Tiko Project is on sale for preorder!

Holy moly and I'm behind on writing stuff on here. Lots been going on, thus I've not had time to write about it:) I'll try and catch up when I get some time.

However, the important thing here is that the Tiko project that I worked on for FAR TOO LONG is about ready to ship and is on presale. My college debt fund gets a little help everytime Tiko gets invited to a new home and even more so with those "custom invites" (hint...hint). One of my other animator friends Keith Osborn helped out on the animation portion for Tiko and my buddy from college and fellow facial animator at work Scott Englert did a piece that'll be on the DVD called "Bassimator." It was a lot of fun to make but I'm very glad it's done. Check it out and see if you might like a copy....

...Tiko will thank you (quite literally if you happen you get a custom message version and have him thank you on it...;)

Here's the LINK

Out.

Fantastico!

Holy cheerios, Batman! I'm DONE with my freelance gig. I'm burning the DVD's for the client now. Whoo hoo! It'll be a bit till I can update my site cause well, that hard drive crash I had a few weeks back took out all of my web source work. So, now that this is done, I have to get another hard drive to start unpacking my backups onto to see if what I've lost forever, and what I've got sitting in an archive somewhere.

Good times.

As soon as the client get's the DVD ready for sale, I'll post a link cause I know you'll wanna help Tiko pay for his pear eating addiction;)

Up for air...

Here's a little test render for the final lighting of one of the shots from my freelance gig. It's almost done! Another week and animation will be done!

Couple of things:

• Keith Lango is moving to Brazil! He's gonna set up shop so he can animate and help people too. I think that's just pretty awesome.
  
• God has been kind enough to give me some small windows of rainless time to run outside as He knows my disdain for treadmills....thanks, God:)
• I'm heading to Oklahoma City next week to see my mom and some of my fam AND my aspiring comedian cousin is moving to Chicago in two weeks so it'll be great having some family local as well. He's a very talented guy and I'm sure he'll do great.
  
• Stranglehold (my main project at work now) showed very well at E3 and is looking pretty amazing. I think it's gonna be a pretty sweet game when it's done.

That's all she wrote...or he wrote...I wrote? Back to work, I might not surface again till animation is done on my gig, so...lata!

Minor Updateage...

Here's a test render of Tiko last night from my freelance gig that should (crosses fingers, knocks on wood, prays intensely) be done this month. This particular shot is being animated by my good friend Keith Osborn who was kind enough to help me out in getting this gig done.

In other news:

• By buddy Keith (from above) started a new company - Lasso the Moon Animation. I can't wait to see what he does.
  
• My brother started a blog. He has a passion for writing as well and is a very talented guy.
• Started reading another by C.S. Lewis and am continually amazed at his ability to communicate the most complex of concepts in laymen's terms
  
• My workload at work for E3 has slowed down after the big push last week. I can't wait till this game is done. It's looking absolutely amazing. So, with some down time Scott and I are fixing to start on some R&D for facial rigging for a new game. Fun stuff. Scottie is a scripting genius though he doesn't like to admit it;)
  
• Vonage is rocking!
  

Business Cards and Animation

Song of the Day: "Leaving It Up To You" - Jill Phillips - Writing on the Wall
Well, I thought I was gonna go to bed, but I just got my second wind. Funny how that works. I've been working a bit on animation this evening and talking to some friends via IM. I also decided I'd best get some more business cards for my trip to LA. My last batch seems to have been lost in the move from Savannah. So I updated my design a little and sent em off to the online press. I used these guys for the last batch and was very pleased. 500 cards - Full color both sides, glossy finish and rounded corners shipped for under $75. That's hard to beat. Last batch I got was a little more purple than blue on the front, but I changed the color a little so hopefully that'll fix it. If not, blue violet (while not my color of choice) isn't as bad as it could be;). Color space issues are not one that I'm nearly as versed in as I should be. If you don't know what I'm talking about, believe it or not, but the colors you see on your monitor may not actually be the colors that images actually are. Isn't that fun to know?

Here's the designs:

Front



Back
Since my second wind shows no sign of slowing, might as well get back to it...

Taxes and an update...

Song of the Day: "Shiloh" - Andrew Peterson - Carried Along Album
Good golly I dig Andrew Peterson's music. You'd think I'd be sick of it by now having listened to Carried Along most days in the car for the last 2 months. You'd might think that, but you'd be wrong.

It's that fun time of the year. Ah yes, taxes. I really don't have a problem with taxes, but they could make things a little easier to understand. It's one of the only times in life that you can have absolutely every good intention of being honest and doing the right thing and chances are, you're breaking some minutiae of law. A couple years back, I called the IRS cause I had a question. The guy answered it, then added the addendum that the IRS would not be held accountable for his answer and that if he told me the wrong thing to do, it was still my fault.

Fun times...

I've got a little render test from my current gig that doesn't really give anything away but is close to the final look. The lighting needs some tweaks and Tiko's gonna be sped up a few frames, but it's a good first step.

Here ya go.

Suffice it to say, more happens after that. But for that, you'll have to order a DVD from Bitstream when it's done. Not only will you get to see it, but you'll be contributing directly to the "Josh-Burton-Gets-Out-of-College-Debt-Fund" as anything I get is going there. It's a good cause, trust me. That and Tiko needs to eat...;)

Time to throw Toy Story 2 on and get to animatin'!