Monday, December 21, 2015

Callie Colours Canuck

Last day of co op in 2015!!! I am very excited for the break and also excited about coming back to SGS with a clear mind in January (my head is unfortunately, too full of chemistry right now). I was feeling pretty dazed on Monday, god knows why, so, in a spectacular display of my inefficiency I only planned out 10 thumbnails for my story.

Wednesday was awesome though. I didn't work on my story but Ashly and Miranda gave me frames to colour in for Captain Canuck which is an animated show. I didn't draw at all and I was very slow at colour picking, but it was still very cool. I felt official!

Anyways, I am attempting to get as much boarding done today because I wont be back until January 5th so I will not ramble on any longer. I hope everyone's holiday is wonderful (even if they don't get a two week break) and I'll see you in the new year!


Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Callie Eats Ethiopian Food!


It was Julie's last day on Friday :'( so everyone went out for Ethiopian food. It was so, so good even though it was different from the food I usually eat. I got to talk with Ashly, Lea and Cherry while I ate and that's always good fun. Going out for lunch meant I didn't do anything except go back to the studio and interview Rich for a school project (I also was so full I fell asleep while while working).

On Monday and Wednesday I finished up concept. I am moving on this week to storyboards!! Super excited!! I spent a while last Monday designing the location for my short and drawing a few expressions for the firefly character. Then on Wednesday I looked at the sheet and saw that the expressions were sort of bland so I exaggerated them a lot and then drew expressions for the light bulb character. Cartoons are so cool because they defy anatomy rules and you can stretch and morph them. See you next week!

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Callie and the Colour Palette

I forgot to write a post for last week so I'll include what I did in this post as well as the stuff from this week. It's sort of hard to remember and all the days blend into one another because I'm so lost in what I'm doing. Maybe I'm losing track of time (whoops). I know that last week I finally made a work back schedule and coloured in my characters.

Choosing the colours for the schedule was probably the most fun because I made it rainbow and who doesn't love rainbow? Excel was tricky to get a hang of and I had to copy and paste cells to move things around (which completely defeats the purpose of excel 'cause it took forever).

The colouring of my characters was a lot more fun. I've been working in black and white up until now pretty much and this was my first chance to choose a colour palette for my short. It took surprisingly long to colour just a few drawings in Photoshop even more so because I still can't use the pen and tablet particularly well.

This week I've been trying to relearn perspective. I really really should have paid attention in art because I am having the hardest time drawing backgrounds. Whoever knew drawing a window could be so freaking hard.

According to my schedule I have one week left to finish my concept, but seeing as that's only three days and I have to paint three different backgrounds, I have lots of work to do. I'll probably practice out of co op otherwise I'm sunk. Happy weekend!



Monday, November 16, 2015

Callie Meets the Cintiq!

Drawing character rotations is super hard because everything must line up perfectly. It's understandable that things must line up to pass off to the designers, but it doesn't make it easier. I'm so glad I was warned off of animating humans for my short, because I probably would have died. A firefly is about as complicated as I'll get for now.

Aside from drawing the rotations painstakingly slow, I used Photoshop for the second time. Joel was out of the office on Wednesday so I got to use his Cintiq!! It was so freaking cool and much easier to use than the pen and tablet. Basically it helped me learn Photoshop and now I can focus on getting better with the pen and tablet which weirds me out 'cause I usually like to look where I'm drawing.

I didn't get much else done this week other than 3 different angles of Sam the firefly and a Photoshop painting of my friend. 


The painting was completely irrelevant to my animated short but it taught me about Photoshop so I think it's okay. Next week I want to finish the concept stage and go into storyboarding. That'll have to wait till Monday though. 

Adios amigos!

Thursday, November 5, 2015

Callie on Concept

I have been working here at Smiley Guy for a month!! It's official! I love it so much. 

This week I went on to the second stage of animation, which is concept. I have already finished my script, and so I spent four hours each on Tuesday and Thursday drawing out my characters. They're pretty cute, if I do say so myself. 

Rich has been helping me through this stage and it is so helpful to have someone give constructive criticism. I know how to draw but I don't know how to stylize something so that it is workable in a cartoon and looks appealing. I think I've drawn about 9 pages of concept art and I'll probably draw lots more. It'll have to be done next week though, because now it's the weekend!! So long!

Monday, November 2, 2015

Callie Love Halloween and Samosas

Halloween is upon us!! I love costumes and I was very happy when I was allowed to wear mine to work on Friday, even though the high heeled boots made me late. My boots are quite irrelevant to what work I got done this week however, so I'll move on. Monday and Wednesday I worked on my script, using Jeremy's notes and I watched more animated shorts to look at what elements made a short funny or memorable. Death Buy Lemonade by Kyu-bum Lee is definitely my favourite (probably because of the pun in the title).

Friday was my most productive day, by far. I sat in on a meeting and listened to Julie talk about a top secret toy (shhhh) being released just in time for Valentine's Day. It was actually a good thing to listen to because it offered an inside look at the back and forth between the client and the studio. Julie also printed out a script of Chirp and used that to teach me how to format my own script. I didn't do much after that except eat a samosa and write this before it was time to go. People are always giving me food here and I love it. Yum. Anyways, Happy Halloween!! See you next week.

Callie = Claire Standish

Friday, October 23, 2015

Callie Meets Photoshop

I sat at a different desk this week across the room from Julie and Erin :( but the chair was very comfortable so huzzah! This is another two day week, and I'm sort of caught in between stages of work here, so I haven't gotten much done. I just finished the very long document about the stages of animation and am currently getting started on the script for my own little project now. It's sort of difficult to know how complicated I can make it, because although I have learned about each stage, I haven't done any hands on. With the exception of tutorials I watched online. I was able to animate a water drop after watching videos on YouTube, but that is very different from something with backgrounds, characters and props!

On Tuesday I attempted to use Photoshop and it was hopeless. Yes, I was able to draw something, but it was using the background colour palette, which I am pretty sure is not the correct way. I will definitely be doing some homework this weekend.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Callie Likes Snacks and Concepts Better Than Animation. Maybe.

Of course Monday was a holiday (yum turkey), so I've only been in for two days this week. I'm continuing the project that Julie gave me, which is to learn about each stage of animation before I start my animated short. It's super helpful because I know what I'm getting into, and also understanding how much work goes into animation. I'll have to keep that in mind when I am choosing an idea for my short. On Wednesday I interviewed lots of very nice people about design, voice record, scene planning, animation and revisions. I've also sort of realized through this process that I am more interested in concept and design than I am in actual animation. At least I think. I'll see once I actually start my film.

Friday was pretty similar to Wednesday in that I interviewed more people. I was in the editing suites with Joel for about an hour learning about special effects. I watched the animatic for The Curse of Clara and saw some shots he had edited to look 3D and as if an actual camera was filming it. Very cool. Ben brought in lots of food from a live commercial he had filmed the day before so I ate a doughnut and some licorice which pretty much made my day, then he taught me about rough, fine and lock cuts. I'm excited for next week, but for now happy weekend!

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Our New High School Intern Callie

It was my first week at Smiley Guy and I’ve learned so much. In the time I’ve spent there, I have worked out story ideas for my animated short, watched student animations and learned about a few of the many stages of animation. When you watch the telly, all you see is the final product and not a lot of people realize, me included up until a while ago, that there are around 15 stages of animation before anything gets released. That’s crazy!! But is gives me a lot of respect for the people who make these shows.

To learn about the animation process, I interviewed Jeremy, who writes scripts, Aaron, the art director and Kal, a storyboard artist. It’s pretty cool how much goes into just one episode of Chirp. For my short film, I’ll have to do each step myself, so learning from people who have lots of experience is very helpful. Thanks for a great first week!

Friday, July 31, 2015

Goodbye from Miyeon!


This is my last blog post. How time flies! For this week, I have been working on the rotation sheets for the characters from The Curse of Clara. It reminds me of when I was a kid because I did ballet too even though I barely remember what I learned. Anyway, I enjoy drawing them because the characters are all very cute.
Since this is my last blog, I want to talk about working as an intern for Smiley Guy Studios. I feel great about doing my internship at SGS because all the artists from here are very nice and I really learned a lot. Working as an intern helps students learn how real productions works from experience but, working here also helps to decide what to focus more on by trying many different areas, not just focusing on one job. Even though I started doing concept art first, I also had chance to do some backgrounds, building up the puppets and animating in flash. As I worked on concept art, I also could work on many different shows with various different styles. Before I came here to work, I always stayed in my comfort zone and drew only in the style I like and was familiar to draw, so it was very good training for me but it was hard at first. But, I've got a lot of help from Aaron and now I am doing much better than before. I am really happy that I had an opportunity to work from SGS!


Wednesday, July 29, 2015

David J. Signing Off

Today is my last day as an Intern at Smiley Guy Studios! It's hard to believe just 13 short weeks ago I started my time here. When I first started I was pretty nervous about how my first experience in the industry would turn out. Would I be able to cultivate the skills necessary to become successful in this field? Would I fit into the studio?

I feel very lucky to have been able to work on three different shows during my time here because I think that doing so stretched my skillset and understanding of the different styles and subtleties that making each show look distinct and unique. Getting to do special effects was a lot of fun too!
Furry Force was my first experience in the industry and let me tell you, there’s nothing I won’t animate now. It was a lot of fun working on the shot where Leon timetravels to the past to warn Vivisector because I got to do hand drawn special effects for the lightning, plus it was SO hilarious making Leon shiny. Later I moved on to Chirp.

Doing Scene Setup on Chirp was an interesting experience because it's one of the jobs that I didn't realize existed. I had expected that it would have been the responsibility of the animator to bring all of the characters, backgrounds and audio into the scene. Now I realize that it actually makes it so much easier to get the animations done quickly because the elements are already sitting there waiting for you to make the characters think and act.

Animating on Chirp was really fun! My favourite character on the show is Squawk. I love bluebirds first of all, and Squawk is so fun to animate because he’s so boastful even though he’s always the first to run away. I like that mix of wanting to the great but also having alot of panic and fear. I think Character Animation is by far the most challenging facet of animation. Getting an appealing performance from the characters is always a new challenge every day but I feel like I’ve gotten a lot better at it since working at Smiley Guy.

I have been working on Wussywat for the last couple days. I really like the characters. They have really cute individual personalities and it makes the acting choices a little more obvious because there is more variety between how they think and behave. On Wussy Wat the characters have more complicated rigs and they do a lot more moving around than on Chirp. Yesterday I had my first Skype meeting for Wussy Wat. It went well but I will ask more questions for the next time.

I am incredibly grateful to have been given the opportunity to work with such a great group of people who have mentored me throughout my time here as in intern, and look forward to moving into my new role as an employee at Smiley Guy Studios when I return from a week long trip in Montreal.

Monday, July 27, 2015

Keith's Last Blog

So this is my final blog entry, and what a ride it's been.
I can feel all the experience I've gained here at Smiley Guy, and I'm thankful for the multitude of different assignments I've received. On each assignment I successfully learned something new, and became just a little faster and slightly more efficient.

I was especially fond of the sparky graphics . These assignments although small gave me a great deal of creative freedom, so long as I followed the initial sketch as a guideline. The benefit of them being smaller assignments was the sense of accomplishment I got after finishing so many of them.   it's very akin to the Dopamine hit from leveling up in a video-game haha.

Had a bit of a surprise today when I found out Photoshop up and rebooted itself, taking my file that I had worked on all of yesterday with it; and all my brush presets were gone too (still don't get why that happens).
After a few minutes trying to find another copy of the file, I realized I had to do the entire thing again

After the usual few moments of shock and a involuntary eye twitch or two; I shrugged and realized I could do it again in half the time because I didn't need to spend time figuring it out from scratch; and it's still experience in working faster, so it's all good.

It wasn't as bad as loosing over 10 hours of fairly complex animation because of a corrupted flash file. 

That was unpleasant.

At times like this, I think about the story I'll be telling one day and that makes the entire experience less serious.

The process of painting as much as I have this summer (literally 8 hrs a day) and with a variety of subject matter, has thoroughly improved my understanding of colour and light.

 I'm a hell of a lot faster too.

I leave SGS wiser, and more confident in my abilities, and I thank everyone who helped me evolve, be it directly or otherwise.

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Cheeawk! by Mary

This is my last blog post! It seems like I was on a faerie theme from the past posts, so here's the last one for you!


As you can see, I love this little kids show, and it was a pleasure working on it during my internship, and I look forward for more in the next month! Smiley Guy Studios has offered me a job here, so I'll still be animating these birds until my school starts. This means I'll also have more time to ask for some feedback on my thesis film.
I had a really fun experience here with friendly people and a relaxing environment and I think I've already blogged enough about what I've learned from the studio in my past posts, so perhaps here's something funny for my last blog post!

Last week Joel sent us a funny faerie Chirp clip from a future episode, and I had to check out the full animatic - no surprise I loved it! I was also wearing my Tinkerbell t-shirt that morning too. Hehehh.
On the same day, intern buddy David and I had a hilarious skype conversation after watching the episode before work. We really got into the Chirp world...so many deep questions were asked and a future story of Chirp turned into some strange fanfiction...PG-13 rating? David and I don't mind sharing this. I hope our energy entertains you!


The Skype Conversation:We made couple-pairing names?!!!!

David Just: squawk is my spirit animal
MaryT: I KNOW RIGHT???
David Just: ok thats it i offically ship tweet and squawk
MaryT: SAFJDNSAKJDNSAKDSADSA
David Just: i had them holding hands in my shot
MaryT: SQUEET!!!! 5EVERE (squeet = squawk + tweet)
David Just: i kinda changed it though so they aren't rrreeaaalllyy holding hands
MaryT: BUT I WANT CHIRP IN ON THIS. CHIRPAWK. (chirpawk = chirp + squawk)
David Just: cheeawk(cheeawk = chirp + tweet + squawk)
David Just: the ultimate OT3 (ot3 = one true triple pairing)
MaryT:CHEEAWKTHAT IS PERFECt
David Just: so much vowels
David Just: its like a hawk screeching
David Just: wait... aren't they siblings?
David Just: everything is so ambiguous!
MaryT: What colour parents would they have if they were siblings???
David Just: couple of rainbow parents duhhhhh
MaryT: maybe the show ships them as siblings....but NEIGH we shall Cheeawk into the horizon in the sunset
MaryT: PARROTS???
David Just: yellow blue orange purple probably the other colours too ;)
David Just: maybe???
David Just: i feel like tweet is an owl though
David Just: hahahah
MaryT: Tweet would be....Hoot
David Just: yeah!
MaryT: What if Squawk had a crow for a dad because of his beak? He'd be....Caw....Squawk Caw.
David Just: yeah!
David Just: and chirp is like... part canary
David Just: from a pet store
David Just: honestly he reminds me to tweety bird so much
MaryT: His mother was....TWEETY BIRD
David Just: YES! :O
MaryT: THATS IT
MaryT: THIS IS LOONEY TOONS NEXT GENERATION
MaryT: LOONIES
David Just: AAAAAHHHH!!! WB will be so upset :P
MaryT: Maybe the Warner Brothers turned INTO the vole brothers?
MaryT: they are secretly the Warner brothers. watching over Tweety Bird's lost son
David Just: we're in way too deep! write the back story n post it somewhere
MaryT: I'll use it as my next blog post OMG
David Just: who's the dad though?
David Just: Multiple dads?
David Just: :O
MaryT: I dunno but maybe LOL oh Tweety.
David Just: i feel like squawk's dad is the crows from dumbo
MaryT: YEAH
MaryT: omg
David Just: tweets could be owl from winnie the pooh
MaryT: Oh my god
David Just: and chirp is immaculate conception from god
MaryT: WELL THEN TWEETY WHOA THERE
MaryT: he's the precious one born in a cage
David Just: sweet summer child
MaryT: the golden child. who's grandmother will never visit him
MaryT: imagine the angst when he'll never see his grandma in person
David Just: he is his own grandma
MaryT: OMG
MaryT: YOU'RE RIGHT
David Just: come on Mary, it's obviously just chirp in a dress ;)
David Just: she doesn't even have wrinkles
MaryT: FOOLING SQUAWK AND TWEET EVERY DAY HE HIRED THE MAIL SQUIRREL IN THIS DAILY SCHEME.
MaryT: TO PROVE TO THEM THAT AT LEAST HE HAS FAMILY.
MaryT: WHEN TWEET FINDS OUT ABOUT HIS EVIL LIES SHE LEAVES THE BIRDS AND MARRIES THE VOLE BROTHERS. SQUAWK FINDS OUT HE FORSAKEN THE CANARY'S HEART AND SINGS A SAD SONG AND ATTRACTS SPARKY BUT THEIR LOVE CAN NEVER BE. AND THEN CHIRP IS ALL ALONE AGAIN.
MaryT: oh i just had caps on. omg
MaryT: messed up chirp angst
David Just: lmao
David Just: so much angst
David Just: holy moly
MaryT: coming up next "the friendship is broken. the season finale. Will they ever be together again?"
David Just: the answer, YES
MaryT: a loud battle cry was heard because love is a war. love is...CHEEAWK.
David Just: lmao
David Just: i wanna draw like a mega bird with 3 heads called the cheeawk
MaryT: OMHG

The end! Well you can tell we're into the show.

Thanks a bunch Smileys!

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Meghan's Last Blog Post

Throughout my stay here at Smiley Guy, I learned a lot about flash, how to build props, scene plan and even a bit of painting. I met a bunch of really nice people who were helpful and always willing to give advice about my upcoming year at Sheridan. My supervisors are awesome! They never minded when I asked a million questions and they were so welcoming when I first started. They never made you feel like you couldn’t do something. If you struggled, that was okay, they reassured you that everyone struggles at the beginning and everyone still makes mistakes. One of my supervisors even helped me with my film idea.

After getting a taste of what the industry is like, I’m now more prepared for graduation and I’ve decided what my focus is going to be. I’m lucky enough to have supervisors who would be more than willing to critique my work for the rest of the summer and throughout the year. I will definitely be taking advantage of that.

Over all, I’m very happy with my experience here at Smiley Guy and I would recommend it to any student!

Friday, July 17, 2015

Mia Starts on Chirp!

For last week, I worked on pose sheets for Vampire PI.I just created them of two characters from its very cute character design sheets. It takes more time than I expected maybe because I can't work fast with pen tools. Sometimes, I got crooked line instead of nice curved line on my intention.
I got assigned some works to work at home on last week and I borrowed my sister's Mac and this was the first time that I used it because I have been using Windows in my life. And it went over my head! Their mouse scroll direction is opposite of Windows and they have command key which I couldn't figure out its exact functions. That key functioned similarly with control key but mac has control key too and it was confusing which key should I use. Mac was challenge for me and I am afraid to use them again for fear of losing my work by pressing wrong key...
For this week, I am working on a layout for the underwater scene from Chirp! I made a big dumb mistake from the beginning because I worked on very small canvas size. Therefore, I should work all over again.I will never make the same mistake again!

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

David Just Learns to Walk

This week I got my first scene that was longer than ten seconds. With about 14 seconds to animate for one scene, I’m pretty busy. The shot has the three birds in a hot air balloon and there is a lot of dialog. I think I’ve figured out how to get faster with the lipsync, but I'm still struggling to get all of the acting done in a quick and effective way. Luckily I was able to get some tips from Darien, the Animation Director on Chirp, and improved my scene.

 One of the things I’ve learned this week is how to modify walk cycles to prevent foot positions from sliding. I was told that the producers on Chirp aren't too concerned with feet sliding, but for my own sanity I needed to keep Chirp from look like an ice skater. I was able to fix the problem by making the cycle repeat a few more times and then shortening the distance the birds needed to travel as well. Darien told me that in some cases the whole cycle may have to be sped up and all the tweens would then need to be re-adjusted. Luckily I didn't need to do it that way.

I also learned from Joel about how to make better acting choices. Normally I follow the storyboards as closely as I can but in one scene I was able to improve the performance by making Chirp look more excited. By using the recorded dialog as a basis for finding the “beats” animators can emphasize the character's actions in sync with the line delivery to help the audience understand the message as clearly as possible.

Friday, July 10, 2015

KEITH LEARNS SOME VALUABLE ANIMATION AND LIFE LESSONS

It's been and interesting couple weeks. I tried ramen at the place down College St. and it was pretty nice. the atmosphere was very pleasant and inviting. I got a bit of advice about how to think about my film for next year, and it was very helpful. Granted a lot of it was already part of my thinking process, but it was still cool to hear from another.

I've also been doing a few layouts for a short that the studio is working on, and it's been really fun.  In love the style of the show, and I can feel my colour and shape design sense improving just from working on it.

Our resident magician introduced me to the world of Team Fortress 2, an awesome online team first person style game, and what could be possible to those who mastered it. It was incredible watching them take out the other team pretty much single-handed.

He also mentioned in passing how to invite oneself to bonfires- an extra case of beer or two. I honestly didn't realize how easy it could be to crash a party .

Overall, working at the studio continues to be a very interesting learning experience.

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Audio Book Reviews by Meghan

The last couple weeks at Smiley Guy I have been doing more prop building. I enjoy the challenge and like that I'm able to listen to audiobooks while I work. Last week Mary and I decided to listen to a book called "I've got your number" by Sophie Kinsella and we absolutely loved it!! I would recommend it to anyone who likes romantic comedies. She's also the author of the book "Confessions of a shopaholic" which is a movie. Another good book of hers that I read a while back is "remember me?". So if anyone who's reading this needs a light-hearted entertaining book to read, choose one of these or another of Sophie Kinsella's books. 
 
I'll be moving back onto Scene set-up this week and will be moving to Wussywat next week! Looking froward to the challenge!

David Works on the Birds and the Bees

This week was Canada Day so it was a short week! I’ve been finding Mondays are usually my least productive days but this week on Tuesday even though I came in late (for good reason!) I still managed to get all five of the scenes in my que finished! I feel like I’m starting to get a better handle of the animation style of the show along with streamlining my work-process. 

I’m finding that Chirp is a fun show to work on because the birds are always pretending to bee somewhere else and someone else! This week in the episode I’m working on, Chirp and friends are pretending to be bees so I changed my desktop to a screencap from Wickerman to get me in the the mood:

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Mary's Faeries and Romantic Comedies

I've been animating for Chirp episodes this week and I'm still enjoying it! In fact here's an adorable still from a momentary glitch I got animating one of the scenes:


Isn't he so cute?? Hahaha! I joked to Joel about how I was animating the next Jurassic World with this little guy. Hahhah! Imagine that? JurassicChirp World!

Anyway, I had even checked out the magazine this show was from. I say, this tv show really did a good job redesigning the characters. (Though I still don't know what kind of bird Tweet is...) I told my little sister that if I were to create more bird characters for Chirp, they'd be named, Hoot, Caw, and Quack. You can guess what birds they may be. 

Also here's Meghan as a faerie:


Thanks for introducing me to an awesome romantic comedy novel Meghan! :) If anyone's curious, the novel was "I Got Your Number" by Sophie Kinsella. It was really entertaining and I really hope they make a film out of it one day. I'm reading the "Lunar Chronicles" by Marissa Meyer now. So far the scifi/dystopian world is really interesting, especially with their android female protagonist.

Friday, July 3, 2015

Mia Works on Chirp

For this week, I drew concept art for the layout from Chirp and this was the first time that I worked something for Chirp! I drew the rough layout first and then continued to work on painting it which was pretty interesting. The backgrounds from Chirp has its own unique style like the sharp edges, bold outline and realistic textures. I used pen tool for blocking all the layers first and then searched for good textures for the layout. The scene that I worked on was a desert canyon scene and I found various different rock textures for the canyon. I played around with them and it was a lot of fun. What I am working on now is making the characters from a concept art to be able to build and animate in Flash.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Keith Talk about Bubbles and Books

This week has been very fruitful, learning how to flow with the creative current as opposed to resisting it, when I second guess myself. I did several Sparky graphics, and some equally challenging grandma post cards. They are sooo very fun to do. I'm really enjoying the whole playing with colours and calling it  "work" thing.

A highlight- someone got a surprise birthday cake that looked very much like a huge burger. It was hilarious!!

That and gigantic bubbles!!!    on the rooftop!!!     soo fun!!!!!
 
Brad demonstrating how to make massive bubbles

Finally caught up with "the girl with the dragon tattoo" series, and am on the last chapter of the audio book. its really exciting, I love the sense of divine retribution the author put into the book, it makes it so much more enjoyable, like everything gets wrapped up, and everyone gets their just desserts. 

Spoiler alert lol

I mention the audio-book, because I find they work much better than movies, or t.v. shows at keeping me just on the edge of my seat and alert so I don't get fatigued when painting all day.

It really adds to the experience, almost like you're on the adventure with them, feeling their sorrow, their joys all from the safety of the office.

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Meghan Paints Toronto

Last week I was still working on prop building and built the most challenging prop I’ve done so far. I had fun doing it because I was able to learn a lot and problem solve, so I’m glad I had that opportunity. 

I’ll be transitioning into Background painting in the near future and hope to learn a lot from that. I have been watching different videos and tutorials to help improve my painting with colour and light, and working with artists at the studio will only assist me in improving quicker, so I’m very excited about that. I want my fourth year film to have nice layouts so I’m doing what I can to improve. 

Since I’ve been at Smiley guy, I’ve been taking the streetcar from the train to the studio and have really been noticing the vibrancy of Toronto. I’ve never paid any attention to it before, but while I’m riding the streetcar I love watching the people. It’s helped me with my film idea actually… I plan on going to liberty village soon to draw the people and their dogs, I want to have some of Toronto’s vibrancy in my film.

Monday, June 22, 2015

The Birds and the Faeries and Mary

I've been animating scenes for Chirp for the past two weeks and I'm having a blast! I'm learning how to play with timing and secondary actions in my animations, and so far, I'm feeling a lot more comfortable using Flash puppets. The Chirp characters were entertaining to animate, and it was fun to play with their poses. I especially love playing with Chirp's character - I like giving him that smug, sassy look for some reason. Maybe I'll make them do the 'french pose' next for fun. Hahah! I wonder if I can show funny pose screenshots...
The voice acting of the birds were really well done in the show too - the kids were animated and funny to listen to. Kudos to those talented kids~!

Anyway, I'll write more next post, but here's a little faerie me drawing on a leaf! I'm on a faerie hype right now for some reason...


Friday, June 19, 2015

Mia Learns Flash Flash Flash!

This week, I am still working with Flash but I got the chance to work on animating with Flash which I wanted to do to learn more about Flash. I built up 6 different background characters in Flash what I designed last week. And then, I am working on walking cycle animation for the characters from the Wildlife for testing them. This is my first time to use tween tool to animate and it is hard to get used to it but, It is so cool! 
I saw flash file for the characters from the bedbug affair and its head rotation is so smooth and so good and that 2d drawings looked look like 3d!! I am still playing around with tween and mask tools and this is so interesting and fun to do it. 
Hope I will get the hang of Flash quickly to become easier to work with soon!

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

David's To-Do Lists

So I’ve been giving the opportunity to work on something other than Furry Force, which I am thankful for. It was starting to ruin my brain, even though it was HILARIOUS to work on. For example here are some of my favourite notes from a shot i was working on just the other day.



Now I'm on working on Chirp in scene set-up and I get notes like “switch the instance of Squawk’s torso” and other such mild mannered instructions. Its a good change of place and I'm learning that there is a lot of different elements that all need to be properly organized and labeled and checked and double checked.

Monday, June 15, 2015

Keith's Musings on the TTC and Sparky Graphics

Wacky Wednesday:
I wake up to the sound of  the radio show host saying that all the subway lines are shut down. With a groan I fall back in bed, while his co-host tells everyone to just take a day off. I drag myself out of bed and trudge along to start what promised to be the start of a terrible day. As I dose off on the bus-ride to the subway station, I wish the subway lines would magically just be open when I get there, that they were never closed in the first place.  
Imagine my surprise when I got to Islington Station expecting a crowded shuttle bus and instead see the subway functioning as normal.  Bewildered I get on, did I dream that the subway was closed? Did i fall asleep and dream that it was open?  I ponder these questions as I drift off once more
When I get to work, I'm still confused. I ask Joel if he heard about the subways, and he confirms he heard they were closed. 
With a shrug of disbelief I start painting...
 
I do love the crazy rain we're having, it always manages to put me in a better mood.
Been working on Sparky Graphics, which is something completely different from what I'm used to, which is great. It's funny, whenever I begin to feel the strain of working on something too long, I get a new assignment to balance everything out.
Really enjoyed playing with colors on the surfing grandma postcard assignment I got to do.
 

Friday, June 12, 2015

Meghan's Dogs Love the Birds!

The last couple of weeks I was finishing up scene planning and starting on prop building. So far so good, I’m really enjoying it. The designs for chirp are pretty adorable and I like how textures are applied to them to give them something extra. There have been a couple challenges but only because I’ve just started doing it and thankfully I have a really patient teacher who’s pretty awesome.


The other day as I was getting ready to leave for the train, I turned the TV on so my dogs would have some noise while I was gone. I usually just turn on whatever, but I managed to find Chirp on TV! It was pretty cool seeing an actual episode on TV so now everyday before I leave I turn Chirp on for my dogs to watch. I’m excited for the day I get to see a couple of the things I worked on, on TV!


Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Smileys, Dracula and Biiirds!

I had just finished my last prop/FX today for Smiley Guy Studios' tv show Chirp! It involved snow and icebergs and what I'd call...snowbergs! I'll miss doing props. It was so fun and relaxing! I've learned so much, from masking to animation techniques. I've made a collection of bananas, flowerpots, toilet papers, dog dishes, pickaxes, sandcastles, megaphones, nuts, leaves, playsets, snowballs and now snowbergs! 

There were times when I was just frustrated with my slow pace, but there were also times when I get so caught up making a prop that it actually turns out "Good!" according to Joel. I'm surprised by how much I know a lot more about Flash at this point. Thank you so much Joel! 

Aside from my Flashy adventures, I also acquainted with more Smiley faces like Tom, who had apparently worked at Elliot Animation (I've heard that studio did the show 6teen and Stoked, which are shows that I was a big fan of) and Cherry, Ashley and Kosta among others who talk about comics and superhero movies. It's really cool to get to know people in the studio with similar likes. We even have awesome lunch adventures, like last week, Julie took us to Kensington Market, and ugh oh...I think I found a new knick-knack store to lose all my money to...

There's so much more to talk about, like how I'm starting scene-planning and animating in Chirp this week, but because my ice-cappuccino beside me is crying out to be emptied...that's all folks! :)

P.S.
The Dracula part in this week's title was because of two things. 1) I had just finished Bram Stoker's novel Dracula and it was awesome, and 2) I had just got a part of a Romanian character - with fangs of course, because Transylvanian vampires, yoo - for an upcoming Q&A panel in a comic convention in Hamilton! (I can't believe I still have time for these things. pfffft oh well it's my summer) Anyway that means, it's time to practice being a vampire while animating.
  Here's a sneaky birdie for ya! Inspired by WussyWat's bird design.  Birds, birds, birds!

 

Friday, June 5, 2015

Mia Learns Flash!

It is already fifth week to work from Smiley Guy Studio! This week, I learned a lot about Flash program which I barely knew about before because I usually animated with other programs drawing frame by frame. Building up each part of the character to rig was unfamiliar to me and learning was a big challenge for me. Keyboard shortcuts were different that I used before with other programs and I don't know which tool was where and it was very confusing at first. But, I am really glad to have this opportunity to learn about Flash since most TV animations are made with Flash or Harmony.
I am currently building up a character for other short film from Flash. I think I get better than before for using Flash now. I am looking forward to learn how to animate with Flash later even if it will be another challenge for me.


Wednesday, June 3, 2015

David Just Enjoys FX

This week I have been animating Barf, Bubbles, Waves, Ripples, Splashes, Smoke, Electricity, Slime, and Sparkles. I’ve learned that shape tweens are pretty challenging to control, and that tracking objects to paths makes animation a lot easier and faster. Using shape tweens to animate colours on objects is also really awesome. I also learned about how different temperature objects fall into a certain spectrum of colour depending on how hot or cold the object is.
I liked working this week on the scene where Leon time travels back in time like in the Terminator movies. The scene was so gross and sexy. I animated so many sparkles on Leon the Cyborg Lion’s arm. It’s so hilariously disgusting. I never expected to hear to words “wolf-cum” used in a professional environment. Julie even asked me today if I “feel uncomfortable animating this kinda stuff”. It’s pretty gross, and a lot of it won’t be on my demo-reel but at least I'm learning a lot.

This is more PC than what David is animating









Friday, May 29, 2015

Keith Commutes, and Smiley Guy Video!

So I've been working on backgrounds of the actual show and things are getting a lot more intense. Lots more to do, but I've started to see improvements in my work and am getting faster. I believe I'm nearly ready to work from home some of the time. Love working in the studio, but the commute is still exhausting. I also like that every morning at the subway there's a street musician doing his thing, really brightens up the day.

Loved the little "featurette" CBC did on the studio: 



Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Meghan Makes Mistakes...But That's Okay

The last week and a half at Smiley Guy I’ve continued to do Scene Set up on Chirp. I’ve learned even more about Flash and am now confident enough to work on my own and solve most problems on my own. I still make mistakes however… a lot of mistakes, but my supervisor continues to tell me that mistakes happen and everyone makes them, even people who have been working there for a long time. Although I try my hardest to not make mistakes, I’ve noticed that after I make them I learn something new, or become more aware and am able to catch them after I send them in so I can correct them before the scene planning supervisor sees them… or sometimes I just make incredibly stupid mistakes and can’t believe I did it. I’m improving though and that’s what matters. I’m getting faster, and setting up more difficult scenes, which are both fun and challenging. I’ve come to hate masking and shape tweens more then anything, but at least I actually know how to do them. They are incredibly useful, just a pain. 

Overall, things are going well. I’m happy with everything so far and am looking forward to moving on to prop builds in the near future!

Monday, May 25, 2015

Mary's Weekend Convention was for the Slushie and Iced Cap

Last Weekend I was roaming around Anime North, over at the Toronto Congress Center by the airport. It was jammed pack with people and I walked in heels wearing a black fall jacket under the scorching desert sun in cosplay! 

Aside from the heat, tall boots and burning blazer on top of two layers, I had a lot of fun hanging out with my cosplayin' crew, and that was worth it.

I went for two days trekking the place though the forest of people. I learned a learned how to be thrifty in this kind of con. ;) I barely shopped for anything but slushies and ice cappuccinos in stuffy lineups. Most of my souvenirs were photos and random videos.

No drawing for this week but I'll draw something next week! I was sore all morning and I need ice cream. Ahhh time to head home. I'm gonna draw you a WussyWat character next week ;)

Friday, May 22, 2015

Mia Makes Friends with the Computer

On the second and third week of work at Smiley Guy Studios, I worked on concept art but did various different things. First thing I started from week 2 was draw a layout of a boy's bedroom. Even though I have a younger brother, there is nothing much in his room and it is not helpful at all for reference, and I did a lot of research for boys' bedroom from Internet. 
The next thing I did was basically draw and paint over Aaron's layout because it was needed as a high- resolution for printing out in a bigger scale. 
And I got back to work on Todd & The Book of Pure Evil. I drew rough rotation sheets for main characters and also drew  hand model sheets for each male and female character. And now I am creating characters from real people who wanted to be in the animation series which is pretty interesting.
I often work traditionally so I did not spend much time on a computer before. Now, I have been using the computer all the time and at first, I looked too close for a long time (just for me more than usual) and it made me sick. It made me dizzy and had sore eyes. But, human beings are infinitely adaptable. I guess I am well adapted to work with computer for a long time now. I feel great!

Thursday, May 21, 2015

David Learns FX, but mostly Board Games

This week I’m animating special effects on Furry Force and it’s…erm...interesting... I'm enjoying learning how to animate special effects though! So far I’ve animated a rain effect, and cloud effect, and I've composited a scene with fire.

This week I also attended GAME NIGHT! I had the opportunity to meet, Spencer, Kris, Kosta, Nicole, and Sean :) We were playing Betrayal at House on the Hill. 


Basically each character has stats and you roll dice and explore a haunted house! It was super awesome because we were playing some spooky music that was timing perfectly to our game creepily enough! Everything was going great, I had found a spellbook, which gave me a bonus to my character’s knowledge stat and a skull which gave me another upgrade. Then Kosta had to get cursed and become this evil body horror monster like Tetsuo Shima in the anime Akira. And of course he can't take any physical damage because his gross body absorbs the attacks! The only way we could kill him was to run to the basement and try to explode the furnace and burn the house down while Spence attacked with his dog to distract Kosta. Me and Nicole both got to the basement. I fell down a hole in a room, and she took a magic elevator. In the basement I found an awesome ring that gave let me turn my mental stats into damage, turning me into a psychic! Then Nicole successfully blew up the furnace, but unfortunately we lost because we couldn't find a way back out of the basement before burning to death.
This week has been a lot of fun so far and I’m really enjoying both the work and the work environment at Smiley Guy :)

-David

Friday, May 15, 2015

Introducting Keith!

It's been an interesting couple of weeks so far at Smiley Guy.

Best surprise of my first day? Working with Thor (well a look-a-like anyway). Still laughing at the coincidence because the previous night I was watching the movie.

I'm learning a lot about lighting, rendering and basically how to become a better painter/ designer. The challenges have been many, but are all very exciting.

So far have completed a cave BG based off  concept art, and a concept for a comic themed episode. Still have a great many revisions to do on those, but  moving onto more layouts for now.

I love the restaurants nearby, especially the wrap place. It felt like I was in Europe on holiday, sitting in an outdoor cafe.

The commute is about 2 hours and is a bit of a pain, but I'm learning to adapt to it.

All in all, definitely an interesting learning experience

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Smiley Guy For The Win! - Introducing Meghan

I learned more about flash in the last week and a half here at Smiley Guy then I have in the last three years at school. The first few days were a little rough. I was constantly asking my supervisors questions (sometimes the same one more than once), I did the two tests at a snails pace and even managed to lose most of one of the assignments when my flash crashed. I learned a valuable lesson from that however- Constantly save your work.
After a few days of trying to figure flash out, it started to become easier. By Friday, I was working on actual production stuff! I’m currently doing scene set up for an episode of Chirp and resourcing other episodes in-between. With every scene that I finish, I become more and more confident with the program, and less annoying to my supervisors (although they don’t think I’m annoying… or are too nice to admit it haha). I’ve also finally downloaded Skype so the other artists in the studio don’t have to listen to me calling my supervisors over to my workspace every 5 minutes.
The people at the studio are friendly, helpful and very sociable with each other. In my first week we had two organized lunches and a game night. Apparently game nights are a regular weekly thing too!
I’m very happy to be interning here at Smiley Guy and I’m excited to see what the upcoming weeks bring.






Monday, May 11, 2015

Mary Meets Toronto

Hey there! I'm Mary, one of the summer interns at Smiley Guy Studios, studying Animation at Sheridan. C:
 
Today is my sixth day here, and so far I'm enjoying it. I'm learning a lot of new stuff in and outside the studio, and my first week was filled with learning curves! 
 
Inside the studio I learned new things in Flash CS3, from puppet rigging, to animating with new commands. I've never explored the Ease feature, nor have I ever built a puppet in it.
I'm really grateful for Matt on the ease feature (his tutorials were helpful, and I hope to learn more of his neat tips and tricks in animating), and Joel for teaching and helping me learn more about the program. I learned a lot more about symbol animation, and did you see their library of hands for the characters in their Warren United show? They're so cool!
Joel also introduced me to Rich, a fellow director of Smiley Guy's "Cloud 8" short film a few years ago, which I found impressive. They used After Effects to composite, and I hope to learn more about that program too. Aside from making an animation look professional from it, AE can mask things with a green screen feature, like what they do for Lord of The Rings.
 
Anyway outside the studio was also a learning experience. My first day I had arrived to work early enough to explore College St. for a bit, and I ended up all the way to Spadina. I've barely explored downtown Toronto, so hopefully during my time working here I'd get more familiar with the streets and perhaps find the best little food places.  I am also super glad that Julie toured us around for lunch a couple of times. 
Furthermore I even made it all the way up to Bloor and Yonge St on foot! 
When I get home I'm either hungry or exhausted, but I feel that everyday, traveling to TO and learning from industry professionals are always worth the train rides.
Here's me as a Chirp character, makin' my way downtown!
 

Friday, May 8, 2015

Introducing Mia!

Hello, my name is Miyeon Hyun but I also go by Mia. This is my first week of my internship at Smiley Guy Studio. I was very nervous at first because it was my first work experience in the real animation industry. Now, I am happy because I realize that I actually have a great opportunity to learn from professionals.
 
Mia!
This week I have been working on concept art  creating characters and backgrounds. My first assigned work was creating two extra characters. The designs were supposed to look like an old cartoon movie style that I haven't tried before. So, I looked at the Internet, watched the old cartoon movies to study its style, and also got a lot of help from Aaron. 
The next thing I did was a layout of a science lab. Layout is not my strongest so it was scary to do it but I learned a lot by doing this. Currently I am working on a character rotation sheet for cute animal characters. 
I really like the characters and enjoy doing this!

Thursday, May 7, 2015

It's Just, David!

Dear Diary,
    First, let me introduce myself. My name is David Just. I am an artist and animator currently in Sheridan College’s Bachelors of Applied Arts in Animation. I am also one of the new interns at Smiley Guy Studios! :)




Today was my third day at Smiley Guy! I should have written the last two days about everything that's happened so far but let me summarize:

Day 1: Mild Anxiety with a side of HOW ON EARTH DO YOU USE FLASH?
Day 2: Slight Anxiety with a side of HOW ON EARTH DO YOU USE FLASH BETTER?
Day 3: Making stuff move and feelin’ chill.

I am already 300% better at flash than I was May 3rd and I have the wonderful and soft-spoken guidance of Joel to thank for that! Thank you Joel, you’re a great mentor!

As far as the actual work goes, the first two days were spent creating a puppet (headless) in flash. The puppet must have functioning joints and the artwork must have coloured & correctly layered lines. I finished my puppet about half-way through the second day and started on a walk cycle. Last night before I went to bed I knew I’d be spending today creating some new feet to add to the character library so Ingrid (from the show "Warren United") would be able to walk more naturally. I am about 75% of the way done the initial blocking pass on the walk cycle. Her arms still need work along with general fine tuning but that will get done tomorrow. :)

-David