An Up-date

I'm still working away on my baseball pitch. I figured you guys would like to see some progress, so here's what I have so far:

Pitch

It seems like the animation gets mushy as it progresses. I could really use some solid crits to get me back on track. My desire to play Elder Scrolls is still as great as ever (and the fact that I'm buying Kingdom Hearts 2 tomorrow certainly wont help), but re-watching reels from StrutYourReel has started to get me back into the swing of things.

I've been to all of my new SCAD classes and am unsure about how my quarter will be work-load wise. I want to do some 2d for AM, but I draw really slow (hopefully Life Drawing II will help me with that). It all depends on what my work-load is like. Digital Form, Space, and Lighting doesn't seem like it'll be a problem as long as I make progress on my assignments everyday. I'm a bit concerned about my 20th Century Art class. I was unable to get a copy of my textbook for that class today. Hopefully ExLibris will get some more of them before we get a reading assignment.

Alright, I'm rambling now, lol. I'm going to go read up on constructing the human head since my first Life II project is to do a portrait. I'll talk to you guys later.

Back to SCAD

Spring break is over way too quickly. I'm back at SCAD and will be receiving my assignments in a day or too. Meanwhile, I'm still working on my AM assignment. It's really hard since I've gotten Elder Scrolls IV and barely had any time to play during my break. I'm working on it day by day and hopefully it'll be presentable before the end of the week.

Layout Final

For my final project in Layout class we had to do a two panel pan layout. I chose to try a vertical one that takes place on a ship. After spending forever researching pirate and colonial ships, I was finally able to gather enough info to make these:



They actually line up properly, but my scanner cropped the images on all four sides. Sadly, my scanner wasn't built for 10.5"x12.5" paper, lol.

SCAD Final

I have finally finished my final project for animation I! It's 1300 frames and 55 second long, making it the longest piece I've ever done in my life. I have been sleep deprived all week because of this project but it was worth it. Sadly, I was unable to work on my AM assignment (or anything else for that matter). I will make up for it this week since SCAD ends on Tuesday. Alright, I don't have time to type a long entry, as I still have an animation layout final to do. Here's my animation final:

Animation 1 Final

New Blocking

My new assignment is to animate Stewie throwing a ball. I've decided to do a baseball pitch. Here's my blocking for this week.

Week 8 Blocking

Sorry for a very short post, I have a maquette that I'm trying to finish by tomorrow night. >_<

Finals Time

Sorry for the lack in up-dates. We have about two more weeks of school left at SCAD and it's finals time. Unlike most schools where you have a week of final exams, SCAD students have weeks of final projects. As a result of that, I probably wont be able to make another entry until after March 15th.

Emotional Sack

I've finished my emotional flour sack exercise for animation 1. Here's the situation: The sack enters and notices someone he knows in the audience. It turns out it's this girl he secretly likes. He waves to try to get her attention, but she doesn't see him. He waves more violently and she turns around mid-wave. He's like o.O and freezes in fear. The sack becomes very shy/uncomfortable, and makes a quick exit.

Requirements: Show at least two emotions with the flour sack without the use of props or layouts.

I'm semi-happy with it. I looked at it a few seconds ago and thought that he holds for a tad too long in the beginning. If I had more time I would have redrawn the frames on the holds rather than holding the same drawing. Oh well, my teacher liked it the last time I showed it to him so I guess thats all that matters.

Emotional Sack

Reworked Layout

Here's the layout I spent 7 hours on instead of doing my AM work >_<. I wish I had done it right the first time. Everything I did on Friday seems like it was wasted. I hate it when that happens. Now I have to wake up extra early to get some more work done on my AM assignment and it's 3:46am now. I also have to go back to Kinkos to copy the new version and then add tone, in addition to working on my animation 1 assignment.

Emotional Sack

Hey everyone! I finished adjusting the timing and started refining my emotional sack assignment today. According to my blocking, the whole sequence will be about 500 frames, making it the longest animation I've ever done. Most of it will be holds and loops though, otherwise there'd be no way I would be able to finish it by Wed. If only I could draw faster :(, oh well.

I like how the animation is coming along so far. I need to fix the seam on the last bounce since it's going the wrong way. I also think the sack should look away from us slower to increase the contrast between him looking away and then suddenly looking back at us. So far I've done about 57 drawings out of 234. I think I'm making good time. ^-^ Here's the file:

WIP Emotional Sack

Sorry about the flashing in the beginning. The camera was acting weird and got darker and lighter by itself.

Reworked Blocking

Hey everyone. I've been working on my AM assignment and finally have some up-dated blocking to post.

Up-date

My mentor has helped me a lot with simplifying the shot. He said to keep everything calm and let the bit where Stewie looses his balance be the exciting part. If everything's big, then nothing is big. I'm still trying to get some personality into the sequence. I just thought of having Stewie look back a couple more times during the animation. I realized that he forgot about whatever was chasing him after he started jumping, lol. When I work on it again, I'll incorporate some head turns. For now, the up-date above will have to do. It's 3:52am and I'm going to bed. Goodnight! :D

Two New Blogs

After talking to a fellow AM student about how she got hired, I've decided to make two new blogs! Both blogs will serve the purpose of show casing my animation. That way any potential employers and friends/fans won't have to search through my previous posts to find some work. The links to the blogs can be found on the side bar and are entitled AnimationMentor: Animation Gallery and SCAD Animation. It's pretty self explanatory what kind of animation each blog will have. I will continue to up-date this blog as usual. I'll simply be adding finished animation to its respective blog page.

V-day

Oh yay, it's Valentines Day. V-day is such a waste of time, you don't need a specific day to show someone you care. I could go on a rant about how bitter I am, but that's not what this blog is for.

I've been very busy animation wise. I've done some blocking for my new assignment. Here's what I submitted last week:

Post to Post Blocking

In my Animation 1 class we did I walk last week. I don't like mine at all. I know it could have been much better if I didn't draw so ridiculously slow. :( I'm not going to bother uploading it since I don't like it. Our next assignment is to do an emotional sack exercise. I wanted to do a sequence about the flour sack coming in, going to sleep and being awakened by a nightmare. Once he realizes that its ok, he would go back to sleep. Sadly, my idea is turning out to be more complicated than I have time for. Or more complicated than I am able to do in one week because of my outrageously slow drawing skills. It's REALLY aggravating. I think being on the computer is taking away my drawing abilities. I've heard of that happening to the pros who used to draw a lot, and don't wish to suffer the same fate.

To try to remedy this, I've registered for Life Drawing II for my spring quarter at SCAD. That way I'll have to draw from life for class as well as attend the open model sessions every weekend. :D Hopefully that'll work. In the mean time I'm trying to draw more often in my sketchbook. Doing stuff in 3d and drawing simple thumbnails has really made me lazy >_<.

Week 4

Once again this will be a short post since I have lots of work to do. Alright, it's time to post my work from week. For my next assignment, I've decided to have stew jump from post to post-the most difficult animation on our pick list. I also picked it because the cool idea my friend gave me for a box jump wouldn't work since stew has to be harmless. My roommate was so kind as to pretend she was jumping from one post to another since I didn't feel well today. Here are the thumbnail I made using the video reference of her:



Last but not least, here's the final version of my animation:

About Face Final

Edited Layout

My teacher told me to change a few things in my layout today. He said to push the line weight so we can see the background, and to make it clear that it's a hill in the middle ground instead of a moss covered wall. Here's my edited version:


Three of the layouts in my class were AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish I were that good at drawing backgrounds. I wish I could post them so you guys could see how fantastic they are.

Layout

I just finished my assignment for Animation Layout class. We had to draw an animation flatview depicting the location that 18th century mice would have a secret meeting. I chose the graveyard since I thought it was a cool idea and because I don't like drawing buildings.


I suck at drawing backgrounds. >_<

Our Tarzan assignments were due today and were critiqued by the class. For every assignment people said things like "thats amazing...hahahahaha...thats excellent....hahaha....great job". When my assignment was played the room was completely silent. I sat there waiting to hear some input from the class and recieved none. My teacher pointed out two areas that he thinks should have more slow out, but aside from that nothing was said. After class I approached him about this and he said that he couldn't find anything wrong with it. Later he said he'll try to find something to write about on the grade sheet. While I was annoyed that I didn't get a "thats wonderful/excellent" from my classmates, my teacher's "I couldn't find any errors" made me feel much better. Sure I didn't have time to have my character eatten by a crocodile, bounce off of fish, backflip in the air, or pole vault. You know why that is? Because rather than spending time adding a bunch of extra stuff, I worked hard to make my assignment great. I'd much rather have a great assignment without a bunch of fluff, than to have a bunch of extra stuff with crappy animation. Anyway, my version was complicated enough since I did two extra swings and had to sell the idea of the character really wanting those bananas.

Sorry if I sound arrogant in the above rant, for thats not how I ment to sound. I just get pissed when people cheer for crappy animation with extra stuff that has NOTHING to do with the assignment instead of for good animation. -.-

Products of my Labor

Alright, this will also be a short post since I have Animation Layout homework to do. I apologize for all of the short posts recently, I've been quite busy.

Here's my second assignment for Animation I:

Tarzan Swing

Here's my week 3 AM assignment:

Refined About Face

Working Working

Hey, I haven't posted in a while because I've been working all day! I just got back from Monty since the 3rd floor closes at 3am. I'm almost done with my Tarzan assignment and my AM assignment is going well. I was in a foul mood earlier since I thought I wasn't making enough project with my work. I feel better now since my friends were praising my animation and saying how I inspire them. I should finish my Tarzan swing tomorrow and will post it if I do.

Earlier I e-mailed some Dreamworks animators and told them I plan on interning there over the summer. I asked about their experience there, and if they could look at my work and give me some tips on what to improve. When or if they respond I'll probably post about whatever they said.

The Final

Alright everyone, here's my final version of my blocking that I turned in a few minutes ago.

Blocking Final

My Blocking

I finally have some blocking that I'm ok with. For my assignment I'm doing an about face and its turning out to be harder than I thought. My peers have provided a great deal of help and I really appreciate it. One student even gave me links to some video ref and a detailed description of how the about face should be done. Right now Ballie is doing a "sloppy" about face for two reasons:
1. The guy in the ref video was doing a "sloppy" about face
2. Ballie doesn't have a control that allows him to pivot on his toes.
As a result, Ballie will be rotating on his heels until the rig is up-dated.

Anyway, I showed my blocking to a friend last night and he really liked it. He pointed out some places where the arcs needed work and reminded me to watch the weight on the turn. He told me that I'm going to be an amazing animator and that I'm improving rather quickly. Reading that made my day! I was very unsure about my blocking and it was wonderful to hear that it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. So without further ado, I give you my blocking:

About Face Blocking

It is Done!

Hey everyone! I've finally finished my bouncing ball for animation 1. I'm pretty happy with it for now. My teacher said it was excellent, so I'm really happy about that, LOL (he's a hard grader). I don't have time to make a long post right now, cause I have to plan out my next project and then spend the rest of the day on my AM blocking. I have less time for my next assignment, so I can't afford to be lax with my schedule.


Bouncing Ball Final

Oh, I've deleted all of the previous wip versions of the bouncing ball from my webspace. I found out the other day that I had used up all of the memory. From now on, when I post a new version of something, it will simply up-date the older version, rather than having multiple files.