some inspirational designs

these are some inspirational designs i made for a Tobsen-story-pitch ... more is coming ... aehm ... really soon :) wish you all a great rest of a week!

Frankster

Tobsen - final animation

Check this out folks ... this is the first final animation of my new short "Tobsen" i'd animated during the last 3 weeks. I also designed modeled and rigged the little fella. Still no sound ... not rendered and composed. Have fun and leave me critiques if you like ... Have a nice week ererybody!

PinkyGuido vs. BrainMerkel

Arielle

little miss sunshine

(coloured with mouse)

monk vs. joseph de escagot

my grandfather

montags morgens ...

für mein ♥

häppi burzeldäi best sister ever!

KOMMEN!

my current anim-reel

I'd forgotten to add that the pigeons are designed, modeled and rigged by Ringo Klapschinsky and Adrian Walt. Sorry guys and great work!!!

Tobson - character study

Hey folks! This is Tobson ... a fish-character i made for short summer short i'm still working on. He is as simple as fun! Yay!!!

Pigeons-Anim-Tests

These are some quick! (1 week for all) animation-tests i've made some weeks ago for testing the rigs of some characters that my students are working on for their graduation short ... Have fun :)

dude

super-freak

wird schon

some concepts

up :) (hour)

clubbing (half hour)



... (half hour)

get well soon!

Padre

I was doodling this while whatching The Godfather ... maybe that's why he seams to look a bit like the old Marlon Brando ...

topic springtime II

topic springtime

bad girl

Laurel_gold_version

Just a quick rendering-test i was playing around with. No texturing at all also too clean and soft but i like it as test. Looks like the toy-version. mhm .. it is! Order right away! ... just kidding. Have a great week everybody!

concept

some concepts

These are some concepts coloured in photoshop for my shoemanfoe short. Still work in progress but would be nice getting some feedback! Thank you guys and have a sunny week!

Frank

AniSculpt

Thanks to my buddy Swag i've found this on pepeland.com . It's not brand new but maybe you have missed it like me. I've checked this out and i must say it's awesome! It's for free and it's finally one of those missing links to get as close as possible to an equal level of traditional animation. Nowadays everybody wants only 3D-movies to watch. All those new cartoon TV-series are made in 3D. It seams to be the state of the art. But it's totally not! It's a shame! The quality of design, of animation even of the stories are so low that i couln't watch it more than a second. It's so ugly it's so cheep ... ah ... it simply hurts. Have you seen Whinnie Puh in 3D? Bah! Get rid of it! Look out for your old video-cassettes put them in and enjoy the good old stuff.
For those who are not so involved into 3D animation i shortly explain how this works. In 3D-world you have similiar to stop-motion a character with several controls for moving the limbs, the facial-expressions and so on. This manipulation-system is called "rig". But the limitation of that is, that you have a given anatomy and only the high-professional-3D-characters can be pushed in any kind of pose and are adjustable on every body-part. A traditional 2D-animator has to "reinvent" the character on every single sheed of paper. But that gives him totally freedom concerning the proportions of the character to get the strongest pose possible. Watch Tarzan sliding through the wood on those branches. Step through each single frame and measure the lengths of arms, legs and the body. (You don't have to it's just to get the idea of what i'm talking about) You would see that Glen Keane (the animator of that stunning sequence) changes the Tarzan's anatomy so much, but not because he can ... no .. because to provide locomotion in combination with a strong siluette! That's the main reason why 3D animation looks often alot weaker than 2D. Because it's simply impossible to do so if your rig isn't build that way. But with this method (watch the videos below) you can finally go through each single frame of your shot and push things without any limitation of the rig. I'm so curious about it because for me it's a new way of 3D-animation and if you do it right it can rise the level of perfection alot! So ... Happy me happy you! Have fun!

Frank



AniSculpt -- Maya Connection Script from pepeland on Vimeo.


AniSculpt Tutorial -- Pepeland from psl on Vimeo.

Animation-Mentor Progress Reel Term04

click on the image to watch the reel

Me again! Yay!!! ... i've missed to show you my progress reel for the previous term at Animation Mentor ... So here we go. But i have to say that i'm not happy with it. Term 04 was during the last summer and i was so not in an animation-mood that i just tried to keep all things as simple as possible. Yes everything could be pushed alot more and the facials are weak. Especially in the first shot. After that term i've taken a needed break and got finally my passion back so be aware! The current term 5 is for pre-production for our graduation-shorts and as you can see below i already worked pretty hard on it and i really gonna push things as far as i can. Comments and critique are appreciated of course! Thank you very much and have fun watching!

Frank

FoeManShoe-Designs

Jo there!

Here is just a simple movie to show some extreme facials of my main-character Laurel i'm able to do with the facial-controls. It's pretty cool and a combination of blendshapes, joint-clusters, cluster- & wire-deformers! The other characters are part of a "remembering-the-childhood-sequence" and they are just modeled in pose (modeling-time: 2 days each model) . They won't be animated. I have used Maya for blocking out the rough proportions and zBrush & Blender for refining. Anyways ...
I'm almost finished with the body-rig, which is awesome! I gonna make a little show-reel of that too the next weeks so feel free to drop by sometimes for updates!

click on the image to watch the reel

Have a nice weekend everybody!

Frank

i wish you all ...

Frank :)

...

Hey gang!

Bah ... so dark outside. The whole day long ... No fun i can tell. But it's like that every year so pretty much the right time for eating cookies and preparing my AnimationMentor-graduation-short. Yay!!! It's movie-time! As you can see it's gonna be dark ... it's gonna be painful but at the end ... ahh ... how could i tell?! You have to watch it yourself ... No it's not gonna be a splatter. No blood no violence. It's just a concept. I hopefully will be finish next year so enough time for organizing popcorn and stuff :) ... But drop by sometimes. Some animation-tests and stuff will be showing up!











occlusion-render

Whoopeeeee!

Yes it's finally Dom-time again and for all those who are not so familiar with Hamburg's attractions The Dom is definitly one of them. I just love it and can't wait to lay bare my teeth up on the 60m free-fall-tower or try to keep my underpants with me while breaking through the sound-barrier. Whoopeee! Go there! It's fun!

click on the image to watch them all

beautifall '08

There are just some impressions from my last weekend trying to find something likeable while it's being fall. Click here to watch them all. Have a nice week everybody!

Best wishes

Frank

Tour de Franck - 2008

Yes folks ... back again! First things first i'll stop saying "sorry for not posting so long" but ... sorry ... for not posting so long! AnimationMentor and my job had kept me too busy. So i took a break from my study and was off to vacation for over 2 weeks. Amazing i can tell. I did a 650km tour through Germany from Hamburg to Frankfurt/Main by bike to my family (actually Niederreifenberg near Frankfurt). That was the hardest fun i ever had. Enjoy the visual impressions by clicking here ... (just click on the single images for enlarging them)

Take care all of you!

Frank

Air-Annika :)

finally 3+

Yes! It's my birthday ... and yes i reached the magic 30. Finally ... On Saturday the 26th i gonna celebrate it at my flat, so if you want to join feel free to come around! Just write me mail ... Till then ... Take care all of you!

Frank

granny on fire

:)

Progress Reel - Term03

Hey folks,

big sorry for not posting for so long, but you know it's summer-time and alot of things besides the boring computer are to enjoy :) ... here is my actual reel for Animation-Mentor-Term 03. I hope you all enjoy watching. You got to know that for the very first shot just the body-mechanics are animated and polished, but still work in progress, so in case you would like to leave me critics please concentrate on the body language. Other then this .. Have fun watching i'll promiss to be more communicative in the future!

Best wishes and a great weekend all of you!

Frank

click on the image above to watch the reel

Barbery Sheep Nicci

:)

The last Hero ...

Frank & Ollie

Pathetic titel i know but it's the truth. Ollie Johnston (the right one on the image above) passed away last week and for those who are not so involved into animation, he was one of the 9 Disney-"Einsteins" which have found the principles of animation. It is for sure not overstating comparing them with Einstein 'course like he found initial formulas for physics they gave all animators the tools for "creating life" anyways if they are animating stop-motion, traditional or 3D.

Like so many others i grew up with Mickey Mouse, The Lady and the Tramp, Jungle Book and all the other great old Disney Movies. Remember that sequence in Jungle book where Baloo was performing the Song "Bare Necessities" or that just breathtaking sequence in "The Rescuers" where Rufus tries to comfort Penny on the bed? These two and many more are animated by Ollie Johnston. They made me laugh, they made me cry and they made me reflecting things since i was a kid and when i had never thought about becoming an animator later on. During the years when i was deeping into the world of animating myself my gratefullness was getting stronger and stronger. None of them are left but i guess it's never too late to say "Thank you!" ... so ...

THANK YOU!

just another wacky AM-doodle ;)

Dr. much more evil

concept for my new shot ...

Dr. GreenThumb

Little wacky stop-motion shot i did ... just for fun. I animated this straight ahead without testing/editing. Anyways ... enjoy!

click on the image to watch it

Acting - References Part I - Mime

Hey Folks,

My new term gonna start next week with the topic "introduction to acting". This means for me personaly things are getting more seriously, complicated and at the same moment much more interesting. My first shot that i'll have to animate shell visualize a transition of emotions like from being curious to sad/happy or something similar. I know this yet for a while and sometimes when nothing more important had to be done i watched out for references. So i've found on YouTube these great mime-performances by Johann Lippowitz. He's just marvelous. Pay attention how strong and at the same time clear and simple all his poses and facial-expressions are. You will get the idea of what's going on immediatly without missing the text of the song at the same time. It looks so easy and entertaining. I have big respect of that guy. Great caricature and just true art!
Enjoy and have a nice weekend all of you!

Frank

Animation-Mentor Progress Reel Term02

click on the image to watch the reel

Wow ... what a ride. I've finished term 2 this week and i had a real blast! It's so nice that we have only little limitations in terms of what the assignments should look like and i can freak out like crazy. I know that each shot could get polished alot more but i'm happy with them and i've learned so much during the last 3 months. Next term we gonna start acting and can bearly wait. Fortunatly there is no real break between the terms so i can go on next week. I want to say thank you to all my incredible class-mates and AM-buddies. So many amazing people i've allready met. Special thanks are going to Dana Boadway my mentor for term 2. I miss her yet and i wish her the very best. Have a nice week all of you and have fun watching the reel!

Best wishes

Frank

some more AM-doodles

Happy Easter everybody!

For Ninsha

This week one of my closest friends was visiting me. She is an amazing artist and inspires me since the first time we met. We haven't seen each other for years but for me personaly a good friendship means not to bother each other each single day ... no .. its more the way that a long time without being together means nothing like "uh .. what did you do actually yesterday? ..." So ... we had a lot of fun and i'm quite thankful knowing her!

Thanks again and take care Nina!

AnimationMentor Term02 - Shot03

in progress ;)

AnimationMentor Term02 - Shot02

click on the image to watch the shot

AnimationMentor Term02 - Shot01

click on the image to watch the shot

Hey Folks ... busy busy hustle bustle ... Just some weekly sketches and my "final" first shot for Term 2. Have fun and take care!

Frank

Little Dodo

Yeah! Finally i've seen "Little Dodo". Little late but i was quite busy the weeks with my study. It was great! Nice colours, great 2D-animations and honestly said it's quite worthy to work such a long time and sitting at the end in a huge cinema to enjoy the work. I've animated the water-drop-journey at the beginning and the compositing was well done, so i liked what i've seen! The rest of the 18 minutes i've animated were actually lot of things you don't pay attention to ;) like trees, brunches, fishes, birds, leaves (oh i hate animating leaves). But it was great basics-practicing and i've learned so much during that production. Thanks to Sebastian Hofmann, Swag, Florian Westermann, Jens Kämper, Luk and all other great colleagues i had the pleasure to work with!

Frank

AnimationMentor - WinterTerm

Yeah!!!

Finally next term has started this week. I have a lot of new fellas in my class und fortunatly a lot of well known faces from my last class. My new Mentor is Dana Boadway and she seems to be quite straight forward. Gonna be harder then last time to get good marks but that's not so important anyways. One thing (and that's the only one) at AM what i don't like are these US-like super-extremes. Everything is "awesome" "super-cool" and so forth but hey if something is not good you should say so. Maybe it's a common German-thing that we actually just want to hear the mistakes first, but i think you can grow and get better only that way by focusing on the mistakes so for me i'm quite happy with Dana and it will keep me working harder as before. So feel invited everytime to drop by by my AM-blog and see what i did so far. Have fun and take care all of you!

Frank

SculptureScribbles

Hey everyone!

Hope you've enjoyed free time and have all reloaded batteries! Here are some of my clay-scultptures i did over the last days. I've called them "scribbles" 'course i made them quite quick and tried don't be to picky on details. Each of them (except the pillow, which is an older work) just took me not more then 2-3 hours. But just have a look yourself ...

Best wishes

Frank

Whistle Snake
(length: ca 43cm)

Happy Pillow

(hight: ca 28cm)

Excited Evil

(hight: ca 40cm)

BigBoyBuddha
(hight: ca 32cm)

Merry Christmas and a great New Year 2008!!!!

AnimationMentor - Progress Reel Class01

click on image to watch the reel

Unbelievable ... 3 months over, means my first term is finished. I've worked hard and all the shots, Stu (the Ball-head-character) - poses and some scribbles can be seen by watching my reel above. For all assignments and works just visit my Animation-Mentor-blog (see right). I just want to add that this school is fantastic and although i'm really looking forward for the next 2 weeks which are free i'm really curious about the next term. So thanks to all my class-mates and my incredible mentor Chris Chua! I also want to say special thanks to Sebastian Hofmann, a really gifted animation-supervisor and my first mentor at Animationsfabrik GmbH. You rock man! So have fun watching the reel and leave me unmercyful kind critiques and comments ;) ...

Cheers Frank

2007 ... almost done

Winter time - sentimental time ;) Just 2 more weeks and 2007 is almost done. For me i had a great year. Full of ups and thanks god very less downs. A lot of thankful things happened to me and i really hope to you too! This is my ... uh ... fourth year in Hamburg and i'm pretty sure next year i'll stay else well. But ... i can barely wait for Spring 'course honestly said it's not the best town for Winter and Fall and very often i miss the sun so much that i'm feeling like leaving and that feeling gets stronger and stronger each Winter. So maybe next year gonna be the last. Ofcourse i will finish my Animation-Mentor-study first but who knows what will come next. Anyways ... that town inspires me as much as from the first day on and so there are some snap-shots from my picture-diary (click) ... have fun watching them and i wish you all a great Christmas and Happy New Year in advance with the people you love the most!

Take care!

Frank

Persepolis

Yesterday i've watched "Persepolis" and boy that is one piece of a great great great movie! You must watch it! It's funny, it's well animated, it's a great story so .. it's just art! I had a lot of fun and i will tell nothing about the story. Just enjoy it yourself and i will defintily do the same at least once more!

Frank

AM-week 009

Stu-pose for "concerned"

Hey everyone! Sorry for not posting for such a long time. But as i said before i'm damn busy with AM and work so. Time flies by that fast and i'm almost trough the first term. But the excitment is still alive and that school is ass-kicking great that i can barely wait for the next term. So check out my AM-Blog (click) for the works i've done so far! Leave me unmercyful critiques and comments if you want. They are always appreciated. Thank you and have a nice weekend!

Frank

AM-week 004

Dr. Spike missunderstood me, when i asked for an additional bouncing-ball-ctrl. Hehehehe ... Wish you all a great week and good luck with assignments, video-refs
and stuff!

Cheers Frankenstein

Finally!!!

Guess what happened: YEAH! My Animation-Mentor-Study finally gonna start today and boy i'm so curious! From now on my AM-blog will get filled and cramed with all of my assignments and stuff. Feel welcome coming around and leave me comments and critics!

See you buddies!

Fränk

Felipe - old-man-version

Felipe as an old-man-version and with a more "animateable" topology and proportions. I like that version a lot more. Hope you too ;) ... Wish a bright weekend everyone!

Cheers Frank

SAM - Character Design

There we go ... Super-Action-Mann aka SAM ... still work in progress (2days), the triceps isn't correct, but i like him yet. Cheers Frank :)

Felipe - Character Design

I`m still in a model-temper. That's Felipe, actually a 2D-Character from my former Shortmovie "Bühnenwechsel". He still looking like a stupid monkey, but that's because you model allways a kind of "base-position" where all bodyparts including the facials are in a relaxed postion. In terms of the face it is easier to get all the emotions and stuff from this "slack" position. Modeling-time: 1,5day. Maybe Super-Action-Mann is going to follow.

Niculai Constantinescu - Photo Exhibition

One the most talented newcomer photographer Niculai Constantinescu finally opens his first exhibition in Hamburg. Please don't miss it!
Nic's Website (click)

Buttler Bucket - Character Design

This is "Buttler Bucket" the second main-character for my next short-film for Animation-Mentor "Bell and Bucket". Modeling-time: 4days.

Bell - Character Design

That's a work-in-progress version of "Bell". Modeling-time: 2days

Boris' workout

just a quick finger-exercise. modeling and rendering time: 1day.

Practice-Saucage

"Hans-Peter Wurst" aka "Übungswurst" (Mr. Practice-Saucage) informes you that my 3D-all-over-course will start tomorrow and you are all invited to come around! While preparing my lessons i unfortunatly had absolutly no time for my Olli-production. But now i have and so i will be absent for a while. (probably) ...

best wishes fränk

octopus

A good friend of mine asked me if i could help him modeling an octopus. So i did and got inspired for an own version (1,5 day practice). Hope you like it.

low-wireframe

Tom - render test

Toy-Version :)

That's a mental-ray-render with final gather. I know it's not the greatest render and Tom's still looking very cg-like, but it's made only for illustrating subsurface-scattering. All bumps, displacements and textures are procedural for a quicker workflow ... i gonna paint now my textures and all the maps. Cheers Fränk

...

sweet smiling sunday dude i made today ... he is 3D-modeled and a little bit 2D-tweaked

Yeah!!!

Yes from today on it is official:
Fränk goes Animation-Mentor (click)! That's a Animation-School where i will study (online) "Advanced Studies in Characters-
Animation". Yeah!!! Pixar i come!!! I can barely wait for October when my first term will begin, "Bouncing Balls". You might think "aehm ... yeah ... uh ... that might be a very interesting term! ... aehm ... for sure! ... " But you have to know, that this term is one of the most important including term 2 - "Body Mechanics". I know some Animation-Mentor-students and they all told me how hard it can be to animate just a simple ball and i can tell i saw incredible assignments yet! Although i'm indeed not a beginner-animator i maybe missed something with the basics-training and i think you can only get a damn good character-animator when you did all the basics over and over rightly.
Anyway ... i created a new Blog (click) where from October on i will post my assignments, impressions and stuff. Feel welcome to come around sometimes leaving me comments or critics.

Tom's world

Welcome to Tom's world! Still boring grey but i hardly work on it. I'm trying to achieve a macro-world-optic with a strong "depth of field". For the background i gonna use real-life-footage from a forest with a strong blur. Will see if it's going to work.

Simpsons - The Movie

The last 2 days i went to cinema to see "The Simpsons Movie" and boy that film rocks! Now i know that it was it worth waiting so long to see them in cinemescope! I was really curious about the style
and if they would change something visually compared to the series. But it is almost the same (except an additional shadow-level and really great backgrounds!) and it works! BUT ... there were so many 3D-elements. Almost every shot with a croud, vehicles, or camera-transitions were done in 3D (i don't mean the characters). The reason why i mention this is the fact that "The Simpsons Movie" was strongly announced as a 2D-movie, but that's not entirely true. Anyway ... the cell-animated characters and the 3D-elements were perfectly combined and think i will watch it again. So i advise you not to miss it!

older 3D-models

copyrights Baedeker

St. Michaelis Church - Hamburg

Cap San Diego - Hamburg

Ferry MS-Silja - Finland

Cathedral "Palma de Mallorca" - Spain

"Santiago de Compostela" - Spain

These are some older 3D-models i did for Jangled-Nerves GmbH. They were shaded/rendered by Xox and i only modeled them.

Tom Colour-Design

Last days i finished the rig and the uv's-layout (thank you very much Toni & Stephan) After that i quickly black&white rendered the model and overpainted it with Photoshop. It's not the final version just a reference for painting the textures. Maybe i should give him some freckles and bit more green mossy spots around the lower body.

Harry Potter V

Tonight i saw "Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix" and i'm really disappointed. Yes there were nice special-fx and great pictures. The sets were full of great details and i could feel the wizzard-magic-world but several times unexpected things happend so fast after each other combined with such an hectic camera that i got confused over and over again. It was like a little kid is telling the story:" And and .. than happend this and then that, and that ..."
In my opinion David Yates (director) had no idea about the over-all-message: Is it a movie about "the first love", "war against the dark side", "the problems with being a teenager", "friendship" or what? So it became a strange mixture with all of these aspects. But they suspented each other and at the end none of them were strong enough for me so that i can say "..." is the message of that film. I had the same problem with the other parts too and i think one disadvantage is that every part were directed by another director just like the batman-movies. But the biggest problem is that the movies were done when the last part of the novel hasn't been finished. It is one of the first things i learned about writing a script:"Know your end and you can guide your actors/incidents" That's the initial part of a successful dramaturgy. In "Lord of the Rings" for example are three parts, the first is about "the fellowship", the second is about "war" and " nature" and the third is about "friendship". All three parts are fitting perfectly but also as indiviual stories. Fortunatly the last part of "Harry Potter"-novel is finished so let's see ...

Tom goes 3D

Hey folks! I`m through with my job at the Animationsfabrik, means animating for "Dodo"-Feature and i had a really great time there (almost a year)! Thank you guys!
And do you remember Tom? Scroll down if not. Tom's gonna be my Hero while giving a Maya-course at the Animation-School-Hamburg. I like him quite a lot albeit he has a simple design. Next days he will get rigged and shaded so come around later for following udates!
Critic and commends are welcome anyway!

Wish a nice week!

Frank

chicksNchocks

topic this week: " hello, hear me ... ?!"

busy me

i'm very sorry for not posting the last time, but i'm currently very busy with my olli-production. I 'm also animating for the Animationsfabrik for their feature-movie "Dodo". But prepare yourself i'll be back!!! ;) wish a nice week everybody!

cheers frank

chicksNchocks

topic this week ... troll, tale, trick or treat ... sorry no time for fancy bg

chicksNchocks

for chicksNchocks ... topic this week was puting together "sunflower, demonise, murderously"

mushroom Tom

That's Tom. A quick and simple design (made in about 3h, hight: 15cm) for a 3D-character for my Maya-course i will give from August at the Animation-School-Hamburg. The model is made with Super-Sculpey and each part is seperated for illustrating individual modeling-technics.

coconuts, oxygen deficiency, struggle

weekly Chicks'N Chocks doodle

olli walk test

click on the image to see the walk test

YES!!!! olli moves!!! I finally finally finished the rig and it's fast and well done! The only thing i couldn't get fixed is the knee-flipping problem but it works anyway in my opinion. It seems that olli's feet are sliding but that's coursed on point of view. They are slurping. It is still not what i want and wip but c&c are quite welcome!

Cheers Frank

Animator's Stop-Clock

click on the image to start the clock (requires flash-plugin)

I've scripted a Animation-Stop-Watch 'course i couldn't find something equal on the web. Click here to download the .exe to run it on your computer standalone. All you need is the actual flash-player. Have fun!

Cheers Fränk

Pirat, Fishing & Super Fast

for weekly challenge on chicksNchock (pirats are cruel but damn good surgeons)

Against the Wall

By fortunate coincidence i found a link to "Against the Wall" by Fatih Akin. A damn great movie. Don't miss it 'course you can see the whole movie for free, albeit it's in German.

Wish a sunny week

Frank

Regen macht blind

contributed to Chicks-N-Chock
and i realized that i need more drawing-practice constantly :(

Olli 3D

olli-old-version

allright ... after doin' olli with sculpey i decided to go over the 3D-design again, 'cause i liked the new proportions a lot more. in a common production you make the clay/sculpey version first and then the 3D-model. but olli was at first not used to me for a shortfilm. i just had the intension of a fast modelling-practice. what ever ... still don't know the story? please have a look at the animatic ... c&c are welcome!

wish a bright day!

frank

new photos

check out my photos-blog for new picture-adds!

holy father

"holy father"

(2006 - Height: 25cm)

well then ... that's "holy fahter" - a stop-motion-amarture-prototype i made some months ago. he was damaged a long time and today i decided to fix him. he's made of wires, screws, tubes, parts from toy-helicopter-engines, and swivels from toy-boats. he's used to me for play around with poses and breakdowns. especially because of his low abilities to facial-expressions :) you have to tweak him carefully to get strong poses.

Olli Bird

(potter's clay - height: 15cm)

Olli Bird ... whistling and with flapping wings ... thx nic for the pictures!
check out my Sculptures-Blog (click) for more!

hog roast

yes that's my first hog roast ;) to tell the truth i was a bit bored sitting the whole day in front of my computer last week and so i took over and decided to make olli "real". i did it over weekend and it was a first attempt to use Super Sculpey instead of potters clay i always used to in the past. i must say that is real fun to work with! Super Sculpey has great modelling-qualities and i think i will use it more often in the future! but as you can see it is not that perfect. unfortunatly there are ugly white spots on the surface, because i used "smoothing oil" for finishing and polishing and will never do it again. next time i gonna use terpentine. my next failure was that i baked "olli" 5min too long, so that his tail and ears got burned :) ... and into the bargain i took him out of the oven too fast so that he got cracks ... albeit i like him! and next time - a better try

finally

Yeah! Today i finally finished the Dirty-Olli-rig and damn it was a hell! On one hand cartoony rigging is great 'course every time it is a very creative challenge to get the rig as cartoony as possible. Technically ... But ... I'm not a TD and it's really annoying to build up all the joints, constraints, skinnings over and over again till it's working. But that's the job and it is done. So prepare yourself! I'm gonna pull the strings next week!

Wish a bright weekend!

Frank

leisure

It's leisure time and boy what a day! I love the spring! The fullest green of the year and people are ready to get observed like that woman i saw. Wish a sunny day with a 5min-smile (at least) ...

Greetz Frank

Welcome!

Hi world, my name is Frank Spalteholz and i'm an animator from Hamburg/Germany. Until May this year i worked for Animationsfabrik GmbH/Germany as a 3D-animator on a new Feature called "Dodo" (Warner Brothers). I had a great time there and i want to say "thank you guys for all"!

Now i'm working on my new shortfilm "Dirty Olli". Please have a look on my Olli-Blog for the animatic and further updates. But feel free to check out my other artwork-blogs too!

Leave me comments and have a great time!

Cheers Frank