Poor Claymator

'Fox & Calf' and 'Critter Song' Back Online!

2010-02-19T19:09:00.007-05:00

You heard right! You can watch all 5 episodes of Fox & Calf as well as their 'Interview' Commercial. They have new Vimeo

Channel HERE!

And if that isn't cool enough, Critter Song is also back! Enjoy!

Critter Song from Tertiary Animation on Vimeo.

2009: A Year Of Inspiration

2010-01-24T21:54:00.038-05:00

So I was thinking about 2009, and all the many things I got to see and do and experience this past year. There were so many cool new things that fed me creatively and energized my soul. As an artist its important to have various influences on your life that make your perspective that much deeper and more colorful. And besides, its fun. So I thought I'd compile a little photo-journal of some of my favorite 2009 experience that impacted or inspired me. Maybe chronicling them will keep me from forgetting them, and hopefully it will also inspire others to get out and explore the world too!

I guess firstly, the thing that I would say defined my year the most was Mutasia. As most of you know, 2009 was my first completely stopmotion-less year in over 15 years. But, I had a project that was worth putting animation on hiatus for, as Mutasia has been a blast and has really challenged me in every way and allowed me to work with people I love. Heck, I got to illustrate a children's book (2 actually) and that has been a lifelong dream of mine, not to mention seeing plush dolls of my characters being developed! Hopefully by Easter, we'll have our first products available for sale, until then you can play around on Mutasia.com.

The second most defining aspect of 2009 was the addition of Waffles to our family. Waffles is a Griffoshit, a brussels griffon/shi tzu mix. She was 2 lbs when Bre and I got her in April, and now she's a whopping 10.5 lbs!

She's a crazy little beast but a sweetheart and I have a feeling she will be a huge inspiration to me down the road!

Another cool thing I got to do this year was design a costume for (my Fox & Calf and Mutasia collaborator) Rob Broadhurst's stage musical "I'll Be Damned," which was produced by NYU. The costume was for a comical, female superhero named Friendetta. The design is very light and silly and works perfectly for her bright, optimistic character.

I also designed a poster to go with the set......

Rob (left) with his co-writer Brent Black (center) and the show's director, John Simpkins (right)......

2009 was a year of trying new, fun foods. I LOVE new foods! This year I got to try Uruguayan for the first time, it was fantastic! They fried eggs on top of all their meals.

I got to have my first Burmese Cuisine, which was a real treat. It was similar to Thai, but of course had many of it's own wonderful flavors.

I also had some amazing Ethiopian food, which is served family style, and everyone eats out of the same bowl. There's no silverware, everyone uses a flat bread to pick up their food, what a wonderful experience to share with loved ones!

And while it wasn't my first time, when I was in New York this spring I made Rob and Bre try jellyfish in Chinatown.....

I think they kinda liked it.......

After moving to Florida for in 2007, 2009 was (embarrassingly) our first trip down to Miami, but not our last, and we've already made numerous trips since (gotta love the Cuban food!).

I LOVE the lifeguard towers on the miami beaches, so cool!

And I just love the many vibrant colors you can find in Miami......

And interesting people to see.......

You can also take some time to be a stupid tourist (which Bre and I did a little, why not?)

Here's a cool pic I snapped of my sister-in-law, Tina, and her boyfriend playing in the ocean just as some interesting birds decide to fly by.....

We also explored the everglades a few times, where we met up with hundreds of alligators on the bike path......

We also saw some beautiful birds out there in the 'glades........

Watching that heron spear and gobble that fish had to be one of the coolest things I've ever seen!

Bre and I also checked out more nature, like at the West Palm Beach Zoo.......

like this beautiful tapir.

Here's a crazy huge iguana that, while at the zoo, is in fact wild. These guys are everywhere! And they love to make their home at the zoo to get all the free food! I just love his amazing orange coloring!

And here's a hilarious scene of monkeys bullying poor iguanas by pulling their tails and dragging them around. You can't make this stuff up!

We also discovered a beautiful animal sanctuary that's been just a few miles from our house, and I've gone several times to get up close and personal with Florida's local wildlife.

I even got to pet a possum that inspired me to imediatly go home and design a new character for Mutasia, named Bazil.......

And while we can see wild alligators here in Florida, a trip to San Francisco's Steinhart Aquarium introduced me to a very cool, very creepy albino alligator......

I miss living in San Francisco and will happily take any chance to hang out there when I'm back in California.

This last visit, we went to the Legion Of Honor Museum, here are my friends Rob & Chris learning about artits such as Bouguereau and Picasso....

Other inspiring experiences this year included

visiting the castello Di Amorosa in Napa

As well as this very cool wine cave.

Seeing Jim Henson's Fantastic World Exhibit by the Smithsonian Institute

Flying in a 10 seater plane from Boston to Vermont (scary and awesome at the same time. Beautiful scenery distracts you from wetting your pants)

Visiting Bronner's Christmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth, Michigan in the middle of summer. This place truly is a Christmas wonderland and is open every day of the year, except, ironically, Christmas.

Visiting my great aunt, Peg, in Long Island......

Driving my first little hybrid POS. I swear I thought I was going to die in this little go-cart, definitely scarier than the little plane ride. Never again! Safety first!

We also added some new decorative touches to our house, like our saber tooth tiger skull center piece and giraffe head sculpt.

And of course, taking my parents to the cartoon mecca of the world, DISNEY WORLD!

And how could I forget these BODACIOUS Nib UGGS that my bosses had made for Bre and I for Christmas, it doesn't get much cooler than that!

I also got this beautiful Walton Ford book for Christmas, Pancha Tantra, which is just the most inspiring art book I've gotten in a LONG time!

So that about wraps it up, as you can see 2009 was extremely fun and enriching and I just know 2010 will be even better. Until next time, CIAO!

More Oldies From 'The Vault'

2009-08-03T15:33:00.006-04:00

Hey all, putting 'Frog Family' up online inspired me to get up some more old animations for the world to see! First, after much begging and pleading from so many people, I have finally put up 'Happiness,' The film that took me over 2 years to make and was my first collaboration with Robert Litton. Its about a small woodland animal that falls in love with a stuffed moose head. It's 13 minutes so it's up in 2 parts.

This is definitely a film where I bit off more than I could chew and you can understand how, after this, I really embraced short shorts like Critter Song, Frog family and Fox & Calf. Below is the 'Making Of' that shows the animation process as well as the scoring by Litton.

Next, a handful of environmental commercials I did for the cities of Vacaville and Rohnert Park between 2002 and 2005. You can see we are trying very hard to make recycling sound interesting enough to get the point across in 30 seconds. These all feature Rob Broadhurst very prominantly doing his voice work.

Hope you enjoyed those. That's it for now, should have more up soon, will try to be better at posting from now on.

Watch "Frog Family"

2009-07-03T20:37:00.003-04:00

Okay, so as some of you may recall on this blog, I recorded the entire process (from pre-production through animation) of making "Frog Family" back in February of 2007. Then I never mentioned it again. Well, the truth is it was a concept that was floating in my head for maybe 3 years, but I never really thought I would make it due to the fact that it was a little darker than most of the material I made. But it ate at me over the years, and finally, for my own self-gratification and satisfaction I made it. It was good to get it off my chest. But it was only for me so I never really showed it to anyone (Never entered it into a festival or uploaded it online). So it's been two and a half years now and I figure, what the heck, its a minute and a half of animation I did (some difficult dialogue stuff that I'm proud of), so why not put it up. Enjoy!

Rocker Character

2009-01-25T20:31:00.004-05:00

This is a character I did for an L.A. No Name T-shirt but they ended up going with Spike. Thought I'd share him cause I really like him. You can click on the image to make it bigger.

All Up In Nature, Searching For Inspiration

2009-01-18T17:52:00.005-05:00

Yesterday Bre and I went for a 15 mile bike ride through Shark Valley in the everglades and had a BLAST. It was full of wildlife, and was a great chance for us to try out our new Nikon camera. We probably saw 200 alligators, most of whom were sun bathing right up on the bike trail. it was a fantastically inspiring day and I think all artists and nature lovers should make it out here!

Here are some babies we found, their mother was near-by so we needed to be really careful.....

There's some gators up ahead on the trail........

We went on a little walking trail which was cut short when we discovered these two blocking our path.........

View from the observation tower..........

Poor Claymator Reviews 'Gerald's Last Day'!!!

2008-12-30T15:46:00.015-05:00

This Christmas Robert Litton came over and paid me a visit, and he brought a little surprise. With him was the DVD of the hotly anticipated animation he had just scored, Gerald’s Last Day. I felt like a little kid who was just visited by Santa. If any of you have been frequenting the indie-stop-mo blogs this year, you’re probably familiar with Gerald and his plight. Gerald is a mutt of a dog who is just hours away from being euthanized at the pound, and he is desperate to be adopted. The film follows his final day as various humans come by his cage to consider adopting him. As each one arrives, he analyzes them and changes his personality and manner, hoping he can come across as the perfect dog for each specific visitor. These displays are as cute and hilarious as they are sad and desperate. And that’s the beauty of this little 12-minute film, it makes you laugh one second and the next your heart is breaking, and then you’re laughing again. The balance between bitter and sweet is perfect, never letting you get two depressed before the pup charms you into chuckling again. Great pathos.

By the end of the short there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. I really must applaud Justin and Shel Rasch, the husband and wife animating team, for pulling this off. Gerald’s Last Day was a 2 year production for the Rasch’s, AFTERHOURS. All the animation was done after Justin would get home from his real job (as a computer game animator), and go through the night. On top of that, this was their first stopmotion project, but by looking at it you’d never know. These guys are pros! The quality of the animation is top-notch, but what will really excite all the animators out there is that they never skimp on on the unnecessary, yet highly realistic character movements. Most animators (including myself) when hunched under a hot lamp in the dead of night, pushing a tiny puppet on a fragile set one frame at a time, will only concern themselves with moving the characters from point A to point B, not bothering with extra subtle gestures that give a character more soul and realism. This will usually add hours to a shoot and may end up ruining the puppet. So why bother. Justin, though, doesn’t skimp on any of this, and the audience gets a much richer experience because of it, and fellow animators will be crying as they think of how high the bar has been raised. This is especially apparent with the little girl (voiced by their daughter Aedon) who comes to look at Gerald.

In the end, there’s also a great moral to the story, that’s very subtle (isn’t that nice), and after watching it with children, who will EAT IT UP, it could allow parents to open up a dialogue with their kids about the importance of being yourself.

I was also very impressed with Robert’s daring choice of a harmonica score (I didn’t think he could keep surprising me!). It’s beautiful, moody, and feisty, and just proves again why everyone trusts their creations to him. Click Here to read the great story about how the score almost didn’t happen! The story behind the film is almost more exciting than the film itself, so until you can watch the DVD with behind the scenes special features (which I’m told will include animation shots with all the wiring still in the shot, before being digitally removed) make sure you read Justin’s production blog and watch some of his interviews online, they’re so inspiring to any animator or artist who is trying to follow their dreams! On a personal note I’d like to say that I’ve been very inspired by Justin and Shel’s creative teamwork, and working that exciting experience into their marriage.

Gerald’s Last Day is just about to start its massive tour of the film festival circuit, so you all need to find out when it will be playing on a big screen near you and take the kids or animation lover. Right now most of the festivals are in the California and Nevada areas but I’m sure it will be expanding soon. Here’s the list so far:

Festivus (Denver Jan 8-11)

Hubbub (Las Vegas Jan 8-11)

Show Off Your Shorts Film Fest (Hollywood Feb 6-8)

San Francisco Children's Film Fest (Feb 28-Mar 1)

San Diego Children's Film Fest at Comicon (July/Aug)

Los Angeles Children's Film Fest (Oct)

I’m told they will be updating the list as they’re accepted.

Thanks again to Justin and Shel for being so inspirational to all us animators, I can’t wait to see the next film!

New T-Shirt Design

2008-10-13T19:40:00.003-04:00

Hey hey everyone, My friend, Colin, has started a really cool t-shirt company out of L.A. called L.A. NO Name and I've been asked to come up with some characters to go exclusively on their shirts, so of course I said yes. And here is the first one, which features a creature I call Spike, playing the guitar with his feet (he doesn't seem to have any arms or hands). If you're interested, you can purchase the shirts HERE! And make sure to check out their other cool shirts in their SHOP.

Hungry Thirsty Hippo

2008-09-16T15:39:00.003-04:00

Here's a new character I threw together, I really like him.

HotDog On A Stick Possum

2008-09-07T19:28:00.003-04:00

Here's a possum I drew recently that reflects my obsession with the girls that work at Hotdog On A Stick and wear those amazing uniforms. You go girls!

Watch "Pets Who Look Like Their Owners"

2008-09-06T13:49:00.004-04:00

This was a stand alone short that I did at Tertiary, and I really love this one. It's more a practice in character design and sculpture than it is in animation itself, and I feel it really stands out as a unique piece apart from my other work. Rob Broadhurst wrote a wonderful little song for it, that just helps give it that "off" feeling. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy it!

WATCH "Pets Who Look Like Their Owners" Here!

Drawing

2008-09-06T13:29:00.003-04:00

Hey guys, thought I'd share some quick drawings I do when I watch TV......

Watch All The Fox & Calf Episodes Online!

2008-08-06T18:00:00.009-04:00

You heard right! The video pages are up, and all five Fox & Calf episodes are now up for you to watch online!

This is a series I hold very close to my heart, and I am really grateful to everyone else who was involved and who's fingerprints are very apparent on the films; particularly Rob Broadhurst's hilarious voice acting and inspired Theme Song, Robert Litton for the amazing scores that brought everything to life, Sam for teaching me how to light a set with character (particularly in Rhonda), Carlos Miller for his tight editing skills and great, subtle digital effects, and Carlos Gonzalez who created the most beautifully tacky 80's inspired opening credit's sequence.

I'll try to run a few blogs over the next few weeks at Tertiary that talk about a few aspects of the production that are easier to talk about now that the episodes are up. So keep an eye out for those! Ok, hope you all enjoy the episodes!

WATCH THEM HERE!

UPDATE: Robert Litton Talks About Scoring Fox & Calf

My Art Book Is Now Available

2008-07-26T18:24:00.003-04:00

I've had a lot of people ask me lately if they could purchase the art book I put together last spring so I've finally decided to make it available for purchase on Blurb.com. It's a 40 page collection I put together of some of my favorite pieces and Blurb's printing is top notch. So, if any of you are interested in a weird collection of fine art, sketches, character designs, etc; CHECK IT OUT HERE!

Four Down, So Many More To Go......

2008-07-18T15:50:00.002-04:00

I just completed my fourth short for my new Tertiary Animated series Furryvale. Assuming Fox & Calf does get released sometime in August, I think there's a chance this new series will be released later in the fall. We'll just have to see. See more images from this latest short at my Tertiary Blog!

New Pet Coackatiel

2008-07-08T11:07:00.001-04:00

Meet Cecil!

Watch Fox & Calf's "Blind Date"!

2008-06-27T17:26:00.003-04:00

You heard right! The First episode of Fox & Calf, "Blind Date," is available to watch online at the SXSW Click Online Festival. This 2 minute episode, which is kind of calf-less, was nominated as one of the 3 finalists in the animation category. If you're inclined, feel free to register and vote for it (you can once a day), if not, just ENJOY! I'm really happy to at least have one of these episodes out, though the image has been squashed into a 4x3 apect ratio, but it's not too bad. It'll do til we get the entire series up online. Make sure to watch one of the high-res versions.

Alright, GO HERE TO WATCH BLIND DATE, let me know what you think!

Also, check out my acting debut as the butt-hole waiter in Tertiary's live action short THE DATE, which is an episode of their upcoming Control Freak series and a finalist in their live action category. (Thats me on the left.)

Martha Stewarthog

2008-06-24T23:20:00.002-04:00

Isn't she beautiful? My latest short deals with a wonderful caricature of Martha Stewart, it was fun trying to take such an ugly animal like the warthog and make her cute and pretty. You can see more on the production, along with her koala and hippo costars at my Tertiary Blog. See you around!

Finished Animating New Short

2008-06-11T16:13:00.004-04:00

Hey All! I just wrapped animation on my second short for my new series. Check out the process at my Tertiary Blog. Still no word on the Fox & Calf release date......

Animating New Series

2008-05-27T23:48:00.004-04:00

Hey Everyone, so I've started animating my next clay-animated series for Tertiary Productions, which is yet to be officially titled (though I have an idea). With the premiere of Fox & Calf just about a month a way...I hope.....It has been fun to work with some different characters. You can see images from my first short, "Pigg Angel: Swine Freak," and more, at my Tertiary Production Blog!

New York: Falling Into Gravity With Ron Cole

2008-04-28T17:14:00.008-04:00

I’ve been out in New York for the past couple of days, clearing my head and doing some early development and pre-viz for my next Tertiary Animation project. It’s been a great and much needed change of scene for my creative mind.

One of the highlights of my trip so far was getting to visit the Mysterious Ron Cole in his Long Island studio. In the last year or so, Ron Cole has risen out of obscurity to some sort of underground stop-motion animation god. All based on a 1 minute trailer for his upcoming short film “In The Fall Of Gravity” that he posted on the internet. The 12 minute short is a revolutionary experiment involving animatronic stop-motion. This new technology that Ron is developing could very well change the way stop-motion animation is done in the future, as well as improve the quality beyond cartoons.

When I got to his basement studio, I was EXTREMELY excited, as I have been a fan of his trailer since it first surfaced on the web almost a year ago. Nothing could prepare me for what I was going to see. We journeyed through the various set areas and he introduced me to Isomer and Trevor, the stars of the film. What blew me away was how giant these puppets were, I couldn’t believe it. Moving them around was a dream, they had wonderful ball and socket armatures, and then Ron started to play with their robotics, moving the mouths and eyebrows around, seeing them come to life was truly magical. The type of facial features and movements they make are like nothing I have ever seen in this industry.

The sets were beautiful, hand panted, leaves and vines crawling up the rails. I just wanted to touch it all. What surprised me was that all the backgrounds were hand painted and right there, no blue screen. The painstaking detail apparent in each one was mind-boggling.

The real treat, though, was getting to be the first person (other than the composer) to watch the finished “In The Fall Of Gravity” film. And let me tell you, all you stop-mo fans that have been salivating over his trailer for the last year; it is well worth the wait. The final film is stunningly beautiful, and I watched the entire time with my jaw on the floor. The trailer doesn’t show anything compared to what the film has in store for you. The animation is top notch; the visuals are beautiful and fun. I’m pretty sure the deep, philosophical story was compelling too, but I was so captivated by what I was watching, not much else got through. It is a sensory overload and demands multiple viewings to truly take it all in and get the full affect.

We spent the rest of the afternoon talking about animation and technology, I showed him my Fox & Calf shorts, and I got to know his really cool family. He shared with me how he did all the low-tech effects in the film and my head almost exploded. It’s funny that even I assume everybody does everything digitally. And his tricks were brilliant. So brilliant, in fact, that I feel as if giving them away on this blog would be the same as me telling you how his film ends. Hopefully he will do a “making-of” featurette on his DVD and give us all a glimpse at how his brilliant mind works, and still defies the computers.

I had an amazing experience with Ron and his family, and his puppets, and left feeling very inspired. How often does that happen? I cannot wait until everyone else can see what he’s done and feel the same!

Finished Animating "Rhonda," Fox & Calf

2008-04-22T17:34:00.003-04:00

Today I finished the final chapter in the Fox & Calf series, Rhonda. It was such a pleasure to work on this dream project. Each short is very personal to me, and I think, reflects who I am probably more than any other films I've done. Rhonda is a particularly fun short, and was so much fun to make! So be sure to head on over to my Tertiary Production Blog and see all the behind the scenes crap. And remember, you don't have to be a MOLI member to leave comments.

"Rhonda" Episode Moving On Schedule

2008-04-06T12:42:00.004-04:00

Hey guys! Well, everythings going great on the new Fox & Calf episode, "Rhonda." I've got a bunch of fun characters made, been working away on a nightclub set, and more. So make sure you head over to my Tertiary Productions Blog to check out all of the updates. And remember, you no longer have to be a member of MOLI to leave comments on the Tertiary Blog. Hope to see you there!

Skank-mation, Pimp-mation

2008-03-13T09:11:00.003-04:00

I've started pre-production on the fifth episode of Fox & Calf (most likely coming out in May!), This one takes place at a night club and is called "Rhonda," so I should be creating lots of fun, colorful characters for the short. Remember to check out all the updates at my Tertiary Productions Blog.

You Know You're A Claymator When..........

2008-02-27T14:24:00.003-05:00

1. People constantly walk by your desk, see your boxes of Crystal Light, and ask what it's for. It's for when I'm thirsty. I don't color my clay characters with sugar-powder.

2. People see you eating lunch at your desk and double-take because they think you're eating clay. Is that really the vibe I give off?

These things did not happen once, they are common occurrences. Sigh. there are so many misconceptions about my lifestyle. I wish people were more educated. Oh well, I live in the South. HA!

Anyway, life is hilarious. Gets better every day.

Back On Fox & Calf!

2008-02-22T14:08:00.003-05:00

After a short hiatus, working on some other projects, I am back working on Fox & Calf. Be sure to catch all the new photos and updates over at my Tertiary Animation Blog, as I wind down production and get ready to put this series out!

Pixar In-Jokes and Self References

2008-01-26T17:14:00.000-05:00

So this is a bit different than what I usually post but I has such a wonderful time reading this wonderful article, and I think anybody who loves Pixar movies would enjoy this fascinating look at all of the in-jokes and self references that Pixar hides in all of their films. Check it out, it's really fun!
READ THE ARTICLE AT JIM HILL MEDIA

Ryan's Political Caricatures

2008-01-24T12:44:00.000-05:00

So this is pretty unrelated to the animation projects except that these caricatures stalled the Fox & Calf productions about a week or so. MOLI had me do the presidential primary candidates for their Election Center. I got 11 of them done and then some of the candidates started dropping out. Anyway, here's the link to see all 11 drawings I did, with little mini-commentaries under each. Glad to finally have these up, this was definitely a different project for me. I've never been good at caricatures, so I grew a lot doing this, and I'm glad I did.
CHECK OUT THE POLITICAL CARICATURES

Finished Animating "Painting The Unpaintable"

2008-01-22T15:07:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I finished animating "Painting The Unpaintable," the final Fox & Calf short, and now heading into the post production fazes. You can catch up on all the news and updates at my Tertiary Animation Blog.

Watch Critter Song!!!!

2008-01-17T12:36:00.000-05:00

Oh happy day!!! I finished Critter Song 8 months ago in May and it is FINALLY available to watch over at MOLI. Quick recap, Rob Broadhurst and I wrote the song (he did music and we co-wrote the lyrics) and we sang it with Bre. I created 10 sets and 24 characters, and animated it over a period of 3 months. Aftter all that it's just 2 minutes, but I'm really proud of it and I hope you all like it too. Enjoy!!!!

WATCH CRITTER SONG

Clay Animation Reels

2008-01-09T12:27:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody, thought I would take the time to share my 2 animation reels with you. The first consists of projects I did between the ages of 14 and 19 (1997-2002), and the second is my 2002-2006 reel. It's amazing how far I feel I've come in only a year since the 2006 stuff. I'm excited to think that within 2 months, almost everything I've done in the last year (Critter Song, all the Fox & Calf episodes) will be out for you all to see.
P.S. Critter Song premiers on the 17th of January, so keep an eye out, I'll link to it. Enjoy the reels!

Started Animating "Painting The Unpaintable"

2007-12-19T11:10:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! I completed production on "The Fridge," and on Monday I began animating my fourth and final "Fox & Calf" short, "Painting The Unpaintable." You can catch up on all the juicy gossip at my Tertiary Animation Blog. Don't Worry, We won't bite.

Begun "The Fridge" Pre-Production

2007-11-09T13:08:00.000-05:00

Greetings, Poorclaymators! I have been up to no good, as usual, over at Tertiary Animation. Since production ended on "The Walk," I have begun pre-production on "The Fridge." Make sure you come check out my new characters, sketches, nasty condiments, and (pretty soon) sets. Its all over at it's usual spot, Tertiary Production Blog. Whatchu waitin' for? Go check it out.

FINISHED ANIMATING "THE WALK"!!!!!!!!

2007-10-27T15:57:00.000-04:00

Hey Every One! It's been a month, but I finally finished animating "The Walk." It is probably one of the most visually interesting films I've ever done and is going to be REALLY fun and quirky. There are some great posts on the making of it over at my Tertiary Animation Production Blog, along with some fun pics, so make sure you go check them out.

New Stuff At Tertiary

2007-09-26T21:10:00.000-04:00

Hey Hey! Life's been great for the ol' Poor Claymator. I finished animating "The Blind Date" and I've started pre-production on "The Walk," As well as working on some top-secret fun stuff. Anyway, make sure you catch all the new news at my new Tertiary Production Blog. See you all soon!

New Tertiary Production Blog

2007-09-11T14:12:00.000-04:00

Hey Gang! I just wanted to let you know that from now on, all the blogging I do for my work at Tertiary Productions will now be done HERE at MOLI.com. If the link doesn't work, go to MOLI.com/TertiaryProductions (like the watermark on the pics), and thn click on the Animation tab.
Anyway, I have started blogging over there on my new short, "The Blind Date," and I hope you guys will still keep up on the blog now that it has a new location.
As for Poor Claymator, I will keep this blog alive with my own personal work. See you all soon!

MOLI.com Commerical Goes Viral

2007-09-04T12:37:00.000-04:00

Here's the final cut of "The Interview." The editors pushed the contrast and saturation a lot which gives it a different feel. What do you guys think?

Come On Animators! Enter Your Short Films!

2007-08-28T12:32:00.000-04:00

New York International Independent Film and Video Festival for the best short film submitted exclusively on the internet.

Contest Rules
1) 10 minutes or less total run time
2) 1 gig or less total file size
3) Entries must be completed by October 5th, 2007

THE PRIZE IS $1000.

For more details go to www.moli.com/nyiifvf
or
http://www.moli.com/p/views/v2Wm2DYQMW3_Lzeg1bzASqKg../

Finished Shooting

2007-08-27T21:03:00.000-04:00

So, I finished shooting the MOLI commercial last Wednesday, sorry it's taken me so long to post this post. Anyway, I've handed it over to the editors and they'll be cleaning it up. They do great work. Anyway, I'm already in pre-production of the next short, which should begin shooting in about a week or so. so wish me luck. Here's a few more shots from the commercial, which should be premiering online VERY soon. So keep an eye out for updates. Okay, later Gators!

A Few More Stills

2007-08-22T13:01:00.000-04:00

Here's some stills from what I shot last night.This will be a fun commercial.

Hippo-Portrait

2007-08-22T12:34:00.000-04:00

When I designed Christos Potamus's office, I was thinking in terms of a 4:3 aspect ratio, but when I finally set up the shot with a 16:9 lense, I found that there was a big boring gap in the room, so I quickly threw together this portrait for the wall. Unfortunately you probably won't get to see the whole thing in the commercial, so here it is.I should be wrapping up production tonight. I'll keep you informed.

Irony Strikes Clay-Animation Studio

2007-08-21T00:53:00.000-04:00

Where I work, there are some fake, rubber snakes. My wife came over to the studio to help out a little today and I decided to play a trick on her. So I layed one out and called for her. She freaked out as soon as she saw it (it was fairly realistic looking). I approached it slowly and put my hand out to pick it up, she screamed and pleaded with me to leave it alone. But I didn't. It wasn't long after I picked it up that she realized it was a fake and we had a good laugh. Later we had to leave the door to the studio open a little as we carried some stuff inside, when we were done I went to go shut the door and I snake slithered in. It took me a while this time to convince her that a snake had REALLY gotten in. In the end we got it out and it went on it's merry way.
Alternate Title: The Boy Who Cried Snake

Animating Away!

2007-08-21T00:32:00.000-04:00

Well, I've been animating like crazy today, and I think all together I have 25 seconds of animation for the commercial so far, it's 50 seconds all together. But the 25 seconds I've animated are probably the most intense (Lot's of lip-sync), and the next 35 seconds of animation should just fly by (still lots of lip-sync, but easier). I should have production completed by Wednesday. And post production should be really quick. This should be fun, I'm excited about it. Here are a couple new stills.

Unrelated To Animation, But Nice

2007-08-19T22:21:00.000-04:00

Just in case you're interested, you can check out My Wedding Pictures Here!
I've got wedding, bachelor party, honeymoon pics and more up there on MOLI.com. I hope to have more up soon.

Shooting In Widescreen!

2007-08-17T16:57:00.000-04:00

Hey all! Well, production has finally started! There have been a few obstacles in the film's path, but we are now moving smoothly (and almost on schedule). I have now been animating the "Interview" commercial for 2 days and it looks great. Especially since it's in 16:9. I've never shot anything this wide before, it's very different, but really fun. I'll enjoy it alot. Anyway, here are 2 shots from the commercial so far, I hope to get you guys more updates soon. There's a lot to share. Okay, ciao!

"The Interview" Storyboards

2007-08-09T14:07:00.000-04:00

Hey hey hey! Just thought I would share 2 of my storyboard shots for "The Interview," a commercial I'm animating for MOLI.com. I've been working on making the set and will start animating next week. Robbie Broadhurst has already layed down his voice for two characters. Should be fun.

Character Sketches

2007-08-06T11:24:00.000-04:00

Hey Everyone, I'm back, and since I obviously haven't done anything on the production the last three weeks, I figured I'd share some old character design sketches with you guys.Gonna be building sets this week and (cross your fingers) animate next week. Will hopefully have some fun stuff for you soon. Ciao!

Going Away For A While

2007-07-13T09:59:00.001-04:00

Hey everyone! I have been keeping very busy lately, so much so that I haven't had the time or energy, so here's a bunch of new images for you all at once.
The gang. As you can see when I took this picture the giraffe didn't have spots on her right arm yet.
Christos Potamus gets new eyes. You can see a never-finished character behind him.
Here's a dead pigeon for the short, "The Walk."You can see he is VERY small.
Here's a waitress that seems to be a rat. Gross.
I'll be out of town for three weeks for my wedding, honeymoon and some other stuff so it may be a while until I post again. Until then, if you're craving some good claymation blogging, check out my buddies JRiggity and Pram Maven Films.
http://justinrasch.blogspot.com/
http://www.prammavenfilms.blogspot.com
They've got some really cool stuff goin' on. Okay, I'll miss you all and can't wait to get back to work on the project. CIAO!!!

COOL Online Film Festival

2007-07-11T15:42:00.000-04:00

Hey guys! Just wanted to let all you animators and filmmakers know about MOLI and Rhode Island International Film Festival's new online festival. It's quick, there's no entry fee, and you could win $1,000 cash. That'll buy you a lot of clay. If you are or know any animators or filmmakers, let them know about this fest! Go to moli.com/riiff.

A Pink Giraffe? What Kind Of Film Is This!?!?!?

2007-07-05T01:41:00.000-04:00

Hippo Boss

2007-07-01T21:26:00.001-04:00

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been so busy lately. Here's the fuller version of Christos Potamus, one of my newest and newly favorite characters. I appologize for the crappy photo and will try to take a better one that does the character more justice.
Works been good, though I have to admit that after spending the last 4 months in Cobb ripping through animation projects at warp speed, coming here to Florida and having to build a whole studio completley from scratch is slow and frustrating. I know that in the future I will be able to produce faster because of what we're doing here. But the animator in me is getting antsy and wants to see progress NOW. And leaving for 2.5 weeks for a wedding and honeymoon isn't going to make things faster. Oh well, Mainstream Holdings has a lot of really exciting plans for the future so I have to be patient and keep working hard, and eventually it will all pay off big time. Anyway, I will hopefully have a new in-progress character to share with you tomorrow or Tuesday. Ciao!

Took Baby Steps Today

2007-06-27T02:40:00.000-04:00

Due to a fairly busy schedual today doing a million things other than clay-animation, I only got a few things accomplished today, but some of it's pretty cool. First off I've been painting the cocker spaniel's dress (it's taking a lot of layers for the acrylic to become opaque), also I painted the calf's horns yellow (also you can see the beginning of the fox's half-body armature being built in the back).But in VERY COOL NEWS I've begun sculpting the hippo character. This is my first hippo, and I think he'll be really great. I personally mixed his color.Let's hope there's a bunch more to show tomorrow!

Still Been Workin' Some More

2007-06-25T22:04:00.000-04:00

Sorry I'm not explaining any of my progress, but at this point I feel it's pretty self explanitory. These two characters have half-armatures, meaning they won't walk, but will be great for above the waist shots.

Still Been Workin'

2007-06-20T15:29:00.000-04:00

Armatures!!!!!

2007-06-13T20:47:00.000-04:00

I’ve been keepin’ myself busy over at Tertiary, having fun making these great characters. Unlike Frog Family and Critter Song, the characters in this production are having armatures built for them, which will allow them to do a great deal more things than the non-armature characters, mainly walk.
The first step to building an armature (The way I do it at least), is to twist two pieces of wire together with an electric drill on one end and some pliers at the other end. Then I take some plumber’s epoxy putty and put it on the wire. You want to cover all the wire with a thin bit of putty. The putty represents the “bones” of the characters, so leave exposed wire where you want the joints to be.
Above you can see the armatures with the heads so you can get a better idea about the characters’ proportions.
My initial sculpt of the fox was way to large and would have been problematic so I had to scale him down. Here you can see the difference in sizes. The lighter the head, the more capable he’ll be at various movements.
Before I can start sculpting the clay onto the armatures, I first have to melt some on to bond with the armature, this will keep the clay sticking to it much better, and keep the armature from busting out of the character’s flesh like some cheap 80’s horror flick. I used a double boiler (I pan within a pan of boiling water) to melt the clay and then applied it to the armatures.
WARNING: If you plan on doing this, make sure you are in a very well ventilated space, with lots of windows open, etc. The clay fumes can get nasty. Also remember to not cook the clay directly on a stove top pan, use the double-boiler, because it keeps the fumes to a minimum, and keeps the clay from burning.
This is a very brisk description of how this is all done, maybe in the future I’ll go into a lot more detail for those who are interested. Until then, I should probably get back to work. Ciao!

Fox & Calf Sketches

2007-06-11T10:36:00.000-04:00

Hey, hey! Hope everyone had a great weekend! I didn't do anything worth posting over the weekend so I thought I would share an early character design sketch so you can see what the clay characters came from. Lot's of times the characters that I design in 2-D don't look as good in 3-D, but these guys definitly look better. Hopefully gonna build some armeratures today, so I will keep ou posted!

Blue Nose

2007-06-08T17:48:00.000-04:00

I finished the fox prototype today. My black clay hasn't come in yet so I used a deep blue, which oddly looks kind of cool. So now I'm debating in my head if I want to keep him with a blue nose. Might be different. I've certainly never made a character with a blue nose before. I also want to apologize for the crappy picture quality of the last couple posts. My digital camera batteries died so I'm using the web-cam on my computer to take the pictures and they're kinda grainy.

Got A Little More Done Today

2007-06-08T00:17:00.000-04:00

I didn't have a lot of time to spend on sculpting today, but here's what I did in the time I did have.

New State, New Production

2007-06-07T00:01:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone, and welcome back to Poor Claymator. Much has changed since I finished "Critter Song" just over two weeks ago. I have relocated to West Palm Beach, Florida, where I am heading the animation department for Tertiary Productions. Things have been moving very quickly since we want to get a handful of shorts ready to premiere with the official launch of MOLI.com this October. Storyboards were approved Monday, character designs approved Tuesday and modeling began today. And here is an early prototype for one of the main charcters, can anyone guess what kind of animal he'll be? I'll try to keep you all updated as much as I can on these new shorts, and I'll let you all know when Critter Song will premiere. Ciao!

"Critter Song" Page On RyanMcCulloch.com

2007-05-22T06:07:00.000-04:00

Hey guys! There's now a page on RyanMcCulloch.com with "Critter Song" pics and stuff. Go to:
http://ryanmcculloch.com/crittersongpage.html
MOLI.com also has a featurette on me which is pretty fun. Check it out at:
http://www.moli.com/p/moli_roller/315/0

It's A Wrap!

2007-05-18T04:19:00.000-04:00

After almost three whole months, “Critter Song” is finished! I finished the long-necked characters last night at about 3am, I think they may be the tallest characters I’ve ever done. I shot them today, the shot took much longer than I anticipated to shoot, but it looks super cool. It was so nice to sit and watch the complete film tonight (Which is about 2 minutes), what a wonderful feeling. I’ll be doing a tiny bit of post tomorrow, but there’s not much to do. Now I have to move all my stuff out of the studio. Normally, I hate packing and moving out of a place, it’s such a hassle. But I’m in such a great mood with the film being done, I’ll probably end up having a great time anyway.

Now The Bugs Are REALLY Done

2007-05-16T03:53:00.000-04:00

I spent the whole day digitally fixing over a hundred shots of the bugs flying around. It was not as fun as it sounds. The altering for these shots was much more intricate and elaborate than the flying birds and took much much longer, even though its almost exactly the same amount of frames. Sorry there's no picture to go with this post, but I forgot to take a picture of myself sitting in my boxers at my computer looking miserable. Tomorrow I'll make the characters for the final shot which I'll hopefully shoot Thursday. It's so great to have the end in site. I'm ready to do another project!

Finally, I Animated The Bugs

2007-05-15T14:45:00.000-04:00

I built these guys really early on in the production, but I didn't animate them until yesterday. And it turned out to be a great shot. It really stands out among the rest. Now, unfortunately, I get to spend a crap-load of time removing sticks from all the character's butts. That's never fun. Anyway, I only have one shot left and then the film is complete! As much as I've loved working on this film, I can't wait to wrap it up.

Big Chunk Completed Today

2007-05-13T03:55:00.000-04:00

Today I animated a fairly long shot with these two fellas and I have to admit, I’m very proud. They stayed in place the entire time, they hardly caused any trouble. Not to say there wasn’t any. One problem was with the little guy in the back. His head fell off mid shot, falling about a foot (which is far for a little clay head). Luckily his guardian angel must have been around because the back side of the head hit that ground, keeping his face from smashing in. That would not have been fun. There’s nothing I hate more than getting a couple seconds into a shot and then having to start over again. The other obstacle I had to face was 5 seconds into the shot (lets not think how many frames that is), I bumped the tripod and couldn’t get it back into position. So my dad (who was helping me out today) and I decided to use a trick we developed a few years back. We just went with it as a cue to have the camera do a little sweep into the scene and it looks really great. It moves on cue with the music so it looks very intentional. This is the only time in this film where I have a moving camera, and it makes the scene look much more three-dimensional. Another happy accident blesses the project. I’m very close to completing the film, hopefully only a week away. I can’t wait to share it.

Tree Top Characters

2007-05-10T03:40:00.000-04:00

Today I set up the scene for my bluish “lemur” characters, as you can see I shortened their arms quite a bit. I was having a really hard time attaching them to the tree trunks because the bark is very fragile, and sheds when touched, not a great surface to stick clay against. So I had to create theses elaborate clay rigs to hold them up, as you can see, the berry eating dragon from Happiness, along with the Spidercat, contributed a great deal of their bodies to help make this happen. My hope is that the two characters will really be able to keep form throughout the shooting tomorrow. We’ll see.

Another New Guy

2007-05-09T15:02:00.000-04:00

Here's the character I made yesterday, gonna make his friend today.

Blinky Dinky

2007-05-08T01:05:00.000-04:00

Yesterday and today I've been digitally blinking my characters. This is a task I find tedious and boring, but it's better than blinking the characters during the animation process because I've ruined many a shot by knocking a character over when trying to give him eyelids. Adding blinks to a character makes him seem so much more alive. Tomorrow I'm going to start building some new characters--Wish me luck!

Way Up High

2007-04-28T04:56:00.000-04:00

Here are some stills from the shot I did on Thursday, the closing shot of the music video. This ended up being not only the hardest shot to set up, but also the hardest to animate. And I thought it would be one of the easiest.

Building the set took quite a lot of hard work and ingenuity. My mom spent the day down at the studio helping me, I couldn’t have done it without her. I stole some giant stones from some people in the neighborhood to create this cliff-side view, overlooking the forest beneath (can you tell by the foggy atmosphere that I was inspired by my trips to the Marin Headlands as a kid?). When you only have a little bit of space, it is very hard to create such a forced depth of field, especially without casting shadows on the “sky.” Most of the trees in the very background are chunks of clay on a table edge and paint strokes on the construction paper sky, and there are some fake plants coming a little closer to the camera.

Because the whole set is elevated, I didn’t have lots of “elevation tables” to fit heavy rocks on, so I made a couple fake rocks. I just crumpled up some gray construction paper and painted them a little. I think they look great, and I don’t think you can tell in the shot.

The biggest issue with this setup was the big line running down the middle of the shot where the two pieces of paper that make the sky meet, so we threw a tree right up front in the middle and you don’t even know it’s there. It’s interesting that a decision like that is made from necessity, but it ended up making the shot look even better. I love when that happens.
The other problem with the shot was figuring out how to get the standing character to stay standing on the giant stone, since it’s not a very good support for a clay character. Then my mom came to the rescue and made a little contraption out of clay and shish kabob sticks that go up the characters butt and allow him to stand. The sticks are actually in the shot but I painted them black to blend with the background and you can't see them. Perfect.

Overall this ended up being a beautiful shot that I’m really proud of. Due to the lay out of the set, I did not have the easiest access to the characters, which made animating them difficult. I had to walk all around the set every frame to move each figure. But in the end, it all worked out and now I can’t wait for the next one.

My New Character Is Super Cool

2007-04-25T03:18:00.000-04:00

I made a new character today. He seems to be the same species as the character I made yesterday. He started getting soft when I was sculpting him, so I had to throw him into the refridgerator to cool off and harden up. I also stole a giant stone from my neighbor's yard for the next set. I hope they don't realize it before I return it to them next week!

The New Guy

2007-04-24T02:13:00.001-04:00

Today I designed a new character for the closing shot of my film. Above you’ll see the almost finished version. Also, below is the initial sculpt which I abandoned right away. I thought it would be humorous to include it. The characters definitely look awful before they are fleshed out.

Hangin’ Around

2007-04-23T03:50:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I sculpted this possum-like character while visiting my parents in Lucerne (my mom helped me mix the yellow color). Today I built the set and set it up so that I could shoot it tomorrow. But when it was all finished, I figured I might as well animate the shot tonight, so I did, and it turned out really nice. I’ve never animated an upside-down character before, that was interesting. If I made him frown too much it looked like he was smiling. He has a wire attatched to the branch that goes through his whole body to support him. I now officially have a minute and 17 seconds animated, with 40 seconds more to shoot. At this point i need to create the characters for the next shots (I’ve animated 12 characters for this piece so far, and will probably do 12 more). I hope to be completely done with this in less than 2 weeks. Here’s hoping

Who Knew He Could Sing?

2007-04-21T04:09:00.000-04:00

Here's a shot from the scene I animated on Thursday.

Papa Frog Makes Cameo Appearance

2007-04-18T01:37:00.000-04:00

Here's what I was up to today.

Here's A Cute Character

2007-04-17T02:28:00.001-04:00

I spent a good chunk of Sunday digitally fixing up about 100 frames. It was tedious but in the end I have some really cool shots. The birds no longer have anything suspending them in air and the ferret's stretch looks great.
Today I animated a shot of this long-eared squirrel character. After the last three shots, this one was very easy to do, it was nice to do some fun, easy animation. It doesn't always have to be stressful. This character has a sweet, meekness about him, I like him. I used the same set as the ferret to save time. I just put some moss and grass down over the dirt, changed the angle, and you can't tell.

I Am Exhausted

2007-04-14T05:34:00.000-04:00

Hello, hello, hello!!! Well it has been a VERY productive three days since I last posted and I am feeling very positive about the progress I’ve made. Sometimes when you go so long in preproduction (over a month for this film) and you haven’t gotten a chance to animate anything, you start to feel like you’re going nowhere. But once you start to push the clay, it makes all the work worth while. I’ve had the chance to animate three separate shots since Wednesday, all of which were very challenging. But when you pull off a challenging shot and it looks good, there is no better feeling. First off on Wednesday, I shot these characters above. I REALLY enjoyed animating the orange fella, he was very cooperative and the final product was very rewarding. The turtles were a blast to animate too, I used the replacement heads for them to pop out of their shells, and their mouth movement is kind of comical.

On Thursday I animated these two birds. My dad came by the studio and built me a great rig out of some old television antenna to help the bird fly. It was great having him help animate. It reminded me of the old days when we would animate in the garage together. He also built a fantastic set out of some crazy branches he found with all this moss stuff on it and he suspended them from wires on the ceiling. It’s super cool. Below you can see the rabbit-ear rig for the bird. On Sunday I get to digitally remove the rod from the bird’s butt in about a hundred frames. FUN!

And finally below are the pictures of yesterday’s shoot. It’s a small weasel character who moves around really fast. I made a replacement body for him that stretches when he moves. This was the most difficult of the three shots, but it’s pretty cool.

It’s good to be moving the characters again.

Finally Ready To Animate

2007-04-11T04:20:00.000-04:00

Hello everybody! I’m back from yet another long break of no posts. I actually was in Florida discussing the future of my animated shorts. More on that soon! Anyway, today I set up my first shot for this next piece. Tomorrow will be my first day animating, and it will be a fun, grueling day. If all goes according to plan, I will shoot a single 20 second shot with four characters lip-syncing to music. Keep me in your prayers.

Three's Company

2007-03-29T01:16:00.000-04:00

Buggy Update

2007-03-28T00:39:00.000-04:00

So I've been working on the bug a bit more and figured out a nice shape that I really like. You can tell I worked from the concept sketch. The antenna, feet and wings have been added in photoshop, but I just wanted to see how they would look. Fun!

Evolution

2007-03-27T04:27:00.000-04:00

Here’s a new character I made today. Sometimes I design a character on paper first, and build it after. But this time I sculpted it from my head. I think with a different part of my brain when I’m sculpting than when I’m drawing, so it gets different ideas out of me. I decided to document the creation of the character from (almost) the beginning to completion. Here it is.

Burnt To Perfection

2007-03-27T04:22:00.000-04:00

I was baking some Sculpy clay to make some hard tortoise shells but didn’t have the heating directions with me. I figured I remembered and baked the clay at 475 degrees instead of 275. I burned them real bad, but they ended up burning to a color I liked so I decided to keep them that color instead of painting them. I love happy accidents.

One Buggy Evening

2007-03-24T05:44:00.000-04:00

I’m going to show you this picture of my “fat-bug” prototype for the sole purpose of tying it in with what I really want to talk about. So, here it is, it’s too far from my original design, so I’m going to try to make it more like my drawing. Okay, glad that’s over. Anyway, moving on to what’s really important, most of you have been following my adventures of finding millipedes in my studio bathroom and stuff like that (for you newcomers; I just moved up to the mountains to animate and there are certain aspects of country-life that a San Franciscan like me just isn’t used to). So until yesterday I had only seen three millepedes up her (giant ones), two of which were in my studio bathroom. Yesterday night though, as I was walking home I saw four more, from large to baby-size. In one night I more than doubled my millipede count. Well, tonight there were two tiny baby ones on the studio wall, way smaller than the tiny babies I saw last night. Then, on my way home tonight I saw 12 more! They were all out and about having a grand ol’ time, they must like night walks like me. One of the twelve was distinctly different than the others, it was white with bubbly red stripes. Very pretty. I thought I saw a thirteenth one, but it was just a slug. Okay, before I go into the second half of my story, I would like to preface it with this: I am not afraid of bugs. I like bugs. I don’t get scared when yellow jackets attack me at a picnic, just annoyed, I’ve had ants crawl in my bed during the rainy season and have been too sleepy to care. Today I even walked through a swarm of mating stink bugs and didn’t flinch, but I am deathly afraid of spiders. My arachnophobia is pathetic. Well, tonight I got pretty shaken up when I met my first pair of wild scorpions. Scorpions have never bothered me because I’ve only ever seen them in captivity (pet shops, aquariums, etc.). But these two freaked the crap out of me. I debated stepping on them, but I thought I had heard that scorpions can sting you through your shoes, so I kept my distance. I couldn’t believe how shook up I was. My legs got really weak and I found the rest of my ten minute uphill walk home harder than usual. So needless to say, I have the heebie-jeebies, and I’m seriously rethinking this whole work until the middle of the night thing. Maybe I should start earlier so I can come home while it’s bright out. Anyway, now that you all think I’m so pathetic, I’ll say good night. Good night.

Replacement Heads Are Better Than One

2007-03-24T05:42:00.000-04:00

Here are some new characters I’m working on, I have to admit they seem a bit Henson-esq. Anyway, as you can see I am incorporating some replacement techniques in this project. I also have another character who will incorporate replacement animation. Replacement animation is a process in which you have different versions of the same thing at different sizes or shapes, so it looks like the character is morphing without actually morphing the character. What a horrible explanation. Check out Bruce Bickford’s work for some crazy replacement animation.

Brown Character Looks Upward

2007-03-22T23:32:00.001-04:00

Here’s a little fella I’ve been working on. There’s toothpicks in his ears, also, I used brown clay for his body.

La la la la

2007-03-22T23:19:00.000-04:00

Okay, I think I can officially post it now, that this next animation will feature a new song by Robbie Broadhurst, my retarded partner in crime. It’s probably been two years since we wrote “Love Is Funny” for Happiness, so it was fun to collaborate with him again. This song, however, will not be as humorous as our other musical endeavors (i.e. Hindenburg: The Musical). Also, the whole film will be animated to the song, so I guess you could call it a music video, though it’s not very similar to anything on MTV. The monstrous Bre Leary humbled us with her presence during the recording to add a little femininity to the song where it was needed. It's nice to see the song coming along after all the time we put into writing and recording it.

Beaver-Thing

2007-03-21T03:46:00.000-04:00

Remember that orange blob with 2 eyes I posted a picture of a while back? Well, he's been fleshed out a bit.

Catch Up

2007-03-20T17:17:00.000-04:00

Hey, hey! Sorry again for another long period without updates. But don't worry, I haven't been un-productive. I've been working on various aspects of the animation process, not all of it is sculpting and moving the characters around. In my next post I'll let you know what I spent most of the time on, but for now I'll share a couple more rough sketches. First is a bug concept design for my next piece. I really think this could be a fun one to animate.

Next is an early character design concept for a short I may do after my current project. I know it's way down the road, but when you start to get ideas you need to put them down. I have a bazillion more sketches, but I don't want to give it all away right now.

Anyway, I've also been preparing some sets, I'll be making trees, dirt, grass, flowers and all sorts of other things for the environments the characters will be in. I hope to be animating a week from today, so that will be a lot of set-up, lets hope I can do it. Okay, I'll be back soon with more about this current, un-named film.

Claymator's Block

2007-03-10T02:18:00.000-05:00

Today was a frustating day, I just had no drive. Yesterday was really boring, but I pulled through it, today I just couldn't. I was completely out of the zone. I doubt I even got in 6 hours of work today (I try to put in at least eight hours a work day). Anyway, today was one of those really unfocused days where I kinda bounced around from task to task, never really putting a lot of time into any of them. I'd work on one thing for a little while, get bored and then move on to something different. It's probably just coming off the high of animating Frog Family and watching my characters come to life in front of my eyes, and then having to start from scratch again and start building these new characters, who I have absolutley no emotional connection to at the moment. Building characters was always one of my favorite parts of the process, but right now it's just not doing anything for me. Oh well. Up above is a new character in the very very very early develpment stage. It's crazy to think that these simple shapes will eventually come alive and move around, have a soul. Below is a picture of my little heater which I keep next to me at all times whilst I animate to keep warm (it gets freezing up here). Since all the clay gets hard from being so cold, I also use the heater as a "Clay-softener." I just put a little tin foil on the top and lay the clay on that. The clay softens real fast, and if I'm not paying attention it gets all gooey and oozy. I started melting clay on the heater years ago when I was animating in my garage. Of course back then I didn't use tin foil so the heater got really messy. Now I use tin foil.

Crude Sketches

2007-03-09T04:41:00.000-05:00

Usually when I come up with any type of character idea or visual design, I scribble it down really fast to get it out of my head, and then later I might flesh the ideas out more. Here's a couple of the really rough sketches I've drawn for this next project. By the way, I don't have a name for this animation yet. Does anyone have a suggestion? I know non of you know anything about the piece, but I'll take what I can get. There's no way in Hell I'm going with "Untitled." That's the stupidest crap ever.

Ho-Hum

2007-03-09T04:14:00.000-05:00

I've spent alot of time up here in Cobb the last year and a half, and I've lived here for a month and a half and in that time I've only seen three millipedes. Two of which were in my studio bathroom. Of course, that has nothing to do with clay-animation. Today was a boring day, I was productive, but I have nothing exciting to report. Here's three more characters that are in the process of being built.

Nothing Much

2007-03-08T05:18:00.000-05:00

Sorry there is nothing too interesting to report, i've been doing some pretty boring preproduction work. I hope to have something to show for it all soon. Until then, here's a little something; a character I'm working on for my next short.

Spring Break's Over, Time To Get Back To Work

2007-03-06T05:17:00.000-05:00

Wow, sorry for almost two weeks of no posts. It has been a crazy week and a half. I flew to New York for my first Comic Convention ever where I got to meet with and talk to a lot of wonderful professionals, many of whom had a great influence on me growing up. Specifically Kevin Eastman (The creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and Jeff Smith (the Bone comics). I spent many of my early years drawing their characters over and over again, they’re work really shaped me into the artist I am today. I also got the chance to do some self-promotion while there. Overall it was a great experience. I was there for a week (While there I also went to the Met and some Broadway shows) and when I got back to California, some car trouble kept me from getting back to the mountains for another half a week. I made use of that time though, and did some artwork and visited San Francisco’s WonderCon. Now I’m back, though, and so ready to get back to work. I have a tiny bit of post-production work left to do on Frog Family, and I’m beginning pre-production on my next piece, so please stay tuned, as I’ll hopefully have much more updates on that soon. I’ll leave you with the color version of the promotional flyer I threw together for WonderCon.

YAY!!!!!

2007-02-21T04:51:00.000-05:00

I finished animating this evening. What a relief. It took me longer than I expected, but I added a few extra touches to Mommy Frog’s entrance that I feel really paid off. I’m really proud of this little film, I showed the work in progress to a couple of people who I didn’t expect to like it, and they laughed out loud. Louder than probably any laugh my animations have gotten before, so I’ve got my hopes up. I’m heading off to New York in a few hours for a week so I wouldn’t expect many updates, though I plan on spending a lot of time this next week doing concept and preproduction work for my next few projects, so I’ll be updating you on that soon.

Almost Done

2007-02-20T05:34:00.000-05:00

I got a good chunk of animation done today. I animated the "climax," unfortunatley I can't share any frames from that because it would give too much away. Oh well, you'll see soon enough when the film is complete. I spent some time this evening adding sound effects to the completed animation and timing out the syllable framing for the rest of the dialogue. I also cleaned up a couple frames that showed some rigging propping a character above the ground. Tomorrow I probably have 2 hours of animation and then I'm done. I'm pretty excited. Most of my post-production is done too, so it will be ready very soon after shooting is complete.

Anatomy Of A Frog-Thing

2007-02-19T00:43:00.002-05:00

Hey, I’m in between shots right now so I’m in the process of cleaning up the characters. The clay tends to get messy and dirty and ugly after it’s been manhandled over and over, frame by frame. So sometimes when I’m going to change camera angles, I take the chance to remove the characters from the set to repair them. This usually consists of tearing them apart and rebuilding them, and also smoothing out the clay. Sometimes the clay gets spots on it from other colored clay or bits of styrofoam. Sometimes there are just nicks in it from my fingers or tools. Here you’ll see Daddy Frog with his legs removed. They were getting a bit torn apart so wanted to make them sturdy again, you can also see the toothpicks I use for support. While not the best armatures in the world, toothpicks are great for characters who don’t do too much movement (It saves you a lot of time not having to build an unnecessary armature).

Here is Baby Frog without his eyes, I really needed to clean up his face, and smooth out his clay.

Lastly, here’s Baby Frog’s replacement mouths, made from baked clay. So Exciting!

Pretty Girl Visits Studio

2007-02-19T00:43:00.001-05:00

It was definitely a morale booster for a number of the clay characters at the studio. They felt like soldiers at a USO show. Whoever gets to marry this lovely lady is a lucky man indeed.

23 Seconds is No Laughing Matter

2007-02-16T06:32:00.000-05:00

Especially when almost the entire thing is lip-synched. I can’t remember the last time I shot this much in a day. If only every day could be like today. I was in the groove, and did some stuff I’m really happy with. I think this is going to be a funny little film. Ever since I started watching the Creature Comforts series I’ve wanted to push myself with mouth movements. I usually use replacement mouths when characters talk because I’m semi-lazy, but I’m taking the harder route with Daddy Frog and I’m glad that I am. Ugh, I didn’t wrap up until almost 3 am and boy am I ready for some sleep. I have a headache and my jaw really hurts, I think I’ve been clenching while I animate. Now that’s a habit worth staying away from, I need an animating retainer.

Somebody needs a haircut.

The Frogs keep moving, one frame at a time

2007-02-15T06:40:00.000-05:00

Today was a long day. I spent the first hour at the studio listening to Cat Stevens and covering up the windows to stop the daylight from pouring in so I can keep the light consistent. I didn’t have to worry about it when I began animating last night. Also, I forgot what a great song “Daytime” is. I got a lot of animation done today, most of it dialogue shots. I’m up to 27 seconds now. I’m hoping to do twice as much tomorrow.

I did something really stupid this evening. Halfway through a really long shot, I accidentally stepped on the off switch to my power strip, turning off my camera and computer mid shot. I turned them back on and tried to salvage the shot, but the camera (which is digital) automatically changed it’s exposer and color balance as it rebooted up and I couldn’t get it to match the frames before it exactly. It was close, but not close enough and I had to scrap 50 frames, and do a cut away where I wasn’t planning on having one so I wouldn’t have to scrap an additional 50 frames. In the end, I think it looks better with the cut away, but I lost a lot of time. Oh well, I’ve learned my lesson. When animating, don’t have the on/off switch to your power strip right under your feet.

I’m so sleepy. Time for me to go to bed.

Finally!

2007-02-14T06:16:00.000-05:00

Well, I had my first day of animating. Actually, 2 hours animating (I spent the first part of the day setting up). And from that two hours I got about 5 seconds animated. Tomorrow I should get a lot more animation done, now that everything is all set up. Man, my back hurts from sitting weird.

Gotta Rethink The Way I Do Things

2007-02-12T18:33:00.000-05:00

So I’m so close to animating I can smell it. I’ve got the storyboards complete, and the characters and set ready. So last night I sat down to break down the prerecorded dialogue frame by frame so I can lip-sync the characters. Usually this is pretty simple. I just right out the syllables and how many frames they are. Then I draw a little symbol of the approximate shape the mouth will make. And that’s it. From there I have a little freedom to shape the mouths throughout the animating process.

But this short includes a couple moments where two characters have completely different lip-syncs going on at the same time. After writing out the frames and syllable for each, I realized my way of doing this won’t work. Look at this layout of two characters laughing hysterically, it’s a mess. It’s too confusing and there’s no way I’ll be able to sync everything up right.

I need to put the information down in a different way so I can translate it to the animation more effectively.

Set Complete

2007-02-12T03:44:00.000-05:00

I’ve got the set pretty much ready for shooting. I added some stones I found lying out front of the studio and some more plants. I spent a long time removing all the little strands of hot glue lying around the set because those get really annoying when they move during filming and pick up light.

Here’s Scamper, from Happiness, visiting the set. Yeah, I’m a dork.