Idle Animation Set

My Animation Supervisor was kind enough to allow me to upload this Idle Set to my blog courtesy of theBasementTechnologies.

Production has been hectic as usual with tight deadlines to be met. We are really close to releasing the beta for this unannounced game for tablets and PCs and we are all SUPER excited to share it with the world!

CTN-X 2012!!!

I am SUPER excited to announce that I will be attending CTN-X 2012 this year! There are a ton of great workshops, talks and meet-ups about all things animation. I am especially excited for Victor Navone's talk "4 Different Approaches to Acting: Context and Creativity".
Mr. Navone is a HUGE inspiration to me and a great wealth of knowledge to the animation community. See his blog here: http://blog.navone.org/

From East to West!

It has been a crazy couple of months trying to sell our old home in Pennsylvania, flying out to California and looking for a new place to live. My wife and I finally found this fantastic 1920s town home in Los Feliz close to downtown LA!

In other news, I just got my animation and recording studio up and running again and have been working with theBasmentTechnologies via email and Skype on their TBA tablet game! A special thanks to my boss Mr. Piscopio for his patience during my transition.

The Secret to Success...

What is the Secret to Success?

I saw this great documentary called, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, and I was so inspired by Jiro's work ethic and his success as the World's Greatest Sushi Chef!

Well into his eighties, Mr. Jiro Ono is still hard at work creating the world's best sushi. 

This documentary really struck a cord with me in regards to animation. I strive for perfection in my work. It is a long and difficult road and at times can become frustrating when what you envision does not always match what you produce on screen.

Here is what Mr. Ono had to say about success:

Jiro Ono, the World's Greatest Sushi Chef

"Once you decide on your occupation, you must immerse yourself in your work.

 

You have to fall in love with your work.

Never complain about your job.

You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill.

That's the secret of success and is the key to being regarded honorably."

-Jiro Ono

Hero Character Model - 360 Turnaround

A while back I uploaded some teaser pics of a character I modeled for an upcoming game soon to be released to a tablet and pc near you!  
With permission from my employer theBasementTechnologies, I uploaded a 360 of the Hero Model. Soon I should be able to upload this little guy doing some hilarious animation cycles.

And soon after...


More to come, stay tuned!

Siggraph 2012!!!

I'm all packed up and ready to fly out to L.A. from PA! It's a five hour flight and I am looking forward to catching up on some reading, Game of Thrones anyone?

Progress!

Yes, it has been a while! I have been diligently animating creatures I modeled and rigged for the "Untitled" game produced by theBasementTechnologies! I has been a great deal of work, but a whole lot of fun!
I have been filming reference, planning my shots with thumbnails and blocking out core poses. 

As the Lead Animator on this project, it has been my job to make sure all the creatures feel very distinct and unique from one another.

One of the animations I am currently working on is named "Idle Set Fire Goon".  This set is for a particularly mean and fiery looking NPC monster who is standing about with nothing do. I decided to have this creature take on mannerisms of fire. Looking at how a flame moves about was great inspiration!

Because this creature is derived from fire, I wanted it to feel very menacing and aggressive as any self respecting flame-born bad guy would!

I am waiting to see if I have permission to release some footage of what I have been working on due to the NDA. I hope to have some WIP to share really soon!

-L

Animating Four-Legged Beasts

Animating quadrapeds always seems to be a tough lesson to teach my students in my advanced animation classes. I found these great articles that have really great ways of breaking down the process for any animation student who finds themselves getting caught up in the details.

Gamasutra Article:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/169673/

Autodesk 3DS MAX Article:
http://docs.autodesk.com/3DSMAX/12/ENU/3ds%20Max%202010%20Tutorials/files/WSf742dab04106313311b7d0e3112a19e3350-7fe1.htm

New Portfolio Shot - Robot Football

Here's a small Spiked Football prop I modeled in 3DS MAX to be animated in Maya with some awesome Robot rigs, Yomm and Lenny courtesy of Animation Mentor, for my latest demo piece Robot Football.

AM rigs - Yomm and Lenny

Football I modeled in 3DS MAX

Hired!

I just signed my NDA agreement for the theBasementTechnologies newest unnamed project. I can't disclose much other than this 3D Model I created and rigged to be used in an upcoming game soon to be released to the public.

The animation I have been working on for this game is really funny and has a lot of charm. Just take a look at this character I modeled for the game. Just try and resisit it's cuteness, I dare you!

Once the game is released I can upload my shots, I'm super excited for this game!

It's all in the hands...

While listening to Animation Mentor's podcast about "What Inspires Enrico Casavosa" (http://www.animationmentor.com/resources/podcasts/), they mentioned a fun fact about Italian gestures which they studied while making Pixar's new Oscar-nominated animated short La Luna.
Naples was conquered by so many different countries through the last 4 or so centuries that they could never really learned the language of whoever invaded them! This taught them to really communicate with gestures.

I found the video they mentioned on the podcast with the Italian gesture's here:
BEST COMPLETE GESTURE'S LESSON

As an animator I am always looking for new ways to use gestures in my own work. The hands are already so expressive, and when combined with pantomime acting, can become a seriously awesome combo!

Scared/Excited, Relaxed, and Anger               

Here's a few poses I whipped up to show a few different hand gestures with "feeling". They show a variety of feelings (from left to right) such as Scared/Excitement, Relaxed, and Anger.

My Animation Fascination Story

My first fondest memory of animation is Disney's Fantasia - Night on Bald Mountain animated by Vladimir "Bill" Tytla. He is considered by many to be one of the best animators working during Disney's Golden Age of Animation, you know, waaaay before all the not-so-good sequals to The Lion King film.

He was most well known for his delightlyfully creepy animation of the Chernabog, the giant horned monster with huge bat-like wings that summons ghouls and all other manner of dark denizens to terrorize a small medieval town. I was around 5 years old when I first saw this scene and where other kids my age were too terrified to watch this particular scene in the otherwise cheery film of Fantasia and would have fast-forward past this portion of the film on the 'ol VHS, I on the other hand couldn't take my eyes off of the screen! I remember rewinding it over and over until I wore out the tape! I was fascinated then and even more fascinated now.

Chernabog

Thank you Mr. Tytla for introducing me to animation.

To learn more about Mr. Tytla, CLICK HERE.

Voice Over Demo

Although this Blog will be focused on all things animation I will from time to time post up articles, ideas and work related to Voice Over.

This is my Voice Over Demo I created under the guidance of Chuck McKibben, who was employed by Hollywood's legendary "Man of 1,000 Voices," Mel Blanc, as his personal recording engineer and audio producer.

Lu Ramos Voice Over Demo

Feel free to check out the others genres I produced, recorded and mixed such as my Corporate - Informational, Telephony and Education demos.

Character Animation Resume

This is the link for my updated Character Animation Resume:
Lu Ramos Character Animation Resume

New Character Animation Demo!

Lots of blood, sweat and tears went into this one! I am really happy with the end result of this demo. Soon to come will be my Game Animation Demo currently in the works.

Lu Ramos Character Animation Link