Judgement

It's here! It's finally here! My first official character animation demo reel! These are 6 of my best pieces that I went back and further polished with the help of my boss and her critiques, so a very special thanks to Sherrie Sinclair, Director of 2D animation at the Academy of Art University for helping me out. Comments & Critiques are always welcomed and encouraged!

Animation Demo Reel 2009 HD from Jason Bettinger on Vimeo.

This is my animation demo reel for 2009. Thanks for watching!

I did all the animation, lighting, and some modeling and texturing.

The character in shots 1, 2, 3, and 6 are the Norman Rig provided by the Academy of Art University.
The Great Dane in Shot 4 is modeled by Chris Baker, Rigged by Javier Solsona. The character in shot 5 is MooM v4.0.3 created by Ramtin.

Yet Another Walk Cycle!

So no time for paintings or drawings... I got to many idea for animations! This is just a peek of what I will be posting later involving a cave man.


Caveman Walk Cycle from Jason Bettinger on Vimeo.

In light of this walk cycle, I went back and made some slight changes in my previous generic walk, noticed some abnormalities with his pacing, and altered the presentation so that your eye isn't leading off the screen but toward the center. I'll be working a lot on some personal animations over the Summer, and I'm very excited about it. Expect good things. All comments, crits, and hugs are appreciated.

Where Are The Wild Things?

Soooo I saw the new trailer for "Where the Wild Things Are" and it looked awesome. I decided to make a few drawings inspired from the book. I tried drawing them in a little different style in each one...I wanna take one of them to refine and color it, which one do you think?

'Bats' Love!

Happy Valentine's Day! Or for the singles, Singles Awareness Day, otherwise known as S.A.D. I figure I'd post up the gift I made for my g/f. She's in love with the twilight series, which was what started this idea. Anyway, hope you all have a great weekend!

Reprogrammed

So I just thought I'd mention that while my updates are sparse and not often, it doesn't mean I'm not animating! I'm currently volunteering on a production called "Reprogrammed" by Charter Road Productions Inc. They are a non-profit organization promoting the "good word"... Well, those that know me, I'm not super keen on religion and all, but hey, it's a way for me to dip my toes in a real production and to put some experience behind my belt. I've already worked on a few shots for them and will continue to do so until production is done or I find a more demanding job. Hopefully I'll have chunks of time where I can work on some of my own stuff to post up here as I'm not allowed to post any of my current work on the film until it's been completed. Shucks.

Good news though, is a couple of my shots will be shown at the Academy of Art booth at WonderCon! Someone out of the hundreds that will be there may or may not see the 5-10 seconds I worked on, yay!

I digress. Here is a screen shot of the production. Who knows... it may one day be on television.



There is also a website, it's a little barren, but a trailer should be up around the same time as WonderCon (February 28th). http://www.reprogrammed.org

Total runtime of this film is around 40 minutes so there is still a lot of work to be done... I'm guesstimating it'll be done in around a year or two. Here's hoping!

Do the Whirlwind

So I started working on this jump back in September or October, but got caught up with other projects and was never quite please with the end result. I went back this past week and fixed any issues I had with it and I think it turned out fairly well. As usual comments and critiques are appreciated.


Kung Fu Jump from Jason Bettinger on Vimeo.

R.I.P. Michael Sandborn

I recently found out a former classmate and friend of mine, Michael Sandborn, suffered an aneurism and passed away yesterday. He was an amazing artist, and a great person. He was a big guy, and fit that stereotype of being "Jolly". I can't ever remember not enjoying his company, whether it be watching him sketch awesomeness onto paper, or listen to his rants and raves over video games and anime, Mike always managed to put a smile on my face, even during finals! I am deeply saddened by this news, but feel the best way to keep someone alive is to keep them remembered.

If anybody would like to see his artwork, please do so, you can find it here:

http://www.thesandbot.com/index.html

My condolences go out to his friends, family, and fiance. Mike, I hope wherever you are, you are at peace.