The First New Render Test

Even a glance at the shiny green-eyed robot from the new Bad Reflection and a look at the 2001 animation will reveal some of the huge differences between them. 

Now, for the first time, you can check out the new robot in motion, if only for a few seconds.  Since this animation is just a render test to verify purely technical variables in my production process, it doesn’t reveal anything substantially new about the story or characters. 

For that, you’ll have to stay tuned.  

Back to 2001

While working on the latest version of Bad Reflection I naturally refer back to the original version, both in its entirety and in pieces.  I discovered I never posted the animation online and thought now’s as good a time as any to share it. 

Although it’s relatively crude and meant to be essentially a previsualization of the eventual final work, I like to believe it retains the bit of charm that has kept it alive in the back of my mind for over ten years now.  I can’t wait to put a few hundred more hours into the new version!  I have so many ideas for the animation, the variety of reflections, the plot twists, the effects, that I can only hope to squeeze it all into a five-minute film. 

And now for my first attempt at embedding a video into a blog…  

 

Happy New Year!

Hi, I’m Tom Sylvan.  Pardon me while I get the hang of this blogging thing.  I’m a freelance animator and illustrator.  I make a living (such as it is) primarily by animating forensic reconstructions for litigation, and by illustrating products such as toys, medical devices, kitchen accessories, stuff like that. 

While I may mention my professional work occasionally, my intention for this blog is to share and show off the development of my own animation projects.  These are few and far-between, unfortunately, the necessities of life being what they are, but they refuse to disappear entirely.  

My current endeavor is Bad Reflection, a comedy, a farce starring a mild-mannered misfit robot working in a mirror factory where he has trouble telling the difference between his own reflection and his malevolent doppelgänger.  It’s a new, expanded, and vastly improved version of my experimental 3D animation Bad Reflection from 2001.  (Experimental for me, that is, being largely self-taught.) 

The old Bad Reflection was an attempt at a quick comic interlude, but never quite finished, never quite refined enough.  Now, eleven years later, I think it’s time I finished what I started.  And after years of animation experience, now that I know what I’m doing (pretty much), I want to turn Bad Reflection into a little masterpiece of comic relief. 

Welcome to Sylvan Animation!

My first ever blog post! 

Stay tuned to follow the unfolding story of my developing animation projects.