Two Burts Walking

For this assignment I was already given a model of a character to work from (in this case Burt the robot) and I had to animate a walk cycle (where Burt walks on the spot) and a straight walk (where Burt actually walks). The most important thing I had to remember when doing the straight walk was not to move the foot that remains on the ground whilst the other foot is in the pass position. If I moved it, the foot would look like it was slipping back.
I found this easier to animate than the bouncing ball. It was more time consuming because I kept reviewing the motion and re-doing some sections to make it look right however it was more enjoyable.

Cubey character

For this project I had to animate a Cubey character jumping from one point to another and then reacting to something off screen.
The whole point of this project is to understand about how animation uses anticipation in order to give a believable movement. Over the week I've been watching numerous Looney Tunes cartoons in order to try to understand the way Warner Bros uses anticipation to build up speed before the character takes off.
Below are examples of anticipation. I selected running but a character can be building up anticipation for anything, getting ready to chop a tree down, even preparing to walk or jump.

 

Below is my cubey character.

 

Did a bit more drawing today to add to the sketchbook. One of the tasks is to draw human bodies with animal heads in case you're wondering where the bizarre creatures are coming from.
The others images of people are inspired by the credits from the Sherlock Holmes movie I watched last night. I wanted to have a go at the cross-hatched sketchy style so I experimented on celebrities (namely Matt Smith and Jennifer Lawrence).

Bouncing ball with a personality!

Another new maya video! This time it is a bouncing ball with character, it bounces down stairs and jumps through hoops. I'm pretty happy with this one, although I did discover, after working in just the side view of maya that when I switched to the perspective view the ball was miles away from the stairs. It was safely rescued though and below is the finished video. What have I learnt? Don't just work in the side view, work in all views when using 3D software!

More Life Drawing

Second life drawing class. I didn't really use any new techniques or ones I had learnt at A-level this time round. Instead I practiced adding tone to the body and just getting proportions correct.

 

Warm up exercises (2 minutes each). It looks like a small animation as she rolls to get up.

 

 

 

15 minute pose. With this one I measured out proportions as best I could using a basic stick shape and then building the muscle up from there. I like everything about this picture but the right arm (her right) is too thin and her hand needs to be bigger.

 

 

15 minute pose again. (Please excuse the creases!) This time I used the charcoal to not draw the tone in but rub tone in using the long side of the media. I don't really like this method, I prefer sketching it in and making bold, dark shadows. The feet are not quite right either, the toes of the left foot are too short.

 

 

Despatched

This is my miniature storyboard to show two characters meeting, one moving at a faster pace than the other. It had to be between 7 and 20 frames long but they had to have interesting compositions so if it was to turn into an animation the audience wouldn't get bored with the sequence.
After watching the Waltz of Bashir earlier today, I was influenced to create a story sequence about a war. The sequence is set in World War 1, I studied it at History GCSE and the war is quite personal to me as well because my Great Grandad was a Despatch Rider. I feel these riders don't get the recognition they deserve because they had a very dangerous job, riding over 'No Man's Land' dodging shells, gunfire etc to deliver their messages. It's also where my love for horses comes from. This is in his memory.

Below is photographic reference (and proof that I'm not lying!). This is my Great Grandad in World War 1.

 

 

Waltz with Bashir

An Israeli film director interviews veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to piece together his own memories of his role in the conflict.

Out of the three films I have seen so far (Coonskin, Animal Farm and Waltz of Bashir), this third film definitely made me feel more emotion towards the victims of the war.
It is an unusual film as it is made up entirely of interviews with ex-soldiers and it is also animated, combining Adobe Flash cutouts and classic animation with a tiny amount of 3D.
The appearance is very similar to comic book art as they've used very defined outlines and harsh black shadows throughout the film. I actually liked this style because it represents the overall atmosphere of the film, making everything darker meant we see the events as brutal and completely unnecessary as they eradicate innocent civilians.
At the end we see news footage of the aftermath of the invasion and it helps the audience to understand that, yes, this was an animation (which most of the time is seen as a fantasy) but in truth it is a depiction of what real veterans are imagining and to back it all up we see the true events that followed in real life.