upside down world

Devils Angels and Dating - short film

2012-01-04T13:32:00.000-08:00

A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR GUYS!!

It gives me immense pleasure to kick start this New Year on my blog with this wonderful film I was a part of. It's my first ever experience in working in a production on a global scale (online). Although I worked on only ONE shot, I did learn an enormous lot, thanks to the awesomely talented (and patient) director Michael Cawood! (Here's the entire thread on the WIPs along with Mike's notes if you'd like to read.)

BTW this entire film was made based purely on sheer volunteer work. That's right, no budget!! It's amazing what a team can achieve given the right direction.

Another reason why this film is special to me is because it came to me as a boon during my bed rest period. Due to my accident, I lost my job and I was looking for that one opportunity to prove my mettle. Things looked bleak because I physically couldn't go to work anywhere. And nothing really challenging came my way via freelance!

That's when I stumbled upon this project and since then, there's been no looking back! My friend Sathya deserves a special mention here for introducing me to it. :)

So I really thank Mike for taking me in and giving me this golden opportunity to be a part of a global team.

Looking forward to being a part of more of such great adventures.

P.S. The film is translated to different languages on YouTube. Just click on the 'CC' button.

Return Of The Jungle Promo

2011-12-16T07:39:00.003-08:00

Hey guys here's a promo of something I've been working on for the past few months at Vaibhav Studios. It's still under production and is a treat to work with one of the best talents in the country Vaibhav Kumaresh! Do check it out and lemme know what you think!

P.S. I animated: the rat shots, the first two crow dialogue shots, and the entire last sequence (the tortoise and the crow).

Hope y'all like it! :)

Animators!!

2011-10-28T09:15:00.002-07:00

Hey guys, here are a few digipaints I did on, well, animators!! I feel we're a crazy breed of people and I thought it would be fun to caricature us! And what better day to post this than on the International Animation Day!! :)

WE'RE ANIMATORS!! YEAH!!

Job

Dating

Family

Animators by Dapoon Rai Dewan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Devils Angels & Dating - Teaser Trailer

2011-07-28T18:42:00.000-07:00

Hey guys here's a teaser of the non-profit short film I was recently a part of. I had a lot of fun working on it. Even the director (Michael Cawood) is quite cool and fun!

Here's the main website of the film (www.devilsangelsanddating.com). :)

Health update

2011-07-03T09:43:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd let you guys know about my health update. For those who didn't know, I met with this terrible road accident on 12th Nov 2009 while cycling to work. My legs were crushed and I also fractured my left arm. And now, after almost a year and a half, my left arm and right leg have healed. It's just the left leg that's, well, left! But that shouldn't take more than a year to heal. Meanwhile, I can manage to go to work with my walker. I know I still have a long way to go, but as long as I get to animate, I don't mind waiting. Haha!

And of course I have all you wonderful friends to thank, for supporting me through the months! Thanks for keeping my looney tooney spirit alive! Here's to recovery!! :D

Alienate people (AnimationRigs second annual animation contest)

2011-05-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, I had taken part in the AnimationRigs second annual animation contest and here's my entry.

I secured a place as Honorable mention I (I'm guessing it's the fourth rank) out of 45 entries. And it means quite a lot to me since one of the judges was my idol CARLOS BAENA!Yay!!

It was great fun taking part in this contest, especially so because it was my first time making a quadruped act! Haha! Congrats to all who took part! Also thanks to all who voted for me for the Members Choice award, but unfortunately they removed that category due to 'suspicious' voting. And of course kudos to my buddy Sarath Thomas for the incredible lighting! Check out his tutorial for this shot here.

Here's a shot progression of the piece.

Animated in: MAYA 2011

EDIT: Here's a video compilation of the winners.

EDIT 2: The super awesome Mark Harris from Pixar did a super awesome review of my shot. It really opened up my eyes to a lot of mistakes that I've been doing in my animations obliviously! HUGE thanks to AnimSchool and of course Mark Harris for doing this! :)

Alienate People by Dapoon Rai Dewan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Quick sketches

2011-05-25T09:40:00.001-07:00

Hey guys posting a few more quick sketches (old ones) done some two years back in Bangalore. It's an extension of this post actually. I couldn't find this sketchbook for a long time. When I found it today, I thought I should post some sketches from there. Had a lot of fun doing these! :)

Some embarrassing animal tests

2011-05-03T21:20:00.000-07:00

I figured it was high time I did some animal animations. Here are some embarrassing first-time tests. Animals are challenging, but fun nevertheless!! :D

C&Cs welcome!

Animated in: Flipbook 6 and MAYA 2009

Ode to Mam

2011-04-16T06:29:00.001-07:00

R.I.P Mam (1932 - 2011)

It was the deeply saddening news of my granny passing away which woke me up today morning. I was devastated when I heard it, although the news was quite expected, since she had been suffering from throat cancer from a long time, and no amount of medical treatment could prevent her from the inevitable. And we all loved her so much that none of us had the strength to tell her about it. All we could do was helplessly pray that she died a peaceful death, before the cancer pain took its toll, making it extremely unbearable for us to see her in the agony. Our prayers were answered. She left us today morning in her sleep. She was 79.

Regrettably I won't be able to go to her funeral (because I've still not completely recovered from my road accident), so I decided to at least pay her a small tribute by drawing a portrait of her. And as I started drawing, my mind drifted back to all those times that I spent with her.

I realized that I've never been as close to any of my grandparents as I've been to Mam (Nepali for grandmother). I would always love to just sit and chat with her (despite my broken Nepali) on numerous topics: ranging from family to changing times to TV shows to movies (she hated that Kareena Kapoor broke up with Shahid and hooked up with Saif). Her favourite thing to do was to sit on the veranda/balcony where she could watch people passing by. And oh yes, she loved to be photographed! She was always lively and bursting with energy. Even at 79, she would never fail to wake up as early as 4am for her daily morning walk while I would sleep away to glory (or on many an occasion, go to bed). She would even make fun of me saying I lost out to an "oldie". :)

I loved to tease her just to see her annoyed cute little face. She would never nag, or scream or shout. She was always calm and cool and would laugh uncontrollably while watching anything comical on TV or recalling her fun moments back in her day. Although she never read me any bedtime stories when I was a kid, I never complained. She would never preach but would inspire us enough just from the way she carried herself. I guess she believed in practicing more than preaching.

She had indeed lived a greatly fulfilling life. Loving family members, inseparable friends, she even lived to see her great grandchild. And she has left behind enough values and morals for us to follow up on and carry forward her legacy.

I find it hard to believe that she belongs to the other world now. I feel I can just call her up and talk to her. But then, that's not to be. So I console myself with the fact that she got to meet all her loved ones before finally saying a peaceful goodbye in the very place she spent almost her entire life in, Kurseong. There indeed can't be a more satisfying way to depart.

I love you Mam and I miss talking to you. Thank you for igniting our lives with joy and laughter. I learnt so much from you. I pray for your soul to rest in peace and I know you're up there watching over all of us. :')

And like you would always say "Anta ke". :)

Mam at Kaziranga (Assam), December 2007

Support Anna Hazare to fight corruption

2011-04-08T01:07:00.000-07:00

Nothing to do with animation, but a lot to do with my country (and that affects animation too, indirectly or directly). Anna Hazare, a 73-year-old Gandhian, is observing a fast until death in order to pass the Jan Lokpal bill (Citizen's ombudsman Bill) to fight corruption, one of the worst evils of the Indian society. If you're reading this, I request you to support this great figure and sign this petition to force the Govt to take action.

(More on the bill here)

And yes, spread the word! IT'S NOW OR NEVER!

Animals (quick sketches)

2011-03-28T01:35:00.000-07:00

Trying to learn animal sketches (and animations) this year (something I've been procrastinating like crazy).

This is my pet Maggie playing with our maid. One of the toughest challenges is to sketch her when she's awake and playing (she's too restless. In fact check out this video of her when she was a puppy). I could somehow manage to do TWO decent ones when she was tired and sleeping! Haha! (Done in Photoshop CS4)

These are some sketches of some pet fish in my aquarium. Was quite difficult to capture the delicate fins. (Done in good ol' pencil and paper)

I'll keep doing more! :)

My first animation ever! :)

2011-03-27T09:32:00.000-07:00

Hey look what I found! My first EVER animation!! :D

This was done when I was in my first animation institute called ANTS, Bangalore (2005-ish). I remember I was still in my Basic Drawing classes and lightboxes weren't introduced to us yet. I was simply practicing Aladdin's sketch from a 'How to draw Aladdin' book and thought why not animate it! I got onto the lightbox and animated this straight-ahead (pun intended)! I didn't care about the fact that I knew nothing about 2D animation (or for that matter, animation) back then, I just wanted to animate it!

The feeling of flipping my drawings, seeing them move, and eventually seeing the whole animation on the computer is something I'll never forget! It was such great fun! I really miss my lightbox now. :')

My query on subtext acting answered by Brendan Body

2011-03-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

Around a year ago, a very talented animator friend Shiva Kumar Adloori introduced me to a term called 'Subtext' in acting and showed me this brilliant reel by Stefan Schumacher. The reel blew my mind, especially the last shot with the old couple. You notice that the old man's actions have nothing to do with the words he is saying. So there's a subtext to his animation.

I remembered one of Ed Hooks' pointers in his book 'Acting for animators' : "Acting has almost nothing to do with words".

I combined these two and arrived at a wrong conclusion that if I ALWAYS make a character say something else and do something else (even if the action is unmotivated), it automatically means a subtext. It may not!

I read a great post by the amazing Brendan Body on subtext which quickly made it clear I was wrong. So I asked him in the comments section there about my query and he was really kind to promptly reply back with great insights and a humorous clip to illustrate the point. Check out the post. It really put my doubts to rest.

Simply put, subtext acting is the hidden acting underneath the actual acting being portrayed. What you show is not what you feel. Kinda like, you say something, but you mean something else. Doesn't matter if it's through words (the way you say them) or through actions.

A mother folding sheets and casually (repeat: CASUALLY) asking her son about his day at school may have a subtle or no subtext acting at all (although she's doing something unrelated to what she's saying). Because she simply doesn't mean anything else other than really asking him about his day at school. The action of folding sheets is merely a 'secondary action'. That's the difference.

However if she really did want to find something more about him by still asking a straightforward "How was school", then she would ask a little differently. She may even fold the sheets differently. And that would mean a subtext.

On the other hand, a man speaking sarcastically (while still not doing any unrelated action) could have an extreme subtext that what he means is completely different from what he says.

Whether he WANTS the other person to know that he was being sarcastic or not (in other other words, whether he wants the other person to read the subtext or not) is another matter.

As far as Ed Hooks' note is concerned, it can either be in subtext or not. I assume he essentially means you can act and get your thoughts across without saying a word (acting with your eyes etc). Now whether you do that to show a subtext or not is your choice.

And now when I again watch the last shot in Stefan Schumacher's reel, I can now read much more into the character of the old man rather than assuming "Oh Stefan made him do those actions just because it looks interesting and natural". Now I can see WHY he's doing those actions. Because he probably wants to say something that's of utmost importance to him without making it seem too obvious (so he tries to cover it up by doing some other actions). That opens up a possibility of what kind of a character he might be. Maybe he's secretly scared of his wife, maybe he doesn't care about his wife. Now there's a definite narrowing down of what his character might be.

Subtext is very important in creating a believable performance. It makes the audience believe the character is alive.

Thanks Brendan, Ed, Shiva and Stefan! You guys opened my mind! :)

Me, myself and I

2011-02-10T04:09:00.001-08:00

A self caricature attempt. Still trying my hand at painting caricatures. :)

Tribute to the Father of the Nation

2011-01-31T06:33:00.000-08:00

A caricature attempt on Mahatma Gandhi. A little tribute from my side to the Father of the Nation on the day of his assassination (30th January). With all due respect.

Facebook Addicts part 2

2011-01-01T00:03:00.001-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR GUYS!! Here's wishing all you wonderful people all the happiness this year! :D

Well, I thought I'd kick start 2011 with some illustrations I had done on Facebook addicts. This is a part 2 of the series. Here's part 1. Hope you all enjoy it! :D

Facebook addicts by Dapoon Rai Dewan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Plagiarism sucks!!

2010-12-19T09:53:00.000-08:00

I really hate plagiarism, and much to my disappointment, today I found my work being so comfortably uploaded on a website. That sounds flattering, but what pissed me off was that the uploader (some Gaurav) actually claimed it to be HIS! (I've highlighted those parts in the image above with a yellow box). I don't know who that guy is, but this is really disappointing, especially because I had worked really hard on that piece and spent many sleepless nights on it.

I know as of now, I can't really do much about it. I'm just one ME. And anyway this is not some super awesome animation to overreact to. But the point is plagiarism is really a serious problem in our field. Using watermark is a solution, but I think it spoils the beauty of the work. But then I guess that's the only way to protect our work from these plagiarists.

Flying School (Spungella Fall 2010 contest)

2010-12-05T04:33:00.000-08:00

Hey guys here's a small animation clip done for the Spungella 100 frame Fall 2010 contest. Topic given was : FLYING SCHOOL to be animated in exactly 100 frames.

Although I had a week-long deadline for it, I finished 'animating' this in 8 hours straight (8pm to 4:30am) because I had commitments for later. There is definitely a lot I could have added to this, but I got hasty! Please pour in your C&Cs. :)

Well I had a lot of fun animating this in a straight ahead fashion. Congrats to the winner Ted Lister!

Note to self: Never try to animate superfast!

Animated in: Digicel Flipbook 6

Story vs. Storytelling

2010-11-28T03:55:00.000-08:00

Okay so the smartass is back with another superlong smartass post on what his smartass mind thinks.

After getting into animation, I’ve been watching/studying movies (animated or live action) for quite some time and to be frank, I’ve found only a FEW to be actually good. I started thinking why. Quite a lot of the movies that didn’t work for me have actually done really well at the Box office. So what is it that I didn’t find interesting?

I sat and analyzed it, and I almost was on the verge of declaring myself a freak and dialing the nearest Asylum, when I finally saw the light!! It was really the storyTELLING that was the culprit. Ah ah aaaah, please note, I’m not talking about the story or the concept here… but the TELLING part of it.

The more I thought about it, the more it dawned to me. Stories may be great, but if the storyTELLING doesn’t work, it’s as good as a goner! This led me to the conclusion that

“STORY IS KING BUT STORYTELLING IS KING-ER!!” (You can quote me on that... ahem ahem!)

Ask yourselves one simple question. When you were a kid, and your grandparent, mom, dad or whoever used to tell you bedtime stories, what would actually enthrall you? Yes the story had to be interesting. But more than that, it was how it was TOLD that would keep you rooted and glued. The way they would change their tone to express every emotion, describe every situation until you were imagining the EXACT thing they were trying to make you imagine… THAT sold the story. You felt the story because they felt the storytelling!

And this is what has been carried on to the world of film-making. The director tries to convey the SAME feel, only this time instead of actually being there and narrating, he’s doing it through frames (meaning, through staging, colours, lighting, acting, music, all that jazz). (And well, of course there are movies that have a narrator too, like Little Manhattan for instance!). If the frames have normal staging and stuff, then the director is probably telling you THOSE parts of the story in a normal tone. If the frames have tensed staging (and stuff), THOSE parts are where he changes his tone to a dramatic one to express that feeling, much like your elder(s) did while telling you bedtime stories. And if you’ve come back from the movie BLOWN away, then the director has successfully told you his story!

Telling a story is really a feeling. You’re trying to convey a feeling in your heart through the magic of storytelling, be it vocally, or visually. And that feeling can make or break a great story.

Let me give you an example of what I’m trying to say. Let’s say, I have a concept, an idea, and I really wanna tell people about it in a way that they’d never forget…. because the idea means so much to me!

So here’s the idea/concept: “People should be careful when they’re walking alone on lonely streets, lest they get robbed/beaten up by goons”. Man I love my concept! So I now wanna tell a story/ a situation that would enlighten it more. Here goes:

“You're walking from Church, alone, in one of the toughest parts of the suburbs. You're nervous, timid, looking over your shoulder when suddenly you encounter him pouncing from the shadows, the streetlight flashes on something shiny in his hand, no time to think, whoosh whoosh whoosh!” (that “whoosh whoosh whoosh” is the sound he makes with his knife, the shiny thing in his hand… yes he kills you!) [taken from a deleted scene from Liar Liar actually]

So there! You like the story eh? Heck it’s swell! But it’s still in written form. What if I told you the story verbally like THIS?

Like it now? No?? It sucks?? It almost put you to sleep?? DARN!! All the months and years I spent working on my super amazing concept, went down the drain!!! :’((

Okay gimme another chance! Let me tell you the SAME story like THIS.

That better? Woohoo I‘m back on the job!! :D

So you see what I’m trying to say? The first one had everything in a monotone. No tension, no buildup, no drama. It only acted as a sleeping pill. Bedtime story indeed!

The second one immediately got you “INTO” the story, simply because of the way he spoke (and why not, it’s Jim Carrey after all!). You could almost IMAGINE the situation he was creating. And VOILA! He got an audience!

So now, instead of verbal, if a director were to say the SAME story VISUALLY, this is how it would/could look in both cases (try it with sound and without).

Here’s the first one:

Blah!! Ain’t it?

Here’s the second one:

Okay still not the best storyboard you've seen, but it's at least a little more interesting than the first, isn't it?

And if you notice, even without sound, you (hopefully) get the exact same feel I'm trying to convey through frames. There's an amazing video on YouTube that tells exactly this from a different perspective. Check it out!

So that’s my whole point! No matter how hard you work on creating a great concept, a great story… it won’t matter a bit if you ain’t TELLING it right! The characters have to evolve, the plot has to thicken, the situations should rhythmically alter between normal to funny to dramatic to emotional, and yes the Pay Off should be worth the Build Up.

One great tip I read in “The Illusion of Life” is to never take away a moment JUST when the audience starts to enjoy it! And to add to that, I’d like to say never DRAG a moment too. It should be a perfect balance. The audience should neither feel bored watching an overpushed situation because they had already anticipated long back what to expect next, nor should they be like “Woah! I was just starting to love that scene, and its gone!”

Maybe this is why many of the SUPERHIT movies don’t work for me. Let’s compare two such blockbusters “Disney/Pixar’s Finding Nemo” and “Dreamworks Madagascar”. If I write down only the concepts/ideas of both movies, they would be:

MADAGASCAR: A bunch of zooborn animals let loose in a real jungle.

FINDING NEMO: An overprotective dad fish loses his son and goes to find it.

So which sounds more interesting? To me it’s definitely the former. It really opens up so many new possibilities, so many exciting situations, while the other sounds like a lame tale straight out of daily soaps.

But after watching both the movies, I have to admit, I couldn’t help but being moved by Finding Nemo.

The execution was so amazing, the characters were so well etched out, the pacing of the film was so rhythmic, and yes, the storyTELLING was so beautiful, it really held me in awe! At this point I feel forced to mention that when Dory was first introduced, and she said she suffered from short term memory loss, I was like “Oh man! Now she’s gonna annoy me with her ‘forgetful’ behavior by bringing in forced humour.” But no… not even ONCE did I find her annoying. Her memory loss element was so timely and efficiently used in the film that I couldn’t help but laugh my lungs out AND at the same time, care for her with an “Awww”!

Meanwhile although Madagascar wasn’t really that bad, but on the whole it only seemed like a bag of jokes to me. The characters didn’t really connect, the situations seemed forced, all in all, to me, the storytelling fell flat in the face! Only characters I liked in the movie were the penguins and King Julian!

So that made me realize that unless your TELLING is good, your story ain’t going nowhere!

Now you may ask me, “But I’m just a painter, an illustrator, an animator, a modeler, a photographer, how can I be a good storyTELLER? Isn’t that really the storyboard artist’s and the Director’s job??” Not really! EVERYONE can be a good storyteller. It can be through words, paintings, drawings, animations, modeling, sculpting, photography, music, ANYTHING!

If you don’t believe me, check out Pascal Campion’s illustrations, or my good friends Sumeet Surve’s or Roshan’s work. They tell stories in just one frame! The staging, the colours, the energy, the movement, the expressions, all these factors come into telling a story in a drawing/painting. For photography, check out my good friends Varun Thottahil’s or Santhosh Pai’s work. For modeling, check out the awesome Anand PG's work. They tell amazing stories too!

We’re all storytellers. And I strongly believe that if told well, we can make the SIMPLEST of actions look interesting. There can't be a better example of this than Bird Box Studios. Check out their shorts if you haven't already!

To illustrate this point further, check out this small clip from one of my favourite movies ‘Swades’.

The situation is simple: the guy wants the girl to hide the cigarette pack so his mom doesn’t see it (she’s not actually his mom but he considers her to be).

The situation could be dealt with in so many ways. It could’ve finished in half the time it takes here, or even less. But the director chose this. Why? Because it not only gives us an easily connectible situation, but also shows the playful chemistry between the girl and the boy which they share in the whole movie, and tells us so much about their personalities. Here’s how. I’ve tried to break down the scene and give the unspoken communication between the actors some speech of what their thought process could be during this sequence (please ignore the mom’s lines, for all who do not understand the language, she’s simply praising the caravan facilities):

Guy: “Hey! Heeeeey!”
Girl: “Huh?”
Guy: “You see those?”
Girl: “What?”
Guy: “THERE THERE!! DOWN THERE!”
Girl: “Ahaa! Cigarettes!”
Guy: “Please put them away, please!!”
Girl: “How about I simply tell your mom about it?”
Guy:”Oh no!! Not that! C'mon a little help here! Put them away PLEASE???”
Girl:”Sheesh! There you go.”
Guy:”Thanks, oh thank you so much!!”
Girl: “Whatever.”

It tells you the guy is sweet because he obviously 'likes' her (he doesn’t get all pissed off and turn chauvinistic when she doesn’t agree to put them away at first), and he respects his mom to the point of NOT letting her know that he smokes; the girl is playful and modern, with her own set of ideals and is not too impressed by the guy or his oh-so-cool caravan (and also later in the movie you realize she actually doesn’t like smokers). What a way to tell so much through such a simple situation!

Even in animation, we have the power to do the same thing. Check out these VERY simple situations done by my good friends Vinay Prasad, Asif Siddiqui and Harish. K (please note, some are not final yet… as they told me):

Vinay:

Asif:

Harish:

Situations are so simple, yet told so interestingly. A passerby trying to eat free pastries but unfortunately paying a heavy price for it, an amateur golfer trying to play golf, a ballman trying to kick a ball away only to see it returning to him all the time.

So there you go! That was what my post was all about. Always remember if a story is great, it still is only halfway there until storyTELLING pushes it to a whole new level! Heck good storytelling can even make a senseless story work: The SouthPark Movie or Andaaz Apna Apna for instance (well, yes, they worked for me!).

These are simply my (like I mentioned in the beginning) ‘smartass’ thoughts. No way do I wanna say that what I think is the LAW!! I’d actually be obliged if we could have a nice discussion on this in the comments section… throw in your ideas (even if that means rubbishing mine completely), it’ll be great to share your thoughts too! So until next time, this smartass post ends here! :D

Caricatures

2010-11-19T09:47:00.000-08:00

Still new to caricatures, especially when it comes to colouring them. Here are some of my friends most of whom have been a part of my growing up years. :)

The newly weds!

My classmates!

My reel on YouAnimator

2010-11-16T01:52:00.002-08:00

Woohoo! My reel made it to the Highlight of the YouAnimator site! :)

Character animation reel 2010

2010-10-20T11:54:00.000-07:00

Hey guys here's my latest reel. Thanks to the 11 Second Club for the great audio clips. They really helped form a major part of the reel! I wanna do some more tests soon, but for now, this is my reel! :)

Dapoon character animation reel 2010 from dapoon rai on Vimeo.

Shot breakdown:

THE POSE! (11 sec club Sept 2010) 2nd placer!!

2010-10-05T11:35:00.000-07:00

Hey guys a yet YET another 11SC attempt! I think I'm hooked to the site! I really had a great time animating this shot, more so because it was like laughing at myself! :D

Well do check it out and pour in your precious C&Cs!

THE POSE! (11 sec club September 2010) from dapoon rai on Vimeo.

The lighting was done again by the BRILLIANT Santhosh Pai. It really pushed the piece to another level! :)

Here's a shot progression of the piece. And yes I used a pencil and an AC remote as the cigarette and the lighter, because I don't smoke! Haha!!

P.S. Woohoo!! I finished 2nd out of 206 entries! :D

EDIT: Yay! This shot progression made it to the Animation Progression Reels blog too! Thanks Andrei! :)

Animated in: MAYA 2009

Clouds (my first scape "painting")

2010-10-05T01:14:00.000-07:00

My first attempt at doing a scape painting! This was done while flying to Guwahati, Assam when I saw those beautiful clouds outside my window! Clouds really fascinate me. Now if only I could paint right! >.<

And yes I soon ran out of patience and laptop battery! :P

Painted in: Photoshop CS4

Re-doing a shot: getting rid of the mental block

2010-09-30T04:37:00.000-07:00

So how many of you can relate to the poor animator in the pic? I can!

Like every other animator out there, when I was starting out, I used to face this enormous overwhelming challenge of redoing shots. “What the heck! Now I gotta change all my animation that I almost starved myself to create??” That thought would creep me out (it still does)! However with time and practice, when I somehow pulled this fear out of me (at least to quite an extent), I realized that wasn’t so scary after all! "Maybe it was just me and my silly mental block! Doh!" I concluded.

But nope! It’s not just me! A recent interaction with a friend fairly new in this field made me realise that it’s not as easy to remove that ‘mental block’ as I thought. Much of the lot seems so attached to their work and forgiving of their mistakes that any changes suggested could as well mean murder!

Truth is, the real animation world out there isn’t so forgiving. If a shot needs changes, it needs changes. Get that right or get fired!

The first thing you gotta do is lose the love for your shot. It’s okay to appreciate that you have an ability to create something of this caliber, but kindly keep it to that. ANY shot (I repeat ANY shot) has the potential to be better. A very talented friend of mine once said “An animator never really finishes his work, he simply surrenders!” So unless you’re married to your shot, lose the love.

There’s another factor why animators fear incorporating changes: LOW CONFIDENCE. This applies fairly to the newbies. They don’t exactly love their shots, they know there are problems in them, but at the same time they just can’t seem to gather enough confidence to make changes, fearing it might end up looking worse.

In either case, it’s all a matter of thinking. You need to mentally prepare yourself when you work on a shot, that you might be asked to make changes. And when someone does suggest changes, you should tell yourself over and over again “Yeah I need to change that” rather than “Oh man now I gotta change that??” The former thought process creates a certain uneasiness within you and subconsciously you feel restless until you finally incorporate those changes. It also prevents you from being complacent. Okay I agree it’s definitely human to think "Oh man now I gotta change that??". What makes the difference is how fast you switch to "Yeah I need to change that".

You need to make a start someday. This mainly applies to students and people who are learning on their own. It’s better to get used to redoing shots as early as possible when there’s no one looming over your head with a deadline sword. That way at least you’ll get some practice and later on actually perform better in a production when there is someone looming over your head with a deadline sword. Because then you will have gotten used to making changes in your shots rather than freaking out saying “What the heck! Changes?? Nobody taught me that in school!” You become flexible.

Let me give you my own example of how I went about getting rid of that fear.

I am definitely not someone who loves his shots. I was more of the not-confident type. I remember in my animation school (Takshaa), when I was in my first semester (on learning basics), I did two shots as assignments (ball-box, and ballman-ball interaction). I was suggested some major changes to improve them. But I was pensive! “Who’s gonna go through all those graphs again?” Eventually I didn’t make any changes thinking I’ll get used to redoing shots later with time.

I went to the second semester and did some walk/run cycles. Once again changes were suggested. Once again I got pensive, thinking I would incorporate changes in my next assignment, even though all the while knowing that those changes are needed. And sure enough I didn’t make any.

Then I did a jump. Changes suggested again. Me pensive again. Me thinking again “Okay next time for sure”. But this time I had an additional thought “I can’t keep procrastinating like this.” That’s all it took to break the ice. Those 6 words! That thought process created the required uneasiness in me.

So I chose a day and sat down to make changes And yes, it was tough! I hesitated to even touch the controllers. It was a struggle all the way, first to get rid of that mental block, second to actually change the animation. It wasn’t easy also because initially the changed action wasn’t really looking good (animation principle wise), and plus my previous saved version was always there tempting me to give up and be complacent with it!

I still kept going, and finally one fine day it started to look good, or I dare say, even better than the previous version! Below are the videos to show what I mean.

Original version

Changed version (improvised ending)

Okay agreed, the animation isn’t really all that great when I look at it now, but the important thing is, I overcame that fear! It gave me a sense of accomplishment! And that’s when it hit me: changes aren't really that scary! It completely 'changed' my perspective!

And since then, I’ve been on a roll! Removing this fear even made me grow as an animator. I’ve happily welcomed changes in my shots and each time I incorporate them I see that they really push the piece further.

A very prominent example I can give you is when I was blocking out a shot for the 11SC July 2010 contest. Changes were suggested to go for a completely new acting choice and set up, and further below is what it finally looked like.

Original version

Changed version

So yeah it’s really all in the head! You can’t let that simple mental block (which isn’t as scary as you think anyway) get in your way of improvement. Try it once and you'll see for yourselves. Once you get rid of the fear, you’re already halfway there. The other half, where you actually make the changed animation look good or better, is only a matter of time.

Jurassic Spark (11 sec club August 2010)

2010-09-20T23:27:00.000-07:00

Jurassic Spark (11 sec club August 2010) from dapoon rai on Vimeo.

Hey guys a yet another 11SC attempt. I loved the audio clip so I just couldn't resist taking part! :)

Do let me know what you guys think of it. The lighting and texturing are done by my good friend and an INSANELY talented artist Santhosh Pai!

P.S. I finished 27th out of 166 entries!

Animated in: MAYA 2009

Lamers!

2010-08-12T04:38:00.001-07:00

Some lame jokes inspired from Facebook status updates of people!

Abused (11 sec club July 2010)

2010-08-01T08:07:00.000-07:00

abused (11 sec club july 2010) from dapoon rai on Vimeo.

Hey guys another 11 sec club attempt. Not too happy with it, just tried a little hand at doing subtle sincere acting. These guys are a gay couple. Wonder if it came out right! :D

The lights are again done by the brilliant Preksha! However unfortunately I could not submit the rendered file for the competition, I simply couldn't make it on time! So I submitted my playblast there!

I would really appreciate some C&Cs. Thanks!

P.S. I finished 45th out of 233 entries!

Animated in: MAYA 2009

EDIT: Here's a shot progression of the piece.

Rest in peace Michael

2010-06-25T02:53:00.000-07:00

In the memory of Michael Jackson who left us exactly one year ago...

Drawn and painted in Photoshop (pathetic attempt I know... but it's the thought that counts) :P

Cheek-a-boo

2010-06-23T08:01:00.000-07:00

I tried a little 2D animation! Really wanted to get back to 2D to see if I still had it in me! Was fun animating this without giving two hoots about gimbals or graph editor problems! :D

P.S. Don't try this at home :D

Animated in: Animation-ish (Thanks Mitali for telling me about this great software!) :)

cheek-a-boo from dapoon rai on Vimeo.

EDIT: Here's a progression of the shot.

Facebook addicts!

2010-06-09T22:51:00.000-07:00

Hi guys we all know how popular (and addictive) Facebook has become these days! So just tried my own funny take on Facebook addicts!

UPDATE: Here's part 2 of the series!

Facebook addicts by Dapoon Rai Dewan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Tribute to the King of Pop

2010-05-03T19:51:00.000-07:00

A little animated tribute to the King of Pop, one of the greatest performers ever to have "moon"walked this planet. Rest in peace Michael, you will live forever through your groundbreaking music! :)

Thanks Preksha once again for the brilliant lighting!

Animated in: MAYA 7.0

EDIT: CUSTOMIZED RIG UP FOR DOWNLOAD: Hey guys, since I've received many requests to share this customized rig with you all, I'm putting it up for download. Feel free to use it and do some awesome MJ dance moves! :) Also let me know if there are any issues with it. Download here (lights not included).

Quick sketches

2010-02-24T01:56:00.000-08:00

Hey guys posting a few quick sketches done a while back! I used to go to this mall in Bangalore with the incredibly talented Sumeet Surve and would sketch till late night! It was real fun! Got to learn a lot from him, but as you can see, I still got a long way to go! :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

2010-01-10T20:32:00.000-08:00

Hey guys happy new year to you all!! Hope this new year, you all get whatever you dreamed of! Well I know I haven't updated my blog for quite a while, sorry about that! But there's some bad news. I met with this terrible road accident on 12 Nov 2009. I crushed both my legs and fractured my left arm! And I've been on bedrest ever since. However the good news is I'm getting better bit by bit, day by day. My left arm & right leg have almost healed up. The left leg might take this entire year! Don't worry guys, as an animator, I'm keeping my spirits high in this period of low! I'll come outta this and start animating again! Just hang on guys... I'll make it! :)

Bossing around (11 sec club Sept 2009)

2009-09-29T03:15:00.000-07:00

Hey guys here's a little something I tried animating for the 11 sec club Sept 2009 contest. It's in fact the first time I ever took part in that contest! And I took the plunge this month because I LOVE the audio clip!!

Also this is my FIRST ever full-fledged personal work, so I agree to have made quite a lot of mistakes! I guess the real learning curve starts from now!

Do check it out and pour in your C&C.

P.S. The lighting and texturing were done by my good friend Prekshaa, a very talented artist!

P.P.S. I finished 24th out of 141 entries!

Animated in: MAYA 2009

Character animation student demo reel 2009

2009-05-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

Hey guys I'm finally a Takshaa graduate!!! I must say it's been an AWESOME AWESOME experience learning animation from some of the very best in the industry! A big hearty thanks to all those who supported me, especially my parents and my sis, they've always been by my side and have believed in me!

Well here's my animation demo reel that consists of my better student work. While I still have to polish all my work, I sure had a blast working on every piece!! Do leave your comments and critiques!

Thanks!

Music by: M.I.A - Paper planes (DFA remix)

Animated in: MAYA 7.0

dapoon 3D character animation showreel 2009 from dapoon rai on Vimeo.

Reel breakdown:

Storyboard: The mystery

2009-05-20T12:20:00.000-07:00

This was a storyboard I did as an art assignment in Takshaa. I love doing storyboards because it takes me back to those days when I used to do comics for fun! I had a great time designing these characters and creating this whole storyboard process. I also did this to try my hand at drawing layouts, creating interesting compositions, perspective etc. The story is something I came up with when I was in the Ninth standard, so it's pretty amateurish. And in fact towards the end I had to suddenly change it due to lack of time! :D

Tapori (Hindi dialogue)

2009-05-20T09:26:00.000-07:00

I just FREAKED out on this one!! Right from conceptualization to the end, I loved working on this piece! It's the first ever time I animated a Hindi dialogue. I also wanted to do some subtle acting this time., so it was an enormous challenge working on it! Indian acting is definitely something we should all try. It's a whole new world of acting choices!!! I really learnt a lot from this! Do check it out and pour in your C&C.

This is also officially my last assignment in Takshaa! All I'm waiting for now is the ANIMATION JURY! Fingers crossed!

P.S. For those who don't understand the language, here's the translation.

The first guy,"You know that Meena from Cheekuwadi?? The other evening, she was passing by Nautan lane. I asked her right then and there, you wanna marry me??"

The second guy,"What happened next??"

The first guy,"What could happen?? She SLAPPED me with her sandal!!"

They both start laughing!

THRILLER!!

2009-04-11T13:36:00.000-07:00

Woot! This assignment was AWESOME!! My first official lipsync and I loved the experience! Gotta try some more soon!! Not very satisfied with Blake's animation just yet though! Do check it out and pour in your C&C.

Pantomime + Gearchange

2009-03-15T19:10:00.000-07:00

THIRD SEMESTER!! And it's already rocking! Just done with my first assignment of pantomime and gearchange. I chose a Bangalore traffic policeman. He seems to be the perfect gearchange material, always losing his temper with the Bangalore traffic going haywire in the blink of an eye! Haha! :D

Well I had quite a great time controlling the traffic policeman for once in my life! :D However I still have to tweak him here and there.

Do check it out and give in your valuable C&C.

BASKETBALL!!

2009-01-29T06:56:00.000-08:00

Wowowowow!! I loved this exercise!! Reason one: I don't really play basketball myself (in fact I hardly play any outdoor games or sports). So it was quite a challenge to get into the character of a basketball player and animate this shot! Reason two: I discovered how cool basketball actually is!! Seriously! I'm now a fan! Michael Jordan is a legend!! :D

Well so here's my final assignment for the second semester: SPORTS! And this is probably one of those few exercises where I've actually stuck to the required time limit! Haha! Do give in your C&C.

Third semester HERE I COME!! :D

YO!!

2008-12-24T07:24:00.000-08:00

One really weird self portrait!! Haha! I was drawing my own reflection on a convex mirror! More of a caricature eh??

My first lipsync!!

2008-12-16T15:08:00.000-08:00

Well got some free time today so thought of doing a lipsync! We aren't taught lipsync as yet (will be done next sem) but I thought I'd try my hand at it anyway! So I recorded my own voice and animated Hogan to it! Although it's a miniature monologue, but still it was AWESOME animating it!! I feel so much refreshed after doing this!! I know there are some mistakes, but I just wanted to try it out and get the feel of it! I was ECSTATIC to see Hogan finally talking!! Check it out!

Jump and weight lift

2008-12-07T03:39:00.000-08:00

Hey guys this is a jump assignment given to us. It shouldn't have been more than 10 secs long, but then I took the liberty of stretching it to 30 secs!! I almost killed myself doing this, because I had to finish this in 2 weeks!! Well although I'm not 100% satisfied with all of it, I still very much enjoyed this exercise! Do check it out and pour in your C&C!

And here's my weight lift exercise. It's probably my weakest work, because of the overwhelming experience of having to get used to constraint parents and stuff!! Was quite an ordeal! :(

Weight lift
Uploaded by dapshere. - Click for more funny videos.

Body mechanics (basics)

2008-12-07T02:55:00.000-08:00

Hey guys! I'm in my second semester of animation and it's SUPERCOOL!! Getting to learn about body mechanics! It's so interesting!! Well these are some of the basic exercises we got to do, and it was so cool working on them! This rig ROCKS! Do give in your C&C!

Normal walk cycle

Normal run cycle

Character walk cycle

Life on the lighter side (caricature of friends)

2008-11-12T08:48:00.000-08:00

Here's something I've never tried before! I'm pretty new to drawing caricatures, which is why it was so much fun creating them!

Well these are some of my Looney Tooney friends because of whom life is so colourful!!

^ Sabhya and Suraj

^ Vinitha, Sabhya, Suraj and someone!

^ Asif

^ Raktim

^ Suraj and some poor innocent movie buff

^ Preskha, Suraj and Dapoon

^ Varsha, Dapoon and Hrishi

^ Oindrila

^ Noopur

^ Prahalad and Vinodh

^ Abha and Viveik Oberoi

^ Mykel

^ Harish and Master Shifu

^ Mitali and Lakshmi (and Catwoman)

^ Vinay

^ Surabhi

Portraits

2008-11-11T08:36:00.000-08:00

A few of my portrait sketches.

Some of my doodles

2008-11-08T05:14:00.001-08:00

These are some of my doodles. I just love sketching! Kinda gives me a high!! :D

Doggone bones!

2008-09-17T18:09:00.000-07:00

Hey guys I'm done with my first sem!! It was exhilarating! Animation is the shit! Well here's my ballman and ball interaction. I had a BLAST animating them, esp the ballman! He's awesome! Do check it out. Critics and comments awaiting! Second sem here I come!!

doggone bones from dapoon rai on Vimeo.

My alter ego!

2008-08-15T03:10:00.000-07:00

Well this was just for laughs! Sometimes I let my imagination run wild (pun intended)!! So this is my alter ego (inspired from Glenn Keane's version of Tarzan!). Haha!

On my nerves!

2008-07-24T02:37:00.001-07:00

My first animation assignment in Takshaa (in the specialisation field) - ball and box interaction. It was seriously awesome animating them both. Animation rocks and rolls!!

on my nerves from dapoon rai on Vimeo.

Photography

2008-05-28T03:33:00.000-07:00

Hey guys this is a collection of some of my photographs. Just an experimentation. For more of my photographs, visit my Flickr page.

My characters so far

2008-05-22T21:04:00.000-07:00

Hey guys this is a collection of the characters I've created so far! Sloppy when it comes to drawing females eh? Workin' on them!

Fanatic

2008-05-22T04:18:00.000-07:00

Hey guys this is my second 3D project named 'Fanatic'. Also done in Takshaa, it was a joint venture by me and two other awesomely talented guys : Prahalad and Pratyush! It was done for our CG advanced course. I was responsible for the character design, storyboard, modeling of the kid, designing the posters and the comic, sound editing and animation.

EDIT: Woohoo!! Aniboom uploaded this film on their YouTube channel and it's got more than 85,000 views!! Here's the link! Thanks Aniboom!

Fanatic concept art (kinda)

2008-05-22T03:21:00.000-07:00

A small little concept art (kinda) for my clip 'Fanatic'. It's hand-drawn and painted in Photoshop. Might add that this is my first painting in Photoshop!!

My dad's new spaceship

2008-05-21T08:08:00.000-07:00

This is my first ever 3D clip done for intro to CG project in Takshaa, Bangalore. I've used Toon shaders because my deadline was kinda creeping up on me and UV unwrapping would have taken up half of my lifetime!!

Here are some sketches of the character:

My first work to appear on a banner!!

2008-05-18T01:02:00.000-07:00

Yay! My first work to appear on a banner!! :D

I was working on this with two of my very talented friends Sabhya and Vinitha for a playschool in Bangalore. Was fun designing the characters, and now, after seeing them on the banner, I find an even greater joy!! :D

Timber

2008-05-17T09:36:00.000-07:00

Hey guys this is my first ever animated short film done in 2D! Also it's the longest clip I've worked on so far! It was a group project done for my institute ANTS, Bangalore. I was responsible for the storyboard, the character design, sound editing and the woodcutter's animation. All in all, I had an amazing time during this project!

Timber characters

2008-02-29T09:43:00.000-08:00

These are my characters that I created for my first ever short film Timber

My 2D (student) reel

2008-02-28T11:37:00.000-08:00

FIRST POST!! :D

Hi guys this is a collection of my 2D animation work done in ANTS, Bangalore. I had a BLAST with 2D. Though I'm learning 3D now, I still miss my pencil and my lightbox!

P.S. I agree this reel contains copied works, but they were all done from the clear perspective of learning. I do not intend to show this reel in studios.