SLICE

(CGI final)



SLICE from Maddy Trower on Vimeo.

HE LIVES

Had to redo the skin weighting twice due to my own ineptitude, but here he moves and breathes now.


Movement Test from Maddy Trower on Vimeo.

First Basic Animation

This week's CGI assignment was to animate a 120+ frame sequence of a hammer, a ball, and a feather in some sort of interaction. One of the three must have a sense of character or motivation. I kept running into things I didn't know how to do in the program, but on the other hand I was constantly surprised by how much you can accomplished with very limited knowledge.

This is the last one, I swear.

Yesterday I got a haircut, but before I did I made one last video. This is totally the last one, I promise. But all fun aside, I'm fairly busy right now packing and cleaning charcoal out of my room. The real challenge is going to be figuring out how to get home most of my drawings, some of which are on 30x40 illustration board. My bad.

And That's a Wrap!

I have finished my freshman foundations year at RISD. I survived. The year has gone by so fast it's really insane. Hopefully pretty soon I can start putting up stuff from my studio classes as I edit the pictures and finish up packing. For now, though, enjoy this video......And that was Robbie's last performance at RISD for three months. But seriously, people are streaming out of RISD at an alarming rate. At least two or three people have already vacated my hall! It hasn't really sunk in that the year is over yet, but I guess as I see more and more people leave it'll hit me. Now back to the boxes I go.

I'm Justin Bieber

So. I'm Justin Bieber.



(I do work here. I promise.)

Computer Animation Final

I realized today that I hadn't posted anything from my computer animation wintersession course. That's partially because I'm very underwhelmed with the work I produced in the class and partially because I haven't put all the videos up on youtube. In any case, here is my final from the class. A disclaimer: I basically put this together in three nights (we only got a week to animate and I had my other course to worry about). So between the shortness, the poor narration (I had half an hour to record), and some awkward animation, I'm not too happy with it. But enough complaints, here's the video:

Holiday Break

Here it is, New Year's Eve, and my Holiday Break is almost over. Soon I'll be back in Providence and taking my Wintersession courses: Graphic Novel (aka Comics) and Intro to Computer Animation. Hopefully I will have more time to climb and possibly even set at the RI Rock Gym.

Anyway, here are some videos of my favorite blind dog playing with his new toy :)





Enjoy!

2D and 3D Final Projects!

After many hours of toil and frustration I have finished two of my final projects. I am always curious to see how many hours go into the pieces I make at RISD but honestly I have no idea. It should be enough to say that in the past week my average bedtime has been 5am. But really the fatigue doesn't matter when you're doing something that truly fascinates you.

In any case, for my 3D project I made a sort of soap box car, loosely based off of a prototype I made earlier in the year. Working on it was a series of failures, redesigns, and reconstructions. I never learned how to use power tools with any semblance of skill, so I used this project as my own personal woodshop class. While the car (working title: rocketcar) didn't turn out like the idealized image I had first envisioned, I am happy with the amount of learning that took place while working on the assignment. I would love to make another soap-box style car again in the summer if I have the time and money.

The rocketcar does not have true axles. In each "axle" there is a five inch lag bolt in the 2x4 where the wheel (plywood) connects. Each wheel therefore rotates independently. The car has steering by means of pushing the front axle with your feet. I unfortunately did not put in any brakes yet, so I won't be flying down College Hill anytime soon -- But the car is functional and I would estimate holds up to 180lb.


I test out the car during crit


Comparison to my early prototype (illustration board)

My 2D project, entitled "Furs," is a short animation based on the concept of climate change. It is comprised of approximately 250 hand drawn and scanned frames on tracing paper. I unfortunately had to put the thing together in iMovie, which probably added at least three hours to the editing time. I started with the idea of animals removing their fur as one would take off articles of clothing. It turned out a lot darker than originally intended, but I suppose that's all you can expect from such a creepy idea.



Still to be completed is my drawing project, art history final, and a research paper for English...But with these two projects out of the way my workload is essentially halved. Maybe I'll get some sleep this week? One can only hope.