Elf girl!

I'm finally posting my drawings of the model I'm working on.

I've decided to change her hair color to dark blue, but what do you think?

More Lateman poses

Here's some shots of the basic model for Lateman. It might need some more work.
...Looks like he's still a little camera-shy. Oh well.

Compositing Breakdown

Great architecture references.

Not made with real fruits.

Idiots and Angels

Once more not 3D but this is a great trailer. For Bill Plymton's latest film

Idiots and Angels from İstanbul Animation Festival on Vimeo.

CAPTAIN!! facial expressions...

The Epic Adventures of Lateman

Gather round, friends, and listen to a heroic tale of danger and crime-fightery! Born early and making up for it ever since, this is the story of Lateman, a super-hero of an unpunctual persuasion.

Lateman has his own theme song! (Basically, it's late 60's "Batman", but all of the lyrics are about Lateman, and are delivered a second or two later than they should).

The running gag behind Lateman is that he can never arrive at the scene of a crime on time. Despite this apparent handicap, he usually saves the day through a careful combination of random happenstance and deus ex machina.

Early one fateful morning, Lateman lies asleep in bed. Suddenly, the Comissioner calls on his wierd little phone-clock-alarm thing.

After a few false starts, Lateman leaps from his bed (fully costumed) in a dramatic flurry of gently falling sheets and blankets. He poses (dramatically) for an instant, then ponders aloud his need to "get dressed." Rushing from his room and across the hall, he enters a small Trophy Room, and approaches a pair of sunglasses which are prominently on display atop a pedestal in the center of the room. Grabing them, he holds them over his head (dramatically) before putting them on and taking a moment to appreciate how very cool they are. Turning on his heel, he walks back into the hallway.

Again picking up his pace, Lateman rushes into his library, where he heads towards a bookcase on the far wall, slamming his hand down on a button on his way. The bookcase slides to the side as he approaches it, revealing a hidden passageway which Lateman leaps into without slowing.

A few feet down the secret staircase-tunnel, the lights on the ceiling overhead flicker and go out, causing Lateman to stop and remove his glasses. Looking annoyed but determined, he treads steadfastedly on into the darkness. At the bottom of the staircase, a single lamp illuminates a metal portal in the floor, which opens at Lateman's approach. Leaping into it (again without slowing), Lateman free-falls down a vertical shaft for a moment before grabbing ahold of a fireman's pole and sliding down it to the bottom.

Skipping ahead a bit, we see Lateman traversing across a precarious chasm, leaping from foothold to foothold.

Skipping ahead a bit more, we see Lateman wandering through a gigantic underground maze. He still hasn't left his secret lair.

Some time later, a garage door in a gritty urban area slowly opens while a police officer chases a bank robber in front of it. When the garage fully opens, the Latemobile (basically, Lateman driving a Dodge Monaco) flies out into the street, smacking into the bank robber and sprawling him all over the sidewalk. Lateman saves the day, yet again! Eventually.

Captain!.. wiremesh...

Death of an Illustrator

This post has nothing to do with Animation and much less with 3D, but since our program is an Animation and Illustration program, I wanted to share this sad news with you all.

One of the most talented illustrators from my home country, Peter Vos, passed away over the weekend. I have had the pleasure of meeting him, through his son Sander Vos (who has become one of the top film editors in The Netherlands). I think most Dutch people from my generation cherish the memory of children's books he illustrated and his great "Beesten Kwartet", which is probably pretty untranslatable. Rest in Peace!

Since you are probably not familiar with his great body of work, often depicting animals and with a preference for birds withing the animal kingdom, I am posting some images with this that I found on the Internet. I am happy to own the book "Peter Vos, Tekenaar", and will probably browse through it once more tonight.

Final Project "Traum"

These are the sketches for my final project. They part of my short animation which I called "Traum" (Dream). I scanned the pages from my sketchbook.

On the first page are the concept sketches and structure studies for the main tower in which most of the story takes place. The tower is based on "Tatlin's Monument for Third International" which is a Constructivist Architectural monument that was meant to be a symbol for Modernity but it was never built because it wasn't really practical.


On this page I worked out the title sequence, the middle and the end of the animation. I flipped the establishing shot for the first scene and drew the sculpture that will be at the top of the tower. I also roughly sketched the inside view of the tower and other objects that didn't make it in the final storyboard.


This is the storyboard in one page (it's a big image).


Here is the storyboard panel by panel. In case you couldn't understand my handwriting, the story is a dream set in an alternate universe inspired by German Expressionism and Russian Constructivism. It begins with an unknown character, who after taking a break from running up a long never-ending staircase (title sequence & establishing shot), continues running up until he gets to a gigantic tower. The reason of his running is unknown and irrelevant since this is a dream. The whole story is seen from his P.O.V. until the last scene. After, he reaches the tower, he enters, takes a second to admire the architecture an keeps going up the stairs. At the top, he is hypnotized by a shining fountain that gives off a mysterious light. He finally drinks from the fountain and is transformed into a statue at which point the camera switches from his P.O.V. to a low angle. We see him for a quick second, mainly focusing on his shadow which becomes still as the character is petrified and then we fade out. The ending is open ended.








Thank you for checking this out and let me know what you think.

Rendered Wine Cellar Scene

Here is my scene with two different kinds of lighting. The first scene has two spotlights: one that is coming from the doorway at the top of the stairs and another which is coming from the ceiling light. The second image shows the scene with the light form the top of the stairs only.

Ghost Princess

Rose V - character sketches

These are my two main characters in my comic for my senior project. Their names are Rebecca and Andrea. (The shorter one, Andrea, is the main character.)
I'll have more drawings up soon, as I'm sketching out the layouts for the comic pages themselves.
You'll have to forgive me for the erase lines, it wasn't very good paper that I drew them on.

Samantha rough sketches for final

Here are my sketches for the final project...

Final Project-Rough Sketch

Here is a rough sketch of my final. It's going to be a floating castle controlled by a ghost princess. I'm pretty sure this idea has been done already. Please let me know if it is and if you have any suggestions. Thank you!

-D