Vampire Bat Running, Muybridge Style

Vamp Bat Running
Originally uploaded by ejhdigdug.

Vampire Bats are the only kind of bats that are know to run. A bunch of scientists at Cornell University were able to video tape a bat running on a treadmill and have published the pictures and the video on the web. It's worth taking a look at. The bats have a really interesting way of running. The longer arms/wings really give them a push up, it's more like a hop then your traditional gallop, all the limbs seem to come down at the same time.


http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050319/fob2.asp

Video found Here

Found via: Boing Boing

In The Rough, by Blur Studios

This is probably old news to a lot of you, but new to me. I finally saw the short film "In the Rough" by Blur Studios. I quite like it, it has really good posing and snappy timing. Great job guys! Check it out:

http://www.blur.com/shorts/in_the_rough/index.html

Also I understand that Blur studios has a feature film deal that's being funded by Vin Diesel himself. This isn't the first time that a big named actor pushed out an animated film with their name on it. Think: "Eight Crazy Nights" or "Rover Dangerfield". Anyone care to chime in and say if it's true? Is Blur doing a film with Vin Diesel?

Animation Blog Roundup

So I haven't been posting very much while I look for a new house to live in. But that doesn't mean I haven't been keeping up with my favorite blogs. I thought I'd post a list of new blogs that have popped up that I like.

I highly recommend using some sort of RSS agitator to keep up with the blogs you read. It saves you a lot of time. Every time someone updates their blog you get a notice. I use Bloglines, but there's a lot of different websites you can use. I like Bloglines because it has a lot of neat tools, and you can do searches on only the blogs you subscribe to. Very useful.

Anyhoo, here's the list:

http://animationrollercoaster.blogspot.com/

http://drawn.ca/ <--I can't believe how cool this one is!

http://wubby.typepad.com/wubby/

http://pyatyletka.blogspot.com/

http://trnorton.com/pdplog.html

http://www.hiddentower.com/Melanie/blog/

Woops, Just Added:

My friend Jason Schleifer reminded me that I forgot his:

http://jonhandhisdog.com/shh-life-er/

Woops again;

Crap! I didn't list: "The Ward-O-Matic" because I thought I had included it in the first Animation Blog Roundup. I've been following Ward Jenkins's blog for about as long as P.O.V. has been around, so it surprised me that when I didn't see it in my archives. This list wasn't supposed to replace the first, it was just to add to the ones that I had already listed. Sorry Ward, don't cry.

http://wardomatic.blogspot.com/

Spanish Madagascar Poster

Spanish Madagascar Poster
Originally uploaded by Jason Schleifer.

Look it's a new Madagascar poster. Cool, I can't wait for this film to come out. I had to leave before this film finished. I didn't want to but that's how it happens sometimes.

I know I haven't been updating this blog as much as I wan to. I figure it'd be better to be silent then to constantly blog about excuses why I haven't been blogging.

So my excuse as to why I haven't been blogging is that I'm in the middle of trying to buy a house. That's taking all of my free time. The California market is tough. I'll be back at it as soon as I can.

Sony so far has been great. Animation Mentor starts up on the 28th (That too has been taking all my time). Other then that I've just been animating away.

Keep on animating.

Oh and a lot of cool new blogs have popped up, check them out. I'll make a list of my favorites soon. There's a lot of production blogs, I wish I could do that, but I'd never work a gain if I did. That's one big difference between making your own film and working for a big company.

James Baxter's Studio

I just want to wish James Baxter the best of luck with his new studio. I'm really happy that someone with his talent is opening a studio and pushing drawing in animation not just jumping on the computer bandwagon. I hope he'll go far!

For more info, just google Jame Baxter Studio. There's a lot of good stuff!

If your going to go to Life Drawing, you could at least recycle the paper!

So, Sony offers a Life Drawing class during the day, which is AWESOME. Except for the fact that I haven’t been to Life Drawing in a few years. Add that to the fact that I was never that good to begin with. I’m beyond rusty, I’m down right at beginner level. But I go anyway.

I go for two reasons. The first reason is the only way to get better is to go do it. Glenn Vilppu said: “You all have a million bad drawings in you, and the sooner you get them out, the better off we all will be.”

The second is because you can learn stuff that will help you with your animation. (Yha, I know, duh, any drawing will help you with your animation). Today, the instructor looked at my “drawing” and asked me where the force was in my drawing. What leg was holding up the body. I said the left one. He asked me to look at my drawing and tell me if it looked like his left leg could hold up the body. Of course it couldn’t. It could on the model, I just hadn’t drawing it that well. He showed me that it was important to get the left leg done right. It was okay if I messed up the other leg. It had a lot more freedom to be anywhere because the balance was on the left leg. I just couldn’t screw up the left leg and have the pose still work. It just reminded me that in your poses you should know where the force (balance) is at all times. Especially if your character is off balance. If he’s off balance then the force is pulling him down. In a walk your character is always falling down and catching himself. He uses the energy from the fall to push forward.

All in all, I learned something so it was good. I’ll keep going as often as I can. And yes, I did recycle the paper I drew on.

Here at Sony

So I finally made it. I'm here at Sony. So far everything is good. There's a good vibe here. I'm super busy with training so I don't have much to say. But I'm really glad I got some time off between jobs. I really needed that.