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.

Natural Feeling

I finally finished my first two person dialogue. It's a long one as well. I had a fun time doing this piece, there were also times where I wanted to throw my computer (or myself) out the window... Mainly due to the bugs and crashes of Maya. But at least you know you can always do it better the second time around, yah? Enough with the chit chat and preamble. Critiques, raves, rants, massages, etc, are always welcome!


Two Person Dialogue - "Natural To Be Naked" from Jason Bettinger on Vimeo.

Good boy!

I've been working on quite a few things lately, but wanted to put at least one thing up. So here is my dog running to catch a frisbee.


Quadruped Frisbee Catch from Jason Bettinger on Vimeo.

Look Ma! No Hands!

Just paws...


Dog_Walk_Cycle from Jason Bettinger on Vimeo

Ideas Come From Your Thumbs, Not Your Head!

So I had a little project where I had to create captions and have my character fit those captions. I am posting just a few of the ones I did to show how drawing out thumbnails on paper really help your poses because you may have the idea in your head, but unless you see it, you are just guessing where everything should go when you put it together in 3d or a more detailed 2d drawing.



Thumbs are a quick way of getting your idea out and you don't even have to be neat with it. As long as you or whoever they are meant for can read them, they can be almost chicken scratches like the ones I have.



If I had not drawn these out first, my poses may not have come out as strong as they did. You can see I also tweaked some of them for the better.



Your poses don't have to match your thumbs 100%, because the thumbs were just rough ideas. You need not waste your time rendering every shadow or every detail, the drawing or render should be the polished final.

Walk With Me

So I've been wanting to go back to the basics with my animation, because I didn't like any of the stuff I produced back in college. I was still learning a lot and don't quite think I did my old assignments with "A" quality in mind. So now I'm back, mature, more "learn-ed". Behold, my neutral walk cycle!


Walk_Cycle_Generic from Jason Bettinger on Vimeo.

And on another note, I have volunteered to work on a production called "Reprogrammed". It is a pilot episode that hopefully may go to TV, its being produced by a company called Charter Road Productions, a very Christian company. While I can't go into too much details, I hope to learn a bit about production pipeline and such from this, and get my name in some credits =D.

Redux

So here is an updated version of my emotion change scene. I improved the animation to make it flow a lot better, as well as rendered the scene and added sound.


Emotion_Change_Final from Jason Bettinger on Vimeo.

I've also rendered out my dialogue piece as well. The animation was very slightly tweaked, but practically unnoticeable from its last incarnation.


"My Son Has a Gift"_Final from Jason Bettinger on Vimeo.