Claudia Kleinheinz

Tennis Animation

11:46

Hello everybody, hope you all had a smooth start into the Christmas season without letting yourself getting stressed out about shopping and ...

12/08/2009

Hello everybody, hope you all had a smooth start into the Christmas season without letting yourself getting stressed out about shopping and all that. I just spent some very nice days together with my family and feel a bit refreshed now.

So now it's time to show what I've been working on the last few weeks and I have to admit that this was/ is a hard one. As I spent the blocking week working in Las Vegas, I couldn't plan everything as thoroughly as I usually do and this keeps on bugging me ;) I have the feeling that I'm still trying to fill the gaps that I left out during that phase which gets quite frustrating, but I guess the best thing I can do is put it out there and hope for constructive criticism and feedback. So here's my baby- be gentle but honest (the honest part being the more important of course ;D )

Speedpainting and Sketches

07:36

Sitting here at my desk, it's already really, really dark outside and I'm slowly getting in the mood for hot chocolate, cookies and ...

12/03/2009

Sitting here at my desk, it's already really, really dark outside and I'm slowly getting in the mood for hot chocolate, cookies and Christmas songs ;) The last two weeks I've been working on my new AM assignment and I think I'll upload the current draft version today or tomorrow to get some feedback. I'm reaching the point where you are so deep into your shot that you start loosing the ability to tell if it's working or not. Now, however, I just want to show a speedpainting I've done today. It's just black and white as I want to improve my skills in painting volume and tone. I also did some sketches of kids for a project I have in mind.

What happens in Vegas....

15:02

....stays in Vegas! That's how the saying goes, so I can't really tell you anything about my trip there, can I?!? ;) Just as much: I...

11/22/2009

....stays in Vegas! That's how the saying goes, so I can't really tell you anything about my trip there, can I?!? ;) Just as much: I went there on a business trip and it was huge, amazing and crazy- an exaggeration of real life in which it is somehow related to animation. I spent 6 days there and now I'm a bit tired due to jetlag and a flue I caught (most probably from one of the uncountable air conditioning systems). That's also why I've been so quiet lately, but now I'm back again and with me some more sketches and my final version of the parkour animation.

I also did the blocking for my new assignment, but as I only had one day I could spend on it, I want to refine it a bit more before showing it here ;)

Thank you all for leaving comments and feedback, it's great to know that someone is actually looking at this.
See you soon, Claudi

Splines are the Enemy

15:29

Hello everybody, this week was hectic. Fulltime-job, 3 freelance projects and Animation Mentor... didn't get too much sleep ;) I started...

11/08/2009

Hello everybody, this week was hectic. Fulltime-job, 3 freelance projects and Animation Mentor... didn't get too much sleep ;) I started splining the animation I posted last week and all the spirit of it got lost. I don't like splines. Really, I think they are mean ;) However, I managed to fix the worst parts of it and now I'm waiting for my mentor's critique. Next week I'll finish it hopefully and post it here again.

Today I want to show some designs I did recently. The character is ment to be a bank robber of the early 20th century. I did more of those, which I'll show in my next post. Let me know what you think. I'm off to bed now, next time I'll write more.

zzzzzzzzz

silhouettes and more

15:09

Hello again, I haven't been posting for a while, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been busy. On the contrary ;) We've go...

11/01/2009

Hello again,
I haven't been posting for a while, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been busy. On the contrary ;) We've got a new assignment for Animation Mentor and I decided to go for a mix of Parkour and ninja action. This was a huge bite to chew, but in the end I was quite happy with how my blocking turned out. Now, however, I'm panicking because I know that I have to start splining it next week :D

Other than that, I did some thumbnail silhouette sketches for a small mountain cabin. I explored different approaches and styles, some more urban some more rural. In the end I decided that I wanted to have a more rural design that shows that the person who has built it, wasn't very skilled. The whole thing is for I project that I've had in mind for quite some time now, but it's still too early to really talk about it *mysterious silence* lol

Again, please let me know what you think- feedback always helps to learn and improve,
have a great time,
Claudi

PS: I also post the final version of my stairs assignment.

An Amazing Weekend

13:56

Hey all, this week I'm writing brimful of impressions of the last weekend. I attended a character design Seminar last Saturday and Sund...

10/12/2009

Hey all,
this week I'm writing brimful of impressions of the last weekend. I attended a character design Seminar last Saturday and Sunday given by Harald Siepermann. Honestly, this guy is amazing! He did character designs for Disney (Tarzan, Mulan, Brother Baer, Treasure Planet,...), worked on Who Framed Roger Rabbit (the movie that played a huge part in me wanting to become an animator) and tons of other cool stuff.

Check out his blog and be prepared to see hundrets of great drawings! http://haraldsiepermann.blogspot.com/

I learned so much and I'm so inspired that I spend the whole evening drawing. Saturday he even went to a pub whith us and I'm afraid that I've annoyed him by I continuously asking him questions till about midnight ;D But I just couldn't let that chance go by to learn as much as I can from such a talented person.

The sketches I post here are a bit older, I want to refine the drawings that I'm doing right now a bit more before I upload them. I also want to show the blocking I did for last week's assignment (a person walking up a few stairs).

Please don't hesitate to give me any comment you can think of- I got reminded how much there is to learn!

Humbly, Claudia :)

PS: Some of the sketches below were inspired by the work of Chris Sanders, another more than amazing artist.

new term - less time

12:25

There we are, the new term at Animation Mentor has started and I already had my first Q&A with the new mentor Chad Stewart. He worked on...

10/03/2009

There we are, the new term at Animation Mentor has started and I already had my first Q&A with the new mentor Chad Stewart. He worked on Fantasia 2000, The Emeror's New Groove, Open Season,... and he is really, really nice! The Q&A was a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to the next weeks and the feedback I'll get from him.

Here are some sketches. The first two I did today when I was sitting in an Austrian "Heurigen" (a restaurant where local farmers and winegrowers sell the food and wine they made). Sitting in the warm sun, drinking a nice glass of red wine and enjoying the last warm days- it was great :)

I hope I'll have enough time to continue sketching on a regular basis- maybe even taking some life drawing classes, but I guess there's a lot of work waiting for me this term. We'll see how it turns out, see you all soon,
Claudi