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.