It's summertime!

Hello all,
Summer is underway and I hope to remain busy polishing my skills in animation and preparing for a restless year ahead as I attempt to score an internship next summer (following my junior year at SCAD). First up: SCAD's 5 second club, a shameless spin-off of the famous 11secondclub. This is a competition in which we are asked to animate to a 5 second sound byte ripped from movies, television or the vast depths of the Internet. Winner receives a cash prize of $50, but more importantly, the priceless exposure to and critique of animators at Pixar and Blue Sky Studios. The current competition is set to this clip.

I am looking forward to working with it over the next 30 days (this quarter's competition has a 6/30 deadline). I will post my progress on this blog at each stage (animatic, blocking, etc.), so wish me luck.

Also, starting next week I will begin a weekly animation test, where I will work a piece of animation from start to finish in 7 days. At first I will keep the tests limited to body mechanics, and within a 2-5 second time-frame. My goal will be to work these clips up to the best of my ability in 7 days time as well as experiment with various work-flows in cg animation. It is my hope that this will drastically improve my animation, understanding of body mechanics, as well as comfort in cg animation. I will post more details in a few days as I begin my first in the series.

Cheers,
-Scott

Layout Final

Just completed another quarter at SCAD (off to recover lost sleep and tan away the pale luminosity my skin absorbed from computer labs and LED screens). Desiring to keep my drawing skills up to par, a difficult task for the cg animator, I signed up for a character design and layout for animation class. My final project, a fully rendered (in Col-Erase blue) layout package, was just returned to me. I am surprisingly happy with how it turned out, as it was my first attempt at a layout and render (the branch and leaves are actually meant to be an Overlay layer, as far as the layout package and x-sheet goes. I simply composited it with the background for the sake of this post).

Overhead Map:


Line art:


Render:


Render with Character Placement Overlay:


That's all for now, I'm headed back to North Carolina for the summer. I hope to keep this blog a little more up to date on my current projects and adventures, completed or in progress.

Cheers,
-Scott

Obligatory Introductory First Post

Hello World!

My name is Scott Kennell, and I am a sophomore animation student at Savannah College of Art and Design. Possessing both a desire to break out into the industry and a passion for this wonderful craft I have decided to establish an online presence beyond the realm of "social networking sites."

Thus, without further ado, I bring you: "Scott Kennell Animation- the projects and musings of a student of animation... the blog!" With this I establish the basic requirements to enter the blogging world as I understand them (passionate author feeling the itch for an online voice, sarcastic, informal delivery teetering on the edge of wit, unnecessarily-wordy-yet-unoriginal-title... which will be shortened to fit within the confines of Blogspot's character limits, etc.)

Formalities aside, I hope to use this blog as a form of networking, as well as outlet for me to banter on the various events in animation today. I will feature my various works-in-progress (animation, sketchbooks, character designs, etc.) and keep the blog updated on a more frequent basis than my website as I tirelessly work to find a job as a character animator in the coming years. I will also post various shorts, trailers, articles, etc that I find of relevance regarding my favorite animators, or the field of animation in general.

All in all, I hope that you enjoy reading my blog, and will freely provide commentary or critique of me or my work as I begin my journey!

cheers,
-Scott