David Alvarez

This blog has moved

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Fri, 28 May 2010 07:31:00 +0000

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More drawings

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:11:00 +0000

No much time this days as usual, but I'm try to keep drawing some.

New scaner

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:23:00 +0000

Well I bought a new scanner yesterday, so hopefully I will update often this unattended blog. Also is a good reason to draw more. Hopefully the next drawings will be a bit better.

Some notes and thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:43:00 +0000

I don't usually post about this kind of subjects, because I really feel still a lot to learn about this crafty thing called animation, so I don't pretend to teach anyone the "right way" to animate. This post is just a selfremainder of things that works for me if you find it useful, good for you.
Planning: Some people draw, other simple acted out, record him/herself in video. What is the best? well I dunno, I find pretty useful use videoreference you usually find really interesting things happening in real life, things than won't come to your mind, but fell free to reinterpret, enhance and/or discard the information you get from this.
Drawing, well this is really usefull when you are planning a shot too cartoony or dangerous to act it out for yourself. I find this pretty useful too. Programs like Flipbook allow you to make really rough drawings and explore all the possible ideas. The bad thing is that sometime you will find your 3d character is not so flexible to allow you all the cheating you did in your drawings, well be careful with that.
Sometimes you can't use this method and you start from zero in your 3d program, well here you only have your critic and trained eye to know if it is right or wrong. In the end that trained eye is the most important thing to be a good animator, distinguish the right from wrong. How you developed a trained eye? Well for me worked really well my drawing classes, you learn a lot about shape, gesture and well, an appealing pose can sell a whole shot. So you better learn this stuff ( if you already don't own a copy of the Walt Stanchfield two books you are missing raw gold. Also I'm trying to analyze a lot of material, from classic cartoons to clips from movies or reels of great animators) Also like to read other people analisis Jonh K. stuff is a great source of information and detailed analisis about animation. But don't forget the most important thing ANIMATE and THINK. Just don't do what work for you, try new things don't become a robot just working with your bag of tricks.
What keeps me inspired?, Usually masterpieces of animation (like I said classic cartoons, reels, teaser, excerpt from movies). Try to be that good, usually help me to deliver quality material and also help me to improve my skills and my devolope further a trained eye.
Oh I almost forget, How I dare? Feedback a pair of new, trusted fresh eyes is an invaluable tool to raise your level and put you in the right track. So if you have someone around who can give you good feedback don't miss the chance.

My 2 cents

Bye Revis

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:28:00 +0000

Well in July I spent my last days as animator at Revistronic. It was a pleasure to work with the great people, really talented artist and programmers whow work there. I'm gonna miss you guys but it's time to take my chances and start new ventures. What I'm doing now? Well I keep animating (of course) in a really great project I hope to be able to show something soon.

Finally animation!

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:27:00 +0000

hey finally I manage to post some stuff I did a few time ago, this weekend I was fixing things here and there, I don't think it's done yet so any feedback it's more than welcome.

Quick sketches

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:48:00 +0000

I just found the recently published Walt Stanchfield books really enlightining. Are pure GOLD for any animator. These are son quick sketches trying to put in practice some stuff discussed in these books.

P.D: By the way for some reason blogspot renamed this page to index.htm instead of blogger.html so if for any strange reason you have this direction in your bookmark you will need to update.

selfportrait? (why so serious?)

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 11:53:00 +0000

Hi guys I must say I'm really busy (fortunally) and without much time too upload new things or work in my own stuff at home. This just a kind of selfportrait. Normally I don't detail to much the drawings I do, I try to focus more on gesture, weight, and that kind of things so I did this just for fun.

More drawings

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 15:54:00 +0000

Hey guys just some more drawings I did in my spare time.

Finally!

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:09:00 +0000

Hi Is anyone there? I hope so...
You know pretty busy at work, also I'm glad to say I'm taking 2d animation classes son no much time to post here. Sorry about that...

At work we almost finish our last game, and we are just starting our new project.

Also like I said I'm taking 2d animation classes and it's great to be away from a computer just with paper and pencils. I'm waiting for my lightbox, I ordered a few days ago but unfourtunally they run out of supplies so I will have to wait a few days more. Anyway I'm trying to sharpen mean while my drawing skills doing some fast sketching. You can take a look to some samples in this post.

sketching is addictive

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:16:00 +0000

Yeah so that's why today I did another one.

More Flipbook

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:16:00 +0000

Hey I also have some 2d animation exercise, a really siple one, just trying to fix some new concepts and workflow method I'm learning right now.

December 11 second club entry

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:04:00 +0000

Hey I spent part of my holidays working on this. Finally I manage to participate again in this competition. Hope you like it!

Finally I'm sketching again.

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:56:00 +0000

Have been a long time since my last exercise. It's really obvius how you get worse if you don't keep practicing.
Anyway this is what I did in about 30 minutes and more important I had a lot of fun doing it.

Update at least: "La dama en el umbral" awards

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 12:15:00 +0000

Ok these last three month in my new job had been really demanding (I'm having a blast anyway I must say), so I had left my poor blog unattended. Anyway I'll try to start to make updates more often I can't promise anything but I try. This time I came again with the full palmares in a old project I had lucky to work in. Thanks to Marcos Busatori another animator who work also in this shortfilm for post the list with the awards.

Premio al mejor cortometraje y nominación al Meliés de Oro:
Ravenna Nightmare Film Festival. Italia.

Premio especial del jurado:
Festival Internacional de cine de animación de Annecy 2008, Francia.

Premio al mejor corto de animación en:
VI Certamen de cortometrajes de la Diputación de Málaga.
Primavera Cinematográfica de Lorca.
Certamen de cortos de Dos Hermanas.
Festival de Cine de Cartagena.
Concurso de Cortos Animados de Villaviciosa, Asturias.
Premios ACE. Madrid.
Festival de Cine de Sant Joan d'Alacant.
Certamen de cortometrajes Radio City. Valencia.
V Festival de Cine de Alicante.
Segundo premio en el Festival de Valls.
Tercer premio en el Festival de Navas.

Mención especial del jurado:
Festival de cine español de Toulouse. Francia.
Festival Nacional de Cortometrajes de Villajoyosa.

Mejor guión adaptado:
XIV Concurso de cortos de Laguardia.

Awesomeness

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 20:35:00 +0000

I usually don't post about any other people stuff in this blog, there are already many blogs out there that compilates talent and wisdom there is around the world (you can check some of them in my links). Anyway I'll make an exception today, that way I can post something in this blog since I don't have anything new to show yet, I keep working on something I would show you soon though.

Anyway let's go to the point. A friend of mine and former co-worker use to visit a blog where the amazing talented crew of Avalanche post his drawings. Well I discover today that there is another blog where animators from Avalanche also post their personal animation test. If you have time please check out because they are great pieces of animation.
Some of this guys are already working at Disney or Dreamworks they deserve it.

http://avamation.blogspot.com/

Normalmente no escribo acerca de material de otra gente en este blog, ya hay muchos blog que recopilan el talento y la sabiduria que hay en el mundo (podeis ver algun ejemplo en mi sección de links). En cualquier caso haré una excepción hoy, de esa manera puedo escribir al en este blog, ya que no tengo nuevo para mostrar todavia, aunque estoy trabajando en algo y os lo mostrare pronto.

En cualquier caso vamos al asunto. Un amigo mio y antiguo compañero de trabajo habitualmente visita un blog donde el alucinate grupo de Avalanche sube sus dibujos. Pues bien hoy descrubrí que existe otro blog donde los animadores de Avalanceh tambien suben sus test de animación. Si teneis tiempo echarle un vistazo porque realmente hay grandes piezas de animación.
Algunos de estos chicos ya están trabajando en disney o dreamworks. Mas que merecido.

New work in progress

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 22:11:00 +0000

Hey guys (and gals) this is something I'm working on right now. A friend of mine give some inputs I wanna try before to go further but I would like to show you what I have by now and I would really aprecciate all the feedback you could gave it to me before to go on. Thanks in advance.

Hola chicos ( y chicas) esto es algo en lo que estoy trabajando ahora. Un amigo me dio varios consejos que quiero probar antes de ir mas adelante pero tambien me gustaria mostraros lo que tengo hasta ahora y realmente me encantaria recibir todos los consejos y opiniones que podais darme antes de seguir adelante. Gracias por anticipado.

WOOOOTT!!!

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:16:00 +0000

The short film "La dama en el umbral" won Jury's special award in the Annecy Festival of 2008. I was responsible of part of the animation of this shortfilm and it is a real honor to have been awarded with this prize.

El corto "La dama en el umbral" ganó el premio especial del Jurado en el festival de Annecy de 2008. Soy autor de parte de la animación de este corto y es un verdadero honor haber sido galardonado con este premio.

Dive work in progress

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 10:55:00 +0000

Hi again! i don't like too much to have unattended this blog. So I'll post something I'm working on, is unfinished yet (some imbetweens in the main character and a lot in the table) anyway that give me the oportunity that if someone find things that are not working very well I will have the oportunity to fix it before to start with the 3d version. Actually I'm enjoying a lot the whole process in 2d specially because my computer is pretty slow with 3d applications hopefully I will get a new computer in a few weeks. By the way I'm on holidays so I also try to relax some before to come back work to have batteries full charged.

Pues nada ahora en español. Decía que no me gusta mucho tener este blog desatendido, así que voy a subir algo en lo que estoy trabajando, está inacabado (faltan intercalados en el personaje principal y un monton mas en la table) en cualquier caso esto me da la opotunidad de si alguien encuentra cosas que no estan funcionando muy bien, pues me dará la oportunidad de arreglarlas antes de pasar a la fase 3d.
De hecho estoy disfrutando mucho el trabajo en 2d especialmente porque mi ordenador es bastante lento con aplicaciones 3d, afortunadamente conseguiré un nuevo ordenador en unas semanas. Por cierto, esoty de vacaciones y también trataré de relajarme un poco y volver con las pilas cargadas al trabajo.

Basket Revisited

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:56:00 +0000

Finally I found the oportunity to work a bit more on this animation. So this is the last version, with some more polish in limbs and the landing. Hope you like it.

Finalmente encontre la ocasion de trabajar un poco mas en esta animación. Así que esta es la ultima versión, con algun refinado del movimiento de las extremidades y el añadido del aterrizaje. Espero que os guste.

Agua va

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:19:00 +0000

I usually show in this blog personal animation test. In this case I will change that today... I wanna show you something I did at work. It is only a little animation for a secondary action in one of the many scenes of the project we are working on... but also means I make my living doing what I love. Animation.

Usualmente muestro en este blog test personales de animación. Hoy voy a cambiar eso.
Se trata simplemente de una pequeña animación secundaria del proyecto en el que estamos trabajando pero tambien significa que me gano la vida haciendo lo que me gusta. Animando.

running the extra mile

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:55:00 +0000

I would say it is pretty rough but I think is ok. Hope you like it. Anyway as always critiques and comments are more than welcome.

Bastante poco pulido pero creo que esta bien. Espero que os guste. De cualquier manera como siempre criticas y comentarios son bien recibidos.

vanilla walk cycle

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 06:02:00 +0000

I have lost the count of how many walk cycle I did but they aren't enought. In this case it is only a practice trying to sharp my skills in flipbook. Also I would like to start to write my entries not only in english also in spanish, my first language.

He perdido la cuenta de cuantos ciclos de caminado he hecho pero nunca son suficientes. En este caso se trata simplemente de una practica para afinar mis habilidades con flipbook. Tambien me gustaria aprovechar para empezar a escribir mis entradas en español, mi primera lengua.

basket wip.

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:43:00 +0000

It needs some tweaks here and there but I wanna upload something new because it had been a long time since the last update. I'm sorry but I have been quite busy lately.

I hope you enjoy, comments and critiques are more than welcome.

Himba

noreply@blogger.com (David Alvarez) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 12:49:00 +0000

Again experimenting with color.