27 February 2020

25 Years Later (2020) directed by Vincent-louis Apruzzese



This took a while and a lot out of me. Lots of sad memories and a few happy ones thrown in for good measure. Thanks again to Mike Luce for his wicked laugh, and he didn't even ask what it was for!

This is sort of more "epic" as well as personal for me in animation. 15 locations that all had to be designed and made and then populated with two real-ish looking humans.

This is not a documentary. I wish I was still in shape like the cyclist in the animation is 25 years later after taking care of my friend but many of the events did happen. I won't bike to Boston as I planned but I will go there this spring/summer. A bike tour would take almost a week and I don't have the funds for a week in hotels, then time in Boston and then find a way to get back home with my bike. In a way this is my attempt to come to terms with the events all those years back, it was a very tough time and I though I helped out one friend for six years, there were  others for shorter periods and some of that is reflected in this as well.

Some of you might recognize certain locations... like my office, street, the bridge and several locations in Boston. Nothing is slavishly reproduced but even the biking scenes are based on several trips from Boston to Montreal.

If you see this and have opinions, tell me and watch it on You Tube, give it likes etc. I would like it to be seen and promoted somehow so please refer others to it if you think it's appropriate.

26 February 2020

L'épée de Ziegfried (The sword of Ziegfried)


It took a few yers but I finally did the third image in this series inspired, loosely, by the Fritz Lang's film of Ziegfried.

This one I decided to go experimental and use a technique I want to use more with animations in the future. Basically I drew the character and the backdrop normally but for the foreground and anvil, I made a simple grayscale 3D model the drew over that with details and added more shading etc. I made some mistakes along the way but overall it worked out, I think so anyway. I have to thank an old friend I haven't seen in decades for posing for the images I'm still using. It's not every cute, nice guy who will agree to pose in a pelt with a real sword.

The first two are below. Click any image for larger version to see more details.

 

09 February 2020

2020 demo reel!


Update for 2020, includes some unfinished projects I thought might be interesting.