Quick Recap

It's been a while since I've posted on this blog. This blog will be seeing a lot more action from me as I'll be dedicating this blog for the purpose of showcasing my animation process both for my BFA class and my own enrichment as an animator.:)

I noticed the last time I posted was in Spring and a lot has happened since then. Throughout Spring semester at SJSU, I took "Intro to Acting" with Michal Makarewicz at Animation Collaborative. It was incredibly eye-opening, learning about all the thinking involved when approaching (and animating) a shot. That class was a great motivator, showing me all that I didn't know and giving me a close look at all the hard work/dedication needed to pursue animation.

Once Mike's class was over, I decided to enroll in another AnimC class. Mike suggested Jim Brown's Body Mechanics class for me since I was struggling with moving my character and showcasing weight. It was such a great experience! The class was formatted where each week we covered a principle of animation and doing a shot per-week. The idea was to get as far as you possibly could on a new shot, which REALLY tested my planning, execution and overall time management since I work part-time at Camera 12 (movie theater in downtown SJ). Jim was super helpful and even offered draw-overs mid-week!

Below is a compilation of some of my work starting from week 1. It's cool to see the progress from the first week to the final week (which was a mock- 3D stop motion test, where we took a shot we've already done and start over working in a straight-ahead method)

Here's my 3D stop motion test from the final week - it was the most challenging test, posing the character one frame at a time:

Jim even took us over to Pixar in celebration of the last class!

Once Jim's class was ended, I wanted to keep that momentum going and couldn't imagine stopping. So, I enrolled in Mike's 8 week polish class which ends next week. I decided to fix up my Dive (since I've enjoyed working on it so much) and continue working on my "Get To Know You" shot from my previous class.

I still have some adjustments for my Dive I hope to address, but it's pretty close:

Dive from Diana Martinez on Vimeo.

My "Get To Know You" shot is becoming a headache since I was in a different point when I started than now. I've been fighting earlier Diana more than ever.

Here's where it is so far (without the bg and guy character she's talking to):