Summer Project Sprint 6: Polish and Final Render

 We've finally reached the last sprint! This sprint was mostly polish and working with fellow animator Nathaniel Litvintchouk so that our scenes flow seamlessly. I was mostly focused on little details such as the gun belt and the antenna. The end result is pretty cool, and couldn't have been done without my awesome team.

Maya Playblast

Final Render

Summer Project 2025 Sprint 5: Polish and Re-dos

 

Vee here, back at it again with my summer project for F.I.E.A at UCF. There was mostly progress with this sprint along with some setbacks. Shot 2 and 3 are mostly complete, aside from some polish and a few extra breakdowns. Shot 4 and 5 will continue to be  revised with fellow animator Nathaniel Litvintchouk so that our shots flow together seamlessly. 

Maya Playblast

Unreal Render

Summer Project 2025 Sprint 4: Spline

The majority of this sprint was continuing to flesh out the animation for our summer project. As we continue to move forward, the animation will become smoother and more defined. A fun tidbit; I had to cheat the camera for shot 4, so JinRoh arms are stretched really far in that scene.

Here's a playblast from Maya

Shot 4 as seen by the camera

Original shot

Summer Project 2025 Sprint 3 Delivery: Blockout w/ some extremes

This sprint went by much smoother as we were able to establish a pipeline from Maya to Engine.  I was able to get most of my blockout done, along with some extremes and spline.

Summer Project 2025 Sprint 2: Blockout

 This sprint was quite challenging as I'm still kinda iffy on the Maya to Unreal pipeline. 

While I did get minimal animation, many of the timing and camera angles in the sequencer level didn't match up when I exported and brought my work into engine. I would like to have my extremes in by next sprint. I also cleaned up my storyboards. 

By next sprint, I would like to have my reel completely polished. 

Summer Project 2025 Sprint 1 Delivery: Storyboards

 For our summer semester at FIEA, we were grouped off into separate teams to create a collaborative project; and on my team we're making a cinematic featuring Jin-Roh, based on the anime of the same name

I was tasked with creating storyboards which went through a couple of revisions. 

When we were conceptualizing our cinematic, we first had an idea that our soldier would set off a trip-wire which caused an explosion. Afterwards, he would rise from the dust and start blasting with his MG-42 (It's an MG-34 in the storyboard, but you get the idea). 

However, a couple of scenes had to be revised last minute, and the explosion and trip-wire scene was scrapped; replaced with establishing shots of the environment and the character 

About Me

 

Artist Statement

I’ve always known I’ve wanted to do something with my art, but I’ve been having a hard time finding just what to do. I’ve always loved drawing and storytelling, which is why I gravitated towards animation. Over the years I tried to hone in my skill on my own time but that proved to be difficult as I was still trying to figure out what to do now that I had finished undergrad. Should I pursue teaching art? And if I did, would I still be able to make the art that’s fulfilling to me. Should I pursue my dream as an animator? The industry is in an odd state right now where people with years of experience are struggling to find work.

I knew what I didn’t want, and that was to stay in retail for as almost a decade. I wanted an opportunity to share stories that I felt weren’t being told, so I took a chance and decided to go to grad school. I went to the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy, also known as FIEA, and the experience so far has helped me get my head on straight. Not only am I learning more than I did in undergrad, but I’m also making more connections and finally coming into my own as an artist.

As far as influences and style goes, I was always a huge fan of fun and bold style of western cartoons (PPG, Invader Zim) but I’m also drawn to the whimsical and alluring world of anime (whatever toonami was playing in the early 2000s). One of my major inspirations; Junko Mizuno; is a master at combining both of these influences and I hope to have a style as recognizable as hers someday.  

Common Art Lighting workshop: Week 4

 

Common Art: Lighting workshop 3

 

Common Art: Lighting Workshop week 2

 

Common Art: Lighting Workshop

 First week of the lighting workshop, with 3 point lighting 

VR Project: Part 5 (Final)

This is our final stretch for the VR project. I had to redo the run-cycle multiple times and I had to do blend states for the animation. I didn't have time to do a full blend-state 'tree' as I was pressed for time but I made three animation states for the creature (Sluggo) when he's struck. The running animation was tricky as the timing seemed off by a couple of seconds when imported into engine. 

The run animation in engine

Common Art VR Project: Part 4

 This week I'll be away, so I had to get my stuff done early. I worked on a new swiping animation that works for our creature as he attempts to claw in after the player. Since we were crunching for time we didn't have time to make a proper rig, so everything had to be animated on joints. I also slightly updated the idle animation for our monster to make some of the animation loops a little more seamless 

Common Art VR Project: Pt 3

We had a lot of work this week, I was tasked with animating the hands and the character we encounter in the level. All of the animation was done on keys in Maya. For the 5 regular poses I only had to create minimal movement, but for the 6th "thematic" pose I keyed an animation of the protagonist observing his hands. The animation for the creature was done on joints rather than a traditional rig. The creature will try to attack the player outside the window, and the player must defend themselves with various objects available. The creature also recoils when it is attacked by the player (animated by me).

 

 

Demo Reel 2024

 This was the demo reel presented for my 2024 midterm for my first semester at FIEA. Despite only being a couple of months, it's been a long journey coming from traditional hand drawn animation to CG, but I think I am getting the hang of it. Here's a reel of some of my best work so far.

Common Art VR Project: Part 2

This week I began to animate the hands for our VR project and collaborated with another artist for concepts for the observer camera. For the animation this week my only concern was keys and posing. Animating an idle pose was tricky as trying to make nothing look interesting is always a challenge. There were also some technical issues, as some of the animations seemed to import at a different angle and would clip at certain times. For the OC (Observer Camera) concept art we decided to create a monster called a Shoggoth, which is basically just a floating eye, which I'd made multiple sketches of.

The Idle pose clipping through the ground

Shoggoth skecthes

 

Common Art VR Project: Pt 1

 This week we began working in VR to put together out projects. At first I made a simple pair of hands somewhat based on the hands I made for week 01, however these wound up not being used and we went with a proxy that was a little more fleshed out. With the new, re-topo proxy I moved the hands into their necessary poses for the VR hand controllers. These hands are meant to represent our protagonist, Robert Olmstead, who is slowly turning into a fish monster

 

For our thematic pose, we had the main character turn and observe his grotesque, webbed hands. 

Common Art Week 07; Stickers!