Facebook Group and Kolbe Film School

Hello everyone, I've just started a Facebook group called Catholic Animators, which will hopefully attract, well, Catholic animators.  I'd love for everyone here to join up to get it started. 

Facebook | Catholic Animators

Also, I've begun teaching a course in Character Animation for a new online school called Kolbe Film School.  It's just a humble little school right now, but its Board of Directors has big aspirations.  See it here:

Kolbe Film School

Maybe you know someone that would like to enroll? 

Thom

P.S.  Sorry for letting the blog languish.  Hopefully the Facebook group will help get things going again. 

Pixar's Up

So it's out ... what did everyone think?

I went in to the theater with little Matthew (3 weeks old) and my lovely wife in a hopeful mood but one that I had purposely suppressed as it's easy to have high expectations of a new Pixar film.

I was most dissatisfied with the short 'Partly Cloudy' -- the animation and expressiveness were certainly not my issue, but rather ... the story itself!

Nevertheless, Pixar's UP was a fantastic experience for me! I picked up on the sweeping artistic stylizations right away but found, that after a while, I stopped seeing computer characters again ... and started seeing people instead. I saw real acting, real emotion, real characters and of course ... a real story that presented it's characters, told an entertaining tale, and answered their needs.

Perhaps I'm easily impressed, but I enjoyed UP very much and I can't wait to see it again.

BTW - Doug ... is plain AWESOME. "SQUIRREL!"

Been a while -- so here's a first!!

So -- y'know Sacky right? That flour sack that every animator from the beginning of time animates right after the bouncing ball? Well I never did that ... sorta skipped the whole flour sack thing. So here it is!! I've really been working on trying to get my animation feeling looser and also a bit more interactive with the environment as well. Check it out -- C&C welcomed as always!

Thesis is Done! Now on to my next adventure!

Hey everyone! So as I just stated I just finished my senior thesis film at my current University. It was a great experience to finally be able to work through story boards, draw up concept sketches, and even model and texture characters for an entire film. Well except for the human character that's in the film, that rig came from animation mentor. So I was able to work on this for a good 4 to 5 months. I really enjoyed the way it came out and I got a great response from it when I showed it at the exhibition. Here it is, please let me know what you think :)

Click To Play

I definitely know that the animation isn't where it ought to be to get me into the industry. I need to keep improving in my medium. That's why I have decided to go to a Graduate school in the Fall I just finished applying to it. The school is called SCAD(Savannah College of Art and Design) They have one of the highest ranked programs in the country. So I'm very excited about that I feel that this will help propel me to become a better animator and hopefully land me a real animation gig :) I know that you can become a animator in your own time by your self. But for me I have always found that I get all my energy from those around me and there sure has been a lack of that from my small little town of Lafayette, Louisiana. Oh and I think that John Webber teaches or once did teach there so maybe if you read this John maybe you could tell me a little bit about the school.

One last thing that I wanted to share with you is that I have gotten the extremely great opportunity to work in an Orphanage in Tapatitlan, Mexico. I'm going to be going through Sisters of Sorrows order. They asked if I would like to teach the children there and I believe it'll be a amazing opportunity! I know that God that called me there. Maybe I could even teach them a thing or two about animation!