Session 208

First week of blocking with the whole package...well not really, by the end of class four we probably have at least twice as many controls to deal with. But, now we have a full body character - Stewie with arms. Dealing with FK/IK is a bit tricky, but thats tech stuff. Dealing with forces, motivations, thoughtprocess etc. in the character, is a lot harder. But learning all that stuff to be able to make the character feel alive is supercool!

Back to timing in another lecture with Carlos this week. This time - advanced timing. The idea that we probably never will learn all there is to learn about timing, is soooo great. There's always someting new to discover about the concept! It's like having a wallet that never gets empty. Cool!

It's an article on AWN this week about Animation Mentor. Nice stuff - check it out. Also, check out this interview with Bobby Beck at Animation Lounge.

Lots of uploads this week. First the assignment - first pass of blocking of the third and last animation in class 2, the sticky door. Then the revision of my box jump from last week and final, Rob asked me if I wanted to simplify my thumbnails to make it easier for myself to use it in my blocking, so I did :-)


Revision Session 207:


New planning for Sticky Door Assignment:

Session 207

It's been another loooong, but superexciting week!
We had to finish the box jump assignment, as well as shoot videoreference and thumbnail our final assignment in Class 2. Refining, tweaking and polishing the box jump took forever - ahhhh, animation is tedious, but I love it! :)

Three q&a's this week - first an awesome special q&a with Matt Simmons, Jessica Sances and Melvin Tan from Bluesky about Ice Age 2. Then the weekly q&a with Rob - always good stuff and last a q&a on saturday with Kenny Roy (King Kong).

The lecture introduced us to one of the moviemaking aspects of animation - composition and staging. A great lecture by Carlos - lots of exciting stuff to learn about that concept. Btw, check out Carlos' website, tons of good animation tips.

Here's my final of the box jump and my planning for the next assignment:

Session 206

Half way thru class 2 - yay! Time flies when having a great time :)

The lecture this week was about animating the force behind the movement. A hard concept to grasp, but crucial to make the animation believable. The host, Wayne Gilbert, is also the author of the book "Simplified drawing for planning animation" - check it out.

It's been long hours this week, tweaking and refining my box-jump assignment. The blocking was approved by Rob with some adjustments and here's the refined version.

Session 205

I've now started to animate on the 2nd assignment, the box jump. Our new character Stewie has no arms yet, but he has a spine. This means a lot of new stuff to think about. Reversals, counterbalancing, twisting etc. It's getting more complicated and tougher, yet tons of fun :).

Workflow-wise I'm getting more comfortable with blocking in linear mode. It gives me more control over the timing and spacing and fewer surprises when moving on into refining and polishing.

Robs q&a was very useful, this week too - he always come into the q&a's with some very cool tips. I also had a q&a on saturday with DNA-animator Paul Allen. He looked at my shot and gave me some very helpful comments.

Here's the first pass of blocking of my box jump assignment.


Revision of my 180 turn.

Session 204

Yeah!! The first assignment in class two is done - at least until tuesday when I receive my e-crit :). The 180 turn was hard, but superfun.

This week we had to finalize our 1st assignment and plan out our next one that we're gonna work on for the next four weeks. We have a new character now, Stewie. He's a more advanced version of our old friend Stu. We get a picklist with different assignments, graded by difficulty. I'm picking a jump on and off a box, which is something in the middle difficulty-wise.

Here's the final version of my 180 turn (expect a revision next week) and my planning for the next assignment: