Class 6 - Progress Reel

Class 4 & 5 - Progress Reel

Class 4 - Week 4 (Blocking to Polishing)

I've been working on my pantomime assignment for the past few weeks. It has changed a lot on the way, but I think I'm close :) 


Blocking:

Blocking Plus:

Definitely, NOT the final pass :)

Class 4 - Week 2

Introduction To Pantomime

This week our duty was to show contrast acting beats using only one character in a single shot.  

As you know, timing and main (storytelling) poses generate the keystones of a blocking pass. There is a couple of things to always keep in mind in this stage:
- If information comes too fast, it could be distracting and you may loose the audience 
- If it comes too slow, your shot might be boring
- If the poses don't have clear silhouettes, they are not able to sell the IDEA
- DO NOT change the camera in every pass! Set a camera before you begin and stick with it until the end of the shot.
- Be sure to set a key on every controller in each pose, so that you can edit easily
- Try to give enough information, but don't set a key on every single frame

I personally try really hard to complete the general timing in this first pass, however there's always something to adjust even in refining. Hopefully, it'll no longer be a problem for me after some time, because these kinds of things comes with experience. 

My blocking pass for this week : 

Class 4 - Week 1

Acting 101

Finally winter term has begun and my new mentor is an awesome animator: Ray Chase. 
In class 4 we will be dealing with some body language and acting stuff. According to the syllabus, our first assignment is a "pantomime" shot, which means we will be animating an acting shot without any dialogue. 
This will be a very tough one, because the character should have a clear communication with the audience even there is no sound in the scene. For this reason, the very first thing you need to have is a clear idea! 
   
Sometimes it's really hard to be creative and find something unique. What I've done to find a good acting choice was very simple: 
-Every time when I went out, I took my pen and notebook with me
-I observed people (especially their attitude and how they react to the circumstances)
-I took quick notes right away
Everyday when I came home, I sat in silent and read my notes few times. Than, I started writing the first idea came up to my mind. The very first ideas are usually the most cliche ones. However, if you think of every single detail while writing your ideas, there will probably an other idea come up to your mind. That is actually what happens to me. 
Anyways.. 
I've done the same thing over and over again for one week. And at the end of the week, I got 10 ideas in the hand. This time I started to eliminate and picked the best 3 ideas. 

I hope this helps you too :)


   

Class 3 (Progress Reel)

After a long break, I'm back to AM!

Past few months I hardly had time to breath and sadly I didn't have the chance to upload my latest works. But better late than never, right? :)
Still need to work on lots of things, especially on timing (such a headache!). Anyways, here is my class 3 progress reel: 

Class 2 - Week 12 (Progress Reel)

My class 2 progress reel:

Class 1 - Progress Reel

Class 1 - Week 11 (Assignments & Revision)

Ninja Sneak:

Balanced STU Pose:

Revision:

Class 1 - Week 10 (STU Pose & Revisions)

Exhausted Pose:

Revisions:

Class 1 - Week 9 (Assignment & Revisions)

Splined vanilla walk and concerned STU pose:

Revisions:

Class 1 - Week 8 (Assignment & Revisions)

My assignments for this session:

My revisions for this week;
1. Pendulum
2. Tailor

Class 1 - Week 8 (Work In Progress)

"Introduction to Walks"


Walk cycle is one of the most important subjects of animating. For this session, I've found "The Animator's Workbook" quite helpful. Here are 2 pages from the book, which explains this topic pretty detailed:

This week, we had 2 assignments:
1. Blocking out a walk cycle (vanilla walk) with using Ballie. 
2. Posing PHYSICAL STRENGTH on STU.

I caught in the middle of these two poses, but the 1st one won! :)
So, I started to work more detailed on that...

Class 1 - Week 7 (Assignment & Revisions)

" Walk-through: Spline Editing"


This week in Class 1, we dive more into the overlapping action and spline editing with Tailor, which was quite fun. To be honest, adding a personality to a character was harder than I thought... My shot has a very simple staging, even so it was one of the most painful assignments I've ever done so far :)


Check it out:

My revisions for this week:

Class 1 - Week 6 (Assignment & Revisions)

"Overlapping Action"


More into animation..
Overlapping action is making one section moves first while following section breaks, then catches up to the movement. Without any overlap, animation looks robotic and lifeless.


Overlapping Family:
1. Follow Through
2. Successive Breaking
3. Drag (Wave Principle)
4. Lead and Follow


For this session our duty was to animate an overlapping action of a pendulum.
Here is what I've came up with:

Also, for this week I've done some revisions from the previous sessions:
Week 4 - Light&Heavy ball
Week 5 - Squash&Stretch
Week 5 - Devastation Pose

Class 1 - Week 5 (Assignment & Critique)

Here is my obstacle course and devastation pose assignments:

Here are few screen shots which I've taken during the ecritique:

Class 1 - Week 5 (Work In Progress)

"Anticipation and Squash & Stretch"

This week we were given 12 different obstacle courses and an advanced ball rig. Our duty was to pick one of those sets and animate a bouncing ball going through that course.
We supposed to use the principle of squash and stretch as the ball moves.

From now on AM is more fun than ever! Don't you think? :)


My planning for this week's assignment:

What I've learned from this week?

1. The anticipation to a move, usually the opposite way to which the character is going to move.
2. The exaggeration of the anticipation affects the style of the animation.
3. Contact position is the KEY of the principle 'Squash & Stretch'.


To have a clear understanding of squash and stretch have a look at 
Animator's Survival Kit, page 94-95: 

 

Class 1 - Week 4 (Assignment)

"Introduction to Timing and Spacing"


Here is my "Light&Heavy Ball" assignment:

Class 1 - Week 3 (Assignment)

Simple bouncing ball:

And excited STU:

Class 1 – Week 3 (Work In Progress)

"Planning and Blocking Methods"


In this session we've simply lernt how to plan a scene, what's a cliche, pros and cons of blocking methods etc...
For this week, we had 2 assignments to do. 
First one; pose of STU communicating EXCITEMENT. 
Second one; a simple bouncing ball animation.



Some ideas for the excited STU:

After I decided to choose "singing in the rain" pose, I saw this week's cover page of my favorite comics magazine...

What a coincidence! :)
Same week same topic... Anyway...


During my studies, I watched so many videos of Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra to take their movements as references. I'd love to share some of those amazing videos with you. Enjoy!

For the bouncing ball assignment, there are 2 things we have to pay attention:
Timing
Spacing


These two very important concepts are basically the building principle of "animation" and without an exception, every animator NEED TO know what they are .