Rescue Mission - My Sack Pantomime

So, there's been a delay in posting this I was having issues with my external hard drive and was fortunately able to fix it! Now I have a bunch of material to show that I'll be spreading throughout this winter break.

First it's: The Sack Pantomime, which was my final project for my Spring 2014 2D animation class (Ani 114).  What this project is: a 30 second (short) acting study using a flour sack as a character. Because the flour sack has no limbs or face it adds an extra level of difficulty to the assignment, focusing purely on body mechanics to tell the story. This was a very fun project for me and I learned so much. My teacher Jeff Jackson was a tremendous help, he gave me great feedback throughout the process that pushed me and kept me excited. This project was the biggest project that I completed at that point. I felt completely myself during the whole process realized the importance of putting personal life experiences in my work. I am extremely proud it and can't wait to learn more.

Below I'll go step by step of the process I completed.

But first, here's my completed assignment: (note: turn down volume)

So, before I get the that point, there needs to be lots and lots of planning on story. I came up with a story about a flour sack trying to rescue it's teddy from a cage in it's imagination.

Here's the first Animatic (storyboards to time). It's super rough at this stage.

As you can see there's a lot of clarity issues going on so over that weekend, I created this revised version.

At this point, I felt ready to move onto the next stage. - Animation!

During the animation portion, I referenced/studied a lot of pre-existing amazing animation.

Such as Pongo's Stretch-

Witch Hazel's zip off screen -

And Wild E Coyote's silly timing -

And Finally, Penny's hug and overall acting -

Since I was still a beginner I was looking for how these masters dealt with similar things I was dealing with. Studying these helped me understand my sack pantomime a little better. Studying these were also an excuse to simply marvel at great animation! :)

So there you have it! My Sack Pantomime: Rescue Mission. Here it is again without sound this time:

Hope you enjoyed it. This was a very special project to me because it was THE assignment that I realized that I want to be an Animator.

Thanks!!

Some Weekly Studies

Hello,

So, I thought I'd share some of my weekly animation studies/mastercopies. These are all characters drawn by other amazing animators such as David Coleman, Stephen Silver, Glen Keane, and Andreas Deja (to name a few). The purpose of these studies is to learn from the way these amaaaazing artists are able to sculpt the character's volume, capture life and appeal and create interesting poses.

I've learned a lot from this practice and plan to keep this up on my own.

Here are some head studies

And here are some full body pose studies

Here are some hand studies

And here are some eye studies

And finally here are some background studies (thumbnails)

1st Flash Test!

This semester, I'm taking 2 animation classes, Ani 115 (intermediate 2D animation) and Ani 51b (Beginning 3D animation). In my 2D animation class, we're learning/using an animation program called Flash. It is tough, At the moment, I'm having difficulty translating what I've learned drawing (on paper) to drawing on a tablet there's a definite disconnect and I'm realizing it takes me 10 times longer to draw. I've noticed that because of this struggle, when opportunities arise for me to draw on paper, it feels like freedom and it's actually helped me draw smarter!

This is my first animation test of the semester. The class was given Dean from Iron Giant's character model sheets as a rough character guide to complete a jump test. After we completed the jump we added a cool jacket on him to add some sweet overlap. It was a struggle to complete and I made a WHOLE bunch of mistakes along the way. And that's why I like this test. I learned a lot!

Anyway, here's Dean jumping over one of his "modern art" pieces. (one with a jacket  and one without) Enjoy! :)

Fred looses his Toupee!

Hi Guys!
After the character walk, my next assignment was to take that same character and make him/her see something react to it and change emotion.

My teacher has been really emphasizing the importance of thinking of the emotion of a character rather than just motion, in other words - ACTING! Through doing this exercise, I found it difficult to show all that goes into a showing a character thinking. In animation you get to play around with timing and it's tough to understand how long it takes for someone to realize something. There's so many little nuances in movement to consider, it's enough to make one's brain explode into tiny little bits. But needless to say - I had a lot of fun with this test and love this character. Maybe I'll do something with his character again in the future. Hope you all enjoy!

Character Walk!!

Hi Guys!

I've been having a BLAST in my animation class. And honestly, after this assignment (and the bear walk), I'm leaning more and more toward becoming an animator. I enjoy the performance and attitude I get to express through a character... it's super fun!

I also had a lot of fun shooting reference for this. Thought I'd share me acting like a jolly, plump man :) It's pretty silly, and my favorite take is the last one where I decide to go all out...

More Grizzlies!

Here's some grizzly bears from the zoo that I've drawn for my animation class (114). Basically we had to pick one animal from the zoo to study for about 6 weeks and every week a bunch of drawings were due. Throughout that time my teacher would go over animal movements and structure with the class so we could all improve and feel less timid. The animal I picked was the GRIZZLY BEAR!

It's safe to say that when I first started drawing grizzlies, I was confused. I hadn't ever drawn them before and they don't ever stay still. Something I eventually did was go to the zoo and fill as many pages with quick gestures. Then I'd go home, analyze them and add structure/form. That's where the Joe Weatherly book was super handy. In class, I'd ask Jeff Jackson, my teacher, to draw over my drawings that weren't working and that really helped me. Overall, I had a great experience drawing and learning about the grizzlies and can't wait to go back.

I made a Grizzly Bear WALK!!!

It's true!!! I can't believe it either. This is the first walk I've ever done... and it was a quadruped... YIKES!!!!!!!!! My brain pretty much exploded into a million bits, but luckily it was restored with some new-found knowledge! YAY!!!

I thought I'd show the process...

(I'm not sure how to loop these videos so if you're able to that would be the best way to watch them)

This was my very first attempt I did at the beginning of class- As you can I'm very confused:

With a lot of help from Jeff Jackson (my teacher), this is what I ended up at the end of class.... I had a huge Ah-Ha moment at the end of this class when I learned about Contact-Hit/Down-Pass-Lift/Up-Contact...

Then I went home and kept working and working and this is the final Bear Walk I turned in:

While I still see many places to improve... I'm really proud of the way this came out. I can honestly say I never thought I could do it and it feels awesome to prove myself wrong :)

It goes to show.... if I can do it... ANYONE can!