Blog of Boris

Weight Lift

2012-01-13T00:22:00.000-05:00

This is one of my assignments from a couple months ago already. There's still stuff that I'd want to fix but time to do something new!

Last of the Trolls.....for now

2011-12-16T23:03:00.000-05:00

Here's the rest of the troll model sheet I've been working on! I was having trouble with the expression with his cheeks puffed out so Amanda pretty much did that one, plus giving me some feedback along the way. Our desks are right next to each other so it's always really easy to give each other feedback. I'm the one usually getting it though :P

Ghost

2011-12-14T02:12:00.000-05:00

The second workshop at iAnimate wrapped up about a week ago. Amanda and I have both learned so much and the next workshop should be awesome! Can't wait! Got a little more time to draw now, even though I'm still trying to plan some animation. Hopefully I'll get more of the troll model sheet up before the end of this year.

Troll Turnaround

2011-12-11T01:34:00.001-05:00

Drew this guy a little while back. Here's the first part of his model sheet!

Weight Lift Preview

2011-10-24T18:57:00.002-04:00

Been pretty buys lately with iAnimate. Here's a preview of what I'm blocking out right now. I've tried a few different workflows so far with the last few assignments and I really like starting out in stepped. It just feels so much more like hand drawn and it's a lot more fun to be honest.

I've also just been trying to get some basic modelling knowledge. Not that I'd want to really pursue it, but if building sets and props makes for a more entertaining shot, then why not!

Pig

2011-09-15T00:41:00.004-04:00

You never know when you'll need a ladle.

Turtle

2011-09-12T13:07:00.003-04:00

Been a little busy lately. The second workshop at iAnimate started 2 weeks ago and Amanda and I just finished a temp animation job at Yowza. Had a bit of extra time so I worked on this guy a bit more. Had a hard time figuring out his head because of it's shape and the placement of his eyes. Still trying to sort that out though, especially from the 3/4 top view.

I've wanted to work on my designs in general a bit more. Honestly haven't done too much since 2nd or 3rd year at Sheridan and was focusing a lot on animation.

Titeuf Scenes

2011-08-14T13:18:00.003-04:00

'Titeuf' came out not too long ago on dvd in France, so Amanda and I wanted to post the scenes we worked on. I'm pretty sure this is all of them but I really can't remember. In terms of screen time, we don't have much, but we had a few crowd shots in there that were pretty time consuming.
It looks like the movie came together pretty nicely, if you get a chance, check it out!

iAnimate Workshop 1

2011-07-30T12:51:00.006-04:00

This is my progress reel that I handed in about a week ago. It has all the assignments from the first workshop except for the last assignment, which we're working on now. I'll post that one when it's done in a week or two.
3D isn't as bad as I thought it would be. Definitely enjoying it. Especially that now we're doing an assignment where we can add a bit more personality, it really doesn't feel that much different than animating on paper :)

Cowboys & Aliens

2011-07-24T17:35:00.003-04:00

I posted this over at Sketchy Business, a blog that Trent got going again. This is my take on the current theme "summer blockbusters".

More Trolls!

2011-07-15T19:55:00.004-04:00

This is based off the guy below, but steering away from the rockiness and doing something more organic and fleshy. The final version will look more like this guy, with a few tweaks as I work on his model sheet.

Rock Troll

2011-07-10T01:06:00.004-04:00

Well, it hasn't been a year between posts this time, only 4 or so months. I consider that an improvement. Here's something I did the other day:

Also, since the beginning of May, Amanda and I have been learning CG at iAnimate.net. It's been great so far and we've already learned a lot. For anyone wanting to learn CG animation, I would definitely recommend iAnimate. Especially for you Sheridan folk, not only are we learning CG but we're learning stuff about animation in general that we didn't in school.
Not sure when, probably sometime in August, I'll see if I can post my progress reel from the first workshop.

Meanwhile...

2011-03-11T22:35:00.007-05:00

So it's been almost a year since I posted my film. It actually took me a second to remember how to upload my pictures and to make a post...shame on me.
Since graduating Amanda and I have been quite fortunate when it comes to work. The first thing we worked on was a French feature film called "Titeuf". Then we did some TV stuff and now we're working on hand drawn commercials and other projects at Chuck Gammage.

Here are some of the trailers for the French movie that comes out on April 6th, Amanda's birthday! But chances are no one here will ever see it, I'm guessing it'll only be released in France. The second trailer actually has a scene of mine and one of Amanda's.

And this was the latest thing we worked on from Chuck's:

To also post some personal stuff, this is from a little dialogue test I'm trying to work on right now. It's always hard finding time after work.

Also Amanda's in the running to win an iPad in a design contest. If you want to help her win, all you have to do is click this link and "like" her entry. ONLY 2 CLICKS!

That's it for now. Hopefully it won't be another year until I post again :|

4th Year Film

2010-05-02T12:46:00.004-04:00

So finally, after many months here is the final version of my film that was screened last Thursday at Industry Day (although this version has credits):

First, a big shout out to Amanda Zima and Dan Rodrigues. Amanda helped a lot during the production of my film. She designed the little tiger and gave me some good advice for my other designs and was always there to help me when I got stuck or needed some suggestions for my animation. And Dan did a wonderful job with the music. Dan was so easy to work with and came up with something that I think fits extremely well, way to go!

Keeping my film rough was a big decision. Amanda and I were both considering cleaning up and colouring our films, but we would have had to rush the animation so much and we really wanted to learn as much as we could about animation. Keeping them this way, I think we learned a lot about our limits and we have a way better idea for how approach a short film now.
The idea for my film was pretty different up until February, the characters were pretty much the same but the situation they were in was different. It was risky because I had to throw away the animation I had already done and around 25-30 layouts, but I think I made the right decision for what I want to pursue. I started animating around the middle of February and animated up until our deadline of April 19th. It was the craziest 2 months of my life but I'm really happy with the amount that I learned during the process of making my film and hope I can make another one soon.

Princess and the Frog Update

2010-03-17T04:11:00.010-04:00

Something I did after we finished up on Frog.

So Princess and the Frog is out on DVD now (the blu-ray has a rough animation version of the film), so as promised here are the scenes that Amanda and I had the privilege of doing clean-up inbetweens/breakdowns on. I might come back to edit this post to add more info.
(in order of screen appearance)

And everyone should go over to Matt Williames' blog. He was an animator on Frog and he's posted some of his pencil tests! GO NOW.

Princess and the Frog

2009-12-15T15:03:00.006-05:00

So Princess and the Frog had it's wide release this past Friday. Right now it sits at just over $27 million. Amanda and I had a really great experience working on the film. We were only working on it for about 3 months over the summer at Yowza Animation, wish it could have lasted longer but we came on really close to the end of the production.
We both learned a lot from doing clean-up. It was kind of a void that we never really went over at school but I'm a lot more comfortable with it now. Even when it comes to animation, I think we picked up a few things here and there that will help us down the road.

Left to Right: Pierre Chiasson, Boris Maras, Claude Chiasson, Amanda Zima, and Roger Chiasson

In total, we worked on about 7 scenes in the movie.Ranging from doing a lot of clean-up inbetweens and breakdowns to scenes that only needed a few clean-up inbetweens. It was fun when we split up scenes and got to collaborate with some Sheridan grads Matt Kalinauskas, Mario Richard and Nick Watson. When the DVD comes out I want to screencap the scenes we worked on and post those too.

Left to Right: Amanda Zima, John Musker, Boris Maras, and Ron Clements

Yeah, so hopefully we can do this again. It was a pleasure working with everyone and there's some extremely talented people working there. I think the movie looks gorgeous. Ron, John, everyone at Disney,and everyone from the partner studios did a marvelous job! Congrats everybody!

Now it's back to working on my graduate short film. It's coming along, I want to get stuff up on the blog soon but more importantly I have to finish some work before the winter break.

Costume Life Drawing

2009-12-01T23:44:00.004-05:00

So the film is going well I suppose. My new leica is done and it's at a manageable length now. I think it's looking better, but we need a new version for Dec 14th for another screening coming up. So I'll probably post that version instead of the one I have right now.

In the meantime these are some life drawings from the past few classes.

4th Year Film

2009-11-04T21:24:00.004-05:00

I had a small film blog up until now, but I'll keep it here instead, now that it's out in the open anyway. Hopefully this week I'll be doing some workbooks, layouts, and more design work. Unless I end up changing some things in my story here and there.

Zoo Trip # 3

2009-09-12T12:10:00.006-04:00

More elephants!

Zoo Trip #2

2009-08-25T17:02:00.002-04:00

So Amanda and I went to the zoo again yesterday with Ben and Chris. Wasn't as rusty this time around so I did a bit better. The new polar bear exhibit is a lot nicer than it used to be too. They have a pretty big underwater viewing area now, it was awesome being so close to them while they were play-fighting underwater.

Everything below is from life except the elephant in colour. I'm trying to figure out how to anthropomorphize them and make them animatable and expressive.

Also, I should have mentioned that the hunter isn't related to my film. He shan't be hunting elephants anytime soon.

Hunter

2009-08-16T18:05:00.002-04:00

30 Elephants

2009-08-16T01:42:00.002-04:00

I'm learning to draw elephants, so I found a bunch of pictures online and drew from them. Can you guess what my 4th year film will be about?

More Sketches

2009-08-15T02:06:00.003-04:00

Amanda and I have started going to the mall and zoo more, now that school is closing in on us.
I've also decided on an idea for my 4th year film that I'm getting excited about, it's a brand spanking new fresh-outta-my-head idea so I haven't done any drawing for it yet. Soon though...sooon.
Meanwhile here are some more zoo/cafe sketches... Again.

Midsummer Post

2009-07-04T01:15:00.004-04:00

These are some subway sketches and a few misc sketches from a while ago. I do have a few new things for my 4th year film though, but my idea and stuff might change so I'll hold off on those for now. I also put up some screencaps of scenes that I animated for our 3rd year film Hogwild.
Looking back at these scenes now I can really tell how awful my clean-up was, especially because it was so rushed. Amanda and I have been doing some clean-up for Princess and the Frog for the past couple months and I think we've both improved a lot.

What I did at School this Week

2009-03-19T03:48:00.002-04:00

And hopefully every week.

Action Analysis and Costume

2009-01-13T22:59:00.006-05:00

The last two months have been busy with finishing up the action analysis and the holidays.
Thanks to Amanda for helping me finish up my background on time.

Spear Throw Animation from Boris Maras on Vimeo.

We also had our first session of life drawing after coming back from the break yesterday. Started costume this term which is a lot of fun to stylize and make characters of.

Winter fair

2008-11-27T00:06:00.006-05:00

Sketches from the Royal Winter Fair

And some old development stuff for an action analysis idea.

Pigs - Scrooge - Cat

2008-11-07T23:56:00.005-05:00

The first three of the pigs and farmers are concepts from our group film for this year. Since these were done, the film has changed a little so these reveal nothing about story or the final design, so hopefully I'm allowed to show them. If any of you group members think I should take them down let me know.

This was for an English assignment. Everyone had to do their interpretation of a different character. Mine was Scrooge when he was still engaged to Belle.

And this last one was from my initial film pitch that we had early on in the year.

Life Drawing and Ottawa

2008-10-22T22:51:00.000-04:00

So this is technically the first real post on the new blog. Been busy working on the group film and action analysis, but who hasn't. These are from my first life drawing portfolio. Haven't really gone to extra life at all, Amanda and I are trying to focus a lot more on animation and working in the studio.

Amanda and I also went to Animation Festival this year in Ottawa. A lot of great workshops and lectures this year. We went to see John Canemaker interview Richard Williams, which was great.
And under that is Dei, Hernando, Amanda, and I with Eric Goldberg.

And finally, this guy cut us off on Traflagar. He honestly had his arms up like that and was holding the wheel with his index fingers and thumbs, like he was pinching.

New Blog

2008-10-06T22:26:00.001-04:00

Well I've finally moved to using blogger as oppose to using my own site, too expensive to keep it going. It's too much work to transfer all of my posts, so I'll just include some stuff from my last few.