Term4 - Short - s09 Horse-> House -> Turtle2

Yeah, it's been mentioned that my titles might be a bit superfluous. I will try to shorten them from now on (this post marking the last)


Anyway, this is the key for the 'house' horse


And this is the suggestion that Mark made- though the flow was working, he mentioned that the key I made is from a slightly downwards angle, and does nothing for the illusion that the horse is growing. This picture is the revision he threw down. The difference in the impact is staggering.


He also mentioned that the choice I used for the shrinking motion was backwards; for the horse to be sucked down instead would add emphasis to the knight's movement that followed. I originally wanted to do that, but could not solve the problem of the horse's legs simply shifting along the ground. This is another picture that Mark did that solved that problem.

Term4 - Short - s09 Horse-> House -> Turtle

Scene 9 WIP for the short.


Breakdown of the second half. Fixed the POA busted frames.


I added some extra movement to the beginning in an attempt to be more realistic. It worked, but it detracted from the animation... a lot. And it made the action too slow.

Also realized that the shoulder sphere left the POA a bunch of times.


First rough

Term3 - LifeDrawing - Crits - Life sketches

To be blunt, I did it wrong. The focus was supposed to be on character and story. Almost all of these lack that. I'm not very happy with them, but I do like the face sheet I threw on the end - at least I'm definitely improving in that area.

I'm still having trouble not simply copying what I see.

Term3 - LifeDrawing - Crits

Clint's notes on my lifedrawing this term. (Includes notes on the sketches in the post above)


He also mentioned that strong action takes priority over everything, and I neglected that on the poses with drapery. Shading also takes a back seat.

Term3 - SVL - Short - Model Sheets

Term3 - LifeDrawing - some anatomy

We were supposed to take a greek mythology based character and create a statue-like picture of them. That it should be so sculpted that it could serve as a base plan. I am really not at all happy with the result - but that is what a lack of effort produces. I don't believe that this is an adequate example of where I am right now, but I'd like to post it none-the-less, if only to serve as a reminder to me.
Notes regarding the statue pic from Clint.

Term3 - Animation - Critique (Dialogue & Panta)

The final dialogue I used for the critique.
The biggest points mentioned during it were: that I forgot that movement flows from the hips (I was originating it from the torso), and that I need to learn when to stop moving the character. They did say that the mouth movements were looking good though. I still need a LOT of practice on subtle animation. In short, I don't do it. Though I'm trying to change that.


Quick modification of the quicktime file made by Dillen Brown (the Creative director of Pixar Canada!!!) when he came to our school. After a discussion of acting with the animation classes, he came around to our rooms and looked over some of our stuff!

His main point was to hold the final frame on 'darla'- he said I could get a lot more mileage out of that pose than I was using it for.


First run for my dialogue.
Again, not enough time to portray my acting choice on the later half. The head turn looks like he's snapping his neck.


A slightly revised version of the pantomime I chose. I would have liked to have had more time to work on this. Still too much movement with not enough time to register it.

Term3 - SVL - Short - Character research + development

Someone said that my design looked a bit like the gentlemen's duel characters, so I drew them and slapped them onto the bottom left corner for good measure.



The horse designs will probably ring a bell for most of you. Since I really had no idea how to approach the design for the horse, I looked around and found some interesting characters for inspiration - and direction. I normally don't work this way since your designs end up reflecting someone else's ideas, but I hit a bit of a wall by this point.
- looney tunes horse (from the opera episode with Elmer's lightning helmet)
- sleeping beauty - the prince's horse
- the no-naked horse

Bottom left picture is drawn by Merly doodles (yes, that is an alias)



I originally wanted a highly stylized, but otherwise stereotypical dragon - the top three are renditions of Breath of Fire's amazing designs. I ended up going off in my own direction - much my preference.

I combined animal traits with the dragon concept, and ended up with an anteater-dragon and whale-dragon. The center image ended up looking like the starwars monster in Java's pitt - funny, but completely unintentional.

Layouts for the original story that ended up never getting used.

Term3 - SVL - Short - Storyboarding #2

More changes to the story. Although the idea of having the kid misread the words and having the book-world change to compensate was interesting, it took far too much time to play out the acting choices convincingly. I simply don't have the time.

So it changed to the child deliberately getting carried off on his own little tangent story line- much to the knight's discontent. I see the potential of it, but I honestly don't like the new story as much. But...that's how things go.

Revision 1


Revision 2

Term3 - SVL - Short - Storyboarding #1

Progression of the story through storyboarding. By the end of it, my story is drastically different.

Week1


Week2


Week3

Term3 - Animation - Pantomime

Started work on dialogues and facial acting this term.

These assignments are to keep us thinking about the body action and to prevent us from becoming completely focused on the face and mouth. As such, we only blocked out the body movement for these assignments. If you have no mouth movements and the character still looks like he is delivering the dialogue, your in the right direction.



Same as the previous, but broken down and inbetweened.


Action is too fast. I realized that when your timing is dependent on the dialogue itself, you need to leave enough time to animate those chosen actions in that amount of time. Seems obvious...but no.


Missed the accents on this one. Hitting the accents right on the frame makes it look slow.

Term3 - SVL - Short - The chosen one

Had to re-pitch the final story idea.

Term3 - SVL - Short - Down to Two

We had to pitch our remaining two story ideas and film them (as it turns out, that is really convenient for posting purposes). The classes then voted on which was their favorite - if only to give an idea of what was the general consensus was.

And yes, I am a pretty snowflake ;)

Term3 - SVL - Short - Three Concepts

Third term in SVL (story visual language) class was directed towards developing a story for a short that would be our final project in term four.

Our first assignment was to come up with three potential ideas that would be narrowed down to our final selection for the short.

Sooo Here they are (just so you know, the last of the three was just to take up space - the teacher agreed)


Short Story 1 (Lurking Shadow)

Story Information
A) Setting: Modern Cityscape
B) Time: Evening
C) Characters: Young child (elementary school), Swamp-style monster, two young children

Story Pitch
A) The story opens with a child fleeing from the pursuit of a creature through a city/ suburb.
B) Until the child takes up a hiding place in hopes of being passed by.
C) And then the creature discovers the child. The child takes flight.
D) And then the creature sprays water at the child, engulfing and submerging the child and surrounding area.
E) Until the screen cuts to two children playing with toys in a little lego landscape. The girl; now soaked with water, is greatly irritated, and runs off to tell on the boy.

Observation
The most entertaining point of the story would likely be either the discovery of the child, or the revelation that the entirety of the scene is essentially within the minds of two children at play - as well as the consequent reaction of the now water-logged girl. However, the latter depends on the audience's experience of such things. As such, those without siblings may lose some of the impact.


Short Story 2 (Learning to Read)

Story Information
A) Setting: A child's room, Medieval landscape (field/ cave)
B) Time: Evening- just before bed (child's room), Progressive dawn-afternoon for the medieval segment
C) Characters: A young (early elementary school) child, a knight

Story Pitch
A) The story opens with a child in his room reading a stereotypical story involving a knight setting out to slay a dragon.
B) Until it cuts to the child's imagination - the realm of the knight on his quest, it proceeds along smoothly for the knight.
C) And then the child mispronounces a word -The knight climbs upon his (house/ horse) - thus the horse changes form as the knight is climbing upon it, causing him to fall off. He shrugs it off and continues on - to humour the child telling the story.
D) He passes by (tree/ three) knights as he continues on. As the child gets more excited, he errs on more words, causing more frequent mishaps.
E) And then multiple other mispronunciations cause similar occurrences (fire breathing wagon/dragon) causing great irritation on the knight's part, whom is becoming frustrated with the child's inability to tell his story properly.
F) Until the now irate knight enters the child's room from the book and chastises him for ruining his story. He slams the book shut and vacates the room, leaving the child sitting in bewilderment.

Observation
Though some of the potential gags yield more interest in terms of action and movement - as well as the knight's subsequent reactions to the mishaps, it is likely that the confrontation and conflict between the child and knight at the end will be of the most interest, since it provides the best opportunity for internal forces at play. It depends on whether the focus will be internal or external in nature.


Short Story 3 (Gleipnir)

Story Information
A) Setting: Icy landscape
B) Time: Day
C) Characters: Tyr, Thor (humanoid gods), Fenrir (wolf)

Story Pitch
A) The story opens with a group of norse gods trying to confine the gigantic wolf Fenrir. Nothing can constrain him however.
B) Until the fates foretell of a material that will succeed, consisting of '...the sound of a cat's footfall and the woman's beard and the mountain's roots and the bear's sinews and the fish's breath and bird's spittle.'
C) And then Some unnamed god offers his assistance, but is rejected.
D) And then the two attempt to claim these metaphysical components. Only a selection of them would be animated; such as Thor trying to use a bottle to catch the noise of a cats steps. Choking a fish to get a breath etc.
F) Until they return; in ragged form and utterly exhausted, with the needed items. The unnamed god is also present, and the others' frustration is let loose on him. The unnamed one goes on to procure the same items that were needed, mentioning that they were present in his collection for some time.

Observation
The focus of this story would definitely be the gods' attempts at obtaining the required materials. Though there is good potential for humour given the strange requirements for the fetter, this story would not likely have very strong appeal as it stands to those whom have no knowledge of the norse mythologies on which this is based.

As you can see, the third idea was included just for completions sake.

Term2 - Animation Barrage!

I chose to throw all the animations from this term into one big batch because I am not all that happy with what I produced. Suffice it to say that 'you learn more from your failures than from your successes" - which is good, because I learned a hell of a lot this term.

Involuntary action. I chose a slip.
The trip action itself is not horrible for what I was capable of at that time, but the two steps leading up to it are really weak. I still suffered immensely with overlapping action - and did not really know the difference between that, follow-through and secondary action until just after the third term began.


Sports based action. Tennis Serve.
Not a whole lot to say on this one. I really enjoyed this assignment. I did get a little crazy with notes on the page though.



This week was weight. I chose a character lifting a heavy object off an knee high platform.

I liked it until he touched the box :/. Still no grasp of OA. I also did everything after the grab in a night (did not film live-action reference, and the teacher suggested that I start over with only three days of a two week time-span left), and my glazed-over eyes did not seem to notice the extreme angle at which the object still manages to stay on the platform. Kind of funny now that I look back at it. Need to work on time management (might be a slight understatement).



Had to pick another choice from the same list as the animation below and block it out. I chose a character taking a step back and pulling himself up to sit on a box.

This was the introduction to full-body animation. Unfortunately, Charles took some well deserved time off after Christmas vacation and another teacher was let go without replacement just before, so we only had two teachers over four classes at the time; and the seniors seemed to have taken precedent. We were pretty much unsupervised during this crucial transition... Things did not go well.

About half-way through I had an epiphany about just how complex overlapping action is - and a glimpse of just how much I had to keep track of. My brain melted. This was the result. (I animated straight ahead for the OA on the arms - it shows).

On the plus side, I gained a very valuable quote from Charles when he came back. He looked at my animation, talked about how animation is a reflection of the animator, and said "(to put it bluntly) Thoughtless animation from a thoughtless animator". That quote now adorns my desk in big highlighted letters as a reminder. I'd like to say that I plan much more thoroughly compared to before.

We had a list of options for each assignment this term. The first was a choice of basic body mechanics. The last assignment of working with only the torso and legs. I chose kicking a ball.

I always loved the Warner Brothers style, and so wanted to stray from a realistic depiction. Much much more difficult to do than I originally thought. I did not realize that since this is so exaggerated, live action reference could only help so much, and that the rest of it would be dependent on my own knowledge of the driving forces... which was not great by any means at the time. Still, I had a lot of fun working on this one.

Term2 - LifeDrawing - Crits

As always, the teacher said that getting life into the drawing is not a problem for me, but rather, my clarity and line quality is where I need to work on. This area has been a source of difficulty for me since term 1. I believe that I have only just started figuring it out. (The term 3 crit mentioned that this is still the area I need to focus on - but that I am starting to finally gain ground on it :D ).
I'll talk more in detail about that on the Term 3 crit post.

Other things mentioned are that though my torsos are good for the most part, I tend to gloss over hands and feet, and that I draw cartoony heads that do no reflect the model (he called it 'David's how to draw heads' - it seems my heads are too formulaic).
Since hands are one of the first things people look at to determine someone's knowledge of anatomy, my ignoring them is probably not a good idea.

I'm also at the point where drawing merely what I see is no longer acceptable - and that I should strive to push the action and exaggerate more. This is hard. There is a fine line between awesome and 'what the hell is that', and I tend to trip over it fairly easily (though I am getting better)

Term2 - LifeDrawing - Skeleton Assignment

I was fairly happy with how the limbs turned out, but the ribcage could have been done better, and I still hate how the skull turned out (I can draw stylized ones all I like, but for some reason I struggle with the realistic depiction even now...)



I originally chose the one with the skeleton reverse(?)-grinding the pole, but the teacher said that it was not very dignifying, and that I should try and find a 'more graceful' action :)

The action I did choose is okay, but I was not very decisive. It's half-way between being mid-swing, and hanging off it. Since both of those are quite different in their execution - and in how to go about pushing the pose, I ended up with a fairly weak action overall.


Oh yeah, it's supposed to be a firewoman on a pole ;).

I should note that without colour, the hair and outfit is too busy - and detracts from the pose even more... Still, I think I did a decent job on the skeleton itself.

Term2 - LifeDrawing - Body Type Assignment

Had to create a character and design the same one using the three body types.

Term2 - SVL - Storyboard Revisions

After showing a couple of the teachers, I figured some revisions were in need. Mostly involved cutting out unnecessary images that did not contribute to the overall action.