A Random Collection of Works by Tom Davis

Animation Mentor Class Three Project

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:39:00 +0000

I had a great time in Animation Mentor Class Three: Advanced Body Mechanics with Pete Paquette! This term we did 3 separate shots of our own concept - that when sewn together worked as a cohesive scene called an AnimJam. Very fun stuff! Eventually I'll probably do a full-on render of this, but for now I'm happy showing my Maya Playblasts.

Butterfly Animation - Process

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:47:00 +0000

Here's a little animation exercise I've done this week on my week off from work. I've included the thumbnail sketches I started with, the pencil test, and the final colored version... just to show my process from start to finish. Hope you enjoy!

The Thumbnails:

The Pencil Test:

The Final Colored Animation:

Something I'm Working On...

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 19:13:00 +0000

Details soon to come... but I'm loving the direction this is going so I thought I'd post a teaser!

Movable Type Project

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:16:00 +0000

My pal, Brian Ward, has started up a really cool online project called Movable Type. It's a call-for-entries type of project where he announces this go-round's letter (in this case it was capital B) and animators can do any approach, any style, any "thing" they want under 5 seconds in length. A really fun exercise! Here's my first submission: a rough pencil test! Go to Movable Type and get in on the fun!

Tailor Pencil Test

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 22:25:00 +0000

I decided to go back to some of the assignments I've had so far at Animation Mentor and do them traditionally! It's a bunch of fun and I think it'll make me a more well-rounded animator. Not to mention I'm so happy to dust off my animation desk and equipment after about 8 years in the basement!!

Note: If you're not familiar with pencil tests - basically they're rough pencil animations that have not yet been cleaned up, colored, polished, etc. The idea here is for me to get a firm grasp on the act of animating rather than spend lots of time on cleaned up finished art. (Maybe down the road I'll clean and polish some of these as I go!)

Animation Mentor Class Two Progress Reel

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 17:06:00 +0000

I'm super happy with my progress reel for Class Two: Psychology of Body Mechanics with Mentor Dimos Vrysellas! Had a great term and am learning a ton. I'll be starting class 3 in a couple weeks and will post new work as soon as I have some!

Animation Mentor Class Two, Assignment One

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 14:23:00 +0000

Here's my first assignment for Animation Mentor Class Two: Psychology of Body Mechanics with Instructor Dimos Vrysellas. The assignment was to have the Ballie character descend a few stairs. I added some hop to his step to give him some character, too. I'm really happy with how this one turned out! More to come soon!

Animation Mentor Class One

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 13:06:00 +0000

Animation Mentor Progress Reel: Class One Basic Foundations from Tom Davis on Vimeo.

Here's my progress reel for Animation Mentor Class One: Basic Foundations with Don Kim! I feel like I've learned a ton this term and I couldn't be happier with AM's program. I'm getting ready to start class two, so check back in 3 months when I post my second progress reel!! A couple notes worth mentioning: these are Maya playblasts, not full-on renders... the same files I turned in for my assignments. Also worth mentioning, there's no physics engine stuff, rigid bodies/soft bodies or collision objects or any of that... this is focusing on learning the basics and hand-keying everything! Anyway - hope you like!

Christmas in ... June?

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 00:50:00 +0000

OK... so last Christmas I gave my wife, Jenny, what she's been hinting at for years - Peanuts lawn characters (to put in our yard at Christmas-time)! Like a throwback to the 70's I drew these guys out on particle board, cut them, and painted them and gave them to her for Christmas! These guys are roughly 4 feet tall (with the exception of Snoopy being a little smaller). Jenny's way more saavy than I am regarding stuff like this so she ended up weatherproofing them recently while I took the opportunity to photograph them. My neighbors were impressed that I didn't trace or stencil these guys, and I assured them that's not my bag... nor is weatherproofing evidently. But yeah... if you're gonna make your wife something cool for Christmas - never, ever, EVER trace them ... jeez, really?? I will say, though, that mine are not the only hands that touched these guys... my son, Forrest helped me cut and bondo the rough edges, my 7-year-old, Willy, and my neighbor friend, Joe, "helped" me paint them, my daughter made sure mama was out of the house long enough for me to work on them, and my son, Dylan, helped me hide them all winter long! (so yeah this one was a team effort.)

Animation Mentor Stu Poses

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 20:58:00 +0000

As you many know I'm currently attending Animation Mentor and am now in the last week of class one! (Woohoooo!) One of my favorite things we did this term was "Stu Poses". It's where we're assigned an emotion or a physical state of being and we have to then sketch the figure in 10 or more quick gesture drawings... then we select our favorite and put our character, Stu, into said pose. It's a really fun exercise and although there's no motion involved, it's a HUGE building block for what we're about to be getting into from here on out in our classes and in our animation careers. So here's a couple of my favs from first term. Hope you like! Oh - and later this week I'll be posting my Progress Reel from term one here for all to see as well, containing more Stu poses and a bunch of animation assignments I've finished... so check back! (Sketches by hand - obviously - and Stu poses done in Maya using AM's character and rig.)

Crazy Kids

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 20:41:00 +0000

Here's a peek at some concept work I'm doing on a fun new project I'm working on at Real Art! Not going to go into any details right now - but I'm having a blast concepting this out and thought I'd share a couple of my favorites. Enjoy! (Photoshop and Cinema 4D, by the way.)

Daily Doodles

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 20:27:00 +0000

Puddlecutters!

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 13:19:00 +0000

Man I totally forgot about this drawing till I stumbled across it searching for something else! What a nice surprise! A couple summers ago a couple buddies of mine wanted to buy mopeds, chop them, and start a moped gang. I thought it was a funny idea and quickly scribbled up this Roth-inspired mascot for the Puddlecutters! (I think I'll stick to riding my Silverado rather than the downgrade to a tiny bike... sorry guys.)

Meet Winston!

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 04:52:00 +0000

What can I say? I thought it would be fun to do a new spin on an old favorite!

Some New Art for Art's Sake

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 04:29:00 +0000

While waiting for a render at work the other day I decided to get out my pencil pouch and do some doodling. I ended up with a nice little superhero character and decided to clean him up this weekend in illustrator and photoshop. Check him out!

My Old Biz Card!

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 04:24:00 +0000

I was just doing a little housekeeping here on my blog and realized I hadn't posted the illustration I did for my (now defunct) business card. Yeah - I'm not actively tattooing right now but the illustration I did for this card should not go to waste!

Starting a New Chapter

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:15:00 +0000

I'm not sure if I should really call it "starting a new chapter" or more appropriately "picking up where i left off"... either way - it's a change for the better! I've decided to switch gears and get back to my true love - character animation!!! Yep - for anyone who knows me, this won't be a surprise. I'm currently gearing up to start classes at AnimationMentor.com beginning in March, and from here on out, my blog posts will largely be illustration work, animation work, and stuff of that general flavor. I hope you stick around to see some of the exciting work I put out over the coming years... it's been a long time comin' and I'm pumped and ready to really get back to what I love!

Check out AnimationMentor.com to see the AMAZING work their students are cranking out in the student showcase reels!

Dawn's Phoenix

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:24:00 +0000

I'm so happy with how this tattoo turned out I figured I'd share it in as many places as possible! So if you're a Facebook friend of mine or a fan of our studio's Facebook fan page, you may have already seen this one... but hey - can there really be too much of a good thing?

Thanks for giving me freedom with this one, Dawn!

A Few Recent Tattoos

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:54:00 +0000

I've been posting paintings and non-tattoo artwork lately and figured maybe it was time to post a few of my recent tattoos! I'm really happy with how these turned out and am energized and ready for more! Hope you like them as well. (Note: the hula girl is based on a piece of traditional-style flash by M.D.Howse of Spider Murphy's and was my first TRUE attempt and american-traditional.)

Hula girl and rum barrel on Rob Anspach June 2010, Snake and spade on Jason Brandt May 2010, and Angel on Mike Brandt July 2010.

Blue Buddha Painting

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:16:00 +0000

Recently I was asked by an old friend if I would do a painting for her husband for a Father's Day gift. Here's what I ended up with! Happy Father's Day, Frank!

Happy Birthday, Zoe!

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Sun, 16 May 2010 17:07:00 +0000

Zoe's 15! Happy Bday, Zoe! (I think she likes it!)

5x4 Is My New Thing

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Sun, 16 May 2010 17:01:00 +0000

I decided for a while to tighten up my compositions a bit and simplify. So my latest trend is to tear an 8.5x11 page in fourths and use these as my canvas. So far it's working out really well! It gives me some parameters and tightens the window for me so my mind goes straight to the simplification stage... and I think it's allowing my compositions to be more dynamic while remaining somewhat simple as far as economy of line, sculpted line, etc. Anyway.... more to come!

Concept Art for a Recent Tattoo

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 14:10:00 +0000

I haven't posted anything in a while... just been busy tattooing and working and traveling and so on. So I figured I'd post this concept sketch I did a while back for a tattoo I was designing. I didn't end up doing this exact tattoo but a similar one based on the same theme. The client wanted a design that incorporated a "City on a Hill", a religious reference. I thought a cool retro travel poster theme would be in order. I still dig this design even tho we went with another approach, and thought it worthy of my little corner of the interwebs.

Joe White's Completed Tattoo by Tom Davis

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:30:00 +0000

Of all the tattoos I've done lately, I think this one is possibly the one I'm most fired up about! Joe White's a repeat client of mine and has become a good friend. He gave me total creative freedom on this piece - so right off the bat this one was sure to be a favorite for me. In addition to having creative freedom, this tattoo sort of set the way I work as well. My machine setups and needle sets (Wade Smith liner for 4-rounds and shader (for my 7 mags) with a Troy Garris liner pushing my 8 rounds), and the ink I use (Eternals and Fusions kick ass!) - this one really put me in the right mode for my upcoming tattoos. He's happy - I'm happy... and again, I hope you dig it as well.

Matt's Sk8fink is Finished!

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Davis) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:54:00 +0000

You might remember a couple months ago when I posted the linework for this bad boy... well we finally got in and finished him up last night! I'm really pumped about this one and hope to create some more "finkish" monsters doing crazy stuff sometime soon! I hope Ed Roth would approve of the Sk8fink!