2 hours later, I had 4 drawings in my visual diary, and read 2 chapters of my book. Bored out of my mind.

10 minutes before the 2nd hour, one of the ladies from Facilities (Kristie's department) asked me to help her put covers into some DVD cases (basically the same process with the CD cases, fantastic!). Took me a short time, then revisited Kristie before heading to lunch.

Ate lunch and enjoyed it. Didn't have to pay for it. Mwa hahahahahaha!

Met up with Kristie again, she searched for any possible openings. Thankfully, Mark was working on sound for a DVD documentary for QSuper, and so I sat in with him while he worked.

Despite the shitty day thus far, being with him improved my mood greatly. The project he was working on was tedious and made him quite synical, despite him informing he was not usually a synical person. I didn't mind though. After a while, we began having a laugh at nit-picking the documentary from the bad acting and dialogue, to the difficult-to-understand data being explained by the actors.

I had a good time, watching as he applied sound to the project, using the program Pro-Tools which I was familair with. He applied sound that fitted the time of day and mood of the piece. This lasted up until the last 30 minutes of my time with Cutting Edge. I thanked him and departed to find Kristie.

She was unavailable however, and so I left a message with one of the ladies at Facilities and got the hell out of there.

Overall experience:
Average
Cutting Edge is amazingly focused to their task and provide top-notch quality for their clients. The facilities are beautiful, well designed and stocked up with technology no student could ever hope to afford. Their task focuses on post-production, usually with clients in the television industry and provide welcoming environments in which to discuss and show off work to their clients.

I was dissapointed that I did not get to explore a lot of the facility, except for the few people who were available to accomadate me. Would've also helped if Kristie provided something constructive (a few tasks maybe) between finding available staff, so my time would not be reduced to sitting around waiting. Or better yet, not putting covers into CD cases.

Would I want to work there? Its a potential business consideration. However, my dream is to become an animator/director of my own animation series and don't believe Cutting Edge would be interested. Perhaps they will be considered for the latter process of animation.

Total time: Approx 20 hours
Final comments: Purple monkey dish washer

Cutting Edge

Cutting Edge - Day 2

2007-06-19T17:59:00.000+10:00

More Work Experience

Not quite eventful as yesterday. Only met two new people at Cutting Edge.

First one I met in the morning was Justin, who worked in the Telecine suite. He worked on converting footage into tape and such, as well as colour correction. I sat in as he worked on the last half of a documentary (which felt more like a drama), correcting the shody camera lighting by editing the colour and gamma, helping it appear more consistant.

The process was interesting, but after about an hour, I found little to do. It was difficult to talk with Justin as he seemed to like his job yet NOT like it. I mainly sat back and watched, fighting to keep my eyes awake since I had travelled on a train for an hour in the early hours of the morning. My assumption that if I were to get into the industry, colour correction is not for me.

After a total of 2 hours watching (the last 20 minutes pointless due to him finishing the work then merely looking up forums on the internet), I departed and headed up to the third floor where I got some lunch. Like yesterday, I was surprised to recieve another free meal and was quite pleased.

During this time, I enjoyed the view of the upper floor and drew this:

I did another drawing while I was with Justin but these two were more refined.

After eating and enjoying the view on the third floor for an hour, I met up with Kristie, my supervisor, and she introduced me to Mark who worked in the visual effects department.

Mark used the program called Inferno, a very expensive program that provided top standard tools to editing footage to create beautiful visual effects. He showed me his various works he'd done recently, including a beautiful ad about Tourism Queensland. I was amazed at how much each scene had been manipulated to suit the scene.

Compared to Justin, he was a nice change. While I had a little difficulty sharing his interest in motorcycles, I was honoured that he allowed me the chance to use the program for a while. Since I had no formal training or any experience with Inferno, my time with the program was....amusing. I could do little with the program, but manged to draw up some text that read "Excellent", and appeared slightly interesting. Until I'm in the industry, this shall probably be the most expensive program I have ever used....if but briefly.

Soon, 3:30 came round and I bid Mark farewell, paying a visit to Kristie on the way out. I aim to ask Kristie tomorrow if I can visit the 2D animators, or if at the least, visit the 3D department, so I see how they work.

One can only hope.

Cutting Edge - Day 1

2007-06-18T17:08:00.001+10:00

Work Experience

Arrived at Cutting Edge at 8:15am via a train to South Brisbane, and a 10 minute bus. Met up with my supervisor, Kristie, and she gave me a guided tour of the building.

Was quite amazed at the many suites and technology available. I was introduced to Dan, one of the sound designers. She left me with him for about an hour, showing me his work station and what he does.

A bloke by the name of Damien showed up and together with Dan, used the audio booth and recorded some voice over dialogue for television ads and radio for BCF (Boating, Camping, Fishing). It was quite a privilage to see a professional voice actor at work.

After a while, another guy showed up. Dan introduced him as Peter, an editor. Went with him up to his editing suite and observed him at work on the same audio track which he applied to the video. He was a good friendly bloke and we got along quite well. I observed and asked questions regarding the program, called Avid, and generally about client work.

During this time we had lunch, at which I was able to eat free amazingly. Apparentally when employees are booked into rooms to work on projects, the cafe upstairs provides meals without cost. I felt kind of bad for having a free meal despite being only a work experience student.

Peter said don't worry about it. So I didn't.

After 2 hours with him, he transfered me down to the tape library, looked after by Kev. The place felt like out of a movie: machines all around intended for converting video into tape or vice versa. Stayed with him for a while, though I didn't get to spend much time observing the technology. He put me to minor work on putting Cutting Edge covers on some blank cd covers. It was....not....really.....that exciting.

After a while, Kristie showed up and offered to introduce me to someone else. She introduced me to Anthley, who worked with the program called Smoke. Turned out to be quite an amazing program, capable of adding in visual effects to video and such. I stayed with him for the rest of the day, asking questions and observing.

After about 3:20, I decided to head on home. I talked with Kristie, discovering my time schedule for the next two days, being from 9:00am till 3:30pm:

Works for me. Then I departed and headed home. Huzzah.

G-Netech and Titans website

2007-05-25T15:43:00.000+10:00

http://www.gnetech.com/ - Link to the G-Netech company website, displaying all their current projects and works they've been involved in. It's been a pleasure working with them, and I look forward to any potential future work with them. It may cost them next time though.

http://www.titans.com.au/ - Link to the Gold Coast Titans official website. Eventually, the animation will be displayed on an introduction page (or on the main page).

I approached Josh a month ago to see where the production was at, and he assures me its still in the works. Its mainly taken a while due to little things such as sound and ensuring it co-sides with the NRL's official Blade image.

It should be soon, I hope, so keep watching and ye shall be amazed..

Character Designs

2007-05-12T20:03:00.000+10:00

Concept designs for the central characters of the film.

The protagonist, Wolf.

The young boy protects, Sam.

The villians, (from the left) Spud, Wezz and Reese.

Special thanks I have to say to Sam, my uni friend, who helped me re-design Sam and the Thugs.

G-Netech Work Experience Log

2007-03-20T17:25:00.000+10:00

This a log of the recent entrees. I've been working for a local Gold Coast company, G-Netech, for the past 3 weeks as part of work experience. I must say It's been a really good experience. Workers are nice, and the office is pleasant.

The entrees are as follows:

Friday 23th February - Work Experience Interview

Met with Joshua at the office and discussed the work experience. He was quite happy to accept me on the grounds of my skills in character development and animation. We talked about the main project and what was required: A 2d animation to be displayed on the Gold Coast Titans website.

Because the Titan mascot, Blade, had no official full body image, I was asked to recreate the character as best as I could, from the main logo and one small source image. This allowed me to be quite creative in designing the mascot.

Confirmed the days I would come in to work (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) then went on home and started working on character drawings.

Monday 26^th February – 2:00-4:30 – Day 1

Joshua set me up at an unoccupied computer to work at. Before commencing, I displayed the character drawings I did the night before and he was pleased. We then discussed how the scene would play out and I quickly drew rough storyboards which we clarified.

Once done, I got to work, starting with the first few scenes depicting snippets of Blade. Due to the small graphics tablet provided, this proved difficult; the pen applied no pressure to the small board and made the line work quite rigid. After fixing up the storyboards a bit more, I asked if it was ok to head home early and work from there.

Josh said it was fine. I went home and on my own computer, with my graphics tablet, constructed a few of the scenes with ease. Completed the hand clenching sequence.

Wednesday 28^th February – 2:00-5:30 – Day 2

Arrived with my own graphics tablet in hand (note: the workers there were quite impressed) and showed off the short snippet animations I had made. Josh was quite pleased with them. I had constructed Blade’s hand clenching furiously, entirely drawn and rendered in Flash.

Spent the rest of the day working on the other scenes, such as the close up of Blade’s helmet, and even added the shine to the close up of Blade’s chest armour.

Friday 30^th February– 2:00-5:30 – Day 3

Commenced work on the first of the major actions: the run cycle. Within Flash, I drew a rough run cycle of Blade, paying special attention to the way his armour would move, his weight and power point (his chest). I’d developed this way of working in second year for an assessment: completing the rough and full animation within Flash, capable of editing as I go.

I was 3 frames into it when Josh approached me with both good news and bad news. The good news: the NRL had finally released a full drawing of Blade. The bad news: they’d finally released the full drawing of Blade. We checked up on it and for most part, my interpretation of the character looked fine. The only drawback was the significant large column-like boots and the spiked shoulder pads.

With a bit of tweaking, this proved no trouble. I did a makeshift drawing on paper and then corrected the design into the run cycle I was working on. This was a good example of working within the confines of a client. I was pleased that, despite this development, it worked out just fine. Josh was happy with the fix (even though he reckoned my version of Blade was good too).

I later finished the full run cycle for Blade. While rough, it perfectly gave the grounding for a strong running character.

Also did a bit of constructing of what the long hallway segments would look like. Seemed to work for most part.

Monday 5^thMarch – 2:00-5:20 – Day 4

Spent most of the day outlining the rough sketches in Flash for Blade’s run cycle. After that was done, commenced colouring them with a bit of shading. Fairly productive day.

Friday 9^th March – 2:00 – 5:20 – Day 5

Commenced work on the second run cycle, completing a rough outline. This time I was able to cheat a little, since Blade was facing the camera. I needed only to construct the first half of the animation, then merely flipped them horizontally to create the full animation.

Took a bit of time too to begin work on tattooing the Titan logo onto Blade’s chest in both run cycles. Rough drawings didn’t take too long, but outlining and colouring took longer.

At the end of the day, Josh discussed with me the impending deadline which they had aimed for the following Wednesday. As before, it wasn’t that the animation had to be finished by this time, this was the deadline for the website. or the animation, we discussed that it could be completed at a later week.

Viewing what I’d done, he thought that perhaps the first half, the teaser section, could be uploaded to the site on the Wednesday with the rest of the animation provided later. We decided to see how things went on the Monday and go from there.

Monday 12^th March – 1:30 – 5:30 – Day 6

Didn’t have scriptwriting today, so I showed up 30 minutes earlier. Continued working on the second run cycle and finished it up near the end of the day. Started working on the final stretch of the hallway running scene, mixing in glimpses of Blade’s two run cycles while the impending doorway drew ever closer.

Talked to Josh again about the deadline. Considering that the first Titans NRL match wasn’t till Sunday of this week, and that the animation was coming along nicely, he thought perhaps we could aim for its release on either the Friday or the following Monday. The website would release as normal, and the animation would be uploaded later on.

Josh also wanted me to work on editing the hallway scene, since the “light at the end of the tunnel” graphic didn’t appear right. He suggested trying to make the light stretch as it would down a long corridor.

Friday 16^th March – 12:00-4:30 Day 7 – Production Complete

With no uni on today, I went in early to get a good head start. Worked heavily on the final scene: Blade running out into the open air and slamming his chest against the camera, leaving the Titan logo behind. This took a good portion of the day, combined with constantly editing the final hallway stretch.

Once the final scene was completed, I showed it to the other workers and everyone was quite pleased. I was unable, however, to fix the “light at the end of the tunnel”. With Josh’s help, we got a nice royalty free image off the web (cost 5 bucks to download) and I edited it into the scene. Now the scene looked much better.

After tweaking the last few scenes, the animation production was complete. All that remained was importing sound and any text into the final product. Josh said he’d get a guy from the other department to start collecting sound together and test it with the animation (he’d send me a copy to see what I thought of it). On Monday, we would edit it all together and have it nice and ready for upload.

Monday 19^th March – 2:00-5:20 Day 8 - Post Production

Despite the plan, I wasn’t able to help much. Josh soon arrived after I did and explains to me that the sound guy was unavailable last weekend. Discussing with Josh, we fixed up the ending of the film to include some text, then exported into an AVI.

He emailed the copy to the sound guy. It was hoped that he would have the sound together by the end of the day, but we got no word back. Josh decided we’d finish the project on Friday, sound and all.

Friday 23rd March - 2:00 - 4:00 Day 9 - Post-Production and side Projects

Once again, things didn't go exactly as planned. While I did get to witness a pre-finished copy of the final animation with sound, there were still elements missing, so it wasn't finished yet. In the meantime, Josh got me to help out Ben with a side project.

His client required a logo design for his online racing poker game, a sort of fun parody/poker game. The client was not happy with the design Ben has created, so he called upon me to do a more "cartoony" design as the client desired. So I sat down and did some simple designs, varying in how "cartoony" the character could be. After a few designs, I approached Ben and he was pleased with the variety, taking a scanned copy and would send it to the client for approval.

At the end of the day, there was still no word from the sound guy. We decided that I'd come in the following Monday and HOPEFULLY the product would be finished.

Monday 26th March - 2:00-4:00 Day 10 - Final Day

No word from the sound guy. Spent most of the day hanging around Josh, hoping for something constructive to do with my skills.

Ben approached me again with what the client had said about the Poker/Horse race logo. Seems he didn't want it "too cartoony", but cartoon like Spirit Stallion off Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. Ben helped me obtain some reference images and I began my second attempt at the logo. After a few more designs, I approached Ben, he liked them, copied them and would send them off to the client for approval, once again.

After that, I pretty much approached Josh with a proposition: since I wouldn't really be needed for the upload of the product, I asked that I not come in the following Friday. Should the product be ready for upload, they could call me and I'd come in to witness it, or else watch over the internet. Josh was fine with this and thus concluded the work experience with G-Netech.

Total Time commited:
Approx. 36 Hours

Getting Started

2007-03-12T18:57:00.001+10:00

Yo

First time with my own blog service. MSN My Space ain't too flashy, and I'd prefer to keep most details off my deviant art site. So, thought I might give this a go.

Mostly intend to use this for work-experience related blogs. Its a requirement for uni, providing them with a nice insight into what I've been up. Once I get use to this, may even use it as an artistic outlet to show off my artwork.

After all, I'm an animator in training.

Just so you know, this is the Wolf.
He's my character and this is his HQ. I'm just borrowing it.

The Wolf (c) Dave S (aka, myself)