Cinefx 152 cover

my squid shot is on the cover of Cinefx. After reading it I feel like I need put more info about animation out there
.
- I have never seen the old boy eating squid reference.

-The shot was turned over to me with just a concept drawing. Then I found this footage to study how gorilla eat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTq_ZhhQLTM

- Initially I requested we need more extreme lip shape for this shot but was told our shape and texture won't hold up for the extreme stretching. Plus they will sim the lip.So I animate loosely on the lip, with jaw doing most of the work.

- months past they realized the sim and mcor are not going to work. I jumped back to the shot.

-after several back and forth. I went all out on our lip shape anim, tweaker and whatever pushing way beyond limit.

-Lana Lan did a lot of mcor work to make sure lip and squid stick together and have correct deform during interaction.

10 yrs veteran

I am a 10 yr veteran today. (3/5/2017)

10 years ago, March 5 2007, I started my VFX career at Rhythm & Hues Studios, working on Golden Compass.

Back in the day R&H flew me to Los Angeles for interview, Matt Logue and Keith Roberts chatted with me, we looked at my reel and they asked if I am ready to change my anim over and over again because thats the nature of business. I eagerly said yes!

The money in VFX was not great, but I've met great people and made good friends in the industry. I usually worked on movies tank in box office or involving talking animal, however that makes the few rare moment we accomplished something impossible much more memorable. And heck, I even started drinking beer because of VFX.

I want to say thank you, lets toast to the great 10 yrs and much more decade to come

WarCraft in 44th Annie nomination

I am nominated in 44th Annie award for Warcraft

Outstanding Achievement, Character Animation in a Live Action Production

Warcraft - Orcs - Animation Supervisor: Hal Hickel,
Facial Anim Dev : Jee Young Park,
Sequence Lead Animator: Kai-Hua Lan,
Animation Supervisor: Cedric Lo,
Animation Supervisor: KimHuat Ooi

Congrats to all ILM warcraft anim team

43rd Annie award nominees

I am lucky enough to be nominated for Annie award this year.

Outstanding Achievement, Character Animation in a Live Action Production
The Revenant – The Bear -
Animation Supervisor: Matthew Shumway, Lead Digital Artist: Adrian Millington, Digital Artist: Blaine Toderian, Digital Artist: Alexander Poei, Digital Artist: Kai-Hua Lan


Whole list: Here

Revenant

now I can even appreciate more for what we did on Life of pi. We struggled for more than 8month on the bear in Revenant. People are still rebuilding the whole bear shot by shot, crazy.

Richard Parker Animation & Development Reel from Life of Pi from Kevin Lan on Vimeo.

11th Annual VES award nominations

I am honored to be nominated in VES award for my work in Life of Pi / Richard Parker 11th-Annual-VES-Awards-Nominees

A Sci-Fi Vehicle

Now more people return to work, my downtime is getting more noisy....Nooooooo

Another one

Just can't stop it...

Girls in moebius style

My recent practice during work....

Jean-Giraud Moebius 1938-2012

I can't believe we lost the true master of all artist.
I will miss you, miss you very much. Your inspiration will live on.



In Search of Moebius - Jean Giraud clip1/3 by foivosloxias

申敏兒 신민아

Saw her in the Korean drama My girlfriend is a Gumiho.
Now she is my no.1 actress.

Mr.Popper's penguin

Ok, I am pretty much the character lead on this show.
I created the animation library and set the tone and standard for animation style and quality.

Now, there are some animator or supervisor thought they are clever or something.
They tried to change the library animation and do their own thing in their shots.
, ends up being pretty bad animation.....

what the hell are you guys thinking?!

Staff animator

Ok, after more than 3 years of sacrifice and waste of life....I was offered a staff animator position at here. Finally I don't need to worry about next contract or visa issues. And I can have my family to live a better life. They have treated me well, no complain here....

It also means my career of animation will probably end in this company.
What a sad thing, after certain age your options and possibility shrink down and you have to settle to what you have. I may never go work at Pixar or dreamworks form now on.

久違六年的甜梅號 新年快樂2010

甜梅號 Beginning of 2010 from Kevin Lan on Vimeo.

記得上次看他們表演已經是2003八月的事情 也就是我出國留學前夕
在地下社會 小小場地大概擠了不到ㄧ百人 看小白忘我的飆吉他 為我人生中最大ㄧ步餞行

他們與我年紀相仿 也是面對 當兵 理想能不能吃飯等等徬徨的人生大哉問
大概是這樣 看到如今在the walls這晚四五百人的爆滿演出 我很為他們驕傲 也為我們這ㄧ代優秀的台灣創作者感動....

還有甚麼比聽甜梅號現場更棒的ㄧ年之始?

回到原點

不論我對於公司的製做流程跟品質有多麼不滿....不得不承認她們對我真的很好
這次又是靠我的manager解救我的visa 危機

所以 我一月份開始又要回去上班了
現在先回台灣一陣子躲避美國政府

lay off time

it happens in every animators' career, and it is happening now for me.
You start wonder why you choose to be like this......

Memories from my late 90's - SPEED

They slip out of my memory for a long time, now they are back

animator is a pathetic animal

Rightnow I am really busy, got tons of shots on my plate. And I don't feel those pain anymore!
Suddenly I am passionate about my work again, I stop complaining because I get to do some cool shots. How pathetic I am, they feed me some good shots and keep me busy and now I work like a crazy dog.

極度的悲哀

還有甚麼比被強迫做爛動畫更悲哀的事情呢?
在這家公司待了兩年多,每況愈下
supervisor跟director除了對客戶搖尾巴外,早就失去最基本判斷好壞的能力

無意義的動作, 為了shape change而shape change, 根本不問這個acting感覺對不對
我到底還要出賣自己的靈魂多久? 一家人在這裡陪我這樣荒唐度日的目的到底是為了甚麼?
現在做的動畫已經到了可恥的地步, 完全無法想像這種東西可以從我手中誕生.

可恥啊我!