Hello guys and gals,
February's winner was created by Turkish animator, Ugur Yetiskin. I was introduced to Ugur's work a few years ago, upon the release of his facial tutorials (Animation Scout). I was pleased to see his name pop up as the winner, both for him as an artist and for myself for being able to ask for this opportunity to talk about his work.
Here goes!
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Artist portfolio
Ecritique
Winning Entry
Your winning entry poses the hypothetical question of how Walt
Disney would evaluate the positions of both 2D and 3D animation in
today's world. Please share your thoughts on this?
All of
us animators should be grateful to Walt Disney for where the animation
quality is today. They (The Nine Old Men) discovered the main rules of
animation and they did wonderful jobs that we still examine their
timings, squash & stretch, etc. to be better at what we do. I
believe that they are the cornerstones of modern animation. So much that l
have one of Walt Disney’s quotes tattooed on my arm.
All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them!
Three of Disney's early cast of characters are Mickey, Donald and Goofy. Which is your favourite?
I
do really like the character Goofy. He was actually characterized in a
clumsy and silly way, though this expo isn’t always distinctive with
him. Goofy has shown as intuitive yet clever in his own unique and
eccentric way. I believe multidimensional is what makes a good
character, and we must admit he is pretty funny.
Which other animated characters are you most fond?
TMNT
is one of my favourites; especially the last movie was very well
animated. Furthermore, I still love their parkour movements, heroic
attitudes and differences amongst each other.
Have you personally studied traditional animation
I
honestly didn’t but yet l researched some classics frame by frame back
at my early years on the field. And l sometimes animate 2D blocking
poses for my shot planning with FlipBook program on PC.
Tell us more about your background and art education
Well,
my journey began with my good old Commodore 64 when l was fourteen
years old. My bro loved the games but l was way more curious on how
those intros and 3D animations were developed than the game itself.
During these years l started to learn 3ds Max with programs help files.
During those years there was no tutorials, books or even proper Internet
connection – we were connected with 56K! I was graduated from
university as a Computer Teacher but l managed to find a job as a
graphic designer while I was still struggling with the 3D programs. In a
few years l mastered the tools and combined my experiences well enough
to land a job offer for the Motion Graphics Designer position. Through
all that time I did TV commercials, on-air brandings, promos, 3D models
and designs to many brands.
I decided to focus on
character animation in ’07. I graduated from Animation Mentor and worked
on projects as character animator and in a few years l started to lead
projects. I’m keep working on my animation projects as freelance jobs
nowadays.
As well as producing beautiful animation, you
possess skills in lighting, modelling and rigging. With each demanding
time to learn, how do you manage your development of each discipline?
Through
my daily routine l work as a 3D generalist to keep myself updated with
new programs, plug-ins, workflows, disciplines and furthermore. I surf
through inspirational websites to feed my visual intelligence every day.
(That includes; 3D modelling, motion graphics, calligraphy, character
design, product design and rendering.) When l bump into a challenging
projects that l like, l usually try to figure out how l can produce it
by myself. I honestly believe that’s the most important part of the
learning process.
Your series of rigs are
available to the community and utilised by schools, including CGTarian.
Please can you talk about upon your stance in exchanging animation
information and resources.
Unfortunately in Turkey, some
of the leads in the field keep their experiences to themselves. For that
reason I have learned most of the tools all by myself. This led me to
experience that keeping knowledge is not the ethical thing to do.
I
believe that the real wisdom comes with sharing. I also have another
tattoo emphasize that belief ;) I never hide any information or
knowledge among my community and co-workers. At the end of the day, it’s
all about creativity.
Your series of tutorials,
Animation Scout, provide advice and details regarding facial animation.
In what order do you approach the face?
For facial
animations I use layered animation, which generally refers to the idea
of blocking in one part or section of the face at a time. First of all
you must examine how the facial muscles work in real life via reference
videos for your scene. Layered approach requires careful planning,
reference, observation and a fair amount of adjusting different layers
to work properly with each other. To begin with, you can find a facial
landing pose to work on. (Not rigs, a characteristic default pose.) Then
you can layer the expressions, lip-sync, eyedarts and eyebrow
movements. Those steps are crucial; you may use asymmetry and arcs for
mouth or eyelid shapes. I strongly suggest y’all to watch Jason Ryan’s video on the matter.
Link to Animation Scout is found here: https://vimeo.com/channels/animationscout
Please tell us about your animation workflow.
I
use pose-to-pose animation workflow. They’re more example videos and
articles on this than any other alternative. At this point, l just don’t
want to bore the readers with the subjects. That’s why l want to
suggest Mike Walling’s workflow and Amrit Derhgawen’s article because l
pretty much use the same techniques.
Which rig did you use? Can you please talk a bit about its modification into Disney?
I use CGTarian’s Ray (http://www.cgtarian.com/ray) rig because its
body proportions are very suitable for Walter Elias "Walt" Disney. Then I
researched Walt Disney’s pictures on Google and videos on YouTube. I
decide he generally wore shirt, sweater and tie. His characteristics are
his moustache and hairs. Then I adapted these modifications to the rig
on Maya. I highly recommend this awesome rig to all animators. Thanks to
CGTarian for great support.
Walt's turn to the desk
is quite large in comparison to the rest of the movements. In your
eCritique, the mentor suggests toning this down. Please can you share
your thoughts on this?
I really tried that at my planning
stage with reference video. But I think without a momentum/anticipation
there is no possibility to turn and push the chair with legs. I still
can try that on my chair while writing these sentences but I can’t do
that with little movements. But other critiques have awesome tips and my
forgotten points. Thanks to Animation Mentor to provide e-critiques.
The audio and performance is quite subdued. What advice would producing an animation of this tone?
First I decide where could be the contrast body movements/poses, head accents and expression changes. In that sound I decided to place left hand down before he stared to talk about spheres. I achieved to do that with both movement and visual contrast by raising his hand front of the window to achieve clear silhouette. I wanted to lead audiences eyes with that and making a contrast! But
up to that time character movements were still subtle for me and I decide a make big contrast while turning his body and leading audience eye to the classical drawing at the animators desk. With that movement I tried to make big figure 8 movement with characters nose tip. The timing & spacing was too important for me. I tried to break the subdued audio with contrast poses and visual style. I decided all of these at planning phase. I also designed window position, chair height, and desk position for storytelling and staging.
I'll leave you guys by show casing his beautiful showreel. Thank you Ugur for your time and I hope you guys enjoyed!