Finger Twitches

New Blog

2011-11-27T04:21:00.002+01:00

For anyone interested, i also started a new Tumblr blog that i will use primarily for inspirational stuff, posting things that grabbed my attention. So far i am finding Tumblr super user friendly, but as i have quite a bit already here, i do not want to ditch blogspot just yet...
Anyway, check it out:
http://derangedartisan.tumblr.com

Back in business!

2011-11-27T03:31:00.003+01:00

Well, it's been a while, but I am back to drawing again. Here are some sketches i did after going to CTNX, which was an absolute blast. I think I have inspiration to spare for months! Gotta work hard now, and get the animations done!

Also, here are progress reels for both my iAnimate Workshop 1 that I finished back in May, and Workshop 2, which I finished in August. Currently finishing off a dialog piece for Workshop 3, but that I'll post later, once it's actually done:)

A small Update

2011-03-02T23:12:00.001+01:00

So, once again, I've been silent for ages. I tend to read a lot of other people's blogs, but I seem to forget to actually do something about my own. Well here are a few new things that I did in the last while:

Also, I have actually started on my way to animation! I have enrolled into the new school created by the one and only Jason Ryan, iAnimate.net, and have been doing my Workshop 1 for the last 2 months. Here are a few things to show my progress. Hope you enjoy!

A Ball Bounce:

Ball Bounce on the Spot - WIP7 from Dimitry Kachkovski on Vimeo.

A slightly more fun ball bounce:

Ball Bounce Across the Screen - WIP14 from Dimitry Kachkovski on Vimeo.

Different Weights exercise:

A2-WIP7 from Dimitry Kachkovski on Vimeo.

TOTS (Thing On The Spring) Jump:

A3 - TOTs Jump - Final from Dimitry Kachkovski on Vimeo.

And this is the latest anim I am working on, so it is still a WIP:

A4-rev1 from Dimitry Kachkovski on Vimeo.

That's it for now! Time to get more things going!

In beautiful Vancouver, and just got my Wacom back!

2011-02-09T01:21:00.000+01:00

As a celebration for getting my Wacom Tablet back with all my other stuff from Germany, I decided to dedicate a little bit of time to the neglected child and did a small b/w painting study. Was definitely fun, and I am sure I will attempt to do the same thing again, but in color. Hope you enjoy!

Felipe Nogueira - Character TD Reel

2011-01-20T18:09:00.000+01:00

Thought I should share the awesome work a buddy of mine, Felipe Nogueira, has done. Very, very impressive reel! Looking forward where this guy ends up being:)

Woohooo! I'm on a roll:)

2010-11-05T10:25:00.000+01:00

Ok, I gotta say, I am very much enjoying my time now. Not sure what happened, but it looks like I broke a new plateau when it comes to drawing. I know, I know, still a ton to learn, will always be, but hey, this is pretty damn cool! For the first time, in my life - no less, I can really see my own progress!

So, cutting to the chase. Last night I decided that I need to do a facial study, to try and solidify my understanding of the face. I picked a random face and started working. My goal was to work from the inside out, meaning I was looking for skeleton landmarks that would create a solid proportion and structure, general head shape, then slowly but surely progressing into seeing how different facial muscles formed the face and caused certain forms of the face. Then I tried to get all those forms to work correctly.

I cannot describe just HOW MUCH I learned. This is absolutely amazing! I really understood how much all of that anatomical structure can assist you while working, and how much is in fact going on. No kidding, I was shaking while doing this, cause I was so nervous to put too much pressure on the pencil. Which, btw, finally forced me to start light, and progress from larger to smaller. Basically, I am finally doing things as they have always been told to me to do:)

Ok, I hope I didn't overhype this, as it isn't anything out of the ordinary, but hell, it deffinately is a landmark to how far I went so far. Time to complete - ~2.5 hrs.

Enjoy!

If you want to see a larger version, go HERE.

Till next time!

DK

Long nights, but loving every bit of it!

2010-11-03T21:50:00.000+01:00

Been staying up quite a bit lately... Surprising part for myself is that the reason for it is me drawing! I feel exhilarated nearly every time I touch a pencil now (Should I be concerned?...)

Anyway, so I've been going back to learning a bit more anatomy as well these days, going through Glen Vilppu's head anatomy videos. I know that I am still really confused with the cheek area and the depressors of the lips area. It is really useful, and if you don't know it, better get them ASAP. Some of the best anatomy instruction videos that exist.

I didn't go all that nuts with drawing many heads (I will soon, however), but I did try my best at learning what Vilppu was explaining, and at the end of it all I did a head drawing from imagination, trying to remember all that I just learned. Can't say I feel succesful, but I do believe I learned something along the way...

And here is another little brain fart:

I have also not posted my lifedrawing from last week, i believe. As I had a session today as well, here is what I ended up outputting. Sometimes I hope the Pencil Gods will forgive my infinite sins... Because honestly, I fear that these sketches must be pissing the off a whole lot!

Halloween Card WIP

2010-10-27T17:37:00.000+02:00

Pen sketch:

Tiny midnight sketches

2010-10-27T15:41:00.000+02:00

Sat last night, and being inspired by Aidan's work I decided to do a tiny lil test with watercolors. It sucks, very much, but hey, it is better then nothing! Now to get more confidence... Ah, and after seeing all the weird stuff he has on his blog, I sketched a lil creature which I might take further in PS or maybe also in WaterColors.

Attempts at pinups and a large sketch dump

2010-10-26T15:19:00.000+02:00

Like I promised the last time, I have gotten a bunch of sketches from some life-drawing sessions. As well, I have gotten into my head to do a sort of "Pin up" girl drawing. And I ended up with a drawing which I actually made entirely out of my head referencing only the anatomy to more or less correctly know where to place the masses. Here is the drawing:

I have done it in a blue Caran d' Ache pencil, which, tbh, is turning out to be one of my favourite weapons of choice! I really like how I can be quite soft with it, and whenever I do the lines, I end up making quite cool flowing results which I enjoy so much. This whole thing took me about 2-3 hours, which is quite a bit. Here is a sketch that started the idea:

This was just a quick pen doodle I did trying to figure out what the pose should be. I redrew the final from scratch, following the way Clair Wendling mentioned that she draws, allowing me for more practice. I also did another attempt before that, but I ended up partially referencing the pose from a model picture, which I cannot say was what I wanted. Here it is:

I tried to play around with proportions, but I gotta be honest, I am not a fan of how it turned out. She got a bit too curvy for the way I pictured it, and I feel I didn't capture what I wanted to get out of the pose. I might come back to it, but I will need to think of some more additions to the design. I really like the old-school pinup drawings, such as those done by Gil Elvgren:

I like the fun in these drawings. I always wanted to do 1 or 2 of such pinups, but maybe with my own twist.

What makes these interesting to me (beside being a guy, i guess:) is that unlike so many other drawings that are done now days, these aren't of women with some unbelievable proportions (think J Scott Campbell girls, which, in my opinion, tend to get really annoying now days), but rather of natural looking women, someone real, alive. The Marvel style stuff, however "cool" it might be in the nerdy/guy sense of thinking, feels like plastic dolls and to me, and borders on the feeling of cartoon porn rather then interesting and tasteful art. And these old-school pinups are a lot more intricate in the way they display the idea. But I guess that is just what was found interesting back then, the "Marvel" girls of those times... But hey, at least they do not make women look like they should stuff themselves with silicone and stop eating to look beautiful!

In any case, the best part is that while doing that drawing I really came to learn a ton about anatomy. And boy did I ever had fun drawing! This is probably one of the more finished works I have done so far, albeit without a background, but that will at some point change. I am also thinking of trying my hand with some watercolors next time. I will try a couple of drawings straight on the watercolor paper, and see what I can come up with. Probably will be a disaster, but her, what the heck!

Aaaaaaaaanyway, here is the rest of the stuff I sketched from the last month or so that I missed putting up here:

Till next time!!!

-DK

A couple of updates

2010-10-20T13:13:00.000+02:00

Had a decent night drawing my girls at home:)

I have also started on the journey of trying to conquer the drawing of hands... It is a damn difficult journey, but I will get there! Some day.... Here is one sheet that I feel like I can actually show, which is terrible anyway, but much better then the rest of the crap I ended up with... Yey for more anatomy studying!

And a little head I did from imagination:

I have more doodles that I often do during lunch-time, as well as I have a few more drawings that never made it here since quite a while which I did during life drawing. I'll post them once I get around to scanning them...

Some sketches

2010-10-07T18:51:00.000+02:00

Been a while since the last post. I am still kicking, although not as rapidly as I wish I could. Many things to do, much to get done. I do however still doodle. Here are a couple of recent ones. I will get a few more later as well, along with some copies from Preston Blair's book.
The punk head I did here was entirely out of imagination, so please forgive the crappy anatomy. This is what happens when you are waiting for batch exporting of animations...

Ben!

2010-09-23T14:47:00.000+02:00

Was sitting at lunch, and wanted to draw some cartoon after reading some stuff from the Famous Artists Cartoon Course, and one of my fellow workers was programming for his piece of bread on my left, so I had nothing better to do then to draw him. Came out funky, kinda like it, but I will see if I can maybe improve it a little. Enjoy!

The weekend of drawing trees

2010-09-06T13:54:00.000+02:00

So this weekend wasn't rich in my drawing practices, but I did get an awesome 3 hour session of drawing things outside, specifically tree. I need thousands more hours to start getting them anywhere close to acceptable, but it was quite a breakthrough for me already, considering I coul dhardly draw them at all before. Was really fun! But I will post only two which I think are worth displaying:)

A quick doodle

2010-09-02T20:03:00.000+02:00

Did a small doodle from a photo reference

Lifedrawing...

2010-09-01T20:32:00.000+02:00

Today's session results:

And here is what I had uploaded on September 3rd, 2009, so it has been a year since then (although I hardly worked the whole year, probably only half of it as I nearly didn't draw at all between November 2009, and March 2010). Looks like I have learned something! It really is interesting to see these things in perspective like this...

Awesome inspiration for the morning!

2010-08-31T11:08:00.000+02:00

This is an amazing short! So much awesomeness, it is difficult to even find a starting point. Just pure greatness! Enjoy "Key Lime Pie" by Trevor Jimenez:

Morning update...

2010-08-30T14:53:00.001+02:00

I already managed to create a sort-of routine for myself in the morning where I go through all of the most recent updates on the blogs that I follow and maybe try to catch a glimpse of a few great pictures and/or animations to get my own self a bit more cheered up for the day to come. Today I came across a very interesting post from "On Animation" blog by Daniel Caylor, where he posted a link to a great spreadsheet that has information from anonymous sources about the salaries in different companies for different positions in the Games/Feature Film industry. You can have a look at it here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aou3k7ExaTQjdHZ0S2dKMjhfY0lmN2tmTDRESEhjbHc&hl=en&authkey=CNDxyJwF#gid=0

I guess noone can be 100% sure of the validity of those numbers considering you can put whatever you want there, being anonymous and all, but I think that generally people are interested in contributing and seeing information from others as well, so I gather it shouldn't be too far off. Either way, it is quite interesting to see, and was rather a surprise for me as I imagined many of the studios that are there to be paying a lot more then they seem to (according to the data), and vice versa for others.

Also, here is a trailer for what seems to be a wonderful animated film - "My Dog Tulip". I think I would really like to watch it. Will need to find a way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLqkJJEEGlU

And finally, here are a two sketches I did in the morning. First one with the head is just a page of doodles which I end up making everyday while waiting for different functions that my computer tends to execute (usually within the engine, or Max) and freeze. The whole thing is entirely out of my imagination. The long dude with what should be a saxaphone (but isn't one) was something that sprang into my mind while listening to some jazz.
The second sketch was done over lunchtime. I decided to get out of the office and have a look at what should be within my limitations of sketching the outside world. I think it came out better then my attempts prior to this one, but of course, there will always be millions of areas to improve. If you feel like commenting, I'd greatly appreaciate it!

Life Drawing from Monday and Wednesday

2010-08-26T14:46:00.001+02:00

Slowly getting back into the pace of things now. Had an ok session on Monday, kind of free drawing, without much time limit, but focusing on getting good lines and generally satisfactory results. Can't say I was too succesful on Monday, although I do think some stuff on Wednesday came out somewhat decent. Still so much to learn!

Ah, and I have also played around with some animating on my brand new DSi XL! It is an awesome thing to do little 2D animations on. I have to say, even with all the limitations, Flipnote is an awesome program - tons of fun! Here you go, some results!

And here is a WIP of something...

It's Morning... I hate them...

2010-08-25T12:56:00.002+02:00

Hectic Month!

2010-08-23T18:37:00.000+02:00

Well, this really has been a Hectic month... I have been to Paris, then I got sicker then I have been in many years, recovered, then had a birthday, and along the way got to also see Mike Mattesi's Webinar. Sadly, due to being a bit overloaded with things, I didn't end up doing all that much drawing, which is a very bad thing, but I plan on changing that. I did, however, do some doodles here and there. Plus I attempted, yet failed, to do some drawings of things around me while in Paris. I think I REALLY failed there. But hell, nothing else to do but to keep practicing! Here are those updates:

Wednesday - Life drawing and... a cat?

2010-08-04T21:16:00.000+02:00

As I almost never have regular days, today was equally weird, all in it's own peculiar way, but regardless, pushed myself to do things. I started a day with drawing... a cat. The reason is that I want to familiarize myself with drawing them, as maybe, in some near future, I will need to do a massive amount of drawings of a specific cat. And hopefully when that moment comes, I will be up to the task. I made this one from a still from a video of a walking cat. I think I will do more of those sketches, and also watch my lil kitty, and will attempt making an actual cat walk at some point on my table. Should be fun! Other then that, has a not such good life-drawing session... The model kept talking and complaining, then shifting all the time... Baaaaah!!!!!! So annoying!

Finally some progress! Makes things a little worth the while...

2010-08-04T02:01:00.000+02:00

Oooofff, finally some visible progress... I have gotten a pretty interesting advice recently, suggesting to study both gesture and anatomy together, as anatomy will significantly improve the results of a gesture, which seems logical enough for me, so, as I am moving on to chapter 2 of Mattesi's book, I also have gotten myself an interesting set of lectures by Robert Beverly Hale, thanks to the exact same person.

And here is stuff from Monday's lifedrawing. Didn't do too much on the weekend, was a weird one this one... But better off now:)

A very quick and rough sketch of my friend and colleague Carlo Rotolo

Life drawing + doodles

2010-07-29T00:43:00.000+02:00

Another update. I think I am starting to, little by little, understand some moments of gesture Mattesi tries to get through. But to keep myself from going mental with doing the same thing over and over, while doing life drawing, I did a pose that we had (20 mins) as properly measured as I could hand;e at that moment. It was rather hard being that slow and careful about making all the measurements, but hell, it feels good when you look at things and they actually come out right. I do feel, though, that drawing in such a manner tends to loose the life out of that drawing, and with Mattesi's advice, I feel like I am getting more and more free of being too rigid all the time (too many straight lines, etc etc). I have in plans a few portraits I want to do, all very academic, as careful as I can do them. Looking to get some new moments in understanding construction, planes, and tonal values. I am tempted to start on Preston Blair's book as well, but I think I will give it some time and go through Mattesi's book first, but I do not think I can resist trying my hand at some of drawings of Tex's Droopy and the other chars from his shorts.

Enjoy!

Post-weekend Update...

2010-07-26T14:35:00.000+02:00

So, going through chapter one of FORCE, I have also watched the videos Mike Mattesi that he has on his site that coincide with the first chapter, and here is some of the stuff I ended up with. I still need to make more decisive marks, at the moment many of my lines are quite unsure, and repeat themselves one too many times. This quite evidently shows how much I am afraid of making wrong decisions when putting them down. I will keep practicing, maybe thinking a little more before each line, and will try limiting down any corrections I make to each mark.

I did start feeling a little of what Mattesi is trying to explain by FORCE. More in some cases then in others, but I still am practicing right now, so hopefully with time my eye will catch more of what I am after. Crits are always welcome!

Time to get Organized!

2010-07-24T19:21:00.000+02:00

With the soothing beat of Chase and Status's - StreetLife in my ears, I come here with another update. Been a bit of a while, not happy with that, but the process of scanning things is never a quick one, and since I often doodle on loose papers that lie around, I tend to have drawings all over the place in a very "orderly" fashion...

But I have decided to get a bit more organized with my learning process. I feel that over the time I've been learning, I went too much into grabbing every possible book, and never ended up truly absorbing any. So my goal now is to grab a book at a time, and do about a chapter every 1-2 weeks. My starting point is Michael Mattesi's FORCE book. I have had it for some time now, but I have never really worked with books in the way it should have really been done. I plan to change this. I have also enrolled into his video lessons that he offers on his site www.drawingforce.com. Should be a blast!

Here are a few things I have done lately. Some are after reading the book, some are from life drawing sessions prior to the book. I think you should see what is what:)

RIP Pres Romanillos

2010-07-20T19:33:00.000+02:00

Wow... This really makes me sad. Although I have not known much about Pres Romanillos, today, when visiting Cartoon Brew (who doesn't have this site bookmarked, DO IT NOW!), i learned that he has passed away, and I can't help but feel saddened. He has been a serious attribute to many a cartoon that I have enjoyed. You can view his blogs, "Pres Romanillos" and "Life is a Pickle", or watch Aladin, or maybe Pocahontas (yup, he has them both in his filmography and has done plenty to make these projects real...), and see, just how incredibly talented the man was. It is truly sad that one has to go sometimes at such an early time of their life... RIP.

Pres and Jeannine Romanillos. Photo by Tim Hodge

It has been quite some time... but i am BACK!

2010-07-16T16:51:00.000+02:00

I really haven't updated here for a while... Feels like I should be collecting some spider webs from the corners.

After all this time I think want to start updating this place yet again. To start off, before I get to take the pictures of my latest figure drawings and sketches, I want to post a small morning sketch, a small thing I did for a welcome page on site, and a small walk cycle done in 2D (not on paper, yet, but soon those will come as well, since I got my animation lightbox!!!!). Enjoy!

2D Walk Cycle from Dimitry Kachkovski on Vimeo.

Update...

2009-10-25T23:28:00.000+01:00

Been a while since my last post. Loads of stuff happening on the personal side, but am still trying to stick to drawing daily, and am more or less satisfied with some of the progress. There is stuff here from the last 3 weeks of work, and after being back in TO, I remembered how much I enjoyed drawing with a colored pencil, so I picked up for myself a red erasable pencil. I got to say it is a blast now! Just so much more fun doing these things and having something more interesting then grey shades to look at. Distracts you from the regular set of things you do. So yea, enjoy!

Another update! Loads of stuff...

2009-09-22T14:51:00.000+02:00

Ok, so more stuff to dump here. I haven't had a chance to take a pic of everything I do, and there are pages and pages of stuff, most of which is the garbage that needs to come out before something worth viewing comes accross.

This time there has been quite an extensive amount of studying the hands and the face. Besides Bridgeman's book I also followed the 3 DVDs by the giant Glen Vilppu, and have to say that he is incredible in the knowledge of anatomy. Simply great to follow, and learned a ton and a half. The first set of hands with the head on the same page is referenced from Bridgeman, while others are of my own left hand. The Venetian Mask that I drew is one that is hanging on the wall at my appartment.

I have also finally made my first painting (a quicky really) in acrylics. It was a spontaneous outburst as I got so sick of my pencil, that instead of breaking it, I grabbed some brushes and a random pose to reference, and did this. The colors are mine, only referenced the light and dark areas from the photo.

Enjoy!

More learning...

2009-09-09T15:33:00.000+02:00

So, another dump of some stuff I did lately. Most are head studies, some figure studies from Bridgeman, a study of my Ginseng Bonsai, although since the study is pretty small, no leaves are visible, and my actual COLOR! study of an apple, done in photoshop over the lunch breaks. Enjoy!

Cheers,

DK

Sketches

2009-09-03T17:54:00.000+02:00

Some more drawings. Need to make mooooooore!

A renaissance of my mind

2009-08-24T13:20:00.000+02:00

Another trip, and once again to Italy! But this time around it was truly a trip worth remembering for many years to come. Anastasia and myself had planned a triple-threat experience of the three places in Italy each and everyone has to visit in their lifetime, but ended up having much more then we even thought would be there.

So the plan we had was as follows:
- 3 days in Venice
- 3 days in Florence
- 1 day in Pisa
- and another 1 day in Venice on our way back

But this is what it ended up being:
- 3 days in Venice mixed in with the Lido Island
- 2 days in Florence
- 1 day in Pisa
- 1 day in Sienna
- 1 day of partial Venice, and Murano + Burano Islands

Simply astonishing trip. Probably the most notable moments I should mention is the complete overthrowing of so many ideas that I had in my head of my own self that have occurred while being in Florence, and the magnificent and spontaneous trip to Sienna, which ended up being the most beautiful place I have seen in my life. Now I need to make sure I sharpen up on painting before I head there again, because I cannot afford NOT to paint that place.

To describe what I mean by the renaissance of my mind I need to start by saying that there is probably no human being in history who I have looked up to more then Leonardo da Vinci. I in no way want to say I feel as genius as he was, but I have to say I can relate immensely to the way that he always hungered for knowledge in so many areas of his life. I cannot say that I will ever be willing to just focus on one area alone as my main focus of life as I simply feel that whenever I start attempting that, I start loosing the feel of what I really am, of what I can do and achieve. Whenever I look around me, I realize just how much there is to learn, how amazing this world is. Just look at the bubbles of this coke on my table, those bubbles alone represent some amazing combination of chemicals, molecules, biological products and what not to create the taste, the color, the gas inside. Then think of how that taste is interpreted by our mind. How the color is interpreted by our eyes, the smell. How it then affects our body, or maybe not just our body, but the environment at all.
Then I look at the orange I toss in my hand. And it suddenly hits me, that for that object to go up in the air, my own hand has to create a force which is greater then the actual force of gravity! Just think of that in the scope of what we, humans are capable of! Sure, it is not something new, none if this is new, but the sheer realization of these marvels make it feel absolutely overwhelming. I then realise how those people such as Newton or Leonardo himself felt when those ideas hit them. Yes, for them the ideas were at the right time, but even as times change, and Newton's laws are a common thing of understanding, and even have been proven to not be always right if applied on elements which are much much smaller then those we perceive with our eyes, STILL the feel of Marvel in the face of this world makes it so much more interesting to wake up and keep going trying to understand this Marvel we call Nature, and it's creations. All we really need to do is to open our eyes. We just need to LOOK! There is so much to see! Those who cannot look, need to listen, as there is so much to hear! And those who cannot see or hear need to touch, for either of these three sences have the ability to discover so much about our world that it will fill our life with amazing feel of constant discovery! Yes, we need to read books, but just like it was said by Leonardo "Wisdom is the daughter of experience" ("Leonardo da Vinci Notebooks", Irma A. Richter, T. Wells, M. Kemp, 2008 Edition, Oxford World's Classics) meaning that without the experience of our own, none of this knowledge will matter to us.

So yea, this was a rumble of thoughts that I had after this trip. To finish off the rumbling about, I leave you with some sketches and a drawing of Michelangelo's David from the original sculpture while sitting for 3 hours in front of it in Galleria dell Accademia in Florence.

Thoughts after visiting Side, Turkey and Milan, Italy

2009-07-08T11:15:00.000+02:00

Hmmm, what a contrast... One is supposed to be a paradise for relaxation and true vacation spot. The other is one of the biggest fashion centers in the world. When I was walking with my beautiful fiancée Anastasia down one of the most expensive streets of Milan I thought that maybe there needs to be a coalition. And it should be called STRAW:

S - Save
T - The
R - Rich
A - And
W - Wealthy

What we should do is buy some of the most expensive stuff Milan and such other cities have to offer and donate it to the rich people. Just think of how many innocent rich souls we can save! All those amazing people who advertise MacDonald’s to the kids, sell cigarettes and promote them, advertise some of the worst snacks to children under 6 and profit immensely from it! All those generous and magnificent parts of our society who care so genuinely for their wealth and so little for other undeserving souls. So lets help these creatures prosper and let poverty take its much needed path towards larger spreading!

Ok, enough of my failed sarcasm. But seriously now, just look at all of these things! Walking around the streets of Milan I never imagined just how many people can be so obsessed with shopping and their looks. Noses held high, they stroll along the streets, looking at you and evaluating you from head to toe, and if you are "under par" to their expectations, noses just go that much higher up.

Another amazing moment of culture: a classical concert was being played in front of the magnificent Duomo Cathedral. Fabulous music by Giovanni Sollima and the Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala, the majestic view of the enormous gothic cathedral on the background, amazingly warm night... Basically something that can make your whole trip be worth it. The concert is coming to an end. Applauses fly into the air, people stand up, the music and the show has truly being something. The lead musicians leave the stage for a few seconds. As tradition stands, the audience is supposed to stay in their place until the whole orchestra leaves the stage. And yet, what do you think happens? As Giovanni Sollima starts coming back, everyone is already leaving!!! In the middle of an unfinished concert, in such unique conditions, with such unbelievable music... We couldn't believe our eyes... And this happens here, in Italy, one of the, supposedly, most cultured countries in the world... I have to say that it felt not just disturbing, but crushing, as it truly was symbolic how some of the most respectful traditions no longer hold in the modern society where everyone is on the run to feed the consumerism hunger along with trying to cope with the need for more money to support that hunger...

Then comes the memory of Side, Turkey. Sandy dry streets, paved not just with concrete but by an enormous amount of shops. It felt more like the streets were built where the shops were, rather then the shops along the streets. The locals in these shops are the best representation of a southern market folk who still live by the old traditions of bargain and sale. Sounds amazing on one side, but when you start looking at how much these people make and their general state of well being, something strikes very odd. I felt like I really grasped the whole meaning of that resort at one particular moment when we were having a walk along the shore line and I had a chance to have a clear look at the main area of the island. It seemed magnificent, with all the beautiful buildings, palm trees, the gorgeous sea, the beach...and yet, there was a very artificial feel to it. As I looked more carefully, what I realized was that all the beautiful buildings and the whole beauty of the place was there only because everything you could see were hotels and places for tourists! Sure, that is what places like these need to survive, but the sheer amount of it all! Every 5 out of 6 buildings were hotels. Most other buildings were shops. People work there day and night. After some talks later with the local folks I also got a glimpse of an average wage in that area... 500 Euros a month was considered a decent wage... Oooof....

I have no idea what to say after such 2 contrasts. Yes, I like my comfort, but why does it have to occur at such human expenses? And why are there still entire cities....forget cities... COUNTRIES! that do not even realize that these places exist. Last week I saw people desperately trying to sell me a 1 euro gift that would allow them to keep living, the next week I saw people judging me for the fact that I wasn't wearing Armani...

Here are some sketches of anatomy I did from Bridgeman and a small (quite ungly, but I still like it) sketch of an area in the Duomo cathedral with some notes after visiting the Milano Castello galleries:

First Post:)

2009-03-21T01:53:00.000+01:00

Well, here it is, first blog, which I hope will help me dedicate myself more towards following through with the things I so often start but never finish.

Most of the things that I will put in this blog will be my poor attempts at learning to draw, some of my researches in rigging and animtaion, rants, thoughts on pretty much whatever. I guess I just want a place where I can put stuff I don't mind others seeing, and hopefully giving more resource for some things for others. Hence the name of the blog: "Brain Glitches and Finger Twitches" :)

Just to Give a small head start, I wanted to show some of the things I did while looking for ways to fix some really annoying issues in common rigs. After I made a rig at work, I was playing around with it, and as the legs the creature had were quadroped, I have rigged them with a standard double IK set-up. Nothing overly fancy, but when I was trying to play around with animating the set-up, the first thing truly hit me as a blocker was the snapping of the IK. Which lead me to looking around and learning that the answer was Soft IK. Basically what I want to show is a small test with not just soft IK (Giant thanks to Brad Noble for telling how he did it in his SkeletonRig) but also with some ideas for it being stretchy and fully bendy. At them moment the only video I have is in WMV format, so bear with me.

Video

But all this lead to me learning a bit more about IK, and as I feel that every day I wake up, I seem to learn something, today was me learning about what kidn of IK is iin general used in DCCs. Most of my time I thought that the general IK's used for instance in Max (The main package I use) were all analytical IK's. Yet today I realised, after reading up on learning how to do CCD (Cyclic Coordinate Descent) IK, I realised that Max's HIIKSolver was just that, a CCD IK! In fact, that instantly explained to me why so often I saw tiny jitters when setting up those chains in rigs. In the docs you can find that the only analytical solver that Max provides is an IKLimbSolver, which basically works for a 2 bone chain only, as if you try to make it work for more bones, the calculations basically increase quite a bit, and so it is not allowed in the app.