Industry indents: Bobby Pontillas

Hi all,
I have done them before, now I am making it a semi-regular thing! Every now and again I'll write an entry on what inspires my work, from artists to companies this section will explore different aspects of creativity. If I am granted permission I shall post knowledge I have gained from animation conferences that I have visited... Hopefully along with some new quotes!

For the first artist entry however I shall look at Bobby Pontillas' work, and show you all why I'm inspired by him.


Animation:

 

Pontillas currently works for Disney Animation, having previously worked on Rio for Blue sky after graduating from Animation Mentor. From here on out this is purely my opinion of his work, as it is not backed up by other sources.
Pontillas has a talent for excitable movements, knowing how to overlap and follow through his work to portray the characters settling; this can be seen in his animation of Blue primarily, however also through Anna. Making his work an inspiration to me, mainly because although I can hit key frames, I struggle with believable 'moving holds'. Due to my struggle I went looking for other animator's work to see their techniques, and stumbled upon Pontillas.

In his scene with Anna, you can see his comedic use of timing when matching the music to Anna's arm movements, does not end with the note itself... His cushioning of her arms are minimal but can be seen.

The pattern I have noticed with his work is incredible speed to a key, which, once hit, slows down for cushion.

I am currently studying his work while animating my current PMF project...

However after stumbling across his animation, it struck me that I had heard his name before... Well... Not heard, read... So I found his blog.

Character Design

Not only is Pontillas a talented animator, he is also a talented character designer; his ability to pick out traits to caricature can be seen on his blog.

(I am hoping these link back to him)

I personally admire the texture and lines he achieves with his digital work, there's such a human quality to all aspects of his art and animation. If you are unfamiliar with his artwork then let me point you to the Art of Wreck it Ralph where his art is gorgeous!!

(I went to go and hunt y'all some of his beautiful wreck it Ralph pictures... But couldn't help but gaze at all his character arts on his blog)

On that note, I shall just leave you all to stare at his beautiful art on his blog and stunning animation on his vimeo!

Claire - OUT -

Animation thumbs

Some of my animation thumbnail notes...

Industry Indent: Double negative

Established in 1998 Double Negative, or Dneg for short, have worked on several exciting projects both for
major studios, Harry Potter, Skyfall, Man of Steel, etc. and independant film makers for films like Shaun of the Dead, Paul, Attack The Block, etc. 
They have won an academy award for Inception, as well as four VES awards (three for Inception) and two BAFTA awards, one for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, and the other for Inception.



Their pieces range from Character animation (Paul) to vehicle animation (Rush) and crowd animation (John Carter), again another diverse range of work that thrills me when I see it. Double Negative was another studio that visited USW in 2013, and gave a fantastic talk on their involvement with the animation of the Tharks in John Carter. Specifically they talked about the crowd scenes featuring the Tharks, such as the gladiator ring scene with the White Apes... Who are petrifying! For all those who paint John Carter with the 'flop' brush, I urge you to watch the film again with fresh eyes, the VFX are glorious, the realistic character animation on the Tharks is fantastic, and how they solved the whole four arm idles is brilliant. The film itself is well worth the watch just for all the Thark scenes, as you can see the heart and soul poured into the characters, each bringing a believable human aspect to the film. If you believe the story has influences from other Sci-fi hits like Star wars, then read the origins for the script, as the book 'John Carter of Mars' was produced early 20th century, and is in fact the stem of the other Sci-fis! Anyway, I'm detracting!
In fact this talk was the one to get me into rigging, due to the sequences they showed of all the facial animation, and how the deform shapes, and underneath muscles, were triggered by controls. However the main appeal of this talk to me how they interpreted the motion capture data for four armed characters, describing how the arms were arranged for dominate and recessive actions. This blend between motion capture and realistic key-framed animation is what drew me towards the studio. I approached the team after the talk and I was very fortunate... and very cheeky as I asked... to arrange a visit to Dneg late last near when they were in full production of a film I cannot mention because of reasons... However I am very excited to see it in the Cinema!!
If you cannot tell from my typing, I have been very inspired by the realistic animation Dneg has produced over the years, and cannot wait to see more! See you later, Claire

Birthdays and fun stuff

Hi all,
Been slightly inactive this week due to one major cause:
It was my 21st!!
Aiming to update with more precise details later... along with photos and things.
But in the mean time have a taste of what's to come... As I have a new tech baby!

Deer painting

Working on something for Uni and it involved painting a stylised deer fully rendered... Which I really enjoyed. Quite proud of it too so I'll just leave it here.

See you soon,
Claire

PMF - Producer Dialogue

So much for those sketches the other day right? Sorry, I had a couple of deadlines to attend to, but most of its out of the way now, so I get to host more stuff for you guys now! Including this:

My current version of the Pigs may fly lipsync... I'm a bit worried because I am only meant to be doing 20 seconds for each topic.... HMMMM... Oh well!
Hope you guys enjoy,
Any feedback would be appreciated!
See you soon,
Claire

Industry Indents: MPC

MPC is another amazing VFX company based in London, Vancouver, Montréal, Los Angeles, New York, Amsterdam, Bangalore and Mexico City. With these many facilities it will come as no surprise that they produce such a great volume of fantastic visuals.

MPC has worked on Advertisements and film, made possible by a team of talented and enthusiastic artists. Examples of their amazing hard work can be see below:

So.. why does this inspire me? Well, how can such awe creating team work not inspire a person in this medium?

More importantly when did this company become inspiring to me? On Feb 27th this year, I attended a VFX masterclass  presented by MPC's Adam Davis, on the VFX and crowd simulation in World War-Z. Davis described to us the difficult use of motion capture data, caused by the awkward twists a half dead zombie makes while grasping for the next host; well... the guy mimicking the zombie at any rate. The studio brought in people who could twist their extremities in such ways, the motion capture data was getting confused and glitched. Davis also described the hero animation system MPC made up for both World war-Z and Lone Ranger. Their VFX breakdowns for world war-Z can be seen below:

MPC has a great diversity in the realistic animation they produce, with many different subjects, in both advertising and feature films, has made me aspire to produce such diversity in my work. They have character, creature and object animation in their commercial reel alone, and I should aim to have the same in mine! Hopefully I will have a diverse, realistic, and dynamic showreel for VFX by the end of summer...

Thanks again,

See you soon,

Claire