New Blog/Website

I have officially switched to WordPress (which is another kind of blog), and have set it up to be my website, so any further posts I make, as well as updates to my reel, resume and whatever else can now be seen at www.danforgione.com

Please update your bookmarks and or RSS feeds, as I plan on not using blogspot.com any more.

Thanks

Dan

Sorry for Slacking

I know it's been a while, but since getting back from the honeymoon, it's been a little crazy getting back into the swing of things. I promise some sketches and more work soon, but for now, here is the latest of the Bronx Zoo commercials I did earlier this year for their Madagascar exhibit. I have a higher res version, however it doesn't have the audio, so once I get that, I'll post it. For now enjoy the youtube version... Enjoy!

D

Honeymoon here we come!!

Well it's finally a done deal, on 8-8-08 we officially became Mr and Mrs Daniel Forgione.. and now were off on our honeymoon....Here are some sketches we used for our "Save the Date" cards (the first one is the one we actually used)....and for those of you who don't know what the deal with the turtles is, you can check out the Youtube clip below...

Concepts

Just some character concepts for a project at Dancing Diablo that fell through...

Finally some sketches

Sorry I've been slackin on this. Been pretty busy with the new job, which is great so far. Anyways, check these out...got into a stylized superhero kick for a while...





Been meaning to do a tribute post...on my To do list...




Some random stuff...







Hmm, wonder when I did these...

Thanks ASIFA East!

Congrats to Dancing Diablo for taking 1st Place in the Commercials category at the 39th ASIFA-East Animation Festival , and thanks to ASIFA East and to all who worked on the Bronx Zoo spots to make them so great!

ASIFA East Awards

Beatriz Ramos, who runs, Dancing Diablo Studios, is due to receive an award at The 39th Annual ASIFA-East Animation Festival, for the Bronx Zoo spots I animated last year. So come check out the screening, awards, and reception to follow.

Sunday, May 4 from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Tishman Auditorium
@The New School
66 W. 12th St
(bet. 5th/6th)
NYC


Also on a similar note, I was offered and accepted a full time position as lead animator with Bea, and am happy to be joining her team in hopes of creating more great projects like the Zoo spots.

Thanks Bea!

"City Suckers"

Just wanted to do a quick post about a project I helped out with which is currently featured on Cold Hard Flash.
"City Suckers" is a music video produced by the record label Ghostly International and directed by Jessica Milazzo and Daniel Garcia.

(go to the "City Suckers" link above and click on the banner on the bottom right labeled "exclusive video")

I only did a few scenes of rough animation, and the rest was handled by a talented team made up of animators, Chris Siemasko , Nick Bertonazzi, David Haines, Anne Witbeck and BG artist Liz Artinian.

Great job to everyone, and thanks Jessica for allowing me to be a part of it, it was fun!

Huggies Cleanteam

Here are two of my most recent freelance projects. I was hired by Ben Porcari, who owns IBC Digital to put together a team of animators to produce 2 commercials for Huggies Cleanteam products, directed by Frank Drucker. Both spots were animated in Flash by myself, Mike Carlo, Matthew Jenkins, and Dagan Moriarty, with design work by Sal Iovine, and Thomas Smolenski, and BGs by Soonmin Chung. Compositing was divided up between the IBC team up in Buffalo, and the team at, NYC based post house, Edgeworx.

This was a lot of fun to work on, and even more of a pleasure to bring in some friends on it. Hopefully there will be more to come in the future. Thanks for all your help guys!

By the way, check out the Huggies Cleanteam site:
http://www.huggiescleanteam.com/

And thanks to Aaron Simpson, once again, for a plug on his site:
http://coldhardflash.com


"Reporting for Dirty" Music Video
(Is also being screened in select AMC, United Artists, and Regal theaters before "Horton Hears a Who" and other family oriented pictures)




"Bath Time" Narrative

Happy Easter

Sketchbook

Been a while since I last posted some actual drawings, so to make up for it, here is a bunch of sketches from my sketchbook. These are all from my very first Moleskin Sketchbook. I bought one a few months back because I've always heard of people using them, but never have myself, and I have to say I am a little disappointed. I feel like I am drawing on manilla folders, and it is nothing what I expected.
But in all fairness I have never been an "artsy" person. Growing up, I never used any other mediums other than regular white paper and pencils, and while I was at SVA, I did some experimentation with pastels, water color, and Conte Crayon's, but rarely did I ever experiment any further when it came to supplies and materials. Not that I was never open too...I just...didn't. My loss I guess.
But anyways, on to the sketches....

These first 2 I wanted to emulate my pal Jimbo and experiment with shapes...




These 2... I wanted to try my hand at character design. Now by no means would I ever consider myself a good designer, because I am far from it. But I thought it would be a fun little experiment to pick an animal at random, do some reference sketches, and then see if I could turn that animal into a cast of characters. Again I tried to explore different shapes and body types,and personalities and I think I did an okay job, but I feel very limited when it comes to this stuff. I have a hard time breaking out of my comfort zone, and often revert back to certain stylistic choices. It's a fun little challenge, regardless of whether it is successful or not...

This one was an otter...in case you couldn't figure it out...





And lastly...just some random crap done while on the subway...

New Animation Reel

Just updated this with the 3D assignments I did with Stephen. Will have more work soon to add, but for now enjoy. And there is a larger version on my website at www.danforgione.com.

"Animation Reel"

iTutor Update _Assignment 3_ Final

Been really busy with a few freelance projects, so it's been difficult, but I finally managed to squeeze in some time to finish this last assignment. I simplified I few things such has his cup placement, lip sync, and facial expressions.
Overall I am pretty happy with it, and looking forward to starting the next test, but for now, it's time to add this to the reel and send it out.

"Last Assignment"



Crits always welcome!

Dan

iTutor Update - Assignment 3 polish pass

Well tonight will be my last session with Stephen, at least for this time around. I've said it over and over again, but this experience has been amazing, and I really think I have made some strides into becoming a better animator. And HOPEFULLY, I will continue to make even more strides for the rest of my career. Just want to give one more thanks to Stephen for giving me this opportunity.

So here it is, my final assignment as close to finished as can be for now. There are a few things I want to tweek. I stayed up all night last night to finish it, and I feel some things are a little rushed. But overall I am pretty happy with it. Although I am looking forward to hearing what Stephen has to say, and hopefully I'll get one more pass at it after his notes, and then move on to the next shot.

Crits always welcome. Thanks

Dan

**UPDATE...uh oh....it seems the audio is slightly off sync..I swear it's not like that in the actual animation. I'll check the settings and repost tonight. In the meantime....pretend it's perfect! HA...... OOPS***


"Last Assignment"

ITutor Update _Assignment 2_ Final (for now..)

Just can't seem to stop tweaking it. After meeting with Stephen, he gave me a few notes on the latest polish of my second assignment, and the 2 major notes he had were the timing in the middle when he goes into the "clenched pose" was too slow, and the way he brings his left arm down to the side before coming back up looked a little unnatural. So I fixed both, and am pretty happy with the result.

Showed Stephen this version and he said it was much better...

Dan


"Second Assignment"

iTutor - Assignment 3

For this assignment I was to chose a short movie line. With the holidays and all I haven't met with Stephen in a while, so I spent some time polishing up the last assignment and did a bunch of thumbnails for this one, and finally finished a first pass at blocking last night.

One day I will post my passes at thumbs to show the difference. The biggest challenge I had to do was keep it simple. And I think this attempt was pretty good. This is only a blocking pass, and the lip sync is only roughed in, there are also a few spots where I need to adjust the timing and fix a few arcs, but I'll wait to see what Stephen thinks before I do anything else.

Feel free to crit.

"Final Assignment - Blocking pass"

Christmas Tree Vendetta

This is just a little sketch of what happened to Mandy and I this past Sat night....(colored it quickly but whatever...)

Mandy wasn't feeling too well this past week, so we took it easy this weekend and stayed in. Early Sat night after some Chinese food and quality programming on the 5 English speaking channels we get on our HD television, Mandy got off our tiny couch to lay down on the floor and stretch out for a bit. Soon after, I decided to join her and, literally, no more than 2 minutes later our f'in Christmas tree said "Screw you guys for chopping me down!" and came crashing towards us. We've had the tree since Dec 2nd, and I swear it felt like it was waiting for the most opportune moment to make its attack.

Needless to say our plan for a relaxing evening was wiped away by having to clean up all the ornaments, take the tree to the curb and sweep up the millions of pine needles that fell all over....some of which I am still finding today, including one that was stuck to my arm this morning when I woke up!

Next year....A fiber optic tree from Duane Reade!! Just kidding.

Also, as you can see, the gentleman that I am, I did EVERYTHING in my power to protect my fiance.
( Ok, well THAT part didn't really happen...but everything else is true. )

Happy New Year!

Dan

ITutor Update _Assignment 2...still

Been getting some great feedback/crits not only from Stephen but from friends too. I was pretty happy with the last version, but I admit is still needed work. Some things were a lil too much, and needed tweeking here and there, so here is another version. At some point I will be done with this, but I am sure I or someone else will eventually find another thing to tweek.

Also I started the next assignment as well, which is an acting piece to an audio clip from a movie. I've done some thumbs in Flash, and revisions to those thumbs, twice even...which I will eventually post, but not until after I have some blocking to go with it.

In the meantime, check this revised version of Assignment 2.

" Another Revision"