ReelFX

So whats been keeping me busy?

Yup that's right. I'm working on ReelFx's first full length feature "Turkeys".  I've only been here 2 weeks but I'm already having an amazing time. More updates soon!

Blue Sky!

What have I been up to lately?



I was recently hired at Blue Sky Animation to work on the upcoming film "Ice Age 4: Continental Drift". I've been having such a good time and the people there have such a positive attitude. Earlier today during a screening, one of the supervising animators told the theater filled with over a hundred people that there was a new animator on board. Angelo Sta. Catalina. The entire crowd clapped and chanted dance dance! I screamed "oh gosh no" in hopes that they don't push through with their chants. Luckily I didn't have to dance!

I'll try to post more when I have time...

Dreamworks Pictures

Me, Martyn Smith, Jason Ryan, Mike Walling, Stephen Melagrano, Joey Brown, Ted Ty, and Ken Fountain (from left to right)



Mike Walling, Me, Joey Brown, Darrell Vasquez (again, from left to right)



Joey Brown, Me, Martyn Smith, James Baxter!, Jason Ryan, Darrell Vasquez, and Ken Fountain (the usual)


So here are but a few of the pictures that were taken during the Dreamworks trip. Give picture credit to Martyn Smith for taking all of these pictures (including the ones he's in!). To see the the rest of the freaking awesome pictures, click me.

up coming events

Great news.. Next week, I'll be going to



(the glendale branch) to have lunch with the creators of



... on my way, I'll be in an



and I'll probably see a whole bunch of



which its great because I'll get a chance to do more



to improve my skill and even post on my



so stay



:)

Jackal Hands Rigging WIP

So this is what has been keeping me busy these past few days.. I've found that a lot of rigs out there have hands where the knuckles would round out and look like pipes when they would bend.. They fingers would loose their volume and disregard the bone structure beneath the skin. Here's jackals hand system. The deformations took about a day to do.. There are a couple more things to do and iAnimate is starting soon... I've got to get this done and start planning on what I want to animate for workshop 5.

Lucy Internship

So I was just notified by Ben Rush (dreamworks animator, director, film maker) that I've been qualified to intern for the lucy film. I'm happy to have been picked despite being parred with tons of talented animation students at iAnimate.

Check the site production blog out guys! http://anatomyofanightmare.blogspot.com/

Jackal Animation Test

As promised, I'd post my little jackal animation test when I finished it.. This took in all 3 days to animate..There are a few bits here and there that need to be addressed but I'll leave it at that for the mean time. I hadn't intended on actually finishing it or even make something nice but when i slapped in the golden poses, they seemed to work pretty well. There are a couple of things I need to fix but they're pretty minor. I'm proud to be rigging for iAnimate because, not only do we get more rigs to animate with, I feel I've started to really expand my understanding of character from a rigging stand point. During the course of iAnimate, students including myself find out things we wished were in rigs. It's a great way to get ideas for making characters because as a rigger, I think its most important that the characters are really easy to animate (aside from the aesthetics and appeal of characters). I had planned to finish my workshop 4 assignments this workshop break but I'm realizing that finishing Jackal is a much bigger task. I told Jason I'd get it done by the start of the next block so I'm going to have to hurry up with this. My assignments will have to wait until I get more free time.

hurtMe - Jackal Animation Test from Angelo Sta. Catalina on Vimeo.

So last workshop 4, I had Jamaal Bradley as my instructor. Even though we started the workshop off a little shake-y (due to technical issues and just getting use to one another), it was such a learning experience; especially nearing the end of the 14 week class. Jamaal took one of my shots and made my polish look like splining. He is pretty amazing especially when it comes to appeal and polish. After going through his class, I've come to realize how insanely hard feature quality animation is to achieve.

I'm psyched to start the next workshop. I've heard the 2 workshop instructors will be mike walling and ben rush. They're both passionate about animation and teaching so I'll be good where ever I land.

iAnimate!

Hey guys. Excuse me for not updating the blog. It has been busy at iAnimate. It's an awesome experience. My instructor (Ken Fountain) has his workflow where in closely incorporates his acting skills with animation. He breaks down shots from some animations he has done for monsters vs aliens and its such a blast watching.. Jason has asked the students to keep work inside the school for the mean time while the first reel has not come out yet. This is why I haven't been posting much work on my blog.

Eleven Model Ready for Rigging!

11 Second Club Rig

http://11secondclubrig.blogspot.com/

Guys! You have to check this out. The animators and forumers of 11SC realized its about time we added a new free rig. It's an awesome production because 1- production is being held around the world! 2-everyone is so enthusiastic about it and its a pretty big thing thats happening over at the 11SC forum. It has only been 5 days and already the forumers have filed up 11 pages of ideas.. I encourage anyone willing and interested to join in. Not a modeler/rigger? thats cool! passion, enthusiasm, and interest is what fuels the production and thats what we need!

Kung Fu Panda 2: The Kaboom Of Doom

For all of you kung fu panda fanatics, I'm proud to announce that dreamworks is currently whipping up a new movie scheduled to release on May 26, 2011. I was absolutely shocked when i heard about it.. Now I am just geeking out over it.. Hopefully a trailer comes out soon.

Pose Manics

If you are an artist or is studying art, you absolutely absolutely have to go to pose maniacs.. its a site that displays 3 dimensional anatomical figures posed out for drawing. It doesn't replace figure drawing but it is definitely 2nd to it. There is an application there wherein you can choose between 10, 15, 30, 60, and 90 second sessions. The figures will change based on the setting. I love doing the 30 second ones.. With this, you can fill up sketch books and off-course, get lots of practice, right from your very home. When i set up my scanner, ill start posting my drawing studies from pose maniacs in a more frequent basis.

to go to the site, click here.