11-20-11: Latest Work!

Hello again, friends! It's time for another animation update! Here's my latest stuff! Not quite a demo reel yet - but I'm excited to take my first dialogue class next quarter!

Please bear with me! I've been enamored at CTNx all weekend - I'll get the shot breakdown uploaded as soon as I've gotten a bit of sleep! For now, suffice to say I am responsible for all character animation on here!

edit - here's an overdue shot breakdown!

1, 2, 3, 4 - Dog: I am responsible for the character animation. Rig by Javier Solsona, obtained from http://www.rigging101.com/freestuff.htm
5 - "AMUs": I am responsible for the character animation. Done for Alexander Curtis's film, Hephaestus.
6 - Frog: I am responsible for character animation. Character design by SCAD Professor, John Webber.
7 - Shaman: I am responsible for character animation, clean-up and ink. Done for Nate Swinehart's film, Rain Dance.

10-30-11: October Love

Love means not minding when a little finky fur face sits on your book.

A quick 45 minute sketch from my head in Photoshop.

10-5-11: Just thought I otter update...

I never posted this here!

In a pun-off, my friend, Alex Curtis, couldn't think of any puns because his mind was on "otter-pilot."

Love as always!

Jen

10-3-11: For Funzies!

Just a quick sketch to celebrate finding my Cintiq pen! Huzzah!

<3 Jen

9-7-11: Forsyth Park

Hello again, All!

Today I hung out at Forsyth for a bit of sketching with Bridget, Lauren, Emily and Squirrel. I need to improve my ability to render environments, so I spent a little time with this tree by the baby park. Such a beautiful day here in Savannah!

Done with a black Col-Erase Prismacolor pencil and French Gray Prismacolor markers.

All the Best!

Jen

8-15-11: Small Update

Hey, guys! Just a quick update!

I'm still alive, still in GA, still working towards completion of my MFA in Animation.

Nate Swinehart's Raindance is in clean-up, ink and paint right now! I'm still helping out a bit, and I'm excited to say it's looking absolutely fantastic! Can't wait to see this baby finished!

I'm also thrilled to say that Alex Curtis' Hephaestus is looking swank-tastic as well! It's in the animation stages (I'm working on a shot!), and whoo boy, are things coming together!

I'm so proud to say that I've known these two gents. There are two large groups of passionate, talented, and creatively energetic people behind these projects, and it has been a pleasure and an honor to have been a part of it. Though I'm sad to see their time here at SCAD come to a close, it will be so exciting to see their careers advance from here! Thank you for a wonderful first year at SCAD, you two - you will be missed!

And now, because I owe you guys some art, here you go! Some quick sketches I've been doing over the quarter to keep my head on my shoulders.

Sketch of some friends who keep me happy. From right to left, top to bottom:

Lauren Duda, (myself), Nate Swinehart

Tyler J. Kupferer, Lauren Brown, Ben Anderson

Emily Sampson, Kevin Block, and Sam Fawaz. 

Nate's wise words to a stressed Jen.

And I'm off! Kicked out of Monty for the night!

All the Best,

Jen

7-26-11: Making Promises...

Hey, guys! Gonna get into the habit of giving you all a daily sketch - this is a sketch blog, after all!

6-1-11: Doggy Run!

Hey, all!

It's that time of the quarter again, where I'm up late in the name of awesome projects! I thought I'd update you with a little taste of what I've been doing!

This is the first project from my Drawing in Motion class this quarter. There's more info available on YouTube, if you're interested! It was rotoscoped from Muybridge photos in acrylic ink with dip pens and brushes. Quite a lot of fun!



Best Wishes, as always!

Jen

5-29-11: Shameful!

Absolutely shameful, this lack of updates! My apologies, dear friends - but there will be a bit of work to show you, after this quarter! Huzzah! And soon, daily posts! I usually do at least one small sketch a day (and plenty of blogging on Facebook, eh heh), so why not share them here?

We're in the middle of finals, now, and the crunch is totally felt. Drawing in Motion has been great so far - plenty of life drawing with an emphasis on putting the figure in an emotional context. Fun stuff! I can feel my life drawing skills improving! I'm working on the final for it now.

Did this quick sketch of Ursula to warm up this morning - found the reference here: http://queenkelley.com/?p=91

Ursula is, of course, the property of Disney.

Ciao, belli!

~ Jen

4-5-11: Character Animation Demo Reel

Hello, again, friends! Time for another update!

There are edits to be done on all of these, but I thought I should at least give you something new!



Breakdown (I'm responsible for everything unless noted):

1. Character Animation, to be composited into live action footage. Morpheus rig by Josh Burton.
2. Dino Run, rig provided by SCAD.
3. How Not to Lift a Box, Bloke model re-rigged by Jen Cram.
4. Rain Dance Animation Test. Character design by Nate Swinehart.
5. Froggy Sidestep. Character design by John Webber.
6. Fat Cat dialogue. WIP! More of him soon!
7. Eterne animation test. Look for more Eterne stuff soon!

"Pees"

Hello again, everyone!

I'm up late working on an experimental animation, waiting for some stuff to render, so I figured I'd take a break to update you all on my latest adventures! The experimental is turning out to be quite fun - it'll be done for my grade soon, but I'd still like to put some tweaks on it for my personal liking, so look for it at a later date!

In the mean time, here's my entry for Savanijam! The Contemporary Animation Society here at SCAD holds a competition every year. The goal - make an animation in 24 hours or less, using a provided theme as inspiration. 3D animations could use pre-made rigs, but 2D animations had to be done from scratch. To add to the challenge, we weren't allowed to leave Montgomery Hall until our animations were complete and submitted! It was a great deal of fun, and although it threw off my sleep schedule a bit, I'm glad I participated!

So what was this mystery prompt word, you ask? "'Pees'." Yes, we quirked our eyebrows too. "... Um... Pees? Like, 'peace' on earth? Or a 'piece' of pie?" The response, essentially, "Yes!"




Concept, animation and design by yours truly - the voice and sound recording was done by my good friend, Drew Soman! It won honorable mention for biggest laugh! =)

Until next time! Adieu!

Best,

Jen Cram

Rain Dance Progress

Hello, again folks!

Well, here, as promised, is a more completed version of my previous test for Rain Dance. Not quite done - there are still some uncompleted frames - but the timing is nearly worked out. This was an incredible learning experience, and I'm totally jazzed to say it was almost chosen, out of all the animator's tests of this scene, to be in the film! What an energizing way to start the quarter!



We are now in full swing on Rain Dance production! It's great getting to know all the animators and concept artists in person. I'm slowly assigning faces to the disembodied voices from Skype production meetings we had over break. There are a lot of great talents (and personalities) on this film - it's going to be great. I'm already learning so much! I'll have to check with Nate (Swinehart, director) and Tyler (J. Kupferer, producer) about how hush hush we're going to be with this - this may be the last bit of Rain Dance animation you see from me for a while, but definitely look forward to the release!


Anyway, off to work! Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, everyone!

Best as Always,

Jen Cram