Fun With Flour Sacks

I've been trying to get used to drawing and animating with my Wacom Bamboo tablet lately, so I thought to myself "why not get a little practice and have fun with the old flour sack to boot!" And so it was. Here's some quick gestures that, while simple in nature, I think are quite appealing. In addition, I did a little line test animation of my flour sack. I really wanted to do an exaggerated cartoony scramble/run and I think it turned out nicely. Who knows - maybe later down the road I'll clean it up and make something more out of it! (That's the beauty of doodling - no commitments.)

 

Flour Sack Line Test from Tom Davis on Vimeo.

Make Friends, Play Tennis TV Spots

Two TV commercials I animated for Midtown Athletic Club/Real Art Design Group. I was responsible for all animation and visual production of both 15 second spots. All animation was traditionally animated with pencil and paper for client approval, then scanned and cleaned up/vectorized in After Effects. Directed by Andy Nick. Original concept/design: Arturo Gigante and Debbie Kasher. Sound design: Adam Haroff (adamharoff.com). Production-side project management: Matt Zolman. Client-side project management: Todd Blair.

Make Friends, Play Tennis - Porcupine/Balloon Animal TV Spot from Tom Davis on Vimeo.

Make Friends, Play Tennis - Astronaut/Alien TV Spot from Tom Davis on Vimeo.

Something Older and Something New

Last week I got the chance to do a short little animated header for our Real Mart website at work. It was a quick little job, nothing major - and my direction was basically "Just spend a few hours, do something cool to animate these product thumbnails onto screen and have fun with it!" It's funny how sometimes the littlest pieces of a project can be the ones you enjoy doing the most! I didn't design the layout (I think that was Jenn Gobrail who designed it) but I came up with the idea and wavy-line style and popped this together:

Real Mart Holiday Flash Animation from Tom Davis on Vimeo.

Go on over to Real Mart - http://www.shoprealmart.com - and do some holiday shopping!

It also occurred to me recently that I had a really nice motion graphics/animation sample just hanging out here on my desktop that I worked on over a year ago! Real Art did a campaign for KMart's Fab 15 Toys for the Holiday Season. I got to do a lot of motion graphics throughout the entire campaign - and a bunch of design work, too. But this little segment is the part I'm most proud of. I was responsible for the design and animation from concept to completion of this segment while Ron explains the affect the Fab 15 Toys are having on kids. I think it turned out pretty cool.

Fab 15 Motion Graphics from Tom Davis on Vimeo.

Hey - both of these were done for successive holiday-related projects... what a coincidence. I must be in a festive mood! Happy Holidays!

Some Scraps - Doodling During Render Time

Here's some scraps from my doodle-pad I did today just before lunch. I really like this playful little guy! Hmm... Scraps sounds like a fitting name for him. Maybe I'll animate him soon...

My New Animation Reel and Website Is Up

If you've been following along, you may already know that almost two years ago I went back to school to really iron out my animation chops. I've recently graduated from Animation Mentor in the 18 month Character Animation Program, and I've decided - along with posting my new Animation Demo Reel - that I'd go ahead and to a total "reboot" so-to-speak. I've launched a new Portfolio Site where I'm keeping my current reel along with samples of my illustration work. From time to time I'll be posting new work here on the blog and on my site, so please subscribe and check back once in a while to see what's new!

That being said, I'm going to send you on over to my spankin' new website to check out my new reel and then some!

Click here to check it out: www.tomdavisart.com

New Lighting and Compositing Test

I've been trying to get my head around lighting and compositing across my 3D applications (in this case Cinema 4D) and After Effects. This weekend I threw together this little test. To me - this is feeling just about right. Once I get this concept down, I plan on animating characters in live-action footage.

Lighting and Compositing Test from Tom Davis on Vimeo.

Facial Poses

This term at Animation Mentor, we were required to find facial poses that conveyed a clear emotion and mimic that emotion with the Bishop character. It's really a fun exercise and helped me wrap my brain around facial posing. Here's some of the poses I did that I feel were pretty strong!