Steve Searle – Character animator, modeller and rigger
exciting stuff and cool commission’s
Aug 27th
Well, the other day myself and my other DFAS (Distant Future Animation Studio) colleagues received notification of our successful commission proposal. We dont know the details yet, as in which one they went for, but one thing is for sure, i shall be putting my new favourite 3d tool into the pipeline. I am still learning Zbrush mind you, but slowly getting to grips with it.
Below: A second test, experimenting with masking and subtools and various different alpha brushes. All good fun! Thort id bring in an old model back to life. The creepy cat i made last year for a competition, which i managed to win!
zooming along the Zbrush bandwagon
Aug 24th
…and loving it! this is my first proper attempt, all tho did a few things to this mesh before i decided it was safe to submit it!
Some various character models of late…
Aug 20th
Just thort id share this, what i did recently, for a bit of practice, to get back into the swing of things…. All good fun!
Long Time no Post!
Aug 3rd
Well i decided, i need to get blogging again (to avoid doing work! hehe), seen as the last one was way over half a year ago! There is so much to blog about, but where to start that is the problem!
After my awesome time at Studio Distract in Manchester in November and December, i initially went there to purely do character animation, al tho i improved my skills a lot, i still had a massive urge to do some character modelling, and that’s a thing that i have decided is something im more passionate about, character animation is more of a second passion now!
Anyhoo, my friend on twitter (@fiomakesthings)has had this idea to draw something once a day for 30 days, and i really liked this idea, so i decided to make a similar challenge of my own. Instead of drawing, i want to CG model a head/ face or something useful and that gives me daily practice. Im not going to do it for 30 days tho, i want to do it at least once a day, or most days (when i dont have a great deal on), so i am not committed to doing this every day, but just enough to discipline me to speed things up! I think its something every artist/creative should do, as i haven’t modelled a head in so long, i was incredibly rusty!!
p.s. I might post the ones i made already, but depends on how crap i think they are! Also as a side note, not all of them will be finished or even have facial features! There are quite a few where i am trying to get used to getting the right head shape before i go too deep with the details etc.
below: Something i fashioned within 20 or so minutes
Entry Submitted to the 11 Second Club (December 2010)
Dec 31st
Well after various attempts of trying to enter this monthly competition over the past couple of years, i have successfully entered for the first time! Despite i wasn’t too happy with my entry at this point, i was happy enough for it to be submitted. After all, It has been hard working on it amongst the xmas festivities, but i got there! Im just awaiting the mass ripping apart, but thats why at the end of the day, why animators enter the competition, to improve on their work. For that reason, is why i entered the competition, i need some critiques to help my work improve so i can become a lot better at character animation.
above: a still from my entry: i decided to use the ‘Norman’ rigs, as they were readily available to me straight away, which was exactly what i needed.
back on track
Dec 18th
Well since on my placement at ‘Distract’, i have discovered what i really am, what i aspire to be.
Since uni, i feel i have been de-railed from what i really wanted to achieve in the professional animation sector/ games sector, there was a point where i thort i was more of a modeler and rigger than animator. I figured recently this is because my uni always encouraged us to work on narrative driven projects, so we couldnt just practice a certain discipline. Which i and many others (at Studio Distract) think is a bad thing, as if you were to train as a ‘rigger’, why the hell do you have to have a narrative behind your project? it just doesnt make sense.
Anyway, not trying to blame my old uni too much for my derailment, i think other projects/ colab work with certain companies, have contributed towards my interest in the modeling/ rigging and any other technical side of things. In some ways i am glad coz i have a much better understanding of a lot of technical processes in the CG animation process. However, if i were to have been trained as an animator straight from day 1, things might have been a lot different now.
Despite all of this, i am pleased i know a lot of the techniques, as i can exercise my on going creativity, as i have been constantly thinking up of potential cool characters, monsters and mythical beasts for mini projects, mainly for me to learn and have some great fun at the same time.
Anyway to go back on topic, what im trying to say is, that i feel that i have come to a point in life where i feel i have understood which path to take next. I have tried a lot of things, and character animation is my future, or I aspire to be. This has always been my dream, to entertain and make people laugh,and through the medium of animation. I know i still have lots to learn, but i do hope to get there at some point, be warned tho, i am not ever going to give up and call it a day, EVER!
link to forum post http://www.silo3d.com/forum/showthread.php?p=117600#post117600
Having recently entered a competition and finding out a few days later that i actually won a prize, this surprised me, as i barely had time to even make him, never mind the pain in the ass that the fur was! I do hopefully intend at some point to actually properly UV map him, and maybe even work on his face some more to start with.
Thanks
SteveO.
placement at ‘Studio Distract’ in Manchester and what im doing now
Nov 27th
For the past 2 weeks i have been commuting back and forth to Manchester and back, and so far no problems, apart from loosing my expensive pass earlier this week (got it replaced! few).
Anyway whilst on this placement, i am solely focussing on Character animation, as this is the targeted area that i always wanted to be in. I guess i kind of blame uni for leading me astray to other areas, al though, for a while it has been a good thing as i have learnt a fair bit, in fact quite a lot since leaving uni about a 2 years ago.
Anyway to go on further about the placement, if anyone is curious to how i got it, well its thanks to a Graduate scheme that i got my self onto earlier this year called ‘Move on Up’. This is a scheme which has been organised and run through ‘Fabric’ a creative organisation in Bradford, who are, i believe a lottery funded, non-profit organisation to help creatives, from professional to students, and to semi-pro grads like my self. There website http://www.creativebradford.co.uk/ . So there you go, i was lucky to get a place on the scheme, as there was only 10 places available. This has given me a big confident boost, and also some important contacts. To get a good job ‘in the industry’, as it were, you basically have to be incredibly talented and at the same time, fast/ efficient at what you do. This seems to be the basic premise of most big studios i have met, that is really what they look for in potential applicants etc.
Currently and on going, i am still working in conjunction with ‘Distant Future VFX’ on the ‘Mallard’, a stereo 3D product that is designed for a museum (clues in the name), and hopefully will get commissioned, so we can finish it, and make a small name for ourselves. So hopefully this will look great on my CV. Recently have been asked to create a fourth character, which i started to model on the train on the way to Manchester. So all day today that is my mission, to create this fourth character. This will be great to get modelling again, can listen to some nice loud obscene music whilst doing this, will be most therapeutic.
Some animation links and model screen shots will be posted later.
Ciao x
‘Jump’ animation
Nov 4th
Well after having a couple of sessions with my Mentor (Zane Whittingham, character animator in the games and animation industry for 20 + years), i basically wanted him to help motivate me/ help me with some Character animation. As i have always wanted to be a character animator, i thort it was about time to perform some animation, of which i haven’t done in a few years, mostly been working on the modelling/ rigging/ texturing side of things. Anyway, he has set me a task, that is to perform a jump. After a few attempts, here it is. Hopefully, a lot more to come!
http://s30.photobucket.com/albums/c315/xissteve/?action=view¤t=TommyBray_JUMP.mp4
So far the shoulders at the start seem to be bugging me, dont think their quite right. Anywhoo, feedback will always help.
‘Mallard’ work progress
Nov 4th
Well having been working on this project, which believe it or not about the Mallard steam engine, I have worked on the characters and posted progress of those chaps, now for something slightly different. At the very beginning, i was asked to model ‘Peterborough’ train station, and so this was my interpretation of it, i know there are probably bits which wont be 100% accurate, but at the end of the day, i am trying to achieve a feeling of a similar place, you know for the Mallard to feel right at home in the station. Also as well i was asked to model the interior of the Mallard as well as the Tender (where the coal lives), also lastly the exterior of the Dynamometer car.
Obviously parts of both are not fully finished yet, but these are at the stages, where i handed them over, all that the Dyno car needs is a few extra bits and pieces for its wheels, breaks, pistons etc. The Station however, needs perhaps some bump and a textured floor, but as only a small bit of the station will be used, their is no need to go completely mad with detail.
Lambo update
Nov 4th
Well after doing quite alot of work for ‘Distant Future VFX’ (a lot still on going), i decided to try and find some time free to work on the Lambo more, i had a lot of ‘normal’ problems, which i found challenging to fix, i found out this was due to Silo, for some reason, when you export objects as OBJs, Silo seems to lock the normals, so every object seems smoothed, which can get to be a bit of a pain, as you can imagine. Anyway, so far….
As you can see, i am getting quite close to a decent car mesh, all thats got to do now, i lots of further tweaking, oh and the wheels, also the chopper parts need adding to/ tweaking too. I feel like i am quite close, but when i get the odd hour here and there to work on this, it does seem to take a bloomin long time! For that reason exactly, im not going to model the interior! Unless paid to do so! :p