Daniel Erwin

Work History

• 

  Senior Animator

  Ready At Dawn Studios

  June 2014 - Present

  * Work with Director in creating cinematic animation sequences from pre-viz, to shooting
  video reference, to final performance animation, integrated, blended, and working in-game.
  Responsible for camera animation and keyframe animation on humanoid characters to
  hold up next to motion capture, as well as editing and manipulating motion
  capture data performances.
  
  * Create pipeline tools in Python for fellow animators and contributed input in weekly meetings
  with tools team for creating, improving, debugging, and refining tools and their practical
  function

  

  

• Freelance Artist

  Danimation Studios

  January 2008 - Present

  Instructional / Safety Videos
  Side Projects
• 

  TD & Character Animator

  Duck Studios

  May 2009 - May 2014

  Greater Los Angeles Area

  Commercial Animation:
  * I work closely with directors and other animators under tight deadlines. With collaboration, I develop story by creating layout animatics with soundtracks and dialogue. Through blocking and rough animation I develop character animation styles and personality performance ideas, fine tuning and improving the performance all the way to the final animation approval.
  
  * I am proficient in MEL and Python scripting languages. I have written many tools for asset creation, rigging, animating, and rendering to the farm using iRush. Along with leading all character rigs and rigging tasks at Duck Studios, I created and developed the Geometry cached based pipeline and tools at Duck Studios utilizing Alembic at it's core. I've written asset management tools to easily instill production standards for the pipeline to help eliminate technical and tedious user errors. This greatly simplified the process for the artists so they could focus on producing quality content and speed up the production turn-around time.
  
  * Lead and manage a team of freelance animators on multiple, overlapping Cox Communications commercial projects. Under tight deadlines, I work directly with the director, agency, and client on daily updates, notes, and changes.
• 

  Character Animator & Rigger

  Duck Studios

  May 2008 - March 2009

  Greater Los Angeles Area

  Character Animator on Commercials:
  * Cox Communication's Digee characters against live action and on white syke.
  
  * “Rubbuds” short/PSA directed by Jan Chen:
  - Won the 2010 Rising Star Award at the Canada International Film Festival
  - Won the 2009 Best Animated short film at the Naperville Independent Film Festival
  - Won the 2010 Best Animation at Las Vegas International Film Festival

• Character Animator & Rigger

  Barbedwire FX

  October 2007 - January 2008

  Santa Monica, CA

  Character and hyper-real animation for films and commercials:
  * Pre-Viz Rigger and Animator on “Solomon Kane” feature film.
  
  * “Rainbow Tribe” Movie: Worked closely with director and video reference on rigging and animating realistic bats. I also rigged and animated a digital replacement stunt double that blended into live-action performance.

  

• Animator & Rigger

  7 Studios

  October 2006 - October 2007

  Greater Los Angeles Area

  
  Created custom rigs and animated characters for current gen and next-gen consoles:
  * Worked with team of animators in creating in-game character animations, cycles, and vignette sequences for “Fantastic Four 2” (PS2, Wii, DS) in 3D Studio MAX.
  
  * Created and developed stretchy character rig for “Mr. Fantastic”/Reed Richards character. Meeting compatibility standards for exporting and importing into game engine.
  
  * Worked with art director in creating effects animation for “Shrek the 3rd” (Xbox 360).