Last week, I submitted my demo reel for Blizzards visit to SCAD. I'm applying for their internship since I'm still in school. I'm not sure if I'm actually eligible for it anymore since I wont be returning to SCAD next year. We'll see what happens.
Hey guys,
Sorry for the lack of Piglet updates. I'm reworking the entire scene to incorporate what I've learned last Wed. It's taken me all weekend but I finally think I've got a solid handle on how to (hopefully) use squash and stretch on the face successfully. I understand the principle and the concept behind it and I can see how it's used . I'm just having trouble applying it to my scene. I think it's because I'm not used to doing so much at one time. In 3d, squash and stretch is something that I add towards the very end, but now I have to think of how I can use it (along with everything else that's going on) as I draw each frame.
Another thing I'm working on improving is drawing really rough. My prof. told me when he was pressed for time, Glen Keane had a scene of the Beast approved which was little more than dotted eyes and a squiggly line for the mouth. I've also seen how rough some of the animators at Disney work from looking at their scenes from Princess and the Frog. The thing I'm struggling with is drawing that rough while still maintaining volume. I imagine that's something that will improve with time and practice.
I wanted to have my Piglet scene finished enough to put on my demo reel for Blizzard, but the deadline for those is Friday and I know I wont be able to have Piglet 100% finished, completely on model, and somewhat cleaned up by then. I'm wary of putting a rough scene on my reel since all of the 2d reels that I've seen have had the characters fully on model and cleaned up. I wish I could put my Bolt work on my reel, but I have to wait until the film comes out first.
Man, animating a character doing nothing is very hard! Everything I did today messed up my piglet scene. I was so afraid of my scene looking "posey" that I kept trying to over complicate/add small things that weren't in my original performance. I told my prof. I felt like I had to add small recoils and more opposite action in an effort to keep him alive. I told him I didn't have this problem with my Moley soup scene since the character was always doing something, whereas in my current scene Piglet is just relaxing on some bleachers.
My prof. laughed and said "animating a character doing nothing is hard isn't it?". He told me I was on the right track and that it should just be a series of simple arcs rather than a bunch of elaborite action. After class I had a long chat with my prof. and after an awesome demonstration, I feel like I should be back on track. My prof. liked my version from the other day, so I'm going to return to it and continue from there.
I'm going to try to loosen up Piglet's face throughout the scene as I go along. During my prof.'s demo I realised he goes about animating a bit more straight ahead than I do. I think this is why I was having so much difficulty creating a nice organic feel to the face. I'm going to try out his working method tomorow and see how things go.
Here's an update on my piglet scene. I still have quite a bit of work to do before I turn it in on Wed...
I just realized I posted my golden poses pass on my Piglet scene on the wrong blog. As the result the golden pose pass and yesterday's pass will be uploaded at the same time.
Golden Poses
Yesteday's Pass
Alrighty, here's what I turned in to class last week. I finally finished redrawing everything with the (hopefully) correct volumes. I'm going to make sure the first frame of my piglet scene will be 100% on model so I wont have the same problem. I could have inbetweened a lot of this if I hadn't spent the final week redrawing everything to match the first frame. There a lot of things that need to be broken down more and I have pages of things to tweak/fix.
Hey guys,
I've started preparing for our new assignment in 2d character II class. We'll be animating a dialogue scene with Piglet. Thankfully the clip is short and is about 125 frames long, which is much better than my 400+ frame soup scene. Anyway, here are the thumbnails that I've done for the piglet scene and a few drawings from the model sheet that my prof. gave out.
I'll save the most recent version of my Moley soup scene after class and will upload it once I get back.
Hey guys,
I was preparing to burn my work from each year at SCAD onto separate DVDs when I came across my folder of work from my 2d character class. I don't remember posting it before and I think it was because it's really unfinished and doesn't flow together very well. In my usual fashion, I over complicated all of my assignments from that class to the point of not being able to finish. I would say I've gotte better at that, but my Mole assignment is 28 feet long when the assignment said it should be at least 7 feet, lol.
Anyway, I've decided to post my old 2d character work anyway, since there are tiny bits of the piece that I like.
I've added a few more breakdowns to the scene to see how everything is working. I have a long list of things to adjust and I'm going to rework the timing on some of the arm movements to offset them from the main action a bit more. I wanted to make the swallow more subtle but I was having trouble drawing a convincing squash pose without reversing the spine. I'll talk to my prof. about that on Monday.
Hey guys,
Here's an update on my soup test. It's over 100 frames longer than the previous version but the acting is much better. My prof. and I really like it and I was told to just get as far as I can by Wed. I wish I had known how rough I could have drawn everything though. On Monday my prof. showed us some Andreas Deja examples from Hercules and told us to draw loose like that. I knew the varying degrees of rough that the guys at Disney work, but my mentor wanted me to work on keeping the main volumes in my roughs. Since I was used to working that way that's what I had been doing throughout this project. Now that I know how rough my prof. wants us to work, things will go much faster.
I'm just worried about when it's time to start tyingdown my drawings. I know I have volume issues gallore and am expecting to have to spend quite a bit of time fixing them. My prof. wants me to tiedown my main keys and some breakdowns to make sure the acting is clear. He said the inbetweens can get rough as long as they maintain the proper volume.
I'm really enjoying this assignment and I'm learning a lot. Now I know a better workflow for me may be to blast through the scene working super rough and getting all of the action in there working and reading. Then I ca spend the rest of the time working on volume issues and tyingdown the character.
Hey guys,
My soup scene is getting way too long. The full version is well over 400 frames now, so if I'm going to be able to finish this scene I'm going to have to start cutting. I've already cut out the part where the Mole looks around. My next question is does the scene still work/read if I cut out the shudder at the end? I've uploaded a version with and without the shudder for everyone to see. Which one do you guys thinks works better?
The point of the scene is for the Mole to not like the soup he's just tasted but not want to let the nearby chef know he doesn't like it.
Whole Version
Cut Version
I had to redraw a lot of my previous poses because of volume issues. Unfortunately, the new version of the poses don't feel as good as the originals. I've still got a lot of work to do...
Hey guys,
Here's an update on the two projects I'm working on right now. The cat scene is for my senior project and the soup scene is for 2d character animation II. I must say that I'm enjoying the soup scene much more than my senior project. Both are very long and will require a ton of work to finish but the soup scene seems way more fun to do. I'm concerned about my senior project, so that might be why I'm not enjoying it as much. So far, what I have is 28 seconds long and it's just the first third of the film. The entire project was supposed to be 30 seconds total. I see I'm going to have to stop breaking things down and finish roughing in the rest of the film so I can get an idea of how long it will actually be.
Hey guys,
Here's what I have so far for the first third of my senior project. This was supposed to be the first 10 seconds but it's already grown to over 17 seconds (not including the sleep cycle). I'm not entirely sure what to do since there's supposed to be another bit to the scratching after the cat pulls down on the door. I was going to have him claw at it for a moment before he finally turns to leave. I feel like I should add that part since it's what cats actually do, even though it'll make this segment even longer. I'm not entirely sure though. I really need to keep this as simple as possible, but I still want to maintain proper feline behavior. What do you guys think?
Sorry about the weird jump after the sleep cycle. I captured the part separately from the rest and just realized the camera fielding is different. I'll correct this when I recapture the scene.
Alrighty, here are the thumbnails I have so far. The ones in blue are for 2d character animation II and the ones in gray scale are for my senior project.
Hey guys,
My senior project II professor likes my cat idea. He suggested having him scratch on something other than a chair to add more humor to the film. After much thought, I've decided to have the poor cat get stuck on a garage door. My professor started laughing as soon as I said that, so I guess that's a good idea. I have some thumbnails and will upload them when I get home after class. I also have some thumbnails for my first 2d character animation II project that I will upload as well. =D
Hey guys,
I've changed my idea completely for my senior project after talking to some of the amazing guys at Disney. My new film will be about a kitten who gets his claw stuck in the chair that he's scratching on. It's about 30 seconds and is one shot, with one character. I'm not sure how much 2d animation I can do a week, but I know I can finish a 10 second 3d shot in two to three weeks so I'm pretty confidant that I can finish my new film, animation-wise. The thing I'm worried about is clean-up. It seems like the most efficient thing would be to hand over each bit of animation to clean-up as soon as it's finished, just like they do at Disney. I'm just not sure how much time my friend will have to dedicate to my project each week.
I'll work all of that out within the next few days. Anyway, here's my really rough animatic for my film.
Hey guys,
Here's an update on my Jake pose test. I am learning a ton from doing this scene! This is my first time doing dialogue in 2d, so that alone is a huge lesson in itself. I just went through my Rescuers Down Under clips and drew a bunch of Jakes mouth shapes to use as reference. Right away I saw that I'm not pushing my shapes nearly enough. His fat cheeks hardly have any squash and stretch on them at all, which needs to change. I also noticed that both corners of Jakes mouth are usually indicated to some degree in the film.
Overall I think my scene feels really stiff. I need to go through and loosen him up. I'll make a few areas broader and I'll add more anticipations. I also need to do another arc pass on everything. His hips need work as well. They loose volume in a few places and they could use some more bounce. Jake's ears and hat need much more drag and overlap.
I tried to keep things subtle but all I've ended up doing is making Jake feel very rigid. The Jake in the film has quite a few flamboyant, showman moments and I don't feel like that's being captured in my scene. Needless to say, this wont be finished by our Thursday review but I'm going to keep working on it regardless. I'll continue to work on it once I get home up until it's finished. I'd like to make this a nice scene with an on model character. I've got quite a ways to go.
