New Durian team member: Beorn Leonard
on March 1st, 2010, by Ton
More power in the animation department: Beorn started today as character animator. He was already living in Amsterdam, so it was an easy decision to add him during the final months. Beorn has been doing a course at Animation Mentor (using Blender) and already proved to be a very fast and skilled character animator.
Beorn is born Australian, and since recently with British nationality too. More euro power! 
-Ton-
BTW 1: On the picture, Beorn, Campbell’s ever leak bicycle, and whiteboard with secret instructions.
BTW 2: I’ve already seen so much cool stuff here in the studio… but the artists don’t like to share it yet! Just wait a bit, they are making it really awesome!
March 1st, 2010 at 17:56
Cool, can’t wait to see what they are keeping in secret
March 1st, 2010 at 18:04
YAHOOO! For animators!
March 1st, 2010 at 18:10
Like every time good news!!
March 1st, 2010 at 18:12
third !!!
go durian go !
i wish internal gpu rendering for blender comes sooon !
March 1st, 2010 at 18:12
Animation Mentor! Cool! I’ve seen what that school does for people so if he’s as good as you say this is going to be an awesome project!
March 1st, 2010 at 18:34
*gulp*
Now the pressure’s on…
March 1st, 2010 at 18:37
I’ve been thinking of doing Animation Mentor- Only problem is that you have to be 18.
I was also wondering if you could do it with Blender- But I suppose that question is answered now. 
March 1st, 2010 at 18:39
Beorn, just out of curiosity, what A.M. courses have you followed?
March 1st, 2010 at 18:51
MSNNNN For animators!
Welcome Beorn… glad to see more people joining in to help!
March 1st, 2010 at 19:00
Yay! Welcome
ahem >_> http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/1659/beorn300x225.jpg
March 1st, 2010 at 19:09
And another new guy in the Durian Team! Great…
I´ve done a bit of magic on the picture and tried a little time to find out the secret instructions on the whiteboard…
The middle whiteboard is on “ENVIRONMENT MODELING”. On the right one there seems to be something like “MONKEY PULLER”, what could be a statistic thing about the status of the work the Team is doing (“10% Colin” ?), because there are:
“Revoy” (not sure)
“LEE”
“BEN”
“NATHAN
“ANGELA”
“SOENKE” (not sure)
“COLIN”
“BEORN”
Then theres something like “JKUZZI” or “JMUZZI” on the left bottom of the right whiteboard.
the middle part of the right whiteboard seems to be about development of Blender, i think i found “brecht” and “SVN” on it, there is something to be done “what you do the future” or “what you do for faith”
on the top of the right board there is something “local”
————–
I don´t know if everything is correct, but i count on the community to find out the other things on the board…
Here is my “magically”
upscaled picture with comments: http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=1678
March 1st, 2010 at 19:12
This guys of blender are awesome
March 1st, 2010 at 19:12
cool. Nice to hear we can support some more heads. Also, lol at “jacuzzi”.
March 1st, 2010 at 19:14
Yes alalo, when I saw that bicycle behind him I knew who is now going to grocery for the durian team.
March 1st, 2010 at 19:19
Is that the “Animators Survival Kit” I see on your desk?
March 1st, 2010 at 19:21
nice one alalo !
March 1st, 2010 at 19:28
@alalo: There are much more secrets to discover: I made a Highresolution scan of the Banner on top and gave it to a LKM45-Algorithm, giving me the following picture:
http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=1679
March 1st, 2010 at 19:34
i think it’s “monkey butler” not “monkey puller”. :p
March 1st, 2010 at 20:08
@Daniel W: Yup. That’s the Richard Williams book. Well spotted! I wish I could’ve brought all my books with me, but that one’s essential.
@Toon S: I’m currently in class 3: “Advanced Body Mechanics”
@Davis: I can definitely recommend it if you can raise the money. Apart from the fact that it’s a really well designed course, the culture of critique amongst the students is really great for improving your animation.
March 1st, 2010 at 20:31
cool beans man. so is there a portfolio of work that we can all check out, the body of works these guys have behind them is always amazing to check out.
March 1st, 2010 at 20:47
@tyrant monkey: Here is what google found about him. pretty cool.
http://vimeo.com/989468
March 1st, 2010 at 21:26
now the project will feel smoother for the rest of the group.
March 1st, 2010 at 23:07
He has my favourite book on his table. It seems to be a standard must-read for anyone in animation.
March 1st, 2010 at 23:22
lol Nomis Animations
To save your day, and help u sleep. It doesnt say “JKUZZI” or “JMUZZI”
just says Jacuzzi. Have fun sleeping now 
March 1st, 2010 at 23:25
Monkey Puller is actually ‘Monkey Butler’ – The Monkey Butler is assigned cleanup duties (kitchen cleanup mostly) for the week.
March 1st, 2010 at 23:28
And what is beside the names is the dates they are the Butler – so it is not ’10%’ heh.
March 2nd, 2010 at 00:12
Hey that book on the desk is the one I’m right now going trough. Great book!
Good luck Beorn!
March 2nd, 2010 at 00:47
Congratulations on joining up!
March 2nd, 2010 at 03:57
I hope to see some posts on this blog by you, Beorn.
Left board: Environment modeling, a map of an alley, a list of features to model and its breakdown of how much time on each?
Right board: Top – a guide to directories, middle – SNV, more directories?, bottom – Ton buy something jacuzzi?, right table – Monkey roster. Photo was taken on a 3 year old Olypus camera and edited in a 2 year old version of Gimp. And Ton has a steady hand!
March 2nd, 2010 at 09:06
more google stalking…
http://ogdenfreen.blogspot.com/
http://vimeo.com/beornleonard
March 2nd, 2010 at 11:46
Cool. Go for it Beorn – no pressure
…
“I’ve already seen so much cool stuff here in the studio…”
Ton, such a tease, really isn’t helping with the mounting anticipation… ¬_¬
March 2nd, 2010 at 16:58
yh ive noticed that lately from Ton
March 2nd, 2010 at 17:02
This is the first time I’ve seen the name Beorn used outside of a Tolkien book.
March 2nd, 2010 at 17:39
Hey. That Beorn guy looks like they aren’t letting him sleep.
Anyway, just want to let you know that the collective film making site Wreckamovie would love to have Durian there, as well as more Blender artists that want to take part in indie film making.
http://www.wreckamovie.com/
But you Durian guys seem so damn good, light years ahead of me. I feel a bit threatened by you. Personally I hope only amateurs like myself answers this call, but you shouldn’t listen to that, because the community would really benefit from your skills.
Here is a small, probably incomplete, list of Blender projects on Wreckamovie other than my own Stick Wreck project:
http://www.wreckamovie.com/sample
http://www.wreckamovie.com/theromuttamo
http://www.wreckamovie.com/dogslastchristmas
http://www.wreckamovie.com/thehaldersaga
And possibly: http://www.wreckamovie.com/vanguardendeavour
March 2nd, 2010 at 20:41
I am glad there’s another one in the blender institude
It’s going to be te best blender openmovie I think xD.
I know it is a little bit of topic, but…
where are these awesome Linux computers buyed?
I need a GOOD Linux computer
and Beorn: Congratulations
March 3rd, 2010 at 00:16
They have a copy of the Richard William´s, Animator´s Survival Kit on the desk, exactly the same cover I have, intresting…
Excelent reading … keep learning from the master Richard!
March 3rd, 2010 at 05:59
@ Beorn – Great to hear you are with Animation Mentor. I read the free ebooks by Shawn Kelly & co, and was really impressed.
@ D – Still working at computer forensics I see. Love it.
@ Sverro – I was seriously thinking the same thing recently. (Where are these awesome Linux computers buyed!!!) I had been wanting to ask the Durian team where they got their hardware, but was afraid it would be off topic.
March 3rd, 2010 at 07:51
You can do Animation Mentor with Blender!?!?!?! :O :O :O WHAT!? That’s awesome!! (probably also involves Maya, but who cares! BLENDER FTW!)
March 3rd, 2010 at 07:54
ooh-la-la! Blender Instructor — here in Philippines, many schools adopted Blender over Maya when Business Software Alliance got strict with piracy.
March 3rd, 2010 at 09:35
You can do AM with a pencil if you want. It’s all about the motion, not the tools you use.
Having said that, all there rigs are in .ma format and there is a heavy Maya focus. This is understandable given it’s so widely used in the industry, but they certainly don’t care if you use Blender, XSI, or a lump of clay.
I’m not the only AM student who’s using Blender, either. There’s a few of us.
March 3rd, 2010 at 14:53
About “secrets” on the whiteboard: using my eyes as “3D-enhanced-filters”
, the first one is not Revoy, but BRECHT.
March 4th, 2010 at 21:02
Congratulations Beorn!
@David: we are all amateurs in something. amateur comes from the French, meaning to love something.
March 5th, 2010 at 18:48
@freen: have the AM rigs been transfered to Blender, so students can use them?
March 6th, 2010 at 10:52
@arareka: unfortunately not, and also there’s nowhere on AM to share student created rigs. Also because the rigs are AM property, you can’t post them anywhere public, like BA for example.
Fortunately, using the new rigify system, it’s not that hard to make your own, and even if you don’t want to do that, there’s plenty of good Blender rigs out there. You are not actually required to use AMs rigs for your assignments. You could do it all with Mancandy, for example.
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July 18th, 2010 at 11:05
Were from New York and apreciate the posts.We will for sure be directing my friends here to look for themselves! Howdy we just came across your great blog.Keep doing what your doing.