Rockstar Games wins "Best Animation" award for Max Payne 3

Congrats to all of the animators who worked on it. I'm proud to have briefly been among you on that project in 2010, and it's great to see your work pay off like this!



The trailer:

New portraits for the "300 Heads" Sketchbook

More portraits from the "300 Heads" sketchbook. The theme for this week was Top Chef judges, and in Bravo fashion, I introduced some bold color...

Tom Colicchio, Emeril Lagasse, and Hugh Acheson

New trailer for 'Jack the Giant Slayer'

The Jack the Giant Slayer movie that I worked on now has a new trailer:



I worked on the movie for six months at The Third Floor, which previsualized many, many shots for it. Shots from the trailer that I worked on include:

0:46 Isabelle screaming as Jack's house lifts/Jack running through rising vines to get to his house
1:28 Giants throwing flaming trees from across the castle's moat
1:32 Jack jumping across giant steps along rope bridge to Gantua
1:42 Giant throwing windmill blades at horseback riders

300 Heads Sketchbook Update

More portraits from the "300 Heads" sketchbook. The theme for this week was The Three Amigos.

300 Heads Sketchbook Update

More portraits from the "300 Heads" sketchbook. The theme for these was White House Cabinet members.

Arne Duncan (Education), Shaun Donovan (Housing/Urban Development), Eric Holder (Justice)

Ray LaHood (Transportation), Hilda Solis (Labor), Steven Chu (Energy)

300 Heads Sketchbook update

Barack Obama’s campaign “Dream Team”: 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe, senior advisor/strategist David Axelrod, and 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina. Together the three controlled the two most dominant political campaigns of the modern era, and with Obama's re-election success this week, it seemed fitting to draw them for this week’s trio of quick portraits in my "300 Heads" sketchbook.

David Plouffe, David Axelrod, Jim Messina

Election Day

You know what to do.

Episode VII banner

With the news this week of George Lucas selling his Lucasfilm company and properties to Disney, I thought it would be fun to mash-up a little banner for the new Star Wars trilogy arriving in 2015.

"300 heads" sketchbook update

Five pages from my "300 heads" sketchbook:

Steve Jobs, Stephen Colbert, Mark Kelly

John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman

Robert Iger, George Lucas, Kathleen Kennedy

Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr.

Nothing all that pretty, but at least I'm keeping myself busy.

300 sketchbook update

Five new pages for the "300 heads" sketchbook:

The three richest people in the world: Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Larry Ellison

The three tenors: Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras

Soldiers: Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta, Specialist Pat Tillman, Sgt. 1st class Leroy Petry

Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Pattie Boyd

Malala Yousafari, Neda Agha-Soltan, and Marie Colvin

More will come soon.

I just finished the Battlestar Galactica series

And this is all I have to say:

"Art is a Game" Art Show at Gam3rcon

Over Comic-Con weekend this year, there was a video game art show put on by my good friend Ben (aka "Mister Benja" of the 8-Bit Cubist.com. The venue was the top floor of the theater that featured Gam3rcon.Two of my 8-Bit Legends prints were among the awesome artwork displayed. More pictures of the event are on the 8-Bit Cubist Facebook page.

Bug-eyed at the "Art is a Game" show with fellow 8-Bit Cubist Ben.

Despicable Me "Minion Mayhem" ride opens at Universal Studios in Orlando, FL

"Minion Mayhem," the Despicable Me 3D ride at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, is the latest project I worked on through The Third Floor, and it opened earlier this month. Unlike the movies I have been a part of, where I helped previsualize an assortment of individual shots, this theme park ride was essentially one continuous shot, animated by several Third Floor animators. It was a unique challenge, and my first chance at animating some really cartoony characters. Having worked with motion capture and keyframed almost exclusively realistic human motion for over a decade, it is hard to overstate how much of a breath of fresh air it was to work with this type of material.

NBC's Today Show recently visited the theme park to see the ride in person, and here is the video segment they made about it (you can catch glimpses of the parts I helped animate at 0:46, 1:16, and 1:21). The final animation did a great job of matching the very particular timing and blocking we established, and including dynamic background elements and detailed sets. The main chunk I worked on was the ending, but of course that part was not in the video. If it's anything like how the rest of the ride ended up, it will be bright, colorful, and lots of fun. For the readers of this blog who are able to see the ride, I hope you enjoy it.

StudioDaily article on the pre/tech/postvis of The Avengers

An excellent piece that goes into good detail on what The Third Floor's work was for the blockbuster movie. All of the teams did a great job.

List of VFS graduates on The Avengers

Link to the Vancouver Film School blog post is here. Nick and I first met each other there in Class 28, and Aaron was one term ahead of us in 27 (I'll never forget his "vulture burglar" reel). The rest of the names I don't recognize, but I'd like to say "congratulations" to them all.

FXGuide's writeup of the VFX in The Avengers

A nice and thorough account of how the visual effects teams worked together on the movie.

Previs'ing the Avengers

'The Avengers' takes Los Angeles

Now that The Avengers is wrapping up its record-breaking opening weekend, I thought I'd post some pictures of ads I've seen around town.
 

Setting up for the world premiere on Hollywood Boulevard

Highland

Barham

La Brea

Hollywood/Highland

Hollywood Blvd. Site of the world premiere.

Wilshire

'Avengers Assemble' art show at Gallery 1988

On the way home from work last night I stopped by Gallery 1988's new space on Melrose (across from their original gallery, which is still there) to see their new "Avengers Assemble" art show, with art inspired by the movie. I could only stay a short while, and it was a day after the opening night (which meant that cupcakes, Joss Whedon, and Clark Gregg had been long gone), but I enjoyed seeing the variety of styles and takes the artists used to reinterpret the famous characters. I ended up purchasing one of Anthony Petrie's "Some Assembly Required" prints, which I was happy with:

Also on the walls of the gallery was NC Winters's excellent Iron Man piece:

 And many more:

Collider did a nice post about the opening night show here. LA is definitely the best city to be in for fans of movie art. Nuff said.

The Avengers is now in theaters!

Earlier this week I was able to finally see The Avengers. I attended one of the cast and crew screenings at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with my longtime friend Sean. He and I had created and drawn our own comics as kids, so seeing the movie together all these years later was very special. Cellphones were not allowed inside, but the theater was incredible: 1,000+ spotless seats, red drapes over the screen, and a huge golden Oscar statue on either side of the screen. I had to pinch myself throughout the movie to make sure I wasn't dreaming. The film came out incredibly well: funny, well-paced, and the visual effects are top-notch. It is truly a blockbuster in every sense of the word, and I feel very fortunate to have been involved with it. You could definitely tell it was a cast and crew screening at the end, because no one got up when the credits started rolling. The cheers and shows of support from everyone in the room made it a very touching experience.

Sean and I outside the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, after watching The Avengers.

The Third Floor credits at the end of The Avengers (I'm on the left side).

Most of the shots I worked on were mentioned in an earlier post, but I noticed a few more that made it into the final edit, which I will mention after the break (spoiler alert!).

New Trailer for The Avengers

The new trailer for Marvel's The Avengers went live today, and like the previous trailer, there are a few shots in it that I worked on.
Watch in 1080p:

Shots I worked on:

1:53 Hulk catching a falling Iron Man and scraping against a building
2:15 Non-CG shot of Thor and Cap looking up
2:19 Monster chasing Iron Man around corner of building


I think it's the best trailer yet, and I couldn't be more excited to see this one when it comes out on May 4. There is also a gallery of hi-res stills from the trailer here.

New "8 Bit Cubist" interview podcast up

Myself and MisterBenja of the 8 Bit Cubist had a fun talk about video games, film, and staying focused on the long road to self-fulfillment over here at the 8-Bit Cubist site. Check it out and leave a comment.