Laughing Crows

Canon T2i’s moody side from Joe Ed White on Vimeo.

Not bad for it’s first day, my last animation hit number 1 comedy on Current.com

And another one of my animations was in the featured box on Current’s “movie” category.
It didn’t hit number one, but it’s cool they featured it.

To make this animation.

George Bush - Motivational Speakerator - watch more funny videos

I’m talking about the kinda edgy, maybe sexy, Wonderful Pistachio commercials. Sarah Palin’s ex-future son-in-law was in one?

Anyway, they’re having a contest. Here’s my entry. Have a look and if you please - vote me up.

Sorry, I’ve been away for a while finishing a new movie script, my fourth. Which I’m now sending to producers, production companies and anyone else in the film industry who never checks their email or wont speak to new writers.

While all of that’s happening I thought I’d start a new animation.

I’ll keep ya posted.

Here’s a 3d toon bull I just modeled. I still need to rig and make some facial morphs so it can walk and talk.

After that comes the painted texture so it can look more like a bull, but you get the idea.

The shot on the left shows my original, low-poly mesh. The right has been sub-divided once, you can see it’s starting to smooth out a little.

Can’t help it, I just can’t stand this guy. Hopefully it’s worth a giggle. (It was fun to do)

And here it is …

***go to youtube to see a high quality version.

… Darth Vader?

Or Bob Vader?  Or Darth Dylan?

Anyway, it’s for an animation project I’m working on.

I’ll be doing seven different impersonations.  I’m a little scared.

Here I’m shooting for a fifties toon look. It’s a commercial spot running within an animation I’m working on.

by Albert Marquet. It inspired me to rough out a painting without thinking of form, only color.

Maybe I should give up animation and start painting again. I mean, these two small paintings were done in an evening, while even a short animation takes me a minimum of two months. Hmmm ….

Above is a view from a hill just up from our house in Santa Fe. I was looking out towards an adobe development just north of the Plaza. It was a crisp day just before dusk when that last flash of light turns everything a magical, super saturated color. Anyway, it’s just blobs of paint, smeared in wet, but I kinda like it.

It’s just a test 3d render, but after doing it I realized I get more of a thrill from draping photo textures over spheres and rendering them against a generated starfield than I do creating a painting. There’s just a sense of wonder to it I can’t explain.

Some new “sketchy” characters I’m working on. Ya know, it’s weird, but being trained classicly as an artist is a handicap when trying to create cute, whimsical characters. And yep, I was a huge fan of Dr. Katz.

… more to come

For months now I’ve been trying to come up with a virtual 3d product display using video game engines. The idea is simple: instead of playing games, you “play” a product to see how it works. It’s the next best thing to getting to actually touch the product, and you’ll be able to see it on your web browser.

But after months of testing game engines, I’ve found … they’re not there yet. Meaning they’re still very limited as far as advanced reflections go. Unless of course you want to drop 20 to 100K on licenesing. That’s where I get limited.

So being to dumb to give up, I’m now working on combining traditional 2D and 3D with Flash. Here is a sample render of the 3d model I made of my espresso machine. (looks real doesn’t it?)

Here I rendered it down to just lines in a simple animation.

I’ve done about a BILLION tests over the past four years. First testing every 2D and 3D package there is, then testing how well they share files with other apps, then how well they render and how fast or slow they render and on and on and on …. Not to mention learning how to model, texture, map, rig and animate characters and all thats involved with that. Now I’m finally getting near the end of testing which means I just about have an animation pipeline in place. THANK GOD!!!

Here’s my billionth test render.

Still working on a 3D toon look.  Getting closer.

OK, so 2D takes FOREVER to do! So I’m working on a 2D or anime look using 3D models.