Hairy Goggle Man

This is where I'll leave the scene. I learned more than I hoped for from this exercise and I am already eager to take on my next assignment... a character walk!

Check out the full-screen version here : http://vimeo.com/2583663

Enjoy, and feel free to leave a comment or questions

Frederik

This is where my scene is at the moment. There has been some changes and it has helped shape the scene up. I am going to spend tomorrow finishing up the rest. I am fairly suprised how fast the animation goes by when having a solid base of roughed out main action. I am having a great time putting all the fun little gestures in now that will make the scene come alive!

This is where the scene is at at the moment. This is my first pass on the main action. The overall timing is also close to being set, but there will be some tweeking once I start working in the poses and doind my secondary actions.

I know that there's a gab between my last post to this one, but I will be filling that out soon with thoughts and explanations sometime soon.

I have been working hard, constantly interrupting myself from falling back into old bad habbits. This is why I haven't been posting. I wanted to get to a stage where I feel the scene is on the path I want it to, before I could turn my thoughts elsewhere.

This is my planning for the animation bewteen golden pose 7 to 8.

Further explanation in the posts above(those are incoming), just thought it'd be fun to show the entire sheet.

This is what it looks like after a forty minutes long chat about breakdowns with animator Meelis Arulep. Meelis was teaching the second year students and I was lucky enough to get some time with him at my workspace.

I wanted to hear about his aproach to a scene once he has his keys down and is about to start doing the breakdowns. Timing is a factor one cannot ignore in this conversation, so we also got into timecharts and how he makes best use of those.

The breakdown is the drawing that defines the arc of the respective motion and thereby makes an action unique to a character. This is how I would describe the breakdown. After talking to Meelis there were a few other aspects thrown into the equation.

I have been thinking a lot in arcs when doing my breakdowns, and not as much in shape. Change of shape from keypose to keypose, yes, but to use the breakdown as a third unique shape is something I look forward to try out.

Today I will start doing breakdowns for my scene and I am very eager to see what the study will result in.

A big thank you to Meelis for taking the time to answer some of my questions. I'll end with a quote that I plan to follow : "Animate! You don't have to prove to anyone that you can draw! Animate man...!" Meelis Arulep 20/11-08

I finally got the Golden Poses (storytelling Keys) in the scene as I wanted them. There will still be some tweeking to maintain volume and design, but this is a solid base, I feel. I have tried to create as much space as possible bewteen the poses, while keeping it in the subtle end of the scale that is, to be be able to really make the breakdown have a say and also to put emphasis on the changes in the poses. I have been and will be looking at a lot of Fred Moore (posing especially) and Milt Kahl (animation) for this scene.

One of the mainpoints with this exercise is to explore the breakdown as much as possible and get a better understanding of its function in a string of pictures. How to make that breakdown stand out and define character. I am going to do three to four diferent breakdowns for each set of keys and hopefully it will pay off in some cool resuslts.

So, with a bit of time spend on nailing the last few keys with a black line I should be ready to start doing loads of breakdowns.

These are the thumbnails I did for the planning of the scene. They were done fairly fast and with most thought put into the man. The waitress will be posed a little diferently in the actual scene. When I planned for this scene I tried to make room for change in the characters poses. I thought about directional change as well as up and down especially.

I use thumbnailing to get an overview of the scene and to start getting into the timing of the scene, only in broad strokes yet though.

So this will be the layout. Layouts are by no means my strong side, but this will do for what I need. I wanted the place to seem like a quiet and comfortable everyday coffee shop. I put the sketch of the characters in to get an idea of the size I think fits the composition.

I really liked this sketch I got down and I decided to bring in into the scene. The man just arrived and has settled into his seat, when he is approached by the waitress and caught off-guard by her bussom! So this should make for an akward moment and some nice suspense. I might work some more on the negative space between them when I start posing out key-poses for the animation, but for now this will do just fine.

Okay, some thoughts on these : I want him to take his hat off after he has ordered his cup of coffee. This is something I would find natural to do now once he is indoor and found his spot...also I don't want to get entangled in him taking off his scarf. He will remove his hat only to find his hair falling into a rather unfortunate position. He puts his hat back on so the waitress wont find him ridiculous.

First thing I want in the scene is for him to make himself comfortable. I want him to adjust his seat and thereby give the feeling that he has just arrived and that the viewer is with him from the beginning.
It's pretty simpel and I think it will work well. A change in direction as he is adjusting his weight and a headturn down for more emphasis on the second move.
Finally I want him to settle into a straight pose and have him do an eyeblink or two. So these are the keydrawings I'll use for this exciting beginning.

The first character sketches

This is the guy I'll be spending the next few weeks in close company with.

I did these drawings a weeks time back and had a good feeling about him and therefor decided to start planning a scene with him. The rest of the day will be about sketching him some more and becoming familiar with the design, while posing him for the key elements in the scene. All this will be about is basically him ordering a cup of coffee, waiting and getting his coffee. I want to keep it simple and let his peculiar character entertain in an everyday event. Now, back to the drawing board...

Bachelor Year starting

After two years of lectures, scribling and animating, it is now time for me to start my last year at The Animation Workshop. In this last year at the school students are to do a bachelor project. This usually means participating in a group and with that group creating a short animated film. I have however chosen not to be a part of any group and instead focus my entire year on animation. I want to explore as many of my questions about the media as I can manage this year and get to a point where I feel more comfortable with my skills as an animator. The goal is to create the strongest portfolio I can in this timeframe.

It wasnt an easy choice, but I am certain that it was the right one for me. I will start my first scene today, planning, sketching ideas, getting into the character, thumbnailing etc.
In some months time, when my classmates are through their preproduction stage, I will be animating for three of the groups. One of them in stop-motion, one in part 2D part 3D and the third one oldstyle 2D. So ! busy year ahead. And a year that I am planning to share as well as I can with anyone who wants to read in and look at what I am doing.

Hope you'll enjoy it and don't be shy to comment!

Frederik

I piece of concept art I did last night for our

Bachelor Film idea.

A man and his fish...

The sketch was asking for it...

A strange feeling took me and I got the urge to
draw deer!
This is the sketch I did while playblasting a
Maya scene.

General McKnorton learned this the hard way!

Sketch of an Elemental

After a solid win in the local Mortal Combat

tournament, captain, Mogubane Ngado, decided

to enter his team in the World Cup in Football.

Le Boss...

Japanese woman in her garden.

Lava Elemental awaiting his enemy

I recently started drawing fantasy creatures and

have now finally gotten to the coloring part with

some of them. Here's a water elemental

swimming in the deep blue.