Completed Action Analysis

Finally composited and finished! Here's a video of Mr. Fluffy jumping into a pond. Working on this, watching him jump repeatedly... again and again...


Character cleanup (ToonBoom)


Layout field guides


Painted Layout (paint tool sai) was going for winnie the pooh-esque light atmosphere.


I wish I didn't crop the layout so tight... the overlays and multiplane pan wasn't really working after I did the layout testing. I might try and finish the boy's animation or use his base as practice for a rig in toonboom. It was a big learning experience and though I started out with an aversion to the program, I think I've learned enough to sort of get the gist of a bit of it. :)

Action Analysis Assignment

What I have so far for individual assignment in Layout and Animation classes!
Chose my action as a 'jump and grab' on the dog's part; Initially it was to be a 'pitch' by the boy, but I haven't really played around with quadrupeds, so...

Workbook (storyboard to roughing out placements/layout)

Concept art package








Rough layout. Blew up the workbook and just detailed the levels. Drew at 1920x1080 instead of 1280x720, oops.


Rough animation! Did the walk cycle first after watching puppy videos (best homework).
Also was having technical issues, so I just drew the frames out in sai and exported them singly.



Class critique today said that the hang time in the air was too floaty and long- plus it pops forward out of the arc instead of dropping after reaching the apex of the jump (cue dog-hunting jokes,). DQ also commented the animation in all the parts have very even timing so everything is kind of 'soft', but taking out inbetweens shouldn't be too difficult!  Still have to animate the stick through the air (whole lot of other issues concerning pace compared to the dog's) and the water... and kid ruffs...
And make notes on the camera move, where the layout and animation should be (I drew it all weirdly so there's some funny levels shifting to do). Super simple concepts but somewhat tedious in execution as always.

End of second term- charas & anims!

Whew, it's been a while since I posted here. Just going to throw up all the projects from the last term in batches again.

Character Design
Anthropomorphism
For muzzle design, learning about how in animation, the mouth is often pulled back up to create a cheek and relation to the eye for more expressive faces, contrary to the lack of such in most real life muzzled creatures.
For beak design, learning to maintain the rigidity of the beak, yet also being able to pull back for a pseudo-cheek or show teeth only as emphasis on particular moments.

Also was suggested to show eye white for the owl for more emotive expressions/ relation.

Theme Design
I chose Victorian setting for my characters. I ran into some trouble when it came to the storyboard section using them, but it was a lesson well-learned!
rough concepts (two per title)

Final concepts and layout drawing! I'm not sure if anyone recognized it, but for the layout setting I meant to base the composition off of 'A Special Pleader' by Charles Burton Barber.

Can still see how off my grid lines are, oops.

Performance
Drawing a character in sequence, more like animation keyframes than storyboard.



Animation
Lip-syncing
Hello star shine!


Full body acting, concerning visual movement accents on certain audio parts
Audio clip from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.


Muzzle sync. The professor helped me lots on the cutting (on the action), where the cat turns around. He pointed out to keep the character within the same 'area' of the screen in both shots around the cut, so their placement is not as disrupting to the eye.
Audio clip from The Man in the Iron Mask.


Last animation of the school year was the beak sync! I wanted to do more on this, but time (and paper) was running out. I've yet to try digital animation to this point, more out of aversion to the line quality, so I hope I'll be able to during the summer.
Audio clip from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory


Next posts for digitools, painting, layout and storyboard...