the usual catheads

Bobi and the Lollipop

dannykneip — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:22:33 +0000

It all started when I worked in a big chain video rental store (when all we rented were VHS movies – I can laugh about that now because they paid me to rent those things to people, and dear readers, YOU paid money to rent them so stop laughing!). Anyway, one night, there appeared in the lost and found, a child’s stuffed rabbit. Short, blue, wearing a dress. The rest is history.

I refuse to admit that I took the animal home, named it Bobi and if you are not creeped out yet by my denial, started crafting small stories about him.

Bobi and the Lollipop is my first, complete project in a long ass time and I’m real happy with it!

Aside from the minor technical issues (a stray light here and there turning on and off, upside down clouds, balls not bouncing properly ), the whole thing came together very nicely and I am extremely pleased.

I composed the music about three years ago and have always been looking for some visuals to accompany it. The majority of the music cues occur by complete accident, though you couldn’t tell from the final project.

Aside from gaining more experience with Blender 3D software, which is FREE, and I am a big fan of free, this cartoon took me through many adventures and late nights.

Dear friends, I hope you enjoy my cartoon as much as I enjoyed making it.

Cheers

bobi.. in progress

dannykneip — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 07:13:47 +0000

I never thought this would be easy. Or fun. But I definitely wanted to complete an animated sequence longer than 20 seconds. “Bobi and the Lollipop” is a wee bit over 2 minutes. Rendering frames is taking, currently, about 30 seconds each!

I am hoping my computer is computer enough to get through the rendering of 4000 frames without exploding, as I was man enough to create them without crying, for heaven sakes! Again, I never cried once during these 5 months.

“Bobi and the Lollipop” marks Bobi’s second 3D animated adventure (the first being “Bobi and the Ball”). I have used an incredible software called Blender 3D, which is free to download and use.

So this is just an update. This long holiday weekend is not yet over and believe me when I say there will be Bobi, dammit!

building a better bobi

dannykneip — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:35:32 +0000

i’m happy it’s 2010. the start of the year always brings so much promise and opportunity. it is a great time to dream about awesome things to come and to be accomplished! and then you wake up and it’s already christmas again and you wasted the whole fucking year again. :-\

so i got a jump on 2010 already. i fashioned a NEW bobi in blender 3d, and he is set for another adventure. there’s a great armature from david allen ward that i followed this time – much better than the one from wiki.blender.

this updated bobi has eyes that move. he still doesn’t have a mouth and can’t blink – that is still a little advanced for me, but i am excited to more facial movements and lip syncing sometime soon. don’t rush me, though, dear. i’m taking bobi steps here.

get it? “bobi” steps? like baby steps?

the original bobi wore a trench coat/gown type thing. i liked that look and tried it, but it was too concealing. also, the cloth settings are still very tricky to me. i can’t spend anymore time fiddling around with that.

so bobi is dressed in summer clothes for this animation, which will be just under 2:20.

also, there are more bouncing balls of all different colors and there is direct contact this time!

Protected: “writer’s block”

dannykneip — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 05:41:14 +0000