Night at the Museum Final Render + "Cheated" Whiteboard Animation

After a few weeks of lazy vacation time, I finally got around to re-rendering my 3D Fundamentals final. I'm quite proud of the results, and will be creating more tests as I build an Animation Reel. I learned A TON from creating this scene from scratch, a lot more than simply going through Digital Tutors tutorials (though, very informative and helpful). All the elements of animation production: modeling, rigging, lighting, texturing, animation, staging, rendering, forged themselves into a scene once a story was done and simplified. Keeping everything as simple as possible kept headache time pretty low.  Click to view it, in all it's foreign film glory:

Night at the Museum - Animation Final from Jesse Soto on Vimeo.


(For specifics, please go to the Vimeo page)

Over the break, I also created this Mickey Mouse Whiteboard Animation test. This one is "cheated" since there isn't a true whiteboard drawing. Instead, the drawing was handled on Flash. And, the hand was added while compositing in After Effects.

Whiteboard Animation Test - Christmas Mickey from Jesse Soto on Vimeo.

Archaeologist Mickey

A quick sketch in continuation of my lessons with Mickey Mouse. He's still a tough little fella and I feel that with great practice, makes him greatly difficult. Been having a few requests at work for a few Disney Characters, so I hope to be well practiced with them.

Mickey Mouse - Test Animation

At Disney Consumer Products we've been shown how to draw Mickey and his friends once each week by Jeff Shelly. Mickey's surprisingly hard to draw because of the balance between design and draftsmenship needed. Most of which is achieved through a lot of drawing time with him. I've been tinkering around with this scene, finding different ways to make Mickey snooze, yet retain his likeliness. It's summer! so having a lazy summer laid back demeanor felt appropriate.