Sam Tilson

Astronaut Model

2011-12-28T21:58:00.007-06:00

I am fortunate enough that my good friend Jez Tuya allowed me to create one of his designs in 3D. Someone pointed out to me that I have never made a female before, nor have I animated one either. It was nice to be able to do something so simple and appealing. Cheers to Jez for the awesome design! Check him out if you haven't seen his work before!

On that note I am all modeled out for now. Back to animating! Looking forward to bringing these guys to life early on in the new year. Happy New Years everyone!!

Charlie Martini

2011-12-01T11:16:00.008-06:00

For the first time in three dimensions I give you CHARLIE MARTINI!

Time to catch up

2011-11-23T09:44:00.012-06:00

I'm still alive I promise! Time for a life update.

I graduated from Ringling!!

The Cardinals won the World Series in 7 Games!! WOOO

I just got back from CTN-X for the first time! Had a blast! It was so awesome to meet so many amazing artists.

(I know I am lame that this is the only image I took the time to snag, but it proves I was there.)

I have finally joined the ranks of the twitter army!

More artwork coming soon. About to finish up a project that I have been working on for awhile.

In the meantime HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

Mytosis!

2011-06-14T18:44:00.011-05:00

Finally! I am now a graduate! So here it is! My senior thesis film. Mytosis!

Hope you guys enjoy!

Watch it on vimeo to see it in HD!!

Here are a couple of things that never came to be from thesis.

During the early on parts of the thesis there used to be four amoebas instead of three and these were a couple of color explorations.

At one point he had bubbles inside of him

Thesis Poster!

2011-04-25T17:08:00.011-05:00

As tradition for Seniors at Ringling we make parody posters of real movie posters for our films. Usually we have a theme, but not this year. I know this not a real "movie poster" but its a movie poster that's in a real movie haha. I took some liberties of my own with the pose and expression, but I am happy with the result. Last week of school ever in existence of my life. CRAZY TIMES!

Hogarth

2011-03-24T20:51:00.003-05:00

Mytosis

2011-02-23T01:57:00.001-06:00

Coming Soon

Thesis Update!

2011-02-03T13:58:00.002-06:00

Only a couple of months left to go!

Monster Update!

2011-01-31T03:53:00.004-06:00

Monster!

2010-12-24T23:09:00.011-06:00

Long time no post. Fall Semester is finally over and I have the time to post some new stuff. To take a break from thesis I decided to make a new character. I have always wanted to make a giant monster, hopefully I will be able to find the time to make him into 3D sometime in the near future.

I also thought I would post some process work for this for anyone who is curious. It was interesting, because it was a really spur of the moment idea to doodle something out and follow through with it. I don't think I have ever had an idea come about that quickly into a reality without too much struggling. It was a nice change of pace from working in 3D all semester. I am currently working on updating and making my portfolio webpage, putting together demo reel and finishing my senior thesis. Stay tuned!

Happy Holidays!

-Sam

Small Update

2010-10-19T01:53:00.002-05:00

Thesis Update

2010-10-13T16:30:00.009-05:00

So of course I am super late at posting. Senior year has been really busy so far. Here is an update to hopefully quench your thirst for some amoebas. First pass renders of my characters and environment. Hopefully next time I won't take as long to update.

Zeus

2010-08-05T06:54:00.006-05:00

Summer comes to end soon, only a a couple weeks left till school starts up again. So instead of working on thesis more, I gave myself another little fun project to do. Behold ZEUS!!

As you can see he is still under construction. I have gotten farther since then and I am hoping to get him done soon. I found his model sheet online (http://animationarchive.net/Feature%20Films/Hercules/Model%20Sheets/Zeus04.jpg) that I went in and tweaked to line up some parts here and there. He has definitely been a challenge so far. Lets just hope I dont't go working myself to death before school even starts.

HA WORK YOURSELF TO DEATH!

(Sorry couldn't help myself)

Enjoy the rest of summer everyone!

Thesis Progress

2010-07-27T19:50:00.006-05:00

Drama

2010-05-16T05:37:00.003-05:00

I don't think I ever posted this, and this painting definitely deserves the light of day. Enjoy

Hogarth Turnaround

2010-05-16T05:17:00.003-05:00

I went back and fixed up Hogarth for portfolio reasons. Although he may look similar he has a whole new body and some of the topology on his head is different. It was much easier the second time around. There are still things on him I want to change and things I think I could do better, but I'll leave those later.

Meet Blamo

2010-05-06T14:09:00.003-05:00

Here's a little sneak peek into my Thesis.

Zbrush I never used

2010-05-06T14:00:00.002-05:00

So I spent a good chunk of time during this past semester figuring out my way around Zbrush to sculpt some subtleties into my jersey, which I never used. Still thought I would share it though.

-Sam

Lipsync

2010-04-23T01:39:00.003-05:00

Lipsync! School is over in a week and I'll be able to update more, but here is my lipsync from this semester. I still plan on going back to it and polishing it up. Enjoy!

http://webspace.ringling.edu/~stilson/ACCESS/stilson_lipsync_small.mov

-Sam

Overdue

2010-03-21T11:50:00.005-05:00

(Click Image to Enlarge)

So I am way overdue for an update, I have been super busy as always. Couldn't hurt to quickly post my lipsync character up. Heres an expression sheet of myself in 3D. Not much else to report at the moment. Working hard and staying alive. Hopefully I can revive this blog sometime soon.

Heightening

2009-10-26T01:27:00.007-05:00

I thought I would do a quick post about Heightening. Often times when I think of ideas the questions arises. Why would you animate this? Can't you just do that in live action? You could, but as you can see above in Norman Rockwell's Painting verse the reference image he took. We can take real life and intensify it. That waiters arm is unproportional and dislocated. But if you look at the negative space of the image, it creates a heart shape between the three of them. Another great example is this video of an Argument over Beethoven's 5th. There is no talking what so ever but everything they are doing is clear as can be. You know exactly what is going on at all times. Sometimes you don't have to over think things and try to make them crazy for animation. Great stuff to look at and be inspired by. I hope it does the same for you.

-Sam

Junior Year!

2009-10-25T04:59:00.008-05:00

(Me!)
(click to enlarge)

Ok, I am way over due for a post. Sorry about the delay. Junior Year is busy busy. I love it hundred times more then Sophomore Year. Seems the harder it gets the more I enjoy it haha. All my teachers are great and I am lucky to have them. I am currently in the beginning of my Push Pull Natural Animation. I have also designed myself for my Lip Sync next semester.

Thank you to everyone who helpped with my design and my push pull design! I really think I captured myself, so that is always exciting.

(Push Pull Character, No name yet, any ideas?)
(click to enlarge)

I am also posting some of my Silhouettes from in the beginning of the year. I really do enjoy doing them, I love to scribble.

(Silhouettes, click to enlarge)

Its already almost the end of October. Time flies when all you do is eat, sleep, work, rinse and repeat. Especially combined with Florida weather. I guess thats all for now, at least that I can think of at the moment. Just figured it would be a good way to take a break from working at 6am. :) In about an hour I am off to my morning run to the ocean. Great way to start the day! It might be a while before my next post so I hope this tides you over till then.

-Sam

Hogarth

2009-06-18T03:49:00.012-05:00

So its been almost a month since summer started and I am due for an update. My plans for the summer are to just go through the entire character to animation process again before school starts to practice and improve. I decided to make Hogarth from The Iron Giant. One of my favorite movies. If you haven't seen it then go watch it now, and if you already have watch it again! I want to at least animate him in a walk cycle. I am also posting some of my references that I went through. Hopefully next time I post I will be able to show an animation.

I am considering modeling out his camera, but for right now I am all modeled out. I'm excited to finally move on. It was nice to be able to do all this on my own schedule and to take my time too. More to come later.

-Working Hard-

Blamo

I Wanna Be Like You ooo ooo....

2009-05-02T00:03:00.003-05:00

Had to post it, simply cause I just love watching it. I love how he walks up to his butt at the end. And of course when I think Jungle Book I can't go without thinking about Louis Prima. Nothing better than Jazz and Animation!

I Wanna Be Like You ooo ooo....

Cemetery

2009-04-25T10:10:00.004-05:00

I know haven't posted in long time, so here is a little something. Cemetery project. They give us the scene we light and texture it. For something that I have no interest in doing, it turned out better than I expected.

Cemetery at Night

More to come later

Blamo

Recharge your Batteries

2009-04-07T11:29:00.002-05:00

So I was reading the Animation Mentor's "Animation Tips and Tricks" online this morning and I came across a section that seems to be pretty true. Especially cause I know it happens to everyone, you can basically see it everyday around here. They talk about even if your the most passionate person about what your doing there are just sometimes that you just don't want to do it. You stop being motivated and it becomes something that you just have to get done. I highly recommend looking up their two books Volume One and Two. There is definitely some great info in both of those books.

Tip #22: Recharge Your Animation Batteries!

"Here's the deal - you might be the most passionate animator in the world, and your batteries might be firing away at 100% for a few years even, but eventually, we all hit that moment where it becomes a grind. If you're working, it suddenly becomes a Job, with a capital J. Something we're required to do, but man, we'd rather be doing almost anything else under the sun. We've made a million changes to the shot over and over for the client, or just can't get this certain acting beat to read properly, or we've spent more hours animating in a week than we thought actually EXISTED in a week, or the project is just so far removed from the high hopes you felt
at the beginning, and our hearts are just suddenly NOT in it anymore.
Whatever the reason, we just don't care anymore.

Well, that isn't quite right - we don't care about the thing that MATTERS anymore.

We care about keeping our jobs, or we care about getting the assignment done, or whatever, but when it comes to the ART of what we're doing, forget it. We don't care. We're done. We go into "Animation Roboto" mode and just push keys around and scale curves and do whatever little iterations we can do to keep the shot moving forward, but we put zero creativity or art into it.
This, my friends, is when our batteries are toast. Maybe they aren't dead yet, but they're old and tired and starting to leak acid all over our passion.

How do we do this? Well, I guess it'll depend a little bit on who you are.
For me, it's all about getting a little space from this animation stuff sometimes.
Ever since I got my dream job at ILM, I've had a long-standing rule that I don't animate outside of the office. Ever. I know some of you will think that's lame, or weak, or like I don't love to animate or something, but you know what? I've seen too many people get burned out. I had too many "teachers" back in school who had dead batteries. That isn't going to be me, if I can help it, and part of the solution is to have a life outside of animation!
I animate all day long, five (and sometimes six) days per week. When I go home, I need to do things that recharge my batteries whenever I can. Things like reading a good book, or digging through some comics, or watching some great TV shows...

I'll write a story, or I'll watch a movie, just for the fun of it, and turn off my hyper-critical animation brain as much as I can and just try to enjoy it for what it is instead of picking it apart or frame-by-framing anything. I'll fire up my computer and look at some of my favorite artists
latest work - again, not really to study it, but just to ENJOY it.

Having just returned from my vacation/honeymoon, some of which was spent on the most beautiful beach I've ever seen, I can vouch for the fact that travel, seeing exciting new things, meeting new people, and some serious hammock-time can also really do
wonders for your batteries!

In short, whenever I can, I'll find things that inspire me like crazy – not even necessarily inspiring me as an artist, but even just inspiring me as a person – and just experience those things as much as I can.

I realize that earlier in your animation career, this isn't a real option, because for the first few years, you probably DO need to be animating as much as you possibly can - both to learn and to create new stuff for your reel.

However, once I built a demo reel I was comfortable with, I set aside the need to constantly animate my brains out every waking moment of my life, and instead focused on
making sure that I was relaxed, inspired, and excited to go to work and animate every single morning. "

That is only a small section of that, but it is definitely a good read. Lots of nice tricks in there and suggestions towards not just animation but the whole thing as a whole. If ever get the spare time its a good thing to look at.

Till next time

Blamo

Demo Reel Time

2009-03-17T05:06:00.003-05:00

So here it is so far.My demo reel as of Spring Break. It still has lots of problems, especially the penguin (cough cough). Although it totally took over my spring break, I am glad I did it. Kind of forced me to rework things and actually get it done. Thank you Larry for kicking my ass when I was about to not do it haha. It was worth it. I recommend anyone else doing it if they can anytime soon. Feels good when something like a pretty render totally makes something a solid piece of work.

Till Next Time

Blamo

Small Update

2009-03-17T04:10:00.002-05:00

Busy as usual, but I figured I would post a little something, I have been asked by some people to show my demo reel which I just recently put together over break, so while that loads right now I thought I would post a quick screen shot of my new and improved face. Eli needed a make over, so I remodeled his head, he used to have some bad typology and he didnt have a mouth sack, so now he has bigger eyes, can open his mouth and has some teeth in there. I remodeled the hair too, but its a seperate piece now. This shot is just of the head. I am a lot happier with how this one turned out, he really emotes a lot better. The work never ends as always, busy busy busy busy.

More Later,

Blamo

Unboxed!

2009-01-26T04:52:00.001-06:00

Cool Audi Commercial that I just cant get enough of. Thought I'd share it. Take me ride in the car car..

Samo

Meet Eli

2009-01-24T09:23:00.012-06:00

It feels like I have been here for at least two months but apparently its only been like two weeks. But anyways. The modeling part of Sit Stand Character is OVER!! I took a couple of renders just for fun. So without further adooo, I give you........... Eli the Time Traveler! He is still missing parts of his outfit but this is the base model without displacement maps and such.

2009-01-07T05:38:00.002-06:00

Happy New Year from St.Louis! Its a New Year and a New Semester. Break is over in less than a week and I am ready to get back at it. Goals for me are the same as every year. Improve Improve and always Improve. Keep moving in a positive direction NOT BACKWARDS! Break has been full of sleep, but I am currently trying to revisit my Sit Stand Designs. Back to SrQ this weekend and ready to get this year off right.