"First Date" Animatic

(EDIT: Just in case you are new to blogs, just click on image above to see the "First Date" animatic play.)

I just finished having an intense week of work over at Stardust (nyc location) and its not over yet. After getting a moment to breath, I quickly realized that the beginning of my last class at AnimationMentor.com was coming fast. Less than 2 weeks until I start full production on my animated short "First Date"!

For the first time (post high school), I am going to take off 3 months to completely focus on my school work. During my time at AnimationMentor and School of Visual Arts I have always been working and going to school full time. This lead to a lot of complaining on my part regarding the quality of work (or more like lack of quality work) that I produced while going to school. I always felt that every instructor/mentor I have had, has only seen a fraction of what I can do. They never see my full potential. Well this is it. The "time to put money where my mouth is". This is the time to challenge myself. Thanks to my wonderful and supportive wife, we have managed to save enough money to allow me to do what I have always wanted. It's not going to be easy. I really want to show my upcoming mentor and the AnimationMentor community what I'm made of. To add to this all, I decided that I wanted to use my own character "Simon" to tell my story. Most students opt for the characters provided by AM, but I want to finish this short and submit "First Date" to film festivals. I want the short to be entirely my own conceptual content. At this moment I have an awesome friend who helping this happen by modeling Simon. Caius Wong is this talented modeler who is giving me a helping hand in bringing Simon to life.

In light of my upcoming class, I thought it would be cool for anyone reading this to get a look at my animatic that was created while under the amazing guidance of Shawn Colbeck over at House of Cool. Its a simple story with a modern twist. One important note, the character in the animatic is property of AnimationMentor.com and is not Simon. He was simply used as a stand in. I am sure the short will change somewhat when I start to actually animate it. Some shots will probably need more time and maybe others will get cut down. I am really trying to stay well under a minute in order to finish in time. For those of you new to animation and reading...you did read that correctly. It will take me 3 months to finish LESS than 1 minute of animation.

Enjoy and let me know what you think.
Rick

Simon

So I decided to post an image of the character (Simon) from my upcoming AnimationMentor short titled "First Date". I will be taking off 3 months to complete the film and I plan to post the ongoing process of completing my short film. So I hope to post expression sheets soon. I drew this a while back (before even writing my short film) and when I started to think about designing my own character for the short I went back to my older sketchbooks to see what was there. Low and behold...I found this drawing that I had done about a year and half ago.

That being said, any feedback on the design would be great and very appreciated. Love it or hate it? Drop a comment.

Thanks for passing by.

Bioshock Launch Trailer

Thought it would be a good cool to post a link to the Bioshock launch trailer that I had the incredible opportunity of being Lead Animator on over at EyeballNYC. I couldn't have asked for a better team to work with on this project. I was even lucky enough to contribute to the actual box art too! One extra little tidbit of info - it was all hand-keyed animation.

Be warned it isn't for kids! Enjoy!

Making it happen

I have officially jumped on the bandwagon! With all the amazing blogs out there, I couldn't help it. If you are reading this you are either my loving wife or my mom...anyone else must be doing well appreciated charity work.

So...why this blog? I basically wanted some way to chronicle two things . My first goal is to be able to document my exploration and learning process in both animation and illustration. My second goal is to be able to track my path towards my ultimate dream of directing animated films (key words "ultimate" + "dream"). Entertaining people is what I LOVE to do. In my mind there is nothing better than a great story. I will be working my hardest to try to tell those kinds of stories.

In addition, this blog well help me share my own stories in the various mediums that I choose to explore. It will also be another avenue for me to be able to share my thoughts and my work with anyone who is bored enough to pay attention (and maybe even comment).

Thanks for taking the time to read, it's time to make it happen.

Your friendly neighborhood animator,
Ricardo Vicens