DEMO REEL: Spring 2011

Breakdown: This is a collection of my studies in the principles of animation
I handle all the hand drawn animation, coloring, puppet construction, and stop-motion.

I am starting on an independent short film for this summer.

Demo Reel Spring 2011 from Douglas Meloche on Vimeo.

Stop Motion Puppet

This was my first test with Dragon. I desperately wanted to get some time with my puppet and and the new Canon Rebel's Doug got us. The set's all torn down and packed up, but here's the product of roughly five hours work. Glad I'm not shooting my final under florescent lights. So much flickering!
The puppet's not finished, but I wanted to get a feel for how the paint job looked while it's in motion.

Stop-Motion Puppet from Douglas Meloche on Vimeo.

After Effects Digital Puppets

The adventure of creating puppets in the digital world was somewhat different from last week's endeavor.

After Effects Puppet from Douglas Meloche on Vimeo.

While there were minor successes, for the most part, this project was a train wreck. I meant to have multiple layers to make a near interesting background. Several objects are poorly rendered due to time constraints.

THE BIGGEST PROBLEM - I managed all the movement keys for the puppet in a separate composition thinking I could simply export it with a transparent background and put it into the scene. I ended up having to key color remove the background (that's what caused her to be transparent), AND the movement does not match at all with the pace of the background.

Much revision is needed.

Here you can see the isolated walk cycle and the puppet's actions in the scene.

After Effects Puppet from Douglas Meloche on Vimeo.

I used the lime green background to try and place the character directly into the scene, but the process also removed green hues from the puppet which I hadn't accounted for.

Learning Experience

Good news. Bad News. I have progressed rather nicely with the construction of my puppets. They are ready for paint detailing, clothing, hair, etc. The basic set is also complete. Unfortunately, there is not going to be any space available for me to shoot the actual stop-motion animation with a set this size. So, this project will have to be put on hold until the summer. This certainly wasn't a wasted effort, but it's unfavorable that I now need to take the time to develop a different idea for my final this semester.

Animatic - alter ego (pilot)

Animatic from Douglas Meloche on Vimeo.

There's still some timing issues that need to be addressed. I also plan to hash out more detail and perspective from the backgrounds. I want to thank my voice actors for taking this seriously and producing some enjoyable dialogue for these characters.

PLEASE - feel free to comment (critique) camera angles, facial expressions, gesture poses, plot structure, etc. I appreciate the feedback.

Puppet Progress #1

The head of the first puppet is near completion for my next film. I want t touch up the lips and I may end up making eyes separately. After that, this guy's going into the oven so I can paint it.

 

Stop-Motion Studies

Some exercises I did for stop-motion animation...

PICK UP DAT PHONE, FOO!! from Douglas Meloche on Vimeo.

Claymation Study from Douglas Meloche on Vimeo.

Freeform

Freeform from Douglas Meloche on Vimeo.
This project was nothing but fun times (as is all animation). Here I expanded on a project I started for Valentine's Day (there IS sound). I also threw in some nifty transitions and just had fun with it. Sorry, no title though. I've had some difficulty coming up with those lately.

Digitally Painted Energy Cycle

Digital Paint Energy Cycle from Douglas Meloche on Vimeo.

This is still VERY MUCH a work in progress. A few frames are not fully colored, I need to add blurs, glows, and shading, AND there's a secondary animation that be placed as a background element. It'll be good stuff once it's done. You'll have to settle for this right now.  (-;

Super Sculpy Baking Instructions

Alright, might come in handy to have this up online. This is the baking instructions for super sculpy. If you use a different sculpy, then the instructions ARE DIFFERENT. Do not mix different scuply together. They have different consistencies of synthetics that will bake at different temperatures.