Brian Nixon

Assault on Charlotte Motor Speedway

2011-11-26T18:42:00.000-08:00

I figured I already spent enough money this month on a new car, so why not spend Black Friday driving it! The Charlotte Motor Speedway has an annual sale on NASCAR merchandise and opens the track up to anyone with a car and $25 to go out and drive a few laps on the track. A few of us met up with a group of Mazda Miata enthusiasts and did a group of laps together. There were right around 20 Miatas of all ages from Virginia through Georgia all there to take on the track.

In the morning, I had to take a quick photo op with some very cool looking fog hanging over the small lake in Blythewood on the way up to Charlotte. I compiled some of the better portions of the photos and footage from the day. Driving and filming duties were shared by both Brian and Robert Nixon. Had a music track in there, but Youtube won't allow it for copyright reasons so I'll hopefully have some audio on there a little later on. Sorry for the silence. Enjoy!

Final Work on the Miata for the Weekend

2011-11-20T18:26:00.000-08:00

As a quick recap, it was pointed out that I failed to mention trading in the Pontiac a couple weeks ago for a 2004 Mazda Miata. After a lot of research and test drives, I found my current car. It's a Mazdaspeed edition which makes it the only Miata to ever get a turbocharger from the factory, increasing its overall power by about 25%. On top of added power, all of the suspension and chassis is up-rated to be more sporty.

Today started out looking good to complete my exterior detailing, but started raining by the time I had finished. Today I used a clay bar, polished and waxed a car for the first time. Got a lot of tiny scratches and swirl marks out of the paint, and now all the water beads up and rolls right off. Looking forward to seeing it in the sunlight tomorrow.

Having a roof over the car wash area at the apartment complex came in handy today. Hopefully next weekend I should have received the cleaner and protectant I ordered online for the cloth convertible top, so it will keep keeping me dry.

iPod Recall

2011-11-20T07:56:00.000-08:00

While cleaning out my old emails from the last month I noticed one from Apple which I hadn't previously noticed. There is a recall on the first generation iPod Nano to ensure the batteries used don't explode as they age. Unfortunately, this means I will loose my customized "Brian Nixon Don't Fake the Funk" engraving. Since I still use it 6 years later (which is pretty miraculous for modern technology), I suppose it might be better to not risk having it melt through my pocket one day and trade it in.

Automotive Dentistry and Other Car Care

2011-11-19T17:20:00.000-08:00

I've had the Miata for a couple weeks now and I had a list of various basic maintenance items I wanted to take care of, so today I set out for the famous Nixon's Blythewood Garage in Blythewood, South Carolina.

One of the cosmetic modifications the true Miata enthusiasts make is to remove their car's "baby teeth". There are two metal loops attached to the front of the car's frame to help secure it when shipping from Japan and are not very useful for much else. When you look at it head-on, they stick down at an angle that make them look like goofy teeth. It's a simple procedure; reach into the mouth and unbolt them without scraping your knuckles on the inter-cooler. I've tried to show one of the baby teeth sticking out in the photo below, and after removal in the second photo.

Next, I needed to thoroughly clean the carpet. It's in great condition, but after sitting out in it's first rain this week I quickly spotted a disconnected drainage hose in the passenger foot well thanks to a fantastic new aroma. I took this opportunity to remove both seats and clean all the carpet (and attach a metal clamp to hold the hose on from here on out).

...and if "Mazdaspeed" on the back of the car, rear view mirror, tachometer, foot sills, and oil cap, floor mats, and muffler weren't enough to remind you it's the special edition car...

All of the interior was cleaned, teeth extracted, and drainage repaired today. Tomorrow I'll take a shot at the exterior with a wash, polish and wax to finish getting it in top condition.

New Design and Some Great Sketching Inspiration

2011-07-09T11:21:00.001-07:00

I've been working on concepts to re-design my website and blog to be a more cohesive style. Hopefully in the coming months, I will develop my website to more reflect the blog design. After checking out some videos at ID Sketching I was inspired to keep working with traditional media and then use the computer to complete any shading and color work. I really love the industrial and product design work on their site. ID Sketching has a great wealth of knowledge for anyone looking to brush up on sketching techniques or just looking to get inspired by other work. It's nice to watch other people complete a drawing from a sketch to really compare techniques and look for other ways to improve my own work.

Below is the ballpoint pen sketch that was scanned in to make the new blog header.

New GPU

2011-06-30T15:33:00.001-07:00

After 4 years, my old video card finally died last week. I have been using my old computer for playing streaming video from the internet through the tv for a few months now and it's been very handy. When it booted up with blotches of purple pixels and wouldn't send any signal a few times, I knew it was time to replace it. Opting for a cheaper card now that its not my main work computer, I bought a Radeon 5450. The old card was a 3870. The new card is the smaller one.

West to Tulsa

2011-05-05T19:30:00.001-07:00

I'm heading out to Tulsa, Oklahoma for a long weekend to celebrate my sister's college graduation. Looking forward to taking some pictures with my new lens over the next few days. Until then, i'm making do with the android camera in the Dallas airport.

Photo Updates

2011-04-30T09:41:00.001-07:00

I've had a bunch of different photos sitting on my camera for awhile and thought I should finally get those on the computer and see if there was anything I could do with them. Most of these were shot with my 50mm lens, which I'm starting to get a better feel for shooting with, and there are a few with my new (used) 70-300mm lens. The 70-300mm has some macro capability, giving more magnification and close-focusing capability.

My main goal with the new lens is to get some better close-ups at Katie's graduation in Tulsa next weekend. Everyone will also be happy to know that the wide-angle lens I had at her last graduation, which produced some unfavorable photos, will not be making the trip. I need some more practice with the new lens before the trip, so hopefully I'll make it out tomorrow for some more test shots.

Concept Art

2011-04-16T10:09:00.001-07:00

Lately I've been incredibly interested in concept cars and automotive design. I think if I were to win the lottery this week I'd find a school for automotive design, learn what I could, and then buy a big warehouse and start designing and building cars just for fun.

This weekend I'm planning on using up half my pencils and paper drawing. I attempted a digital car sketch this week, but i'm even more out of practice with my digital tablet than I thought. I'll have to keep at it and get some of those up here in a couple weeks.

My friend, James, who I'm writing an animation script with has just finished up a semester with an online animation school, so we're looking forward to making progress again soon as well.

Behind the New Apartments

2011-04-05T19:31:00.000-07:00

The other day I wandered into Sesquicentennial State Park on a small trail behind my new apartment complex. I was curious to check it out and was also interested in seeing what I could do with the camera on my new phone. I'm probably not going to be working for National Geographic any time soon with these, but I thought that tiny camera did a decent job. I also haven't posted in awhile, so I thought I should just prove I'm not dead yet.

In Princeton, Day 5

2011-03-11T11:22:00.001-08:00

The week is finally wrapping up and we're waiting to board our flight out of Newark. Unfortunately I didn't ever manage to go out and wander the Princeton campus or take any really cool photos, but it was very productive for work. I suppose that was the goal. Looking forward to being home this weekend for my birthday!

I will, unfortunately be missing the Princeton Pi Day activities on Monday.

In Princeton, Day 4

2011-03-10T16:57:00.001-08:00

Finally met the rest of my software deployment team today. We hosted 2 meetings with our client to introduce and discuss the software we will be giving them.

It was an excellent experience to learn about dealing with clients and understanding how they view the work we do.

This photo is from the cafeteria here. This grid of fluorescent lights has a pretty cool retro look.

In Princeton, Day 3

2011-03-09T18:53:00.001-08:00

It's been another productive day, and now its time for some Dunkin Donuts and some sketching. No Tim Hortons down here yet, but Dunkin will do for now.

In Princeton, Day 2

2011-03-08T18:29:00.001-08:00

It's nice not getting up at 3am. Today was another very busy day. Still haven't gotten out to take any photos of Princeton's awesome campus, but did enjoy a local brewery for dinner.

I got to meet more of my project team today and i'm even more excited about deploying our new software. It's really great to work with so many people in person instead of on the phone. Looking forward to 3 more equally busy days.

In Princeton, Day 1

2011-03-08T05:11:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I flew up to New Jersey for a week long business trip in Princeton. I haven't seen Dr. House yet, but I'm sure he's around. There is some awesome architecture around and hopefully I can find time to take some pictures when i'm not going through town in the car.

We flew into Newark, where you can barely see NYC from the airport. Also there is a Budweiser brewery next to the car rental lot. The other shots are from Princeton.

Explosive Disc-a-rea

2011-02-19T09:28:00.000-08:00

BAM!

An explosion rocked the innards of my computer case.

Oh Crap. Oh Crap. Oh Crap.

The new heat sink just blew off the the CPU....it's going to melt down...China Syndrome....Oh Crap....

In a panic, fearing total system destruction, I ran to simultaneously hit the power button on the front of the case while flipping the switch on the surge protector and then yanked the power cord out of the back of the case.

Should I be wearing one of those silver suits with gloves?

Wait...no smoke yet...

I quickly removed the thumb screws holding the side panel off the case before the fans even had time to stop spinning after I cut the power.

A quick inspection revealed no blast radius or sagging, melted plastic pieces around the CPU.

Okay, whew, that SEEMS okay for now. What else?

My eyes sped around the motherboard, searching for something out of place.

Nope. Everything was fine. Nothing was giving off too much heat, all the wires were connected where they were supposed to be, and there wasn't even that amazing burning plastic smell. Hmm...well, maybe the DVD drive? I was using it at full capacity for the last hour and a half. There was that episode of Mythbusters where they heard a rumor about CD drives causing discs to explode. But they decided it was a myth. Hmmm...better check it out any way.

I unscrewed the four little screws holding the drive in it's five and a quarter inch bay and slide it out.

A light shake brought back that all too familiar sound from many Christmases....Legos...or that distinct sound of little pieces of plastic colliding within a small box.

Crap.

There goes Earth, Wind, and Fire's Greatest Hits. And a DVD drive.

Ironically I was in the middle of digitally backing up my entire CD collection in case anything were ever to happen to my CDs. It looks like the Project Manager on this one didn't fully understand the potential risks before initiating the project.

Oh well, I'm just glad the new CPU heat sink is okay. In the end a new copy of the CD can be found for $10 and the drive was replaced for about $18. I'm just glad the explosion wasn't any louder or I would also be replacing a pair of pants. I love the Mythbusters, but I think they missed something in their experiments, because I just blew up a CD in a standard, non-modified DVD drive during normal operation.

Realizing that I would never be sure to get all the pieces of a broken CD out of the drive, I opened it up and took this picture with my phone.

Script Writing

2011-02-19T09:08:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted any progress about the animation project James and I are working on, but rest assured, we're full steam ahead.

We have continued to keep writing and revising our script at least once a week (for the most part) over the last few months. It's amazing when you're not crunched for time and trying to make deadlines how far you can develop a project you're working on. Normally, for class-projects and everything else we've worked on you get about a month, maybe two to work on the script before you need to start getting into pre-production and cranking out assets (character designs, models, textures, all those bits of artwork that go into making a film). You generally have to take whatever you come up with in the first couple weeks and just go with it.

This time around, we're really working our script up to a higher level of detail. I don't think I've ever seriously revised a piece of writing to this level. It's really fun to continue to develop a plot so far beyond the initial idea that you look back and can't believe you've made it this far. It's awesome to be able to really go through the writing process without feeling like you have to start working on the film yet.

We originally wanted to start getting feedback on the script around now, but the story has been developing beyond where we thought we would be able to take it, and continues to get better every week.

I have no idea when this will be ready to send out for revisions and for everyone else to read, but I know when it does, it will be very thought out. I've always wanted to finish a piece and be able to say that everything about it was done with intention, and this is shaping up to be one of those projects.

Computer Upgrades

2011-02-10T09:47:00.001-08:00

Over the Christmas holiday I upgraded a few key pieces of hardware on my desktop computer. At about 3 years old it was just starting to show its age, and with an animation project in the works, the upgrades would have quickly become a necessity.

Here's an idea of what got upgraded:
Processor: 2.66ghz dual core to a 3.2ghz quad core
RAM: 2gb ddr2 800mhz to 8gb ddr3 1333mhz
OS: Vista 32bit to windows7 64bit
GPU: still running the geforce9800gt that I bought in march
PSU: same 600w
Storage: old 500gb hdd, plus a new 60gb SSD as a boot drive

Not top of the line, but it kept me under budget and the performance increase is amazing.

New Phone

2011-02-05T21:40:00.001-08:00

Just got a new phone plan and phone this week. Trying out the blogger Mobile app. Pretty cool. I was trying to post a newer image, but it is having issues tonight. Here's a shot from the last Carolina football game I was at. Go Cocks!

WHEW!

2011-01-21T13:56:00.000-08:00

Wow, it has been awhile. It's finally Friday afternoon, and a majority of my stuff is no longer boxed up and somewhat organized somewhere in my new apartment. It's been an exciting and busy two months since my last post. In the coming weeks I'll be posting some progress and stuff I've been working on over the Christmas season. Most of all I'm excited about the script to the animation project I'm working on is very close to being ready to be sent out for some critique.

Until I get a little more organized and can put some visuals up here, I want to thank everyone for the Christmas gifts and cards and for reminding me there were no new posts up here. :)

I hope everyone else is having a great new year! Stay tuned...

Head Shots

2010-11-30T18:29:00.000-08:00

In case you were worried I was only taking pictures of cars these days...

While my sister was in town we went out and took some shots around town, hoping to get something that might potentially work as a head shots. We were trying to come up with some non-conventional shots that would show off Katie's more creative side rather than the traditional stiff, studio portraits. I'm not sure how we came up with any energy that morning trying to catch the early prime hours of daylight but we did. We had fun and came up with a few good ones.

I quickly realized how difficult portrait photography is, despite all I knew about photography in general. Who knows if these will pass the final cut and actually find their way in with resumes and job applications, but it was great hanging out for the day.

New Car

2010-11-28T18:43:00.001-08:00

With a few days off around Thanksgiving, I finally decided to get a new (used) car. 2007 Pontiac G6 GT Coupe.

Animatin'

2010-11-11T16:43:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a few months since I posted about my animation project and I wanted to put up an update. Three weeks ago, my friend James and I decided to team up. While riding back from the Ottawa trip, we realized we wanted to work on a similar animation concept and now we're making it happen. We're now a few weeks into concept development and things are really going well. The rough outline for the project is almost complete and the ideas are still flowing. Hoping to get some more posts over the next year or so as we work toward a completed film in May of 2012 to submit to the Ottawa Animation Festival that year.

Kayaking on the Congaree

2010-11-07T17:14:00.000-08:00

Went for a short kayaking trip on the Congaree River, launching from almost under the Gervais Street bridge and followed the river east for about 2 miles. Was fun to be out on the water for a little while today. It's mostly a wide, slower moving river, but we did get a couple class 1 rapids which can be fun in a little kayak. Sorry again for the lower quality pictures, just didn't feel safe taking the big camera out on the water...at least until I get a waterproof setup. :)

Ottawa Trip 2010

2010-10-28T15:33:00.001-07:00

Well, back from Ottawa and I've finally gotten enough sleep to catch up my posts online. Unfortunately the internet connection in the hotel proved to be too slow for uploads without loosing sanity, but here we go...

First up, congratulations to Jim for his work on "The External World", which won Best In Show for the festival this year! It was great and I'm looking forward to watching it again as soon as I can get a copy.

I took a lot of photos with my compact digital camera instead of toting the big Nikon out through the freezing cold and on and off precipitation. The little camera has a fun panorama option which as long as you can see the screen enough, it turns out pretty decent for being all done in camera. We seemed to have spent a lot of time going across the bridge into Quebec and to the screenings at the Museum of Civilization, so here's some shared experience (minus the blistered foot).

Snow in Ottawa in October! I believe "Ottawa" is a Canadian word meaning "freakin' cold, eh!"

On the way up to the festival, I made a quick stop in Oakridge Tennessee. I've had a growing fascination with the aesthetics of the 1940s and 1950s in America for a little while now, and to see a top secret facility that helped fuel the Manhattan project to decide the major events shaping those times is pretty cool. The overlook wasn't exceptionally scenic, but in the distance you could make out the Y12 facility where they produced Uranium for the atomic bombs. I managed to drive around the facility to the opposite side and it truly is an impressively large building. There are a lot of streets blocked off around it, so unfortunately I don't have any better photos. I believe the lump of building just behind the trees in the middle of the photo is the Y12 Complex

German Car Show

2010-10-17T09:12:00.001-07:00

Saturday was the annual car show at the BMW factory here in South Carolina. These are just a few pictures, but more are posted on my Facebook page for anyone who wants to see more photos. It's about time for me to start packing for the Ottawa trip, so check back regularly this week for photos from my 2000 mile round trip journey!

British Car Show Photos

2010-10-03T11:16:00.001-07:00

This weekend I went to check out a British car show at Ft. Jackson here is South Carolina. Pretty cool variety of stuff. I wish I had brought my wider-angle lens, some of these ended up being pretty tight shots of the cars. Unlike the last car show I did remember my polarizer-filter to help cut out some of the glaring sun and excessive reflections. Looks like there is a German car show coming up in two weeks, so maybe I'll finally get the right combination of lens and filters for that one.

New Desk

2010-09-29T18:43:00.001-07:00

It's been a little while since I've posted, but I've got quite a bit of stuff coming up in October and through the end of the year, so stay tuned.

Over the weekend I ventured north to IKEA. No, not Sweden, just Charolette. I found a new desk that would better house my computer system and give me more free desk space on my larger desk for other projects. Now I can house all my computer gear on one desk instead of scattered all over the room. The best feature of the desk is the adjustment of the shelves. By lowering one, I can now keep my monitors exactly at eye level while allowing the keyboard to slide under them which also lets me sit closer to the screens. It feels like I'm working with much larger monitors now that they're being viewed from the proper distance and height.

The addition of the two old floor-standing speakers (thanks mom and dad!) rounds out the new setup. It's nice to have the extra clarity in sound that was lacking from the small iPod speaker dock I was using before.

Coming up: Ottawa International Animation Festival 2010, only a few weeks away!

A Most Excellent Jersey

2010-08-28T08:42:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I traveled to Charleston, where the South Carolina Stingrays of the East Coast Hockey League were having a "garage sale". They had a large amount of merchandise from their old logo, which was used from the club's formation in the early 90's through about 2000. I grabbed a couple shirts and sweatshirts, but this authentic jersey was the find of the day. Minor league jerseys and logos are so terribly cheese you have to love it. This is definitely my favorite minor league jersey now...or at least until I finally get my Toledo Walleye jersey.

The New Job

2010-08-28T08:26:00.000-07:00

I finally put my two weeks notice in with Xerox in preparation to start a project manager position with CSC. I'm really looking forward to working for CSC as a project manager because it will allow me to build my leadership skills and learn more about all the different cutting edge technology they are working on. I am professionally departing from the animation world for awhile to see how project management works for me. I've been realizing I prefer taking lead roles on projects that I worked on in school and I'm really just more interested in keeping things organized and coordinating everyone's work rather than just sitting down and animating for 12 hours a day.

I still love animation and hopefully in a few years I can try to work with it professionally again, but for now my skills have taken me to CSC and I'm excited as ever for this new opportunity.

I am still planning on launching the new animation blog with Jon, but since both of our professional lives will be very busy for the next month (congrats on the job at U. of Wisconsin!) we'll be delaying the launch of the site.

Stay tuned.

Top Hats off to the Top 8

2010-08-09T20:44:00.000-07:00

A little overdue, but I wanted to put a shout out to Jon down at SCAD for his awesome character development. It has landed him a spot in the top 8 animators pitching characters and TV show concepts at the Ottawa International Animation Festival this year. He is well on his way to being rich and famous. Subsequently he will be getting me an awesome Christmas present this year, and for that sir, we give you the tip of the top hat. Congrats man!

More Animation Tests

2010-08-09T20:38:00.000-07:00

So aside from learning how to draw better, figure out how to put the drawings in the right places, I'm also trying to figure out the best way to export animation and not drop frames or have any "weird stuff" as the professionals might say.

We're in the middle of moving our print services at work in with the rest of the other corporate printing services at our new location, so it has been and will continue to be busy for another week, so sorry about the lack of posts lately, but it's nice to just crash after work now and again.

Plastic Animation Paper Test

2010-07-28T20:50:00.000-07:00

My friend Jacob, at Speaking of Animation recently posted about the release of Plastic Animation Paper, a 2D animation program, for free. I've been working with it today and yesterday and I'm really enjoying it. It's simple and easy to use. I've been wanting to work on my hand drawn animation for awhile, but have been finding Flash to be too slow for me. Flash is still looking to be my best option for the final look of my current project, but this will help me do quick tests and learn a little more before going into the final production.

This ball bounce is pretty rough, but that's something I plan to work on in the coming months with the help of Plastic Animation Paper.

Deep Clean Computer

2010-07-26T20:48:00.001-07:00

I've been using this keyboard for a little over 6 years now. It's moved from Virginia to Missouri, Ohio, back to Virginia for a brief summer and now resides here in South Carolina. Unfortunately my desk is normally my choice location for eating while also working almost every minute I'm around it. Stuff happens. In this case, six years of stuff has been happening and no volume of compressed air was really helping. It was time for a deep clean. Here's what your very own keyboard may look like below your fingertips...after it's been cleaned. I started pulling this bad boy apart about an hour and a half ago and now I'm typing again, so a fairly quick process for this particular peripheral.

Space Crullers

2010-07-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

Minions Unite!

2010-07-22T18:06:00.000-07:00

Just went to see "Despicable Me" last night and really enjoyed it. I've been sketching minions all day. It had some great cartoony animation and some very clever dialogue and gags. It was a really fun movie. I ended up seeing it in 3D since it was the only showing that was at a convenient time and I might have to watch it in 2D sometime and really get a good chance to watch it without the extra-dimensional-distractions. Check it out!

Getting Organized

2010-07-19T19:58:00.000-07:00

So, how do you organize several projects at once and keep all your spur of the moment notes visible on a desk that is in a state of permanent clutter? A GIANT CHALKBOARD! I had some extra MDF left from my framing project a few months ago, so I dropped $3 on a can of spray chalkboard paint and $2 on 100 pieces of chalk and BAM. At some point I may invest in a can of paint and a roller and hopefully get a little smoother finish, but for the price, I'm happy with the spray can for now.

With a new blog in the works, a short animated film on schedule to be completed by May, and a couple other things on the way I'm hoping this will keep a constant reminder of where I'm at and what I have left to do.

As a side note, if you are thinking of building your own chalkboard or using a chalkboard, see if you can actually find a store that sells regular sticks of chalk before you begin the project. Unless you really want to use gigantic sticks of sidewalk chalk.

Bob and Pandora

2010-07-18T17:19:00.000-07:00

I've been using Pandora for about 5 years now and it's been a great way to find new music that I might not have found otherwise. If you're not familiar with Pandora, it's an online radio station that anyone can log into for free. You create stations based on songs or artists. For instance I can type in "Red Hot Chili Peppers" and I'll get songs by the Chili Peppers as well as similar alternative rock bands. It will guess which songs you'll like by searching it's database and playing songs that have similar qualities associated with them. Everyone has their own tastes and just because I like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, it doesn't mean that I like every song they have or like every Green Day song or every Incubus song just because they're similar. You vote "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" on each song and selectively weed out tunes you don't want to hear, so after a few hours of listening your hearing more songs you like than don't like.

My Red Hot Chili Peppers station has been around since 2005 and it's started to morph into quite a wide range of songs, many of which don't really relate a lot to the Chilis anymore, but it's what I like.

Recently it started playing some Bob Marley. I haven't really heard much Bob, but I'm finding that there are a few songs of his that are just great. I'd like 'em even more if they were covered by the Chili Peppers, or maybe another more modern group that would blend in a little harder rock and boost the funky bass, but good songs none the less.

Pandora had to start playing commercials within the last year or so, but they have also started to offer Pandora One for about $3 a month. It offers superior audio quality and no commercials. I'm definitely glad I upgraded, it's been great having a huge variety of new stuff to listen to for the last few weeks as I've been spending more time on the computer getting some writing done for my current project.

New Blog Project!

2010-07-11T13:02:00.000-07:00

Hey, it's been a little sparse here lately because I've been involved with my friend Jon in getting a new blog setup. It's still in the early phases and we don't have any content ready yet, but we're both very excited to get it going. More details to come as it's fully launched in the next month.

3D Modeling Process

2010-07-06T19:38:00.001-07:00

I've been working with a small 3D modeling project in Autodesk Maya, and I thought I'd share some of the steps of building a 3D model. For this project I'm re-creating on of the large production printers I work with for use in the Unity gaming engine. The quality and detail level for this project need to be kept low and simple to allow it to be displayed faster and easier in the game engine. This means I need to find every way I can to simplify this object while still retaining enough detail that the viewer can look at it and know exactly what it is.

Above is the wire-frame view of the 3D model within the Maya interface. It's at a 3/4 view right now. I don't often work in this view, but it helps to see the geometry of the whole object at once.

More often I will be working in this flat-shaded view. This gives enough definition to the object to see how it's shaping up and get a sense of the form. Right now this could be a giant printer cake or a wooden box shaped like the printer so I will need to assign a texture. This texture is going to be an image that is wrapped around the object which will then make the printer look like a printer. Although a cake texture could be funny too, it's not quite what I need for this project.

To get an image to properly fit to an object in 3D space, I'll break apart all the different faces and geometric shapes and lay them all onto one flat square image file. A square cube is fairly simple to visualize flat...just six squares next to each other, where each square represents one side or face of the cube.

If you zoom in on the image, the geometric shapes will become more visible and you can see the patchwork of colors and images that have been pieced together. I used a combination of photos and hand-drawn images to create the final texture file for this printer in Photoshop.

When this file is brought into Maya and placed on top of the printer geometry it finally all comes together and starts to look like it has doors and handles and some more details.

This is not the complete project and there are a few more details to add to the texture file, but this is the basic process for creating objects in 3D space.

Fiiiiiiight!

2010-06-28T20:45:00.001-07:00

Here's the early stages of an illustration I'm working on. I've been trying this new style of illustrating in Photoshop and I like some of the results I've gotten. Starting off in grey tones has been helpful in figuring out how to get the tonal depth I need, and then later shifting those grey tones into colors. Still needs some work, but some forms are starting to come out.

Some B&W Photos From the Canal

2010-06-26T12:45:00.000-07:00

Photos Around Columbia, SC

2010-06-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

Here's a few pictures I took while venturing to the canal walk and downtown Columbia. I think I sweated out about half my weight in water, but it was a great trip. Really fascinating to see the old machinery at the canal. I'll have to plan another trip back in a few months when it cools off. The third photo is of one of my favorite buildings downtown on Blanding Street. There are a number of other cool buildings and locations downtown I would have liked to shot, but by noon it was time to head for the air conditioning.

Third Times the Charm

2010-06-24T18:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, droppin' a third post in one day...brace yourself. You can now access the blog by directing your browser to:

blog.nixonanimation.com

Blogger will auto-redirect the old address of nixonbt.blogspot.com, so most of you won't notice a change. This, along with my new email address will all hopefully work together to streamline my web presence and branding. As my website gets updated the blog will tie in more closely. Looks like my blog links and a few other things are still a little outta whack, but things should get all cleaned up by the end of the weekend and a few more days of tweaking. Another step forward for nixonanimation.com!

Christopher Mills

2010-06-24T18:13:00.000-07:00

At the Ottawa International Animation Festival in 2008 I got the chance to see a retrospective and meet Christopher Mills. He is a Canadian artist who primarily creates music videos for rock and indie bands. I was heavy into After Effects at the time, which is a major part of his technique in incorporating animation and video. I was absolutely blown away by his work and still am very inspired by it. His most current and recognizable work that I can think of is probably the Modest Mouse "Float On" video. I'm in the process of tracking down his work that has come out in the last year, so hopefully I'll have a post soon on his newer stuff.

I also highly recommend "The Flood, Pt. 1" from Canadian band, The Acorn. The story from that video continues on in "Crooked Legs", which you be able to easily access through Youtube as a related video.

Chris was nice enough to talk with me for about 15 minutes at the animators picnic that year and it was incredibly awesome to get to talk techniques and experiences working with some big name bands. Awesome.

Outside the Computer

2010-06-24T18:04:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a few things here and there off the computer as well. I'm still working on a painting for a friend, which is unfortunately progressing slower than I wanted and I had some extra canvas board things laying around, so I grabbed the ol' pen and spent some time this weekend drawing more abstract stuff. It's good to get that stuff out of your brain sometimes.

New Email!

2010-06-23T19:12:00.001-07:00

Well, I finally did it. Sorted through all the POP and IMAP and blah blah settings and got my new email address set up. Drum roll please...

brian@nixonanimation.com

I will hopefully be redesigning all of my promotional material and website and launching with this new email address tying it all together sometime in the future.

In other news, project "Bacon Donut" is proceeding in the writing stages. I've settled on an overall plot and even an ending! I'll be spending the next couple months revising the story and developing it further. Still looking to be on track for a May 2011 completion.

Also, plans for a trip to the 2010 Ottawa International Animation Festival are on the way, so if you're interested in coming up to Canada and experiencing all the latest in the animated world, drop me an email.

New Blogger Settings

2010-06-20T07:40:00.000-07:00

So, after a drawn out battle between the new Blogger design tools and myself, I've finally emerged victorious! Well, at least somewhat victorious. I think I've finally figured out how to manipulate all the settings and finally get the templates to do what I want. Now just to figure out what exactly I want.

Re-re-redesign

2010-06-19T13:59:00.000-07:00

First off, is this text still legible on your monitor? Drop me some comments

I'm working on some ideas to redesign my website and the blog here, so I'm playing around with colors at the moment. It looks good on my monitors, but it may not be suitable for everyone else. One day I'll finally break down and buy some monitor calibration hardware and not have to worry about it. If you would like to buy me some equipment, please let me know in the comments and I'll make sure you get my address to send the check to.

Animation Inspiration

2010-06-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

Above is a screen shot from "The Meaning of Life" by Don Hertzfeldt from The Animation Show Vol. 2. If you haven't checked out any of the The Animation Show DVDs or had the privilege of watching the show in one of the few select theaters around the country during it's tours I highly recommend it. It showcases some of the best animations from around the world in a variety of styles. Don Hertzfeldt and Mike Judge, who you might remember as the creator of Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill, or Office Space, are the primary collaborators who bring together this amazing collection of animations.

Don Hertzfeldt and Mike Judge are two big inspirations in my work, and especially for Bacon Donut, my current project. They both have an amazing skill at animating while keeping their drawing style simple. I've really grown to love the simplistic and sometimes crude humor of Mike Judge and am always incredibly impressed with Don Hertzfeldt's complete use of traditional animation without using any computers.

Below is Beavis and Butthead from the intro to The Animation Show Vol. 3.

USA!

2010-06-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

We tied...again! Well, that gives us two points this round and as far as Americans playing soccer on the world stage, I figure that's not all bad. Watching the game on my netbook with the intermittent wifi signal, it wasn't the best but it worked. Looks like the Americans need to keep up their confidence and get a little more aggressive. They were setting up some good plays again, but just weren't quite able to put it in. Looking forward to game 3!

Yes, I'm a soccer fan...if the US is in the World Cup and I only have to watch it every 4 years.

Michel Gondry

2010-06-14T17:52:00.000-07:00

I'm part way through the latest DVD I got from Netflix, "The Work of Director Michel Gondry". I didn't recognize his name, but many of the bands he worked with from the DVD description online, so I figured I should educate myself on more music videos.

WOW. This guy is amazing! There are about 3 Bjork videos in a row, which isn't my favorite artist ever, but the videos are amazing. I'm going to have to go back and look up all the songs I've seen the videos for, but I'm currently on Everlong, by the Foo Fighters and I'm more blown away by each video. If you need some music video education, definitely look up Gondry. I want to call in sick for a year and just make music videos...although I think I've wanted to do that for awhile any way.

The camera work is phenomenal, and he seemlesly blends scenes and showcases some unbelievable editing talent. I only wish I had seen this while taking my digital video class in college. I think I would have actually been motivated to get creative with cameras and editing. I've seen all these type of camera tricks and editing techniques used before, but never in such a creative way. Our professor for the video class I took insisted music videos are not art. Any one of these videos will prove otherwise.

WOW. Check this guy's work out.

Some Old Sketches

2010-06-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

I was going through one of my old sketchbooks today, looking for some stuff I had done while designing my website and business cards and came across a few sketches I thought might be cool to put up here for the heck of it.

Framing on a Budget

2010-06-13T10:13:00.001-07:00

I finally finished framing a couple things last weekend that I had been working on as a Christmas present and finally, finally got done. When trying to frame large work most craft stores in the area wanted many hundred dollars to frame each one. That was not an option. I decided to just do it myself and after only a couple trips to the hardware store came up with a solution for both frames for around $100 total. I think they turned out pretty good for building them by hand and working only in the apartment.

They were mounted on sheets of masonite, which were cut for free at the store, then I used my hand saw with mitre box to cut baseboards and molding strips at angles while balancing between the recliner chair and coffee table. They were then glued, nailed and painted in the living room. The nautical map frame features a faux cracked paint finish which was interesting to try out for the first time. It was all then held together with gorilla glue and some more nails. Man, I miss having a woodshop to speed the process along.

Misplaced Signs

2010-06-11T13:34:00.001-07:00

I've been meaning to get some of the hundreds of photos I took while in Virginia online somewhere and I keep procrastinating. Here to start things off is one of my favorites, almost Failblog worthy.

When you're bored with a drink and a pen

2010-06-10T20:21:00.000-07:00

Having a little fun with a cup from the hospital cafeteria.

Blues Messengers

2010-06-07T19:56:00.000-07:00

Had a good time hearing the Blues Messengers at their second performance of the summer concert season. Looking forward to more performances.

Cupcake Cartoon

2010-06-04T04:05:00.000-07:00

This is the first of my short comics that I will be illustrating with Flash. A little rough, but a starting point.

Bacon Donut Concept Art

2010-06-02T17:23:00.001-07:00

'nuff said.

Back Home

2010-06-01T20:42:00.000-07:00

It was a fun trip to Virginia to visit all the old friends from high school and catch up, but it's good to be back. Getting back into some painting, working into some of my cartoons in Flash, and trying to hash out more details on my animation project. Hmm, I need a code name for this project...something that will be more fun to refer to while it's still in development. I always enjoy hearing about studios that use code names for projects that have nothing to do with what they're really about. In that spirit, from hence forth, my year-long project in the works will be referred to as:

Bacon Donuts

In other news:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

Above is a screen capture of the "cupcake" cartoon in progress.

NOVA

2010-05-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

Back in Northern Virginia. Yesterday Nick and I drove up to our high school home in Virginia through some heavy rain and some spectacular lightning. The netbook is yet again proving to be very useful on the road, definitely glad to have it along.

This year marks the 10th year anniversary that our high school has been open and 10 years since we started our freshman year there. The band is hosting all of the alumni during their concert tomorrow. I'm not going to be breakin' out the sax for this one, but I will be around catching up with everyone and taking some photos.

Should be an exciting event. My friends and I were some of the founding members of this band program which has continued to grow ever since. It was fun to think back to when we formed the Pep Band to play at all the basketball games and for three years found new members, wrote new music and had a great time playing music to accompany our girls basketball team to win the state championship our senior year.

Between all the bands I think I was playing music for about 75% of my free time in high school, so it's great to be back to regroup with all the people that were such a big part of my life for four years.

Ah! Zombies! part 3

2010-05-22T11:02:00.003-07:00

Knowing all the rules to a game makes all the difference. With nearly 600 hours in game and many discussions with other players I've learned them quite well for the Left 4 Dead series. Reading commentary by the game developers and understanding why they did what they did really helps. If you know how you're supposed to play the game you will find much more success until eventually you can figure out how to use the rules to your advantage.

I often get accused of "hacking" while in game. I know it's mostly just upset players lashing out in anger when they can't kill me or I've killed them AGAIN. Despite spending entirely too much time with the game, I definitely don't have the time to manipulate the code or download add-ons that would somehow give me an advantage. I really enjoy fair game play and some of my favorite moments in the game were when our team would just barely get beaten by a good opponent. I don't even like playing with any modifications, even if it doesn't affect the game play. I like having a set of rules that everyone plays by and only the most coordinated and skilled teams will win.

Trust me, I've played paintball. I've had the crappy rental gun. I've gotten blown away by those guys that spend thousands on fully automatic guns and have their own jet on stand-by to call in a paint-bomb air raid. It sucks! It's not fair. If everyone had the same guns and left their jets at home and the winners were determined by strategy and skill alone it would be awesome.

Just keep in mind when you are playing a game, there will be players way more skilled than you. I've been playing Left 4 Dead long enough now to know, or have a very good guess what the other team will try to do, where they'll do it, and when they'll do it. Very few attacks catch me by surprise (although it does happen and you can't always do anything about it even if you see it coming). One big factor in online gaming is lag or ping, the delay in response between each player's computer and the server computer, as occurs in every network function.

The other day I was being heavily accused of hacking(not until our team was winning) and it dawned on me why they thought I was cheating. The lag on the particular game we were playing was fairly visible to me, and I'm sure everyone saw it whether they realized it or not. It can get really frustrating when you think you're attacking a person standing in one spot, then they magically skip over ten feet and you totally miss. It's not the player cheating, just the network has delayed the signal to your screen and when the graphical information is properly update, it re-draws the character in a different spot so that they appear to just instantly jump out of the way of your attack.

I saw this happening during the game, and based on my experience I was doing a really good job of anticipating the attacks so that even if there was a delay in the image I had a pretty good idea of where they would be trying to get me. Being able to understand what your opponent is trying to do and what they think you're doing allows you to counter that fairly well and in this case, it worked extremely well. I won't deny that it looked like I was cheating, but from my perspective it looked like they were jumping around just as impossibly fast.

Sometimes these strategies work, and sometimes not. I've had plenty of games where I thought I could out maneuver an opponent, but they had the same idea and took me out. It happens. You just keep playing and trying new things and learning from everything you can take in while playing and discussing. Learn from your mistakes and do better next time. So, even in life, try not to get upset, shake it off and always keep moving forward.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Ah! Zombies! part 2

2010-05-22T10:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I play Left 4 Dead a bit too much maybe. I've been playing for about a year now, first with Left 4 Dead and now with Left 4 Dead 2. This is embarrassing, but Steam(Valve's online game distribution platform) reports I have 274 total hours in game with L4D1 and 280 total hours in L4D2. I'll let you do the addition and division and realize how many days of gameplay that is. As a side note, Adobe needs to get on this counter thing and start logging your total hours in Photoshop or Maya or After Effects...those would be some frightening numbers that would put any games to shame.

With THAT many hours working on strategy and learning the rules of the game and talking with other players and learning from all these experiences I feel like I could probably compete with the top 10% of players in the game. It's fascinating being this involved in a game for so long because it has given me a great respect for the creation process of video games. Seeing little bug fixes and updates download over the last year and seeing how those affect game play is incredible. The game developers start off with their perception of how the game will be played and then no matter how much testing is done, after release the game play will always take on a mind of its own.

Players will always find exploits and new strategies that no one had thought of in production and so small changes are made to re-balance the game to make it more fair or create better over-all game play. I feel like Valve takes a very active position in working with the game after its released and I think they have implemented some great changes to the games.

Ah! Zombies! part 1

2010-05-22T10:19:00.000-07:00

For almost a year now, I've been completely addicted to the Left 4 Dead series of video games by Valve. My friend, Greg, got me hooked after one of Valve's cinematic animators visited BGSU to give a few lectures. Valve has created numerous blockbuster titles including the Half Life series, Portal, and Team Fortress. I had heard all these games but not having played PC games since our family's Power Mac in middle school I didn't realize how great they were.

Sure, you run around and slaughter thousands of zombies, big deal, I'm pretty sure that's just another variation on the "Doom-Marathon-Halo-Etc." theme. What I hadn't realized until I watched Greg play the game was how it really focused on the small team dynamic in Versus mode. The regular campaign mode is very similar to every other shooter, although admittedly I still enjoy tearing through hordes of the undead it's nothing really special. Versus mode really takes the game to the next level and I believe that is where the meat (or brains) of the game truly lies.

Versus puts two teams of 4 against each other to see who can survive the levels the longest. Each team takes a turn playing as the survivors (human, non-zombies) and as the infected (zombies). The player controlled zombies are no ordinary undead creatures, but special mutated characters that each have an ability that works to incapacitate or separate or otherwise disrupt the team. Using these special abilities in different combinations against the survivors can wipe a team out with one swift attack or if used unwisely can prove useless. This forces the players to rely on their three teammates to coordinate to either defend themselves to stay alive or bring together a punishing attack.

This team focus really varies from other team-based games because if one person on a team of 10 is not paying attention, little is often lost and it goes unnoticed. If, however, one out of four is not doing well or working with the others, it can be disastrous. To see a game where a team that works together, regardless of skill level or how many hundreds of times they've played a map can beat an skilled yet uncoordinated team is great. This focus on teamwork makes the game far more fun when you have to really strategize with other players to see if you can out-think or surprise the other team in a devastating way.

I would be interested in creating a variation on the game with the same general units/characters and turn the format into something non-violent. I think many people discount the strategy involved because of the outward look of "just another violent shooter video game". Turn it into a 2D, top-down game that could be easily played on a mobile device and allow people to play and coordinate wherever they are. There are some strategies that rely on 3D space, but for the most part it could be translated into a simpler, 2D format. This would also allow a larger audience to play it without the violence and gore in a more casual game. We may have to sacrifice the campaign mode, but I think there are enough zombie games that are just shooters out anyhow.

Animation Test 1

2010-05-20T20:20:00.001-07:00

Today I assembled a rough character in Flash that would help me figure out how to better build my future characters for animation. I learned a lot about where joints should be located, how to arrange body parts on which layers as well as many other considerations. Though this is an incredibly rough version, I can really appreciate the speed at which I can get work done in Flash compared to Maya. For Game Jam! I just managed to get a character built and rigged and painted in 3D in about 12 hours of non-stop work. the result was a little sloppy but worked. Today I got a character done in about half an hour. Add a few more hours for actual design and better drawing and it's still significantly better than working in 3D.

I'm hoping this will allow me to complete a short film in just about one year from now to have it submitted to the Ottawa International Animation Festival in Canada. It's a great festival and I have already started harassing my fellow animators to attend with me this year. If anyone happens to have some extra cash and free time in October and wants to learn more about animation or just get some creative inspiration I highly recommend the trip to Ottawa, it's always an amazing experience. I missed out last year but had gone three years in a row prior to that and I can't wait to go again.

Jon may have hinted at some future submissions to some festivals, so I'm going to go ahead and predict that Ottawa in 2011 will be dominated by our work. So you know it's going to be great. Stay tuned.

A Sure Bet

2010-05-19T10:31:00.001-07:00

I've been working on concepts for my animation project that is still in the early development stages. Of all the concepts and characters and situations I can come up with I was still lacking an overall focus for the piece. I've wavered back and fourth between a pilot episode for a whole series and a short film and numerous other formats for the project, so I decided to just write out what I want this thing to accomplish. Of all the lists I've been making, one thing keeps reoccurring and I think it is worth focusing an animation on.

Always bet on yourself. You know you can always depend on yourself to get you where you want to be.

Being stuck in a job that I don't want to pursue as a career for the rest of my life, I'm always trying to find ways to get where I want to be. The advice I find over and over from professionals who once struggled as I do and now have the career of their dreams emphasize continuing to work on whatever it is you do and don't stop. This made me realize that if you love something and continue to pursue it with a genuine desire to be great, time is the only thing between yourself and your dreams. You should always rely on yourself because no matter how much external motivation or education you get, it is your own drive to succeed that will get you where you want to be.

Seeing other people's work sometimes can be discouraging or thinking about how you aren't where you want to be can really suck the life our of your creativity. Keep betting on yourself. Keep knowing that you'll push through the slump, no matter if it's a few hours or a few years and will get where you need to be. If you're not dead, you haven't failed yet. There's still time to get where you want to be.

I want to create a motivational animation about working to overcome obstacles and achieving your dreams. By focusing on a small group of characters I want to show how they all find the self confidence to push through bad jobs and missed opportunities to finally achieve what they're striving for.

With the current economy and lack of entry level jobs in the animation field I know there are many other students and recent graduates that feel this stress and will connect with this positive message. Hopefully even if this isn't the piece that gets me to an animation job it can at least help motivate and encourage fellow animators.

Wacom Upgrade

2010-05-18T20:50:00.000-07:00

I read the other day about another artist's experience with a Wacom tablet and realized that many other people have trouble with it in the same way I do. The slick plastic surface of the tablet and pen don't provide the same tactile feedback and friction as traditional paper and media. The ultra-simple solution (which I just can't believe I didn't think of on my own) is to tape a piece of paper on top of the tablet surface. Bam! It is thin enough to not interfere with the performance of the hardware and provides a lot better response and steady lines. The effects probably won't be seen visually, but it has made a dramatic improvement in the speed at which I can make smooth lines. No more re-tracing and re-drawing ten times to get a line right. So if you use a tablet of any kind for drawing, try taping paper on top and see if it will improve your digital drawing as well.

Nothing Related to Cherries

2010-05-12T20:50:00.000-07:00

Well, after wrestling with Adobe Encore for a few hours, I still find myself frustrated with something that should be very simple. I've been trying to burn a video to DVD so it will play like a good ol' fashion movie DVD would. This clearly highlights an area in which I should spend more time: exporting and compression. Encore looks like a great program and I've been dying for a chance to use it for the last 2 years and now that the moment has finally arrived I find it lacking all the amazement I had hoped for. This program is designed to create DVDs or Blu-Rays with menus that are animated and all that good stuff. All the final touches you need to deliver artistic content on disc. I just with I had another week to go through tutorials and help files. Oh well, no fancy animated menus this time.

Above are cherries at the USDA farmers market in Washington D.C. from back in 2006 when I was interning for them.

A Little Motion Graphics

2010-05-11T14:40:00.000-07:00

I'm currently wrapping up a slideshow for my friend's wedding, and I've been working on a few different effects I've seen regularly in popular commercial work. Here it's fairly subtle, but I've masked the background of the photo, separated the foreground and background onto separate layers, and then arranged them moving through 3D space in After Effects to simulate a 3D camera movement. I've added their names and the date of the wedding. I'd like to work on the motion a little more, but being on a schedule to get it finished soon, I think I'll have to settle with how it is.

What I'm "Reading"

2010-05-07T13:18:00.000-07:00

I'm currently going through a book by Chris Georgenes titled, "How To Cheat In Adobe Flash CS4: The art of design and animation". Jon reccomended it to me and I've been toting it around for the last week soaking up all his tips and tricks in Flash. If you've read any of my posts lately I've been really excited quickly my workflow has improved, and I mostly have this book to thank. If anyone is also interested in learning a little more about Flash or is looking for ways to setup a workflow in Flash for animation, this is a great resource and starting point.

Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to actually work with any of the CS4 content since I'm stuck in the dark ages of the antiquated CS3, although now that CS5 is out who knows what else I'm missing out on. So, if any of the good people at Adobe happen to be reading this and feel the pain of a poor independent animator, please drop me an email and I'll let you know to what address to send the new CS5 Master Collection. Thank you.

flash hero 2.0

2010-05-05T17:09:00.000-07:00

Here is the top half of my new character. A little rough, but mostly there. Tomorrow I'll be setting up the hinge points hopefully, which will make his top-half animation ready. The drawing in the post below is only an illustration on one layer, whereas this is composed on multiple layers, which will allow for manipulation of the individual body parts and face for animation. Really enjoying working in Flash, the workflow has a much faster feel and it's easy to keep encouraged to keep working when your project looks like something faster than in 3D. Stay tuned.

Flash Character Design

2010-05-04T15:27:00.000-07:00

Here's the first draft of my main character, as illustrated in Flash. So far I like the way it's looking, but I know there are a number of design issues to be worked out for the full bodied character. Learning a few more tips on Flash illustration really has helped me get the results I was missing before, or if I did get them before it took exponentially longer to get there. Onward and upward from here...

Back into Flash

2010-05-04T04:10:00.000-07:00

After visiting SCAD and my friend Jon, I've decided to give Flash another shot. It will give me the ability to work with more, unique characters than Maya in a reasonable amount of time. So, for the sake of "getting the ball rolling" on my endeavors in Flash, here's a ball bounce I've been working on for 15 minutes this morning before I trudge off to a job that will pay the bills. I forgot how difficult it is to get the feeling of weight right with tweens.

Let there be Blog Battle

2010-05-01T14:21:00.001-07:00

Okay, not really "battle", but here on out my sister Katie(shown above right...sorry Katie, haven't developed your animated character too much yet), and I(above left) are challenging each other to start posting 5 times a week. I'm going to start posting progress on my upcoming animation project initially titled "Light Side of the Moon", while Katie is beginning to flex her writing muscle and start her career as a professional writer. Perhaps this blog-tacular event will be the precursor to an even greater animated series with Katie writing and myself animating, perhaps we will make a billion dollars, and perhaps I will have pancakes for dinner!

So, start checking back here and at Katie's blog every week for a ton more updates and see what's going on. I'll be linking to Katie's and a few other blogs from here on the right hand navigation soon to keep up with all the other cool happenings in the creative world.

Below is the initial sketches for a character based on myself for my upcoming animation project.

Car Show

2010-04-17T16:05:00.001-07:00

Went to a car show down the street today. The styling of these classic cars is exactly what I'd like to get the feel of in my website when I redesign it. Awesome.

More things that fell out of my brain and landed on paper

2010-04-14T18:28:00.001-07:00

I promise...one day I'm actually going to post something more refined than sketchbook pages.

Cupcake

2010-04-10T06:06:00.000-07:00

Sketch from Friday at work. Stop eating so much crap food America...you have crazy diabetes.

More Sketches From the Day Job

2010-04-06T17:12:00.001-07:00

In a continuing effort to not loose my mind I've been sketching during the day here and there, and it's starting to get weird. Sorry for the poor quality scans. It's become a bit garbled in the digitization, but above we see a glimpse at how cocky Paul Bunyan was...as he has clear cut his initials into a mountain. Also, what would male penguins rather be doing while waiting for the eggs to hatch?

Gotta Love SC Driving

2010-04-04T17:25:00.001-07:00

Now, I have noticed a LOT of bad driving habits around South Carolina in the six months that I've lived here, but it's rare I get the opportunity to document the evidence. Okay, other than the photos of my smashed in truck from December when I was driving down the middle of the road and an old lady just pulled out, straight into the side of my car. Coincidentally that accident happened less than a quarter-mile down the same road this photo was taken from.

I was out taking reference photos for a painting downtown, and on the way home I noticed what I thought was someone driving with headphones on. I'm pretty sure this is illegal, or at least in the last two states I lived in anyway. I just happened to pull up behind him at a red light, and with my camera ready in the passenger seat I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Don't worry, I snapped off the photo just before I started driving. I promise I don't drive by glancing through the viewfinder like some kind of above water periscope waiting for idiots to drive in front of me. Drive safe everyone!

Rocket Logo

2010-04-01T20:14:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a autobiography comic done as myself as a space hero for my website. This logo was designed to be used in the comic and to also incorporate into my letterhead and self-branding package.

Birthday Upgrades

2010-03-18T20:09:00.000-07:00

Less than a week after my birthday and I've managed to install all my new hardware! Above is the old Saphire Radeon HD3870 on the left and the new EVGA GeForce 9800 GT on the right. I also installed a new 500gb hard drive, almost doubling my previous storage capacity. I decided these two new pieces of hardware were the most cost-effective and best options for increasing my performance. I had originally debated upgrading to 4gbs of RAM from my 2, and then install Windows 7 to utilize all of it. Realizing the relative price of DDR2 RAM to DDR3 is getting really expensive, I've decided to wait and upgrade motherboard, CPU, RAM and OS all in one go later on down the road when I'm really starting to feel the age on my current system.

The 9800GT is doing an excellent job so far. I don't have any way to really test it in Maya until this weekend when I get time to really get some animation going, but as far as games go it's really stepping it up a notch from the old card. This GPU is running about 20 degrees Celsius cooler than the old one, takes up only one expansion slot in the back versus two and is still cranking out double the frame rate in games.

Below you will also notice I rewired the entire case again, this time utilizing the thin compartment behind the motherboard. I also removed a considerable amount of dust and put a fourth 120mm fan in the bottom, between the PSU and the HDD bay.

Nautical Non-sense

2010-03-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

In preparation for my upcoming birthday I was perusing a local beverage market when I stumbled across this gem. Hopefully all pirate enthusiast attending on Friday will enjoy!

Re-Wired and Ready to Upgrade

2010-02-28T20:44:00.000-08:00

In anticipation of upgrading my system in a few weeks for my birthday, I decided to do poke around inside the case and see if I couldn't spruce things up a bit. Since building this computer about two years ago I've done very little with the hardware. My friend, Paul helped me install everything and by the time we were done it looked a bit messy but everything worked. Mission accomplished.

Since then, I've learned more about cable layout and more about the components function in the computer. Taking a fresh look at it this morning I realized how terrible everything was inside...multiple cables millimeters from getting chewed up by the four case fans and giant bundles of wires blocking airflow to and from the graphics card. There were also a few cable just hanging out on top of my RAM.

I unplugged everything, put my brain in tetris mode and went to work. The main problem stemmed from the only flaw in my Antec P-180 case design; the 120mm fan between the PSU and hard drive bays. This forced all the power cables to bunch up in the lower compartment and come flooding into the main section of the case at uncontrollable angles. I removed this fan and relocated it just below the DVD/CD drive bays in the front. This replaced the cheap-o fan I bought a few months ago and now provides more powerful airflow directly to the GPU. I also cleared a lot of space around the card so there is considerably more room for it to breathe. I sacrificed the only fan directly moving air over the hard drive, but it allowed me to better layout the cables, so it's probably getting at least as much airflow as it was before.

Around the motherboard I moved every cable, even tying a few down so that no fan is directly blocked. The RAM now has plenty of headroom, which will be key since I will be installing two more sticks in the remaining slots.

It felt really productive to spend an hour or so just tinkering with everything inside the computer. I ran some video stress tests with some games and seem to be averaging temperatures around 5 degrees C cooler! Looking forward to a new hard drive, more RAM, and Windows 7 64-bit to run it. Hopefully this will keep me running a few more years.

Currently:
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66 gHz
ASUS P5W DH Deluxe ATX mobo
ATI Radeon HD 3870 512 mb, 256 bit
G Skill 1GB DDR2 800 (x2)
Samsung 320gb HDD
ASUS DVDRW (x2)
Antec P-180 Case

Best Animatic Ever

2010-02-27T11:14:00.000-08:00

This classic video harks back to the days of Intro Animation in 2005. This was the animatic I created for the final project. The instructor insisted we have sound in our animatic and I didn't have a lot of time to get all the proper recordings together, let alone build a rough version of the scenes in 3D that I was going to animate. I set out to create a rough draft of the audio to match the rough draft of the animation....enjoy.

Why I don't do 3D models of people

2010-02-27T09:26:00.000-08:00

Wow, here's an entry for the "Old stuff I did really badly, only sometimes on purpose" category. This would have been in the summer of 2007 for an advanced 3D modeling class I took to learn how to use Z-Brush. It was packed into 6 weeks and I learned a lot, but it shows I had no time to really get any proportions or pose elements correct. I love laughing at this one every now and again when I clean my hard drives out and find it hidden somewhere in all that old clutter.

I think the assignment was to show the human figure by depicting some character from mythology. I was trying to show Beowulf waking up in the middle of the night when Grendel attacks, reaching for his sword. I think right after I did this they announced the upcoming mo-capped movie Beowulf....which was a whole different realm of bad 3D.

Snow in the SC

2010-02-12T14:28:00.001-08:00

Who would've guessed that I would be going home from work early in anticipation of "the giant snow storm" about to hit us in South Carolina? It's just weird. I've been thinking of the feet of snow that have fallen and still walking to classes at BG, and then the few times classes were canceled and the computer labs still seemed to fill up with the usual crowd. Well, here I am, back in the studio, doing work. Nothing like a good snow day to get a little extra work done.

South Carolina Studio

2010-02-07T11:04:00.001-08:00

Well, after a few months of living here, and a few hours of cleaning, I finally got my studio space in some bit or order. It's really nice to have a dedicated space to work in filled with things that inspire me. I always really struggled to focus on work when my computer was set up right next to where I sleep every night. I'm also enjoying the benefits of a good chair and a high quality light to work by. Now if I could only get those 40 hours I loose a week back from working a job to pay the bills.

Fame Fail

2010-02-07T08:07:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWGuvuOW5Rc

Here is a fantastic clip of David Bowie "performing" one of my favorite songs, Fame, on Soul Train in the 70's. I recently watched a show about Soul Train and it's massive influence on bringing funk and soul music into the mainstream. I can't believe I didn't know more about the show since many of the musical acts featured on the show over the years have been such a huge influence on my own musical tastes. Bowie was one of the first white performers to be featured on the show, and with Fame's funky groove it's easy to see why.

Most of the acts would lip synch to the recorded versions of their songs, which makes for high quality audio when doing a live show, and eliminates the chance of wrong notes, etc. Unfortunately, as clips from his interview on the show revealed, he had failed to really memorize the lyrics and it becomes all too obvious about halfway through the song. You can literally see him thinking, trying so hard to remember how the song went as he's trying to keep it together for the performance. He starts breaking his cool character as he realizes how bad he messed up. I think it's great to watch him loose control of his secondary actions as he is suddenly so focused on trying to get the lyrics right, and phase in and out of character as he remembers or forgets, or thinks he remembers how the song goes. At any rate, it's hilarious to watch famous people make fools of themselves...enjoy.

Hungry Starfish

2010-02-06T09:40:00.001-08:00

I am continually fascinated with the world under water. I recently added a chocolate chip starfish to my nano reef tank...which I've been repeatedly told is NOT how chocolate chips are grown. And although my dreams of saving money by growing my own chocolate chips may crushed, I still draw a lot of inspiration from watching it slowly creep around the tank. One of the most interesting things about starfish I've learned is their method of eating. They expose their stomachs outside of their body, and when they come across food, they wrap their stomach around it and ingest it. I can't wait to find a use for this in some kind of creature design for an animation or drawing or something in the future. This photo was taken just before I fed it...stomach fully exposed while suctioned to the glass.

Rough Cut Demo Reel 2010

2010-01-10T18:53:00.000-08:00

Here is the rough cut of the reel. No audio. No transitions. No shot list...I'm sure I'm missing a couple other things. I think the ninja character got brought in with the wrong frame rate, so he's pretty hyper active. My only other thought with this was to somehow intersperse some of the illustration and prep work for the various pieces, but at 1:30, I think it's a nice short piece.

Animated Logo

2010-01-10T14:03:00.000-08:00

I've been working on assembling a new reel to apply for a generalist/motion graphics type position that recently opened here in Columbia. I decided it was about time to animate my logo and use it for the intro on my reel. This is where it's at after a few evenings of work.

I'm hoping to have my full reel up tonight.

Merry Christmas! and things.

2009-12-27T07:48:00.000-08:00

Well, almost a wrap on the 3rd year of this blog and things are going well. I'm working on some logos and just finished a couple paintings for Christmas presents. I received a chair and desk lamp so I can stop drawing in a dimly lit room at home! The photo above is a green trumpet coral...finally adding some stuff to my 10 gallon tank! Now, back to enjoying a long weekend.

New Tank

2009-11-28T16:24:00.000-08:00

I decided to take an old 10 gallon fish tank I had and turn it into a saltwater reef tank. So far just rocks, sand and water until I can make sure the water parameters are stable. This little guy popped out of the rocks I bought not long after I turned the lights on.

Where to park your rocket ship

2009-11-24T17:23:00.001-08:00

I always admired the traditionally designed rocket ship, like a bad ass Harley to the futuristic mini-van that is the space shuttle. And like the Harley they aren't as practical as other space shuttles. But why get tied down to giant steel structures, landing pads and runways when you can lean that rocket over on a kickstand, shut off the afterburners, and step out with shades on in any space big enough to land or weak enough to crush. Grin it up space boy, your rocket has a kickstand.

More Sketchin in Photoshop

2009-11-15T20:06:00.000-08:00

Here is some more sketching I'm working on. The first drawing is slightly transparent red behind the blue second drawing. Still really struggling with hands and proportions. Keeping things in the scifi context.

Sketches...From....Spaaaaace

2009-11-14T21:10:00.001-08:00

I've been spending a lot of my lunch hours working on drawing. In addition to just trying to get better at drawing, I'm working on developing ideas for a sci-fi animation. Sorry for the poor quality of scans on these.

Also, some bored humor from being at work all day.

A Moving Adventure

2009-10-31T08:59:00.001-07:00

After two weeks of transporting everything I own 30 minutes down the road to the other side of town, we are finally getting settled in. The internet is flowin and I'm looking forward to getting back to some quality computer time and making progress on an animation concept I've been working on for awhile now. More to come as I unpack the necessary USB cables for photos and uber-connectivity.

New Apartment

2009-10-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

Finally, finally, finally. We've signed a lease and are looking forward to moving into the new place on the 19th! Features of the new apartment include 2 bedrooms, 1 for keeping the bed, the other for keeping the computer and cat hair separated (also for keepin those schnazzy Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2 posters). Kitchen, living room, furniture, fish tanks, blah blah...it'll be there too. So, anyone passin through South Carolina on I-26, drop on by....after Monday.

A Little More Drawing

2009-09-20T17:45:00.001-07:00

I spent a little more time on my sketch from the other day. Hoping to maybe even get some color in this one eventually.

2 Years

2009-09-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

Wow, I was just looking back trough the history of this blog and I realized that it has just been over 2 years from the first post back in 2007 when I was just getting my work together for my BFA project. I've made a ton of improvements since then thanks to everyone's comments on the blog and emails from stuff I've posted up here. So, Thank You, to everyone who's been checking this blog out!