Some Thumbnails

I'm going to try to get some animation done on this project that I agreed to work on last summer. The "director" wants me to do a test animation to get a feel for the character. Never mind the fact that there aren't any model sheets or anything. I'm starting to wish I hadn't agreed to help. Anyway, here are some thumbnails for what I'll be animating.

I haven't thumbnailed everything out yet. I wanted to scan and show them to the girl, but she doesn't seem to be answering my instant messages. This is proving to be more difficult than I thought it would be. I don't have any ref aside from large cats "climbing" trees, so I had to use my already existing knowledge about cats and what I recently learned about hips to come up with the poses. I should probably add more breakdowns before I start animating...

The End of Class One

Alright, this is the last week of Basic Foundations! I'm super excited about next quarter as well as the free time I'll have over the break. Before I get started on anything else, here are links to my final assignment as well as the video I put together of all of my assignments in the class.

Week 11 Final

Basic Foundations Overview

I think I've improved quite a bit from the time I first started animationmentor. I've learned a ton of stuff and am still trying to absorb it all. I'm very happy that I decided to take this route rather than waiting to do AM after SCAD. Sure, it's alot of work doing them both at the same time, but I'm learned so many things that its unbelieveable! I can't wait until next class! I feel like I'm closer to my goal of getting a summer internship at Dreamworks! :D

Alright, on to other things. I saw the Chronicles of Narnia this weekend and thought it was great! I love the fox, beavers, griffons, Aslan, and the queen! The lady who played the queen was excellent! She radiated evil! Her whole look and demanor during the final battle was truely intimidating! The cg was very well done, minus a few green or blue screen issues. I send a huge congradulations to my mentor, Steve Cady on a job well done with Aslan, the beavers and the griffon(s)! :D

Before Narnia came on, I saw trailers for some wonderful movies (minus Lady in the Water, some baseball and basketball movies). Pirates of the Carribean 2 looks great! I can't wait for it to come out. I'm not a Johnny Depp(sp?) fangirl, but I think he's an amazing actor! It's hard to believe Charlie from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Jack Sparrow are played by the same person.

Another movie that I am very eagerly awaiting is Open Season! I love the style of the entire film! The bear's fur is very well done and original. The animation looks amazing! My favorate part of the trailer is when the deer is throwing the rabbits against the window. The timing on that is fantastic! There were a few parts where I actally laughed, which is amazing since the Emperor's New Groove was the only 100% funny animated movie to me. I think this movie is going to rock, congrats to everyone at Sony Imageworks who worked on Open Season! If they continue to make completely animated films like that then Sony Imageworks will definatly be on my list of top places to work at.

Over the Hedge looks like it might be good as well. The story seems ok, but the characters are cute. I love films about animals! I hope to work on a few some day! Anyway, my favorite character right now is the squirrel. He's cute and rather amusing. I'm not surprised that Dreamworks went out to get well known stars for voice actors again. Although I'm quite disappointed at the fact that they picked Avril Lavigne to be one of the characters. I'm sure they could have (and should have) picked someone better. Oh well, she might surprise me and do a good job...I doubt it though, lol.

I want to see Ice Age 2, but I'm not that excited about it. I'm not sure I like what I saw of the characters. I dont know what they did to Cid, but he's especially ugly now. Manny seems like a softie, now that there's a female mammoth around. I didn't see much of Diego. I hope they didn't change him, he's my favorite character. I still love the stylistic look of the movie, though. I can watch Ice Age a million times and not get tired of its style.

I don't have much to say about Cars. I don't know what the story people were thinking about, I blame Eisner completely! They would have been much better off by doing a different movie. The story and the whole talking cars thing seems quite boring. I'll see it simply because it's Pixar, but I hope it's much better than it looks. I can't wait until they split from Disney.

Moving on, the next film I want to see is Curious George. Story wise, it seems very simple and childish, but hey, it's a kids film. I'm excited about it simply because its 2d!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so happy that someone has the courage to do a 2d movie. It's very refreshing from the constant stream of 3d films and shows there's still some hope for 2d feature animation. Congrats to everyone at Universal for pulling it off! I'll be sure to support 2d animation by going to see it.

Alright, it's 10:17pm and I think I've typed enough for today. Especially since no one reads my blog anyway, lol. Until next time! :D

A Quick Entry

I'm rather tired right now, so this entry will be short. I wish I hadn't played Neopets all day Monday. Now I feel like I'm on break and don't have anymore work to do. Technically, I am on break since I've been done with SCAD for over a week now, but I must pull through with AM. This is the last week we'll have an assignment, so I must resist the urge to be lazy and play games all day.

This week we're supposed to animate either our vanilla or personality walk from the 3/4 perspective view. Our sketchbook assignment is to make a pose that communicates balance. I wanted to stay away from the cliche gymnastics poses, but I seem to have failed. I'm still trying to think of a different pose and if I come up with one I'll replace my current one.


As far as my walk goes, I'm still having trouble. I've revised the side view from week 10, but am having problems with the trans x of the hips and feet in the front view.

Revised Side View

I'm also a bit uncertain about my current rot z on the hips. The Animator's Survival Kit says to dip the hip down with the back leg on the contact poses. I'm uncertain because, it seems like you would have your weight on the back leg rather than the front. I e-mailed Steve before coming here to make this entry. Hopefully I'll have a response by mid-day tomorrow. Anyway, I'm not worrying about the 3/4 view until I'm happy with the front view. Besides, if I get it to look right in the front and side views then it should look good in the 3/4 view.

I'm finally done!

I've finally finished my assignment for this week!

Week 10 Final

This supposed to be a cartoony strut. As far as strutting is concerned, I think I've failed. It doesn't look like the strut I wanted. I filmed some video reference, but it was awful and useless since I did it with my web cam. Who'd like to buy me a camcorder for x-mas? :D

As far as a personality walk in general, I think I succeeded. It's MUCH different from the vanilla walk and I was able to achieve some great squash and stretch as well as timing and spacing. I found out that it's ok to use the break tangents button on all of the curves and have been free ever since. I'm finally able to control the GE and to understand why things aren't working. I'm able to successfully adjust the spacing between each key and achieve some nice, varied timing.

On Wed. I showed my mentor the first step in the walk and he liked it. I told him it wasn't what I wanted and he said I'm being too hard on myself and that he thinks I should continue with what I have. I followed his advice and this is what I ended up with. I like it to a certain extent, although I'd like it even more if it was exactly what I had in mind at the beginning.

Now I can finally play my new Prince of Persia video game!!!!!!!!!!! :D

Busy!

Aaaarrrggggg! I want to play my new game, but I don't have time! I'm working very hard on my personality walk and have barely had a chance to play. I bought that new Neopets game on Monday. It looked nice from the trailers that my roommate had shown me. It reminds me of the good old adventure/platform games like Zelda, Banjo Kazooie, Vexx, the original Jak and Daxter etc. I miss adventure games that don't try to be third person shooters and instead have you fight with swords, magic, claws, or small animals. So far Neopets has been surprisingly alright. There are a few camera issues, no lock on/focus/aim camera so you can always see the opponent during combat feature, but other than that it's ok. The characters and environments are insanely cute. The little morality stuff they put in there is amusing, lol. One part involves you asking for your parent's permission as part of the requirements for becoming a squire.

As far as my work is concerned, I hope to have it finished by Saturday.