Ok, so with the (boring) standard, vanilla walk outta the way, it’s time to add some character! Another 2 week assignment, again the first week was video reference, planning and blocking and the second week obviously the final polish. The planning looked like this:

Which was based of this video reference I shot in the motion reference area at work (super-useful!):

Here’s the block:

And here’s the final animation:

Really happy with this bad boy. I think I really got the character across and I’m particularly pleased with how I managed to capture kicking of the front leg before it comes down to contact the floor. A great end to a great class I think! Woo!

Week 10′s character pose was ‘exhaustion’ and here are the sketches I did:

And the pose with Stu:

Fairly happy with this one. Shaun thought the ehad could probably be tilted back even further and he’s right but Stu’s head is so incredibly massive, it makes it a rather tough proposition! Still, on a technical level I think it works and I’m pleased with the solution I came up with for that screen-right arm – his hand wouldn’t have comfortably reached the floor if I’d put it down on the other side of his body.

Week 11′s pose was ‘balance’. Here are the sketches, some of which I re-used from the ‘physical strength‘ week:

And the final pose of the class:

Not my greatest pose, although I was focussing all my energy into the character walk. Still, I think it works. Shaun said there wasn’t anything wrong with it as such but it was a little bit flat, which I’d agree with. It’s lacking a little punch. Shifting the camera round a little bit to the left might have provided a slightly better overall shape, although I was worried about losing the negative space between the sreen-right arm and the head.

And that’s it! The end of Class 1 – Basic Foundation! Huzzah! Really pleased with my overall performance this term. OK, so it wasn’t all brand-new to me but it definitely helped cement and clarify everything we covered – I didn’t really get any proper animation training at Bournemouth so anything I did know was what I’d taught myself! For someone to spell it out and really be clear about all aspects of the art was incredibly refreshing and exciting to be a part of! Can’t wait for Class 2 – Psychology of Body Mechanics, it’s going to be awesome!