...3 years later...

Hello again. It's been a while, and in that while I've managed to pass my degree. As surprising as it may be, 3 years after leaving home for the first time and taking the plunge into uni I've graduated with a first class degree in Computer Animation Arts from Bournemouth University. WOOOHOOO!

Anyhow, so now I'm in the process of job hunting, sending out applications etc. It's going okay but as of yet I've had no luck. In my spare time now I'm working on my animation and rigging skills, focusing on my acting performances. I'm also in the near future going to look at doing a VFX shot by myself. Film a quick plate, then track it and animate something to composite into the shot. This will be a great learning curve and will hopefully make me a more suitable fit for VFX houses in London.

Tomorrow is the Computer Animation degree show for me and I'm looking forward to that and hopefully making some connections and leads on the job front. Talking of which, below is my new animation showreel, and my generalist showreel.


Animation reel:




Generalist Reel:






That's it, just a quick update about where I am right now. Hopefully I'll have some work to show once my big PC is fixed, and maybe a job too. Wish me luck for tomorrow!

Stu

So... nearly... there...

Well hello again fellow interneters. It's been over two weeks since my last post, so I think it's time for a good old fashioned progress update (and maybe a cheeky plug).

First of all, the major project! It's going well, as of today I only have 6 more shots to animate. So by the end of next week (fingers crossed) I should be done with my shots and ready to set my computer rendering. Talking of rendering we have nearly finalised our characters. We just need to tweak a few displacements maps and turn down the glossyness of the Doctor's gloves. But here you are, two rendered tudor London gentlemen.




And here is a quick turntable with a bit of animation to show the blend shapes of the sick man in action.




I obviously can't take credit for all of the hard work that's gone into these characters. So if you're interested about who did what:

Jenesta Smith - Modelling, Blend shapes, Displacement & Specular Maps.
Agatha Gomes - Character Design & Texture Maps.
Lewis Haley - Hair, Sub Surface Shader & Render set-up.
and Myself - Rigging & Pose/Animation.

...(Cheeky plug coming up)

In other news it's getting close to the end of my time at university and the reality of job hunting is looming over my head. So with my new show reel up and running I've started to apply for various internships out there. One of which is the CGSA awards, you can check out my entry here. I'd be very grateful if you could check it out, and if you like it please vote and share it with others. Thanks!

Finally, since putting my show reel together I've been mulling over what kind of animation I'd really like to hone and focus my skills in, creature animation or more performance based character animation. I know they share a lot of similarities, and I love doing both. But I really feel like I need to have a better grasp of one in order to focus my job applications. I might go more into this in another post, but I'm still going over it in my head and I don't want to waffle too long.

So that's it for another blog post, hope you liked what you saw/read.

Take care,

Stu