Long-Hai Artist/Animator Blog

Here is my new assignment. Jump onto a box then jump off. I figured the whole losing a ball/frisbee in neighbors yard thing would be cool. Originally I wanted to do a baseball through a window.. But why would u climb on a box to do that?

Tell me what you think :

What can I say? I ‘ve been busy. =) After Class one I was able to take a break from both AM and Work, in the form of a two week vacation. Doing AM without having to go through a day of work was great for one week. After 4 weeks I’ve finally decided to post and we’ve actually finished the first assignment. The 180 degree turn. I’m not that pleased with it. But I did come upon two ” AH-HAH!” moments for myself concerning animation.

1. A campus mentor by the name of Leigh Rens was suggesting I put more figure eights in the hips for the turn during the weight shift. And the sorta ” DUH!” moment i had was like oh yeah! Strive for some appealing motion, stop going by the vid ref verbatim. Which usually leads to more boring motion . I mean who wants to see real life on a cartoony character like Ballie? So yea.. I’m sitting there thinking.. why didn’t i think of that at the time.

2. Also i had a serious lack of overshoot and follow through. Stuff I’m usually really a big fan of and its usually what i can’t wait to do. But somehow my brain was just not turned for animation last week for me to catch.

But overall. Its a win in my eyes, as I’ve bumped into and registered these moments for the future. And I have AM to thank for it. In addition to its great lectures and mentors, the discoveries one makes on these assignments are invaluable.

Here is a QT of the 180 Turn. Im gonna do a rehash of the motion for a revision by the end of the week.

The term started on Monday June 30th I believe. Wednesday I had my first Q and A with my Class 2 mentor. David Breaux. It was pretty cool, he was very inciteful on all topics that we had to throw to him as a class. Since this term is all about body mechanics, I think I will be trying to squeeze as much time out of my schedule for further study as I can. This area of animation is definitely an area I need further improvement and direction in. I can see the pitfalls of poor body mechanics in CG animation, as anyone can move the rig/character from point A to B. However does it convey weight? Are the poses interesting and exaggerated? Are there arcs for every appendage and body mass? Are things overlapping and over shooting well? And on top of it all, is your animation still reading as the original idea that you set out to demonstrate?

I think it will be fun and challenging overall. =)

And definitely see Wall-E. I’m sure most of us already have, if not twice. You can just summarize the whole movie as excellent really. Beautiful to look at, animation is of course top notch, and it has a very clever ability to draw you in. I’ve seen other reviewers refer to the film as ” Chaplinesque”. And indeed it is. Beat-up, old, rusty and dinky, the Wall-E robot does incur the same feelings of pathos as the Tramp. Pantomime and lack of real dialogue also contribute heavily to the comparison. The great thing about Chaplin’s Tramp is that it seems like you’ve known the guy for 15 years and were there when he was on hard times etc. And in a sense, you feel the same with Wall-E. You feel like you were there 700 years ago when he was first assigned to clean the earth, or when he started gathering his first trinkets. Great stuff.

But yea. Stay tuned for ref-video and thumbnails of my next assignment.