Class 4 - Week 10

Ok so here is my first polish pass of my shot....by this week i had to make sure to have all my main actions nailed down so in my final week of polish i can concentrate on the eyes and lip sync.

So far i am happy where i am at, there is still alot more work in order to make my actions look and feel smooth and subtle but with each week chipping away something new is achieved and revealed.

Time to get back to my final week of polish...then two weeks off AM...my oh my how fast my first 12months of AM have gone by.

Rock On

Class 4 - Week 7, 8 and 9

It has been a while i know but this shot is taking alot of time so i am putting in as much effot and time as i physically can to make it look as neat as i can. My main goal is to get the characters emotion across, the piece of dialogue i have chosen is very subtle with no big changes so i want to keep all my acting choices simple but also keep away from cliche choices.

The character we are using for the shot is called Bishop, it is the first character we get that has all the finger controls, eye control and limited facial controls. Bishop is a basic character for us to use so we can become accustom to animating a character with full body controls first, for the mouth shapes we have none so we are just concentrating on the opening and closing of the mouth and when we move into our next class that is where we get an updated Bishop rig with full facial and mouth controls, so we will be able to form the mouth shapes as well as get more emotion in the face.

I have uploaded my three passes so far for the shot (Blocking, Blocking Plus and Refining). It is really cool looking back at how the shot started and how it has changed and progressed. I still have a lot more work to do, really time to push the arcs, ease in/out, overlap etc....and also need to change the left arm it is moving way to much and it is distracting to the viewer.

Time for me now to get back to it....hard to believe only two weeks left of Animation Mentor for the year and what a year it has been...until next update.

Rock On

Class 4 - Week 6

Time for more acting but this time with dialogue, so for week 6 our task was to pick 3 dialogue clips for our next shot and choose the clip we will be animating for the next few weeks , also we have to plan each clip out for Mike to crit , so here are my choices.

Rock On

Class 4 - Week 5

Final polish for my shot, after recieving an awesome crit from Mike i have gone away and made a few changes to my original. All in all it has helped the shot feel more clear and it is far more readable to what i had originally. The big emphasis this week was to make my poses and gestures more clear and readable, to add to Mikes crit we also had a lecture with Pixar animator Andrew Gordon on body language and gestures. Andrew spoke about how different traits of a gesture or action can mean different things to our audience, also stated the best library for gestures is everyday life...look around see how people act and store what you see or note it down.

A very hard week but one that i have learned alot from, i do expect a few fixes for the shot which i will upload next week...time now for me to find some dialogue for my next shot.

Rock On

Class 4 - Week 4

Week 4 oh man what a week...it has been great and busy and the feedback i have recieved has helped alot. This week we had a relief mentor as Mike was moving to Seattle for work...so Mario Pochat stepped up to the plate and hit a home run, great Q&A and awesome crit given on my work.

Here is my first polish pass of my shot for this week...a fair bit has changed due to the frame range and needless to say i am happy where it is heading...so here is my shot for the week.

Rock On

Class 4 - Week 3

Another week of AM gone dam time is going by quick... It is true what they say at AM the more feedback you give the more you will receive and by doing this you learn a lot more and also pick up on areas you have missed in your shot. My peers and mentor have been a big help this week in helping me address the areas where my animation was lacking.

Due to the feedback i received the characters hat is gone and the animation has changed slightly, trying to portray an emotion change without facial animation is difficult and when you are limiting yourself with prop use it is even harder...but that's where the animator comes out in you.

This week we also had an awesome lecture with Rebecca Stockley about improv acting...a really good insight of how to get into character. It was really great hearing all that she had to say about differnet types of movement which can determine what typ of character you are animating or trying to become.

Ok time to get back to it...this week it is time to spline away!

Rock On

Class 4 - Week 2

Initial blocking for my first acting piece....only have key poses and a few breakdowns to begin with and some rough timing. From the feedback i have recieved i have been told it will be hard to try get the emotion across and story without props...but it is a challenge i am willing to take. I am not going to outline the story here until the final week i really want my audience to understand what is going on without knowing the story.

Next comes blocking plus....so lets get to it.

Rock On