New Site! Check it out.

Hey everybody,

Just letting everyone know that I have a shiny new portfolio site up over at sean-rhodes.com. I’ll continue to update the blog sporadically, but anyone wanting to see my newest demo reel (along with other stuffs) should go check that out. Or check it out anyway, the link’s right there. It’s so convenient. Thanks internet!

The Great Mid-Summer Sketchdump

Oh hey there guys. I know you’re saying to yourself “Hey! It’s the middle of summer now, why haven’t I seen that 3D short-short you made by now?”

WELL, the answer that makes me sound good is that I’ve been very busy at my summer internship. The other answer is that I am a lazy bum, and still haven’t uploaded it. Which is the more correct? I will let you be the judge.

Anywho, I’ve been working a whole lot over here at JibJab, and I’m going to have a lot to show you guys (as soon as they get uploaded to Jibjab.com, of course). Until then, I’ve compiled a big ol’ sketchdump for everybody, including a few of my life drawings from the summer, along with a few extra drawings I did of some coworkers and people about town.

Here’s those life drawings, first. And yes, there’s a bunch of them:

This is by no means all the life drawing I have done since the summer started – this is just what I feel okay showing you. I bar my SOUL on this blog, dammit.

Oh yeah, and here are some silly drawings of people and junk:

Aaaand there we are. FOR NOW. There’s another half of the summer coming up, and I’ll be drawing the whole time. Perhaps I won’t wait this long again, because… Well, this is a very tall post, and I should probably not do that often.

I’ll let you guys know the moment my work gets uploaded to the site. I’m making a lot of fun stuff, so I hope you kid’s’ll enjoy it. I’m working on a few extra projects on the side… but I shall inform you of those as they develop. In the meantime… I probably need to stop being so lazy and upload that 3D short-short, huh?

Talk to you guys latah!

Spring Quarter: THE POST (Part 1)

Hey there everyone! Long time no post. I am here today, however, to rectify that situation.

I’ve had a busy, busy Spring quarter, and I have some shorts to show you!

First up, I have something I whipped up for my Astronomy class in about six hours. We had a very, VERY vague assignment, in which we had to make “something” for Astronomy using “whatever it is your major is.” So I wrote, recorded, and animated this lil’ bit of limited animation right here:

I actually liked making something that took so little time (or really, forcing it to take little time), so I might try something like that again in the future.

And next, we have my final for my Motion Media class. Twas another vague, vague assignment; we just had to use a greenscreen, and that was it. So I went home, made some paper puppets, bought a piece of blue fabric, and filmed this with a few of my friends:

The camera work was all done by Jennifer Sparkman, with additional puppeteering by Jake Allen and Madeline Buxton (THANKS GUYZ).

After the filming was done, I added everything in with the ol’ AfterEffects, and viola. I’ve got a few fixes to make, but I LIKE IT, and therefore it has been blogged.

Anywho, part two of my Spring work will be posted soon – I took an entire quarter to produce one 3D short (15 seconds in length) that I’ll post soon. It don’t got no sound, though, so I may try to fix that before I do – Oh, and I had a gigantic MotionMedia project that I only got through half of for class that I think I’ll finish up – it’s a bit of a monster, but I can DO IT.

I’ll let you guys in on them videos, along with a little more exciting personal news, in the very near future. So stay tuned!

Here, have some reels.

Hey everybody,

I’ve put together a couple of reels of my favorite work from the past two years or so. A couple, because I felt like it would be more convenient to have separate 2D and 3D reels. Is it actually convenient? I have no idea, but here they are.

First my 2D reel, which is the beefier of the two:

And here’s my 3D animation work:

All the music is provided by the hella crazy jazz band Pigbag, who has what could be one of the best names for a band ever. Check them out if you like things that are both crazy and good.

Now, I realize that a lot of the stuff on these you’ve seen before, and even in long-form (because you guys check out this blog all the time! Right?), but in case you’re unfamiliar with some of the clips I played – especially in the 2D reel – check out the archives and my portfolio section, as I have more to show there – and you can see the projects in their original context, which is pretty rad.

Anywho guys, I’ll get back to you soon with a new poster design I did recently – until then, stay tuned.

3D Character Animation 1 In Summary

Hey everyone! This past quarter I also took a 3D character animation class, where I started honing my animation skills in Maya. I still feel like I have a long way to go, but I’m pretty happy with my three projects, so I thought I’d let you take a look at them here.

The first exercise we had to do was a basic hop – our character had to move from one foot to the other, and it had to look convincing. Now, me being me, I decided to animate him in a more cartoony style, a theme that you’ll see build throughout these projects. I absolutely love exaggerated motion, and while I know the importance of dialing it back and using contrast, these animation were all mine. So why not? Here’s the hop:

Nothing too exciting, but this was my first time animating in Maya for about six months. Despite my rustiness, I feel like I achieved all the goals I set out to achieve with this little thing. Sure, I wrestled with the software on this, but the outcome was fine in the end.

Next up we have a lift. Of the three projects, I feel like I could still spend more time fixing this guy up a little bit – but I’ll let you be the judge:

I still love his walk-up, but I’m not 100% sure on the rest of him. I learned a lot from this project, however – especially the importance of keeping my keyframes in Maya organized (for those of you not savvy with 3D-animator-speak, just suffice it to say that while the animation makes sense, the programming I made to get it there is much less… sensible).

This last project I have was an acting and lip sync project – initially it was supposed to run for about ten seconds longer, but my professor suggested I focus on the “fun part.” Of course, that for me means the most ridiculous part, so here’ s the little bit of direct acting I have:

Yes, he’s mad at that chair. Over the break, I’m going to be working on the rest of this so I can show you WHY he’s mad at the chair, and it should contain some much more subtle animation. I’d like to mention that I applied a new technique to this, in that I treated this much more like I’d tread a 2D animation. I had full control over everything, and while it took more work, I felt the results are much better. I was inspired by a Dreamworks animator who came to visit (who might be a future professor here – fingers crossed) to try this technique, so much thanks to him (who shall remain NAMELESS) and my professor, who invited me to come and see him talk to a few students.

And that’s it for 3D Character 1. Expect much more Maya-based content here soon, as I’m getting involved in a production class that should have me working a LOT in the near future.

Digicell 2011: The Remainder

Hey everyone! I just finished yet another quarter here at SCAD, and I have some work to show you. You know, if you have the time.

My Digital Cell class was very interesting – I learned a lot about how to save time in animation production with programs like Adobe Flash and After Effects. But more importantly, I got a little more experience with making short-shorts (15-30 second short films). All of these had a turnaround time of a week or less, a good indication of what I may be facing in the “real world” that these guys keep telling me about over here.

I have two shorts from that class I’d like to show you. Here’s an exercise I did for lip sync – I rather like how the character design came out. Not perfectly set up, perhaps, but this was more about acting with minimal animation. Oh, and making it look like my characters can talk, which is important:

That’s me as Dr. Pollution and my friend Jake Allen as Litterbug, who also helped me in the recording process.

The other short works better as a stand-alone short, although it is only fifteen seconds long. We had to make a commercial in Flash for the 2D animation program here at SCAD. So I made something a little tongue-in-cheek, as I am wont to do:

Once again, that’s my glorious voice in the background (cough cough) – Jake helped out again here, by teaching me a few extra tricks with After Effects, so thanks to him again.

Oh, and just in case: I absolutely love SCAD and the animation department here (especially all of the professors), but if I don’t poke fun every now and again I think I’d go crazy.

So that’s it for Digicell. I had to teach myself a lot of Flash techniques to make these, but overall I really love what I produced this quarter. Flash as a program can be temperamental, but you can make some lovely stuff with it if you mess around with it enough.

Baby’s First Flash Animation

Hey everyone,

Today I have my very first Flash animation for your viewing pleasure – and it’s a 27-second long music video to boot. Storyboarded in a day, drawn in Flash in two days, and animated in a week, this guy had a really fast turnaround. I’m pretty happy with how it all turned out, so take a look:

The music is an edited version of Alvin Band (AKA Rick Alvin Schaier)’s “Stanley Kubrick,” which – just like all of his other songs – is wonderful to listen to. If you have the time, check out his music at alvinband.com

Giving digital additive painting a shot:

Here’s my final for my Electronic Illustration class: a self-portrait to be painted using an ADDITIVE TECHNIQUE. As in, no airbrushin’ here, folks. Started with only black and white, used a little photo reference, set my brush to hard round with pen pressure on opacity, and went to town. The self-portrait had to represent a hobby or personality trait not shown in class, so I made absolutely certain everyone would know how big a music geek I am:

So, from left to right, that’s Thom Yorke (of Radiohead), me, Win Butler (of Arcade Fire), Kevin Barnes (of… Of Montreal), and Wayne Coyne (Flaming Lips). A few other people were going to be put up there, like James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem and Daniel Rossen of Department of Eagles/Grizzly Bear, but due to time constraints I just went with those four extra dudes.

And just for the record, I like a LOT of music, these guys were just the most recognizable (in terms of picking them out in a crowd) and the dudes I thought people would recognize the fastest.

As for the technique, I had a blast using it. I’m going to try using this little technique much more often, so keep an eye on this blog for more in the upcoming weeks. A friend of mine wants a Liz Taylor drawing, and she’d probably be a good candidate for this kind of rendering. WOOH.

Oh, and just cuz I like you guys so much, here’s a couple of those dudes above isolated and in sweet, sweet black and white:

Let me know what you think!

Cutout Animation, complete with purple noses.

Alright guys, coming up next is my final for Principles of Screen Design. We had two objectives: create a “countdown” by inter-cutting between two subjects, and keep the whole thing at 15 seconds on the dot. The theme everything revolved around was “Countdown to a Blind Date,” which could be… interpreted in many different ways.

We had to animate the whole thing in After Effects, so I decided to use Photoshop to make puppets on different layers, then edit it all together in Premiere. It was Adobepalooza for a weekend there.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the final product. I spent most of the weekend on it, and got it done just in time, which is always pretty sweet. Ch-ch-check it out:

My friend Scott Johnson (the guy who helped me out on the rocket project) lent me some of his valuable time yet again and helped me mix the sound. THANKS SCOTT.

And yes, there are some MORE purple noses. You can’t stop me from drawing purple noses, man. It’s my CALLING, I suppose. Tell me whatchoo think!

And now, a book cover.

Alright everyone, it’s time for an illustration post. I recently had a class assignment that focused on using collage digitally – and we had to make a book cover. Now, I’ve done a little collage in the past (check out the portfolio above, DO IT), and I’ve always loved the process. Books are also pretty cool, so this was a damn fun assignment.

I chose to do a cover for Kurt Vonnegut’s A Man Without a Country – I love drawing him, I don’t know why. So, I bought a bunch of fabric, cut up a bunch of cardboard, burned my fingers, and made this:

It’s the first time I’ve ever set up anything that I would need to actually photograph (namely the pins and rope), and I had a lot of fun doing it. I’d like to mess around with collage more, because making my lil’ Vonnegut was the highlight of this thing.

But what do you guys think?