Class 302

This week we learned more about pantomime, which is something I'm definitely into since I wanted to do my 2d short film all in pantomime. I don't mind animating in pantomime and would actually prefer it to doing tons of dialog shots. To me animation done in pantomime is animation in its purest form. Too many movies lately have been talking heads. I don't even remember what lame jokes those characters are saying half the time, but I still remember how sad Dumbo looked when his mother was locked up.

The Letter Blocking

Class 301

Class 3, Intro to Acting. My Mentor this quarter is Dimos Vrysellas. He has an extensive background in animation and seems to be an all around highly energetic guy. Our first class got right into acting and animation, a lot of good stuff. My first assignment is to do a pantomime shot with stewie having two distinct and contrasting "beats" that tell a basic story. So basically having him change his emotional state in a shot and showing that internal thought process and how it comes out in the acting and animation. The sky is the limit with this assignment. I thought of a bunch of ideas. One idea I had that I wanted to do was having Stewie all anxious and excited about a blind date, but when he finally goes to open the door and sees her he is horrified and afraid by her appearance. He then slams the door only to open it again to throw out the bouquet of flowers he is holding. I thought that could have had some funny business, but decided it might be way too long as well as hard to make the girl stewie look really ugly since the model only has two eyes and a round head. So in the end I choose to do something simple. Stewie is going through his mail and comes across a letter that he never anticipated. He jumps up and runs off excited waving it in the air to show his other Stewies I suppose. So here is my planning for that Idea.

Class 212

Week 12, the last week of Class 2, Body Mechanics. Overall I wish I could have devoted more time to this class I will post my Class 2 reel here once it's all together. I'm really looking forward to the next Class, Intro to acting, sweet!

Class 2 Reel (coming soon)

Class 211

Week 11 our final animation was due. I still feel it's only about 70% there of what I can do to it. This is the version I uploaded as my final. I have since polished it up more and tweaked some timing, poses etc. Once I have my 2d assignment revised I will post my final Class 2 reel under week 12.

Sticky Door Polishing

Class 210

During week 10 we had to refine our rough animation. All along you are getting helpful feedback from your mentor and other students. So it's getting closer to where I want it to be, but still only feels about 50% there. Hopefully it's heading in the right direction.

Sticky Door Refining

Class 209

This week I just worked more on my sticky door assignment, taking it out of blocking and into rough animation. My least favorite part of the animation process is when you start to spline out your shot. I like the freshness of blocking and refining and completeness of the polishing stage. Splining is when 3d animation really feels too technical to me.

Sticky Door Rough

Class 208

This week we had to start blocking our animation. I choose to do the sticky door from the pick list. It was a fun assignment. With this one I feel that I could have used a few more frames. One thing that is hard about these assignments is staying within the frame limits. This assignment had to be done in 250 frames. Some people go way over and do some really epic animations. I'm sure you can find a few on peoples blogs. I'm sure there are some great examples out there.

Sticky Door Blocking

Class 207

So week 7, this was a fun week because we had to finish up our assignment and plan for the next assignment. It wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't have to do like 100 inbetweens while continuing to refine my 2d assignment. So this was what I turned in for my final animation since it was due and had to be done this week. I plan on finishing up my revisions on this in the next week or so and will post it with my progress reel for class 2. I made a lot of adjustments and changes because it feels so clunky in this state now.

Post Jumping Refining

Sticky Door Planning

Class 206

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been so busy. Class 2 was a huge blur. So this was my assignment for week 6, roughing out my 2d assignment more. You can see the evolution of this piece as I went along.

Post Jump Rough