My Job

I love my job. It is sometimes stressful, and a lot of times it leaves me with little time to do other things, but I am so happy I get to do things like this for a living:

Photo by Kerry Dyer.

Handle Like Eggs

This was a film I directed in the beginning of this year. Most of the crew from Playing Ghost reunited for this little film, and it was a pleasure to work with them again finally. Though the time we had was extremely short (6 weeks start to finish), I had a lot of fun making it. I hope you enjoy it!

PLAYING GHOST ONLINE IN FULL

We couldn't hold it back any longer. FINALLY Playing Ghost, my graduation film at the NFTS '11 is now online to enjoy in full:



More info: http://www.biancaansems.com/animation/playing-ghost/

Storyboard Template

I had to make a storyboard for a project that I am currently doing. I tried to search the internet for a good template that would have everything I need in it, but I couldn't find one. In this particular case I needed a vertical storyboard format rather than the usual horizontal one. 

But after a while of searching, I figured it was just quicker if I made it myself...

It works well and I thought I'd share it with you too. In case it is the kind you are looking for too!

The little bar below the main frame is for dialogue or FX sounds obviously. The frame's ratio is 16:9.

I actually also have another slightly adjusted template that allows me to list the characters and props in case of stopmotion films. If you guys are interested I can share that one too.

Print Give-away!

I'm doing a print give-away on twitter, so if you find yourself on twitter, check it out!

https://twitter.com/BiancaAnsems

RIP Sir Patrick Moore

I just did this speed painting in honour of Sir Patrick Moore (2 hours). He is not known in the Netherlands but the moment I moved to the UK, I became an avid watcher of The Sky at Night. He is a true legend. RIP.

Background!

Yesterday we hit a milestone with our little Studio Riki short. I created a concept for the background that seemed to put down what we wanted. Then I stuck an animated walkcycle that J.K.Riki did and suddenly you get a sneak peak of what the final result would look like. It feels like a weight lifted of your shoulders. And it makes you ready for the long stretch of animation, cleanup and backgrounds ahead.

For now though, we settle into the weekend with this nice thought :)

Tree studies

Wow, look at that. One moment no posts for months, next moment a few in one week! This is post no. 201 too. Which is pretty cool.

So thought I'd just share some more concept art of Studio Riki's upcoming short. I think you can sense it might be set in a leafy environment! :)

Meanwhile my new website has been online since the beginning of this month. Check it out here:

www.biancaansems.com

Swkigly's Advent Calendar

Today I am featured in the Skwigly Advent Calendar. I contributed a painting of a Santa of all cultures.

http://www.skwigly.co.uk/advent-calendar/day-5-bianca-ansems/ 

When I was asked to contribute I asked for today's date as it's the names day of Sinterklaas, the original Santa Claus. In the netherlands we still celebrate it, and there is no mention of Santa or christmas trees until after the 5th of December.

However for this painting I wanted to create a Santa that is a bit of a mix of everything: father winter, father christmas, russian Santa, Dutch Santa, American Santa, forest spirit. So yes, that's why he does have antlers.

If you are interested I kept a log of the work in progress, so here it is:

I used a lot of reference for this picture, including every interesting santa I could find, oil paintings, and of course pictures of old men's faces.

I started of with putting the rough composition down and then started working on his face.

Slowly his face is taking shape. I liked the idea of santa having green eyes, but in the end had to make them brown as they disappeared when you zoomed out.

 

Here you can see the rough colours and composition. I always intended him to have reindeers around him, but ran out of time eventually.

I started dropping in details. The antlers seemed to look great on him! I wanted him to be bigger than the reindeer, as father winter is a big man.

He would in theory burn his hands on the lantern, but I wanted him to gently hold it with an open hand instead of clenched fist. I think it shows he is in control and calm.

Continued detailing the face, and adding the fur to his hood.

Resized the reindeers, and of course they had to have antlers too. One was going to have a suspiciously red nose. I also changed the colour of the background from sickly green to blueish. I remember one time a painter telling me "never paint with green!!". It has since then become my goal to try and paint with green. But every time I buckle to blue.

I decided to give his staff the curl of the staff of Sinterklaas as another reference. I started detailing the hands and the lantern and as I was running out I cheated the fur on the staff-holding arm by copy-pasting the other fur and repainting it a bit. Never underestimate the power of copy-paste!

Realising I had to let go of the reindeer which upset me a lot. I will still paint you in soon, my deers (see what I did there?).

Finally I adjusted the colours a bit afterwards. Here it's a bit extreme, but you get the jist. Just simply colour balance and levels did the trick.

And then eventually we end up with the image on the top!

Here is one final detail:

Tree in the Park

Our short for Studio Riki is coming along nicely. It is great to work so extensively on a 2D short. I have been wanting to do this for ages and it's AMAZING to have the opportunity to do it as a job. How lucky I am!

Soon a few other new things are coming this way. One of which is my new website! Made possible thanks to the wonderful Aaron Wood of Slurpy Studios. It's airing wednesday 5th of December :)