AM Animals & Creatures - Some aftertoughts

It's been truly amazing to be back at AM for the 6 month Animals & Creature course, but as I've mentioned in previous posts, it's been exhausting because I've worked full time on "The Penguins of Madagascar" at the same time. I would actually not recommend doing this course while working - the course is fantastic, but it's just too intense and time consuming when having a full time job. That's just my experience and opinion though :)

I was very fortunate to get two awesome mentors. Keith Sintay and Kevin Koch are both really really good teachers (and super duper nice guys) and I learned tons from them. I guess all the mentors at AM are great, so it really doesn't matter who you get, but I feel very lucky to have had them as my mentors for this course.

The course is built in the same way as the core animation program, where each concept/lecture build on top of each other. They had some super cool lectures that really goes in depth into animal behavior and locomotion. I would say though, that this course isn't that much about animation (at least not from a technical point of view) as it is about intent, thought process, how and why animals move the way the do etc.

The rigs are really good as well and they kept updating and improving them as we went through the course.

My conclusion is that this course is worth every cent and more - it is truly amazing - but it's very intense and time consuming.

To keep practicing, I've started to do some quick cycles with the AM A&C rigs.

Animals & Creatures - Session 212

So this is it! I've completed the very first official Animation Mentor Animals & Creatures class.

Right now I got a bunch of mixed feelings about it. It's been awesome, but I'm exhausted. Working full time and doing this course has been quite intense and sometimes I've felt like it's been too hard. I've learned tons though and I'm confident it has been totally worth it and that it will pay off.

Here's my final of the Dragon Attack shot:


Here's a progression reel from layout to final of the Dragon Attack shot:

Watch higher resolution here

And here's a compilation of the assignments I've done during the course:

Animals & Creatures - Session 211

I continued to polish and went over a bunch of smaller stuff that most likely nobody will ever notice, but hopefully the sum of it will give the shot a more polished feel.

It's kinda sad, but this is the last week we actually have to turn something in. We do get a critique this week, which I'm gonna spend next week to address for sure, but there's no grade or assignment due for week 12.

I also put some lights in and rendered the shot just for the heck of it. It integrates the characters into the shot a little bit more than just a playblast, which I think is kinda cool.

Here's this weeks pass on the Dragon Attack shot:

Animals & Creatures - Session 210

Got to do a toe/leg-pass, a wing cleanup pass, tracked arcs on both characters and kept tweaking and adjusting the shot through the week.

Here's this weeks pass on my assignment: