Rendered

Here's my scene fully rendered and with shadows.

Blocking Plus

Here is my pass for this week. This week was "blocking plus." That is where we take last week's scene and fill it out a bit more.

Lately, I have been listening to The Animation Podcast a lot. I have been hearing from James Baxter and Ken Duncan over and over again. Every time I hear something new and try to use it to inspire my work.

This week I focused on overlapping action and timing. There are a few kinks I still need to iron out but it's coming about.

I also built a little set for my scene. I sculpted a ball return machine, a keyboard, the alley and gutters, and used a chair from the Animation Mentor Library. I LIKE IT!!

Next week: We SPLINE!!!!

Coming Soon... (part II)

BOOKS! BOOKS! BOOKS!

Working at a bookstore certainly has its advantages at time. Especially when awesome movie books are published. I recently picked up "The Art of Wall•E". This is the art book with all the conceptual drawings and illustrations that inspired the movie Wall•E.

I also recently picked up "Tales of Colosus" by PIXAR artist Mark Andrews. It's his graphic novel and is a re-do of his earlier work "Colosus". It has a forward by Brad Bird himself! I'm in the middle of it and so far so good.

The book I am waiting for is the one from Eric Goldberg. It's called "Character Animation Crash Course" Apparently this book is filled with his notes from lectures he has given. It also includes and CD or DVD with examples that go with the text. He was signing copies at SIGGRAPH but it won't be available to the public, well...ME, until early August. Grrrrr!!!!

More books and reviews to follow soon.

Coming Soon...

MOVIES! MOVIES! MOVIES!

I've been to the movies a lot lately and I'll talk about them soon. Here is what I've seen so far:

• Horton Hears A Who!
• Iron Man
• Kung-Fu Panda
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls
• The Incredible Hulk
• WALL•E
• Get Smart

I've also seen a few on DVD:

• No Country for Old Men
• Enchanted
• Tekkonkinkreet
• I Am Legend
• The Golden Compass
• Cloverfield
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Dan in Real Life
• The Brave One
• Beowulf
• Death at a Funeral
• Driving Lessons

I've been meaning to post my reviews of many of these films.

It's been a while...

OK, it's been a while since I have posted anything. There's so much that has been going on. I made it to class 3. It is week three already and it is going pretty good.

My scene is a bowling theme. It is a change between two different emotions. I'm going for timid/nervous to confident/cocky. I also constructed a little set for background ambiance. I'll be showing that later. I'm also thinking of adding a few more Stewies in the background to fill in the crowd. Let me get the main one down first, THEN I'll work on the background characters.

So here's what I got so far. This is BLOCKING PLUS:

Class 2 Is DONE!!!

Class 2 of Animation Mentor is finally done!! This has been a long 12 weeks and I feel I have learned a few more things about animation and about myself. I got involved with other hobbies and plans which took time away from my studies. The scenes suffered because of that. However, I polished them up as best as I could and that is what I have submitted here.

The next term begins on June 30th and I am not sure if I will be moving on to Class 3 or not. I had a passing grade for the term but my mentor feels I would benefit from taking Class 2 again. He says I need to really nail down body mechanics before I can move on since it will only get more difficult from here on out. I can see where he is coming from, but it was still painful to hear. I don't really mind taking the class over again since Inow know what I need to work on. My main concern is that my student loan will not cover me to get into Class 6 to finish the program. I don't know what is going to happen but I will figure it out when I get there.

But for now, my Class 2 - Body Mechanics Reel:

Post to Post - *FINAL*

Here's my final pass at the Post to Post scene:

Week 7!!!

So here is my first pass at splining this week's assignment. It's coming about!

The new assignment (and the last one for Class 2) is to pick one of the following:
• Balancing on a beam *
• Dive off a diving board ***
• Throw a ball (baseball pitch) ***
• Pull or push a heavy object ****
• Open a sticky door ****

I chose the sticky door option and shot video reference yesterday. My best friend helped me with some of the moves. I tried to do the first take but fell flat on my face. Luckily there was no video camera and we were practicing in the backyard. I've had some of those ideas for quite some time. It's going to be fun to finally get these down on paper and animate them.

Week 6 - Blocking Plus

Here is my submission for Week 6. This week was blocking plus. That's where we take the comments from last week's e-critique and add in a few more keyframes and breakdowns. Mike suggested I take out the fourth jump and just concentrate on the first three. Also to push the poses here and there. I also added in a few little subtle cues here and there.

Next week, we SPLINE!!!

First blocking

Here's my first blocking pass at this week's assignment of having Stewie jump from post to post. It's been a fun and interesting character to work with. No more Ballie! Yeah!! Don't get me wrong, he was a good character, but now I working with a character that has somewhat of a face. All I need are the arms next.

I still have some tweaking to do here and there but I like it so far. :D