Production Sketches:

I compiled all of my sketches and designs into a short video. There were many problems with what style I wanted to go with. In the end, I decided to go for a cute, fairy tale style. A cast of characters that would be seen in children's cartoon or something out of a Rankin Bass Christmas special. Despite the realistic story and serious atmosphere, I didn't want to have the characters reflect that. I went with a cute art style because I felt it would have been more upsetting that this catastrophe had to happen to such adorable characters.

Production Sketches from Jason Hata on Vimeo.

Beta versions of scenes for thesis:

The scenes were created using Maya 2009, mental ray. Before going into detail about the importance of each scene, I wanted to point out that because I'm doing clay animation for my thesis, I had to kill all reflectivity on all the geometry. Unless I want to piss off the compositors helping me, it'll be a hassle to put reflections on all the objects in the scene. Likewise, I can't just ignore doing all that work, because it'll also look awkward if the character is walking around and objects that show reflection won't have the person's mirror image. So I turned off reflectivity, but it still look awesome.

This first scene is the family market. This is the where the story first takes place. It's also important that all of the scenes are colorful, because throughout the story, various possessions desaturate in color to represent "loss".



The next two is the kitchen scene. This is where the father explains to Yuri about Executive Order: 9066. That little ray of sunlight was simply added to test out ambient light from outside the window. Because of the grim atmosphere, that light won't be there.





The last pic is Yuri's bedroom. This is where Yuri will be seen packing her suitcase. The father walks in to catch Yuri filling her suitcase full of photo albums and scolds her. There will be more photographs on the wall as well, to show a deep dedication to preserving memories.

Animation Test I

Just to get a feel on how to go about tackling my thesis "animation-wise", I created a few tests. Other than I need to get a better green screen, overall I'm happy with what I got. Keying/compositing is something I'll have to learn, but the animating part was not only fast on my part, but I enjoyed the process. It's a whole lot different than taking a rigged character from Maya and moving one body part at a time. The only downsides I feel about stop-motion is I can't tweak certain limbs. I'll have to re-shoot the entire movement if the animation doesn't look right. Also, gravity is not my friend in stop-motion. XD Just a minor problem I'll figure out as I go along.

Clay Animation Test 1 from Jason Hata on Vimeo.

I think out of all the shots, I love the shot of Scotty the best. Besides the camera "twitching" because I used frame blending in After Effects, I absolutely love the dog's smooth movement. The tail wagging is perfect.

I also like the first shot on the lower right, Yuri kneeling down to pat Scotty.

*Side Project: Dragon Quest VIII "Hero"

For my computer sculpting class, our assignment was just to pick a character to sculpt, create a wire armature, add clay, and sculpt the basic forms and make sure you have the right proportions. I chose to do the "Hero" from Dragon Quest VIII. I've been sculpting for about 12 years, but I'm not used to such large pieces. This is a 12 inch figure, where I'm usually used to 1 inch little clay figures. That is until I worked on this piece. Now I feel confident that I can pull through no matter what size the artwork needs to be.





The hardest part about this sculpture would be the drapery of his over-coat. The Hero is wearing a tunic underneath and I needed to make sure I didn't disturb the first layer of clothes by adding the coat.



I also couldn't finish this piece without the cute little mouse, Munchie!



This was made by Super Sculpey. This is the clay that I usually work with, because the consistency is just right for creating extreme detail, being stable in terms of not warping during the sculpting process, and at the same time being pliable, soft, and mold-able enough to create the forms I need.

Characters for Senior Thesis

Because this is the first post concerning my Thesis project, I'll go over the summary. This is based off a true story about my Grandmother through the evacuation to the Japanese internment camps during World War II. She was twenty years old when the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred and my project will be a montage on all the events that my Grandmother experienced.

There will be six main characters, and about ten additional characters. This will be the first four, the other two still need to be worked on.



This is Yuri Yano, the main character of my story and my Grandmother as a young girl. She used to tell me how much of a rebel she was back then. To put things in prospective on how aggressive she was, she was sent to a girl's etiquette school over in Japan, but after a few weeks, she got herself kicked out. She was very caring, but rebelled when she felt an injustice. It's very sad that she was accepted into the University of California for Nursing when Executive Order 9066 was issued. She and the rest of my family lost so much.



This is her dog, Scotty. In reality, my Grandma had to give him away, because the camps didn't allow animals. In my animation, I slightly changed the story to have the father take the dog away. It stays consistent with the theme of having our lives/possessions being taken away during this time. Scotty is supposed to represent "the observer" in my story. Children, for example, are observers as well. They can't comprehend what this evacuation is about, however it still effects them as a scary occurrence.



This is Yuri's father, Juro. Despite being the father, he ends up being the antagonist of this story. It's very ironic how in reality, he was the one who lost everything during the Japanese evacuation. There's a time in the story where my Grandmother packed her suitcase full of not clothes, not jewelery or food; but full of photo albums and photographs. The father scolded her, telling her that we can only bring "one" suitcase and one suitcase only per person. Only necessities should be packed. I want to show the Father vs. Daughter conflict to reflect society vs. authority. The viewer isn't going to grasp the concept of what the evacuation feels like. So instead of soldiers policing the town and taking things away, I'm portraying the father as the one taking things away from Yuri. Almost all people has experienced a conflict with a parent or someone else that stands as an authority figure. I also wanted to show how this evacuation destroyed not only what we owned, but destroyed the families themselves. There will be a few instances where the father and daughter fight and argue, where their relationship used to be so good and happy.



Just as a cameo, I added in my Grandmother. She's the one who survived the Japanese internment camps during World War II. To the audience, she's just an old lady shopping at the market. But to my family and me, it's our Grandma. She went through so much, I needed her to be there.

First Post!

First step in becoming a famous artist. Basically, this'll be the place to dump all of my crap. Wish me luck!