Sneaky peak!

Wait a minute.. Is that Gurkin? In a movie theatre? How in the name of Pickles did he get there?
Just a few more weeks, and you'll find out. ^_^.

To develop a character by concepting.

I am the one responsible for bringing the character of Gurkin to life with a story. One of our teachers adviced us to write a character bible. This document contains all kinds of information about Gurkin. If he would drive a car, what kind of car would it be? What is his first memory? What is his biggest fear and what is his most valuable possession? Some of these questions might seem irrelevent to the story. But the more and (seemingly irrelevant) questions you can answer about a character, the more you will be able to relate to him. This will make it easier to animate him more believably and really bring him to life.

I enjoyed getting immersed in an non-existing world and write a story about a non-existing character. Here's a glimpse of the history of our green little bugger named Gurkin Pickles. This bit is a part of the character bible and not a part of the actual animation.

"Gurkin is a small green monster with a gherkin-ish physique. He's friendly and also a bit clumsy. Gurkin is the only one of his kind in the forest he lives in and as far as he knows, he has always been alone.

His mom is the queen of a green planet called Pickles. His dad the royal castle's jester. This could turn out to be one of the biggest scandals in history. No soul on the planet of Pickles was to know about Gurkin's existence for it might have resulted in a devastating war. Even though it hurt both Gurkin's mom and dad more than they could bear, they decided to send off newborn baby Gurkin to poor but friendly relatives of the jester on the planet of Troolaloo. Mother rocked Gurkin to sleep, placed him in a space capsule and launched him into the treacherous night sky. Well on his way, the capsule was intercepted by a comet taking sleeping baby Gurkin to the horrible and dangerous planet of Atrocitos.."

My website

For now you will find most of my stuff on this blog. But in the near future I will use my website for my portfolio as well.
I'm definitely not a html/css-genius and I'm not wishing to ever become one. Therefore my aim was to design and develop a website that suits me, that works, and makes people smile. I hope I succeeded in doing so! :)

Besides animation and many, many, many more things I also have a thing for photography. For a glimpse of my photos, take a look at my website. I want to take a look!

Gurkin

I am currently working on a 3D animation project which is quite challenging for me since I am new to all 3D software. NHL Leeuwarden assigned us with the task to make a promotional product for Communication & Multimedia Design and for its Minor 3D in particular. Our team - consisting of 7 students - is creating an animated short. From concept to production.

During this project I will work as Art director, Concept artist and Animator.

Thus far we have our story, we have a character and we have an environment. The exciting challenge lying ahead of us now is bringing it all to life with animation, texturing, shading, lighting and audio.

Plurk

My first hands-on experience with animation was using the stop motion technique. It's a quick way of experimenting with animation without having to use any advanced software programs.

It was a lot of fun but it also made me realize that in order to have a character moving smoothly, it takes a lot of hours of work. The amount of smoothness needed is also depending on the project you're working on. Sometimes a more rigid way of motion is required.

For my first experiment I came up with a character named Plurk. A character living in a kitchen cupboard and secretly wishing for a new dress. The veggies knew about this wish and decided to help her. The animation is far from perfect, considering the lack of lighting, smooth motion and timing but helped me gain valuable insights on the key elements of a good animation.

Plurk en de Soepjurk from Yessica Claire on Vimeo.

Breaking patterns

The assignment: Break your daily patterns and see what happens.
God, I love assignments like that. ^^

De Alchemist

[DUTCH]
“De jongen begreep niet veel van wat de oude man allemaal zei, maar hij wilde weten wat ‘geheimzinnige krachten’ waren. (..) ‘Dat zijn de krachten die ogenschijnlijk niet deugen, maar die je in feite leren hoe je je eigen legende waar moet maken. Ze zijn bezig je geest en je wil voor te bereiden, want er bestaat een grote waarheid op deze planeet: wie je ook bent of wat je ook doet, als je echt iets wilt, komt dat doordat die wens ontstaan is in de ziel van het heelal. Dat is jouw missie hier op aarde.’ (..) De ziel van de wereld wordt gevoed door het geluk der mensen. Of door verdriet, afgunst, jaloezie. Je eigen legende waarmaken is de enige verplichting van de mens. Alles is één. En als je iets wilt, spant het hele universum samen om ervoor te zorgen dat je je droom verwezenlijkt.”
-Paulo Coelho, De Alchemist