Jimmy Leandro -Animator-

I am still alive

2009-09-02T11:41:00.000-07:00

Hello!

It has been a very long time since I have had anything to update. Like most of my fellow classmates, I have been in the I-just-graduated-and-need-money-so-let's-put-animation-aside-for-a-while groove. I recently got the opportunity to do some animations for a music video which I am currently finishing up. The content is pretty simply, and as much as I've complained while doing it, it has brought back my drive to animate. My goal for this year (Sept '09' - Sept '10') is to create something, ANYTHING, on my own. I am going to be painting, animating, drawing. I need to get my creative juices flowing again!

My problem, as it always has been, is finding the right thing to animate. I once again find myself not knowing what to focus on. The ideas I come up with never have enough depth, or the characters are clones of already existing things.

At this point, my goal is just to finish this music video and then get a move on. Here is a little sample of one of my characters out of context. Don't want to spoil anything by showing the whole scene!

Colors

2008-05-21T20:52:00.000-07:00

Here is the animation I did for Children's literature

End of the line

2008-05-18T08:54:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks have been very busy...So much end of the year stuff going on. Finally, though, we get to relax a little. Squealing Pegs and Frames per Second went really well. The show was great and the gallery opening was a lot of fun. Portfolio night left much to be desired though. Only 2 companies came through and they barely looked at everyones work.

The animation picnic is today, which should be fun...and for the first time in 3 years, I don't have to work after it!

I finished my children's literature animation finally. tried to put it up here but it has been uploading for like 4 hours and hasnt gone.....so i will put it on youtube later

Why won't it just be over

2008-05-04T22:30:00.000-07:00

I am trying to finish up my final sound edit of my degree project. Nothing seems to be working right for anyone right now. My sound is screwy, Susan is having exporting problems from Final Cut, Maya is having problems all over the board with sound and video.

The most frustrating thing is that all the problems we are having are minor glitches. We all know how to use the programs, but for some reason, these little stupid things are going wrong. Hopefully it will all be over soon.

On top of degree project stuff, I have to do the color animation for my children's literature class, and then finish my independent study, which is coming together much, much slower than I had originally foreseen...

On the upside, my website will, most likely, be up by the end of the week. I've been working on the design stuff and I am really excited about it. I got my business cards in and they look even better printed than they do on the computer.

Review

2008-04-29T12:23:00.000-07:00

I had my review yesterday. It went pretty well. Ruth liked my degree project and gave me some good ideas to improve on it. She also said that she likes that I can do animations that appeal to children without dumbing down my animation.

Looking at my other work, she told me that I should just put my dp and montage on my dvd. She also suggested I try to create another short flash animation to put on there. Hopefully I can finish my Children's Lit animation in time to put it on the DVD. That is duenext Wednesday so it should be done by then.

Time to get back to coloring....

Stresssssssss and colors

2008-04-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

I am now stressed for the first time all semester. Everything is quickly coming to an end and I am running out of time way too quickly.

I finally ordered my business cards today. They should be in in 1-2 weeks.

I am trying to get all my stuff ready to enter into Squealing Pegs. I am entering 5 pieces and hoping that at least 1 will make it in somewhere. My To-Do list is steadily growing...and I just don't know what to do with it.

On top of all my portfolio and degree project stuff, I have to do a short animation or my children's literature class. I need to make either a book or animation for children. I am going to do an animation for young children teaching them colors. Very simple...very quick...hopefully.

Postah

2008-04-20T20:20:00.000-07:00

So here is my first poster idea for the Squealing Pegs show.

Any suggestions?

I am thinking about doing this color for my DP...The black line on blue looks a lot better than the black on white that I had.

We'll see what happens.

Finish line in sight

2008-04-06T19:16:00.000-07:00

So I am homing in on the final stretch of my college career. I am just about done with the animation part of my degree project. Then all I have to do is re-record my voice-over, do a sound effect track and maybe add some sort of music to the parts that need it. I need to do some touch-ups and re-dos of some of my animation too. For the most part I am happy with how it is coming out. I am about 5000% happier with it than I was at the beginning of the semester. Right now my main problem is coming up with a title...Now after almost 36 hours of being awake...I need to sleep...

Montage

2008-03-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

Here is my portfolio montage. I am going to add a couple of DP clips into it when I finally finish it.

Wacom

2008-03-18T12:05:00.001-07:00

So my wacom tablet broke over the weekend. I ordered a new Bamboo tablet and it came in today. Drawing on it is a lot more different than I expected. It's gonna take a little getting used to. Hopefully my drawings won't look different now with a new tablet.

Spring Break WoooooHoooooo!

2008-03-16T20:36:00.000-07:00

Spring Break...I remember when that meant that I would be having fun. This past week consisted of work, homework, and being indoors the whole time. This is another scene from my DP. This is the closing scene where I mention other stories that occured that I don't go into detail on.

As of right now I have the first 55 seconds animated. Now I just need to get the other minute and a half done and then I can spend the next month coloring and re-audioing. 68 days until graduation....So scary...

Also, here is my business card that I have been working on. Did a little more work on it today.

Headaches

2008-02-25T11:58:00.000-08:00

Finally uploaded a drawing. This is one of the frames from my degree project. In this scene, the character on the left is my aunt and the one on the right is her boyfriend. The line in the audio is "My aunt comes with us sometimes with whatever guy shes dating at the time." The animation is of my aunt looking at her boyfriend and it morphs into different characters.

Eventually I'm going to scan in some backgrounds and do some color on the characters. Long way to go but I am making some progress.

Stackin' the wood

2008-02-23T12:50:00.001-08:00

It's been a long week. Making progress on my DP again after a couple day drought. Not having DP this week really put me into a funk. I get most of my motivation to work on it when I have class and get input and see what everyone else is doing. I just finished up with another scene from the beginning of the piece. I have the first 30 seconds animated along with some other random spots throughout the piece including the last scene. I am off from work tomorrow so it will be entirely a DP/Portfolio day. I need to tweak my Portfolio montage and do some sketches for my web site and business cards. This is proving hard because i don't think I have a distinct style. I will probably end up using my DP aliens or variations of those. My website is in the process of being built for me too. I just need to get the domain name and figure out which pieces I want to put on the site.

Hopefully I can get some more DP done tonight at work...

Progress!

2008-02-12T12:42:00.000-08:00

Been working all day. Tried posting a video of my work but it was compressed badly so I removed it. I should be able to surpass my goal for this week. I should be able to get about half of the animation done in the next 2 weeks. Maybe even more. I am excited about my project again. I went through a long period where I was not happy with it. Back to work time.

Native American Tribal Dance

2008-02-11T17:04:00.000-08:00

What a long day. I had class 9-6. I managed to finish the long scene I've been working on. I'm excited. I just finished filling in the last photograph with a native american dance scene. Long story...

I didn't reach the goal I set for myself but I managed to finish a longer scene which I feel is just as good. I think I am going to try for my last goal again this week...At least 5 shots done by the end of the weekend...I feel like this is a really small goal so I am going to try to surpass it.

Now I'm going to do a little more animation tonight, then take a break and then animate all day tomorrow.

E.T. phone home

2008-02-06T20:26:00.000-08:00

Got a big chunk of the final scene done tonight. The scene consists of 7 moving photographs being throw into a pile on screen. Each of the photos is another story that I don't actually tell in my DP. They are just quick references to stories that my family will understand and my audience may or may not find humor in. I also added a pop culture reference into one of the photos. Instead of doing a family story, I drew the scene from E.T. when E.T. and Elliot ride the bike by the moon. There are also going to be other pop culture references. I already have one of The Simpson's aliens in one scene and plan on adding quite a few more as I move along.

Hard Candy

2008-02-05T21:54:00.000-08:00

Working on the last scene of my DP tonight. I'm liking where it's going. Not 100% happy with it yet, but it's coming along.

We were watching the movie Hard Candy with Ellen Page. It is a really good movie...hard to watch though. Definately a movie to see. I got most of the scene done while I was watching it. I am gonna try to finish the scene within the next couple of days. It's going to be one of the longer sequences that I do.

I need to edit a trailer for Stop-Motion 2 tomorrow too. Plus class...tomorrow is gonna be a long day.

DP Audio

2008-02-03T12:55:00.000-08:00

I recorded my audio for my degree project today. I think I'm finally at the right place with the voiceover part of it. I have placed the animation that I have done over the audio at about the right places. There isn't much done but I feel like I'm making progress. I am gonna take a break tonight to watch the Super Bowl (obviously) but I am going to try and get at least 5 more shots done by next weekend.

Go Pats!

Degree Project

2008-02-01T14:30:00.000-08:00

I have been working on my degree project for a while now. I am behind on it but have confidence that I'm going to finish it in time.

My project is about camping trips that my family has taken. To add a spin to it, all the characters are aliens and the trip takes place on another planet. I am doing the drawings in Flash and if there is time I am going to color it using Corel Painter.

Right now I have about 6 shots drawn out. I still have a long way to go but I should be able to get the animation done quickly, as long as the ideas come to me.

I am going to be re-recording my audio this weekend at some point also. The audio was one of my key problems last semester. I want to record the dialog myself but I can't get the ideas straight in my head when I'm speaking to the microphone.

I have to work tonight but should be able to get at least one shot done while I'm there.