Hands

I love hands...
I think the human hand is one of the most expressionist and aesthetic part in the human body. They can "say" so much in pantomime, are very interesting to look at and you can tell a lot about a person just by looking at his hands (and don't forget there is an entire language based upon the hands alone! - the sign language).
At AnimationMentor we've learned about making intersting and non-cliche poses (among many other things) which I totally agree - it's so important to think while blocking you characters poses.

I've found information about hands in several blogs during the last few weeks, and I wanted to share it with the rest of you.

Here are several samples I've found, I even try and eye-copied the poses I found to be the most interesting in my opinion.

Nick Brunos's Blog:
http://nickytwoshots.blogspot.com/2008/10/hands.html

Leif Jeffers Blog:
http://www.leifjeffers.com/ramblings/

Carlos Baena's Blog (Also a lot of other great stuff there too):
http://www.carlosbaena.com/anim_material.html

New giraffs - coming along nicely

Since I really REALLY didn't like the giraffs in the older version, today I set down and started to work on the new updated generation.
I think they look much more interesting and good looking (It's ok - I'm already married ;)

Here are the new pencil sketches, and tomorrow - I'll go back and add them in...

My Train Project - WIP

This is the biggest (and as far as regarding my drawings, also the longest) project I've ever been working on. I'm intending to print it on canvas once it's done, and to decorate my little baby girl (she has about 2-3 months to go ;).

Here's a low res' version showing what I've managed to do so far. Since I'm working on this personal project with my wife, I've found myself doing a lot of forward-backward progress (until she approves...).

Oh well... anyway, here it is for now. I still have a lot to change, including those two ugly Giraffes (which my wife loves but I wish to slaughter or at least - replace).

By the way, the entire drawing was done with Photoshop (after the sketching was made with a pencil and then scanned to the computer).

Kangaroo

Here's a pencil sketch I've made during Saturday.
I hope I'll have the time and pleasure of coloring it on Photoshop some time soon...

Look what just came in the mail!

This is the end of an amazing journey I took...
There were moments I had thought to my self "is it really what you want to do for the rest of your life?" since animation is one of the most difficult and demanding form of art there is, but the answer is "definitely! yes!"

Thank you AnimationMentor for allowing me taking this journey.

Stay Cool is being screened in the IFCT festival in Los Angeles!

It's so cool seeing my short film in the same list with many other animated short films!
I consider this to be a great honor to show my short film infront of a live audience which actually paid (!) to see it (well, they didn't pay to see it specificly, but still, you know...)
I feel it's the beginning of the realization of my dream.


The link to the IFCT Schedule Los Angeles Shorts:

Made Me Lough

Here's a cute short video, showing a slightly different version of the Star Wars Saga.

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.