Tailor Assignment

For this weeks assignment in Animation Mentor, I had to animate a ball with a tail. I decided to use the Tailor rig, which looks like he has a squirrel tail. All we had to do was make him bounce a few times, so we could learn how to use the wave principle for the tail. A lot of people have him jumping to different platforms, off cliffs, through obstacle courses, etc. so it was hard to get an innovative story with him. Eventually I decided to have him jump from one cliff, onto a rock. That rock starts to shake from his weight, falls over, but then lands onto the other cliff, as he jumps onto the other cliff. This is my planning for the story.

I did my assignment, and the concept of the tail was so hard for me to grasp. Just working the wave principle and the shapes into the tail was rough. It kept coming out too choppy and slow. So eventually I talked to someone else, whose animation came out gorgeous, and he said he used the grease pencil, and it helped out a lot. So I decided to start over doing the sketches only.

And then this is my final animation that I have turned in for this week.

Pendulum Assignment

For this week in Animation Mentor, the study was overlap. We had to animate a pendulum moving around the screen to create overlap. This was what I turned in for it. We had to make a figure 8 motion with the pendulums movement. I think the movie turned out pretty boring, and I would like to create another one, experimenting with object interacting with something else. I saw a really cool one, where rocks were falling off a cliff, and it was catching them, and transporting them across. When I have time, I'm going to make a much more creative storyline for it.

Our pose for the week was devastation. I figured this one would be easier, and all I had to do was look at numerous Disney princesses throwing themselves onto things and crying hysterically...

However, with such a big head for Stu, that idea was not going to work at all. These are some of my ideas for him. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs was a big inspiration in this idea, because their poses for Flint are so exaggerated. It's so obvious that he's depressed, and it reads so well.

I ended up going with more of a modern approach. My laptop screen completely broke apart the other day, and so this is the pose that came out of that despair. I got some great feedback, and I am pumped to start my revision for him.

And now this guy is my final render.

Ball Bounce with Different Weights

So for this past weeks assignment in Animation Mentor, we had to animate another ball bounce. This time however, we needed to have two different balls, both with varying weights. I chose a bowling ball verses a beach ball. There were numerous reference videos online I used for the bowling ball, but I also went out and bought a beach ball to film my own reference. I dropped it form many different angles, across screen, and studied it for more than the amount of time you should allot to staring at a ball. So, this is what I came up with! It's pretty rough since I had to leave town, and couldn't work on it much. But I did already get my critique back, and am working on some fixes now. It was pretty tough to get the beach ball to feel right, since it's so floaty. And no matter what I tried, I couldn't get it to feel right in the amount of frames we had to work with. This one might take quite a few passes
to perfect.

I'm not sure if I'm quite happy with it yet, the timing feels too slow and the same throughout with the beach ball. I might try this assignment again, but with a more dynamic set up. Maybe the two balls falling between a tight space, and the beach ball being forced to bounce on top of the bowling ball?

Mini Palooza!

So I just took avoiding homework to a whole new level last night. I made a whole stack of mini canvas paintings for my etsy shop. You can view them all at http://www.etsy.com/shop/DesignByLJ I will be posting them up there to sell as soon as I have some free time. They were all done with acrylic, and I started to branch off a little more from my detailed animals, and twitter birds as you can tell. I think my favorites are definitely the monsters.

While you're at it, you can check out my fathers shop. He does watercolors, and has a studio in downtown Sanford Florida. His shop is, http://www.etsy.com/shop/StewartJonesArt He also has a blog that you can follow as well, which is, http://stewartjonesart.blogspot.com And then if you're really up to checking out more on etsy, my best friend Adrienne Nicole has a shop too! Hers is http://www.etsy.com/shop/AdrienneNicoleDesign