zacherysays... stuff.

Working on some old ideas…

2009-06-06T19:50:00.000-07:00

My new Job

2008-08-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

It's official. I am now a Visual Designer @ Apple Inc. Moving to the bay next week after a long summer.

This is a great Rig.

2008-08-28T15:12:00.000-07:00

Chuck

2008-08-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

Light & Momentum

2008-05-29T11:54:00.000-07:00

Had some fun with drawing and painting in photoshop for my psychology final. I'll explain later.

Hamstein Re-Animated

2008-05-13T00:49:00.001-07:00

More drawings from my Hamstein short. Really getting into some actions now and loving it. Mr. Going has really helped me push my poses and lines of action. Lets hope I can finish on time.

Cupertino or Bust!

2008-05-06T12:25:00.000-07:00

Yep thats right, Cupertino here I come! I been hired on for the summer and hopefully longer to work at Apple Inc. !
I've worked in the Apple retail stores for nearly 4 1/2 years and have absolutely nothing to say but positive things about the company and it's products. They have been supportive with school and even my hectic touring schedule with Ashlee while all along pushing me to be my very best. I've made great relationships with customers and fellow employees alike, I will truly miss working in the trenches and hopefully I will be able to make an impact in my new work environment. I'll keep updating with my artwork, even though this is going to be a huge change I am still planing on finishing my degree at the Art Institute, I'll just be in San Francisco now. Till then I've got a lot to take care of.

Material & Lighting update

2008-05-05T23:21:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted really anything for this class yet, so I've included a rendered image from my midterm. This assignment was really just about unwrapping uv's and learning how to use photoshop for creating textures, bump, displacement and normal maps. I am really excited to be making more dynamic models now.

Newport Beach Film Festival

2008-05-04T08:24:00.000-07:00

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend some awesome screenings at this years Newport Beach Film Festival the past 2 weeks. Leslie Iwerks was there showing her documentary, The Pixar Story, I can't say enough how inspiring that film was, anyone who gets the chance to see this film would die to work for that company! A great look at group of people that really believe in what they are doing. Last wednesday I attended a night with Roy Disney, he was there showing some never before seen( on the big screen) disney shorts that were for the majority after hours projects. Of course Roy provided some great one-liners during his commentary and introductions. Here are some stills of some of the short that were screened:

Character Modeling Midterm

2008-04-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

Here is an update of my Character Modeling class progress, just couple of screen shots and quick renders. Still have a lot of work to do on the ears, mouth and eyes. Check it out.

Animation Desk!

2008-04-17T00:11:00.000-07:00

Last quarter I had the privilege of interning for DreamWorks Animation, I was lucky enough to meet some really great people who offered nothing but great advice. Since the company has switched completely to 3D years ago, they were kinda enough to donate one of their animation desks to this college student. I am just plain excited to start drawing on it and hopefully get some really creative stuff happening here. Kinda bummed American Hi-Fi was on iTunes at the exact moment of the flash, definitely does not define my musical taste, but still gets skipped on the shuffle. Let me know if there is anything else lame in my room so I can take it down! Check out the latest panorama of the office!

April: The Month of Changes and Drawing Again...

2008-04-14T23:35:00.000-07:00

Possible changes with my employment with Apple this sumer :) and tomorrow I find out if Dallas and I make it to the finals of the ImagiNations 2008 design competition. Yeah, I'm a little stressed out, I got a reminder how crazy the interview process can be, while still maintaining freelancing, school and my full-time job. But none the less some tough and exciting decisions will be awaiting for me in the coming weeks, all for a better future and of course to keep moving forward.

I've settled into my new classes, this is now week 3 and I feel pretty good about everything and even a little excited about my final projects already. So speaking of one, for my Advanced 2D Animation class, I have decided to "re-do" my Hamstien short.
This time I actually get to focus on animation! Last quarter I really had to focus on learning how to animate, cleanup, and paint in flash. So this time around I am solely going to focus on the quality of my animation. Being able to step away from my computer tonight and just draw for a few hours was a breath of fresh air! So I have posted below some drawings form tonight's class. Hope you enjoy!

ImagiNations 2008!

2008-03-28T23:01:00.000-07:00

Hey! Exciting news... I received a letter today from Walt Disney Imagineering, and I am proud to say that Dallas and I have been selected as semi-finalists in this years design competition! More news to come hopefully.

Hamstien Complete

2008-03-20T01:04:00.000-07:00

Here is Hamstien, animated in Flash, Composited in Motion.

Hamstein

2008-03-13T17:37:00.000-07:00

I realized just today that I haven't posted anything about school work in quite some time, so here is an update to what I've been up to in my Web Animation class. I have never used Flash for any projects before, so this was interesting learning a new tool and sweating out ideas in such a short mount of time. Our final project is to create a short animation under 1 minute long. This turns out to be my first actual planned out short animation. I thought it would be a great idea showing what Hamsters from Sweden really do in a pet store. Of course they are huge In Flames fans only lacking nordic beards. I was really excited about creating backgrounds for this idea, because of all the plastic tubing and saw dust whatnots. This should be totally completed by next week, but in the mean time here are some screen shots straight from Flash. Hamstein.. the Hamster In Flames cover band.

ImagiNations 2008

2008-03-13T17:18:00.001-07:00

So my good friend Dallas and decided on a whim that we would enter ImagiNations 2008. I won't go into details about our entry... it's pretty crazy. Here are some quick sketch/photoshop paintings I did for our storyboard panels.

Updates...

2008-01-12T21:58:00.000-08:00

So it's been quite a while since I have updated my blog. Good reasons for it I swear! I have officially completed my internship at DreamWorks Animation! So amazing what I was able to accomplish working there. Being my first experience working at an animation studio, my standards have been set pretty high, but of course I can't wait for the first "real" animation job when it comes my way. The combination of working for Apple and DreamWorks at the same time had finally caught up with me, making me ill during the holiday's. I am just now getting some rest, and no longer working 7 days a week has allowed me to define and re-commit myself to school, work and just life in general. I am excited for this upcoming quarter at AI, inching closer to graduation, little bit by bit. I believe my internship is already starting to build my future as I have now been promoted to Lead Creative at Apple! Lots of work and responsibility but definitely challenging my personal goals and skills. Updates from classes should begin next week. Check out my list of current courses for this quarter. Keep moving forward!

You Ready?

2007-10-21T21:21:00.001-07:00

So it begins.

2007-09-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

Just wrapped up finals this morning, last day off for the rest of the year, I'm using it wisely... cleaning the apartment.
My internship @ DreamWorks Animation Studios begins this week. This is amazing.

Camera Tech Final

2007-09-22T00:08:00.000-07:00

Final Animation...

Hard Surface & Organic Modeling Final

2007-09-21T19:46:00.000-07:00

Here she is!

Modeling Update

2007-09-17T23:03:00.000-07:00

Here are some updates to the Chihuahua. I've only had a few brief moments to work on this, I'll post the final hopefully by Friday. But she's definitely on her way!.

Last OS X Kings game of the season.

2007-09-14T10:21:00.000-07:00

Tonight.

Organic Modeling Week 9

2007-09-07T21:09:00.000-07:00

So we started our final project today, which is creating a sub-div character. I decided to create a model for my Chihuahua, Apple. Here are some photos after an hours work.

Camera Techniques.. and then some.

2007-09-07T21:06:00.000-07:00

Here are some lighting tests and camera lens and settings shots. Check em out.