Looking for Butter Smooth

[Original videos have been removed - "better" can be seen in Week 11]

Class 2 - Week 10: I continued working on getting it smoother as well as revised the animation according to student and mentor feedback.

Class 2 - Week 9: I reblocked the animation and did the first pass of smoothing. I need it to be smooth as butter.

These animations have been taken down because the final is much better.

Flippin!

[Original video has been removed - "better" can be seen in Week 11]

Class 2 - Week 8: Stewie has arms now. They're having us animate more and more complicated rigs as we progress forward in the quarter.

For motivation, I chose to have Stewie do a backflip off of a winner's podium in his excitement.

Wax on, wax off . . . I need to polish more

Class 2 - Week 7: This is the final. I need to polish it more. The run is too fast and he bobs back and forth.

Below is the planning for the third and final assignment for this quarter. This assignment I'm going to have Stewie with arms do a backflip.

Box jumping

[Original video has been removed - "better" can be seen in Week 7]

Class 2 - Week 5: This week I blocked Stewie jumping a box (in this case a bridge). For interest sake, I had fun with Stewie's entrance and his motivation to jump up and off the box (bridge).

180 Degree Jump Polish(ing - is it ever done?)

Class 2 - Week 4: This week we were to polish (smooth out) the animation we've been working on for the last couple of weeks.

We were to also post the video reference and planning sketches for the next animation we are going to create. The choices were:

1. Hop on one leg (minimum four hops)
2. Lose balance and fall down
3. Jump up and off a box
4. Skipping (minimum four skips)
5. A simple dance move
6. Climbing/descending steep stairs
7. Drunken stumble
8. Walk in a heavy windstorm
9. Steps on sticky gum
10. Parkour no arms

I chose to capture the action of #3 - jumping up and off a box.

Photoshop brushes - you gotta love them!

One of my favorite ways to get inspired is to check out favorite illustrator blogs.

Recently an artist, Sean "Cheeks" Galloway, announced he was going to be selling a vinyl maquette of a character he created called "Kuta". As a part of his package contents, he wanted to include some postcards so he posted an art card contest.

As I was checking out a blog of another favorite artist, Joe Vriens, I noticed he had created one for Cheeks. I loved what he had done, so I downloaded it to put on my computer desktop.

The other day, for a creative break, I thought it would be fun to take Joe's work (which had a white background) of Cheeks' Kuta and add a Photoshop background with some cool brushes a friend gave me. I had a blast! Enjoy!

180 degree Re-Blocked

[Original has been removed - "better" can be seen in Week 4]

Class 2 - Week 3: After getting awesome feedback from my mentor Jason Martinsen, I went through the animation and reworked the leg swing, jump arc, landing and turn to be more smooth (as smooth as blocking can get). Front, side and 3/4 views are included in this video because Jason wanted them for more in-depth critique (which is much appreciated).

Blocking the 180 degree jump

[Original has been removed - "better" can be seen in Week 4]

Class 2 - Week 2: Block in the 180 degree jump. This means, animate all the key poses. It appears a bit chunky because there are no in-betweens yet - that comes in the polishing step.

Class 2 - "Psychology of Body Mechanics" has started!

Class 2 - Week 1: Starting at a run.
We are to choose one of the following to video ourselves then sketch out our planning. I chose number 8. Below the list are my planning sketches.

1. Take a big step to the side
2. Kick a ball
3. Hopscotch
4. Jump over a gap
5. Walk to a stop/settle
6. Walk up a few stairs
7. Walk down a few stairs
8. Jump up and turn 180 degrees in the air and land/settle
9. Turn 180 degrees
10. From a stopped position, take a big step forward and settle

Class 1 is Finished!

For the final assignment we were to fill out a survey and post all our finished animations into a "progress reel". Since you can see all of them in my past posts, I'm only including my title card.

Wahoo! Week 12 is done and Class 1 is finished. We get a week off for a break then hit Class 2 on June 29. I'm going to Maryland to visit my oldest sister and her family - good times!

Balance and "Gotta Pee"

Week 11: This week we were to capture the sense of balance in our Stu pose.

As for the animation, it was the final assignment. We were to get Ballie to walk with personality. You should be able to learn something about Ballie based on his walk.

This two part assignment was a tough lesson. I learned the KISS rule clearly. I bit off more than I could chew (too much going on). Should have kept it to a simpler walk. Because of the complexity and super busy time at work, I was not able to polish to the degree I hoped.

The walk part of the animation appears a bit fast. I liked its urgency, but it appears too choppy. I suppose I could have tried simplifying the number of poses in the cycle to appear simpler and clearer. Still figuring this one out . . .

Exhaustion

Week 10: This week, the pose was to capture the body expression "Exhaustion".

The animation was to block in a walk with personality. It's so rough, I'm not going to post it.

Elusive smooth, wherefore art thou?

Week 9: The pose this week was "Concerned". This one was tough. When I asked family and friends to vote, the votes were all over the place.

My final pose actually turned out to be a hybrid. I liked the nail-biting of #8 but wanted to down-play the emotion. It too easily can appear scared. I ended up taking the legs from #6 (#8's knees originally were knocking together) and upgraded them to an "interrupted" walk. I took his right hand down and used the arm pose from #7.

For animation, I was to take last week's animation and smooth it out. Wow, there's a lot to learn about a smooth walk. I really would like to rework it, but my workload (home and at work) is too much. I hope sometime I'll get to fix it.

Blocked Walk and "Strength"

Week 8: This week's pose is called "Strength". It was tough, once again, not to do the typical arm bicep-flexing pose. I also tried to do a pose without props. I actually put the sketches (above) up to a vote and the above pose won. Since then, I learned in a couple of weeks, I'll be doing a "Balanced" pose, so now I'm wishing I did one of the other poses.

[Video has been removed - Final can be seen in Week 9]

This week we were to take the AM character called "Ballie" and make him walk for 2 seconds. This will actually be a 2 parter. This week we block in the key positions and Week 9 we'll smooth it out.

Jesus Saves . . . I didn't

So succinctly put by my friend, Pastor Lincoln.

Week 7: Make the Tailor character provided by AM, bounce 3 times like a squirrel.

Well, nightmare of nightmares happen. As I was finishing up my assignment around midnight Saturday night, Maya froze. I wasn't too worried because I thought I had saved. Much to my horror, apparently not. It appears the last save I had done was around 6pm.

Sooooooo my assignment did not turn out as I planned. I spent from midnight until 5:30 am creating just the hop across the screen (it's amazing how inefficient I can be in the early morning hours). There's a tiny pause between hops because originally I had Tailor come across hesitantly, see something scary off screen, then hop quickly back the way he had come. He was then going to be followed by a huge ball.

After the critique from my mentor, I can see all sorts of problems with it. His tail is supposed to flow like a whip. Man, does it look stiff now. Sometime I hope to fix it - time elusive time . . .