Pirates Under Attack

Here's my latest version of Stewart on a pirate ship that's under attack!

Under Attack Blocking

For our most recent assignment, I started out blocking on my newest shot. I stuck with the pirate theme, and this is what happens after the imp throws the cannon ball over board. I have Stewart sleeping below deck, the ship rocks from the attack, and he awakes freaking out, running over to the cannon, and pushing it out the window preparing for attack. What he doesn't realize is how heavy it is, and how slippery the floor is, so it takes him a bit to actually get his goal accomplished.

Because I worked 60 hours for the show reality Tough Enough this week, I ended up having to pull another all nighter in order to just get this shot done. But as I was working through the night, I think I finally had that aha moment while animating. My last mentor would always talk in class about how people don't get animation right away. Some people get it within a month, and others take years to finally have that aha moment, where they finally realize what they're doing. It's no longer a rotate this and translate that, it's not a shoulder leads the forearm which leads the wrist. But it's more of a creative outlet where the finger could end up being the joint that drives the entire body. It's very enlightening once you have that moment. And this moment is probably the smallest base of the giant uphill realization that is yet to come. But all in all, here is my shot!

Final Shot!

This past week was our last time to turn in our first shot for class 3! I'm still going to go back and revise it even more based on my mentors most recent critique, but we have to move on for now. I'm excited to start this second shot because I feel like I have such a better foundation in blocking now, that it's getting easier and easier to comprehend all of the principles of animation. From everything moving in arcs to squash and stretch, I finally feel that I am actually aware of it all while working out my shot. But for now, this is how my first cannon ball attack turned out!