AM Q6 Week 1 Progress Reel

I am back at AM for the last quarter and there is a lot of work to do. This Quarter is all polish and working and reworking all of my shots. I have 11 short weeks to take me from a C- Student to at least a B- animator.

Originally I was going to skip this post because the homework was simply to upload your progress reel, then I remembered that I didn't finish posting my work from last quarter. Last quarter ended poorly for me, I fell behind one week and was never able to catch up, so I stopped posting because it was disappointing work. I was planning to go back and retroactively post some of the work, which I might, but it until then I will just add the end of the quarter's progress.

Posting this after the fact, I got a C- over all on my work, where an A would be professional and a C would be a good student animator, so I feel that is a very fair evaluation of my work. I know I need to put in more time and do more projects. This makes me long to be out of school and do something like these for fun, but until then I will try my best to work on these for school.

AM Q5 ASN1 Dialogue Week 3

Here is the final version of my Tombstone shot. I am pretty happy with it. I can't wait to do more I know they will only get better.

This week I also got to make more faces. I hope we get to do even more later in the quarter.

 Angry Baby

Scared

AM Q5 ASN1 Dialogue Week 2

I got some great feed back from my mentor this week and it helped me to create a better look for the animation that was more consistent with the feel I was going for. I still have one more week I think it still needs a little TLC and then I could have a piece that I really like.

This week we had the additional assignment to copy faces that we found in "magazines" I took magazines to mean the internet. This assignment was really fun. I love playing with faces.  I hope we get to do a couple more of these.

 

Giddy

 

Confused

AM Q5 ASN1 Dialogue Week 1

New quarter and a new mentor, the mentor I have this quarter is old school, Jay Jackson, who learned from the Nine Old Men and who worked on films with Tim Burton. I am very excited to learn from a mentor
"No school, like the old school."
-Frank Thomas The Incredibles

This week I kinda worked out of order, I did start with my reference but my reference didn't really capture what I wanted. Though I feel I need to look at it more and taker note of the times where I do extenuate the words and find more small things to add to sweeten what I have. I also need to do a pass where it is just my mouth. Need to make sure I brush before that one.

 

After shooting reference and kind of ignoring it I went into the animation, I don't know why, I think I just wanted to play around and then I just couldn't stop. I ended up with something that I am actually kind of happy with. It helped me to tighten up the body in some parts and to better know what to accent with the body. I kinda needed the face to know the body. Even when I draw I start with the head and all things lead from that.

 

After the animation I did some of the worst planning drawings I have done yet . I know I can do better and I think I will do better next week. Need to figure out a time of day to start doing animation every day.

I am looking forward to next week and getting some feed back and just making the shot better step by step.

AM Q4 ASN2 Week12 Progress Reel

Another quarter under my belt. Here you can see all the progress I have made. I was too tried to make a new header so I reused the old one. I've learned so much I hope I remember all of it for when I get to start a new scene. I hope that during my break I make some time to keep working on my shot. I think I plan on knocking out a couple of sections and cleaning them up. Until next quarter, I think I will game it up for a while, I got Dead Island waiting at home

AM Q4 ASN2 Week11 Dialogue The Sweet Shop

Aaaaand Done. Well done until next quarter where I unlock the face and get to do the lip synch.

Well I think I find my self where I usually find my self at the end of the quarter, understanding the all the lessons at the end and wanting to start over because I now see what that shot could be. But that is how I learn, there are a lot of parts that I am happy with, but mostly all I can see are the flaws. From what I understand that never goes away.
I don't really like the beginning any more, it feels like it's there for the sake of animation not to explain who this guy is. I think after the quarter is done I will get rid of the swooping look up and have him fingering the jar more and then having a curt look up and then reavealing that he is happy to see Johnny Ringo. I would have incorporated it this week, but I didn't realize that until it was too late. Oh well, that is enough for this quarter, maybe one more cleaning pass before I turn in my reel.

AM Q4 ASN2 Week 10 Dialogue The Sweet Shop

Two steps forward two steps back seems to be the way that I animate. Here is hoping that that isn't true this week.

This is feeling closer and closer. I know it still needs some more polish and I need to track some arcs, but I feel that this is well on it's way to being a complete piece.

AM Q4 ASN2 Week9 Dialogue The Sweet Shop

Splines have been kicking my ass and once I have everything moving smoothly I can see what is and what isn't working. Looking forward to a good crit so I can get it to a nice clean space. I still have 2 weeks to make it all spiffy. I think I can do it!

AM Q4 ASN2 Week8 The Sweet Shop Blocking

Yay, for the most part my mentor really liked what I did. After a couple of weeks of less then being with pleased with my assignments I turned one in that I was happy with and my mentor liked. It is nice. She gave me some great notes on how to improve the motion. I really like everything that I have going on in it now. Just need to finish cleaning it up so I can start adding some and flourishes.

AM Q4 ASN2 Week7 Dialogue The Sweet Shop

I chose Clip number 2 with Val Kilmer playing Doc Holiday from "Tombstone" I feel that it has some more fun and subtle face animation to play with and I am more excited to try and do a creepy character.

I was disappointed to find out that the Bishop rig that I got for this assignment has next to no face controls, just eyes, eyelids and jaw. I was all gungho for playing with a face and a lot of what i have planed for this shot and that I want to do with this shot has everything to do with the face. Oh well, it can wait, I will get the body down and then have whole weeks to play with his face. This blocking pass was meant to just get all of the body movements going in the right place so I can start smoothing those out as soon as possible. I want to mostly play with hands and the face in this exercise so I am trying to keep his body movements as simple as possible.
Though I do love working with Bishop he seems to be pretty easy to pose in appealing poses and his head is a reasonable size, so far he is the best model that I have worked with. I look forward to bishop 2.0 when I really get to play with the face.

AM Q4 ASN1 Week5 Redux No More Milk Refining

I went on vacation to Maui with Laura's Family when this was due and during that week before I had zero time to spend on this assignment. However, I was able to get my blocking to a better spot and I was able to simplify the actions and adding parts where the character thinks. This is the very first pass of clean up. It still needs a lot of work I am hoping that I can work on it some more. I think once I get back into regular hours I will try and spend my mornings working on this.

AM Q4 ASN1 Week4 Redux No More Milk Spline Pass 1

Blocking for 3 weeks in a row, but the end goal is to have a good piece of animation and if that is what it takes then that is what it takes. My not from my mentor was to keep it simple so I eliminated a lot of business at the end. I think it is a stronger piece now. It still needs some work, but I feel like all the pieces are there now and after a few small tweaks I should be able to get into splines next week without too much pain.

AM Q4 ASN1 Week3 Redux No More Milk Blocking Part2

So last week, my mind was all about working on the part where the character was tired, I am not sure why. I think it was different from what I have been doing, but that is not where the entertainment is or where the point of the scene is. So I kinda needed to go back to the drawing board and needed some new ideas for the ending. I decided to go back to planning. I started by going to facebook and asking people what I should do, after my mentor that we should consult with more people and that it doesn't matter where an idea comes from. Facebook quickly devolved into something unhelpful and very internet like, it was not the most focused feed back. Though it had some cool ideas and helped me to actually think of what I wanted to do that would not be cliche. After I figured out what I wanted to do I filmed more reference, where I broke a bowl trying out my new idea, for that reason I only shot it once, but I was able to get everything that I wanted from it.
Revised page 1
This is very similar to the last planning or more it has the most repeated drawings from my last planning. My mentor said to nix him turning to the fridge it didn't add emotion and it just wasted time. This was great and gave me a lot more time for the tired part to be slow and for there to be more ideas in the angry part.
Revised page 2
Here are all the new ideas that I had for the little tantrum that the character has, I have him slam the empty jug down, throw the bottle cap and then shove the bowl of cereal back into the box. I know when i discover there is no milk when I have already poured a bowl of cereal I put the cereal back. With that in my i figured this character was so mad that he wanted to do that but was too angry to simply do that and just shoved the cereal bowl into the box. I also like the idea because it leads to lost of big fast movements to be a counter point to the minimal movements of the tired part.

Revised blocking for this week
I feel like it could still use some fine tuning, I didn't have the best time management skills this weekend and could have spent more time on it, but I feel like I have all the ideas there now and that I could move into splines and refine as I go. I am looking forward to my critique and I want to try and show it to more people and get more feed back so I can be doing splines all week.

AM Q4 ASN1 Week2 Redux No More Milk

It feels great getting back into blocking, it is my favorite part. I wish I could just hand it to some one else to clean up now. But Right now I know this piece still needs a lot of work. Though I Had a good timing modeling and getting the scene ready, even if maya tried betray me and caused a few headaches. In the end I was able to block it out. I wish I had more time to play with the timing more and add more things on the back end.

So just a refresher, the idea is the the guy has just woken up and he is not a morning person, he is on auto pilot and is being slow. Every day he eats a bowl of cereal, it's his routine and it is important to him. He trys to pour his milk on his cereal and discovers that, his douchebag room mate has once again drank all the milk and put the freakin carton back. This disturbs him and he is feverish to try and get any milk out and he explodes in to action.

While I was working on it I was also on auto pilot and when I started animating him taking the milk out of the fridge I instantly animated it like it was a full jug. I was about half way through before I realized what I had just done, and then I thought, this might actually make this more entertaining, the guy is so on autopilot that he moves like it is full.
I regrettably just had this idea right before I am about to turn the assignment in but, I think for Next week I might have him start at the fridge and have him open the door and then turn and pour the milk and have him explode more. Right now I feel like I can't feel the beats because of the movement and the time, like I see the beats, but I think the beats can be push way more.

AM Q4 ASN1 The Painters Lament splines 01

Splines! I was able to get it to splines and I was able to clean it up pretty well. This was the least painful transition for me and I am pretty happy about it as well. It still needs some work and the timing needs a little work but so far I think this is the best assignment I have worked on at AM. Hoping I get a good critique and I will be able to get a nice piece out of it.

AM Q4 ASN1 The Painters Lament Blocking 02

The painter's anguish is not over, here is my second blocking pass. I got some great feed back from my mentor, I like his critiquing style. Next week I will be going to splines I hope I can get everything I want done in blocking early in the week.

AM Q4 ASN1 The Painters Lament Blocking

So I wake up on Monday, I make my coffee and breakfast then I was going to get started on working on my homework. I go to turn on the machine, and it won't turn on, I try several outlets in the house and the AC adapter won't light up. I end up taking the laptop to Geek Squad and they tell me that the mother board is fried and that it would cost 700 dollars to send it in for a new one (F*ck). So I order a new computer, however, it is going to take several weeks for it to show up. In the mean time, it is the return of Kuchunka, my 7 or 8 year old desk top that has an angry whurring noise when it is on. It runs maya 8.5, which initially caused me some problems when it came to loading the Animation mentor assets, however after a couple of days I got it all worked out.
Sadly this lead to less time to get the actual assignment down. Some of my poses are weak and my timing needs to be worked on and I need some more break downs. It's an OK first pass, I was hoping to take it farther, though I have 3 more weeks to make it shine.
After My critiques last week I filmed some new reference, I shot about 10, where it had a quicker timing. Less time thinking about does the work suck and more of a visceral reaction. I attached one, so I could get some feed back on it and see if I need more reference. I'm looking forward to spending more time on it this week.

AM Q3 Progress Reel

Well I have reached the end of Quarter 3 and I can't wait until Quarter 4. Here is everything that I have done thus far at Animation Mentor (in reverse order).

Wow, I hadn't realized how much I grew this quarter until I saw this. I guess that is the point. I have to say that the first assignment is painful to watch, but is actually my favorite. It has lots of fun little segments and I like the change in attitude. . I think I will spend some time and make that work. Maybe I'll change the tree to a dummyI have a much better idea on how to do that now. I also want to improve that drunk scene.
On our last Q&A of the quarter Jalil gave me a special shout out for tanasity, because I guess I got extra hard critiques and I didn't let it phase me and he was happy with my progress. He was my favorite mentor, he pushed me hard and he taught me so much. I have regained my animators eye and now it is impossible to watch anything without critiquing the motion and studding it. It is a gift and a curse and I think it will only get worse, but the first step to becoming a better animator is learning to see motion and break it down. The more you can see the more you can see in your own animation and you will be able to improve it. I wonder which mentor I will get next quarter.
I though I would add the still for my title card this quarter with Spike and I as vikings yelling over ale. This was before I had to cut the sword out to fit in the text. Now for winter break, which will be filled with more work and animation.

AM Q3 ASN3 Refining03 "Final"

This week I was amazed to find that I was not ripped a new one, not that my shot was bad last week, just the last couple of weeks have been rough in the crits. Though I love it and it has helped me to grow so much, no hard feelings Jalil. So this week it was all clean up, tracking arcs, going frame by frame making sure all of my splines are nice, clean, and pretty. I don't feel that it is 100% there, but a good 95%. I took it as far as my eyes and skills could take me. I am really happy with the end and the beginning, however, when he takes the step up to the keg that whole section feels off, not wrong, just not quiet right.

I think next quarter I need to do simplistic shots and plan my time so I could pretty much restart the shot every week, I have learned a lot by starting over.

AM Q3 ASN3 Refining02

So I got a small crit last week, to change the angle my character is standing. I changed it and it lead to better silhouettes and poses. However, it also made it so some poses were wrecked and nothing was matching up at the barrel. I had to start over. I feel like I made some pretty good progress this week. I like having to start over, I usually get something better, faster, stronger.Though I need to film some more reference and fix some parts. I'm hoping that by the end I have something that looks finished to me.