Encouragement

There is nothing more encouraging when you are pursuing a dream than seing a friend that has got hers. It is amazing how determination and bravery can get what fear cannot.

I am so happy that you, Mari, have got your dream. Watching you being so successful, I feel strong and I am sure that your example will be my inspiration forever.

Thank you for being my friend. :)

First attempt

Well, my reel is still not finished, but I sent what I had to a company located in Valencia. This company has an awesome portfolio, and I thought they wouldn´t want me because I am only a junior animator, with so many things to learn and very little experience. But I had to try, because the company is very near from where I currently live. So I sent my CV.

Well, I was right. They where very kind, but they rejected my application. I was not good enough yet. They say I have talent, and I think they are really nice to say that. Nobody forces them to say that, so it must mean that it is true... I guess. It is inevitable to feel a bit sorry for myself, but do not worry, I will keep on trying. Not only this company, of course, but other ones. My reel needs improving, and I have to manage to get better quality in as little time as possible. It is hard if nobody teaches me, but I will do my best. It has only been the first attempt. :)

Preparing the reel

Three months ago I came to Virtual Toys to work as an animator. I really enjoyed working there, my fellows were so funny and so professional at the same time! I learnt a lot, laughed a lot and worked a lot. When you work in videogames, it seems that you are always in a hurry. There were deadlines almost every week, so we had to finish our tasks in very little time. I managed to play my role (even when I was the newest) and they were happy with my work. Unfortunately, the project I was working in was cancelled, so now I am getting my demoreel ready to look for another job as an animator. Let´s see how things come!

;)

Vectorial drawing

I've made this drawing this morning.

I really like vectorial drawings, they are so clean and delicate. I should do more, so I will try to include every now and then a new one in this blog. This is for the new website I am designing, my own one, and hopefully it is not very bad. I will change it when I make a better one. :D

Illustrator is the program I have used in this ocasion. I am more used to FreeHand and Inkscape, and I find Illustrator not so intuitive as this two, but I can manage quite well and maybe in a while I won´t miss the simplicity of FreeHand anymore.

Hope you enjoy the drawing.

I'll be back soon! :)

Trying to get the correct timing

Here you can see again another bouncing balls. As I said, they force me to use lots of animation principles, so they are a wonderful exercise. Next bouncing balls probably will be alive, will have a tail and... yeah, they will present different variations, to keep on learning. That´s the point of this all. :)

I am getting there! :D

More bouncing balls

When you are animating a bouncing ball, it seems that the only principle you are dealing with is "Squash and Stretch". It is the most obvious, isn´t it? However, as far as I know, you are dealing with:

- Timing, the most important principle for me. Very hard to be good at timing. With balls you are practising it aaaall the time.
- Spacing. It´s not a principle itself (although it is similar to easy in and easy out), but it is the second most important thing in animation. Animating bouncing balls you can see clearly how the spacing works.
- Exageration. Do the balls deform like that in reality?
- Anticipation. Not in purpose, but you are doing it. You can see that the ball squashes before going again into the air. Well, that is not really anticipation, but can be useful to understand it, because the effect is quite similar.

I cannot thing of anything else, unless until the ball has its own tail. Coming soon. :D

Kisses.

A head in Lightwave

Following a videotutorial this is what I could achieve:

Lightwave is quite comfortable to model with. But I have no idea how to model yet. This head doesn´t mean anything, because following a tutorial is very easy to do and you don´t really have to use your brains at all. So, please, no compliments. Thanks. :D

The next step I suppose it is texturize it. No tutorial this time! What to do? Well, I was told that to add textures to Lightwave models it is much better to go to Blender. This program is for free, and it is said that it works really well, especially for texturing and animation. I have been having a look at it for a couple of days, just getting used to the interface, but I still don´t know what to do. Maybe I should insist with Lightwave until I know how to deal with it in every aspect? Or should I go directly to other program that someone else said it was better?

Well, I will tell you what I decide. It is probable that I try to learn a bit of Blender, because if I want to focus on animation, and Blender is better for that, the logic solution should be that.

Anyway, let´s see.