Class 2 Session 3: Final

Notes from 2 Animation Mentors this time, both from Pixar; what a chance!
Doug Dooley and Sandy Christensen said:

1)Play with first and last poses, focus on attitude
2)Frame 25, Head should still be moving forward to show more balance and to define the path of action
3)Make right foot arc wider f17 - f25

Doing these changes plus polishing the knees arcs took me about 3 hours, not bad in relation to the Personality Walk, where it took me 7 hours for something similar.

Something worth commenting on, this Final piece has the same timing as "Class 2 Session 2: Refining" (scroll down) meaning that the keyframes are still on the same frame as before, what makes it look different is the spacing in the inbetweens.

Isn't that amazing?

:)

Class 2 Session 3: Polishing

Thanks to the comments from my classmates, co-worker (Hans Heymans) and mentor (Doug Dooley) I was able to focus in overlapping, timing and arcs. The main dilemma for me, is how to departure from the reference live action footage and add the animation value to it, something that is entertainning and believable at the same time.

Class 2 Session 2: Refining

Here is my animation pass #2. Basically I'm addressing the comments from my classical animation teacher, Marcos Gonzalez; he points out that on the pose test (below) Ballie seems out of balance at certain sections, almost like he trips or he is about to fall down. The *turn around* now is almost happening on the same spot, which I think looks more natural.

Still more work to be done!

Class 2 Session 1: Blocking from thumbnails

On this week's lecture, Rick O' Connor says that his blocking (from the lecture: "a baseball throw") took him about 1 hour. Sounded motivating and simple to me, so I kept going to that stage in that same week (I wasn't supposed to).

This habit about doing extra work, I adopted it from a boss that I respected because of his quality work. He use to tell me at his studio: "Work on the first day as if it were the last day".
It was absurd to me, because we had established deadlines to deliver the project on time. Eventually I realized how much work I was able to complete in a short period of time, and to be able to strive for more quality was a revealing experience to me. One of the best parts of them all was, that by the project's deadline I didn't have any pressure as I had before, it was the other way around; I was relaxed...

His name is Javier Gutierrez, you can see his work here www.ciberfilms.com

Class 2 Session 1: Thumbnails from Reference

Long image eh! I wanted to show you all 3 pages. Thumbnailing from the reference took me about 2 hours, (I'm getting faster!)
:)

Class 2 Session 1: Video Reference

This week is pretty cool, we get to choose 1 from 3 options for our assignment. I chose the Turn around 180 degrees, mainly because its rated as the most difficult one; I haven't done anything like it and I want to keep pushing myself!

Here is my video reference.

Animation Mentor: Class 2 starts

For this class (3 months) I was fortunate enough to get another mentor from Pixar; Doug Dooley. So far, he has a different teaching style than Bret Parker. He seems very tight but at the same time very laid back!

His Bio:
Doug has been working as a character animator since 1995, after graduating with a computer animation degree from Ringling School of Art and Design. He spent 4 and a half years working as a character animator at Blue Sky Studios were he worked on several commercials and movie effects, as well as being a lead animator on the Oscar winning short animation Â?Bunny.Â? Currently he is a character animator at Pixar Animation Studios, were he worked on Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles. He is currently helping set up animation production on Pixar's 2006 movie.

Back to blogging!

Finally I got to know how to organize my blog, so I could keep the classes and its posts to themselves in an easy and clear way. Took my a while! but at the end it was so simple!

:)