Sylvan Animation

The First New Render Test

2012-01-23T09:41:00.000-08:00

Even a glance at the shiny green-eyedrobot from the new Bad Reflection and a look at the 2001 animation willreveal some of the huge differences between them.

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

For that, you’ll have to stay tuned.

Back to 2001

2012-01-09T07:43:00.000-08:00

Whileworking on the latest version of BadReflection I naturally refer back to the original version, both in itsentirety and in pieces. I discovered I neverposted the animation online and thought now’s as good a time as any to shareit.

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

Andnow for my first attempt at embedding a video into a blog…

Happy New Year!

2012-01-03T07:10:00.000-08:00

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

While I may mention myprofessional work occasionally, my intention for this blog is to share and showoff 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 disappearentirely.

My current endeavor is BadReflection,a comedy, a farce starring amild-mannered misfit robot working in a mirror factory where he has troubletelling the difference between his own reflection and his malevolent doppelgänger. It’s a new, expanded, and vastly improvedversion of my experimental 3D animation BadReflection from 2001. (Experimentalfor me, that is, being largely self-taught.)

Theold Bad Reflection was an attempt ata quick comic interlude, but never quite finished, never quite refinedenough. Now, eleven years later, I thinkit’s time I finished what I started. Andafter years of animation experience, now that I know what I’m doing (prettymuch), I want to turn Bad Reflection intoa little masterpiece of comic relief.

Welcome to Sylvan Animation!

2011-12-31T07:07:00.000-08:00

My first ever blog post!

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