May Sketches

Some more sketches....not in profile this time!

My Shrunkenheadman Presidency

       This past year I've had the honor of being a Shrunkenheadman President. As of last week that position ended for me, and it has been passed off to the amazing Rev Kotni. It's been such an incredible year, and the experience is something I'll never forget.

The Blank Team

       My team of officers we're so amazing and helpful, and they made every job and task so much easier and more doable. Over the summer we jokingly called ourselves "The Blank Team" simply because we weren't sure what to officially title our cabinet, and that the "blank" would soon be swapped out for something better once we solidified our ideas. But the name stuck and became a very appropriate title, because it meant that we had to be versatile and ready for anything. Cheesy, but true.
       Here's some more photos of things and events throughout the year...

Me delivering a speech at the very first meeting back in September. 

The club during Bunny Carter's presentation in January. 

The Officers and I showing off our custom SHM jackets. 

Baking and enjoying pancakes with the best Vice President ever, Fiona Herse-Woo. 

Me with Kris Pearn, director of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2.

Our officer skit at D-Day. 

       The last SHM meeting was definitely an emotional night, filled with a lot of laughs and hugs. It was where we released the program's short films on DVD and dedicated them to Bunny Carter, Courtney Granner, and Jules Jammal. We had also thanked a bunch of people, including Dave Chai, Jared Mills, the SHM Charity Committee, and my good friend Ryan Eways for all of his work on the Shrunkisodes. The planning that went into that night was quite extensive, but the turnout and energy from the Club really summed up a great year, and to receive a standing ovation from everyone at the end was incredibly humbling and moving.

Poster design by Amit Kumar. 

And that was that. 

Me doing my speech during elections a little more than one year ago. 

Thank you to everyone who contributed to making this year what is was. It's no easy task being a Shrunkenheadman President, but everyone's energy and fire to making this organization what it is makes the job incredibly manageable and so much fun. Now onto BFA!

The Chess King (Dialogue Shot)

      The long semester is over, and it's high time I post some of the work I've been doing over the past few months. Here's the first of the many posts to come, which is an animation of my very first attempt at dialogue in 3D:

The Chess King (Dialogue Shot)

from Youri Dekker on Vimeo.

       The assignment was to choose a line with 3 words and create an animation off of it. When I found the "Shall we begin?" line, I saw this type of scene in my head, where a ruthless chess master was about to start his next match against a timid opponent. 

       I can remember being a kid and always playing chess against my dad. Never was he this intimidating, but there's always a competitive nature about him, so I thought I'd use that as a way to drive the shot. I dedicate this shot to him and all the time he's kicked my butt at sports over the years. 

   

       The first step was figuring out who the character was. I did some research on Magnus Calrsen, the reigning World Chess Champion, and in turn named my character after him.

       The next step was gathering reference. I took a lot from Star Trek: Into Darkness, the film which the line was from. Benedict Cumberbatch does a lot of great things with his eyes, so I pulled what I could from that. I also found a cool shot from Lawless that helped inspire some poses. There's no sound, sorry. 

I also began looking a lot at Anton Ego from Ratatouille. I love his performance and how he's animated, and so I did my best to study from that source material in addition to the live action reference. 

I then went in to build the chess set and create somewhat of an environment for the scene. 

Being that it was my first attempt at dialogue in 3D, I wanted to make sure to get the mouth shapes down before blocking and polishing in the computer, so I drew them out in 2D before hand. 

And then here's the shot progression. 

I shot my own reference, quickly roughed it out in 2D, then went on into Maya to finish it off. 

The Chess King (Shot Progression)

from Youri Dekker on Vimeo.

And that's that! It was really difficult keeping him alive considering how little he moved around. It was a quite a challenge trying to tell so much with so little, but I'm fairly pleased with the result. 

April Profiles

Here's some more drawings of heads in profile....because I don't do that enough already.

Stop-Motion Assignments

Here are the two stop motion assignments I did for my Physics of Animation class. 

It's really crappy stuff, but that's what you get when you've never done it before. 

Enjoy...

My first attempt, which got me an honorable mention in the class. 

A brief making of can be read about here. 

My second film, which earned me a third place prize in the class. 

A brief making of can be read about here. 

New Zealand Sketches

This past winter break I bought myself a plane ticket and headed over to New Zealand for three awesome weeks of traveling. I rented a van and drove a few thousand miles around the South Island, soaking in the sun and rain and enjoying a well-needed break from school.  

I ended up getting about a billion gigs of video footage too,
simply because everything was so damn beautiful.
But I was able to go through it all and make a little video out of it: 

New Zealand (The South Island)

from Youri Dekker on Vimeo.

Sketching proved to be a more difficult challenge than what I originally intended. Rain was pouring down for about half of my trip, and when it wasn't raining it would be windy. And when it wasn't windy, these tiny little bastard insects known as sandflies did their very best to piss you off by biting your limbs and face. 

But I thought I'd grab a few of the sketches I did and finally post them. Better now than never. 

Rough Sketch of Frans Joseph Glacier. 

An awesome stream I discovered while going on a hike. 

On the way to Mt. Cook. 

At the airport waiting for departures. 

The Nintendo Gallery (Captain Falcon)

       I had the opportunity to work on a piece for the upcoming SHM Charity Committee Nintendo Gallery. An online auction will take place when it premiers in April, and all proceeds go to the Morgan Autism Center. About 150 artists are participating in the gallery, all doing different characters from different Nintendo games in various mediums and styles. Pretty neat stuff.
       I was lucky enough to get Captain Falcon, as he's the one character I know from Nintendo because I always choose him for the few times I've played Super Smash Bros. You just can't beat the Falcon Punch! Well— you can— but whatever...

Here's my final piece of Captain Falcon drinking that Falcon Punch:

       It sure took me a while to get to this point. As a matter of fact I did this the night before my deadline.
Before that I had another idea that I was really not liking. It was the regular Captain Falcon, and I was trying to get him in a serious pose with flames and stuff. Needless to say it was very boring and dull. Then with some convincing and help from my friend Samia Khalaf, I scrapped the idea entirely, went home, ate a La Vics burrito, and began sketching out a cute little baby Captain Falcon.

My first sketch. 

Then I quickly refined the pose and concept in pen. 

I also did some quick tests to see what it would look like on tonal paper. 

I used 3 mediums for the final piece: colored pencil, pen, and white charcoal. 

And that was that! 

It's crazy what can happen sometimes when you talk to Samia Khalaf and you eat a La Vics burrito. 

A Sad Day

       Yesterday we lost a good man. Jules Jammal was a teacher, an animator, a Shrunkenheadman, a father, a husband, and a friend. He was the man who introduced me to Maya and the world of 3D animation and was a huge inspiration as to how I go about my animation today. I still remember the last conversation I had with him was a few months ago, where we talked about the craziness of being an SHM president, and he told me about his baby girl, Noelle. "She's starting to get an attitude," he laughed. He never ceased to smile or miss out on a handshake. Within a day of his passing you can see and feel the love we all had for this man, and the photos, messages, and articles continue to fly high with support.
       Jules passed away too soon, and I think the only thing I can do is say— from one Shrunkenheadman President to another— thank you for being an amazing friend and mentor. May you rest in peace and paradise.

Always fire it up. Always SHM.

 Images courtesy of Jeff Jackson.