Woodford County Vineyard

Artrage and Photoshop...trying something a little different. Though I think I worked it a little too much. Also, wow, this looks completely different in my browser than it does in PS...

Where'd the Cheese Go?

I made this random little cut-out film my freshman year of college. Actual paper on an actual animation stand! I should do this again some day.

My Thesis: Love at First Roach

Well it only took a year, but I finally posted my thesis on Youtube. "Love at First Roach" is the result of over 9 months of grueling work. My advisor on the project was Disney vet Nancy Beiman, and I have to say I learned an incredible amount working with her. Rigging was done by Greg Smith, who now works at Laika. The original idea for this film was very different, but I do like how it turned out. I needed about a year to distance myself from it, and now I can watch it without cringing so much, haha. I haven't spent too much time on sending it out to festivals, though I probably should. It did screen at Tony White's "2D or Not 2D
Festival in Washington state. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Thesis & Website Update!

So the massive overhaul of my website is finally done. It was actually finished around Siggraph, but I thought it deserved some mention here on my blog. Not only is there all new art (character design, layout, life drawing, etc), there are two demo reels (animation and concept design) and my finished thesis, "Love at First Roach," is available to download. (Just go to the animation page and choose your format.) The address is www.liamrobinson.com (or just click on either of the images.) Enjoy!

Hansel and Gretel Witches

Here's something that will be up on my new website in the character design section. Thought I would share it here too. Who knows, maybe someday I will animate one of these lovely ladies...

Rendering!

Here's a teaser of what's to come in 7 weeks...

Thesis Color Script

I just returned from NYC and the Pixar exhibit at MOMA. If you have a chance to see it, I highly recommend it. There was SO much art to see including maquettes, texture designs, animation studies, color scripts, etc...so inspiring to see! They were also showing Pixar's new short, One Man Band, the day I went...but unfortunately we missed seeing it by an hour or so. It was so packed in the MOMA...the line for tickets stretched out the door and down almost a whole block! (Thankfully it moved pretty fast.) Anyway, I came back in the mood to create some visual development type art, so here is a full color script for my thesis, Love at First Roach. The colors you see here are general ideas for lighting and texturing, but will likely look a bit different when fully realized in 3D...feedback welcome as always.



By the way, if you can't get to the exhibit, I highly recommend the book they've released which can be purchased for just $30 at MOMA's website. While there you can also listen to the audio tour with some of the work from the show.

Thesis Update

Here's a new render of my characters after I tweaked the textures a bit.

Thesis: Textured Models

Here are Suzette and Pierre all textured up! Had to do the UV's on these guys twice, but now they're okay. Settled on just a fur-ish texture for Suzette, which in the long run will save me a lot of headaches. Rigs should be ready soon and that means animation time! WOOO!

Dance of the Seasons

I recently worked on a very interesting project titled Dance of the Seasons. It is a 2 minute animated film that was (mostly) made in just 24 hours. Two fellow RIT animators, Joe Daniels and Jed Mitchell, have put together two similar 24 hour challenges in the past, but both were done in CG. Dance of the Seasons is unique because it is entirely hand drawn (over 1,000 frames from 5 animators in 24 hours.) Dave Suroviec was an animator on the piece and kindly lent us the basement of his apartment to go crazy in. We began the 24 hour period with no idea of what we were doing, but we did have the music handed to us by Joe and Jed. (Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Hours.) We began at 10 AM on a Saturday and spent a few hours brainstorming and sketching until we came up with some sort of coherent idea. This led to storyboarding and listening to Dance of the Hours on repeat for the entire day and night. Brittney Lee did the character design for "Petey" our main squirrel (I suggested the name we gave to the squirrel inside our apt cieling) and she cranked out some nice model sheets. While the animators began their work I sat down with Joe and the storyboards and figured out all the layouts we were going to need. (Thirteen total.) They went surprisingly smoothly, but somewhere around 2 AM I began working with Photoshop to color them. And apparently Photoshop loves me so much that it decided to crash on almost every background I worked on, often multiple times. I was drinking coffee (which I don't often do) and feeling jittery and crazy, but it was fun! We had a video camera on and off throughout the night...I'm interested to see some of that footage. And it should also be said here that all of the people who worked on this film are students of Nancy Beiman, who inspired us to create a hand-drawn collaborative film. (I don't know what she thinks of it yet, but hopefully good things.) Anyway, I've posted a few of my favorite layouts from Dance of the Seasons here:










Now! Go watch the entire film (Large or Small, Quicktime 7, H.264 codec) which Joe has kindly posted for everyone to see. And visit his blog to see the other two 24-hour films that have been made at RIT.

And here are some pictures from the making of Dance of the Seaons!

Jed and Joe survey story ideas. And yes, Joe wore the Goofy hat for the full 24 hours.

Brittney at the boards!

We're messy.

Brittney animates!

Nathaniel works diligently.

Our pencil testing station.

This is where I worked all night. (I had a comfy chair too.)

RJ and Dave passed out around 9 AM.

Check out the blogs/sites of the other folks that worked on the film:

Brittney Lee
Dave Suroviec
Jed Mitchell
Joe Daniels
Nathaniel Hubbell

And that's it! Hope you enjoy the film.

Thesis Color Keys

Here are some color keys for my thesis...they need some work

Thesis Tone and Color

Assignment for Nancy Beiman's class on Layout and Storyboarding.

Thesis Maquettes

Here are my maquettes for Suzette (the rat) and Pierre (the roach). I'd appreciate any feedback.

Stranger With...Rats?

I did some sketches of Amy Sedaris as Jerry Blank from Strangers with Candy as research for my thesis (Suzette!). Thought these were kinda funny. SIGGRAPH TOMORROW!!!

Precious Moments

This is the type of thing Ian and I do in our spare time. This started out as a quick attempt at a short stop motion film together, but we ended up just taking some pictures of the puppet in the set we made. So I did a little paint over with it and I kinda like the feel. Thanks to Ian on this one too.

Also, I am going to Siggraph in four days! Good lord I'm excited! :D

Thesis Character Designs

I wouldn't normally post stuff this early on in the process, but I'm looking for some feedback on these designs. This is for my upcoming thesis project and I'd like to know what people think. Good? Bad? Try a different direction? Please comment on these folks.


Here are the original designs for Pierre (a suave cockroach) and Suzette (a fat clumsy rat). After trying out other designs I seem to have come full circle...

A little too Disney?
I like the fat one but Pierre needs to contrast with Suzette, so I don't think that's gonna work out.

Evil Aunts

Here are some designs I did for the Aunt character in my two quarter
film. Which is up NOW! On my website ! View
it in its full technicolor glory. It was a finalist in the Student
Academy Awards...that means something right? Right? No? Okay. I love you
Bill Plympton.