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McDonough Quickies #1

So while set construction continues on the next big McDonough short, I thought I would get back to animating with some weekly webcomic style quickies. Trying some new ideas out. Thanks as always to David Solomon. Enjoy!

McDonough Set Pieces So Far....

I'll be uploading the actual set soon as well, my camera's back at the "studio".

SunLion

Also not the stop motion set pictures (WHAAAAAA??) but here's a bit of work I've been doing for the good people at Sunlion Tangerines in Florida. Auditioned for an online animated commercial with their brand character, Sunlion. Seems like they're going in another direction with the commercial for now, but I wanted to get what I have done online.

Music Stuff!!

So it's been a minute, and I have more to show you all very soon, once I get all the build pictures together (BUILD PICTURES, WHAAAA?) but I wanted to throw my latest promotional work for Thorne Lounge up here. It's a real fun place to play and have a few drinks at, and all my music friends have benefited from playing there, so I like to throw my skills their way when I can. Here's what we've had going on lately.

This is the show I host every Monday that you should be ashamed of yourself for not attending...

Here's the promo for my show next Saturday with The Big Bad Wolf

And here's the post card/business card I made up for them with Big Bad Wolf's Zoe Clemmons. Photo credit goes to her.

Check out their website for more events and shows this month and stop in some time! Maybe like, March 9th from 8-11pm. Just an idea.

Got to do some animation work for Creative Energy last month for their spotlight videos for Texas Pete. The video highlights how Portland restaurants have used Texas Pete in their recipes. It was a lot of fun animating a namebrand logo character!

Appraisal.com Animation

This is an animation I did for the good people at Appraisal.com back in August. The designs were changed around and another video will be requested soon but I'm at least able to show you what I got done in the meantime.

Niswonger Children's Hospital - Five Two One Zero Commercial

Just completed the commercial for Niswonger with the help of Courtney Brooke Vaughan on compositing. I wrote and performed the music with the help of some swell kids I know. Couple of things I'd like to fix before it finally airs in January but I'm happy with the product for now.

My first Stop Motion Commercial!!

I just got approved to do a 30sec stop motion commercial for Niswonger Children's Hospital. I designed the characters last year for this children's health initiative, "5210". Basically each character corresponds to healthy daily guidlines for kids, so five different kinds of fruits and vegetables, two hours of screen time, one hour of exercise and zero sugary drinks. I'm making the characters out of twisted wire and a mix of Van Aken clay with Gulf Wax to harden it up a slight bit. I also got to write up a jingle and will be bringing in kids to help me sing it this week. I've given myself till the beginning of September to get it all done. With a little help we should be able to do it. :D Here's the progress so far.

 All the feet have tie-downs, but I'll be relying more on flying rigs so the movement will be more fluid.

 From the top reading left. Zip, Kid Uno, Fiver, and Twopher. Never mind Zip. It was a long night.

McDonough on 1's

Been getting some much needed practice in with 24fps animation. 

Running Like an Idiot

Bought a new animation rig for keeping McDonough upright. Some of the more sharp angled positions (like in the screen cap above) would force me to tighten his feet down to hold him up and the tightness and weight would pry the threaded rod from it's lock-tight base. No fun. He's a fairly heavy puppet. Here's a test with the rig removed.

Swishy Kilt Animation

Took about 5 hours to do this one. Working on my speed, which can start to level off now that I've stopped adding stuff to him. Still need to get the beard magnets to go in all the way, but that's not hard to do. Next I'll probably do some acrobatics to see how well his kilt does.

New Animation! MSHA Team Member Campaign

We just finished this two-minute promo for the MSHA Foundation. It's for their annual Team Member Campaign and they wanted something with a little more character this year. Mad props to Cory Parsons on coloring.

McDonough 2.0 COMPLETE!!

It's been a long road but he's finally fully clothed and painted! Expect to see some more test animations before the big plunge into the continuing adventures of McDonough! Thanks to Christine James for making the clothing for me and thank you all for your support. Check out some more glamour shots over on McDonough's facebook page.

Testin' this puppy out.

I've managed to get a couple shots done in my spare time with this new McDonough puppet. Here's a test scene I just finished...

I'm a lot happier with how he's moving now. It took some getting used to, working with the silicone over top of it, but i think I've got 2's down. The main issues I ran into were twisting up his joints unknowingly and keeping his mutton chops stuck in his mouth sockets. I'll be fixing him up with a coat of silicone to go behind the mouth and connect the mutton chops together so they'll wrap fit like a sock.

And just where have you been, young man?

Molding. Lots and lots of molding. I had done about all I could do with just a metal armature and needed to work on putting a body on the thing. It took a while, but please, allow me to introduce you to MCDONOUGH 2.0!



I'm finally ready to start test animation with the new puppet. There will be clothes and paint to come but for now we're back in the animation realm! I've documented the whole process on McDonough's Facebook page. Check it out if that's yo thang. Oh and if you happen to approve of the page, you're welcome to click that button that says "like", though I won't ask you to. I don't even really know what it's for.

Stop Motion Acting Exercises

So I thought I already had this up here, but since I just finished a new one tonight, y'all get two to look at.

Here's the first one. After I finished this, I started working on eliminating any pauses in my animation.

This is one I just finished tonight. I did a few takes on 4s before I did this one on 2s and it really helped. If you're struggling with going straight from pose test to animation, give it a shot.

Feb. 11 Second Club, First Take

"Y'know what I do when my hands are stuck together?"

11 Second Club January Submission: Edgar & Philip

Heard the audio, sketched up two old farts and started animatin'! Fair amount of work but so much fun. Can't wait for February!

Four Main Characters Down, Turnin' Round.

I'm feeling a lot better about my coloring for this one. I think I've found the ratio of hard outline shadows to soft gradated values.

Cesar is sort of the moral compass of the story. I wanted his character design to reflect a certain meekness to him, something he has to push through in order to reason with Blanco.