Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Reworking My Website

Hey guys,

I'm going to adjust my portfolio website. I'm going to get rid of the list of updates and just replace is with my demo reel. That way my reel will be the first thing visitors see. I'd also like to make my website more compact and appealing but I don't have time to do all of that at this point. In the spring I'll be taking Animation Portfolio and a website is one of the projects in the class. I'll work on redesigning my website then.

Monday, December 29, 2008

Halfway There!

I can't believe I have rough animation for half of my film already. I really hope this pace continues!
Truly knowing who your character is really allows you to work fast! Lol, it took me the entire winter break to get to know my character and now I'm finally able to animate quickly and (hopefully) with character. =D

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Another Quick Layout

Rough layout for today's scene. I've decided to go with my new idea for the orange bits in my previous post. I think adding the element of character will be worth the time spent redoing that middle section.



Now that I've used tires and a pipe with wires as framing devices, I'll have to go back and add them to the scene one layout for continuity.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Progression Reel Update

I've added some new scenes to my senior project progression reel to see how everything looks together. I'm really uncertain about the tvp scenes (the orange ones). A couple of weeks ago I rethumbnailed most of my project and the orange scenes were done before that. They dont have any character to them and just look like a cat trying to pull itself out of the door. The bit I thumbnailed to replace this has more character to it. I'm not sure how long it will be though. I do know the new idea condenses those three shots into one, which is good. I'm just not sure if I should try to animate the new idea or if I should just leave what I have for now and move on. It sucks though because I dont like the orange scenes anymore.

Plus, SCAD doesn't have tvp so I'd have to lug my computer back and forth to Monty to work on those scenes, whereas the black scenes were done in my new version of Flipbook. I know they were talking about replacing Flipbook with ToonBoom last quarter but hopefully that hasn't happened yet.


Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Wow

Could it be? Animation that I actually like that I produced with a tablet?!?!?!?!? What's this, an entire scene roughed out in one day?!?!?!?? This is unheard of!!!!!!! Lol, after an entire winter "vacation" of struggle and strife, I've finally got a scene for my senior project that I actually like. I don't know what happened but I hope it continues so I can get the rest of the film done! =D


Saturday, December 13, 2008

Big Update

Hey guys,

I think Bolt's been out long enough for it to be ok for me to post this. Here's the walk cycle I did while I was at Disney.




I also have access to my scanner again! Here's part one of all the drawings I've done over the break. There will be much more to come in the near future.

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Scene 04 Rough

Here's a really rough version of scene 04 from Cat Flap. I've found that one problem that I keep falling into with doing this digitally is adding more and more drawings before I time everything out. More often than not, this results in soft, squishy animation. I've tried to get rid of that here, but I still don't think the pull has as much force behind it as it could. At the same time, I don't want this to be her hardest pull since, she isn't expending all of her effort yet. That will happen once the garage door starts going up. Then she'll be trying as hard as physically possible to escape from the cat flap.

As usual, all comments and crits are greatly appreciated! I hate working on this alone at home since there's a huge lack of feedback. I miss my professor and mentors. =(


Wednesday, December 03, 2008

A Struggle...

That is what trying to animate my senior project digitally has been so far. I feel like I don't have nearly as much control drawing wise using a tablet. I've drawn thumbnails of exactly what I want in my sketchbook in a mater of minutes, while I spend hours trying to redraw the same thing in Mirage. It's really aggravating since I know what I want, I just cant seem to draw it unless I'm using the good old paper and pencil. I've asked for a cintiq for Christmas since I figured it would help me significantly, but it doesn't look like that will happen. I would really like to just animate traditionally, but I don't have a way to capture my work to see how things are going.

I'm really having a hard time with this. I'm hoping it'll get better if I keep trying to push forward. It's really upsetting though. I feel like I would be much farther along by now if I were animating traditionally or in 3d, but neither of those are options now. =(