my comments for this week.

I bought Microsoft ergonomic keyboard to try to improve some problems with my wrist. It is taking a bit of time to get used to it but I feel much better already, my wrist has stopped cracking when I type. One problem though, it takes so much space that the wacom doesn’t really fit anymore.

The 180 degree turn is much harder than I initially thought despite the *** star warning. I was pleased with my first blocking but Robert pointed at few things to change or improve. While fixing them for the reblock I introduced some new errors and raised few new issues. I am actually glad I am making some mistakes, this is all very beneficial. Sometimes you can be very lucky and nail your animation rightaway but your lack of experience will eventually catch up with you so don’t be shy or ashamed of making mistakes, your mentor is here to help you out.

We have now access to Stu with no arms and Ballie with arms, Ballie looks a bit ugly with his 2 new appendices but he is already very funny to play with and I started to block a run cycle the same day. I am not too sure which assignement I am gonna take. I used to go for the hardest assignement but I really wonder this time, they all seem plenty of fun. Since I never finished my walk cycle last term maybe that I should go for the run cycle this time…

Here is my blocking based on Session 201 thumbnails. As you can see I pushed the poses a bit more so it doesn’t look like rotoscoping anymore.

There are 2 parts I am not very happy about (begining and end). Robert will probably put the finger on it. It is too late to do a correction for AM but it is still time for my blog.

Reference:

Blocking:

I didn’t give myself enough time for this assignement, thinking that I could nail it under an hour but I couldn’t be more wrong. Blocking is actually a fun exercise and I should have started earlier that week.

Session 203 is the first pass of refining. We have been told about different techniques to work on a shot, I am still a bit confused so I will just give you some keywords: Jason Ryan, copy pairs, Rick O’connor technique. This blog is a good thing, this made me realised that maybe I should do a bit of research about those techniques!!

I was talking with my friend Carmelo and offered to show him my animation dvd collection. Some good DVDs like Monsters Inc collector edition, some less good but found on the market for cheap 😉 and some cult movies like Dark Crystal!

Here is the planing for my new assignement: 180 degree turn using our character Ballie. Based on our video reference material we have to plan our animation due for session 204. This exercise look a bit like rotoscoping but in fact when in the blocking phase we are gonna start giving a bit more life to the animation.

Personnaly I really enjoyed that first Q&A Robert was full of energy and had a lot to say. We even managed to ask few questions 😉 and he gave us a sneak preview at the more advances classes lectures

Here is a pic of the one who dared to raise their head or where hand picked to be on the webcam.

Here is my Class 01 Showreel in the following state:
1. Perspective walk cycle, not done
2. Personality walk (sneak walk), the Heel shouldn’t make contact
3. Vanilla walk…. still a big concern
4. Taylor, problem with hoockup between first jump and second, tail animation to be redone from scratch
5. Pendulum, needs more hangtime and a slower settle
6. Obstacle course, I am pretty pleased with it but might have to remove one frame towards the end of the animation
7. 2 balls of different weight, the heavy one needs one more bounce
8. boucing ball. Well, with the Obstacle course, those 2 animations are the only ones I am happy with…. can I make a career out of making balls boucing? not too sure about that 🙂

Animation Mentor is an amazing school but you need to make sure you are gonna be able to fully commit before you start or you might end up wasting your time and a lot of money!!

Yes it is online but it is still a very intensive course and with one assignement every week, only 2 breaks during the year, you’d better make sure that you won’t have any financial, personal, physical issues.

I started to suffer from CTS towards the end of Class 01 and had to take a break from animation when all my fellow classmates where having fun doing Walk cycles. Luckily I had some very good grades at the begining and managed to get to Class 02.

Stu pose : exhausted

Stu pose: Balance

Today is the first of April but AM is not the kind of school do april fools so well, I am pretty lucky this time again. Robert Russ will be my new mentor for Class 02.

“Robert Russ joined Pixar Animation Studios in 1996 and has had the opportunity to work on almost all of the Pixar films. He began his work at Pixar as a crowd animator on “A Bug’s Life”. From there, he moved on to work as an animator on “Toy Story 2,” “Monsters, Inc.” and the Academy Award©-winning, “Finding Nemo.” For Pixar’s sixth feature film, “The Incredibles,” Robert was able to expand his role as an animator by assisting the character articulation team to build the basic set of controls that animators use to animate all the characters. This process involved helping design the controls, model testing and creating animation tests. Once the control creation process was complete, Robert directed his attention to animating the characters Edna Mode (“E”), Mr. Incredible/Bob Parr and Elastigirl/Helen Parr.”

I have seen his previous E-critiques and it looks like all the hard work we are gonna put into our assignements will pay off.