Wanted: Evil Dog

Here's a picture that my 8 year old niece Ebony did of their dog Gus that I thought was pretty cool.

Now this might not be a good thing to admit publicly but I'm always a little envious of children's creativity when I see something like this. Sure I've been an professional animator for a few years now and probably should be beyond Grade 3 arts and crafts, but after working in the industry for a while I find it hard to not get bogged down worrying what other people may think of my work, and even worse, find myself only doing something because it's what I believe other people want to see. Anyway I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this, but I think my point is that I've recently realised that I need to do art for fun again, and not just to pay the bills or because I need a new piece for my reel. Basically I need to start thinking like an 8 year old again.

Zieh Die Schuhe Aus Rough Animatic

Ok I've thrown all the thumbnails together as an animatic to help me plan out this animation that I want to do. It's pretty rough and scratchy but it's helped me solve a few problems already and it was good fun messing around with a wacom again.

Zieh Die Schuhe Aus Rough Animatic from Travis Ramsdale on Vimeo.

Alphabet Snoop

Here's a quick little student film I did in 2nd year uni. Pretty dodgy but it's a bit of fun.


Alphabet Snoop from Travis Ramsdale on Vimeo.

Another quiet day in the office...

Well the powers that be seem intent on not giving me any work so I thought I'd try a dinosaur run today. The leg setup wasn't great so I had a few issues getting it looking right but I've learnt a few things about animal legs and anatomy so all is not lost. I also attempted to make the dinosaur look a little smaller with the run. If I still have no work by Monday I might try and do a slow lumbering motion to make him feel larger.


Dino Run Complete from Travis Ramsdale on Vimeo.

Zieh Die Schuhe Aus Thumbnails

Here's a bunch of rough thumbnails I put together for an animation that I want to do. It's to a German song by Roger Cicero called "Zieh Die Schuhe Aus" that my girlfriend ironically introduced to me. It's a cool song and I figured it could be a good way to brush up on Maya and German both at the same time.

Dino Walk Complete

Another quiet day sees me finish it off. Most notable changes are on the feet but I also made some other minor tweaks to the body as well. I also couldn't do a proper cycle because of the rig which is annoying...but it was still fun to do.


Dino Walk Final from Travis Ramsdale on Vimeo.

Dino Walk WIP

Work was a bit quiet today so I took the chance to play around with this dinosaur rig from XSI and do a walk cycle. It's not polished but I thought I'd throw it up anyway as a work in progress. If I get some more quiet time I'll try to finish it off.


Dino Walk WIP from Travis Ramsdale on Vimeo.