Dancellos Animation

Happy Feet 2 - 2 TV's Spots

2011-09-26T23:49:00.000-07:00

There are 2 new Tv's spots of Happy Feet 2 online.
Most of the new characters are introduced in these Tv spots, including the krills and Sven.

I also would like to congratulate everyone that has been working on it, the movie is coming along really well!

Hope you like it,
Dan

Happy Feet 2 Trailer

2011-05-31T00:54:00.000-07:00

Finally, the Happy Feet 2 trailer was released last week!
Some of my friends here at Dr D. worked on the trailer shots and I think that the trailer is looking great.

The trailer is going to be showed before Kung Fu Panda 2' sessions and is introducing the new characters of the sequel.

It had been almost 6 years that the first one was released and won an Oscar for the best animated movie over Pixar's Cars.

Enjoy,

Walks of life

2011-05-24T04:58:00.000-07:00

Before starting at Dr D Studios I was studying some personality walk cycles. The body mechanics of a walk cycle can be hard to animate. There are different forces and actions happening in the same time.
It is an "organized" fall, as we move forward our hips and will catch our body (before it falls) with the front leg, trusting the body weight on that leg, then moving the hips forward again, falling then catching with the other leg.
We are under the influence of the same Physic Laws where the Gravity is the most important one. A walk is a "fight" against the gravity, and this happens pretty much with all actions and movements of the live beings here on Earth.
However the animation principles can be applied to all characters, the timing and the way that one character walks is unique, just because our bodies and lives are not the same. Everyone walks. Everyone in a different way!
When I was studying acting, the first approach to understand a character was studying and exercising a way to express that character walking.
Considering the character's design, I came up with this 3 personalities walks using the Animationmentor's characters.

Hope that you like it,
Dan

Walks of life from Dancellos on Vimeo.

Richard Willians: "The Animator's survival Kit"
Eric Goldberg: "Character Animation Crash Course"

Plump to Penguins

2011-03-12T02:12:00.000-08:00

A bit of time since my last post, but I couldn't let to share that I have changed jobs and I am not longer working at Plump Films but at Doctor D Studios.

Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to all professionals that I have been working at Plump Films for almost three years. It was great having such nice and talented people giving their best to the challenging projects that we have gone trough and I am proud of the work that we have done together.

A couple of weeks ago I joined the Motion Edit Team at Dr D Studios in the Happy Feet 2's project, and is great being part of the project so far. We are working with some cool animation tools giving life to the penguins of the movie!
There are a couple of Animation mentor's students in our department and is great being surrounded by people that love animation as much as me!

I will be a bit busy in the next few months, but will try my best to keep uploading my stuff in the blog,

Cheers!
Dan

Links:
www.plumpfilms.com.au
www.drdstudios.com.au

Stuck Door

2010-11-28T21:21:00.000-08:00

Hi there!

I've worked in this animation test in the Animation Mentor Body Mechanics's class over than 2 years ago, and decided myself adding a new animation polishing pass.
I spent most of the time fixing imperfections, mostly in the head/hands/elbows/knees ARCS, focusing on the character's body mechanics animation, especially in the section where the character is standing up from the fall, giving a more believable performance to the shot.
I added a new TIMING layer to this shot as well, where I worked with different "beats" of the body flow.

I created the character's clothes, and was responsible for the shot's concept and modeling.
Sidney Vigo was responsible for all the textures, lights, rendering and the final composition of the shot.

Hope that you like it,
Dan

Stuck Door from Dancellos on Vimeo.

Hamburger Acting Shot

2010-11-21T15:36:00.000-08:00

Since I've finished "The French Restaurant" short, I've been working/polishing some old animation exercises.
In this acting shot exercise I've used IK arms, to see how it works.
Being a FK arms user I found very difficult polishing the IK Arms in a way to follow the shoulders and spine animation as using FK Arms you get this animation automatically. It was a difficult task to get the IK arms working without the "floating arms" feeling.
Anyways, it has being a good exercise, and I liked the way that the shot came along.
The line is extracted from a famous Tarantino's Pulp Fiction sequence, where Vincent (John Travolta) and Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) are sent to retrieve Marcellus Wallace's suitcase. I've tried to get a different acting approach from the movie, and I am glad that my acting choices went to a more innocent and funny way.
After the shot I've added the making off shots of the original old shot, the polished one, the background concept, modeling, and the final render shot.
Sidney Vigo helped in the first pass of the textures/light/render and setting up the Maya hair.

Hope that you like it,
Dan

Acting Shot Exercise from Dancellos on Vimeo.

Animation Mentor Newsletter

2010-09-22T17:22:00.000-07:00

Hi guys,

I had a great surprise this morning when I was checking my mailbox.
"The French Restaurant" is featured in the September edition of the Animation Mentor Newsletter!
A couple of weeks ago I've received an email from Bobby Beck saying that he liked my short movie, then I received an email with instructions to add my short in the AM Newsletter!

That's so cool! In the Newsletter I explained the short's creation process, and it has the "making off" movies and thumbnails of my animation process.

Hope that you like it!
Dan

Animation Mentor Newsletter - September 2010

"The French Restaurant"

2010-07-14T20:10:00.000-07:00

After finishing the "Animation Mentor" course about an year ago, I've been working on my graduation short.
The main ideia came over a dinner with some friends. At the restaurant, we've started to play with funny situations for my short's script when I've suggested a waiter as a character. Playing with that, we came up with the idea of this waiter struggling to open a champagne bottle.
It was the beginning of the short and a lot of work to get it done!

I wish to thank all my friends and family that have been supporting me along the way, and especially James Chiang for the inspiration and amazing critiques.
Also I'd like to highlight the Brian Arnold's work (Tweexmusic.com) in the Music and Sound Effects. Excellent job!

Hope that you like it!
Dan

"The French Restaurant" from Dancellos on Vimeo.