Student Testimonial - Harry Evans IV
"I had a great experience learning from instructors… I feel that all the Workshops I have taken have been a tremendous help in my improvement and understanding of animation."
Harry Evans is a 3D animator from San Francisco, California, United States. He is currently working on Modeling/Rigging for an animated short film, "Wanted". Harry has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Academy of Art University in Animation and Visual Effects. He has been a long-term animation student at iAnimate and took workshops that helped him to learn and improve his animations. His inspiration comes from loved ones from the past and present, movies, and books. Most recently, the spaghetti westerns with Clint Eastwood have been his big inspiration.
"I had a great experience learning from instructors Stephen Melagrano, Mike Walling, Tal Schwarzman, and Jason Ryans' weekly demos.
Stephen Melagrano taught me a more organized, conducive workflow that would work more effectively in addressing changes after receiving notes in his class (Feature Quality Animation). He also greatly helped me improve my understanding of body mechanics and how to implement them in my animation. I had such a great learning experience with him that I decided to re-take his class even though I didn't need to in order to explore more challenging approaches for the class assignments while using character rigs from my personal project.
Mike Walling helped me understand how to use my recorded reference more effectively and understand how to create a more appealing performance using it as a starting point and then implement inspiration from other references such as photographs and illustrations to come up with more appealing poses. I was very grateful that Mike spent extra time with me after class once he noticed that I was struggling with the class assignments during my time while taking his class (Body Mechanics) for the first time. I decided to take Feature Quality Animation next and then re-take that same class (Body Mechanics) with him as an instructor once again and during that time, he pushed me to go further with more challenging ideas for the class assignments after seeing my skills increase. Mike's demos and discussions were a great inspiration, and I found them tremendously helpful in understanding the assignments. I enjoyed my learning experience with him as an instructor so much that I decided to take the next class (Advanced Body Mechanics) with him as an instructor and I was not disappointed. He pushed me to expand further in my understanding of animation through that next class (Advanced Body Mechanics).
Tal Schwarzman helped me improve my overall performance in many ways, including how to effectively come up with a more sincere, believable performance. Tal showed how to edit recorded references after importing them into the Maya software in order to use it as a tool in helping with planning a shot. He demoed this method and other efficient workflows, but he didn't make any of these methods mandatory. One of my best experiences in his class was how he showed how his personal workflow changed over the course of many years. He showed a personal shot that he created and explained what he did in that shot, and then he re-did that same shot many years later with a more efficient different workflow. I found it incredible that he was able to put more into the same idea by changing his workflow under the same time constraints. I have taken his class three times, and I have seen dramatic improvements in my work each time. Tal helps students get ready for the expectations of studios by holding all of them accountable for the work that they put into their assignments. I feel that this is one of his best traits. I look forward to taking his more advanced classes.
Jason Ryan's weekly demos were a great addition to each class that I took by showing other ways in planning an animation shot by using references from recordings, and drawings and then editing the reference in a flip book and later importing it into the Maya software. Each term, he would demo shots that were suitable for helping students in all skill levels. He inspired me to think about and explore animation ideas in a creative way that made working on my assignments enjoyable. One of my greatest experiences with observing one of his demos was when he animated a little kid character rig that turned into an adult character rig (Skyscraper) with a magic hat as a prop. I learned so much from that shot.”
Dusty took the following Workshops at iAnimate:
- Feature Workshop 1 - Feature Quality Animation with Stephen Melagrano (Steamroller Studios)
- Feature Workshop 2 - Body Mechanics with Mike Walling (Bungie) and Jason Anastas (Freelance)
- Feature Workshop 3 - Advanced Body Mechanics and Pantomime Acting with Mike Walling (Bungie)
- Tal Swarzman (Pixar Animation)
- Rigging Workshop 2 - Character Rigging for Production with Jonah Austin (Survios)
