Finally, after 2 years of work experience, I now have my work demoreel to showcase some animation, compositing and scripting that I did at work. Unfortunately, I am not able to showcase much of my mocap animation as that project is still pretty much confidential. I also did the rigging of the humanoid-alien characters in the reel (aka "bounty hunters").

At work, I also got the chance to put some of my MEL scripting knowledge learnt in college to good use, by writing some useful scripts that helps the company save time.

Thank you for viewing!

We Made The Merlion Swim

I don't think anyone has every seen the merlion swim. Except maybe for this video that I stumbled upon while searching for references: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcTsWfPq0Fc

(By the way, another notable style reference is this project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q256NEoJ2o. It's pretty welldone in my opinion.) 

So anyway, the NDP committee paid a visit to my studio early this year, asking if we wanted to participate in this year's Singapore National Day Parade - by animating a merlion swim sequence.

Fast forward a few months later... we spent weeks and months working overtime on weekdays and even sacrificing our weekends to do this project (honestly I think it was all great fun bonding with my colleagues and putting on weight together from all the pizza that we ordered).

It was also a great opportunity for us animators to do some hand-key animation from scratch (since we've been working with motion capture data day in and out).. Even though I think the animation could be very much improved on, I guess the warm response from the crowd made all our effort worth it.

Some stills of shots that I worked on:

(Close up shot of merlion talking)
Body and facial animation done by me
Lip sync done by my colleague, Chris

Animation done by me

It was a great experience working on this project with my animation team because we get to really learn from one another (it's a huge difference compared to when I was a student in 3dsense because I was the only animator in class and there was no one I could compare notes with).

Look! We're even on the news!


(fast forward to 1:30)

"Tooth Fairy" Short Film

At last, my Diploma Short Film is released on Youtube at my alma mater's channel.

The story:
In the middle of the night, when a little boy was sound in sleep, Tooth Fairy paid him a small visit. Most people know what Tooth Fairies do when they find a tooth, but do we ever wonder what value they find in something we discard away? Watch and find out!



Looking back at this short film, it certainly brought back nostalgic memories of slogging together (with tons of fun and learning included) with my classmates back then. Even though it may not be a Pixar-quality film worthy of any Grammy awards, at least it's a starting point for our journey ahead.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Inspiration

I was told to come to Japan with an open mind - basically come here with no pre-planned project in mind and just see what inspires me. I wanted to do something abstract initially, but I thought I would be trying to force something out and that would make everything feel very unnatural..and well.. pointless.

So I decided to do something that reflects my personality and more.. me.

One of the biggest inspiration for this piece would be the fact that it's my first time being away from home for an extended period of time. It was really difficult for me initially as I struggled to live alone and learn to be more independent, not to mention the homesickness I felt every now and then. (I'm definitely not saying that I hated my stay here. In fact, I enjoyed every bit of it, but that's for another post.)

The inspiration for the stars came like this:
The first night I was here, I was skyping with my sister and she told me to look at the stars. However, the night sky here was cloudy and there were hardly any of them. Anyway, her point was that we are looking at the same stars even though we were miles apart (sweet but so cheesy!). Yea, but as cheesy as it may sound, look what came out of it!
So from there, I went into my own fantasy world to find an 'explanation' for the absence of the stars.

P.S. for people who may not be familiar with Singapore, the pattern of the stars at the end actually forms up the Singapore flag:

Technical Stuff (in case you wanna know)

Well, since people have asked me, I'm just going to state it here.
The 3D scenes were modeled (only the environment), animated and rendered entirely with Maya.
2D scenes were created using a combination of Illustrator and Photoshop, and then animated in After Effects.
Final editing done in Premiere.

Animating in 2D was initially challenging as I had no clue how I was going to do it (Because I sure do not have time to go draw out everything frame by frame). But learning from the geniuses at DigitalTutors, I found an amazing way to animate in 2D.

So for folks who'd like to know, I downloaded the free After Effects plugin "DuIK" for my 2D character and with it, I could animated almost like I could in Maya.

What I've Learnt/Experiences I Have Gained

I think I've definitely grown slightly as an artist while doing this project. Maybe not just skill wise, but I feel like I've taken my first steps in stretching my wings in storytelling. One of the biggest reasons I ventured into animation was because I wanted to use it as a tool to tell stories and I'm just so very thankful that I had this opportunity to do so. So, this project has definitely given me a boost in confidence in this direction.

Headache Animation Practice

So, I think I've more or less finished uploading my backlog of works into my portfolio (yay!). And now it's time to get serious and regularly update my stuff.

Anyway, what I've been up to since completing my training at 3dsense is basically going on holiday, applying for jobs, do some animation tests and wait for emails/calls.

It's quite an interesting experience I must say because unlike jobs in the 'normal' world, you just probably need to go through interviews. But anyway.
It's definitely been a humbling experience because it has further opened my eyes to how much more I need to work on my craft.

I did an animation practice on my own because a studio looked at my reel and said that there wasn't enough acting shots.

So here it is. It's not my best shot though. Did it within slightly more than a day.

I would appreciate comments!!!