Character Animation Showreel!

My new showreel! Hopefully things will start going now. I graduated about two weeks ago. Tomorrow my boyfriend and I will be heading to America for a month, ending our trip in Vancouver, Canada. We'll be staying there for a year to go to work! Exciting!

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Lydia's Portfolio

Old village

When I was in Valence I started making this as a practice. It's gonna be a short animation. Just set it up to practice almost everything. A bit of modeling (scenes as well as characters), working with surface shaders, lighting, rigging etc. By now I thnk the town is kinda done. I'm currently working on the character -----

Lydia's Portfolio

Lipsync

One of the two assignments at Gobelins Summer School was a lipsync / acting assignment.
This is what I made of it, I guess.. Well, it's never really done.

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Lydia's Portfolio

Gobelins Summer School: Yoshi Tamura

Already the last masterclass.
These two weeks at Gobelins were over far too soon. I would like it to be for at least two months, instead of only two weeks. It's now about 2 to 3 months ago and I still miss Gobelins. The best experience ever!

The last workshop we got was the one of Yoshi Tamura. Yes, you should really click the link and see what he did at IMDB. His work is awesome! He worked together with Glen Keane on Tarzan, worked on The Hunchback of Notredame (Quasimodo), Princess and the Frog (Tiara), Igor and made Reflexion (which won an awesome price at Siggraph.

Yoshi told us some things about acting and interstiong things about how to really express emotions. I was really surpised to hear that Yoshi never works with the graph editor in Maya. He says he's used to do everything by eye, probably because of his 2D background.
And he gave an interesting perspective about how the background itself is a character too.

Most of the masterclass he did he filled with showing us his work and telling stories about the studios and work he did and how he got in. It was really interesting to listen to him and honestly, I was honored to get a masterclass from Yoshi. It was epic.

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Lydia's Portfolio

Gobelins Summer School: Alexandre Heboyan

The before last teacher at Gobelins Summer School 2012 was Alexandre Heboyan. He taught us most about the different kind of filmindustries (America vs. Europe), camera and  acting and movement during lipsync / acting in different bodyparts.

Alexandre is working on a movie of his own. He's going to be de director of Mune which is going to start production next year. He explained a little about Mune, told us the synopsis (it is totally awesome! About myths about the sun and the moon, you should really keep eye on this project) and showed some tests and concept art they had 'till now.

During his lessons he had some really cool interaction with everyone, played out some examples and told us about energy levels in the body. I read some more about it, but I still need to get into this part more.

The parts I found most interesting is when he told us about the importance in the movement when using lipsync. I was suprised to know that the lips aren't that much important at all. First the eyes (mask), silhouette, shoulders and neck (and maybe even hips before that if you see the hips) and then come the lips. And always to put the movement first; what I mean by this is that when you hear an "O", put the shape of the "O" two frames before you hear the sound. Only then it's right for the eye.

When you see a full body, hips are the most important. I was well aware of that. What I wasn't aware of was that he told us he read an article about some kind of test. In the test they only showed footage of the hips / hipmovement of certain people. The conclusion was that relatives and close friends can recognize people they know only from the movement of the hips. That's just amazing! So always work on the hips and try to give your character a great sense of weight.

Alexandre gave us an acting / lipsync assignment afterwards and helped us out in the workshops that followed. Learned a lot during that time. 

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Lydia's Portfolio

Gobelins Summer School: Mike L. Murphy

On the Friday and the Monday we Mike L. Murphy came to give us some masterclasses.
His masterclasses were really interesting and above all, motivating. It immediatally got me to want to go to work on my stuff and make it look great. Plus, he worked on lots of big studio's, but he told us he applied for jobs over a 100 times before he really got into the industry. That gave me some courage to stay focusing. Just work harder, and keep holding on.

He first told about his work and his time at CalArts, also about his film with which he applied to the studio's: Pig Out (made in 1997):

With this he told us how important it was to add time. Always give the character time to think. And he told a lot about the "want", always let your character have a want. That's what makes us be alive and how you can get an emotional curve. The first day he told most about acting and comedy. Too bad we only had class untill 13.00h 'cause it was really interesting. But in the afternoon he did some more "lectures" in the workshops, live animating.

The next day the biggest part of the story was about comedy, marketing and selling yourself, be a brand. I really learned so much from this. When I got home a made a few important changes to my website and asked for some feedback on my businesscard and adjusted that one to. Finally got some businesscards printed when I got back home, yay!

Later on in my blog I'll post some more information about Mike L. Murphy, since I joined his Monthly Mentoring lessons. You can find some more information about him and his lessons overhere.

 

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Lydia's Portfolio 

Two weeks of Gobelins!

The past two weeks I followed Gobelins Summer School. It was the best experience ever! Awesome masterclasses, epic teachers, and great classmates!

Most days we had masterclasses from 10 in the morning 'till 1, lunch and after that workshop with the teachers untill 5. You were allowed to start at 8 in the morning and stay untill 8 in the evening to practice some more, so that's what I did. Get as much time in Gobelins as possible! I would certainly recommand this Summer School to everyone who is interested in animation.

We got masterclasses from Fred Nagorny, who is the only permanent teacher at Gobelins. He is just brilliant. He has a really mathimatical way of approaching animation, but even though I don't really like math, it was so interesting! Not to mention how useful it was. It's a whole different way of approaching stuff, at least it is for me, but it works just great.
We had three days of masterclasses with him, which was the most time we had with one teacher, but I couldn't get enough of listening to him.

After him we would have gotten masterclasses from Kyle Balda, but because of his thight production schedule, he unfortunately was only able to do the opening. We got Mike L. Murphy instead. His lessons were really intersting. Mike explained a lot about characters, comedy, acting and marketing yourself. I got some great tips. We had Mike's masterclasses for two days.

Then we got Alexandre Heboyan for two days. He explained some more about acting and emotions, and a lot of things about the filmindustry itself, using camera's, film in general. Most of the film-stuff he told was recognizable from the lessons I got at the Filmacademy where I do my current study. He gave really good feedback during the workshops.

The last masterclass was give by Yoshi Tamura. Oh, I was so looking forward to it! But the biggest part of the lesson we got to see his work and he told a lot about his expierence, which were both really great to hear about too.

During the workshops the teachers of the masterclasses helped and there were about four other teachers who didn't give masterclasses, but helped out at the workshops. One of them was Vincent Garcia. He helped me a lot during the workshops and I learned so much of him.

It were two really intense weeks. Everything about it was just wow!
I will miss it a lot, but I'm really happy I got to experience this.

Walkcycle for Fred's assignment:

 

Unfinished blocking for Mike's acting / lipsync assignment (I will finish this later on): 

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Lydia's Portfolio