Something I'm Working On...

Details soon to come... but I'm loving the direction this is going so I thought I'd post a teaser!

Animation Mentor Class One

Animation Mentor Progress Reel: Class One Basic Foundations from Tom Davis on Vimeo.

Here's my progress reel for Animation Mentor Class One: Basic Foundations with Don Kim! I feel like I've learned a ton this term and I couldn't be happier with AM's program. I'm getting ready to start class two, so check back in 3 months when I post my second progress reel!! A couple notes worth mentioning: these are Maya playblasts, not full-on renders... the same files I turned in for my assignments. Also worth mentioning, there's no physics engine stuff, rigid bodies/soft bodies or collision objects or any of that... this is focusing on learning the basics and hand-keying everything! Anyway - hope you like!

Christmas in ... June?

OK... so last Christmas I gave my wife, Jenny, what she's been hinting at for years - Peanuts lawn characters (to put in our yard at Christmas-time)! Like a throwback to the 70's I drew these guys out on particle board, cut them, and painted them and gave them to her for Christmas! These guys are roughly 4 feet tall (with the exception of Snoopy being a little smaller). Jenny's way more saavy than I am regarding stuff like this so she ended up weatherproofing them recently while I took the opportunity to photograph them. My neighbors were impressed that I didn't trace or stencil these guys, and I assured them that's not my bag... nor is weatherproofing evidently. But yeah... if you're gonna make your wife something cool for Christmas - never, ever, EVER trace them ... jeez, really?? I will say, though, that mine are not the only hands that touched these guys... my son, Forrest helped me cut and bondo the rough edges, my 7-year-old, Willy, and my neighbor friend, Joe, "helped" me paint them, my daughter made sure mama was out of the house long enough for me to work on them, and my son, Dylan, helped me hide them all winter long! (so yeah this one was a team effort.)

Animation Mentor Stu Poses

As you many know I'm currently attending Animation Mentor and am now in the last week of class one! (Woohoooo!) One of my favorite things we did this term was "Stu Poses". It's where we're assigned an emotion or a physical state of being and we have to then sketch the figure in 10 or more quick gesture drawings... then we select our favorite and put our character, Stu, into said pose. It's a really fun exercise and although there's no motion involved, it's a HUGE building block for what we're about to be getting into from here on out in our classes and in our animation careers. So here's a couple of my favs from first term. Hope you like! Oh - and later this week I'll be posting my Progress Reel from term one here for all to see as well, containing more Stu poses and a bunch of animation assignments I've finished... so check back! (Sketches by hand - obviously - and Stu poses done in Maya using AM's character and rig.)

Crazy Kids

Here's a peek at some concept work I'm doing on a fun new project I'm working on at Real Art! Not going to go into any details right now - but I'm having a blast concepting this out and thought I'd share a couple of my favorites. Enjoy! (Photoshop and Cinema 4D, by the way.)

Daily Doodles

Puddlecutters!

Man I totally forgot about this drawing till I stumbled across it searching for something else! What a nice surprise! A couple summers ago a couple buddies of mine wanted to buy mopeds, chop them, and start a moped gang. I thought it was a funny idea and quickly scribbled up this Roth-inspired mascot for the Puddlecutters! (I think I'll stick to riding my Silverado rather than the downgrade to a tiny bike... sorry guys.)

Some New Art for Art's Sake

While waiting for a render at work the other day I decided to get out my pencil pouch and do some doodling. I ended up with a nice little superhero character and decided to clean him up this weekend in illustrator and photoshop. Check him out!

My Old Biz Card!

I was just doing a little housekeeping here on my blog and realized I hadn't posted the illustration I did for my (now defunct) business card. Yeah - I'm not actively tattooing right now but the illustration I did for this card should not go to waste!

Starting a New Chapter

I'm not sure if I should really call it "starting a new chapter" or more appropriately "picking up where i left off"... either way - it's a change for the better! I've decided to switch gears and get back to my true love - character animation!!! Yep - for anyone who knows me, this won't be a surprise. I'm currently gearing up to start classes at AnimationMentor.com beginning in March, and from here on out, my blog posts will largely be illustration work, animation work, and stuff of that general flavor. I hope you stick around to see some of the exciting work I put out over the coming years... it's been a long time comin' and I'm pumped and ready to really get back to what I love!

Check out AnimationMentor.com to see the AMAZING work their students are cranking out in the student showcase reels!