The old interview

I have had an interview for this magazine not so long after we finished the Ice Age: The Meltdown and I took a month off for my Euro trip (back in 2006, it was one of the best trip so far, by the way). So I am still not sure how they know about me. Anyway, I think a lot of stuff on that page is very helpful if anyone want to know what it was like back at BlueSky or any major studios in general. I remembered talking a lot about the animation industry so feel free to check it out. They seem to have more issues now. Dont feel bad when you open up the magazine pages and see a lot of obscene stuff...this was made in Europe, you know :) Austria to be specific.

http://www.c-heads.com/issue03.php

Let me know what you think...

Ciao...

more WIP on the ATR dragon..

So these are the two steps I manage to squeeze between my crazy schedule. I finally finished with the wing topology and added some more fatty neck rings. I might have to enlarge his head a bit later since his head is quite small when I mirror geometry to see the overall size. The top image is to show how I use lattice along with the duplicate geo (with -1 scale in x, to make it visible on the other half) Its quite useful when you need to tweak model at the very end (or early..whatever makes you happy) instead of tweaking each individual points. I am hoping someone would tell me if there's a faster way but this is seem to be fast enough for me since I have no one to troubleshoot my stuff with (when I modeled at home). Until next time... See ya all....

more WIP on the ATR dragon..

I'm now spending time cleaning up the original topology of the wing. It helps a lot putting a new geo on a different layer so I could toggle between the two version. This process has been great so far, but there are a lot of areas to clean up (spikes, mouth, eyes, fingers...) Will post more when I have something new.

Getting back on drumming skill..

After countless playblasts at work, I did spend some time follow my animator friend (who is also a drummer, an awesome one) to a link on youtube. It was about practicing some rudiments and the guy made so many patterns (over 40!). It was awesome to see the whole thing...well listen to most of the part while working. The best thing is, now I want to get back to playing drums even more. I'll start getting a drum practice pad to begin with and we'll see if that'll get me back into buying a set in the future. I used to have a set when I lived in Sunset area, and it made so much noise (real set, not electronic type) I might end up have to get an electronic drum set in the future though since I dont have as much space and I dont want to disturb my neighbors.

Dragon ATR WIP con't

This one is a bit different than the previous one on the topology layout. I did spend a lot of time on this version. Its quite annoying trying to get them to look and feel right without putting too much or too little in some part. However, I'm still working my way to get it finish and have been happy with the WIP (work in progress) so far. I still can't find someone to model the hi-res and texture, so I can focus more on the animation and the story... Oh well..we'll see..

Dragon ATR WIP con't

True origin of Hip-Hop music

Goodness, I love the cow milking pose!!!! yo yo..

Dragon for ATR WIP

the real SUMO fighting

It makes me feel like watching someone play Street Fighter with multiple E-honda...lol. I really like how they hold each frame and cut out some frames to make it even more dramatic...

ATR more dragon sketches

Picasso de Elephanto

Today I feel so embarrassed and somewhat proud to see this being passed around from one of my coworkers. I mean the whole think is awesome...who would have thought an elephant would be able to do that?? But Its from Thailand, and I'd never heard of such thing before. (its the voice in the background that I realized its in thailand) so I was stoked to see the video. Now I wonder how much they make from those paintings..hahaha. But seriously, dont use the elephant to reproduced the prints...just sell duplicates. (though they aren't as authentic but you'd be able to promote and more tourist would be able to carry home a version of the painting, which in turn will make more people come to see the show...get it?? Nonetheless, I have to give two thumbs up for training such hugh animals to do something extraordinary such that... Great work!!

F.I.S.H. banner

This is what the banner will look like when we go open our booth at different conventions. Please look for us in the future comic related conventions!!! By the way, we also have our mailing list (www.maimalai.com/comics.html) if anyone would like to get updated on our upcoming prjects/products. /cheers!

AAU BBQ Extravaganza

So the first AAU BBQ at Golden Gate went really well. I couldn't wait for all the people to share their photos, so I will just go ahead and share what I have so far... We had roughly 30 people at the event!! Thanks to everyone who contributed to the party!!! We'll definitely have the 2nd one soon....(I'm thinking around end of Spring semester).

Become a Virgil pioneer!!

http://www.google.com/virgle/index.html

I stumbled upon this link and I think its awesome!! First I couldn't believe Google would do such a thing but hey is Google!! I really like their non-so-techie language to describe their plans, etc. I'd recommend anyone who read this go apply ASAP since they only take 20 people as a initial start up!!! (wink wink)....

Direct-study at AAU

So i'm teaching direct-study this semester at AAU (Acedemy of Art University.) and its been really fun so far. I just wish we have more students to learn from each others so the learning curve would go higher. That's how I learn most of the time back when I took Pixar class, so I thought I should do the same for my student. The good thing is he can ask me all the questions that he's afraid to ask in a group class..which can be very helpful and can go a lot more in depth. Its also interesting to see new generation of animators at school work so hard on their stuff, reminds me of back in the day when I went to school. A friend of mine is also teaching (a class, dont know how can you manage the time JD!) and it was good to visit his class too. Usually I dont like to interrupt a class room though but its so hard to get a hold of him during the break just to catch up with things.