Week 1 Assignment into Week 2

So last week was Week 1 of Class 3 in my progress through Animation Mentor.

For my first shot for this term, I'm having Stewie use a sledgehammer to hammer in a giant nail into a steal beam. (Don't ask why, after having my mentor review my shot, this is the conclusion we came up with.)

The story line is:
Goal - Construction Stewie wants to hit the nail
He picks up the hammer, swings it around, hits the nail and then the nail bends.
Stewie ends up frustrated

At first, it doesn't seem that difficult. And then I started working through the rigging and constraining and the rest of it. *crosses eyes*

I actually just finished setting up the constraints for the hammer so that the hammer can drive the hands and then after Stewie lets go of the hammer, the hammer can also move by itself.

Here's a look at the reference footage:

As you can see, I had to rework my original idea so I have this new better idea.
I've also got a screenshot of my construction worker Stewie.

Now for this week, we need to have our primary blocking done.
So, I've got a couple of long nights ahead of me filled with blocking fun!

After I submit my blocking, I'll throw it up on here. :)

Class 2 Progress Reel

So, I posted my progress reel to the Animation Mentor website last week, and then took a step away from the computer.

Here is, my Class 2 Progress Reel.

I'm ready to move on to Class 3!

Last Class 2 Q&A

We just had our last Q&A with Rich Fournier. It was great! Overall, I'm really happy with the mentor and class I got this term! It was a lot of hard work, and I feel like I got a lot out of it. This was the little send of Rich gave us at the end of the Q&A:

After passing class 2 and watching this video, I feel like a real Number 1!!

I'll be posting my Class 2 Progress reel this evening, and coming back next week with an update on Class 3!

Week 11! How time flies

As promised, here is the polished version of my shot.

I spent a lot of time tracking arcs and making sure there weren't any pops or anything sticking in the animation. I'm feeling alright about the assignment for now. I'm sure after I get my eCritique from Rich there will be a bunch of things upon which I can improve.

Next week, progress reel!

I'm Back!

First and foremost, I'd like to apologize to the followers I have and anyone who reads this blog. I have not been keeping up with this blog as originally promised. I've let the blog fall off my radar. I miss logging my progress, broadcasting my work, and updating all of you with what I've been up to.

I'm back!

Today, I'll be bringing you up-to-date on my progress including:

- assignments I've completed

- progress reels I've compiled

- reference footage I've used

- some of the struggles and accomplishments along the way

I left you off at week 4&5 of Class 1. Since then these are the weekly assignments I've completed (including revisions) from when I stopped blogging to the end of the class.

In week 6 we started looking at overlapping action using a pendulum:

This was one of my favorite assignments. I was able to get it done early and get some great feedback for it from my fellow classmates!

Week 7, we combined what we learned from the bouncing ball in the obstacle course with the overlapping action from the pendulum assignment. I used Tailor for this assignment. A ball with a squirrel-like tail. This first video was what I submitted for my assignment:

Not too proud of that one...

At the end of the class, I worked on doing another Tailor assignment based on the feedback I got from the first one. Here it is:

A little bit better than the first one.

During week 8, we started looking at a "vanilla walk." We had to submit the blocked version of this, which is pretty much the main poses of the walk, while in stepped mode.

Then in week 9, we added in tom in-betweens and smoothed out the spline to get a not so choppy walk.

In week 10, we got to start working on our own "personality walk" in which we gave Ballie a personality with his walk. I was going for a sneaky walk. Here's the blocked version:

And our final major assignment for the term was to smooth out that personality walk and set the camera at a 3/4 angle.

After looking at it again and again, it can definitely use some improvement.

This is my progress reel from Class 1, a collaboration of my work from the 3 months of class.

I'd love to thank Paul Allen for being an awesome mentor and my classmates for being engaging, fun and supportive.

On to Class 2.

My mentor for this class is Richard Fournier.

In this class we have approximately 4 weeks to work on our shots (from planning to blocking to blocking+ to polishing). The main idea is to make sure your character is displaying realistic body mechanics (working the spacing, timing, and poses to show the correct weight, balance, and movement) as well as utilizing all the lessons we learned last term (all good animation is built from the basics).

Again, the following clips are my assignments in order from Week 1 to now (Week 11).

Week 1 Planning:

Yup, that's me!

Here are my sketches for the shot:

They read from right to left. (Don't ask why.)

Week 2 Blocking:

Week 3 Blocking+ to Spline:

Week 4 Polish:

Week 4 Planning the next shot:

And my sketches:

Week 5 Blocking:

Week 6 Blocking+ to Spline:

Week 7 Polish:

Week 7 Planning the final shot:

My sketches:

Week 8 Blocking:

Week 9 Blocking+:

And this was last week's assignment, week 10 Spline:

I'm currently working on adjusting some of the notes I missed from my critique a couple of weeks ago and improving on the arcs I don't have.

This week's assignment it to polish the shot. You can expect a polished version of the dance by the end of the week.

Let me thank you for coming back and not forgetting about me and my blog. I plan to be here more often, and hope you come back again too!

Thanks!

Week 4 & 5 Here and Gone in a Flash (Part 3)

And finally, we had the option to revise our previous animation (the Heavy/Light ball bounce). So I took my mentor's advice from the week before, and this is the revised product:

I can honestly say it's been a busy couple of weeks, and it will probably just continue to get busier. I'm looking forward to the new stuff we will be covering for the duration of the class and can't wait to post all the new stuff I'm doing.
Hope you've enjoyed checking out what I've done so far! Stop back to see some more coming soon!

Week 4 & 5 Here and Gone in a Flash (Part 2)

I'll now be moving on to the work I just completed for week 5.
First we had to sketch out our planning for a ball moving through an obstacle course with Squash & Stretch and having the weight of a basketball.
Look at the lovely planning:

Then, of course, we had to animate it.

We also had to do another Stu pose. This week it was devastation. I don't know if it was because I had to do the pose, but I definitely found myself feeling sad at certain points during the week. (Especially when my Internet connection at home failed during class time, I was totally devastated.) Anyway, here's the pose:

The following are some of the sketches I did before I got to the pose I have above.

Check out the revision to my Heavy/Light ball bounce in the next post...