Jake's Self-Preservation Blog

WAX ON!

2010-09-10T23:07:00.000-07:00

Let's jump back to 2008, when I spent my winter nights in Los Gatos animating a giant glob of earwax with Keenan Manely for Neil Baker's short, The Cleaning. Neil has the entire film up now, so enjoy the fruits of our achy, clay-covered fingers. It's also great to see how the two of them are putting what we learned to exciting use!

Welcome Back

2010-05-05T00:44:00.000-07:00

The Warhols just dropped their Third World video, as previously featured on Cartoon Brew. After some "what gives, lead singer guy? I totally play guitar/bass/drums but am nowhere to be seen in this video" business, a new edit was made, and now it's finally time to breathe in the purple fumes. It's nice to see our work back up for people to see.

The Dandy Warhols, "Welcome to the Third World" director's cut from Webster Colcord on Vimeo.

mole-skinny dip

2010-01-12T01:45:00.000-08:00

More masks from the De Young, more scribbles of Dani napping. Life is good.

seasons greetings!

2009-11-15T10:36:00.000-08:00

Working retail full-time during the holidays is like planning a wedding for your arch nemesis. You're privileged to all of the stress and labor, but the big event is ultimately not yours to enjoy. I've been sluggishly gearing up to continue work on the Kepler film--a project that's been MIA (but not forgotten!) for more than a few months now. Updates soon!

<--- Post-It Art has been a side-project that a friend and I have casually kept afloat for a few years, but I just recently revamped the blog's design and gotten a few more artists interested in creating content for it. It has been a fun creative outlet on short lunch breaks--check it out!

the many beards of kepler

2009-04-27T21:23:00.000-07:00

I love Johannes Kepler. As far as early astronomers go, he was such a pitiable figure. The pressure, the frustration! There's a lot of thematic meat on the bones of his life story that I'm interested in exploring for my graduation film. Here are some sketches poking around different looks for his character, with the ostentatious Tycho Brahe on the bottom right there. Still doing some research, more as it comes.

jester

2009-04-27T04:03:00.000-07:00

Been working on a bit of web animation for Rick Herns Productions, an event planner in Menlo Park. They've got a new site in the oven, and basically the idea is to have an animated version of their logo, a jester, appear on a services page, juggling icons representing the different areas of RHP's expertise.

On the left is the original logo, and on the right the gruesome remains of my doctoring to turn it into a segmented character. Looks strangely like a Hindu god now...

And there he goes. The clip is going to look nice on the page it's staged for, so be sure to tune in when their new website goes live.

great success!

2009-04-25T12:13:00.000-07:00

The Cleaning won best traditional animation at the 2009 Media Arts Awards on Friday. Thanks for the kick in the ass, Neil, and to Keenan and Jon for laying egg after golden egg. We're doing some minor tweaks on the film now, then it's off to the festival races.

Congrats to all of the De Anza animators who had entries in this year--not a bad turnout guys!

a teamaker

2009-03-20T14:05:00.000-07:00

No further explanation required.

garage animation strikes again!

2009-03-13T23:21:00.000-07:00

Between work, classes and Keenan's poor computer having epileptic seizures, the two of us managed to finish another delicious stop-motion scene. What we've really made is a testament to our tired, broken-down armatures. They've been through some rough times, no doubt.

Don't miss this bitchin 80'S REMIX, either!

not caroline at all!

2009-02-09T15:22:00.000-08:00

Being sick is no fun, but there's been plenty to celebrate lately! Coraline was set free into the world last weekend, and I have to admit, it was something of an event for me. I've had a real interest in stop-motion for the last year or so, and this last month especially has been an adventure of puppet projects. Being able to see something so lovingly made and masterfully executed as Coraline is both encouraging and wildly inspirational for me. There is something truly magical about bringing tangible objects to life like this; it so articulately represents what I love about animation and why I'd want to pursue something so difficult. Coraline made me remember what it's like to be a kid filled with wonderment, and that's a pretty amazing feeling to be able to give someone.

Weiden + Kennedy have a blog displaying all of the promotional materials they created for the film, and it's a special kind of awesome. They did an amazing job of extending the movie's atmosphere into the real world. Be sure to check out the official site they put together if you haven't already. I remember a time when people would pay good money to explore shit like this. What really stood out to me were all of the 2-minute documentaries in the theater room. They play up the esoteric nature of each artists' skill in such a charming way, one can see how that personality is channeled into the characters of the film.

On a side note, check out this guerrilla-style trader joe's commercial by Carl Willat. He's better known for his classic stop-motion Hershey's Kiss ads, and sometimes I'm lucky enough to find him subbing at my school. This video is such a kick, I must watch it three or four times a day. Disgusting, I know.

third world live

2009-02-06T00:55:00.000-08:00

The Warhols posted a full version of Welcome to the Third World on their video page, so it's out there--bare and naked for the world to see. *sniff* So proud. Make sure to stop by the youtube listing and scrawl some lude, lascivious comments, yeah?

Okay, looks like the vid was hastily posted and has since been taken down by the band, but word on the street is it will pop up again once they get their new site together.

For the couple months I was working on my shots, the wall around my computer started being eaten by sketches like these. In retrospect it's hard to see how those funky mouth scribbles helped me at all, haha.

light at the end of the tunnel

2009-01-30T02:48:00.000-08:00

I just put in what will probably be my last day of work on Neil's short, now officially dubbed "The Cleaning." It was a night of nasty sound effects and hilarious pixelation (the only suitable way to end production if you ask me). Now it's time to sit and wait while Neil puts the last few goodies and gumdrops in place--the suspense is killing me! I think this movie is going to make people smile. I mean, just look at this silly bastard:

This here is an early test from when we were trying to determine whether or not it would be a good idea to animate all of the creature shots with real beeswax.

We quickly learned that wax is a cruel and oppressive master. It's difficult to keep soft and workable, and tends to harden with inconsistent degrees of opacity. The idea was to have a material with an odd texture that, when lit from behind, would become slightly illuminated around the edges. In the end the effect didn't really justify how tough the wax was to manipulate (especially juxtaposed with the freedom clay offered us). I think it might have worked if we had found a way to blend the wax with a lotion or oil, but that just seems like a round-about way of making clay, doesn't it?

status report

2008-12-20T01:16:00.000-08:00

Yeh, still alive. I wanted to get a preview of this sludge beast up before Christmas, so enjoy! This is shot on Neil's beautiful set, the creature's umm... natural habitat. We're all pretty stoked about the short's potential--it's going to be full of fun little moments.

sludgepuppies

2008-11-24T15:17:00.000-08:00

So Keenan and I are helping our friend Neil finish a stop-motion short, and I ask you, what film would be complete without a malevolent, blobular sludge monster? In these late-night tests we wanted to figure out how to make a slimy character materialize and move in interesting ways (one animating while the other safely gave feedback from behind a lead barrier). Tests 1 and 3 are Keenan's handiwork, and I took the reigns for the 2nd and 4th. I'm not sure if it was twilight delirium, the battery acid we'd been drinking all night or what, but somehow we managed to pump out 30 seconds of footage. And I have to say--Keenan, that second clip of yours is blue magic. See for yourself, guys:

I'm looking to make the audio a little... chunkier. And echoie... Stay tuned for more.

third world video, first world labor

2008-11-19T18:32:00.000-08:00

The Dandy Warhols' "Welcome to the Third World" music video made its first public appearance at the SF International Animation Festival last weekend, and a few of us De Anzies were lucky enough to get some hand-drawn character animation up in thurr. It was great working with some of my close friends on it, and even greater to see our hard work come together in the end. *tear* I'm going to miss those long nights, listening to the same song over and over, shooting pencil tests in dim light and meticulously cleaning up alpha layers. Let me send some love to my family & friends who came to give their support, and of course to my partners in crime: way to go Keenan, Leo, Jennie, and William!

All in all I managed to hog a good 10 seconds of screen time. The full video should officially make its way to the internet soon, but here's some before'n'after clips highlighting my contributions in the mean time:

The video was directed by Webster Colcord, who also handled most of the backgrounds, color, compositing, and fancy-shmancy 3D elements. The whole thing was a great opportunity, so thanks again Webster!

ace of knaves

2008-10-30T01:23:00.000-07:00

Joker hit stores today, so naturally I've got batman on the brain--here's some doodlage I started on the train.

symphony of pain

2008-10-24T13:09:00.000-07:00

My friend Keenan and I have been trying to squeeze some garage stop-motion into our busy schedules every week. So far it's been a blast, though this first go turned out a little more violent than expected. I blame GE class angst to be perfectly honest. Anyhoo, we're each animating with our own good ole-fashioned home-grown armatures (my guy on the left there and his on the right).

dennis tupicoff showed me his chainsaw

2008-10-07T18:54:00.000-07:00

it did not look like this
Australian animation director, Dennis Tupicoff, was kind enough to pay De Anza a visit on the 27th last month. He screened a ton of his older work as well as his new film, Chainsaw, which is still making the festival rounds. It's apparently been very well received, so way to go Dennis! I can tell he loves what he does; his subject matter never wanders far from what's going on in his life and the whole medium seems very therapeutic for him. Much of what we saw (The Darra Dogs, Into the Dark) was completely autobiographical, and what I found most interesting about his approach to film making was his refusal to dramatize or embellish his personal stories beyond what he could truthfully recollect. There are scenes in his films that sort of fizzle out or fade to black, simply because that's where his memory becomes obscure. It doesn't always pack a cinematic punch, but these scenes feel like authentic memories.

Chainsaw definitely has his signature look: a flat-color style that he says is carried over from printmaking he used to do. Be sure to catch it if it's being screened near you. It's much more of a complete narrative, about glamorous fantasies and shit-stained realities, all that good stuff... just told in his own fragmented way!

welcome to armature

2008-10-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

While combing through some old animation clips, giving them all the vimeo treatment, I uncovered this little gem. Don't know why I didn't upload it back when I made it--probably for fear of looking like just another raving, froffy-mouthed Portal nerd. In any case, now you can enjoy it in beautiful hi(ish)-res!

iDoodle

2008-09-22T22:07:00.000-07:00

sometimes in class, sometimes at work

morning sketchery

2008-08-31T21:11:00.000-07:00

at the embassy suites just north of coyote point.

fuzz designs

2008-07-30T02:48:00.000-07:00

renders from the third dimension

2008-07-24T17:23:00.000-07:00

CG is definitely not as tactile a medium as I'd like; I'm constantly wanting to drag a pencil or marker over a solid surface or define shape and volume in a way that my senses can respond to. As blah as Maya has been, though, I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The planetoid above is a piece of geometry I shaped and painted in Zbrush and set against a background plain in Maya. Not a place I'd want to visit, but it looks pretty groovy!

Here are some bumpmap tests using the same hellstar. I like the whole idea of a piece of low-res geometry wearing a hi-res object's skin. A wolf in sheep's clothing! So shifty!

And some more practice... the glass I made with nurbs and the arm with polygons. I dig the way the arm is turning out, but don't get me started on the hand. There's actually a couple awesome tutorials floating around for hand-modeling, and those should help me keep my mesh organized and simple.

stop motion roundup!

2008-06-18T09:18:00.000-07:00

And I'm back from another all-nighter! Finals week coming up, so I've got zeh tests, zhe essays, zhe projects - eez crazy daze, mayne. I had a lot of fun making this week's clip (although it was nearly thwarted by fast-moving morning light), so enjoy!

the weekly stop-mo

2008-05-21T09:57:00.001-07:00

stop motion by night

2008-05-14T02:53:00.000-07:00

Stop motion puppets are easy targets for senseless violence and aggression - and I think my classmates would agree. Though it'll be so much more gratifying once my character has a little more... character. Every day provides new hiccups to overcome in the fabrication process, from those magnets in the feet to the polymer clay I'm using for the hands and face - which is "crumbly but, good," as Carl Sagan would put it. There are a lot of simple things I can't wait to do with the finished model, so it's as exciting as it is frustrating. Hopefully my tests so far are adding some spark of life to him, I'd love to know what you think:

a sinister science

2008-04-27T01:24:00.000-07:00

Behold the grizzly, epoxy-laden beginnings of a magnificent creature! Yes, Wobbufett, you rightly tremble.

*Gave him some hands today, and splints for the arms and legs. These neodynium magnets are killing me, though. My make-shift feet are difficult to attach them to. But hey, here's the new build and a quick motion test for your viewing pleasure.

police man

2008-04-11T00:16:00.000-07:00

Just throwing around designs for a wire figure I'm going to build, trying to keep it fairly simple and geometric. Still debating what I'm going to make the head out of... I've never done a mold of anything before, so maybe I'll take a stab at that and make twenty or so replaceable expressions. I'm excited about getting the character moving - he's going to be an emotionally fragile creature.

figures

2008-02-08T23:25:00.000-08:00

30 sec-3 min, rusty beyond reason

young again

2008-02-08T15:51:00.000-08:00

Here are some sketches from back when the David Seymour Chim and Louise Nevelson exhibits were up at the De Young. Seeing Nevelson's sculpture up close is pretty serious. Her whole asthetic kind of catches you off guard. There's a tragic beauty to most of the pieces, and you're hit with a clear sense of the history she was trying to portray. The white towers in this first sketch were the shit.

The next few are reffed from the Chim photography show. B/W for the most part. His celebrity portraits were cool and all, but the ones I liked the most were his shots of kids from around the world. They seem so oblivious to the fact that their pictures are being taken.

And the rest are scatter-sketches from various rooms. Some from the glasswork exhibit, the abstract paintings, and different types of sculpture.

king kong ain't got shit on us

2008-01-28T16:49:00.002-08:00

Never has the world seen such fine cinema, such engaging performances! I smell oscar buzz already...

kitty con carne

2007-12-07T18:58:00.000-08:00

Concept stuff for a flash project. Ominous!

...And a pan testing out some scanned art. Some of it I like, some of it I don't. I really dig the texture of the tall background tents, so future scenes will carry that a little more. Also, it's very loud. I had no choice.

flashflood

2007-11-28T23:05:00.000-08:00

I love the new icons for the adobe programs, don't you? They've put together something of a periodic table for the graphic designer. Haven't attempted anything particularly daring in flash yet, but I'm throwing down ideas for some kind of final project. I'll see you after the storm, I guess.

These first couple locomotion exercises were done with segmented characters, though I honestly prefer redrawing the character on each frame by hand. Either way, it's really fun to fiddle with small movements throughout the body and see how they imply things about the character. Mostly casual movement here, nothing crazy. And I'm sure I've watched these things about a million times too many, so my brain's probably starting to tell me everything looks like candy and roses. I'd love to hear whether or not they look awkward to you.

like playing with blocks

2007-10-14T23:18:00.000-07:00

First time making things move in Maya. I used an unrigged model from Twilight Princess, so he looks oddly struck with rigor mortis. It was a lot of fun (mostly), and having Keenan next to me for tech support was a great help (thanks Keenan, happy birthday!).

2-10 min gesture

2007-10-11T18:20:00.000-07:00

key frames for walking lioness

2007-09-23T18:39:00.000-07:00

I dusted off some embarassing old drawings from my animal anatomy final and tried to make some sense out of 'em. Most of the frames I had to redraw because I had lost track of which leg was moving forward, haha. The color coded legs helped this time, but there's no substitute for understanding the visual syntax of the movement and why it happens the way it does. It's been fun to work on, and I think I'm starting to see it a little more clearly. This version is definitely a big step forward from its little brother, but after watching some reference clips again, I think the head bobs too much and the back legs might extend too far before picking up. Eh, it's a work in progress. I'm totally open to suggestions about the timing. Sometimes I'm surprised to see how slowly the lions amble along. There's something frightening about their heavy footsteps that I'd really love to figure out how to emulate.

*EDIT* Addressed the head bob, looks much better, I think... puts more attention on the shoulder blades.

animatics in glorious mono

2007-09-01T14:35:00.000-07:00

Slapped some sound on those cowboy animatics. Check it!

Nearly all of the samples I pulled from the Free Sound Project, so many thanks to the guys over there!

x-mas thugs

2007-08-02T03:53:00.000-07:00

Here's a Nightmare b4 Christmas picture for last december's theme-sketch topic. Just playing catch-up! Line art here.

sketch dump

2007-08-02T01:21:00.000-07:00

I got around to coloring some stuff today. Monsters, mostly. I haven't been drawing nearly as much as I should; getting started has been frustrating. I've been really hard on myself for doing bad drawings lately, which is unfair and counter-productive. It's hard to be inspired sometimes and it's easy to blame yourself for it. Creatures are a great way for me to warm up and muscle past that icky feeling--they remind me of how much fun drawing was for me when I was little.

spookay

2007-06-20T23:22:00.000-07:00

Not from round here, ar'ya?

2007-06-04T20:43:00.000-07:00

Rendering in Toonz with too many vector points may result in death or serious injury (a lesson that took me a few furious hours to learn). So it goes, haha. This was going to be one of the first shots in the cowboy sequence--before the stranger at the bar is confronted by the 3 figures outside.

6/21: Updated with blur fx and other tasty sprinkles. Old one's here.

maya

2007-05-22T12:58:00.000-07:00

A bunch of DeAnza students did a wondeful thing and started a Maya workshop in the absence of our intro class this quarter. Everyone's really great. They make the interface seem so logical and accessable. Anyway, this is my first 3D model I've ever made, so drum-role please...

A blob! Pretty hot, I know.

When I have some more time I'm going to mess around on my own; it's just nice to feel like I can. =P

i roll on keys, g

2007-05-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

My boards are going through the Toonz treatment now, which is a really fun and gratifying process (even if the figures are only barely keyed out). You can use in-program tools to draw the linework, but until I can get my wacom working on the school computers, the hand drawn pages are looking much better, I think. Here's one of my boards from before, after the main character drags himself out of the saloon:

Which translates to something like this. The timing is what I change the most frequently, but I think it's in a good place now.

half-hearted adventure

2007-05-05T07:21:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a Toonz class, which is a program much like Disney's CAPS. There are a wide variety of 2d production assistants available--ours is the one Princess Mononoke was put together with, so the potential of this thing is exciting. As one of our first projects we are supposed to put together a small cowboy sequence. Not my topic of choice, but I can tell Dave wants us to practice on something small before diving into our short films (which everyone, myself included, is eager to do). The outline for our sequence was pretty strict, actually:

1) Cowboy sitting in saloon
2) Cowboy hears something outside
3) He/she finishes drink
4) Pays for drink
5) Walks out of saloon
6) Sees three strangers in distance

I was scribbling down some ideas--a lot of them I like, a lot of them need to be more dynamic, I think. For these first few I was jumping around 2 or 3 different story ideas. So like the visual notes for my PSA, they really don't read like a storyboard. Still going, though. I'll try to get the rest up soon.

And some moderately chronological ones:

oldies but g... well they're old

2007-05-05T06:30:00.000-07:00

A bunch of fun stuff from sketchbooks I never posted.

nago, what a goose

2007-02-08T23:06:00.001-08:00

This was a lip-sync assignment for my sound class. Sybil here plays everyone's favorite fool-hardy boar (He's kind of the class puppet, a face with aprox 20 pre-rendered mouth positions). Anyway, he didn't really look the part so I dressed him up in flash. It's my first time using it so bare with me! Oh yeah, I also gave him a few uh... props... heh... heh

greetings from AT-115!

2007-02-08T11:08:00.000-08:00

Where most of these scribbles were done. 5 hour classes are neat and scary. =P

I don't have a crush on Samus, that's ridiculous. I just admire her arm-mounted plasma cannon.

aminal sketches

2007-02-06T23:06:00.000-08:00

I've had a craving to go back to the zoo the last few weekends... to better myself! Every time sunday rolls around, though, I end up trading the trip in for a few more hours in bed. Dave got our sketchbooks from last quarter's class back to us this week and it made me realize how much I missed sitting, watching the lions.

This gal's bloodied up with sweet & sour sauce from Silver House:

A monstrous fanged deer. There is no doutb in my mind that it's the fabled Jersey Devil you read about in cryptozoology books, and must be slain:

because music heals the soul

2007-01-13T16:12:00.000-08:00

And I haven't made a post in a long time. Anyway, my computer's healthy now.

I think.

enjoy your spaghetti

2006-11-30T10:34:00.000-08:00

Here's some stuff from the last couple zoo trips. I ask you, whyyyyeeee is it so cooold?!!!111!? I am now accepting sweater and mitten donations.

These first couple are from the bus and train. Bus-drawing makes me want to hurt somebody. It's like running while holding a full glass of water. Enjoy my frustration, you're very arrogant.

At some point everyone just went "man, fuck drawing meerkats."

masks

2006-11-29T23:51:00.000-08:00

Okay, so this is great. I'm sitting at the computer. I have sketches scanned. This is great. These are a bunch of sketches I did in the African art exhibit at the De Young. There's one mask I stop at every time I go. Can you tell he's my favorite?

saucyleeto

2006-09-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday I went to Sausilito for a kind of artist... convention, I guess, haha. I missed the first ferry so I didn't get a chance to meet too many other humans, but it was pretty relaxing in the end. These pictures are all products of the last few days and'll probably describe that time better than I can with words right now. zzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZ

look out it is a panda

2006-09-11T11:00:00.001-07:00

Tablet's up. And what a difference. I think it'll be a little while before I'm comfortably converted, but it seriously feels as though a great handicap has been lifted from my shoulders. This is a great opportunity to christen the blog; I'll try to have more wacom-borne drawings at least every couple days (purely to get my own ass into gear).

Okay, round one: who's going down first? I'm not taking bets, but Andie swears to kill and eat the victor so I'm leaning toward the taco.