End of Term 4 and Beginning of Term 5!

To start off with, here's my final shot from the end of term 4:



And now I am starting term 5! IN KOREA! I got here yesterday and it is awesome. This blog is staying animation-specific, but if you want to know more about my Korean adventures, head on over to my other blog: I'm Four Otters

This term, we're doing one assignment for all 11 weeks. Here are the clips I'm going to be choosing from:

TOTALLY ON A ROLL

Week 1 of splining is here and guess what?

I AM FEELING THE FEELS OF PROGRESS! IMPROVEMENT!! SUCCESS!!!

Here you go (rewatch my assignment from last week for superawesometude):

Lipsync Reblock

So I've decided I have no idea how I prefer to spell 'lipsync(h)'. I don't think it matters, but I would like to have a preference. Especially as I'm going to be teaching English in South Korea! My best friend and I got two job offers today! So much excitement. :D

On top of that, I got my THIRD A- in a ROW this week! Dana also mentioned me in the Q&A as one of the best assignments this week. She says my exaggeration is awesome. I am so happy.

She also said she's going to start grading us even harder, so that's good (in the long run at least :P).

Here's what I've done this week. Look out for next week's coming up soon!

Lipsynch Ahoy!

I am no longer leprous and I am back in the game! Woo!

The past two weeks have been all about our first dialog shot. First it was planning, with my three favorite clips from the last blog post, and then it was blocking and focusing on expressions.

Let me just preface this by saying.... I'm on my second A- in a row. Feels good, man. Especially with how much harder the grading is this term.

The work has also started taking twice the amount of time, possibly because there are twice as many controls. My body mechanics are really starting to come together, though, which is a great feeling.

Here we go!

Doing an animatic for these made blocking SOOO much easier. My mentor really appreciated it too.




And the blocking! Bishop was kinda tricky to work with, but it's still probably the best rig I've ever encountered.


And our expression studies:

Onwards and upwards! TO LIPSYNCH!

Here's my final playblast of my last assignment:




I like how it came out. There are still some things I can tweak here and there, but overall, I'm pleased with it.

This next week is planning for lipsynching! Our first dialogue shot. That will be due the last week of term. This really is a make it or break it kind of semester.

Here are the clips I'm choosing from:

Week 4!

I are sick. :(

Turns out sick animating isn't nearly as much fun as drunk animating. Fewer a-ha! moments, too. F-- would not buy again.





In other news, I really like my mentor. She keeps Q&As to about an hour long and always has really useful tips. She actually gives us names for the tips too! So when we're talking to other people it's not just, "you know, that thing where you make the rig do this and sometimes it's really subtle, but it can add this kind of flavor? you know?" And she tends to recap the major points she mentioned at the end of each e-critique. Grading is harder, but I feel like I'm doing much better than last term. :)

I'm going to go make myself some Theraflu and play Fable III now.

Term 4 - Weeks 2 & 3

We're doing pantomime! Whee!

Term 4! Intro to Acting

I am officially more than HALFWAY THROUGH! Woo!

This term we're starting on acting. We only have two assignments for the full twelve weeks (which is kind of terrifying): a pantomime shot in which we have 10 seconds to go from one emotion to another, and a dialog shot.

The pantomime is due in Week 5 (currently on Week 2) and we have from Week 6 - 11 to do the dialog.

(Side note: I just realized that I've been spelling anything that ends in -og the British way all my life. Dialogue, catalogue, etc. Since I'm about to be an English teacher, I should probably fix this habit.)

Back to animation!

So my current mentor is Dana Boadway. She's currently freelancing, but she's worked on things like The Backyardigans, the Wild and Halo 3. She is also a dancer who plays guitar and sews. :)

My Q&A is on Tuesday mornings at 7am because that was the only time that worked for both California and South Korea. Where I am going in six weeks. (Insert excited panic here.)

This past week, I've been planning my pantomime.

Here's my video reference:

 

And here's the planning I've done for it:

 The character page is a new part of the Planning Packet they give us, and my mentor really liked the extra thought I put into it! :D I got full marks for this last week and I'm excited to start blocking.

The End of Term 3! HALFWAY!

So this is the end of Term 3! It's been a hell of a ride. This term has been really stressful (in my professional life and my personal life), but it's all over now, and I'll have a fantastic birthday weekend to unwind.

I'm pretty pleased with my progress. I can tell which assignments I struggled on just by watching them, so that's something to work on. I also have a niggling feeling that I'm getting complacent in my abilities. Next term should fix that though: Intro to Acting!

This marks the halfway point. Only nine more months of school and then I'm done forever! I'm super excited.

Anyway, here's my current progress reel, including all the work I've done for Animation Mentor.

Weeks 4 through 7

Lots of updates!

An entire assignment has passed and from how things are going so far, the evil kind of stress is over and the good kind of stress is beginning. Before a Q&A a couple weeks ago, my class and I were discussing how none of the AM blogs seem to capture the soul-sucking agony you go through at times. We theorized this is because you don't have time to update your blog while you're going through that. So, if any future AM students are reading this: the weeks of no updates are weeks of tearing your hair out, going without sleep, and feeling like the rig wants to see you suffer.

But this is an update! Which means that things are back to normal and happiness reigns once more!

My otter final:



My velociraptor/utahraptor blocking, reblocking and final:



 

This one gave me so much trouble (see: the weeks of no updates). WEEKS of battling the rig and it generally just NOT coming together. Then enter this week. Suddenly, everything is working. Overlap is playing along. My edits are actually looking good.

Just convinces me more and more that animation is 25% skill, 50% time, and 150% magic. Next week's assignment! I'm doing a monkey! This one looks to be really, really fun.

My reference:



My sketches:

Week 3!

It's going really well! Woo! It's currently week 4 actually, and I'm in the process of polishing, but this is my assignment from last week.

I followed the otter reference instead of the human reference for the gallop at the start and it made it soooo much better. This is with only about an hour of tweaking after going into splined. I didn't touch the gallop splines at all yet. (I know right?!)



The run is still a bit slow and floaty, and there are lots of other things to tweak. But it's going nicely. And I'm happy.

This week I'm finishing this one and planning my next shot: RAPTORMAN!

:D

Term 3! Weeks 1 and 2!

My mentor this term is Dave Vallone of RealFX. He really seems to know his stuff, and he's been in industry for ages. I'm really excited for the rest of the term.

I've chosen to have one theme for this whole term and it's human animals. As in, what does it look like when humans pretend to be animals.

Good news? It's pretty original and fun.
Bad news? I am uncoordinated and bruised from my attempts.

Here's my reference and blocking:





My planning didn't photograph well, so I'll skip that for now. I might actually scan it later on.

Onward to more otters!

End of Term 2, Assignment 3!

I am de'd.

Refining:




Final polish:



One more week where our only assignment is to compile our work so far. Then term 3 starts.

1/3 of the way through! omg

Term 2, Assignment 3, Week 3

Here's the Blocking Plus of my dance from the previous weeks!





Still rough around the edges, but that's why this week is for polish! Yaaaay!

End of Assignment 2 and Beginning of Assignment 3 -- the last!

My final sneak! I am generally pretty happy with where I got it. If I have time this week I may do a revision.





Here's the reference and planning for the final assignment of Term 2! I chose to do a dance, and I'll be working on it until the end of the term. (Warning: The sound is a bit loud on these.)

The song is Run Devil Run by Girls' Generation (SNSD).

Here's my blocking with and without the music (because I couldn't resist):

Sneaky Walk! Week 6

Okay! Back to normal! Since the shenanigans with my laptop, I've been flipping through three different computers and it has taken a toll on the organizational system I had in place. I had been waiting to update until I got everything back where I wanted it, but then I figured I should just go ahead and post things out of order.

So this is my current assignment. It's a sneaky walk! It's our first assignment moving away from Ballie and it's been great.




I am pretty happy with it. It was originally way more cartoony, as I've been wanting to experiment with that, but my mentor is right in pulling me back in. There's time for that later; this class is about body mechanics.

Overall, I'm excited to finish it up this coming week and move on to the next assignment! :)

Term Two! Weeks 1 and 2

The second term of Animation Mentor started on the 2nd and it has been awesome. My mentor this term is Ray Ross who works at Blue Sky (Horton Hears a Who, Ice Age, etc). He is kind of amazing. I've gotten both e-critiques back on Sunday so far (zomg) and he answers all the questions he can. So happy. :D

Our first assignment this term is actually due in Week 4. Last week we shot reference and did planning, this week we blocked. This coming week is for roughs, and next week... we finalize. I really like this method of animating. I feel like I've finally gotten a hang of blocking in stepped mode, and the extra time makes me feel like I actually am doing my best, rather that the best I could do in the amount of time given.

Without further ado... my assignments:

 

I'll post my reference later. My laptop decided that it needs a new DC in port, and so Dell is having me ship it back to the lab to get it replaced. Thank goodness for warranties, but it's still a pain. I'm using my boyfriend's laptop for most things now, but my reference is still on my broken computer. ;-;

This week's assignment was blocking!

Ray is a bit tougher on grading than Anthony was, but he still really liked it and gave me some helpful tips. Looking forward to this next week. :)

Woops! and a whole lot of updates!

So... apparently I'm dumb and have been clicking save instead of publish for the past couple weeks. That's what comes of stress, I suppose. Instead of posting them all as separate entries, I've consolidated and added new info to make one long super entry. So here we are! I just turned in my last assignment for Term 1 and it's been a hell of a ride. We have one more week of feedback, then two weeks off for Christmas. I'll be starting Term 2 in Santa Barbara, hopefully with an apartment (just made some calls cross fingers!).

On we go to the past month of updates!

For poses we've had to do...

Physical strength:

My main note on this was to give the hands more shape and to make the weight come straight down, rather than at an angle.

Next was concern:

Anthony liked my poses a lot this week. his only note was (again) more shape on the hands and to turn the kid's body a little towards the camera.

Up next was exhaustion:

He told me to straighten the leg, but that he really liked the shoulders. :)

And finally, balance:

Haven't gotten feedback on this on yet.

On to animations!

Last post, I went over my obstacle course revision and my pendulum.

So here's the pendulum revision (not required, but I had time so I did it anyway):

And the assignment for that week (with our fancy substitute mentor) was the ball and tail! I used reference of a sugar glider with stereotypy. Just kept doing backflips over and over.

Next was our first biped animation! We had to do a vanilla walk cycle. No bells or whistles, just good body mechanics. This was a two week assignment. The first week, we blocked it out (stepped), and the second week we refined it. I forgot to upload my blocking, but here's the final revision:

Much more difficult than anticipated. I managed though!

The same week I did my final revision for that, I blocked out my personality walk. That is, a walk that has character. I found some awesome reference from the Dean Martin show (will be included later).

We did the blocking in side view:

This one was probably the hardest I've done so far. It was not working and not working and I started over three or four times. I finally went back to incremental save 14 (out of 37) and started over one last time... and it worked! I don't know how, but it did.

So here is my final final personality walk, with reference and in side and 3/4 views:

I believe this sums up my experience the past two weeks...

This next week I get feedback on everything I've done so far. It's been a good term. Busybusybusy. But good. I have learned so much and I think I ended it on a really high note. :)

Week 6

Apparently I was a week behind in the titles of my posts! I don't know how I managed that.

Anyway, week 6 has been quite excellent so far. I still haven't gotten a good schedule down (in that I do most of my work Friday/Saturday/Sunday, because that's when I have time), but I'm definitely improving.

This week, I did the pendulum and a revision of my obstacle course.

Here they are:



The platform gave me so much trouble. It was insane. I spent 45 minutes on the pendulum bit, and two days on the platform. Does that seem right to you?



I realized too late that I followed the first set of instructions my mentor gave me instead of the revised set. It still looks leaps and bounds better, though, so I hope it'll be okay.

And, as a special treat to myself for making it halfway through Class 1 of Animation Mentor, I put together a compilation of the animations I've done so far!



I have been improving and it's amazing to see.

Week 4 & 5 - Obstacle Course & Pendulum

Week 4 was craaaaaazy. The last IGF crunch for CvZ and Halloween and a difficult assignment. I am ashamed to say I know I could have done better on this one. Thank goodness for revisions.

Here are my sketches and final pose for "devastation":

Anthony said to make it less profile/symmetrical, but overall that it was good. I keep on putting too much stock in silhouettes, apparently.

And my 'final' obstacle course ball:





It's not amazing. The bounces are a bit jumpy and the timing is off. The ending doesn't hold to proper physics either. I need to revise it for next week, so expect to see something prettier sometime soon.

Onto Week 5! A better week, a happier week!

This week... we're doing overlap! Woo! Not to toot my own horn all Mazeppa-style, but this is one of my strengths.

And here we are, my wonderful planning for this assignment! (I would show my reference video, but I didn't put on pants before filming it.)

And there we go. Next week is Tailor, the bouncing ball & tail!