Film Update !

I just pitched my story to the class again today and a few of my classmates and my story teacher thought that I should lose a portion of the front part and get to the focus of the story right away. The concern was that it is a little too long for a first year film and tackling it might be a little hard.

I'm taking in the advices and I'll leave that front part out for now, but if I'm done with the animation a month before the deadline, which hopefully I will, then I'll proceed with the original opening since I find it purposeful to the story. As for now, everybody seems to be right about getting the important part nailed down first so I'm gonna go ahead and do that, hopefully I'll be able to start animating sometime soon !

Anyway, to show some progress, here are some storyboard panels from my film!









More to come !!

20th Week (2nd week of Spring Semester)

I've been working on my film's story for almost 2 weeks now and things are finally falling into place. I just finished the rough storyboard and listed the number of scenes and shots I have in my film. As of now, I have a total of 9 scenes and 74 shots and they look doable if I work according to the timetable I've created. I'll try to post something from my film within this week to show some progress.

Anyway, here's a sketch I did in San Francisco over the winter break and then painted over with photoshop today.



Going to bed earlier than usual today so I can wake up early in the morning tomorrow to clean up my storyboard !! Good Night !!

Happy Chinese(Lunar) New Year !!

A painting I did for this year's Chinese(Lunar) New Year !!

It's the year of the dragon !!! MY YEAR !! Woohhooo !!! Chinese(Lunar) New Year is not till 2 days later but I wanted to finish this a day earlier so I can put it online in time for those who are outside of U.S where Chinese New Year is a day ahead !



Good luck, everybody !!! THIS YEAR, No matter who or where you are, just put your best foot forward and miracle will unfold itself !!!

19th Week ( Jan 21) First week of Spring Semester !!

So winter break is over! I'm one week late yes, but I did most of what I planned to do over the break except for sketching twice a week at third street promenade and finishing half of illusion of life! BUT ! I did work on my film, although not a lot, but it was something !

I guess I never did mention here what my first year film is going to be about, but all I'll be saying for now is that it has something to do with clocks! I've always been fascinated by the power of time and now I finally get the chance to do a film about it! Also, since it's my CalArts first year film, I'm super excited! This is the exact moment I've been waiting for ever since I heard about CalArts ! I remember back when I was working on my CalArts portfolio, I was constantly thinking about that one day where I'll be working on my film in my very own cube, the time has finally arrived and I'm gonna strive to deliver my best!

Here's a rough sketch I have for my film's character !




This is going to be fun !!!

Christmas Clock Sketches, Close-up renders & progress shots.

I didn't come up with a lot of concept sketches for this Christmas short. These are the only sketches I did and then I went on to production directly.



Inside this short film I also included the names of people who inspired me as a person on the post-it notes attached to the presents and also on the name list. Here are some renders with better focuses on them.











Some progress shots and the clock turn-around.

Wireframe mode


Texture & Lights. (31 Lights total)


Animating the hand




Christmas Clock Turn Around.


Have a blessed New Year, everyone !!

Christmas Card Project ( The Christmas Clock )

My Christmas Card Project is finally done !! Except it wasn't done in cut-outs, but Maya !

I've always wanted to do a Christmas short and finally got the chance to do it ! I was greatly inspired by Brian Selznick's book "The Invention Of Hugo Cabret" and I've also always been interested in toy clocks. Thought it would be great to have my own little christmas clock !



Merry Christmas !!! :)

The Weekend before WINTER BREAK

All right ! Winter break officially starts counting from "tomorrow" since it's gonna be the first weekday of break ! And today I'll have to finish up my 12x60 inch gouache painting and start on my christmas card project ! My christmas card project is scheduled to be done on Wednesday and then I'll start archiving all of my first semester's work !

Some pictures to show what I've been working on for the 12x60 inch piece !





These were done in "A2210" aka "The Fishbowl Room", last Monday night together with some of my classmates who were also staying up late to finish their piece !

I'm off to work now, more posts to come !! :)