Adventures in Lighting!

This may be one of the few times I post something that doesn't actually move. The second assignment for my 3D modeling class was to paint something with light. We were told to play with light and shadow, in both color and black and white. So I whipped up this little scene and went for more of a painterly mood. All of the objects you see are actually white (though they look gray... see the first image)-- all color comes from various lights.

Before (without lights):

After (with lights):

Distortion -- In Toon Render!

The long over-due distortion project from last quarter. The assignment was to take a character and distort it (My class had very vague assignments, but I guess that let us be creative, right?) So here we have good old Sinka back again. I finally unstepped the spiders so hurray! I got the spider model from turbosquid.com but had to rig it myself (and I am SUPER PROUD of my rigging ability in that I was able to do it without filling with rage or asking for help. Such a good little spider, didn't give me any trouble at all!) Enjoy!

Distortion (updated!) from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

Mirror, Mirror

This is another project from last quarter's 3D cartoony class. My professor called it "Mickey Mousing" as a tribute to the old black and white cartoons where the characters bopped along to music the whole time. Like the MooM walk cycles, this too was sitting on my laptop as a simple playblast -- but no more! Now it's all rendered nice and neat. Enjoy!

Mickey Mousing (Updated!) from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

video playback issues?!

Hey guys!
I discovered that sometimes when you click on some of my animations they won't play... but then other times they will. As I'm not fully used to the setup yet, I'm not sure if it's vimeo or blogger going "Why?????" and panicking, but I HAVE discovered that if you find a video that won't play and you refresh the page, 99% of the time when you click the play button it suddenly works. Again, I am not sure why this happens, perhaps just one of the great mysteries of technology or something. Anyway, I'm making this post to say "Do not fret!! The videos DO work! I promise!!" If nothing else, they can be opened up within vimeo where they play just fine all the time. So yeah, hopefully I can figure out this little ole' situation, but until then, bare with me okay?? Til next time!!

MooM walks -- revisited

Last quarter (Winter) I had to make three funny walk cycles for my 3D cartoony class. My professor only wanted playblasts, nothing fancy, so for the longest time playblasts they remained -- until yesterday, that is. I decided to take them and render them out to look their best. I had just learned about lighting in my modeling class, so this seemed like the best possible time to spruce them up! I played with light and color a lot in 'Zombie Moom' so it's become my favorite of the three. Enjoy!!

Zombie Moom (3D funny walk (1) -- updated!) from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

3D funny walk (2) updated! from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

3D funny walk (3) -- updated! from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

Space Cat?

Primitives Space Cat? (model) from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

Our first assignment in my modeling class was to build something out of primitives -- that is, we could rotate, move, and scale, but that was pretty much it. The idea was that the lack of technical ability (moving points, using the CV curve tool etc) would spark our creativity. Please enjoy this lovely space cat.

Mark in Motion (Muybridge Dog)

Mark in Motion (Dog) from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

The assignment was to take a 7 images of the Muybridge running dog recreate it and turn it into a 10 second animation. This was my first time ever animating a dog. Hurray new experiences!

'Stached -- my first fully stop motion short!

'Stached from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

As I said in my About Me, I love to crochet. This lead me to think of a way to combine animation and the art of crochet -- in a stop motion short! Everything in this piece was hand-made by yours truly. So much work but so much fun!!

Experimental Animation

The whole point of my Animation Aesthetics and Practice class was to get us to try new things and step out of our comfort zones. I used this as an opportunity to play around in stop motion, something I'd never tried before. Turns out, I really enjoy it. ^_^

Untitled (Experimental Animation) from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

This was my experimental animation for Animation Aesthetics and Practice. A combination of pixilation and under-the-camera stop motion SCAD Winter 2011

SCAD Fall 2010

Below is a large portion of my work from my first quarter at SCAD. It's not everything, but I'd say it's the pick of the litter. I thought I'd keep them all together as one big post. Next up: Winter quarter!!

crab rig (with mesh!) from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

Crab rig. The crab mesh is taken from turbosquid.com but it was rigged by yours truly.

crab rig demo from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

Crab rig interior

2D doorbell exercise from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

Doorbell exercise!!

3D Max walk (front) from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

My first 3D character walk cycle

3D dino run (side) from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

SCAD Fall 2010 -- Animation Basics dino run. He's so jolly! XD

2D walk cycle exercise from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

2D walk cycle. I had never done traditional 2D animation before my Animation Basics class at SCAD. This took soooo long... but I'm pretty happy with how it came out. I definitely learned a lot about arcs in the process!

Bloke from Nicole Van Luvender on Vimeo.

Bloke was the first character I ever rigged. After rigging it in my animation: character setup class, I was told to make a short animation using the rig so that I could feel it's strengths and weaknesses

Finally! A blog!!

Hello everyone!  To the great shock (and hopefully joy) of all my friends out there, I have finally given in to their peer pressure and created a blog to hold all my artsy wonder.  You're welcome! In all seriousness though, this was totally over-due, so I shall do my best to keep it up-to-date.  I guess I'll start by posting the many things that I didn't get to post over the last two quarters (mainly because of my excuse, "Blogs!?! I don't have time for blogs!! mehh!!!").  

So...yes.  Enjoy the artsy wonder and I shall, in return, make time for blogs.  For you.  Because I care. ^__^