Jack Ebensteiner

Back to the trenches

2010-10-23T23:21:00.001-07:00

And by trenches I mean the mildly uncomfortable office chair in front of my computer. Same thing.

So the past week or so I've been a tad lazy.

But after a much needed break, I'm digging back in. Good time too because I have 3 weeks to do 2 minutes of animation! It'll be fun though. Right?

Maybe I'll post a little work in progress shot here or something. That's part of a making of blog I suppose, right? In any case, something to come soon!

Now to get re-inspired and back to work.

Blogger's Endurance + Crit update

2010-10-18T22:47:00.001-07:00

(testing blends)

So I'm typically a bad blogger. I get too caught up in the work itself to really post about it, but I figure it'd be good for me to document this process more than I have. It's unfortunate that I've already gotten as far as I have without posting what I've done so far. That being said, I'll try to post more often and with things of less significance! That's good blogging.

That was the endurance part, here's a little crit update. So last week, we had our second faculty critique for the year. They're fairly stressful events because there aren't that many and they are the defining milestones for the piece. If you don't have everything in order for one, you're essentially sentenced to ritual seppuku in front of the class, faculty, and any visiting artists. In a good way! Kind of. Yeah.

Anyways, so regarding my piece, I got some mixed messages, but I think the reception was overall good. I was told that a few of things were a bit confusing, various spacial relationship issues, etc. All things that will be worked on. I also heard that it was making good improvement and that its looking fun. Nice.

I've definitely been making the piece more fun (for me especially!). I've included a knife-throw, 3 missiles, a machine gun, a gun misfire and a good old fashioned unpiloted-ship-crashing-then-exploding. All very effects based and while that's not animation (what I'm determined to do after I graduate!), I do very much love to make things go boom, kablamo, and zort. If you can think of any other rendition of onomatopoeia signifying an explosion, feel free to email me.

Going forward, I think I need to make the audience a bit more sympathetic for my little creature guy (dubbed by popular demand as The Goober). That and just find ways to make it more entertaining. My story may not be the basis for Pixar's next film, but I am determined to make it fun to watch.

Now if only I could figure out what to do about sound... Well, that's for another late-night!

Goodnight folks, get some sleep.

- Jack

Characterinos

2010-10-18T21:45:00.000-07:00

Hey there folks, here are the characters! I can't believe they're done..ish already. Weights still need tweaking, textures reworking (don't look too closely!) etc. etc. , but for the most part they're done.

Other than the changes I have yet to make in the months to come to these guys, in general that will give a very good idea as to what they'll look like.

Also, here are a couple of super quick blend tests. Oh how I wish I could have spent more time on them! I'll throw that on the Wish-I-Coulda-But-Didn't-Have-The-Time-So-I'll-Save-It-For-Later- ... -Probably list.

Each one was done in 3-4 hours.

That's all for now folks, to be continued..

- Jack

Thesis!

2010-10-03T01:50:00.001-07:00

So I've made it to my senior year as an animator at Ringling! The plan is to spend the year making a 2 minute computer animated short film. I won't be discussing much story stuff on here, but I'll be using this as the making of blog!

I'm already a little ways into creating the short, but I have a long long way to go so I'll update this as the piece progresses.

Just to get this started a little bit, here are some images of my Hunter character's spaceship (more details soon to come) and a couple of the props therein. Hope you enjoy!

- Jack

Website's up

2010-02-28T13:04:00.000-08:00

The website's up with a new url!

www.jackebensteiner.com

Check it out!