Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Comic-Con 2015 Reel

Sorry, I've been away for quite some time. My professional focus has changed. I no longer am a visual effects and animation instructor at the school, and have been grinding away at a few studios within the last year. It feels good to be able to use my fighting skills once again and I am thankful for the awesome talent around me. More on this later, but I'll do my best to maintain this blog of cool things that I see which continue to inspire me. I saw this presentation for the next Star Wars movie, its a reel that played during this year's Comic Con in San Diego. It made me happy when they touched upon the focus of practical effects throughout the movie and how much the film meant to all of us. Time to have some fun. Chewie hit the Lightspeed! Fire it up! Randolf

Living Lines Library

Sorry for the delay, started a new job in designing and animating casino games. I will continue to post relative and inspiring posts about animation, concept art, user design and experience on this blog for inspiration. Thanks to all for following.

When you get a chance, check this website out. It features hundreds and hundreds of pencil tests from the animated movies that we love. We found it easy to get lost in the work, its absolutely marvelous. It also features documentaries and production artwork from the last fifty years.

http://livlily.blogspot.com/

All we need to make this better, is a way for Youtube viewers to step an animation so we can view a piece frame by frame. I know there are some plugins that exist, that add the controls via your browswer, but the controls I've seen are inconsistent and don't always appear in the ui.

Definitely check it out.

http://livlily.blogspot.com/

Below is an example from Glen Keane's found on the site.

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Glen Keane - rough penciltest - BEAST from LXP on Vimeo.

Fire It Up! Randolf

Shit Showreels Say: By Peter Quinn

Shit Showreels Say from Peter Quinn on Vimeo.

Funny title for a reel, it pokes fun at the most common devices and standard presentations found in many of today's reels, and although humorous, there is something to be learned. For beginning motion design students, you should be able to look at this reel and create everything single thing presented here as part of your education and training. If not, you should be able to mentally break down the steps, parts and processes needed to composite any of these shots. Cool stuff for sure. Pete, thanks for sharing.

Fire it Up!
Randolf

Martin Deschambault : Concept Art

Martin Deschambault is one of the best concept artists we've seen. His work is inspiring. He can draw and paint characters, environments and characters in simple painterly styles filled with mood and drama. We're proud his work can grace this blog.  You'll recognize the work he's done for Assassin's Creed and his Project 77 looks fantastic. To learn more about his work, check his website below.

http://www.dechambo.com

Justin Oaksford

We really liked Justin's painting style, his sense of color and scale. Be sure to check out his site below:

http://www.justinoaksford.com/

Fire it up!
Randolf

Glowei: Conceptual Painter

Glowei is a favorite artist of many students of mine, and is chosen to be the center of many artist presentation at our school. Everybody likes his attention to detail and the shear "badassness" of his characters, if that's a word. It is now. We really like how he came up the ranks, beginning as devoted "fan" artist, creating Blizzard illustrations on his own. He was discovered by the group and later became senior contributing member. We especially like his his Diablo work is incredible.

You can check out his work by visiting: http://sonsofthestorm.com/gallery.php?artist=glowei

Fire It Up!
Randolf

Robh Ruppel : Concept Artist & Painter

Robh is a talented conceptual artist who has done work for Disney and Naughty Dog. His work has depth, detail, composition and beautiful light. Check out his website when you get a chance to learn more, have a napkin handy in case you drool.

http://www.robhruppel.com/

Fire It Up! Randolf

Destiny: E3 Gameplay Experience

More insight into the game, specifically: UI design, character, story, gameplay and environments. Check out the beta if you haven't done so already. Fire it Up! Randolf

Bungie: Destiny - Reveal, Character Design & Animation Reel

Reveal begins at :30

EVE 3D Interactive UI

The screenshots attached to this post don't really do this type of work justice. The UI begins at 2:18. One really has to watch the UI move with the user's click of the mouse. An interesting presentation that we should be seeing more of, especially in games, where the processing power for many of these games are becoming more and more robust. The danger, and it could be the case for this example, is that the ability to create a 3D UI in tandem with a a lot of information would require more organization, if not, the screen could look confusing and cluttered. The bypass for this, is to limit the exposure to the 3D effect, and offer the user simplified controls for navigating the 3D environment.

Wolverine Claws: Retractable

Crazy Dangerous!

Graphic Design California College of the Arts : UI Presentation

Graphic Design at California College of the Arts from Jason English Kerr on Vimeo.

The information on this graphic flows quite nicely. The asymmetrical designs dispersed among stacked layers is difficult to pull off. Nice work.

Cadillac - El Miraj : Dashboard UI Concept

GM ELMIRAJ CONCEPT UI from GMUNK on Vimeo.

Screens come standard in many cars, so much so, that UI designers are hired to create cool looking digital gauges, markers, sensors and controls. Doing so makes the experience more distinctive and customizable. This video was simply inspiring. I especially appreciate the different boot sequences and variety that we in the presentation.

If "Frozen" Was a Horror Movie

The power of editing and music at its best.

I love "Frozen", we watch it many times in the house, but to see it done in this way is so interesting..."SORCERY".

Fire it up!,
Randolf

Action Movie Kid: Vol. 1

So much fun. The kid's lucky to have a crazy VFX Daddy!.

Fire it up!