Just Pas-sing by...

And so I have arrived in Pasadena! It's been a week or so.

I will be taking a bunch of classes from a couple of schools in the vicinity. So much has happened in the last week while settling down, I figured I should just start blogging about my journey and not procrastinate.

Today, I met some interns from Imagineering for dinner. It was at Burbank's JB's and even though the session was short, at least I finally made contact with someone inside of the company. :D All this happened while at my painting class at the Animation Guild. My classmate there, who is also a Woodbury Alumni, hooked me with them - her former classmates. The connections are happening a whole lot faster than my attempt in 2007. WOW!! :D

Dinner ended, everyone had their appointments, so I decided to pop by the monthly meeting at the Animation Nation on 2006 Magnolia. Today's speaker is a true caricaturist who started from scratch. During the course of the 2.5 hour session, I was introduced to the vast array of work that spans his 19-year career which resulted in the loads of philosophies for my downloading.

My take home for the evening is to "put my stuff out for all to see". For a long time, I've kept works in the vault just because I feel I'm not ready for the world. Well, this blog (that's now connected back to Facebook... again) has been switched "on".

So here I am, sharing with the world my roller coaster adventures towards my dream...

Evening with Stephen Silver

Penning thoughts

So what else is new besides the iPad?

Last evening, a couple of us from Eggstory popped by DigiPen's information session, something like an open house. Neat four year course in Animation. What was even greater was the tour of the campus and what our eyes feasted on. The above image is of their Drawing Room. Sure brings back memories of my days in California drawing on those benches! I guess I'm stuck with the $5 IKEA chairs that I have for now.

Yokoso Japan!

That's a picture of my bed for the night.

Yes, I am in the land of the rising sun, only that the sun sets pretty darn early because of the winter solstice. I have my sketchbook ready to go... how to draw in the dark now? I guess it's Art History Term paper time right after this posting.

So what am I doing here in Japan? Siggraph Asia 09. It's some Annual Animation Conference held this year in Yokohama. A bunch of my classmates will join me tomorrow morning. I got here first because of the different timings Northwest Airlines (now merged with Delta) has with their mileage claims.

I arrived in Narita at 2pm today and will be spending a night at a neat cozy hostel. The host, Mr Yama, is extremely helpful! Do check this place out if you are in the vicinity!

Tomorrow I will meet my classmates back at the Airport before we head on down to Disneyland... or is it DisneySea? Oh the dilemma! :O) Just another day being a student.

Bouncing Ball 4

Today, I completed the bouncing ball down the stairs project. The shadows were not a requirement but I decided to see if I understand its concept. Obviously, I don't and there's much to learn.

On Wednesday, I had to hand in my primitives rendering. Not so well done, that's why it's not hosted up. Will do so when I feel it's good. For now it's more bouncing balls... boing... boing... boing...

Principles of Animation

This is our Animation Lab and the module is taught by Philip Garcia. He worked as a layout artist on The Simpsons while living in Los Angeles.

The image above shows the portable animation table that we use to animate on. I've always seen animators using these in the featurettes of the Disney DVDs and I'm quite excited to be actually using one of these "turn tables" here in class.

We're studying the basics of Animation at this point. Learning about squash & stretch and understanding the Bouncing Ball. These are the building blocks that animation is based on, and just about anyone can TELL you this. The trick is in the animation itself, especially with the added elements of time and space!

Looking forward to completing my bounincg ball down the stairs project. Watch out for that! :O)

The Bouncing Ball

Today, I created my very first 2D animation! How egg-citing!! Titled the bouncing ball, this exercise teaches about time and space - how the spacing between each illustrated ball is so important to creating the illusion. I also practiced the concept of squash and stretch! Will continue to refine this piece next week!

On another note... I spotted two people within a 1 km radius who have the exact same Mickey Mouse ID lanyard as me! How interesting!! :O)


I don't know how to create a loop in Blogger, if you do, let me know...

Disney's Rapunzel

Last week, Walt Disney Animation Studios released these conceptual artwork of their Christmas 2010 release of their 50th animated feature. The style is based on Jean-Honoré Fragonard's The Swing and animators at Disney will be using CGI tools to create the traditional hand drawn look like how it once was in the 1950's.



In the Animation process, Conceptual Art is at the very beginning. This is where style, feel and look are brainstormed and anything from pencil sketches to full blown artwork are rendered for the rest of the crew and team to have a direction.

My days back at school will probably begin with the basics of animation: figure drawing, still life, sculpting, etc... all of which will allow me to create my very own conceptual art pieces some day!

T minus 5 more days and counting... :O)

Back to School

Today was simply fantastic! Everything from Mass, to Art Min, to the work at SPI, and friends I spoke too. Today I decide to go back to school! The homily was just too darn loud and clear! :O) Trusting in God's Providence. Period.

Just at the beginning of the week, I revisited going back to school because of the possibility of getting a full scholarship. It means nearly zero income for the next two years. The whole entire week was spent praying and discerning the pros and cons. Who's gonna foot all the other bills? Who's gonna provide the meals on the table? But hey, what makes me think I can actually control whether I breathe tomorrow? I have no control over that or with anything else. I would like to think that I can tell God "Wanna hear my plans for the next two years and then after that?" It'd probably crack Him up. :O)

Yes, it's another phase in my life. And I'm so excited to see it unfold! I'm more eager to see what will happen after 2 years, but let's focus on these 2 years first. Imaginative stays as long as I can find time and energy! Next up... Animation School!

I am glad that I am second.

Hi ho - Zoetrope

Watch this first...

Pixar comes up with this great exhibit at Hong Kong Disneyland to explain how animation is created. Apologies for the excessive strobe lighting. You can still see hints of the animation occurring.

Click here for a better recording from YouTube.

Pete Doctor (Director of Monsters Inc and Up) and Pixar Animator Warren Trezevant explains the Zoetrope.


Amazing!