Happy Diwali!

Wishing everyone a very Happy & Prosperous Diwali!

May god bless everyone with sparkling success and eternal happiness!

Ambigram

I just recently finished reading "Angels & Demons" (a fictional novel) by Dan Brown. I was very fascinated by the ambigrams in the book. An ambigram, also sometimes known as an inversion, is a graphical figure that spells out a word not only in its form as presented, but also in another direction or orientation.

I decided to have a go at creating an ambigram of my own. An ambigram of my name "Kirthy". It turns out; it's not that hard as it seems. You just need to understand the trick behind creating it and of course, use some creativity.


Try viewing the image rotated 180 degrees; you will be able to still read my name. It's probably easier if you print it and then try!

Cars by Pixar

Its funny how I am making this post now since I saw Cars as soon as it hit the theatres. I really enjoyed the movie and was especially blown away by the brilliant animation. I really appreciate this company's remarkable craftsmanship in the art of story telling and entertainment. Their setup is so involute yet the outcome looks so simple and elegant. If you enjoy animated movies, its a must see like every other Pixar movie! Here are some tribute sketches to the awesome team at Pixar by me!

Here are some tribute sketches to the awesome team at Pixar by me!

Doodle Animation in 10 min

I did this animation by doodling with my mouse. The tool is so limited but it was fun making a stick figured buzz jump off just to find what was lying in his way. Well, what can you expect in 10 minutes anyway ;) ?

Check it out yourself and post comments!!!

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/pixar/animator/viewanimation.asp?id=906040203155

Character Waldo Sketch

It's been a long time since I updated my blog. To be honest, I have been very busy working on a new character for a short movie.

I have also been spending lots of time doodling on my new Wacom Tablet Intuos 3 6x8. For all those artists out there, this is worth buying. Creating textures, drawing on Photoshop or Sketchbook, working on any 3d package, even browsing the web becomes so much easier!!!



Anyways, for now I am just uploading a sketch I made of a Bactrian Camel. The style is inspired from Dreamworks Madagascar!

Character Jump Animation

I did this assignment in school when we were doing classical animation. The assignment was to create a character jump. We were allowed to experiment a little with the character. I got the idea of using my hand to interact with the character. It was little difficult but a great fun to watch the end result.

Bouncing Ball

I thought its about time I did some Animation Mentor assignments of my own. The bouncing ball assignment teaches you the major principles of animation, namely:
Arcs.
Timing/Spacing.
Squash and Stretch.
Volume.

Doing this animation was fun and I gave character to the bouncing ball! I wanted to make him bounce 3 times at the end before he gets squished but the timing of the falling blocks had to be timed with the bouncing ball. The only possible solution I see is adding another block to make the first block rock a little longer...

Click here to watch the animation

Feel free to post feedback/critiques/comments.

P38 Textured 3D Model: Kirthy Iyer

I was just recollecting my old assignments that I did back at school. I found my textured P38 model. I really like the textures though the renders could have been worked on more to achieve realism.

And here is my color map created in Photoshop.

Some of my reference images for the texture:

My lost website

I was just searching google for my old stuff and luckily I found my lost website. How can you loose a website? Well, I lost the address as it's pretty long and then Yahoo! bought Geocities and I could no longer transfer my account. I thought they closed my site but it's there. I can't add/edit the site as It does not accept my login at Yahoo! Geocities.

Anyways, I created this website 8 years back. That's so crazy. At that time I could only create stuff in Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Paint though I felt comfortable in latter. And my favourite animation software was "Gif Animator" as you can create gifs. I was very much obsessed with dinosaurs so most of the site is dedicated to "dinosaurs". And I never wore specs. Damn I miss those days :/

Well, check it out. Hopefully it still entertains few people.

*old memories*

---

Piñata - Animated Short

This is a very funny animated short. I feel so sorry for the poor Piñata. A worth watching film by ACT3Animation.

PiñataAustralia 4:26 Mike Hollands

Festivities turn terrifying for a cardboard and crepe paper donkey when he realizes he's about to be disemboweled by children with sticks. Can quick thinking save him from having the candy whacked out of him?

---

Kirthy Iyer | My Profile

Personal:

Introduced to the world of art at a very early age, I started drawing everything I could possibly imagine from sceneries to sketches. Like many kids, I loved reading comics but spent more time understanding the hard work put behind in creating one. That was the beginning of a new chapter in life. I created my own characters, wrote stories and tried to put together my own comic.

My fascination with animation and computer generated graphics started with movies and cartoon network. Whether it was a Disney animation, Hollywood production or any short film, I was always trying to understand how it was done. The more I learned, the more I wanted to be a part of this field.

---

Interest:

I've always loved computer games - both playing and creating them. The reason for this is that games are the most complete form of creative expression. They involve art, narrative, animation (which in turn involves acting) and music, but unlike film the player can actually be a part of the experience and to me that experience is the most interesting challenge in the world. When I was in High School, I started editing all types of games. I experimented using 3D Studio Max, Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Flash to whatever extent I could. Luckily, my family members have always allowed me to pursue my goals. I joined MAAC (Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematic) institute and did two courses from there (Alpha Maya & Omega Maya).

My desire to tell stories is what got me interested in animation and its seemingly limitless potential for visualizing the impossible has always kept me hooked. Warcraft was one of the games I always loved and I was lucky to be part of the creative team at Project ROR. I was involved in creating one of the best high quality mods of Warcraft seen on the net. Though I always have the desire to make movies, games gave me the freedom to work on low end machines. I would be releasing the animated game models soon for public.

Besides animation, I love giving voices and bringing things to life. As my mom is a teacher so I used to do puppet show for her school children. My favorite pastime is watching the world around me. I love observing birds, animals, people and how they move, walk, react to different situations, etc.

I recently graduated with a diploma in "3D Animation & Visual Effects" from Vancouver Film School and currently working as a freelancer for a US based company. The project will soon be finished by the end of July and I will be looking for new and more permanent oppurtunities...

---

Artistic Strength and Weaknesses:

My strength: Is my patience and ‘at it’ attitude and also my ability to study and learn from tutorials or from any sphere that I can grasp the knowledge to be better.

My sketching ability allows me to visualize and conceptualize whatever ideas I have in mind. Being a total cartoon buff, I can instinctively make out the timing and essence of an animation. I am interested in every form of creative expression and above all I love acting and mimicking that’s why being an animator is the love of my life and what I am best at.

I am soft spoken, confident person. I am a great listener along with being a good speaker.

My weakness: There is couple of things which I consider forms my weak points. Studying human anatomy is the most important aspect in the art of character design but I have less inclination for humanoid characters. I always like to break away from reality in anyways possible. Computer Graphics has given us the power of living another life (a different life) and I believe a day will come when people will spend most of their time in virtual worlds.

Another weakness of mine is the habit of being a perfectionist. Though it’s a good thing but at times it proves to be a negative factor as I cannot submit my work unless and until it satisfies me. Hence, the responsibility and importance of meeting a deadline keeps me stressed.

---

Dreams and Ambitions:

My aim is to get into the games or movie industry as a 3D animator and also contribute to the design process with my ideas. My dream is to be a director or at least be part of a big successful project whether it’s a movie or a game and achieve the highest form of success more for my parents than for myself!

---

Images used on the Blog

Just uploading my top title image!

The chicken is from my upcoming animated short "Hen at work".