Tag Archives: Ballie

Class 2 Week 1

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Ok new term, new classmates, same mentor, same stress! Thankfully this class, whilst more difficult in terms of the actual animation work we have to produce, isn’t quite as… intense as Class 1. Or at least I hope not. Last class we often had to do planning and the execution of an animation as well as pose sketching and recreating it on Stu! In Class 2, we get 4 weeks to produce a single piece of body mechanics animation, which tends to breakdown as follows:

  • Week 1 – Video reference and planning
  • Week 2 – Blocking out the animation
  • Week 3 – Move out of blocking
  • Week 4 – Final polish

So we won’t be producing nearly the same volume of work (but I suspect the amount of time we need to spend on it will be more if nothing else). There were quite a few different actions we could animate for this first exercise and I decided to do: ‘Jump up and turn 180 degrees in the air and land/settle’ but put my own ‘spin’ (sorry) on it, so that it wasn’t just happening on the spot. Here, check out the balletic action!

Very graceful I’m sure you’ll agree! Based off that, I decided to try my hand at using Flipbook to block out all my key poses and get a rough idea of the timing for the animation (naughty me, getting ahead of myself!). Now, bear in mind that this is pretty much the first time I’ve ever done 2D animation, combined with the fact that Flipbook can be a little temperamental when it wants to be:

Not too bad, right? Theoretically at least, I ought not to have started timing it out but it was a really useful exercise and it will certainly be of great help when it comes to doing the proper blocking in Maya next week!

These are the sketches I produced off the back of my Flipbook animation:

I annotated it with all the notes I made when studying my video reference – stuff to bear in mind as I’m animating in later weeks. And I also used the key psoes for the jump to get a rough guide of the arcs for the feet whilst in the air:

So, how was my eCritique? Wonderful! Got the all-clear from Shaun. He was very happy I’d decided to start looking at Flipbook for my planning and roughing out the timing for the animation and his main comments revolved around really taking a look at the key poses and really pushing them as far as possible to maximise contrast and visual interest. I also have to try and really make the most of the nice overlapping action I have in the legs during the jump itself.

On to Week 2 and BLOCKING!

Class 1 Weeks 10 & 11

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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!

Class 1 Weeks 8 & 9

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Ok, finally onto character animation! Woo! To start with, a very basic (or “vanilla”) walk spread over 2 weeks. No character, no excitement, no cartooniness, just a walk from the side view. Still, not an easy task. Here is my planning for the exercise:

So far, so good. Here’s the blocking pass:

And the final animation:

Reasonably happy with it. There are a few hitches and glitches in the movement that need cleaning up a bit, but it is a vanilla walk! Week 8′s pose assignment was “physical strength”. Let’s take a look at the sketches:

And the chosen pose on Stu:

I was really happy with this final pose. I think it’s really strong (if you’ll forgive the pun). I also like the fact that it’s not your typical ‘strength’ pose i.e. not pushing a piano up some stairs or lifting a heavy box or doing weightlifting – something different!

Week 9′s pose was “concern”. Here are the sketches:

And the final pose on Stu:

Reasonably happy with this pose. Shaun said that technically-speaking, it was excellent but it was conveying more a sadness rather than concern (although he did provide the caveat that sadness is often a product of concern).

So a good week in all!