Another update, this time a lot sooner than 7 years! I have recently left V1 Interactive for another adventure to start soon. While I’m in-between jobs, I figured it’d be a good time to do some virtual housekeeping and straighten out my portfolio site.

• I updated my demo reel with my work from Disintegration, our game that shipped this year (during a pandemic…!)
• I made a Disintegration page that goes into further detail about what I did there with more animations/cinematics from that project
• I reorganized the Artwork section, added more recent artwork, 2d animations, and comics
• I also started a journal webcomic that begins when I was pregnant with my son

For very personal reasons, it’s been an incredibly challenging year for me, but taking stock, looking at everything I’ve made, and curating it into this little space of mine on the Internet reminded me of the healing nature of making art and sharing those experiences with others. I hope you can find solace in creating something for yourself as well, and if you want, please share it with me! I’d love to see it!

Stay safe and, as someone very wise once wrote, stay hopeful!

Lots have happened over the months since Skyrim’s release. Our game has garnered over 100 Game of the Year awards from various critics, which is staggering. But the bigger news for me, is that I left Bethesda to be with my fiance on the West Coast. I’m almost done with my first week at Sucker Punch! I’m still adjusting to life in Washington, but once I’m settled, expect some *actual* art updates.

The game I’ve been working on over the past 2 years, TESV: Skyrim, shipped this past Friday. I’m overwhelmed from all the positive reception the game’s getting. Working on such an amazing project with the extremely talented people at Bethesda Game Studios was both a humbling and memorable experience. I’m so proud of all the hard work we’ve accomplished and consider myself lucky to be part of such a momentous project.

Once we get approval from management (currently, it’s not allowed), I’ll post up some of the animations I worked on for Skyrim. Until then, hope you enjoy the game!

Long time, no post! It’s been insanely busy with both work and Animation Mentor. I finished Class 4, and wow, I learned TONS. Class really kicked my butt but in a good way. 😉

Anyway, the project I’ve been working on at work was announced a couple weeks ago. I’m incredibly excited and honored to be a part of it! Below is our announcement trailer:

Wow! I can’t believe Class 3 is over. I’m officially halfway through the Animation Mentor program. Above a progress reel we had to make that covers our coursework over the past 3 classes. There’s still stuff I’d like to fix (and I’d also like to do a render test), but I’ll tackle them after I rest up. I’m taking a summer break from AM, but hope to start Class 4 in the fall. There’s a bunch of things I’d like to do during the break; I’ll be sure to post them as I make them.

Happy Summer! 😀

I started Class 03 of AM: Advanced Body Mechanics. My mentor this term is animation master, Mike Walling, of Blue Sky (and Sony Imageworks and Dreamworks) fame. A long time ago, I found his fantastic tutorial on workflow (under the Docs! section) and learned so much from it. After having 2 Q & A sessions with him, I’m positive that I’m going to be learning exponentially this term. I’m very fortunate to have yet another super mentor. 😀

The coursework is very different this time around. Instead of having a list of options to choose from for our animations, we have to come up with it all on our own. Also, we have to decide whether the 3 animations we’re making this term will be unified under a theme (which is decided by us) or 3 separate motion tests. If you choose the theme, it will dictate how you animate. i.e. a ninja themed character will jump different than a ballerina type character. What’s most important though is that AM wants us to stress the physicality in each assignment and to avoid turning our shots into acting shots.

With that said, I decided to go with this:

[singlepic id=89 w=320 h=240 float=center]

What I love about monkeys is their agility and ability to flow through, around, and over trees. There’s this very natural rhythm as they move from branch to branch, and I wanted to attempt animating it. I also LOVED Tarzan, and how the Disney animators instilled that force, momentum, and flow in his movement. Hopefully, I won’t get sick of monkeys by the end of the term. 😉

Here’s some planning:

I have a huge tendency to over complicate my animations, so I decided this time around to keep my first assignment simple. Plus, this will help me balance my full-time job + school + life better. Our animation needed to be between 100-200 frames, and when I first blocked this out I was actually UNDER frames. A couple of my classmates pointed that I could add more pauses to the end to break up the fast paced rhythm at the beginning, so that helped me out a lot. Anyway, here’s my blocking!