AM Q5 ASN2 Dialogue Week 4

This week is the start of a new assignment. This Assignment I will have until the end of the quarter, this one will be two character dialogue scene.

Here are my audio clips, the first one is from Serenity, the second one is from Office Space and the last one is from Planet of the Apes, I didn't list the source in the video because I got kinda chewed out for being excited about clips because of their sources. I picked these 3 clips out of a total of 12 that I found and showed to people and probably twice that many that didn't work for one reason or another.

 

This is my character description and scene description, hopefully you can read this if not well you'll get the feeling for it from the pictures and from the later animation I will do.

Based on what I can do with Bishop 2.0, I created these sketches for my potential characters and sets.

I have already hear from my mentor on this assignment and I got and A, which is awesome because those are hard to come by, and he was impressed with my drawings which was also a feather in my cap seeing as he was an old school animator for Disney. He really liked number 1 and number 2, those were my favorites as well, I am kinda leaning towards number 2, I have a better idea on what I want to do and what it is going to be.

This week I also had to make another face, I really like doing these assignments. I bought two books all about people making faces a reference for artists, one was all adults and one was babies to teens. These books are great references for people making faces, I could do with out the images of people using them to make art, those seem kinda dumb and make it seem more like a joke then actual reference book. Great books though and I recommend them.

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 ASN2 Week6 Dialogue

YAY! I finally get to animated a character with a face, I love drawing faces and I love working with animation face rigs.

I shot reference for this assignment however, for some reason I was feeling really self conscious and out of my element having to shoot it on vacation, so I really didn't like what I did and didn't find them useful (so I am not going to bother to post it like I usually do). So when I went into planning I decided to just ignore it and try and do something better. This actually led to how I want to plan animation from now on. Before the way that animation mentor kinda taught me was to film reference first and then do sketches and now I want to do sketches and then film reference and change the sketches to fit the reference. I still need to re-shoot reference for these shots but I think it should make things a lot faster this time around.

SHOT 1: the idea is that this a high ranking knight (I have been reading "A Game of Thrones") is sending his lacky squire to go retrieve something for him, the knight is preoccupied with something else in the room playing the squire little mind.
SHOT 2: a creepy, vicious and soft spoken sweet shop owner who has a malicious relationship with his customers sees a regular who loves a particular candy that he buys exclusively and the sweet shop own is out of the candy and takes great pleasure in pointing out to thus man that he is out of the candy.
SHOT3: a father playing with his daughter who is a selfish who always wants more, he is fed up with her materialistic attitude. He can not take any more when she was complaining about how the couch she just bought her was wrong and she wanted the nicer one.

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 Week1 Redux No More Milk

Once again back into the breach.
This Quarter my mentor is Melanie Cordan and she has quiet the impressive resume. She seems super nice and intense as a mentor, I am really stoked for this quarter this I feel will be my make it or break it quarter.

It took me about half the week to come up with the concept for this. I kept trying to figure out a catalyst for the change in emotion, this assignment needs two different beats where the character changes emotion. Last time I did this I tried to have the character have an internal shift, and it just takes too long for 10 seconds of animation. All the other ideas had to do with the character getting hit on the head, which felt too cliche' and then one morning I drank all the milk and Laura was none too pleased and I thought this would work great for a change in some ones attitude, from tired/ lethargic to angry/ energetic.

I started out by shooting video reference again, I feel a little out of practice and I have to be mindful that I am in an apartment now and can't just bang about really loudly. I wasn't 100% on what I wanted to do so i tried to shoot 10 different attempts. From those 10 I decided that these 3 were the best of the different ideas that I came up with while we were filming the piece.

Based off the video reference I started picking and choosing my favorite parts, the first shot was my favorite and i tried to base most of it off of that one and I took what I wanted out of the other ones.
I stated as I usually do by just kinda hand animating/ laying out the scene in photoshop, however this time the end result was less then aesthetically pleasing. Because all of the action happens in a limited space it's hard to see the variation in the movements, I usually take up more space in the scene, so the layered effect was not very effective. However, the point of this is to get my break downs looking correctly and help me to make it all flow and look correctly with each other. (I already saw my crit, because I forgot to post this on Sunday, and my new mentor Melanie was to take this and make an animatic with it, which sound like a great idea)
page1
page2
Based off of my critique I need to work on the ending where he is mad. Some of the things I did were kind of Cliche and I need to add more fury and make him a little more animated in the end. I have a couple of Ideas on how I can improve them and Melanie gave me a couple of starting points for me to jump off of to improve the idea. I am really looking forward to getting back into Maya and doing some blocking.

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 Q4 ASN1 The Painters Lament

Whoo! Another quarter has started and I am excited. Had some trouble getting started but once I did you couldn't stop me.
This quarter I am in Introduction to Acting with Dave Vallone, who has been in the business for 25 years and has done it all. he seems like a cool laid back guy, I'm looking forward to having him as a mentor.
The first assignment is to have two different beats, I chose to star out with a happy painter who steps back and looks at his piece and realizes that it sucks and then becomes very sad and decides to quit. I started out by filming this reference.

I ended up filming like 40 or so of these, most of them were very similar, I don't think I need that many in the future, or next time I will try and make them more different. I picked the 8 best to put into the reel to show my mentor.
Based off of my reference I started planning out my shot. I wanted to make sure that when I planned the shot that I left the character more open to the camera. Most of my reference was in profile, not the most dynamic angle for silhouettes. When drawing this I tried to get as many poses in as I could, it ended up making it look more like a mess then usual, however, I felt when I took any out that it felt bare.
Here is a closer look with some more break downs as to what I want to do. I tried to add as many break downs as made sense and adding as many actions as I can, I probably have too many, but it will be easier to cut things out then have to think about what to add.
I have already got a bunch of great suggestions on how to make it better. I think to make it work the best I need to play down the change from Love to sad. Make him step back and instantly know that he sucks. I think I need to shoot a little more reference with that in mind. I am going to try and keep it in the 10 range this time. 40 was far too many.