Hey guys! So I would have posted this earlier but I was in the process of trying to figure out how to nicely render out all the poses I did throughout the class so I could include them in my final reel. And as you'll see, they're not included in the reel yet because I have yet to figure it out and I've been busy with traveling to Pennsylvania for Christmas. When I have more time I'll go back to tackling it.
Unfortunately my time in AN01 has come to an end. I can't tell you how much I've learned over these past 12 weeks because it's just so much. I feel like I now have a solid foundation of the basics of animation, which is something I felt I was lacking coming into the program 12 weeks ago. My mentor, Anthony Wong, has been an amazing and extremely helpful teacher and I will miss being in his very entertaining Q&A's. My classmates have also been amazingly helpful throughout the class. It was so awesome to be with all of these people who are just as passionate about animation as I am and it was a real pleasure to be able to learn from so many of my Animation Mentor peers. I can't wait to start the new semester in January with Steve Cady, but for now here's my current progress reel!
Also, Merry Christmas! Thank you to everyone who has been following my blog posts throughout this past year!
Hello everyone! Alright so this past week we had to put our personality walks into spline mode as well as create a Stu pose showing balance.
First off, the pose! This week's balance pose was pretty fun to create, I couldn't really act out the poses myself for most of these because I'm not a gymnast, but that's where Google images comes in real handy! Below are my sketches I created...
From these I selected a few to pose out in Maya...
I had a tough time selecting one to submit and after some great feedback within the Animation Mentor community I decided on sort of combining the 2nd and 3rd poses I had made and I'm really happy with the result!
Now for the animation! Again, the knees were time consuming in the clean up phase of this animation, those darn knees! It was fun in this assignment to really exaggerate some of the movement in the walk and I think I can still tweak it further but here's what I submitted...
and the side view...
I'll let you guys know when I tweak it some more so you can come back and watch it again only perfected!
Hey guys! First off, go have a look at my previous post because if you scroll all the way down the page you will see my revised vanilla walk! So yes, again, I'm a little late posting the assignment I did for last week, but at least I'm getting it up before the weekend! So last week we had to revise our vanilla walk, come up with a personality walk, and create a pose showing exhaustion.
First off, the pose. Here are my sketches that I came up with showing exhaustion...
I am pretty familiar with the feeling of exhaustion so it ended up being not so difficult to come up with poses. I decided on the circled one because it appeared to be the most dynamic looking. Below is the final render of the pose I turned in...
I just got the critique for this too and Anthony mentioned that I should lower the head a little more so it's resting more on the block, that I could make the hanging arm even straighter, and that I could tilt the left foot slightly towards the camera. I'll be making these adjustments come winter break when I go back and tweak all my pose adjustments.
Now for the personality walk! I wanted to make a walk that would be more interesting than just a swagger or catwalk, so I went with an uneven weight, or similar to a cripple, walk. Here's the reference video of myself walking while holding a frozen turkey in one arm, try not to laugh...
And from that reference I planned out my walk though sketches and wrote out the timing...
And into Maya I went! Turns out it was actually pretty enjoyable to make a walk that wasn't so ordinary. Below are the side and 3/4 views of the walk...
My critique on this actually ended up being pretty good! Anthony suggested that I have the right heel continually going up when it's lifted so there won't be so much of a pop, that the low poses could vary more between the different strides, and a couple more comments. And that's all for now folks!
To start off, everyone go check my post about the fifth AM assignment, I updated it at the bottom and it looks 10x better, if you can't tell, I'm pretty proud of it. Also, I forgot to make a post last week so this one's going to be a little long.
So last week we were given the assignment to block out the main poses of a vanilla walk as well as pose out Stu in a strength pose. I'll start off with the pose sketches that I came up with for strength..
Out of all of these I figured pose 10 would give me the opportunity to use the stretch controls on Stu's arms, I also tried to pose out 7, 3, and 6 but those one's as you can see ended up looking more like Stu being lazy or like in the last one he looks sneaky or something...
And here's the one I ended up going with...
And in my critique Anthony suggested that I could push the shoulders more towards the camera and that if I wanted I could get away with having both feet on the wall. So when I go back and adjust all my poses I might try that out.
And now for the animation assignment from last week. I realized this week that there are more key poses to a walk cycle than I originally had thought, and it was great to be able to learn that! Here's my planning sketch for the walk...
And here's the blocking of my vanilla walk...
In my critique, Anthony suggested that in the extreme high pose I should bring the lifted foot slightly forward, make sure all the straight leg poses are actually straight, push the high pose body back slightly, push the low pose body slightly forward, and to fix the up and down rotation so it's more of a drag on the rotation. And so in the second week of this assignment I added all those suggestions.
On to this past week's assignment! Since we're already talking about the walk I'll go ahead and continue with that. So this week I had to add all the critique from last week and continue to work on the vanilla walk until it is finished in spline mode. I don't know if you've ever done a walk cycle but man oh man, those knees, not fun. I spent a while adjusting the stretch control on his legs to attempt to achieve a no knee popping walk, and it took some patience haha. So here's my final version of my vanilla walk for your viewing pleasure...
This week we also had to pose out Stu in a concerned pose, which was a little difficult to come up with more than like 5 poses. Video reference helped a lot for this one, and here are my sketches...
I ended up only posing out one final concerned Stu pose just because the other ones I tried were not coming out well. So here's my final concerned Stu...
Now I'll just have to wait and see what Anthony says about the pose as well as the walk. Stay tuned for updates!
*UPDATE*
Hey guys! I received a lot of good feedback on my walk from both Anthony and the substitute teacher that we had for a week, John Nguyen http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1315347/. A few things that were mentioned was that at the contact pose the body should be forward more like a controlled fall and that the back foot should look more like it's pushing the body off as oppose to the foot looking like it magically lifting. So without further ado, here's the final version...
Hey guys! So I actually really like these drawings that I'm about to show you. I don't know if it was because we finally got to draw a female model or I was just having a great drawing day, but I like how they turned out, especially the last one...
The last one there is probably one of the few drawings that I have where I actually included the face, also the foreshortening of the legs was an enjoyable challenge.
Hello all! Yesterday I submitted my assignment for this past week, so here I am to share it with you guys! The assignment was to animate tailor, a ball with a tail, with an anticipation to motivate the first bounce and then have a minimum of three bounces, showcasing the overlapping action of the tail. We have two weeks to work on this animation and then the third week we have for revision. I found this animation to be pretty interesting, basically because I've never animated a character with a tail, and turned out to be a bit more challenging than I first thought. So here's my planning for my animation...
And here's the animation that I have submitted for the first week of the assignment...
On a side note, I signed up for my second class at Animation Mentor which will start the 8th of January and chose my mentor, Steve Cady. I'm so excited to learn from him, his e-critiques, that I've seen, are amazing and he provides his students with so much information. He is currently a senior animator at Hybride and has worked as an animator on such films as The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Pacific Rim, Avatar, Watchmen, The Amazing Spiderman, and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1513513/
*UPDATE*
Alright guys here's the final version of my tailor assignment. I received a lot of great feedback on the assignment such as he should anticipate more when he goes to jump off the pillar, try to show tailor squashing on the pillar from a side angle, have him jump slightly forward at the end due to all the momentum that he has from the previous jump, always favor the squash pose, and a few more notes. Below is my final version of the assignment...
Hey guys! So I forgot to make a life drawing post on Friday, so I'm just going to do it today. These ones are more current since they are from around the beginning of this school year.
I think these ones are okay, not my best. Definitely good for me considering this was after not drawing for a few months due to summer break happening!
For this past week we were studying overlapping action, so we had to animate a pendulum doing an action. For mine I wanted to pendulum to be sort of playing with a ball where it would bounce it once, toss it off screen, and go after it. Here's my planning for the assignment...
I still can't quite get the hang of knowing what frame numbers actions will happen on before actually going into Maya though, because these frame numbers ended up being pretty wrong haha. My mentor suggested for this kind of overlap to try using the idea of copying the rotate curve that I made for the top joint of the chain, and pasting it on all the other joints and then just offset it on the other joints by a frame or two. This worked for the beginning part for the most part, but when the pendulum went into the loop, the joints ended up wrapping too much and then it just looked like it was stuck like that until the end, so I had to go back and do the overlap for the joints from right before the loop until the end by hand. So here's what I turned in...
I'm still not completely happy with the overlapping action on the chain near the beginning just because it feel more like a tail and less like a chain being acted on by inertia, but we'll see what Anthony says!
Also, this week we had to pose out Stu in a pose conveying devastation. Here are my sketches that I came up with, with the one I ended up submitting circled...
I actually posed out 3, 5, and 8 and ended up having difficulty deciding between 3 and 5...
(pose 5)
(pose 8)
(pose 3)
I liked pose 5 because it was dramatic, but from the critiques that I got from people 5 was more of a dramatic portrayal of devastation and took a minute for people to realize it was devastation, whereas pose 3 more immediately read as devastation. So I ended up submitting pose 3. I feel like something could still be refined on it though, the line of action feels a little off to me, but with the hectic week I had, staying up until 6am this morning to finish all of this and the revision of last week's assignment, it's turn-in-able haha. Now I just have to wait and see what Anthony says!
*UPDATE*
Hey guys so this animation went through quite some revision. Anthony suggested that the beginning would work better if there was less tilting of the base before it throws the ball, and that some parts of the chain motion were off. I just kept not being totally satisfied with it, but I finally have the finished revised version of the pendulum for your viewing pleasure!
So my assignment for Animation Mentor last week has us dealing with 2 different bouncing balls of 2 different weights. We had to plan out the action for both balls, so here's my planning...
From the critique I got for this assignment, I've been told I need to work on my planning, in particular the frame numbers. I just find it difficult to figure out what frames things should be on without being in Maya seeing what works, so I should work on that. Here's the playblast that I submitted...
I found a lot of good footage again on youtube, which was great because I don't just have access to a beach ball or bowling ball. Here's one in particular that I liked, mostly because it shows both types of balls side by side...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocn2Mhzrdl4 . Some of the critiques that my mentor gave me was to take a frame out of the beginning bounce of the heavy ball to give it more of an impact on that first hit and to have it not roll so far at the end. He also said that for the light ball, the bounce was really good but that I should have it start at where it currently is at frame 31 so that I can have time to add 2 smaller bounces at the end and have it come to more of a stop. Once I revise it, I'll be posting the update here so be on the lookout!
*Update* So I revised the animation and submitted it with this week's assignment. The critique that he gave me for it was that I should place the small ball more in front of the light ball, the heavy ball should come in at more of an angle, roll not quite as far at the end, and add one more residual bounce, and that the light ball should start at the position it was at frame 30 so it can have more of a stop at the end. So here it is!
Hey guys! So here are some more of my figure drawings from UCF. I think I'm going to post more in this one so I can get to some of the drawings that I've done so far this year, since I think some of them are better, but I still want to show these ones as well. So here they are!
Alright guys so for this past week my assignment for Animation Mentor was to create a pose portraying excitement as well as animate a bouncing ball.
So for the poses, here are the sketches I came up with for excitement...
I looked at a lot of videos of soccer players and football players for the most of them, those guys can get pretty animated, as well as some videos of children getting super excited about everything lol. I was trying not to pick a cliche` excitement pose, which actually turned out to be kind of difficult. These were the options that I posed out to pick from...
I ended up submitting the second one just because I loved the line of action it created. I think it possibly is in a cliche` pose since it was pointed out to me that it looks like the Mario jumping pose, but oh well, cliche` isn't always bad.
And now for the ball bounce. I was actually surprised how enjoyable it was to animate this. Maybe it was because I haven't done simple animation in a while or maybe because it was nice to re-learn the basics in an understandable way, either way, it was enjoyable. In the assignment we had to have the ball bounce across the screen and, if we wanted, have it roll to a stop. The weight of the ball also had to resemble the weight of a basketball or soccer ball. While I was looking for reference I came across this lovely video of a basketball bouncing across the screen...
I am so happy there are other people with access to sports balls that actually post their videos to YouTube, makes my life so much easier!
So here is the final playblast of the bouncing ball animation that I created...
Now all that's left is to watch my e-critique and see what my mentor says about it!
On a side note, I don't think I ever mentioned who my mentor was for this class. His name is Anthony Wong, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0938933/, and he is currently working at Pixar Animation Studios. Now I'm not saying I only signed up for his class because he worked on The Emperor's New Groove, but if you know me, then you know that that was a big deciding factor, I freaking love that movie lol. He's worked on so many amazing animated films and so far he has been a great teacher.
And now onto the next assignment!
*Update* - So I received my e-critique from Anthony and he said that my ball bounce was good but for this first ball bounce he wants to see more actual physics taking place and that there should only be rotation on the X axis so no crazy rotations. So I went through and made the bounces less lopsided and fixed some of the timing, so here's the revision!
He also said that my pose would work a little better if his right arm was straighter, and if he was turned counter clockwise some so that his right arm is more prominent and so that his left foot would go more into perspective. So when I update that I'll make sure to post the revision.
So I was just finishing my Animation Mentor assignments for the week and got to thinking "you know it's been a while since I posted about my life drawing stuff..", and so here I am about to show you some more of my favorite life drawings that I did while in the UCF Character Animation program!
If you can't tell, I really like drawing legs! They often times come out the best when I'm figure drawing.
Yes, there is a lot of old man body parts that I'm sure you'd rather not see, but it's a figure study. I know a lot of my friends are all "ew you draw naked old guys..", but when I do figure drawing I've come to really view the model as just another object to draw, like a tree or a statue, it might sound bad, but I'm numb to it lol.
Hello everyone! So I just recently finished my first assignment for Animation Mentor. For the assignment we had to go out in the real world and sketch random people, then choose one of those poses and pose it our with a rig that Animation Mentor provided. So here are my sketches that I was able to get from going to the mall and park last week.
I found that there are a lot of people on their phones, everywhere haha. I did like a few of the poses that I was able to get though so I posed out 3 different ones using the Stu rig.
I ended up choosing the bottom render because I felt like, out of all three poses, this one had the most emotion and even a bit of a story. Stu looks kind of down and sad in that one, whereas the other renders were more relaxing poses. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, now I just have to wait and see what my mentor says!
*Update*: So I got my grade and e-critique from my mentor and I got an A-! I also got some great feedback about how to improve the pose so, when I get the time, I will be updating it and re-posting so you all can see!
So I've been extremely bad about updating my blog, I need to force myself into the habit of blogging more often. Anyways, a week ago I started Animation Mentor! I'm so excited! I can't wait to learn so much more about animating. I'm thinking that I'll try posting more often now so that I can show everyone what I'm working on and just everything we'll be going over in class, so we'll see how that goes! I also moved recently so that combined with starting class and going to figure drawing on fridays hasn't left me much time to work on my groggy dancing animation, but I hope to start working on it again soon.
