Ballie Finished Animation and New Assignment - Class 2 - Week 4

This is the final animation, it's polished, refined etc. I'm not sure about the spacing, my eyes betray me at this point, so i'll have to wait for today's eCritique. I wanted to put some lightning and render this out, but i think i'm going to wait till the quarter is over. Below the animation is my planning for the next project, it's not the final idea, but it'll be something like that. The idea is for "Stewie" (the new character) to be jumping... i don't know what...yet :), i know, seems boring, that's why i'm trying to spice it a bit, there were more fun options to pick, but also difficult, and since this is a new character, (it has like 10 more controls than Ballie, including spine, neck, shoulders, head and eyes), the graph editor can become a spaghetti puzzle, so i think i'm going to stick with this idea which is not as demanding, but the good thing is i can build up from here as time passes and challenge myself in a healthy way. DETAIL is going to be the key word for this new assignment.

Ballie Splined 3/4 - Class 2 - Week 3

This past week we had to do a second blocking pass, or blocking plus, which means we had to come out from stepped mode into linear or spline mode, i went into spline mode all the way, the refining is fairly advanced, in fact i don't know what else to refine/change/add, so let's see what my mentor says about it, i still think it needs something, so i hope he comes up with some great ideas or corrections.

I really think this assignment has been the most structured and organized i've done so far, i put a lot of time into planning (video reference, visualization, thumbnailing, observation, etc.) and as i mentioned in the last post, the blocking lectures have been very useful, and it all paid off very well, so thanks AM! Next week is the final week for this assignment, and i have to start planning my next animation with a new character!!! finally! this one has spine, head and no arms. So here's the splined animation.

Blocking "Ballie", Video Reference and More...Class 2 - Week 2

Finally here it is, my first animation assignment for this term (this is a 4 week assignment, 2 more left). We have had two lectures in a row of blocking methods (and there are more coming), i feel those have helped me tremendously, i've cut off my blocking time a lot, with the little tips and tricks, and the previous experience of a few months i feel that i'm taming the beast, at least for this kind of animation. I'm starting to believe that i'm getting good at this stuff, at least from my own personal point of view, i look back and now i can see all the progress i've made, throughout this blocking i could see more clearly what i was doing and could apply the principles mindfully.

One thing i feel i'm having trouble with is exaggeration and squash and stretch. I wish i could make things a little more cartoony but it's a little difficult for me at this point, and i strongly believe that it is for anyone at this stage of learning, what i mean is, to break the rules you have to know them first, (or something like that my mentor said), i mean, if i want to achieve a more cartoony feel, i prefer to nail down the physics first by studying a lot of video reference, shorts, movies, life action etc. and when the time is right then let's break them, and of course this is a little more obvious to me when i remember now that we haven't received an in-depth class on exaggeration or squash and stretch. So to sum up, first things first.

Two misconceptions i wanted to clear up, two relatives and some friends made me write about this, one of them is the "does it take a long time?", the answer is yes, well structured, polished animation takes time, my father saw me shooting video reference the other day and after a few hours he asked "did you finish the animation" lol, and with my experience and knowledge no way (poor dad)! it takes along time because this is almost like 2D, drawing by drawing with some help from the computer. The other thing is the video reference, we tend to think at first that animation is an automatic thing that comes instantly with talent, i know i thought like that!, my brother saw me watching some footage and said "that's cheating" lol, and that's ok, i think everybody thinks like that at first, but the truth is that video reference is an amazing way of learning animation, i mean wow, what a great teacher is a piece of .mov file. And as Bobby Beck said, "after a while you won't need to rely that much on video reference because you'll know how things behave" <--or something like that, because animation comes from observation.

A New Term begins!, Class 2 - Week -1

The second term just started! and just like the last term, this is a more relaxed week, we had to shoot some video reference and make some planning sketches in order to make an animation with "ballie" (the character we used for the walks), we have a month to finish this animation, i foresee some "happy animating", and i can't wait to start blocking my stuff, i just have to wait for my mentor's approval in order to start. And speaking of mentors, the one i got for this term is Dave Vallone (imdb here, which btw is incomplete), a really nice happy guy with 25 years of experience, that of course means that he has a classical 2D animation background which is awesome. But i'm not going to get carried away with emotions because of his resume and a first impression, i'll tell you how it went when the term is over, i know why i say this ;), but i really feel a good vibe from Dave, he seems to really love teaching.

In my new classroom there are 3 classmates from my previous term, which is somehow comforting, since the rest of the class is made out of US and Canadian guys, oh and one australian guy, but in my mind there are just 2 foreigners in the class, one from India and me, that's like coming from outer space and landing in a human classroom lol!, i guess it's the normal transcultural barrier feeling that you get when you move to another country, which i'll have to get used to if i want to find a good job overseas. Btw, this feels a lot like the real world somehow, so i think this is a good practice, i'm sure everything will be fine.

Again, i'm really grateful to be here, this so far has been a great experience, i've learned a lot throughout these past months, and i´m not just talking about animation. So let's keep on rockin' \m/!!!