Quadruped Study

We get to animate dogs!!!!! I'm so excited to move onto something that's not human! (Mostly because I've only animated 2 humans ever, and the second one was last week) So for this week, we had to start out planning our walk cycle. We had to take video reference of a dog, so I took tons of footage on my boyfriends boxer. She's a little weird and her proportions aren't normal, so we'll see if this actually turns out right. But below is the video I took of her. I tried to get a side and front view. And in the last shot, is where her personality comes out a lot, so I am thinking that I want to incorporate that into the end of my walk.

And below is the planning I created using the Animators Survival Kit. That doesn't include the end head look, so I'll have to revise it a little.

We also had to sketch out quadruped animals this week, and take 2 of our drawings into maya and then pose them out. I tried to look at wild animals to avoid the regular dog cliche. I searched foxes when they hunt, because they do this crazy pounce and leap thing, and they're very animated creatures. I also looked at wolf puppies playing, coyotes, etc. So I definitely got a lot more variety in my poses compared to the average dog. I stuck with dogs for this week, but for our study next week, I'm going to add in a variety of animals.

And now here are how the poses turned out that I submitted. I already got some great feedback, and will be fixing and rendering them soon!

And now after completing all of my changes, this is the final render!

Peter Pan Art

I made quote art! I always see such cool art paired with quotes on pinterest, and there was nothing appealing associated with this quote. It's by far one of my favorites, and I've always felt like I could relate to Peter Pan...growing up wise. Especially in my industry, making animated cartoons for a living. Dreaming is also my escape. I can remember at least 3 dreams a night, and they're so imaginative and out of this world, there's no possible way I could explain them to people without drawing them out for them to understand. Even then, they're so detailed and not normal, it would look like Dali if I could actually do it correctly. Plus sometimes I lucid dream, which is a topic that I could write an entire novel off of. So for now, I'll stick with Peter Pan art!

Stella Walk

This week, we had to spline out our walks, which is basically smoothing it out. Mine still needs a lot of work, but this is what I ended up turning in for it.

We also had to do some more poses with Stella showing movement. I'm not really sure if there's a difference between movement, and last weeks motion poses, but I have a lot less sports reference in this one. These are my sketches for the poses. I was trying to get a lot more dynamic ideas in there that clearly show the line of action.

And now this is what I animated. There's a very big difference in the pose on the left. I originally had her just beginning to touch the ground mid run, and leaning back trying to avoid the other one coming at her, like how it is in the drawing. But everyone thought she should be keeled over instead coming into more of a protective pose. 

And now here is my final render with all of the fixes I made.

Full Body Walk

For this second week, we had to make a full body walk using Stella, a new character. We had to shoot reference video of ourselves walking, and the block it out. It's pretty rough in terms of blocking, and I got a lot of great feedback for it. It was supposed to be vanilla, as in no personality is being shown in the walk, but clearly there's a lot showing still, so I need to tone it down a lot. But this is my planning for my shot.

And here is my blocking!

First Second Class!

Had my first class for AN02 the other day! My mentor is pretty awesome, and all the people seem like they're really nice! Our assignment was to make an action pose involving 2 of the same character, Stella. I had to leave to fly out to Colorado Tuesday night, so I didn't get much time to do anything crazy. But these were some of my sketches. You can definitely see here who has influenced me over the years in terms of sports....

and this is the render that I submitted for the assignment!

This is my final render with all of my fixes.