New Carriage House Studio Setup

As I have just moved again, setting up studio to get work done has been a challenge. But, maybe not so much since I only have one table and not the strength to carry it up a narrow staircase all by myself!

I keep trying to remember to take pictures of the new house I've moved into, but I stay so busy drawing and spending time at various Savannah libraries during the day that I forget.

In the effort of trying to keep up with this thing (and hopefully I will be posting regularly again during the summer months), here are some photos of my new work area and the super-awesome-makeshift-"light table" that my generous family donated from their basement. (it's actually the table that I grew up having meals on when I was little, so it's kind of strange to me to be doing what I think is 'grown up work' on it.... and the only reason why I call it 'grown up work' is because it's what I can see myself doing for the rest of my life. And, at some point during the rest of my life, I'll be a grown up. ... ramble, ramble ramble...)

Animation: Sixth Week

Animation: Fifth Week

Animation: Fourth Week

Animation: Third Week

Animation: Second Week

In Recent News

Yesterday, we found a house- henceforth named "Henry House" because it is on Henry street. It's a closer bike ride to Montgomery than my current Weston house (near Turner and Dyson SCAD housing, which is about 2.2 miles one way) Here's a pic of the house (courtesy of the internet):...and here's a picture of me on my "new" bike! I use "quotey" marks because although it is new to me, it has existed longer than I have. It was my mom's. Yesterday, I biked 10 miles (if you add up all the trips I made to some places and other places :)

I drew a life size skeleton. Though, unfortunately, you probably won't see it until it is in our house. The house kinda looks like the inside of a gallery, so we are treating it as such. She shall be our fourth roomate.

Speaking of the inside of a gallery- Tonight Frederick will be in a gallery called All Creatures Great and Small, held at the 180 Gallery on Bull Street in Savannah. It was a good thing he and I got some chill time, or else I may not have had anything for the show.. what with being sooooo busy with animation classes. The reception starts at 6, and prior to that, I shall be figuring out the mechanics of riding a bike in a dress. I'm thinking leggings are a go. I'll be sure to take photos :)


Oh yeah, DUH! I got a new dot.com for this blog. You can now find me at http://courtneybrookeart.com as well as http://nypraint.blogspot.com.


Blue Sky Studios visited SCAD recently.




They looked at demo reels, held interviews and gave a presentation. Showed us what they're working on currently and explained a lot about a division of their production team called Materials. The materials team are the people who do the texturing and coloring of the characters, trees, fur, etc.



Also, just this week Laika visited SCAD.
Their presentation was RIDICULOUS!!! (in the definition that means super-crazy-awesome) They showed us some secret photos of how they made Coraline, and some not secret stuff that's already on yoututbe (like the lady who knits all of their tiny little sweaters)


We had a Q&A at the end and Here Is What I Learned:
1. Coraline is entirely procedural. Meaning very little digital. Except for digitally merging the face parts together. (the mouths were printed out in 3d and replaced to make expressions and lip-synch) Even the scene at the end - where the squares are everywhere... yeah.. that was ALL painted by hand. No compys involved. The fog? Not done by special effects. Photographed dry ice and composited in later. AMAZING!
2. Stop motion plus 3d photographing is VERY hard and time consuming. Since the way that 3d movies are made (one camera- two positions for that camera- and moving the armatures in between every shot... keep in mind that one second is made up of roughly 24 frames... ouch) So, the animator would position the puppet, take a high-res photograph, wait, the camera would position itself to take the second photograph, and then go back to its first position and the animator could then put the puppet in its next position. To capture one frame could take up to 10 minutes.
3. Wybie is black.
4. I need to take a camera with me everywhere. I touched a Coraline puppet and have no photograph to show for it.

Here are some facial expressions by one of my favorite artists, Shane Prigmore.

Here's a fun time lapse video of animators animating:

To quote my History of Animation Professor

"It helps to think other than the ordinary"

and

"Animation is the art of impossible worlds.."




I'd like to get into the business of impossible worlds and thinking other than the ordinary.. Sounds like fun! (Also sounds like some stuff I've read about Jesus doing.)

PIXAR at SCAD

Before spring break, a group of people came down from PIXAR to look at some SCAD demo reels and give a talk to all the wannabe's.

Fellow Animators also taking a short rest from finals stress: Sarah Riser and Jyreme Mcmillion

This is Jason Johnston, an effects artist and effects sequence lead.

Becki Tower came back home! She was a SCAD Bee before she left to go to PIXAR.
Also: Notice how close we were sitting to them- my friends and I came an hour early to sit in the front row...Just in case they wanted to high-five us or something. We wanted to be ready and available in the event that anything of the awesome nature should happen.

Ellen Lee gave a presentation about graphic design in PIXAR's films. I never realized how much graphic design played a part in the design of Wall-e. Next time you watch it, take a closer look at all of the advertisements in the Axiom- pretty amazing.

some beauuuutiful notes

Danielle Feinberg- Director of Photography (Lighting) and Ellen Lee. They had cool stuff to say.

I'm working hard and keeping my fingers crossed.. One of these days I'm gonna have a kick butt demo reel. Hold me to that.

All Nighter in Montgomery

Rose and I had a lot of finals to finish up last quarter and somewhere in the night we got camera happy.

Life is a Bosch of Chocolates

These are some final renders of all of the models (1) and (2) from (this) sketch- that I created during the Winter 2009 quarter in Professor Valentine's Digital Form Space and Lighting class. I hope nobody notices that the bird who plays his nose is floating.

My Mom owes me an American Girl Doll

Alright guys- As I have been in Disney World for the past few days, and Finals at SCAD took over my life prior to that, I have a bit of updating to do.

Firstly, take a gander at this screenshot:


Some of you may know this, but Math (and several other classes) have never been my strongsuit. The last time I've ever had straight A's was in 4th grade. My mom told 9 year old version of me that I could get an American Girl Doll if I ever made straight A's again....... though it never happened again.

UNTIL THIS YEAR!!!!


How about I worked my little tooshie off so hard last quarter. Not much sleeping was happening in the last 3 weeks especially. Also, the models that I made in the first half of the quarter took around... say between 6-10 hours... Well, now, I'm a bit more effecient at modeling and could probably pull them off in under 3 or 2 hours. The newest batch of models were done in about a week, whereas with the first five I was just learning the basic controls of Maya and took me nearly 6 weeks to be happy with the way they were built.

All of this to say:
Dear Mom, I hope the American Girl offer still stands. I worked very hard last quarter. I might have almost gone crazy a few times. I want this one:

Miss Havisham's Dining Room

Finals just finished up today at SCAD and here are some stills of the room I created in Maya- I chose Miss Havisham's room from Great Expectations (thanks to all those who helped me work through making a decision!

Soon, I'm going to show you how I did it!

Fun With Maya in Digital Form, Space, and Lighting

Maybe I'm a worrier

My roomate says I worry about things too much, and that could be true,
BUT- every time I think about planning and making my senior film my stomach absolutely turns inside out. Basically, it jumps and folds inside itself until it is wrongside out and then turns to solid rock. I am excited to come up with ideas and plan and actually make the thing, but after I have a rough time with Maya, I start to panic and think that I'll never learn everything fast enough! Or I'll worry that I won't be able to find anyone to help me do it (so I'm not all by myself) because most people I know don't have ANY spare time to work on outside of class things!

I don't even have to start planning it for another year, but I feel like the pressure's on NOW to learn everything along the way so that when it comes time to use it, I will know it extra well. Plus, I am out of money and need scholarships to be able to stay at SCAD. Gotta get A's, baby!

Blah, blah blah, whine whine whine. Whatever.