The animation with a .... je ne sais quoi!
I went ahead and did the blocking + of the last shot this week. The props were modeled last week.
Just to pretend I have a deep knowledge in cinema, I took reference in Eisenstein’s “Ivan the terrible” and Kubrik’s “The shining” for my Bishop facial poses this week.
Here is my 407 assignment. (will post later)
Here we go, we have now officially started the 2 characters acting shot, which will mark the end of Animation mentor’s first part training.
The 2 characters shot dialogue is one of the hardest things to do as it encompasses all the things we have seen so far: principles of animation, body mechanics and introduction to acting.
After selecting 3 interesting audio clips last week, we had to shoot the video references and work on the layout for that sequence.
The task is overwhelming. This is the first time we are gonna have to set few cameras and establish the cuts between them. Obviously we also have to make the two characters interact with each other in a believable manner.
Here are my video reference for this week (last week actually) and my 2d planning. I will show you the layout once I updated it, taking into consideration Morgan’s comments.
Video reference. This is something crucial to communicate in a rapid manner to your fellow animators or your supervisor what you are going for. It also allow you to explore different ideas and see what would or would ‘t work.
Preparation sketches. Sketches is an other way to explore ideas through thumbnail poses and sequences of thumbnails. I normally operate a back and forth between Sketches and Video reference.
Just like in Class1 where we had to try to replicate and enhance some cool body poses based from life with our Stu rig, we are now using Bishop to replicate facial poses based on pictures or movies.
Here is a selection of my various attempts. My mentor Morgan Kelly made few comments which I still have to address.
credit where it is due for the photographic references and especially Ambrel.net Home of the Vain
The Bobby thing is to manage to make a funny face just before you get cut off by the camera so your face stays on the screen till the next person comes on screen 😉
i managed to do the Bobby Beck thing today with my Alumni Tutor and great animator Fernanda Velozo (check Animation Mentor showreel to see her work).
Here is my latest assignment. I am very unhappy about the blocking but once you are in polishing it is too late to go back to it. I am now trying to make the most of it and learn from my mistakes.
Just when I am under pressure guess what I have to cope with…. look at his left arm and his ankle. This is what happen when a rig doesn’t want to behave…. Bishop has been severly bruised for not doing what I ordered him to do!
Hum… how do I fix that now? 😐
(it is interesting how much traffic this page is getting… a torrent of traffic actually 😉 )
let’s face it. I haven’t touched any of the shots for the past 3 month so I might as well just post it for real this time. There is still a lot of work but once I put it online I won’t have any excuses not to improve it anymore.
I am finally back at Animation Mentor after a break of 3 month. What did I do during that time? I think I made the most of it.
I spent 8 weeks with Keith Lango and the APT program, I tried to learn Zbrush and Maya a bit better, I also spent a bit of time with XSI and met plenty of great people.
I caught up with my friend Richard Helliwell (which I first met during the Anatomy for digital artists at Escape), Young Min, who used to work for me and who introduced me to Seung Ho Henrik Holmberg. Check out his blog http://henrik.cgcommunity.com/ he is a very talented artist who at 26 years old already worked for ILM, Dreamworks and now MPC. Yep… just that. I also met plenty of other crazy people that I won’t mention or you wouldn’t believe me. Let’s say that Soho is a very small place.
New year, new resolutions. Sleeping less, working harder! I even applied for an IT job at MPC but haven’t heard from them yet. I am trying an mad schedule, bed at 2am, wake up at 6am. Like I keep repeating to people who question my sanity, “if DJ can do it, why can’t I do it????” Well, I only started yesterday night and I am already feeling very tired 😉
Keith’s APT was excellent, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who really wants to push his animation skills forward. I didn’t have too much time for it unfortunately but I feel that he helped me greatly. I am much more confident now to approach a new shot. I finally know where I am going and I don’t feel lost like before.
My new mentor at AM this term is ex CalArt student Morgan Kelly http://www.morgankelly.blogspot.com/ who currently works at Dreamworks. I loved Flushed Away and hopefully he worked on it. Tonight 5am GMT is our first Q&A. Not too sure how I am gonna wake up yet but I will.
My Class3 one character shot really sucked but we will see how it goes.
I am also finishing some work on www.monza-interiors.co.uk and hopefully the website will go live tonight. I mainly worked on the backend and Sergio provided the template. It is the first time I am relying entirely on CSS for the design and I even tried a bit of Ajax. It is hopefully the last time I get involved into such a project and from now on I intend to only stick to 3d work. Animation obviously and also Modeling if possible. Mudbox, Zbrush, Modo2 made modeling so approachable that it would be a shame not to give it a try.
Regarding drawing, I won’t go to life drawing classes anymore as the ones here are not suited to animators. I picked up a few books, watched several 2d shots from Jason Ryan and few Glen Villpu lectures, tried my hand at 2d animation and I feel that I am on the verge of discovering the graal. I will tell you more about it later.
Keep an eye on this blog. Things will be revealed to you very soon 😉
Back to the basics again with a simple box sliding on ice.
