Yuki 7

Man! The lack of updates means I'm super swamped with my short film. I haven't been able to draw much, outside of freelance, and it's killin me. So tonight I decided to step away from Maya and sketch this little piece of fan art. I'm sure you've done so already, but in case you haven't, check out my friend, Kevin Dart's trailer for his new book coming out soon called , Seductive Espionage: The World of Yuki 7. The trailer was directed by Kev and Stephane Coedel.

The book was written by another friend of mine , Ada Cole, and made with the help of her hubby Dan Cole! Congrats you guys!

Ah, and a couple of good friends and I also went to the Sasquatch Music Festival last weekend which was awesome and I'm totally burnt. I'll upload some pictures to my Flickr soon!

A hiatus...

Dear animation friends...

Sorry to say, I need to take a hiatus from posting here. This labor of love has been a source of great joy, but I literally don't have the time necessary to post on any kind of regular basis.

I am leaving all the artwork online as a reference source, and hopefully in the not-too-distant future I'll be able to start posting again.

Thanks for all your encouragement and support.

Very sincerely,

Rob Richards

Building Overlapping Action in your Breakdowns

So I always go back to look at different tutorials on many of the sites and blogs that I follow. Even if I believe that I have a good understanding of certain principles it is always good to go back and revisit them. Just like Keith Lango did on his workflow of breakdowns. Much to his credit, Keith revisited an earlier tutorial that he wrote titled Pose to Pose- Organized Keyframe tutorial. As animators, we are always learning and growing in our craft. The more we animate, the more we practice, the more we learn about this amazing process. What we thought might have worked for us earlier, as it may well have, the more we simplify and perfect our workflow. In this case Keith has done just that as he writes in this follow up tutorial titled Breakdowns Can be Such a Drag (building better overlaps in breakdowns). He goes on to compare his earlier views and techniques with a new and revised one based on more experiance and practice. Not only is it a good tutorial in building overlap into your breakdowns but he is able to show a clear diffrenece in the two different types of workflow. As as animator, I am always trying to perfect my passion with time practice and knowledge. It is not always this easy and clear on how we do this but this tutorial is a great example of that. So check it out and also check out the rest of his tutorials keithlangotutorials. Here it is.



Enjoy!

New RIG

I just found this rig on Josh Burton's site. Well he just posted it :). I played with it for a bit and it seems like lots of fun and should be great to animate. He has done tests on his site with him so you can see "Squirrely" in action. He also has all of the info you need on him. Here ya go! I'm sure he would love feedback too.




Enjoy.

3D blocking!

Finally! Here's a show-able rough blocking pass. It's come a long way but I've got about 6 -7 weeks until the term ends, so I still gonna have to scramble to flesh this out, then polish it up. Which really has been insane, I'm sprinting to get it done. I've also had the good fortune to pick up some freelance character design for Nickelodeon , so between that , my day job, and this film, my schedule has been brutal ! But I can't complain. This is what they call character building right? Alright time to hit the sack. More soon ok?

BTW. Pacquiao for the win! Speaking of Brutal!

Also, big thanks to Danny, Katy, and Rich for all the maya help so far!!