More Progress

I'm at the point where I'm doing the last touches on the sculpting of the character so I can go ahead and start texturing here. Here's where she's at so far! :)

Project Progress

So, the modeling of the first character in my short film is very near completion. While I finish up the few remaining accessories, my buddy Malcolm Ross has started up the rigging for me and Lee Jones has started texturing. Thanks to their help, I can go ahead and start concept work on the old lady. I need to have her design finalized and the modeling begun by Monday (latest). Pics soon!

In the meantime, I finalized the concept design on another character for a class focusing on ZBrush. Her tittle is Daughter Nature, and she takes care of the creation (and occasionally destruction) of all the smaller things in the forest (such as flowers, butterflies, etc.). Here's the final color concept:

The startup of a film!

I'm about to start executing my first short film! Most of the pre viz stuff has been done and there's only a few things left before I put this into action. I still need to finalize my environment designs with a distinct style that matches the characters and see if there's anything else to change or tweak before going into action. The film will be in 3D made primarily in Maya with some Houdini effects as necessary. For now, thats all you get to know!



Final character design by Michael C. Hicks.


Also, thanks to the amazing Lee Jones, I have a website now!
http://studentpages.scad.edu/~mbradl21

Life drawing the Michael Mattesi way

I've started delving into Michael Mattesi's book Force while taking another life drawing class and I'm already starting to progress in the ways I was hoping to. I can't wait to see where I am after the 10 weeks are over. I've loosened up significantly in my drawings (I heard many times that they were too tight or tense) and have started focusing more on the overall motion on the pose than the specifics of 'where this is in relation to this' details. I have to say that starting this book along with studying with Professor June Brigman has truly resparked my love of drawing. Here's what I feel are my best results from the first two drawing sessions:





The third I'm most happy with, although I'm very eager to learn and would love some advice and critique. It'd be amazing to get advice from Mattesi himself since I'm sure he'd have a lot to say.

Aside from the life drawing, I've been refining some work and getting it ready to put it together in a demo reel form. It'll be up here to see by the end of next week.
A group of animation students (including myself) along with Professor Tina O'Hailey The Great are going out to California for the week of SIGGRAPH and we're all very nervous and excited about getting our stuff ready to show off. I'm hoping to get some strong contacts and then start applying for internships! :)

I've also joined in on a few new projects.
The first is called Drag'n'fly. The story was created by storyboard artist John Hurst and was taken on by a SCAD Atlanta group project class that began bringing it to life last quarter. Now the team has developed into a summer crew of the remaining people around who want to help get it done!
The second is a stop motion collaboration that is still in the initial brainstorming stage. I won't be able to 100% jump on board until actual production starts though, because the meeting times overlap with my class with Professor June. However, I'm really excited to see what they come up with. :)
Finally, I've been working on storyboards for a project for the company SSMP Productions. That's about all I can tell you about that one though.

We'll see how they all go! I have high hopes for all of them!

Learning Houdini + ZBrush

So I've been working on learning Houdini and I have to say that as frustrating it can be to start learning a new program, this one is rather fun. I think I've gotten modeling figured out and we're moving on to procedural animation. However, I'm still going to call this piece in progress. It doesn't look right yet and there's a lot more I want to do to it, but here it is just so I can show off what I'm learning.

I used zbrush for the first time (which is a blast, now I want to start making characters..) in order to do detail on the birds, but they lost a lot of quality when I brought them back in to Houdini. I'm going to go back and see if I can't fix that. Special Thanks to Buddy for introducing me to the interface of ZBrush, and big one to Professor Clark for the opportunity to learn Houdini.

We also had a special visit from a few artists from Side FX who told us about the company and gave us some amazing tutorials (and some free tshirts :]).

Final modeling piece and progress on procedural animation piece coming soon!

Busy busy...

I'm still working on finishing up my final shots for Jaguar McGuire, but I took a break Thursday to do some sketching at Zoo ATL with a few friends.

As much as I love to draw, I don't feel very satisfied with where I am yet. So, since I might not be able to squeeze in another life drawing class, I'm investing in a book that has been recommended to me by the amazing Michael Hicks: Force, by Mike Mattesi.

Aside from that, I'll just keep working at it!

Spring break

Time to break this thing in!

So, my name is Miranda and I'm a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design (as it says to the left there). My goal in life is to break into the field on Animation! I'm working to improve my skills as much as possible while I'm in school so I can leave it ready to take on the world!

Right now I'm in the process of helping finish up a group project called Jaguar McGuire. I've been doing clean up work along with ink and paint and even got a scene to animate. :)

I've been on board with the team for the past 10 weeks (this making week 11) and all of the shots have been issued! Now it's all about finishing it up!

Come to our premiere!

Friday, April 9th at the Historic Strand Theatre in Marietta, GA from 7-9pm.

Entry is $2 for SCADies, $5 for other students and $8 to general public.

The screening will be a compilation of works from SCAD students along with the long awaited premiere of our own Jaguar McGuire!

I'll be working to finish up a piece of my own to try and get screened with it!

I'm also in the process of starting to get myself out there! I created this blog, am working on a website and a business card and then I'm ready to start meeting some people. Soon enough I'll have work up to show you what I'm all about.