Finally some great news!!

So to keep this short a friend of mine recommended me for an amazing job up in New Jersey which I applied for and did an art test which I feel I did quite well on. I received a call yesterday from a different studio that I sent my portfolio to back in March. They like my work and want me to work for them! I'll be checking out the studio sometime this coming week (since I won't be going to E3 sadly.) Now I have a choice, and I'm just stupidly excited that it's between two different studios instead of two different retail jobs.

In other news the Pokemon Project is still chugging along, the Marowak is modeled and waiting to be rigged, the Donphan is waiting to be rigged and we're figuring out the env modeling. I need a little project so I may make a fun cycle for kicks.

4 day weekend!!

No work for the next three days! Today was a great day off, I cleaned my room did all of the laundry and had a nice sleep in after my meeting at work. Once that was all done i knocked out a jump cycle for MWG and the beginnings of the ninth shot for the Sonic film. I need to practice my drawing, mainly the shading since that's what really sells it. Anyway I'm off to bed, night!

Pushing on.

Bad news and good news. Bad news is that I was not hired at Trion, Mechanist, and Skyparlor. Good news is that they all liked my work, Trion was impressed with the work and look of the cycles that I made for them, Skyparlor liked my style, and I was a strong candidate for Mechanist Games. The problems were that Trion was only hiring a senior animator, Skyparlor wanted more experience, and Mechanist went with someone local. Now the fact that they sent me an email back is a good thing, and that they liked the work tha I do is even better! So I thanked them all for their time and said to remember me if they needed anyone with my experience soon.

After that I went on resume sending spree and got a link on reddit about a company looking for people. So now I'm working with Mountain Wheel Games on their fame Stone Rage. Can't say much more than that, I'm under NDA. I'm still with Bluecore on the Sonic film, April is apparently the running month, and I'm working on the chase scene this month. Currently on shot 9 that I've worked on with them. Also, we're currently looking at a June release!

Other random news I got to teach in my friends class, it was pretty fun. I went over the basic principles, told them about what I've done and currently doing to get a job in the industry and what it takes to be an animator. I'll probably go back and teach another lecture, maybe even check out a teaching position there myself. Better pay, and I won't want to punch the people asking me questions cause they won't be as stupid as "How do I make a call on an iPhone?" "Does the phone have to lock when I put it in my purse?" So on and so forth. I'm grateful for my Sprint job but eager to get out of it into an animation job. That's why I'm spending more time working on animation at home than at the given hours at work. It's about 29/30ish hours at Sprint and 35-37 at home. It's the only thing I do at home now. I haven't even touched Mass Effect 3 in a week. Anyway, I'm out for now, I typed this all out at work on my phone if that shows how much free time I have on my hands. I actually spend as much time as I can drawing at work so I can practice. I'll see if I can upload pics of my drawings to this post. Mike fun

2 cycles left to go!

So I pretty much finished the Shotgun cycle which is at the bottom of this post, I got some great feedback from some of my friends on how to improve it. Once I finish that I'll be working on Sonics run and spindash cycles for BlueCore studios, and actually when I finish the run cycle I'll be able to finish shots 7 and 8 easily since it's him running through some trees. After that I'll apply some fixes to my female walk cycle, and then start the sniper cycle today. Having three days off from Sprint was absolutely amazing and seriously helped me crank out these cycles quickly. Today I also have the Skype interview with the company that's based in China, so hopefully that'll go well.

Time to knock shit out.

Deadlines and Cycles

      So I've started setting deadlines for myself to keep moving forward and not get stuck getting distracted. Todays deadline is to have the shotgun cycle finished by the time I go to bed and have started fixing the female walk cycle/adding details to the Pistol cycle. Tomorrow will be to start and hopefully finish the sniper cycle and have enough time to complete the assault rifle cycle by Thursday. Thursday is the main deadline for all the cycles I've been working on since I've gotten back to GDC. Overall the goal was to finish 5 cycles in about a week and a half.

I also need to put these cycles up on the demo reel page/my website and then start planning an adjustment to my demo reel to add these cycles in it. The Poseidon walk cycle, the female walk cycle, the robot run cycle, and one or two of the gun cycles. That should make my Demo Reel now over a minute long, woo hoo!!

This one is self explanitory, start of the cycle behind cover.

 Obviously he's out shooting now, I must say I got the spin to be nice and fluid and remembered to have his different appendages show up where they needed to be at different times so it doesn't look snapped. I do need to turn down his reflections and add a point light to give the muzzle flash off on the surrounding Geo. Should I make the muzzle flash image bigger though...

Well, back to work I've only got about 13 hours before I have to sleep so I'd better make the best of it!

Mike

I'm pretty sure that I put some blogs up on my phone but I guess they didn't make it on here...

Well since the last post in September a lot has happened, instead of droning on I'll list it.

• I'm still at Sprint but not for long. 
• I put my Demo Reel up in it's own tab with work I've recently done.
• I made my business cards that have a QR code that leads to my Demo Reel tab.
• I've been working on the Sonic fanfilm and doing quite well.
• I've completed 6 shots, and I am now on shots 7 and 8.
• I started a side project with some friends from school, it's a short about Pokemon, a fight between a Marowak and a Donphan.
• I haven't heard anything much from David and the Orlando studio.
• DD is hiring and I've put in my resume and demo reel to see if I can get a job in their new studio up in Port Saint Lucie.
• I went to GDC.
• I found 7 companies who expressed interest in hiring me.
• I've got an interview on Tuesday night with a company in China.
• 3 of the studios that needed me are freelance (hence why I won't be at Sprint for long.
• I met a lot of awesome people at the Trion Worlds party at GDC and currently making some cycles to show them what I can do.
• I've been practicing my illustration.
• I've been holding off on playing ME3 till I finish the cycles for Trion.
• I'm single again.
• I met some cute girls at GDC.

So that's what's been going on with me, right now my main goal is to finish these cycles to impress Trion and go to their open house which is soon. I still need to email A LOT of people that I met at GDC and follow up with the companies that need freelance work. Since I'm working on cycles with Goon and the Robot with guns I'll be making some wallpapers and new backgrounds for my blog. If anything interesting happens it'll be up here!

September happenings.

It's my birthday month!! From my standpoint it seems like nothing much is going on but stuff has been moving forward. I'm on my last week of training with Sprint, I've started dating this amazing girl on the second of August, she's absolutely gorgeous and loves my dorkiness. I totally forgot about the walk cycle I did for Stephen Wong on Poseidon. He's working on the dynamics for his toga and then render it.

Speaking of Mr. Wong, he has been a great friend and suggested me for an animation position in a new studio being made up in Orlando. This new studio is being made by our friend David Rennels with backing from a big entertainment company. As of right now David is currently in Otown looking at places for the studio to be located, as well as putting together the budget that includes our salaries (which are a lot more gracious than my current Sprint salary. The studio has 2 projects available to it but I won't say much since I don't know what I should and shouldn't be talking about.

In another short note, I had a friend inform me of a Sonic fan film. After Vex Studios and Halo:Helljumper both were scrapped on the same day I sent my info over to the director to see if they needed any help with the animation. I didn't get a reply back for awhile, until this morning. The director took a look at my demo reel, said that he liked what he saw and was hoping I had some free time to help contribute to the project. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, I want to make sure that I have enough time to put a great effort into the new studio being made in Orlando to get off on a good foot and have a full time studio job with a salary.

On a last note I need to make a new background image since Google deleted my last one.