Sassy - Digital Painting Practice

Hey :)

I love to paint and so here's my latest digital painting practice. I also recorded my slow and full-of-mistakes painting process so that I can spot my mistakes and I hope it benefits you too!

You can actually see that I had proportion problems at the beginning when blocking. Hahaha! I'm still trying very hard to learn to paint digitally! :D

I kinda like the result of this piece because I can finally get more form in my painting particularly in this piece. The final color scheme is also very close to what I was looking for.
Took me about an hour to complete this painting from scratch.

It's a fun and nice exercise and I'll improve along the way and hope you'll like this video demonstration!



On a side note, I will be serving my National Service from mid-September 2009 till about a couple of years later. Probably less updates during this time, but do check back because I'm planning for a surprise in this website!

Hint: Digiron will strike back with his new-found weapon!
Update - 17 May 2011: The Easter Egg on this website has been removed since version 6.0

cheers!

Got Something - 11 Second Club August 2009

Latest Update (6 September 2009): Ronald Fong's 11 Second Club August Entry Finished 60 of 188 entries! That's about top 32% and I'm happy about that! I will strive to bring this percentage down in my next entries. :D

Here is my entry for the 11 Second Club August 2009 Competition! :D
I had some difficulty uploading my clip to the competition earlier, hope it gets through! This is my first submitted entry to the 11 Second Club!

I learnt from this exercise that I have to keep my poses simple and "stupid". I had some poses which were much more difficult to read that what I have now, but I discarded them after generous critiques from my friends. If I find time, I'll pose a compilation of my work in progress before I arrived at this final. I am aware these poses can be greatly improved and I have some unusual acting choices here, but nevertheless and most importantly, I can feel that I'm improving!

Critiques and comments are most welcomed!

Title: Spooky Spooky

Description:
2 buddies landed themselves in a spooky environment.
One of them, Charlie, gets duped into scouting the eerie passage! ><

Time Taken: Approximately 35 hours

Transcript:
"I'm not sure what we've got here Charlie... but if we've got what I think we've got, we've got something! There's one way to find out..."

Software: Maya, After Effects

Skills showcased: Character Animation, Compositing, Lighting and Rendering

Channelbox Official Logo Design

Recently, I re-designed the Channelbox Official Logo with the help from my buddies at Channelbox.

Channelbox is coming up with a new short film (yet to be named) which is scheduled to finish preproduction work August 2010. It is currently in the process of refining the story and visual exploration.

The Official Website of Channelbox is scheduled to be up on the 30th of September 2009. I hope you guys are as excited as I am about the official website launch! :D

Lucasfilm Animation Singapore Jedi Academy Summer Internship

Hello! :D

As part of receiving the Lucasfilm Animation Singapore Outstanding Project Work Award [Animation], I had a 3-month internship opportunity to be part of the Lucasfilm family for Summer 2009. I was so excited to be part of one of Singapore's largest animation production studios!!

This internship program, known as Jedi Academy Singapore, has just ended last week. During my stay at Lucasfilm Animation Singapore, I have made many fantastic new friends and learned a lot of new things.

As an animation trainee, I discovered a whole new perspective towards character animation and I feel that my character animation skill has improved a great deal.
I hope to be able to put these newly acquired skills to good use in my personal projects and future animation work.

Once again, thank you Lucasfilm Animation Singapore! It has been an awesome summer!
I'm off to catch the all-important National Day Rally 2009 Live on television! :D

"Much to learn, I have!"

Nanyang Polytechnic NewsBytes Newsletter

Hi! :D

I came across the Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) NewsBytes Newsletter Page the other day.
I found myself featured in the 12 June 2009 NYP NewsBytes Article! Thanks to the Desmond, NYP Communications and the NYP NewsBytes team!

The article is a special edition for NYP Graduation 2009, covering the highlights of the memorable occasion and interviews with some of the special graduates.
The section "Glad to have graduated!" covers how "Ronald bounced back after a major operation" and some other interesting stories about my learning journey in Nanyang Polytechnic.

Enjoy! Click here for the article.

Happy 44th Birthday Singapore

Ronald Fong wishes Singapore a Happy 44th Birthday!
Singapore is doing well in so many areas in recent years, including the digital media industry. I am very excited to be part of this growing industry in Singapore and hopefully Singapore will be a digital media hub in the coming years! Majulah Singapura!!

Nanyang Polytechnic Graduation 2009

Guest-of-Honour
Mr Seto Lok Yin, Director of Industry Development Division [Left]
Media Development Authority of Singapore

Ronald Fong, Digital Media Design Merit Diploma Graduate [Right]
Recipient of MediaCorp Silver Medal Award
Recipient of Lucasfilm Animation Singapore Outstanding Project Work Award [Animation]




Mr Freddie Yeo, General Manager of Infinite Frameworks [Left]

Ronald Fong, Digital Media Design Merit Diploma Graduate [Right]

I am very honoured to receive my Diploma in Digital Media Design with Merit, MediaCorp Silver Award and Lucasfilm Animation Singapore Outstanding Project Work Award from Guest-of-Honour Mr Seto Lok Yin, Director of Industry Development Division, Media Development Authority of Singapore and Industry Guest Mr Freddie Yeo, General Manager of Infinite Frameworks at the Nanyang Polytechnic Graduation 2009 Ceremony.

I know I have mentioned this before but once again, thank you Nanyang Polytechnic, MediaCorp and Lucasfilm Animation Singapore! =)

New Script Category in Downloads page

Click to go to the downloads page. :)

Hello everybody :)

I have picked up a little bit of Maya Embedded Language (MEL) Scripting in my own free time and have quickly written two scripts which can be helpful when rigging characters.

The Shape Switcher
Have you ever come across rigs with controllers which are difficult to select?
You can now use the Shape Switcher Script to swap away controllers which you do not like. It has proven to be useful for animators and riggers.

The Curve Color Changer
Having different colors for different controllers in a character rig can save a lot of hassle when trying to select the right controllers, especially in the case of differentiating the limb controllers of the left and right sides.
This little utility can help you change the curve colors of either the shape node or the transform node (override color) depending on your preference.
Once again, it can be very useful for both animators and riggers.

Though they are meant to be used for rig controllers, they can largely be used for any Maya Dag Object. :)

If you have any suggestions to improve the script or report any bugs, please feel free to email me.

Enjoy! :D

The MEL scripts are written by Ronald Fong with the sole intention to help himself and fellow digital artists who wants to learn. Use at your own risk and do not use them for commercial use.

Mini Cooper S 3D Animation Wireframe

Hi! :D

Here is a wireframe version of the 3D MINI Cooper S Lighting and Rendering Exercise I did earlier. By the way, there has been some queries on how to achieve the rendered wireframes on 3D models. If this information is of help to anybody, tt is actually done using the mental ray contour simple shader.

Hope you'll like it :)

MINI Cooper S Photo Realistic Rendering

Hello =)

I have always wanted to take my 3D Mini Cooper S model for an animation ride.
The 3D model is done in Maya some time ago and I rigged it for animation for this exercise.

I have already created a still
using this set of HDRI and backplates I got from www.hdri-locations.com some time ago.

But a still image was not enough for me :P

I played around with the camera and backplates to give the illusion that it's a real trucking/zooming/panning camera. I feel that some shaders can be improved but I am quite happy with the results. This is a very fun exercise for me. I hope this may inspire some out there who wants to do some photo real animation with their 3D vehicle models and I certainly hope you'll like it ;D

It's fully rendered and composited in High-Definition, so feel free to watch it at 720p resolution! :D