Basic Foundations Week 12 - Walks with Different Weights Review

Here is my progress reel for Class 1! This is the compilation of all my work from the course. Enjoy!

Basic Foundations Week 11 - Exaggeration and Weight

This weeks assignment was to take our personality walk from the blocking stage to a polished final stage. This requires adding in the subtle nuances that will make the animation smooth and flow correctly.

The sketchbook assignment emotion for this week was BALANCE. Here are my planning sketches for the Stu pose. Check Stu out below:

Basic Foundations Week 10 - Introduction to Walks with Character

This weeks assignment was to take what we learned from the vanilla walk cycle series and create a walk with some personality to it. I decided to make my walk into more of a skip to demonstrate the characters excitement. Below is the blocking phase of my work:

Planning thumbnails for the personality walk:

I continued to revise last weeks shot and polish some minor things:

The sketchbook assignment emotion for this week was EXHAUSTED. Here are my planning sketches for the Stu pose. Check Stu out below:

I also did a revision of last weeks pose to make it stronger:

Basic Foundations Week 9 - Human Anatomy for Animators

Working from the Blocking stage...this week I worked to Refine/Polish my Vanilla Walk Cycle:

Here is another revision of the Tailor assignment.

The sketchbook assignment emotion for this week was CONCERN. Here are my planning sketches for the Stu pose. Check Stu out below:

Basic Foundations Week 8 - Introduction to Walks

This week we were to establish the blocking of our walk cycle animation. Here it is:

Here is a revision of last weeks Tailor assignment. My mentor advised to eliminate the pendulum and focus on Tailor. 

This week the focus is on learning the intricacies of the walk cycle. Majority of walk cycle follow the same format of having a contact key, extreme down, breakdown key, extreme high, and back to the contact key. Below is my planning for the walk cycle:

The sketchbook assignment emotion for this week was PHYSICAL STRENGTH. Here are my planning sketches for the Stu pose.Check Stu out below:

Basic Foundation Week 7 - Walk Through of Splining

This weeks assignment was a lot of fun and very challenging at the same time. Here is a my first pass at the assignment.

Below is a revision of last weeks assignment...the pendulum swing. I was able to re-do the drag on the pendulum at the beginning and fix the path of the impact swing. Also, I made some amendments to the how many passes were on the final swing. 

The sketchbook assignment for this week was to plan an animation of the Tailor rig. Tailor is very similar to a squirrel and was meant to help further drive home the principle of overlapping action. Here are my planning sketches for Tailor. Check it out below:

Basic Foundations Week 6 - Overlapping Action

For this weeks assignment we were to get a firm understanding of the concept of overlapping action. Basically, when an object moves...not all portions of it move at the same time because that would look robotic. Thus, overlapping action is very important to making an animation look realistic and flow. 

This week I also did a revision on my obstacle course. I changed the ended to make it more realistic and to avoid the awkward back and forth ending. 

The sketchbook assignment for this week was to plan a simple animation of a pendulum. Here are my planning sketches for the pendulum. I decided to do  a very simple animation this week in order to grasp the concept of overlapping action. Check it out below:

Basic Foundations Week 5 - Anticipation and Squash and Stretch

This weeks assignment was to animate a bouncing ball going through an Obstacle Course. We were to utilize the principles of squash and stretch as the ball moved through the course. The ball was to maintain the weight and timing of  a basketball/soccer as it moves through the course. Take a peak!

Thumbnail planning for the ball route through the Obstacle Course. 

The sketchbook assignment emotion for this week was DEVASTATION. Here are my planning sketches for the Stu pose. I decided to do  a variation of pose 3. Check Stu out below:

This was the final pose I turned in. Below are some other angles/poses:

Basic Foundations Week 4 - Introduction to Timing and Spacing

Week 4 we were to again animate bouncing balls, however, the idea was to create two different types of balls to bouncing. I decided to go with a ping pong ball and bowling ball.  Due to the differing weights and sizes of the balls, they bounce completely different. To develop these differences when animating, the timing and spacing must be adjusted to show the contrast. 

Basic Foundations Week 3 - Planning & Blocking Methods

For this weeks assignment, we were required to animate a bouncing ball with the weight and bounce of a basketball or soccer ball. Check it out.

Above is a detailed thumbnail drawing outlining my thought process for the bouncing ball assignment.

For this weeks sketchbook, we were required to draw figures expressing the emotion of EXCITEMENT. The exercise was meant to get us thinking of ways to communicate ideas to the audience from a single pose. I decided to pose the Stu charactering using drawing 10 as a reference.

Here is the Stu pose I decided to go with. 


Below are a few other poses I experimented with:

Basic Foundations - Week 2 Assignments

For this weeks assignment we were given the task of going to a public place and sketching people in action.  We were responsible for capturing the essence of their pose and putting it on paper.  Here are my sketches...

We then had to take our character "Stu" and manipulate him into the poses that we drew. I decided to go with pose 2 to turn in for the assignment...however...I did go ahead and make "Stu" perform a few of my other poses as well.  

Training Wheels Short Film

This video is an animation I did while taking a course at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology - NYC).  The software used here was Adobe AfterEffects.  The film is a story of a boy learning to ride his first tricycle...we can all remember the intimidation of getting on a bike for the first time. lol I was so lucky as to flip over the front handle bars when I rode a bike for the first time. Good times! ha  Check it out and enjoy! 

                                                     

Robot Model Renders

A first attempt at modeling a character using primitive shapes. 

Escaping Robot Model Renders

These are a few renders that I did of my toy robot models escaping from the toy store late at night! I had a lot of fun with this assignment.  I'm proud of this...its my first attempt at rendering/modeling/lighting. I clearly need a lot of work in all these aspects...but you have to start somewhere right.  Although these things aren't the focus of AM, they're valuable to know and I'm glad I was able to experiment a bit with it in the Maya Springboard course.

Bouncing ball

I'm proud to say that this was my first ever attempt at a bouncing ball.  I'd say its reasonable...but I have so much to learn in the world of animation. Thats the best thing about it though...its a constant learning process and you can never reach the top because there are endless possibilities and knowledge to be gained. I love that! (Animation Mentor: Maya Springboard Course)

Bouncing Ball Graph Editor Manipulation

This video is another exercise from the Maya Springboard course.  Basically, the idea here was to create a bouncing ball and learn how to manipulate the balls movement within the Graph Editor.  Essentially, the Graph Editor is where the magic happens for an animator...and if you don't grasps the Graph Editor concepts...then you'll certainly have a  tough go around on your path to becoming a great animator.  To sum it up...the Graph Editor is my new best friend! :)

Robot Arm grabbing can!

Here's another short animation that I created during the Maya Springboard class.  For this assignment, we were given the task of animating the robot arm to swing around and pick up the can to then place it back on the platform.  With this, I decided to give the arm a bit of life by having him test out the can as if it was a bit intimidated at first...and then quickly swipe it up to prove its might!  I kind of referred to Jurassic Park for some inspiration...from the scene where the raptors were chasing the kids in the kitchen. Check it out and feel free to add a comment if you'd like!

Step Animation.

Hello! So...here is a short video clip that I did for the final assignment of the Maya Springboard course that ended in a few weeks ago.  For those who don't know, there is the option to take the Maya Springboard course prior to Class 1 at AM.  The course basically gets you familiar with the software (Autodesk Maya) prior to your first day on campus so that you don't feel behind the curve so much.  For people have haven't had any Maya experience...this course is great! I hope you enjoy my video. More work to come!

Hi Everyone! Welcome to my animation blog.  With this blog I intend to take you along my journey with Animation Mentor.  This was the first week of classes and I'm very excited for the program.  The first weeks work only included updating my personal data on the website and some other orientation related items.  However, I did have my first Q&A session with my mentor Alan Rogers.  http://www.seespotmove.com/menu.htm This is his portfolio website! He's a great animator and has worked on some cool stuff like Ice Age and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.  You should check out his site.  I also had the opportunity to meet all my classmates during the Q&A which was exciting. It's awesome to meet other people who love animation as much as I do. I'll be posting my weekly assignments to this blog and keeping everyone updated on my progress. Thanks for checking things out!