The Crystals

This week I tried out some more 'experimental' 3D animations with morphing sharp-edged objects. I came across this effect by 'mistake' when I was trying out another animation idea I had in mind - some experimental mistakes do turn out right after all :P I played around with some morph effects in After Effects too and applied them to circles to create a sound-wave effect.

This week I'll be finalising my storyboards for my final animation and get working on some more graphics for my flash game.

The Crystal I from Andrea Meli on Vimeo.

The Crystal II from Andrea Meli on Vimeo.

- Andrea

Flynn Lives

After Effects has become pretty addicting now. Even though I'm still getting the hang of animating characters in AE, I took a break from working on the animation I mentioned in my previous post. I decided to make another compositing experiment and animated Tron-stylized text in Cinema 4D and move to aftereffects to add glows, 3d layers, bokeh, etc, with the sound and final export done in Premiere. I worked on this project for about two afternoons and I'm quite pleased with the final result.

I'd like to get some blue/green scree footage and try and blend video with some 3d next, till then I'll keep experimenting.

Bomblu: Revolution from Andrea Meli on Vimeo.

- Andrea

Taking the BP Oil Monster to the next dimension

Now that I'm getting more confident with using After Effects, I decided to produce a short semi-animated short using none other than my Deepwater Horizon illustration. 3D Layers are brilliant for 2.5D (next step, turning a Flash short into a 2.5D animatic) and enabling Motion Blur multiplies the render time by quite a bit (though it was worth the wait, it look way smoother now.) I also tried my hand at using Premiere Pro to add the audio, since After Effects added small pop's to the song in random places.

I also started a very short, slightly abstract animation yesterday evening; I illustrated the scenes in Flash and started to animate it in After Effects, I'll be working on it this weekend.

Deepwater Horizon from Andrea Meli on Vimeo.

- Andrea

The history of Animation

Some small updates; I re-designed this blog to feel more personal and look better than it was before - I'm not a big fan of using stock-backgrounds :P

Here are some samples from something I worked on a few weeks ago for one of my school assignments. You can find the full infographic here.

- Andrea

It's about time

It's been three and a half months since I posted my first post, it's high time that I post some updates, even though I dont have much to say at the moment.

Animation keeps getting better as time goes by; one of my school assignments required me to create a short stop motion animation. I made my first claymation back in 2008 which you can watch here. I wanted to get a little more abstract this time round and decided to use my sister as a model and I'm quite pleased with the result - hopefully i'll have time to make a longer stop motion video using the same style.

Aegrotus from Andrea Meli on Vimeo.

- Andrea

Even the longest journey...

... must begin where you stand.

I would like to use this blog to track some of my thoughts and progress - mainly those of shifting art style and theme. I consider art to be many things; a talent, hobby and a subject. However, I think none of those would truly help an individual develop his or her skills to keep outdoing their previous work without art being their passion. As corny as that may sound.

My artstyle varies quite frequently as I normally try and find the best suiting visual qualities for the specific image or message I try to put forward - though I consider humour (both subtle and exaggerated) to be the best tool to attract one's attention.

Here's one of my first 'decent' Vector Illustrations, 'Deepwater Horizon', which shows my point of view on the Oil Spill Crisis.

- Andrea

Deepwater Horizon
Flash CS3 - 5hrs - July 20th 2010