Early Animation and Vaudeville: Imitation is the Most Sincere Form of Flattery

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[The following article was was co-written with Nick Thacker, a fellow BYU student and film major.]

Before the technology for moving pictures on film was invented, audiences were fascinated by the illusion of life created by devices like the Zoetrope and the Praxinoscope which displayed sequences of drawings in rapid succession to make it look like they are moving. Although such animations rarely told any kind of story, it was a glimpse at what would soon be a new means of entertainment. (Myrent 193)

Examples of a Zoetrope and a Praxinoscope

Continue reading “Early Animation and Vaudeville: Imitation is the Most Sincere Form of Flattery” »

Tale as old as time—in three dimensions: A review of Beauty and the Beast 3D

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iconWith all of the excitement over the new 3D movie technology and the ability to convert traditional movies into 3D, many studios are understandably reviewing their archives for previous hits that might play well as a 3D movie. One example is the upcoming 3D converted release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Disney has also ventured into the world of converting previous releases with their 3D versions of Toy Story, Toy Story 2, The Lion King and the upcoming 3D release of Finding Nemo. The latest 3D-converted release by Disney is their 1991 classic, Beauty and the Beast, and after my experience viewing it, I believe that there are some things that are better left 2D. Continue reading “Tale as old as time—in three dimensions: A review of Beauty and the Beast 3D” »

Paper Cut Crab in the Deep Blue Sea

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The assignment in my Drawing for Animation class was to make an image from the Deep Sea emulating the style of illustrator Charly Harper. Once I looked at this style what I noticed, besides the breaking things down to simple shapes, was the textures, and that made me think of 3D paper cut art and so that’s the direction I took. I don’t think this would be mistaken for Charly Harper art, but I kinda like it. With a little more time I would have liked to have tried to do this in Maya so that it might look a little better, but instead it’s all in Photoshop.

Star Trek Lego – Kirk vs Gorn

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Well, here is my first foray into animating in Maya. The assignment was to take our Lego project from last year and animate it. Since I did Star Trek Legos for that project (something that is sorely missing from the Lego Universe) I thought it would be fun to do a memorable scene from the original series. This is from the episode “Arena.” I assembled the image sequence and added audio in Adobe After Effects. Kirk’s hair and the Gorn’s head were sculpted in Mudbox.

Lego Star Trek – Kirk vs Gorn from Dennis West on Vimeo.

I’m pretty happy with it. There are a couple of things that I would like to fix, which I’ll probably work on for our next assignment which is adding dynamics. I think I’ll just add them to this scene.

Monster in my closet

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Here’s a fun little project I just turned in. This was for my Drawing for Animation class. We were supposed to focus on shape and design something that could work as a toy also. The theme was “Monster in the Closet.” I’m thinking it might be fun to make a little short out of it someday.

[UPDATE - Feb. 6, 2012] – I’d like to start participating in Illustration Friday again and I thought that this fit the subject “Suspense” for this week. So here you go!