2D Walk and Dive

 

This task was actually really fun to make. Having practiced a walk cycle a few times before, when I was creating my Police Man character. I felt rather confident doing this one. However I was slightly concerned about the jump and splash at the end. I followed a few diagrams in my Animation Survival Guide, to ensure my keyframes were in place and from there I found it relitively easy. I definitely think I could re-create the jump into something a little more spectacular. Possibly a somersault or an actual dive.

 

2D Juggling

Where do I even begin to explain what I had to go through to create this Animation. I'd say 2D is one of my strongest points within this course. I'm confident at drawing so once I got the hang of a Wacom tablet, I was on my way. Of course, it's not simply drawings. You then have to think about timings, and layers etc. This I didn't struggle too much with until this task. Juggling.

 

I must have spent a good 2-3 hours trying to attempt this one afternoon. In the end I was so frustrated I decided to erase everything, call it a day and try again the next. The next day, when I tried again, my head was a lot clearer and I realised I really had to think about timings within the layers and then refine the drawings afterwards. A few complicated but less frustrating hours later and I had this.

 

 

 

A very basic looking, few seconds long, juggling cycle. This is another moment where I realised how much time, effort and dedication goes into even the simplest of animations. Pleased with my end result!



3D Lamp

This model of a Lamp was based on the Pixar lamp which appears at the beginning of the films. I definitely have a long way to go when it comes to modelling on maya however I was pretty proud of this, considering it's the second time i've ever tried to make something, that actually looks like something!

 

 

Smoke cycle

My first attempt at a smoke cycle! I feel as though in some ways it's successful but in many, even for a simplistic 2D animation, I've got a long way to go. 

3D Stretch and Yawn

My first attempt at the new rigs. I don't think this looks realistic nor even slightly like a stretch and yawn would animated, but it was my first hour spent with the rig just figuring out how to move it and it took me about 20 minutes to realise that it's mainly manoeuvrable through roating the limbs.

My second and more successful attempt at the Stretch and Yawn. This time I completed it with a different rig which was a lot easier to work with. I haven't yet moved it's legs, or given it any bounce back in the movement which would make it look more human rather than so robotic.  This is an area that in all of my Animations, I need to work on. Giving a character life is a little more difficult than simply moving it. 



2D Squirrel Animation

Here is my first attempt at animation a Squirrel in motion. I'm not too keen on the overall look of it but I'm fairly happy with the movement of the squirrel itself and that was the main aim of this task.

 

 

 

tonal self portrait in the style of 'crumpltography'

 

 

Similar to the reasons behind blind drawing and upsidedown drawing. I took the concept of 'crumpletography' and drew from an image I took of myself, that i'd crumpled up.

My idea here was that, I wouldn't be able to just draw what I thought (from memory) was there. Instead I had to really focus on each individual line in order to get an accurate result. If I had just attempted a straight forward self portrait, the results wouldnt have been as successful as this. I would have just guessed that certain features looked a certain way because it's less work for my eyes.

 

A very important part of any art, whether it be: Painting, drawing, photography and especially animation. Is to look at the subject you're working on/with. Not just once, but almost all of the time. Something I've learnt from continuous line drawings, blind drawings and other exercises in my life drawing classes, is to look more so at the subject than the actual piece of paper. Of course for animation it's slightly different if its an improvised/original character. However by observing the movement of humans and animals it's more likely you'll get fluent, life-like movement in a character.