What Nate has been up to

Been a busy year! Man, I keep forgetting to update this blog.

The last 12 months have been a pretty crazy time, I've worked on some really cool projects but beyond all that I've had the pleasure of becoming Lucy's Dad.

She's the best little girl a guy could ask for!

Working in VFX is hard with the long hours but we're making it work. In the last 10 months I've worked on some pretty exciting projects! Let me link to some trailers, woo!

Batman v Superman is probably my ultimate dream project! I've always been a huge fan of both of these characters so getting to work on this was an absolute pleasure. I can't wait to share the work we did!

I just helped out on this for a month or two, but it was a fun project to be involved with. Lots of late nights on this, but at the end of the day I think we have a really fun and entertaining flick! Lots of great creatures in this one!

This one I can't talk about too much, but its coming out this spring. Its going to be a lot of fun!

Okay, that's it for now. Lots of exciting news coming soon!

2014 animation vfx reel

Latest reel! Love to hear your thoughts!

Game of Thrones Season 4

Sorry for all the dumping of trailers lately everyone! I'll post more interesting content when I have time/ideas!

I had the pleasure of working on game of thrones for an episode. We have a pretty cool sequence coming out shortly. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the season!

Godzilla Trailer

Godzilla was by far the biggest project I've ever been involved with. We're just winding down now but its been one hell of a ride. Very challenging shots, but I was working with an amazing team and I'm thrilled to see how it all comes together.

Enjoy the Trailer!

Walter Mitty Trailer!

Hi everyone! Just thought I'd update you with a little trailer of a movie I worked on. We just did a short sequence in this but it was really fun. I'm really looking forward to this one, Hope its a goodie! Enjoy :) 

Star Wars Take Over!

While I was working at Disney Interactive, myself and 3 other members of the 3d team were trusted with doing something new and different for the company. For months we had been pushing for permission to create a cinematic trailer using some of our 3d assets to achieve a piece of marketing that would hopefully excite fans of the game and attract new kids into the world of Club Penguin.

Some how, they believed us. They let us take control of a cinematic trailer that would partner with LucasFilm and marry the two worlds together. For a long time we were pretty sure that we couldn't finish it on time, as we could only work on it when we had free time during the production of the game. But somehow we pulled it off, and it was one of the most fun things I've ever been able to work on!

I'd like to say I animated and directed this, but that's not totally true. I sat down with some amazing producers, art directors and the 3d team and we hashed this thing out and established what shots we wanted to focus on. We worked together as a team and everyone had input, it was a great experience!

Anyways, I don't want to ramble on for too long, but I'm very thankful to have worked at a place with producers that backed us 110%  and allowed us to stand out and do something a little extra special.

I hope you enjoy it! 

New Adventures

Whew! What a crazy year its been so far.

For the past 11 months or so, I've been living in Kelowna BC and working at Club Penguin, a kids social network/open world game. When I first started there I had no idea what the site was all about and to be perfectly honest, I completely underestimated how impressive the game and the company is.

On top of that, I run a small video production company that fills up most of my free time and on top of that I decided I wanted to keep my animation skills sharp and enroll in Animation Mentor. (which you can see all my assignments below).

Needles to say, I got really busy.

Animation Mentor was pretty awesome, I really do recommend it to anyone interested in pushing themselves to the next level or just brushing up on a few things.  A lot of people said to me "DUDE, you already worked on a few movies! Why did you even GO to animation mentor?"

Animation is an Art form, and for me, I don't think I can ever "finish" learning any form of art. I cannot over state the importance of feeling a fire underneath you that forces you to climb higher. For me, Animation Mentor was that fire.

Anyways, a month or so ago, my friends at MPC notified me of an open position starting the week after my term at AM completed. I was thrilled to be a part of the film world again, but part of me was incredibly sad to leave the awesome folks at Club Penguin behind. We had made some really cool stuff and more importantly, I made some awesome new friends.   

I guess life is full of these big hard choices but to me it doesn't really matter where I work, as long as I can keep climbing, keep learning, and keep feeling that fire underneath.

Now if only I could transfer that same motivation to my physical workouts :p

Dragon vs Ogre: Final Assignment

Whew! Just now wrapping up the 6 month Creatures Master Class at animation mentor. It's been really fun, but I'm looking forward to having weekends back and behaving like a normal human being again! 

This assignment was a lot of fun. To say it wasn't inspired by the avengers would be a lie. (that movie was a real game changer, for me at least). I really wanted to create something dynamic and exciting, something with a really crazy and fun camera move that would create a level of drama that I couldn't get with a locked off plate.

Anyways, I hope you like it! As always please feel free to comment below - Art is a journey and there is always more to learn.

Here are my rough exploratory drawings, if anyone is interested I can post the rough animation too. 

Hungry Dragon

For this assignment we had to use a plate element and have a dragon interact in a believable way. I chose to have this dragon fly down, pick a dude up off the scooter, and then munch on his head.

This assignment was a lot of fun! Very time consuming and it went under some radical last minute changes, but I enjoyed the challenge.

Angry Ogre!

Had a lot of fun with this one! For this assignment we were just to animate the ogre doing some predatory movement. I decided that he's a pissed predator and likes to run around and smash stuff. I looked at a lot of Gorilla reference and even found myself jumping off of stuff to get reference. That's probably why earlier versions of this looked sissy. Anyways, let me know what you think! Always looking for feedback. Thanks!

Jack the Giant Slayer

Ever since I was a kid I've always wanted to work on a movie. Like most animators, its a crazy pipe dream that fuels the fire of all those late nights and always keeps you pushing the bar on your work.

Over a year ago, I was thrilled to start work on my first film at MPC here in Vancouver and I have to say, Jack the Giant Slayer was an insane challenge. So many vines! I saw green for months. I thought for sure they would fire me after five minutes. I learned so much. It was so much work, but I do feel that I grew as an artist and I met a lot of great people along the way. 

Its easy to get stuck in the daily grind, but when I finally saw Jack on the big screen it really rejuvenated me. The movie is not the greatest film ever made, but it was a pretty awesome feeling seeing my and my co-workers work on the big screen. It was such an odd sensation seeing months of late nights and weekends fly by in a few seconds.

I think, as an artist you have to take risks and push yourself.  You'll never learn or grow if you're not afraid of failing. For me personally, fear of failure is a sign that you are in the right place and that you are ready to learn something new. Maybe it sounds crazy, but I hope to be afraid for the rest of my career.

Quadruped Locomotion Final

 Here is my final pass for the quadruped locomotion assignment. I most definitely could have chosen better camera angle. I think that was the biggest lesson with this one, the camera angle can really be your best friend or your worst enemy. Hopefully this is feeling good, I'd love to hear any comments or critiques from you crazy animators out there.

Below is an earlier version of the assignment, complete in all its ugliness!

Planning for Quadruped locomotion

Here are some rough thumbnails of my next shot

My Quadruped walk cycle

Here is my first assignment from Animation mentor. Still a bit rusty!

Motion Timer for iphone

Found this super helpful app today

Basically it will time you waving your iphone around, and spit out an fcurve. Super helpful tool for timing from reference!

Go support these guys!

Have fun animating!

Preparing for Animation Mentor

Hi everyone! This is my first blog post here, I hope you dig the site! I've been animating professionally now for 8 years, and let me tell you its been a great but challenging career choice.

I love it though, there really is nothing like it. I've always enjoyed seeing a shot transform and grow as you sculpt away a characters performance.

My wife and I recently moved to Kelowna, where I am working with some really great people at Disney Interactive. As if animating all day wasn't enough, I've decided to enroll in Animation Mentors Creature Masterclass - just so I can keep pushing the bar on my work. I'm really excited to dive in and see what I can learn. I'll be posting my work here as I complete assignments, I'd love to hear any feedback!!

Anyone out there who's completed the program feel like sharing what they've found? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Stay tuned!