First trailer for Ridley Scott's new film "Prometheus"

'Leaving Santa, Coming Xmas'_122211_ShihHeng

Inspired by Psyop's new spot for Fedex-'Enchanted Forest', I make a new painting for coming X'mas.
And wish best holidays for friends at Digital Playpen.

Extra brushes I used:
1. Texturist: http://www.brushking.eu/347/texturitus-photoshop-brushes.html
2. Particle: http://www.brushking.eu/35/particles-and-stars-brushes.html

Brief making of:

"Snow Angels" by Corrie Francis (Merry Christmas everyone)

A beautiful sand animation from Corrie Francis. Learn more about Corrie Francis here: http://www.corriefrancis.com/

New Zealand Animation studio Mukpuddy posts their 2011Christmas Message

Find our more about Mukpuddy here: http://mukpuddy.com/

"The Hobbit" trailer is out

I'm sure many LOTR fans are just drooling over this. Having grown up reading the Hobbit I must say I'm rather excited myself.

Book trailer for "A Monster Calls" by Patrick Ness

"The After Effects animation was done by Eric Guémisebased on artwork by Jim Kay."

Courtesy of Cartoon Brew: http://www.cartoonbrew.com/books/a-monster-calls-book-trailer.html

"Keloid" trailer by Barcelona based studio Big Lazy Robot

While this may look like live action director J.J. Palomo says it is entirely CG and below are the wireframe images to prove it. Great work from Barcelona based studio Big Lazy Robot (BLR).

Check out these wire frames and an interview with director J.J. Palomo on Motionographer.


You can also check out BLR's website here: http://www.biglazyrobot.com/.

Diablo III intro cinematic from Blizzard

 
More really impressive work from the folks at Blizzard for Diablo III.

"VORWERK Stadt der Milben" (Mite City) by German studio Sehsucht

VORWERK Stadt der Milben (Mite City) from Sehsucht™ on Vimeo.

Witness the rise and fall of dust mite civilization in this is a brilliant little commercial by German studio Sehsucht
Check out the making of,

VORWERK Stadt der Milben (Making of) from Sehsucht™ on Vimeo.

Cameras, Science MIT builds camera that can capture at the speed of light (video)

Find out more here:  http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/13/dnp-mit-builds-camera-that-can-capture-at-the-speed-of-light-vi/

Video Collage created by David Fincher for the title sequence of "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

"Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' soundtrack for David Fincher's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, is out now digitally. It features a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" featuring Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O. The creepy, mysterious video for the song features a collage created by Fincher for the title sequence of the film. Watch it below."

New website launched by LA based studio Royale (sith a fun little animation to boot)

Impossible Present from Royale on Vimeo.

You can check out Royale's new site here:
http://www.weareroyale.com/

"Transformers Fall of Cybertron" trailer

Really nice work from director Neil Huxley and the folks at Digital Domain in this trailer for the video game "Transformers Fall of Cybertron". (much more entertaining than the Michael Bay films if you ask me)

Morning

So I painted this a few years ago and I haven touched since. I wanted to get some your thoughts on it.

Caterham Super Seven WIP

This is my latest  model which will part of a larger still with a background and a character. The model is not quite done yet, still gotta model a few more things, UV, texture, and add shaders. Then I gotta start on the rest of the image. As always, any thoughts and critiques are welcome and insisted upon.

"Poussière" (Dust)

"Poussière" made ​​by Vic Chhun, Leyla Kaddoura and Nicolas Ughen at France’s EMCA in Angoulême.

"The Fundamental Elements of Design" by Erica Gorochow

The Fundamental Elements of Design from Erica Gorochow on Vimeo.

Why pay for Art School when you could just watch this video?
You can check out Erica's website here: http://gorociao.com/

CATIA V6 | Industrial Design | CATIA Natural Sketch Showreel

Amazing new 3D design software CATIA V6 lets you sketch your ideas in 3D. Find out more here: http://www.3ds.com

"2011 Holiday Giving with Fred" spot for The Red Cross

"American Red Cross 2011 Holiday Giving with Fred, directed by Andy Hall / Elastic (Agency BBDO). Also check out 2011 Resolve to Give from the same campaign."

Courtesy of Motionographer: http://motionographer.com/2011/12/09/motionographer-holiday-catalog-2011/

“The Man Who Had Never Been to the Cinema”

Telecine "Vá ao Cinema" from BEELD.motion on Vimeo.

"Telecine is a suite of cable movie channels in Brazil. This beautiful spot by Beeld Motion (Eduardo Tosto, Greco Bernardi, Luiz Maggessi, Marcelo Mourão,Papito, Victor Seabra, Filippo Johansson) uses five different directors, using different techniques, to relay its core message to stay home and watch movies."

Courtesy of Cartoon Brew : http://www.cartoonbrew.com/advertising/the-man-who-had-never-been-to-the-cinema.html

"Trine 2" Launch Trailer

Q&A: How Does A Pixar Short Film Get Made?

Slash Film Q&A with La Luna director Enrico Casarosa.

http://www.slashfilm.com/qa-pixar-short-film/

"Keep Drawing"

keep drawing from studio shelter on Vimeo.

An Awesome little hand drawn animation from Studio Shelter in Korea

Incredible Render test using "Mandelbulber" experimental software

"Mandelbulber is an easy to use, handy but experimental application designed to help you render 3D Mandelbrot fractals called Mandelbulb and some other kind of 3D fractals like Mandelbox, Bulbbox, Juliabulb, Menger Sponge"

Find out more here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mandelbulber/

"12 Drawings a Day" an animated diary.... Brilliant stuff I have to say

12 Drawings a Day - 12 Dessins par Jour from Denis Chapon on Vimeo.


"Denis Chapon has been animating twelve drawings a day—everyday—for the past four years. The resulting stream of conscious short feels like an animated journal, bursting with creative concepts and happy accidents. The drawings were all done in pen."

Courtesy of Cartoon Brew: http://www.cartoonbrew.com/shorts/12-drawings-a-day-by-denis-chapon.html

Concept work for Psyop's Fed Ex "Enchanted Forest" spot (You will also notice MFACA's very own MinSeok Jeon in the credits

You can check out a making of video and a brief interview about the piece on Motionographer:
http://motionographer.com/psyop-for-fedex-the-making-of-enchanted-forest/

CREDITS:
“Enchanted Forest”
Client: FedEx

Agency: BBDO, New York
Chief Creative Officer: David Lubars
Executive Creative Directors: Greg Hahn, Mike Smith
Executive Producers: Amy Wertheimer, Diane Hill
Sr. Creative Director/Art Director: Nick Klinkert
Sr. Creative Director/Copywriter: Tom Kraemer
Creative Director/Copywriter: Chris Beresford-Hill
Executive Music Producer: Rani Vaz

Production Company: Psyop/Smuggler
Director: Psyop
Psyop Creative Directors: Marie Hyon, Marco Spier
Psyop Executive Producer: Lucia Grillo
Psyop Line Producer: Donald Taylor
Psyop Senior Producer: Crystal Campbell
Smuggler Executive Producer/Partner Patrick Milling Smith
Smuggler Executive Producer/Partner Brian Carmody
Smuggler Executive Producer/COO: Lisa Rich
Smuggler Executive Producers: Allison Kunzman, Laura Thoel
Smuggler Live action producer: Donald Taylor

Designers: Lauren Indovina, Jon Saunders and Naomi Chen
Editor: Cass Vanini
Director of Photography: Fredrick Elmes
Storyboard Artist: Ben Chan
Lead Technical Director: Alvin Bae
Lead Compositor: Nick Tanner
Lighting Pipeline Technical Director/Still Photographer: Jonah Friedman
Modeling: Helen Choi, Soo Hee Han, Dave Chen
Rigging: Zed Bennett, Amy Hay
Previz: Pat Porter, Kitty Lin, Chris Meek, Minor Gayton
Animation: Pat Porter, Amy Hay, Roman Kobryn, MinSeok Jeon and Stephanie Russell, Michael Shin
VFX Supervisor: Joerg Liebold
VFX: Dave Barosin, Miguel Salek
Lighting Team: Alvin Bae, Helen Choi, Soo Hee Han, Chris Wilson
Hair: Jonah Friedman, Andy Hara
Lead Tracking: Joerg Liebold
Tracking: Mark Lipsmeyer
Lead Compositor: Nick Tanner
Compositors: Jason Conradt, Adam Flynn, Thomas Panayiotou and Jonathan Podwill
Flame: Nick Tanner
Roto: Trace

Footage Transfer: Katabatic

Music House: Human

Audio Mix: Sound Lounge
Mixer: Tom Jucarone

A fascinating look behind the scenes of AKAMA STUDIO's "VOLKSWAGON HEDGEHOG"

MAKING OF VOLKSWAGEN Hedgehog from AKAMA STUDIO on Vimeo.

Check out more stuff from AKAMA STUDIO at their website: http://www.akamastudio.com/

"Break the Law of Silence" by Paris based CRCR for Amnesty International

Break The Law of Silence from CRCR on Vimeo.

CRCR is comprised of 5 Gobelins students Remi Bastie, Nicolas Dehghani, Jonathan Djob Nkondo, NIcolas Pegon and Jérémy Pires. Check out more of their work on their website. http://crcr.fr/

Opening Sequence for "A Cat in Paris"

"A Cat in Paris" is a French animated feature that is opening last weekend in LA. Apparently it is getting a lot of good reviews. 

"The film made its international premiere at 2011 Berlinale and has been nominated for a European Film Award in the Best Animated Feature category. It has garnered raves on the US and international festival circuit including appearances at San Francisco Int’l Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, London International Film Festival, and Annecy International Animated Film Festival."

Read more about it here: http://www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-film/this-week-in-la-redline-and-a-cat-in-paris.html

SR-9 Widowmaker (my Ashley Wood homage)

Finally, FINALLY finished this robot.

(UPDATE: Fixed the compression -- apparently Vimeo likes the H.264 codec-- with the keyframes set to whatever frame rate your animation runs at, and set the bitRate to 5000 Kbps [if you're uploading something in HD, set to 2000 for SD])

I modeled the base mesh in Maya, then brought him/her/whatever into Zbrush and textured it, lit it, and rendered all the passes. The decals where made in Illustrator, then touched up in Photoshop. Finally composited everything in After Effects.

Feel free to give me suggestions & critiques, I can definitely use some fresh eyes on this thing -- and hopefully get a better video up ASAP!

The end.

Awesome animated vintage comic book covers by Kerry Callen

View them on Kerry Callen's Blog here: http://kerrycallen.blogspot.com/

Ni no Kuni

Thirty second clip from "La Luna" Pixar's next short film

Cartoon Brew at Animation Breakdown, currently going on this week at The Cinefamily, is incredibly proud to present a special advance screening of Pixar’s newest Oscar ’short-listed’ short film La Luna, a full six months before it hits the mainstream movie audiences! After the screening there will be a Q&A and a “Making of La Luna” presentation by its director, Enrico Casarosa. Casarosa will discuss the journey that led him to create the short and illustrate the roots, influences, and inspirations that led him to tell this very personal story. Join us at 2pm on Saturday (12/3) – Advance tickets available now.

Courtesy of Cartoon Brew: http://www.cartoonbrew.com/events/animation-breakdown-pixars-la-luna.html

"Out of Sight" is a student film from Taiwan in which a blind girl in search of her seeing eye dog begins to discover the world on her own.

This is a really cute little short done in the spirit, it seems to me, if not the style of Miyazaki. You can check out a bunch of pre production stuff on the films website, unfortunately the text is all in Mandarin.

http://evaty.main.jp/oos/making.html

out of sight from kynight on Vimeo.

Elastic's "Educate Our State" was animated by non other than MFACA's very own Alan Chen

Educate Our State PSA from Elastic on Vimeo.


Credits below:
Design + Animation | Elastic
Art Director | Lisha Tan
Designs | Leanne Dare + Brian Gosset
Animation | Alan Chen + Steven Do
Composer | Rama Kolesnikow
Mix | Nick Bozzone, POP Sound

"Be a Vegetarian" by Glossy Rey

Below are a few character designs as well as a After Effects puppet rigg for the dinosaur character.
You can see more here: http://glossyrey.com/presentation.php?workdid=32

Impressive Tribute Montage to London studio Airside 1998-2012

Airside London is closing its doors after 13 years of really great work. This tribute montage lovingly crafted by Megan Riera nearly brought a tear to my eye.

More impressive work from Psyop in this "Enchanted Forest" FedEx Ad

Little known Swiss Artist Hans Erni was a favorite of some of Disney's legendary animators (after looking at the work it is not hard to see why)

So this post is more "Analog" than "Digital" but that is where everything begins anyway so I thought it might be interesting to touch on some of the basics here, namely good draftsmanship.

(Text Courtesy of Deja View)
"Did you ever wonder which artists Disney's animators admired ?
From the conversations I had with them, I can tell you that the range was pretty wide. They all knew about the lively drawings of Heinrich Kley, and they appreciated the realism in Norman Rockwell's work. Frank and Ollie liked Edgar Degas very much, Marc and Milt were big fans of Picasso.
During early visits in the 1980ies to their homes, I noticed that both animators, Marc and Milt kept a framed print by a Swiss artist on the wall.
That artist is Hans Erni, who turned 102 this year, and still draws and paints every day at his studio in Switzerland. His life work includes interpretations of classic themes as well as designs for postage stamps and posters.
When I look at his art, I see a drawing style that echoes the Renaissance.
Classically drawn figures within abstract environments. Marc Davis used this approach in some of his own fine art as well."

You can view more Hans Erni work here: http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2011/11/hans-erni.html?showComment=1322754849817#c8637039609686242904

A tribute to the movie "Drive" by tom haugomat & bruno mangyoku

"The Night We were Kings" yet another beautiful short animated by students from Gobelins

"A beautiful example of pure visual storytelling. Gobelins students Chloé Nicolay, Manddy Wyckens, Anthony Lejeune, Gaspard Sumeireand Léa Justum animated this short during their summer internship at Cube Creative in Paris."

Courtesy of Cartoon Brew: http://www.cartoonbrew.com/shorts/the-night-we-were-kings.html

DreamWorks Animation is looking to open an studio in Shanghai as early as January.

"California animation studios have had satellite studios in Asia since the 1980s, when Disney operated out of Japan and Hanna-Barbera had Fil-Cartoons in the Philippines. It’s the same today, only the names of the companies have changed, like Lucasfilm with its studio in Singapore and Digital Domain in India. Now, according to this Reuters story, DreamWorks is aggressively pushing forward with its plans to launch a studio in Shanghai, a development that we first reported last September. The new studio, DreamWorks East, could be up and running by January, and its first feature is slated for 2015. DreamWorks and a consortium of Chinese companies will invest up to $2 billion over five years in the joint venture, and the studio will also develop theme park rides and distribute films."


Courtesy of Cartoon Brew: http://www.cartoonbrew.com/business/dreamworks-eyes-shanghai.html

"The Loner" is a sort of Lego people meet The Sims music video directed by FLA from Sticky Monster Lab

The characters in this animation are apparently based on l line of vinyl toys that you can check out here: http://www.stickymonsterlab.com/

A new Photoshop Plugin "nDo2" helps you make picture perfect normal maps straight from your photoshop doodles

You can buy the plugin at the Quixel website: http://www.quixel.se/

Big Fat Naked guy I've been drawing on the subway using my iPad

Ive been working on this guy from time to time on my daily subway commute. I have really started to get into the iPad as a digital sketchbook, and I highly recommend an app. called Procreate. It has quickly become my sketching app. of choice. It has a very user friendly interface and a excellent set of features. 

 Here is a view of the Procreate interface. You can check it out the app at the developer's website: http://savage.si/

MGMT " All We Ever Wanted Was Everything" music video by oneedo

oneedo are the same people who brought us "Apache". They are now back with a new animation for MGMT.



Learn more about oneedo here: http://oneedo.posterous.com/

"Amalgamation" by Micaël Reynaud (really crazy use of displacement map/compound blur)

Also available as an Animated Gif:

Danny Williams AKA Pointpusher is giving away one of his models as a free download.

You can download this free model from Danny Williams here:
http://pointpusher.blogspot.com/2011/11/free-download.html

Red Hot Chili Peppers "Monarchy of Roses" Music Video

Red Hot Chili Peppers collaborate with illustrator Raymond Pettibon and director Marc Klasfeld for their "Monarchy of Roses" Music Video.

"Scrat's Continental Crack-Up" Part 2 from Blue Sky Studios

Another Scrat short from Blue Sky. This horse is feeling pretty dead by now.

Turns out light isn't a particle or a wave. It's actually just a runny mess in this interesting little short by Sunday Paper called "Light"

"Light a short film directed by David Parker, initially began as a project intended to bring awareness to energy waste. Bleeding, crying lights were meant to metaphorically parallel the way in which we invisibly squander our natural resources without much thought. While the original sentiment remains, the film also grew into a poetic statement about a world run amok and the human tendency to exploit that which we hold dear."

View more work by Sunday Paper at: http://www.sunday-paper.com/

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the biggest entertainment launch ever, in any medium

"Activision’s release of the videogame “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3″ last Tuesday ranked as the biggest launch of any videogame in history. Within its first 24 hours of release, the game sold 6.5 million units in North America and the UK, earning $400 million dollars and well on its way to over $1 billion. “We believe the launch of ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3′ is the biggest entertainment launch of all time in any medium, and we achieved this record with sales from only two territories,” claimed Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision. By contrast, the all-time single-day movie gross record belongs to the latest installment of Harry Potter, which took in $91 million earlier this year."

Read more here: http://www.cartoonbrew.com/ideas-commentary/and-the-highest-grossing-animated-project-of-2011-is.html

"My Bloodly Lad" by Dead Walter

See lots of concept art and other goodies here: http://deadwalter.blogspot.com/

A brilliant look at the role of computers with Steve Jobs

My friend at the Library of Congress sent me this. It really gives you an idea of  how brilliant Steve Jobs was and how far ahead of his time his thinking was.

"ROSA" by Jesus Orellana

ROSA is an epic sci-fi short film that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where all natural life has disappeared. From the destruction awakes Rosa, a cyborg deployed from the Kernel project, mankind’s last attempt to restore the earth’s ecosystem. Rosa will soon learn that she is not the only entity that has awakened and must fight for her survival.
The short-film was created entirely by young comic-artist Jesús Orellana with no budget during a single year. Since it's world premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival, ROSA has been an official selection at film festivals around the world such as Screamfest, Toronto After Dark, Anima Mundi or Los Angeles Shorts Film Festival. In October ROSA was screened at the opening night of the Sitges International Film Festival, considered the world's best festival specialized in genre films. Following the succesful festival run, the short film has attracted the attention of the major talent-agencies and Hollywood producers. Currently ROSA is in development to be a live-action motion picture.

Learn more here: http://www.rosamovie.blogspot.com/