David Gonzales - Animator

New Demo Reel - Winter 2012

2012-01-31T10:48:00.000-08:00

Here's my latest demo reel with work done at Animation Mentor and some personal work too.

Pantomime Animation

2011-12-19T09:50:00.001-08:00

Class 4, Intro to acting is a wrap. We had two shots this term, a pantomime and dialog. The dialog shot carries over into the next class but here is the pantomime shot. Comments and crits are welcome.

Idle, Ready, Fire!

2011-10-04T10:40:00.000-07:00

I've been working on states and behaviors for game characters. I really like working with this character I created because it is easier to imagine him as a soldier since he really looks like one and is not a generic model acting like a soldier. But anyway here he is; Idle and breathing transition Ready and breathing transition and then firing the rifle.

He's Alive!

2011-09-19T09:13:00.000-07:00

It's my creation, hehehe!...ahem...well, now that I have finally finished the rig for my Gun Trooper character I can start crafting all sorts of animations with it. This is a ready/idle state that will be used as a jumping off point for other actions.

Swordmaster Stu

2011-09-05T12:03:00.000-07:00

This is a body mechanics test that I animated in class 3 at Animation Mentor. The sword formation is actually put together from a couple of different reference videos that I found on the web. I combined what I thought was the best parts from both into something new.

The Stu rig is provided by Animation Mentor

Animation Demo Reel

2011-08-29T10:08:00.000-07:00

Here is my latest animation work

I also have secondary skills in modeling, rigging and drawing, please see my past blog posts for more.

Rigging

2011-08-22T09:53:00.000-07:00

It's another week and I've completed another project. It's not an animation shot but, I've learned a lot from rigging characters that is useful in understanding how to use rigs better for my animation shots. So here is a pic of a character I modeled and rigged. Of course, the model was already completed some time ago, it was just the character rig that was completed.

To see the geometery deformation better here's a shot without the joints and control curves.

Quadruped Run Cycle

2011-08-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

It's a new week and I have a new animation cycle, this time I made an attempt at a quadruped run cycle.

All animation was done by me, the rig was provided by crcjax via creativecrash.com

Kila Walk Cycle

2011-08-08T10:37:00.001-07:00

Another week has gone by and that means another animation test. This time I worked on a female character walk cycle.

The female character rig was created by Anthony Ward.

Attack!

2011-08-01T09:49:00.000-07:00

Here is my second animation test with the Grae Character, for some reason, I can't seem to find the IK switch so I have been animating it in FK which seems to be more of a challenge...but that's animation.

Also, here's a version of the run cycle that I did, now with textures!

All the animation was done by me, the Grae character was created by Anthony Ward.

Game Character Animation

2011-07-20T10:33:00.000-07:00

Now that I am on a semester break from AM, I decided to work on some animation for games to keep up my skills. The following animation is a run cycle for a game character created by Anthony Ward.

Back in action, AM class 2

2011-02-03T16:30:00.001-08:00

So, we're back at it again at Animation Mentor and aleady about 1/3 of the way through the semester already. My new mentor is Dimos Vrysellas, a super talented and friendly guy who has worked for Dreamworks, Reel FX, Nelvana, and many other studios.

I have really taken a liking to his workflow for animating a shot, which is a blend of traditional and CG methods. Basically, this method stresses the blocking phase of animation by putting all your overlap, arcs, paths, etc. before moving into the graph editor. By doing this, we get to spend more time posing out the character or 'drawing poses' rather than working with spline curves, which is not very stimulating.

Here is a rough pass on my first shot of class 2, the shot called for 'Ballie' to jump over a gap. My goal for this shot was to improve my workflow and focus on the physicality of the jump.

While shooting reference for this I had the idea for Ballies 'story', he's a secret agent infiltrating an enemy position, so that is the idea behind the acting. As for my next shot, we have many options to choose from including Parkour, which looks super fun but I'm saving that for later, I chose to animate a simple dance move. There probably is no need to explain because this image will sum it up:

to be continued...

Class 1 Progress Reel

2010-12-18T13:11:00.000-08:00

Class 1 is done! In the last three months I feel like I have learned a lot, yet still I feel there is so much more to learn. At leat for now, I have a good understanding of the principles of animation, now I have to put them to use. As our last assignment we had to put together a progress reel of all our shots and character poses. My mentor Rich Fournier, an awesome animator from Blue Sky, gave us all really good feedback on how to improve our work.

First Animation

2010-11-25T13:17:00.000-08:00

So it humbles me to be animating a bouncing ball, but if we're going to do this right you gotta go back to the foundations of animation and learn them until they're seared in your mind like an old wound.

Animation Mentor!

2010-10-01T14:24:00.000-07:00

Yes, its true I have been accepted into the Animation Mentor program. My mentor for Class 1 Basic Foundation is Richard Fournier who is currently working at Blue Sky, and animating "Rio".

That path that lead me to AM was a long one which I intend to blog in my next post, but since I'm back on track I needed to dust off the blog first!

Sketchbook and Update

2009-10-05T13:53:00.000-07:00

So, I've been a bad blogger-ignoring my blog and not sharing. What is going on? Well I've been cooking a few things up. First, I've finished up a good series of next-gen character modeling videos. That was the easy part, now I have to apply all this knowledge and present it in a new portfolio, so that's keeping me busy. Also, I started drafting a concept document for a game that will coincide with the short film I mentioned many blog entries ago. But since so much of this work is in the draft stage, I thought I would share some sketches from the big book o' drawings.
Also, I decided to update my two original characters with the next-gen techniques I learned so here is a glance at how they changed. The models have better animation deformation and some better fitting armor.

Some other good news, the OC IGDA chapter is restarting and it's looking very good. Anybody who has been following this group knows that it was quiet for awhile, but things are shaping up to make this group a real stand out chapter.

Website!

2009-05-08T17:45:00.001-07:00

Oops! I see that it is already May and I forgot to update my blog last month, which goes against my personal promise to update this page at least once a month, Doh! Well, that can't be helped now, but I do have good news, I made a website. Finally!

Before I studied animation at Cal State Fullerton I studied web design at Fullerton College, so I was able to put together my own website. I guess all that class time didn't go to waste. So here is a peak at the home page, if you like this blog and want to see more go to http://www.hybridcreator.com/

Civil War Zombie

2009-03-31T19:51:00.001-07:00

Hey all, here's another piece from my modeling internship at Dream Machine. This time it's the civil war zombie, I don't know if he really had a name other than that.

As you might see, this is a low poly model-the budget was 1500 and I made it under with 1492 polys. It was quite fun to see what I could do with such a limited amount of polygons, if you haven't tried it I would suggest it. It really makes you think about where you are going to use your polygons in order to get the best silhouette and deformation.

Mummy Dearest!

2009-02-20T16:04:00.000-08:00

Some time ago while I was interning with Dream Machine Studios, I was tasked with modeling the head (just the head) of a character named Mummy Dearest. A couple weeks ago, Scott asked me if I could model her body as well. I had a low poly version to work from so the base work had already been done but it needed more refinement if it was going to be used in a cinematic. So her she is...from the depths of her tomb...Mummy Dearest!

Besides refining the body, I added the arms, and loose wrappings around both the body and head. Modeled with Maya '08. Good Times.

the Power of Normal Maps!

2009-01-09T14:01:00.000-08:00

Since my last post I have been working like a fiend on refining my character, the gun wolf, in zbrush. I haven't had this much fun with sculpting & modeling since I first learned maya, many moons ago. I thought it would take a long time to learn zbrush but it was actually not too hard with the right instruction, although to really master zbrush it will take some time.

So here are some samples of my work:

I need to fix that lumpy butt...

Compare that to the base model, or what I was previously satisfied with:

Now you see the power of the dark side! (if by dark side you mean the software called zbrush...)

I was so giddy when I had zbrush export normal maps that i almost pee'd my pants

Stay tuned...coming up next...color maps!

Take care.

ZBrush Cometh!

2008-12-17T12:07:00.000-08:00

While I won't actually be posting any new work this month, I do want to say that I have started to take the plunge and learn digital sculpting with ZBrush. At first, I was hesitant to learn a new software package considering the learning curve usually associated with such an endeavor, but with the set of training videos I am using, the process is quite easy. I have learned that ZBrush is not only a great tool for adding high resolution detail, it is also an excellent texture and paint program for your 3D creations.

So my plan now is, once I have finished my video training, I will import my Gun Wolf and BAT models into zBrush and export hopefully better textured/painted models. I am really excited about this and I think that ZBrush will be an integral part of my modeling workflow.

So, here's to you zBrush, I was doubtful of you at first but now I see that you will be a great ally in my quest to RULE THE WORLD or at least make some nice 3D art.

Animatic for Short Film in Progress

2008-11-21T14:29:00.000-08:00

So, in my last post I mentioned that I was working on a short film, well here is a sneak peek at the progress on the animatic for that film. It's only about a tenth of the way there but it's coming whether you like it or not!

3D Artist Demo Reel

2008-10-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

Well, moving set me back a little but I'm back in the saddle again. I put together a demo reel to send out to local game companies. So, since I didn't have an update last month here's a big one.

Originally for my DVD Reel, the file was about 700mbs, but for this post I compressed it down to about 10mbs, cool. I got more stuff coming down the pipe including a short film and another character with Maya and ZBrush, next-gen style.

Sketchbook!

2008-08-29T21:29:00.000-07:00

Hello! I've been keeping my sketchbook a secret for ahwile, but I'd like to share some of the characters I am developing for various personal projects. As you can see below, I have two different ideas that I'm working on now. One involves some futuristic armored heroes and the other idea involves a group of teenagers who will be unlikely heroes. Both ideas are for completely different stories but they have been on my mind a lot.

On my long list of things to do, I wanted to develop these two worlds for a comic-book mini series.

On the page below the far left drawing of the female (as yet unamed) character is something I began doodling when I was thinking about fantasy RPGs, I drew it awhile ago and found it recently in one of my older sketchbooks. I thougt it would be fun to revisit this drawing and update it with a newer version.

This character really takes me back to the days of paper and pencil RPGs. Back to the "in the garage" days as the band Weezer once put it.

It's hard to draw cute fantasy woman when you spend the majority of your time drawing armor heroes but, I still love my armor heroes.

take care all.

BAT Character Turnaround

2008-07-31T19:36:00.000-07:00

So here it is, finally a turnaround video of the BAT Character. I'm getting my modeling demo reel ready for show so I've started to render these videos for the characters I've done. Sorry about the poor resolution on the title card, I had to sacrifice this to make the file size reasonable for uploading with my slow connection. Take care all!

Cinematic Model

2008-06-30T22:39:00.000-07:00

I've made a promise to myself to upload new work at least once a month, it's funny how time flies. It's already the last day of June with only little over an hour to go until the first of July so by posting this I'm good. Anyway, for show and tell today I brought a model sheet of a character I modeled for a cinematic short being created to promote the game I'm working on.

Gallery Piece

2008-05-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

Here is the other game character I have been working on, the BAT. I put this piece together in time for the gallery show but I think I want to work more on the textures. Next up is the dreaded rigging process but once that is done, the magic can begin--animation!

Gallery Preview

2008-04-18T13:56:00.000-07:00

Here's a sneak peak at the gun wolf model sheet made especially for the gallery show. I know the gallery doesn't open until Saturday but I was so excited how the the layout design came out that I had to post it here.

The printed version that is going to be in the gallery is 12" x 24" and cost way more than I expected when I took it to Kinko's for printing. Oh well, it is a good way to celebrate the completion of my models and my upcoming graduation too. Sorry about the watermark, but I realized that the more personal work that I post to the web the more careful I need to be.

Gallery Show!

2008-04-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

How about a shameless self promotion?...Well, that's what blogs are all about. Myself, along with some other csuf seniors are having a gallery show at the Exit gallery of our best work so you best see it.

Gun Wolf Turnaround Video

2008-03-03T14:02:00.000-08:00

You know whats great about maya 8? There is a feature that automates the turnaround process. Here is something I did with one of the game models that I am working on. I am currently working on the textures, but it was fun to put together a little video with maya and premiere pro. have a look.

Sketchbook

2008-02-09T10:29:00.000-08:00

Here are some doodles from my sketchbook that you will be seeing more of from me soon. On another note I finally started creating comps for my website. I'm doing it all myself so it will take a while but it's nice to shift gears and work with dreamweaver again.

Storyboards for Animation

2008-01-31T10:08:00.000-08:00

A 10 page sample of storyboards for animation.

Storyboards Part 2

2008-01-31T10:03:00.000-08:00

more storyboards...

Game Models!

2007-05-11T20:22:00.000-07:00

Ahh summer...it is a time when a young man's thoughts are filled with a special girl...and guns...and wolves (what?). Actually I really wanted to work on refining a couple of game character models that have been sitting on my computer. The good thing about putting these away for awhile is that it allowed me to see things that can be improved upon.

Battle Armor Trooper (BAT)

I started these last fall and but now that school is out it's "game on". I will be doing slight modeling changes to these characters before I texture and rig them.

Gun Wolf

Oh well, I'll have plenty of time for my special girl later. I promise.