Walking with character.

What a comeback! Last week was a real terrible week for me, the work was subpar, the time I had was minimal and just over all, I felt like I was getting behind on the learning curve adn started questioning whether this animation thing was really for me.

I've found that happens from time to time, but when the next week rolls around, I find a new energy and drive to do better. And what, after all, is this all about if not to improve each week? Add to that, that this week was "character walk" week, giving some unique walk qualities to the character and really animate. It's the first time we've had a chance to do this, so I was excited and scared all at the same time.

Something you learn early in art school, any art school, any art, is that you HAVE to put your work out there, and so essentially, you have to put yourself out there for the world to criticize and you have to even take it a step further and allow yourself to accept that criticizm with deliberate and openminded attention. That's hard. But that's a whole discussion in and of itself.

However, it is the root of why it's scarey to start to really do this stuff. there's an investment, I want to be good, I don't want to look stupid or untalented or whatever. It's why as Sara says, I go way overboard, that I'm a perfectionist. I don't know about that, but I do know what looks good to me, and what doesn't, so if I see something that doesn't look good in my work, it bothers me, and I have to correct it before someone else sees it and thinks I didn't.

So, that was my week. Oh, and a new pose. This time, it's exhausted. In the next post, I'll elaborate and have the results with links, promise.

Vanilla leaves bad taste.

So! Vanilla walks. Apparently my brain thought that meant vanilla POSE as well, as I think I reached my low point in posing. This week, we were to take our vanilla walk blocking and now "fill in the gaps" so to speak. We also had a new pose, which was concerned.

Ok, so the walk went fine, although now, looking back on it, the body was WAY too high in the air. I really should have taken everything down a bit to allow for more knee bend and less stretch. It's amazing what a SINGLE week of perspective can be worth in this school. Anyway, I can't say I was all that displeased with the movement, and application of the animation principles, just some physical issues that resulted from him being too high. So, here's the fleshed out Vanilla walk in all it's glory.

Click image to see large walk cycle (48 frames, 667k).

Some things Warren had to say were not unexpected, like making sure the plant foot stays planted through the passing position and to watch out for knee wobble, but I pretty much cleaned that up. I think I'll go back in, though, and bring that body down when I get a chance.

The pose was a different animal all together. First of all, I must confess, I did it on Sunday, with very little reearch over the course of the week as I was trying desperately to complete my walk. However, don't let me get away with excuses. Plain and simple, I dropped the ball, and Warren noticed too. It's supposed to be a concerned pose, and the scenario we got from Warren was that a close relative was in a horrible car accident, and my character gets to the hospital and there's confusion about which of the two passengers, the one that's ok, or the one in critical condition, is my character's relative. The pose is during the time just before my character finds out which it is. So here's the poop I came up with.



Warren humorously called it the "oh crap, the dog pee'd on the carpet" pose. Not nearly enough emotion or energy. I think that's generous.

Walk This Way

Click image to see large walk cycle (24 frames, 300k).

"Vanilla" Walk. Sounds easy, right? What a load of hooey. This week, we get a second leg and a whole lot of trouble to boot. I'll never take walking for granted again! Or at least I've definitely gotten a much clearer understanding about just how complicated a walk can be, even in it's most basic form. I'm sure if you asked my 18 month old if "walking's easy, what's Dad all bent about?" She'd probably tell you to back off, walking's a real pain in the diapers! Then she'd probably try to point out a "birdie" somewhere. She likes to do that. I think she's doing psychological testing on us. It's how she decides if she's still in control. If she can point at something that is absolutely NOT a birdie, but still get us to go along, or to try to find a birdie, she knows we're still wrapped. Anyway, more on that in the OTHER blog. Here, we're interested in WALKS. So, the link above is an attempt at blocking a 24 frame walk cycle. For those of you who don't know what I was working on, here's a brief synopsis:

1. It must move across the screen.
2. It must be a full walk cycle, and cannot be more than 24 frames.
3. It's in blocking form, meaning only the frames that show key changes, i.e. the "passing", "contact", "high extreme" and "low extreme" positions.
4. Attention should be paid to rotation, overlapping action in the body and shifting of weight.

That's some of the stuff anyway. We had a really great video to watch from AM on this subject as well as reference materials, like Richard Williams "Animator's Survival Kit" and Disney's "Illusion of Life".

Week 7: Getting A Leg Up...

Arcs and path of action are the topic we're most concerned with this week. Getting the animation to flow well, making sure all of the paths of action follow natural, convincing arcs, and how to enhance those arcs in poses to more effectively "sell" the action and make it "readable" to an audience. To help us begin to understand these concepts we're doing a one-legged jump, using all of the principles we've learned so far, and now adding arcs.

Here's the blocking, I actually did two sheets of blocking this week to try to get this right:

And here's the animation. Warren had a few good suggestions, like breaking up the leg movement to give it some rhythm. A few others suggested adding a small hop at the end. One of the campus mentors told me he thought this was one of the best jumps he's seen this semester, so that's cool.

Click the image to see animation.

He's cute, he's cuddly...he's TAILOR!

Overlapping action. It's the concept of the week, you know, and to try it out we get a fuzzy tail as I may have mentioned in an earlyier blog. Well, i wasn't kidding! Boy is he fuzzy and cute! Well, he's a ball, actually, but he does have a fluffy tail that follows along behind him as he bounces to and fro'. Here's the sketch blocking of the shot, a simple movement across the screen:



So, the next step was takin it to the ol' computer and seeing what we can do with this little furry bastard. Turns out it's not as easy as I thought, and my first attempt was a bit "floppy". I've tried as I go through these assignments to add a little touch here and there, as well as just trying to "push" the animation as much as I can and still have it feel natural. So click on the image below to see the revision of the Tailor bounce across the screen.

Click the image:

Week 5 Obstacle Course Animation

This was pretty challenging, but a great way to explore timing and spacing and squash and stretch and weight and momentum and anticipation and...oy. It was fun, but pretty darn hard to get right. I'm not even real sure I did get it right, but it's not bad, and I think my little bouncing ball will sleep very well tonight and be a bit sore in the morning...

Click to see the bouncing ball go through the obstacle course.

Devastated Pose

As I continue to try to buck the norm, I'm finding that it's really difficult to come up with alternative poses to what are readily available cliche' ways of exhibiting these emotions. This week, my pose is "devastated". I attempted to choose a pose that has movement inherent in it, but I think it just comes off as confusing. I think my devastated looks more like he got punched in the nose or something. It was suggested, and I think this is part of my learning process, that I find a "settled" pose as opposed to a "transitional" pose.