Tag Archives: Class 1

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!

Class 1 Week 7

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Since it was so important, we did even more overlapping action this week! This time using Tailor (the little ball with a tail) we had to animate the little guy jumping at least three times. So this would combine the squash and stretch bouncing ball of a few weeks ago with the overlapping pendulum action from last week! Let’s take a look at the initial idea sketches I did:

So, some rough thoughts about what poses might crop up and having a think about how the tail might react during a very standard jump. Here’s the actual plan itself:

Aaaaand the final animation: