late reference

ah forgot to put this :P i found the animation of this video really inspiring i love the cute little wiggle of his jelly tummy :) think it adds a really nice touch :)

more later

better facial animation

its starting to look a load better now :) i think i enjoy animating the face rather than the body but hey im still learning right :) i think that adding the facial animation has brought her straight to life :) i can feel her energy in her poses and expressions :)

im liking this so far but i think there needs to be a longer pause before the music at the beginning to really show the transformation in the character from shy to outrageous !

more stepped

getting there getting there definitely making progress :)

 more later :)

more blocking

here is a more stepped stage of my animation :)

this is prooving to be a huge challenge for me ive found it hard to try and restrain myself and not jump to spline to early so far so good...hope it lasts !

more later :)

mouth shapes

i decided to shoot some reference of mouth shapes to help along with the animation

more later :D

reference now

ok pretty embarrassing but here is my footage for the rap and clap reference...just ignore how terrified i look :|

more later :D

key pose sketch

here are the sketches i based my animation on ( i forgot to upload them first ) :) they helped alot with the choreography of the dance and the flow of movement.

more later :D 

blocked

here are my key poses for the rap and clap :) its going well so far and i think the poses are nice and strong!

more later :)

attitude

here is my beginning and mid attitude sketches just to help me get the feel of the different parts of the animation.

 more later :D

final task

moving on to my final task dubbed "Rap and Clap" i have chosen a song clip from the song Kiss by Prince.

again i have written up a character bio for them:

Name: Jill
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Gender: Female
Personality: Shy, Unpredictable, Energetic, Nervous, Determined
Situation: On stage for kareoke night, been made to sing by her friends, she timidly gets on stage before deciding to give it her all and belt the song out full pelt.
Power Centre: Will change during the performance, it will get higher as she gets more confident
Fears: Judgement, Letting friends down
Habits: Nervous fidgeting, Shifty eyes, eyes close when singing at points
Ipod: Variety (depends on what mood)
Friends: A few close but suportive

well now to get to work

more later :)

task 5 done

ok so here is the final render of my lip sync piece :)

i really enjoyed working on lip sync :) the animation was a little tricky but i got by, the only thing i think i would tweak is the slam of her left hand i think it is a little too soft for what i wanted.

more blocked animation

now a more blocking :D  mainly of the body its going well :D 

more later :)

lip sync animation

ok so here is the blocking so far :D hopefully it will look as good as i want it too :) so far its going well i think the poses get across her feelings. i also finally managed to fix the textures on the Morpheus rig so she doesnt look like a vampire anymore :D

more later :D

lip sync

so here is the lip sync done :) now to just put a little bit of animation in there to give her a bit of life :)

please excuse the quality ! i really like how this has gone so far :)

more later :D

more research

i shot a bit of lip sync based on my drawings submitted earlier to help make sure i get all the mouth shapes spot on.

excuse the scared expression i hate being caught on camera !!! but hey....it kinda helps what i was going for :)

while searching the internet for a bit of help i came across this, which came in handy alot during this task.

more later :D

research

so after listening to the clip several times i imagined that the character would look kindof like this when she is speaking :

i think alot of emotion will be in the eyes and face as she says her bit :) hopefully ill be able to capture this :)

more later :D 

moving swiftly on

ok now its time to start task 5 :) lip syncing...ive been looking forward to this part so hopefully it will go well :)

the quote i have chosen to lip sync is the: "you keep telling yourself what you know.....but what do you believe.....what do you feel"

i wrote a small character bio of what the character saying this would be like:

Name: Laura
Age: 26
Gender: Female
Habits: Giving advice and butting in when her opinion is sometimes not needed

Moment: at this moment she is frustrated but still trying to communicate to the person she is talking to. she is trying to make them understand about things that arent always visible to the eye.

task 4 done

here it is ! my walk cycle with personality...although when i look at this its more trashy wannabe model as opposed to runway model. i used the amy rig for maya because i thought a nice curvy woman would be fun to animate...which she was :)

i like how this came out, however if i had more time i would go back and put more animation into the characters chest and i would finish animating the beginning because for now it is still stepped. i like the flow of the leg movement i think i looks a little graceful :)

more later :)

reference time

so i've decided i want to do a nice womanly walk sortof like the catwalk women...but not....i guess i want to do a woman walking down the street with some new found confidence about herself that she wants to show off to the world.

the advice given in this video is quite helpful i can incorporate this into my animation !

i also found this video that has lots of good examples of catwalk women and how they hold themselves.

and once more i stumbled across another very helpful video from the animators survival guide helping make sure i keep the animation feminine in every way i can and not stray into male territory.

more later :D

task 4

stepping up the game a little now :) time to do a walk cycle with a bit of personality ! i first starting jotting down quick ideas of different walk cycles and ways of walking to see the choice....there is alot !

more later :D 

done task 3

finally here is my rendered basic walk cycle :) i decided to you moom not sure why he just looked fun at the time !

im really pleased with this it look a while getting used to the difference and use of step animating and spline however i think i have got the hang of this now. the only thing i would comment on is that his head bobs a little too much for my liking and this is something i would consider changing in the future.

more later :)

more walk refrence

browsing on youtube i came across a good walk cycle from different angles showing what it could look like from more than one view. it made me realise that when animating a walk cycle in 3d i need to consider all views and make sure my characters body parts stay in line :)

more later :)

Task 3

moving on from poses i dive into walk cycles :) i looked around for any reference and help. i found the animators survival kit...was just what i needed :)

i like the different types of walk cycles and how so much of a characters personality can be shown through such :)

anyway i continued to look for reference and i found a few pages from the book that helped alot.

the break downs are explained perfectly and it was easy to understand what was needed. i then looked back to my work last year and found a video of a 2d animation i had done.

now to start animating my own 3d walk cycle :D 

more later :D

Task 2 done

finally able to render the three chosen poses :) had a bit of trouble with the Morpheus rig textures not being in the right folder and having to reassign them...but here they are :)

Waiting To Start :

this character is slouched impatiently her arms crossed and a disgruntled look on her face, she is obviously too impatient to be waiting.

Surprised :

this character is terribly surprised by....the evil red box ! her body says run but shes not quite there yet :) caught mid flow as she attempts an escape.

Whats Under There : 

this character is curiously looking under the bed in search for a lost sock. she had clearly been relaxing on the bed before having a look not even making the effort to get off the bed.

i really enjoyed posing these characters :) it has taught me alot about shifting weights as they stand so they dont look like they will fall over at the slightest push. and also it has helped my understanding of a good strong silhouette and a striking pose. i also enjoyed trying to tell little stories without anything but a single pose.

more later :D 

Ball and Box Complete

so i finally decided to keep you all updated :) (i know a little late) but hey better late than never !

Anyways here is my final ball and box animation :) im really proud of it as it is. however if i could re work it i would change the opening animation on the ball because i think the roll at first doesn't look as natural as it could have.

expect more now on poses and walk cycles as i give you a little update on how my animation is progressing ! more later :D

sketch dump

so here are some more sketches of poses that i did out and about :D

hopefully this has helped give me a better understanding of key poses :)

more later bye :D