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!