3D Character II

So here are two of my finals that I finished for this week. The one is a dialogue clip focusing on the reactions of the non speaking character and the other is another cartoon test.

3D Cartoon

I'm enrolled in a 3D cartoon class this quarter and it is awesome!!! I can believe how many of us overlook the capabilities of different animation styles within 3D, but I love making my animations "cartoony". In this class we have developed and studied the capabilities of stretchy rigs and some are a complete joy to use. Although in fair warning, ALL RIGS HAVE THEIR LIMITS! Regardless, I urge you to give a try and branch out a bit. It is very important to know and be able to do naturalistic animation, but don't be afraid to push it even to the point of looking like a cartoon. My thesis incorporates 1940's Golden Age Warner Brothers cartoons, so I am loving this new development of style.

Also, another assignment I am working on in this class is 100 poses with a character in Maya. I will probably use 2-3 different rigs, but if you want to get used to a rig and develop your posing skills try this assignment. Your poses will become a lot stronger and your animations will get better. Another thing I've learned this quarter is that there is NO MAGIC in 3D feature animation. It's all about practice and experience of creating good poses. So here's one of my animations from this class and a snapshot of a pose that I created.



To be honest this is how I feel walking through downtown Savannah.

BILL PLYMPTON

This past weekend, we had the privilege of going to Bill Plympton's master class at SCAD, because he was featuring his new animation at the Savannah Film Festival. It was a great lecture on many things, but mostly on how to be a successful independent animator. Basically he said keep your films 1.) short 2.) cheap 3.) make it funny. I also agree with his general outlook on animation, in that he loves to make people laugh, and he says you do this through observation in life and taking normal characters and putting them into odd situations. Through my thesis research I have found many others who have the same philosophy of comedy and I hope to explore and develop these ideas myself. Anyway, here are a few pictures of Bill and it was nice to get his autograph a couples times too.

TOKYO, JAPAN!!!

Hey I thought I'd share that my roommate and I have the privilege of going on this wonderful trip sponsored by SCAD to Tokyo. We will be seeing a bit everything by sketching and photographing with some talented guest artists. I will get to fulfill my dream of visiting the Ghibli museum and possibly the studio itself. I will be documenting every minute of this trip and producing a short animation based on this experience. Here are a few images of where we're going and I will hopefully keep up to date with the project based on this trip. Here some shots of what I'm looking forward to seeing.

3D Character II (Fight Assignment)

Sorry I have not posted in a LONG time, but my second year of SCAD has been awfully busy. Anyway, here is the first assignment from this quarter. It was a fight assignment working on two character applying force to one another and make it look convincing. I couldn't help but to think of a hockey fight, although the difficulty was getting the feet to slide convincingly. It's not a great piece, but it got me working back into 3D again after a long summer of not animating. Here it is: