To continue practicing some animation basics, I decided to follow some walk and run cycle tutorials using this cartoony bear character!* I started off with the walk cycle, then created the run cycle on an override animation layer. The 'turn and reaction' was on an additive animation layer:
Through this animation exercise I feel that I have become much more familiar with the graph editor, learning how to use the infinity curves, creating nice curves but also learning where best to use linear curves, especially when creating walk cycles:
This is my current WIP for a new piece of lip sync animation. The clip is the same one being used for the March 11 Second Club. I really liked it (probably because I am very familiar with the source of the audio clip!) and hadn't tried using the Kayla rig yet which is a Josh Sobel rig - which I think fitted well with the audio.
I modelled a cocktail glass with a straw and umbrellas to make it look like a very fancy over-the-top drink; as there needed to be reason for the young girl to doubt whether this drink was alcoholic.
I then filmed some reference footage and have starting animating and getting familiar with the rig.
I had a recording of The Winter's Tale, performed by The Royal Ballet, from The Royal Opera House on my TV from a few Christmas's ago. Thought it was time that I watched it and decided to do some sketching from it at the same time. All the choreography was beautiful and sometimes so mesmerizing that I forgot to carry on drawing, so had to hit the rewind button a few times! I tried using a few different materials such as pencil, charcoal and pen.
Travelled through to Ayr to watch the Airshow, I've been to it before and know that thousands of people gather on the beach to watch the aeroplanes. So it's a good opportunity to get in some observational drawing before your hands freeze in the cold beach air!
On first listening to this piece of audio I thought... Who is Wilfred the merciful?!?
My second thought was there are two people talking in this scene but is there only two, or are they both talking to a third?
I then decided to brainstorm two ideas, one which included 3 characters in a scene, the next including only 2 characters.
Idea 1
Two cops interrogating someone in a police station.
Idea 2
Two men sat in a church, one is very old. The younger man puts a hand on the old mans shoulder and tells him to call him, thinking the old man is there seeking some comfort in god/faith, however is confused when the old man calls out to "Wilfred"?!
I decided to go with the policemen idea and the next stage was to film some reference footage, in which I acted out both characters:
This is my sketchbook where I brainstormed my ideas for the animation and sketched out poses to help with the animation process:
This month my animation ranked 64 out of 151 and had some good constructive comments which I would like to use to help improve this piece of animation :)
- Malcolm character courtesy of AnimSchool.com
- Morpheus rig by Josh Burton, journal.joshburton.com.
After finding and gathering a small library of free rigs to animate with, I've been brainstorming ideas for short animations including AnimationMentor.com 's Squirrel rig. So in order to familiarize myself with this rig I did a quick animation test of the squirrel doing a hop. I have found this rig to be very user-friendly and fun to use. This little squishy squirrel does make me smile! It's also very similar in principle to animating the legendary "flour sack" - a right of passage I think many animators go through.
What I learned:
How to switch between global and object controls - this makes animating in arcs so much easier!
Create a stamp (key all) at each keyframe - this helps to keep everything clean and have no drifting parts if you forget to key a control.
Thumbnail Sketches for a short animation idea involving the squirrels.
