Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Playing around with Biped animation

I can't remember the last time I animated in 3D. A few weeks ago I opened 3d Studio up at work and played around with the biped animation to check it out. I chose two quick little dances to animate for fun and learn the tool. Obviously there's gobs of room for improvement, but I thought I'd share my first attempt.



The Basement Design + Motion launches new website

This week The Basement launched our new website. Each section showcases a different style that we're capable of as a company, from 2d vector animation (the pipes on the 'Homepage' and birds in the 'Contact' section) 3d work (the 'Work' section) stellar hand drawn illustration (buildings on the 'Homepage'). And of course the portfolio, case study, and demo reel in the 'Work' section show off the work that we've done in the past including motion graphics work, microsite development, and online games.

It was a team effort all the way with each member of our team tackling some element of the site. We're happy to see it launched and look forward to the opportunities that will follow.

Hancock Fabrics: The Ultimate Prom Competition Webisodes and Style Tips

This is an old project I worked on earlier this year that I'd forgotten to post until I saw it in the portfolio section of our new Basement website.

Advertising agency, Creative Alliance, recruited us to produce a microsite for a seasonal promotion with Hancock Fabrics and Seventeen Magazine. Hancock Fabrics was the official fabric sponsor of The Ultimate Prom 2009 competion. The microsite included fashion design tips and webisodes documenting three aspiring designers from New York's High School of Fashion Industries.

For this design obviously fabric and fashion design were our overarching concepts to work with. We wanted fabric to be the biggest design element so I used some satin from the Hancock Fabrics prom line and added stitching, pins, tape, and pattern paper to pull it together.

Being the only girl designer in the office it made sense for me to use my feminine sensibilities for this project. ;) Hopefully it came across as appealing to teen girls across the US and helped to portray Hancock Fabrics' as a more relevant brand for teens and younger women, and not a just store catering to their mothers and grandmothers.

Though this site has already launched and run it's course, there is still a test version of it up on our server you can check out here.