Holli Rausch

So our final project for 3D was animating the characters we modeled earlier this semester. I finished early. Not because it was easy, but because I spent a lot of time in there last week at night. People are mad because I’m done because they think it came easy to me and I ran into no problems and theirs is running into all these problems. Well, I ran into the same problems, it’s just I went in two weeks before finals week to work on it, rather than the week before finals week (when everyone else is in the lab). Just because they didn’t see me working several hours on it, doesn’t mean I didn’t. Sorry for the venting. I’m just frustrated with some classmates. My animation isn’t perfect, but with the constraints of the semester, and of the way I created the character, it’s decent.

I used to upload these with Google Video, but it doesn’t really exist anymore. I’m a part of an animation network with MyToons and so I’m trying their embedded player to share the animation with you. I hope it’s a good experience. Turn your sound on.

If you’re observant, you might have noticed that when you came to milesrausch.com/holli, you got redirected. All is thanks to Miles, as he bought the domain name and hosting as a gift. There will be a redesign, soon. No worries, your RSS feeds, links, and permalinks should all redirect to the new URLs. Even if you linked to a specific post; again, thanks to Miles.

Here are my last two paintings for my Painting class. This course was…to say the least…miserable. I don’t want to go into details, but nearly the whole class, if not the whole class, has lost all respect for the professor. In any case, I’m proud of these two pieces. But don’t get me wrong, I am very aware that I am not a painter. I love painting rooms and it seems as though that’s the extent of my emotion.

Our final project had to have at least one dimension matching or close to our height. Mine is about 5′ x 3.5′. You can see in the background a classmate, who is 6′, if that helps you with the dimensions. I can’t even fit it in my car, so if I’m going to keep it, I have to walk it home or find someone with a big enough vehicle.

The painting before our final project was a still life, and I wanted to keep some sort of theme, so I brought some of my demo Mary Kay products. These last two paintings had to be in the style of an existing artist, and I chose Paul Cezanne. Several of his paintings had the black outline look, with a large emphasis on high contrast values.

The next project I’ll be posting about will be my character animation. I should be finishing that up today in class. Sincerely, holligregg.com

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks making a baby. A few surprising things I’ve found out while on this miraculous journey:

• It takes patience
• Sometimes, the result isn’t exactly what you imagined
• It’s really, really hard work
• They don’t come with diapers, by default
• Another person involved is really just in the way
• Pacifiers are a God-send

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I have made a 3D model of a baby. I’m really happy with the model; which is a rare occasion, considering I’m a bit of a perfectionist and my own worst critic. I don’t often like my projects when I’m done with them. Of course, there are things I’d like to change, but I’m not dwelling on them because I like it overall. Next, we’ll add a skeleton and animate our models, (many people chose to model aliens, and I find that….weird interesting). This animation may be our final project, considering the time it takes to model and animate anything. And just figuring out how to animate a biped will take much time in itself. So, here’s hoping we don’t have another project for our final.

I introduce you to Farley, the character I modeled from a tutorial, named by a combination of two reader suggestions: Farlie and Harley. (Thanks, Miles and Christina!) He’s not superb, but he’s not bad. I had a lot of fun making him, so I hope you all enjoy him. I don’t know if we’ll be animating Farley, or moving right on to making our own characters and animating them. (I’ve already sketched my idea out…I’m such a modeling nerd.)

One thing is for sure, we need to put skeletons in them before we can animate realistic movement. Also, adding a skeleton makes it much easier to animate than without one. I’m quite excited and hope we get started ASAP. I’d like to include it in my portfolio by the end of the month (at least the model…the animation probably isn’t realistic).

I didn’t achieve it, mostly because of time, but I wanted his hair to look like the emo character that Chris blogged about long ago. I figure I would have needed at least an extra day to really get the hair even close.

Did you know that in The Little Mermaid, Ariel’s hair was the hardest thing for them to animate? And in Ratatouille, the hair (on the rats) was probably the most impressive part.

Let’s just say, there likely are people whose job it is to model the hair of a character and other people whose job it is to animate it. At least, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were that specific.

The rumors are true. I turned 21 on April 15. On that same day, I had my first alcoholic drink. It was a glass of Riesling. Which was nasty. I stayed up until midnight (not an easy thing to do for an old timer like myself!) and had a glass (more like 6 sips) of wine. I should have gone to bed instead…! Though, I’ll try other wines and maybe find something a bit sweeter that I could enjoy on occasion.

I opened presents from Miles that morning before lunch. One being a wood figurine from the Willow Tree Angel collection, this particular figurine entitled “Birthday Girl”. I started collecting them in high school and I think Miles is trying to encourage my collection (not a bad thing!) He also got me a DVD collection of “The Animation Show”, the DVD version of an animation festival…pretty sweeeet! Lastly, I got The Animator’s Sketchbook, which is by the guy who directed Roger Rabbit and it has lots of tips for character animation pertaining to almost anything you could think of. (A guy using a pitch fork to throw hay…who would want to animate that?! SOMEONE!) So they were exciting gifts, I must say!

Then we went to Sioux Falls and watched Meet the Robinsons. It’s a 3D animation in 3D vision…sensory OVERLOAD! It was good modeling and animation; though I didn’t care to wear the 3D glasses the whole time. Hurt my head! Then we went to Johnny Carino’s…delish! I tried a Bellini (which I mistakingly made a joke; thinking it was Belushi) and Miles ordered an Italian margarita in case I didn’t like the Bellini. They were very fruity and that definitely helped with the taste. We drove back to Madison and David came over to Miles’s and they played Guitar Hero while I did homework or something. All in all, a good day. And I get to celebrate it again with dinner with my family this weekend!

Also, some interesting developments have occurred in the past week or so…how’s that for a teaser?! Check back soon.