New Demo Reel for 2011 :)

Christian Orlando Mendoza Demo Reel 2010

As part of my plans for new animations this year, I'm reworking my website as well.. For now its just one page with a new demo reel.. Check it out here..

Give me critique if you see fit. I'm always looking for it :)

I really hate website design, so updating the site is gonna take awhile :P Don't expect anything spectacular either.. I rather spend my time on my animations :)

updates!

As always, I don't attend to this blog as I should. and then when I do, I have a shitload to report!

Life moving along. My contract with EA has ended and I'm currently looking for next big thing. I'm going at a rather slow pace though. With the holiday season, its kinda hard to find a job.. Everything kinda freezes up this time of year.

At least though I'm starting to move along with my portfolio work.. or at least planning on it :)

I still have to finish up my star wars models.. I want to at least UV them. I probably won't put much more work into them until I get some new animations done. I want to improve my portfolio in the early part of this new year. Yet I have not decided where to take my portfolio.. so for now I'm gonna finish UVing these babies while I sit at home waiting for christmas to come.. well in the daytime at least.. At night I go out with fam and friends :) Enjoying my time with them while I can..

i've got some ideas for my new portfolio pieces, but this weekend I'll figureo out where I'll start.

potential animation ideas...
Deadpool animations for a fight game...
TF2 Character animations... involves me manhandling the source engine to do my bidding...
Creating new rigs tackling specific problems and not a "do everything" rig...
Action scene involving a character my friend Pam did a while back... involves her a "danger room" type setting...

The Secret of Kells

Anyone and everyone should see "The Secret of Kells." Its an amazing animated film. The art is beautiful, drawing on celtic themes and illuminated manuscripts. I'll have a more thoughtful commentary on it later, but I just needed to say that. but to keep you interested, watch this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbFMFjUjiPs&feature=related

Some animation exercises

I've started working on these little animation exercises. They are more like mini exercises. I don't want to work on a big animation scene just yet.. Don't have the time to commit to something big, so I'm doing these smaller pieces. Maybe in a month or two I'll start a big animation. Plus I really need to focus on my principles of animation. :)

I'm back to animating!!

I've put the modeling projects on the backburner for now. I've got some new animations coming down the pipeline and I hope to share them very soon.

X-wing update!

Hey I forgot to post this last weekend! I finished the x-wing! I'm still renaming the various pieces, but the modeling is done. I added more detail to the machinery on top. Also added the armor plating and torpedo launch tubes on the side of the chip. I also have the wing setup to open and close. Right now its jsut groups.. Later I'll actually make a quick little rig. I also modeled out simple cockpit pieces that I'll have normal and glow maps. :)

As I said before I won't start quite UVing and texturing them yet. Frankly it is cause I'm a little intimidated by them. What I will do is model a quick Star Wars turret tommow. Its gonna consist of like a couple of blocks and the cannon. Model that out and then UV/texture it. I figure start with something small to get me back in the groove of painting in Photoshop. Then I'll start the ships up next week.

I've also been thinking up an animation that I'll start soon with my fellow animator Gerard Pianta. Nodetails yet as we're still in the planning stages but I'll post something about it later this weekend.

What I've been doing in my free time...

I've started working on my portfolio again. I took a break while I was working on Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2011, but now I'm back at it. Though I have not been animating. I've actually been modeling. I have not done this stuff in a couple of years I wanted to reacquaint myself with this stuff. I'll always be an animator, but I want people to know that I have knowledge on the whole pipeline. .. So yea I'm doing these models, with all the good stuff including texture and normal maps.

I'm also doing star wars concepts. I do love star wars... I figure I don't have to wait all my life to work on a star wars project. I just do my own. :) Hopefully I'll get to rig and animate these models as well.

I finished the Tie Fighter about two weeks ago. It took me around 30 hours to model it. The X-wing I started modeling last week and I am almost done with it. Another weekend of work should do it. Of course with work, I don't find much time during the week to do this stuff.

Once I finish modeling the x-wing, I think I won't quite get to UVing/texturing these babies. I was never really good at that part to begin with. So I'm gonna start doing some texturing books I got. I'm gonna put em on the backburner and get back to some keyframe animating, with the texture lessons in between.. We'll see though.

Avatar The Last Airbender is amazing!

I can't stress this enough. This series needs to be watched. and I don't mean the movie. My friends started hyping this up to me the last couple of months. I finally got netflix and started watching it a couple of weeks ago. In part to watch the movie that was coming out today. I like to see source material before I see adaptations. Thankfully today instead of watching the movie, I decided to watch the last of the series. They even had the last episodes in a movie! and it was awesome.

I am truly thankful to have seen this series. It is near perfect. The animation is beautiful. Yea its taking the anime style, but it takes it and crafts it beautifully. The story is great. Its a show for kids, but the audience isn't treated like a child. They cover some pretty heavy stuff for a kids show. Especially in the last season. Like the harry potter series, the show matures with each season, taking the audience on this journey as well. I also love the use of asian culture and themes in the show.

I love animation, but its very few times animation affects me so much. It left me so emotionally satisfied and happy, that all I want to do is contemplate on the show and sleep tonight. I don't need anything else tonight.


Whoever says 2D is dead, is wrong and has to see this show.

Hey I got a blog!

So this blog is mostly for me. I was inspired by other artists, like Keith Lando that also have blogs. I expect this mostly for myself. Record my thoughts on animation, art, and life in general.