Damn…where is the time going? It’s already week 3!

Animation Mentor is no joke that’s is about as plain as I can put it. If you don’t put the time in, if you don’t study, if you don’t practice…don’t expect to breeze through. Animation in general demands your utmost attention and if not given it will show.

And that folks is why I have not been blogging. I have been busting my arse going through lectures, filming video reference, emailing campus mentors for extra feedback etc etc. The only reason why I even have a moment now is because I’m waiting on feedback from my main mentor. I really need to get started on this weeks assignment.

All in all this is sooooooo much fun! I love this stuff and just cant get enough of it.

Ok, so the first assignment for class 2 was a pick list of several choices. I decided to go with the 180 turn. Below I’ve posted my video ref and my current blocking pass. Originally I had thumb-nailed about 40+ different poses. Then I earlier in the week I blocked those thumbnails as my first pass.

As the week progressed I started to get some really good feed back and ended up cutting out quite a bit. What remains is the what you see below…I actually had the toe tapping and extra side to side stuff going in the original one.

Bottom line was that the assignment was to turn the character around. I had way too much going on for just a simple 180.

On another front, in my limited spare time I’ve been teaching myself After Effects….friggin awesome…my head just wants to explode hahaha. Love the tool…anyone want to buy my copy of Mirage? LOL…serious. I’ll let the license go for dirt cheap too.

Ok, I know I said I was going to be more active this semester so let’s get cracking. First of all I’d like to just give another huge congratulations to Alexsis who is now a AM Alumni and just got hired at Blue Sky Studios! WOW…she is going to be working on ICE Age 3! How cool is that?

Check her out over at http://www.alexissdawn.com/blog/ and wish her well.

Later tonight I’ll try and up load my video reference just to give those interested an idea of what I’m doing…you would not believe the amount of thumbnail poses I’ve done already and I’m only half way through. Hopefully I can use the thumbnails as a jumping off point in Flipbook to see if everything is working. I’ll post the 2D animation too when I get the chance.

Well I’ve been always talking about integrating the 2D workflow into my animation work. Thank you Jason The only caveat is at the moment my drawing skills suck on a Wacom. One of the biggest issues I faced was the lack of control with my digital pencil lines. I had the hardest time trying to keep the pen under control and drawing a pleasing curve. Then I discovered how to properly use the Wacom settings after several years because I took a minute to experiment LOL.

Now either todays programs respond more positive to Wacoms or I’m just a dork for not experimenting with the settings more. Oh well…at this point I have the Wacom working how I want and it feels like a natural pencil, at least with Flip book.

I hope you were not expecting to see some amazingly drawn animation. Hell, I’m just happy to have that! Baby steps…Baby steps. If you actually saw what I had been drawing in the past on a Wacom then you would understand the achievement here

QuickTime File

Ok, I think I finally found a home for my future videos. First off, I was never happy with my experience over at Veoh and Youtube is just way too crappy. If I had my choice and could go back in time I would have setup my WordPress blog on my own domain. For that reason alone I cannot even use any of the available plugins to host quick time files, etc.

There I was, at the point of switching back to Blogger because the sole purpose of my blog is to host video clips. This has been more drama than I’ve wanted to experience, trust me.

Continuing on…it usually happens though when your at your wits end that an evangelical like event occurs. “And there stood before me in my time of dismal discomfort like a bright white angel….Vimeo.” All I can say right now is wow. Very user friendly and has tons of nice features. Sold!

This video clip was an animation I did a few months ago, modeling, texturing effects yours truly but noting to write home about. I figured why not use it as test…worked out quite nicely.

….and of course I’m thinking about what else can I work on!

Animation Mentor recommends that we take a break and I totally get that. The only problem for me is that I’m a rhythm type guy and I like to keep a constant groove going. So the trick is how do I work on something, make it fun and enjoy my break too!

Well the first thing is that I definitely need to get out and relax and experience the outdoors. Observe life! So I’ll probably go to a park or something by me for sure. While I’m out there…why not film some video reference while I’m having fun.

This weekend I plan on seeing Kung Fu Panda so there are some chilling out plans in the works while on break. Heck it’s only a week and some days so it’s not that long. The only real break that you getting is not having the pressure of the ever looming DEADLINE

Anyway, I figure to keep my brain on track and touch on some of the areas my mentor give me to work on I’ll do one animation before I go back. I’ve decided that I’m going to do an animation of character running up to a soccer ball and head butting it. That would be kinda cool. So through out the course of my break I’ll post my progress on that.

I’ve also decided to step into the 21st century and retire my five year old DELL Dimension 8400 which is a P4 3.2 ghz with 2GB of Ram. This rig has been my workhouse for a long time and has served me well. The only problem is that it cant handle everything I’m throwing at Maya sometimes. Plus, with the applications that I like to have open while working I just need more of a seamless experience by limiting the laggy responses I get between apps. Moreover, I’m hoping to bring down those dreaded awfully long render times into something more realistic.

So I’ve ordered a XPS 420 with an Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Processor Q9450 (12MB Cache,2.66GHz,1333FSB).
Talk about a beast of a machine…I’ve also added a few other goodies and should have this rig online by the end of next week.

The nice thing here is that I’m going from one processor to four and from 2 gigs to 4 gigs. The video card is a major upgrade too so maybe I can finally enjoy turning on some of the features in Maya like real time lighting and texturing while I’m working.

Well here it is, all the work I pulled off in class one. The order is latest assignment to the first.

It’s weird but looking back at some of the work, I actually have to cringe. I guess that is a sign that I’m growing because I can see where it could be improved. Regardless…it’s a lot tougher than it looks

Now it’s time to chillout and take a little break as we wait for class two which starts the week after next. From what I keep hearing this class is super tough and very demanding. Full body characters, body mechanics, harder assignments…woo hoo…I’m ready.

Bring it on!

I cant believe it. Were spending this week putting together our class one progress reels and that is about it.

It’s been an interesting restart to this adventure for me to say the least. So many unexpected personal events and distractions that I have amazed even myself that I made it through unscathed!

I’m very excited about Class 2 Body Mechanics we get to go deep into the fundamentals and really start applying what we learned so far. Again, I plan to get back to blogging at my normal pace and I know that it has been very limited at times this term.

Animation Mentor is just an awesome awesome place but it requires so much hard work and dedication. Everyone keeps telling me that Class 2 ups the anty.

Say What? Class 1 was brutal! Here we go again

So in between terms what’s next?

Well, I get a week break before the second term so I plan on focusing on my notes from last class. Going over some of the tutorials I bought from Jason Ryan. I’m also learning to keep my short term goals simple and attainable. One of the biggest goals I want to attain is the continual development of my animation workflow. During my break I plan on getting a very good handle on Digicel Flipbook and working out 2D thumbnail animations into my planning stage.

Drawing and sketching…. I’m at a point right now where I feel like I truly suck as a artist drawing wise. There were some super talented artist in my class one that I truly envied like you wouldn’t believe. I keep thinking to myself “Jezz, I used to be able to pull those kinda drawings off!” I cant believe I let my skills get sooo rusty!

Some how I got to figure out how to get some drawing sessions in! Maybe I’ll designate a few solid days a week and block some time in just for the rebirth of my sketching. It will definitely be more than what I’m getting in right now and that’s the truth!

Hope you all are having a superb weekend and I should have my class one demo reel posted this Friday…..(Exhale)….wow.

It’s been a rough month and some days. Most of it had to do with trying to find new residency then moving and finally getting settled. In between the day job, family and AM it I haven’t had time to blog like I prefer. But, things are now starting to get back to normal. I’m settling into the new place and even though it doesn’t feel like “home” yet, all I have is time.

AM has been a blast though. It’s tough…real tough when you have so much going on but I’m loving it. The assignments are demanding and you really have to maximize your time. Were on week 11 and next week is it for Class one and I cannot believe it. Pretty soon I’ll actually have my demo reel uploaded for class one. How cool is that? LOL

Starting in class two I’m really hoping to blog a lot more frequently and post more work than I did for class one. Seriously

Wow..it’s been a while since I’ve gotten a chance to post anything. A lot has happened and I’ve been super busy! AM is great and were already into week 8. Insane!

The main thing that has been keeping me from posting is moving. Having to move sucks because it’s stressful and just complicates everyday life. So right now my focus has been family, work, AM and boxing up my house. I’ll be moved by May 31 and sometime there after I’ll resume posting.

There are so many cool little plug-ins that I have bought and tips learned that I just want to start blogging about them right now. But if I start blogging I wont do them justice due to lack of time.

Updates forth coming sooner than later

Ok, I’ve written this post about five times already. Something fishy is going on between Veoh, wordpress and firefox where my post just keeps getting deleted. I’m just too tired to figure out what. So I’m not even going to rewrite all that I wrote…here’s to keeping it short

We have finally started animating and are beginning to focus more heavily on some of the core principals. Funnily enough the bouncing ball assignment is like “Hello World” for programmers. Learn the basics and the structure and you will go far but you gotta say “Hello World” first. I’d love to give one of my patented long winded post’s but I have a couple of revisions and my regular assignment due.