wow that looks complicated..makes me thankfull for LBP 2's streamlined level designer...

Speed art is so mesmerizing... *shakes his head* geez, where did the last 7 minutes go?

For anyone wondering, things like this are surprisingly easy to make with Maya (which he is using in the video). I took a 4-month, 4-hours-per-week Maya course and could easily do everything he does up until about 2:40. Then he starts using ZBrush, which is a tool I haven't learned yet. Around the 4:00 mark he goes into UV Mapping which is another very simple, basic concept used to wrap your flat texture image around your 3D model.

The gist is that you could do something like this yourself very easily if you plot out a one-session-per-week schedule for just a few hours, and follow some online tutorials. ZBrush is an industry standard used to add detail to polygon models, so that's your "level 2" learning curve, but even the next stage of creating your own detailed textures in Photoshop is surprisingly simple once you read how to do it (hint: it's mainly layering different translucent effects so they all appear to blend together).

Recap:
a) Polygon modeling basics with Maya
b) learning to use ZBrush to add detail
c) creating customized texture maps in Photoshop
d) creating a "rig" animation skeleton for your model

Each of those stages takes about 2-3 months to learn (at a 4-hours-per-week rate), and then like he says you could create something like that in a matter of days, and build a portfolio to be applying for jobs as an animator in less than a year. Learning to model/animate is very different from learning how to program, because it is visual-based and therefore fun to learn for almost everybody born after 1985 who was raised to be a visual learner.

Wow. I wish I could do that kind of stuff. Never was much into art, or good at it, but I sure wish I were.

Well, you can't rush... Perfection.

God I can't wait to do this stuff. This is my future, right here! Just gotta finish two more years of school to get a BA!!!

Awesome, going to college for the exact thing this guys is doing. Proud to say that I can do just as good-ish (my detailing needs work) =D and boy does watching this encourages me to do even better. Also hope one day I find myself creating game characters as well.

that was pretty sweet!

Well ***, art isn't something I could do. I'm an absolute perfectionist, and getting every last detail right wouldn't be possible.

This video had me from start to finish though.

very cool. he makes it all look so simple.

Should've done this in Max, bro.  That UV Map program is AMAZING though.  Probably saves days worth of texture mapping.

That dragon is pretty funky looking. The process was pretty cool though. Was debating watching it before I went to bed, I'm glad I did. Definitely didn't seem like 7 minutes.