Josh Riley's Blog

Demo Reel 2011

2011-03-25T18:52:00.000-07:00

Josh Riley - Demo Reel - 2011 from Josh Riley on Vimeo.

WOLFPACK

2011-01-29T23:12:00.000-08:00

WOLFPACK Trailer from Josh Riley on Vimeo.

Check out the new short film I am making called WOLFPACK.

And if you want to stay up to date on all things WOLFPACK, like it on Facebook.

The Zookeeper

2010-11-17T16:09:00.000-08:00

Another 2011 summer release.

It seems like there is a cool movie releasing every weekend in 2011. Some weekends, there will be two.

Green Lantern Movie Trailer

2010-11-17T07:49:00.000-08:00

I recommend quicktime, they always do an awesome job showcasing trailers:

kah-KAAAaaa!

2010-11-05T18:43:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything for a long time! Wow. Thanks to Dani for keeping the fire under me.

Monster Madness

2010-07-12T13:31:00.000-07:00

Seems like there have been a lot of fires around ABQ this summer. I don't know if that's normal or not, but this one was clearly visible from our building at work. I don't know what started it, so I decided to come up with a reason.

Albuquerque: The Unknown Full Movie Online!

2010-03-09T14:58:00.000-08:00

At long last, "Albuquerque: The Unknown" can be viewed online in its entirety.

Next stop, DVD's
And finally, a couple festivals... Maybe? Hopefully.
We also have like 18.5 hours of footage that never made it into the documentary that I hope we can put into small short artsy pieces or something and just release on the web for fun from time to time.

Thanks to everyone who has seen it. Pass it along to a friend if you have a spare moment!

And special thanks to The New Law for the beautiful music they worked their asses off to get finished by a seemingly impossible deadline. They are some serious musical gunslingers.

Finally,
I can't really express how much it means to hear some of the comments people have left Phil and I about the piece. It makes the long development process, late nights, and everything else really seem like such a small road bump in the grand scheme of the whole process (even though, at times, it seemed pretty impossible to finish).

Thanks again,

Josh

Animation Thumbs

2010-03-04T00:12:00.000-08:00

When you begin to plan how you will approach animation in a shot you have been assigned, many animators will draw thumbnail sketches of acting ideas they have swimming around in their head. Or to work out complicated body mechanics that are happening. Sometimes it is just to clearly understand how your poses will look. It is a quick way to visualize critical elements in your shot.

I have seen other animators do thumbnail posts, and I love to look over their thought process. It is fascinating to see how they may have brainstormed, and gone forward with, or scrapped their thumbnailed ideas. My thumbnails are less than 'inspirational', but I decided to post them because I did them. Many animators won't even do them because after looking through books written by Disney animators, they think... in order to do thumbnails you should be able to draw masterpieces. I thought, maybe it will help to inspire others to do them, even if you totally suck at drawing... like me... as exampled below.

These were inspired by my lead (Jeff Schu's) original thumbnails. I began sketching these to play with a few ideas I had around how the mother mole (the one who is under the father mole's arm) would react to the exterminators. She is cradling a baby mole, and I was trying to decide which was more successful... the protective mother with the death stare (bottom right) or the scared mother (middle left). My shot was cut from the film, although one very similar remained in the movie. They went with the more scared mother.

This was a body mechanics issue I was dealing with. The character was a robot toaster that was jumping off a counter top and running across the floor. I was working on getting the motion for the jump, how he would look going through the air, and how he would land (mainly how heavy he would look as he settled his weight on the ground). This shot was cut as well.

This was another body mechanics study. I needed to figure out how this fat guinea pig was going to anticipate a big jump, then fail in getting through a vent during the jump, and ultimately get completely stuck. Having to be pushed through (Winnie the Pooh style). This shot did make it into the movie.

This is maybe one of the sets of thumbs that might be a bit easier to follow. Here I am working out facial poses for a pretty dramatic moment. This father figure character is blowing his top, and telling the hero that he is no longer a part of the team. The father figure doesn't want to have to do this, but the hero character is just too wild, and has caused too many catastrophes. This was a ton of fun to animate because there was a strong subtext in the actions happening on screen. I have blacked out some of the throw away poses to help you follow the pose flow.

This is the scene immediately following the shot above. Here the father figure says exactly what he wanted to in the previous shot. Even though he struggles a bit, this is where he spells it out specifically.

Tattoo

2010-02-05T16:39:00.000-08:00

Drew a tattoo for a buddy at work.

This is it.

Albuquerque: The Unknown

2010-01-31T12:14:00.000-08:00

EXT. OUTSIDE QWEST BUILDING - NIGHT
Two shadowy figures walking toward the parking garage on 5th and Copper. The pedestrian walk way between the Qwest building and the Hyatt is pretty much completely uninhabitated. As the two talk, you can hear their voices echoing off the buildings.

JOSH

We've been talking about this for a while now, we should really start filming something.

PHIL

Well what about the homeless documentary we were thinking about?

JOSH

Nah, that would probably be boring.

PHIL

True.

JOSH

How about Albuquerque?

PHIL

Yeah, we could talk to people around town about what it's like to live here in Albuquerque.

JOSH

Hey, good idea! Like normal people though. Normal people that you would probably end up meeting if you ever moved to Albuquerque.

PHIL

Yeah, it would have been cool to know a bit more about Albuquerque before everyone moved here.

JOSH

Dude, what if we interview everyone from Sony about what it was like to move to Albuquerque.

PHIL

And we can interview them in places around town to actually show Albuquerque as well.

JOSH

That's an awesome idea.
(beat)
You know where we gotta do Miller's interview right?...

PHIL

Oh my god, dude... Yeah!

JOSH

But where are we going to get a helicopter?

CUT TO:

INT. FEBRUARY 18, KIMO THEATER - 7:00PM NIGHT
After six months, PHIL and JOSH are able to pull back the curtain and share a great experience they had meeting all their co workers, and many helpful, supportive people around the city of Albuquerque.

Environment Thumbs

2010-01-28T21:23:00.001-08:00

Painting environments literally scares me. If you were to see me working on these, you would see me darting my eyes around, looking over my shoulder, alt+tabbing frantically as people approach the business side of my monitor.

So I decided to try and get better, and what better way than to just find some cool environments on the net and paint them... So this is round one. I want to try to knock out many more of these because I feel like I got faster with each one. I tried to only spend about an hour on each one, but sometimes I ran way past that deadline. In fact I think I spent 6 on the cowboys.... and yes.... this is as good as it got.

These are the pics that I refrenced...

Im missing the bottom one, but I couldnt find it.... If I do, I'll post it.

Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore

2009-12-17T11:19:00.000-08:00

This picture is not from the movie, but I couldn't find any released pics from the movie, so this is going to have to do. Click on it to watch the preview. Some amazing work has been done on this flick.

UPDATE: Thankfully some pics started showing up... So here is Kitty Galore. Animated (BEAUTIFULLY) by Tippett Studios.

Hungry Dinosaur Too

2009-12-02T13:50:00.000-08:00

mmmmmm....

Dinosaur

2009-12-01T13:11:00.001-08:00

After watching Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, I was motivated to draw dinosaurs... This one is hungry.

All dinosaurs are hungry all the time.

Sad Hippo

2009-07-08T11:24:00.001-07:00

What're you cryin' about? Wimpy baby hippo.

Demo Reel 2008

2009-07-08T09:41:00.000-07:00

Josh Riley's Demo Reel (2008) from Josh Riley on Vimeo.

It's a bit old now, but I have been looking for a good place to post for free that won't completely tear the motion apart when the thing gets compressed. Thank you Vimeo!

Anyway, I want to post an updated one once I get it cut back together, and add in a couple of shots that I have polished up since I finished this reel. Also once G-Force hits DVD. And then again once hell freezes over (just kidding).

2009-06-01T16:45:00.000-07:00

No update in a long freakin time! But here it is. Wish I could have taken it further, but, oh well.

GeeeeFORCE!

2009-01-15T19:31:00.000-08:00

G-Force Movie Trailer

The preview for G-Force came out over the holiday break!

Age of Empires: Mythologies

2008-12-23T21:16:00.001-08:00

The last game I worked on at Amaze was Age of Empires: Mythologies.

It was the most creatively rewarding experience I have had in games so far.

My art team was an amazing group of very professioal, very talented individuals who I would hope to be able to work with again.

My main contribution to the game was the cultural god portraits. It was a lot of work, but they were so much fun. Some of them I am very proud of, and some of them I wonder why I included on this image. (ha ha).

Thanks to everyone who I worked with on the project. Our programmers broke their backs to get an amazing engine running. Our designers built an amazing game. Our testers dug into every level and scenario. Our producers facilitated the whole thing with style and grace. And upper management let us (at times) duct tape fireworks together, and toss them into a crowded cul de sac.

And finally, thank you to Nintendo Power for being typically biased, and predictably favorable to bubble gum tween game players everywhere.

Creamer Commandos

2008-09-20T18:18:00.000-07:00

These are the Creamer Commandos. That's right. Coffee creamers determined to cream the coffee (Tagline developed by wordsmith: Derek Osborne). The General, Lt. Coburn, Sfc. Stabbone, Medic Hall, Pfc. Wierzbowski, and Pfc. VonTalbane.

Creamer Commandos was a animated short I did with a few close friends. All in all, the project was a great learning experience, and a ton of fun to build from the initial sketches, all the way to babysitting 2 seperate render farms, and hiring/recording an all volunteer orchestra.

Negative Space Cowboy

2008-09-20T16:12:00.000-07:00

Im trying not to make a habit out of leaving this page dormant for years at a time, but I haven't been doing a very good job.

I know people who can just blog away. They see something during the day or have something happen to them and they immediately think, 'I've got to post this on my blog'. I am not one of those people. In fact, no matter how hard I try, I can never remember to post anything that I have done. This image is case and point. I randomly decided to do an hour of painting one night, and this is what showed up. Then it sat on my desktop ambiguously named 'speedpaint01' which is typically reserved for trash images that I have no intention of saving.

whoops.

Art Blog?

2008-02-29T23:15:00.000-08:00

Wow, could you be more specific? Way to narrow it down and pull in readers.

ART BLOG! sounds really interesting.