animation exercise

The assignment at Vancouver Film School was "have a man climb some stairs to get to a bucket and have him lose his balance. There must be a reason!". So, this is what I did...

VFS clip...the assignement was: "have man climb stairs and lose balance. There must be a reason, no earthquakes or stuff like that" .This is what i did:

Facing the face

Slowly getting there...but the surface is still not as smooth as I would like it to be...d'oh !

Scrupolino quasi scuola

This is a quick drawing of one of my best friends in italy, super talented artist Florian Gherardi.
His main characteristic, other than being a great guy, is that he is possessed by an primordial hunger for food the likes the world hasn't seen since the cro-magnon era, probably. And of course Florian stays super slim no matter how much he eats, the bastard. Here you see him portrayed while he 's getting ready to eat the afternoon dish. Go check out his website at http://www.flovisual.com/default.asp

One word movie review for GRINDHOUSE:

Meh.

From the "too-lazy-to-draw-something-new" folder

A past from the blast

If you had to look back at your life, what moments are ingrained in your memory as a perfect snapshot ? Colors, sounds, taste and smell clear now as they were back then ? I am sure that if you have children, there are many moments that will never abandon you .

For me, last summer in Montreal - far far away from my beloved Florence- watching the final of the football world cup between Italy and France was one of those moments. I am sure the canadians reading this will roll their eyes, but until the day I die I'll remember being there, in that little bar, with someone loved by my side, feverishly watching the game , holding my breath during the penalties...and then the joy, the tears, the green, white and red everywhere, the people in the streets, the realization of a long dream after 25 years of crushing defeats.

When I have nothing to do (read: when I am supposed to be doing something but I don't feel like it) I scavenge youtube for clips of those moments.
Here are the ones I like the best:

White Stripes+ official commentary (yes, they are slighty biased)



This one starts with all the italian defeats leading up to the 2006 Germany FIFA world cup



And this one is Emilio's favourite, and since he had to watch ALL the ones I found...he gets to pick ;)

CAMPIONI DEL MONDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Building the Building

Now things start to get interesting.Having to sculpt from a drawing would have been too complex for a first-timer like me, and without a doubt, less fun.
I decided to let my mistakes guide the design of the statue, and see where things go.
This is proving to be very interesting ... I can still see elements that i love to draw...simple overrall shapes, big lips...but at the same time areas new things are starting to emerge...maybe I'll be able to transfer something out of this experience back to my drawings.

Nevertheless, the whole process is quite relaxing...building layer over layer to achieve ACTUAL volume and not a bunch of pixel on a screen feels very rewarding.

Stating the Statue

Lately I have been missing the "hands-on" feeling to art that 3d animation lacks (wow, that sounded pretentious...but then again, nobody speaking english reads this blog, so it's ok).
Our art director at the studio is a great sculptor, and after taking a look at his "Hellboy" maquette, that he made for the Guillermo Del Toro movie, I decided to give it a try.



Oh boy.



Anyway, here is step one of the cataclysmatic attempt. More to follow