Animation 2

Ahhh. This class was interesting. A lot of hard work, and in the end, everything still needs infinitely more work! Plus I was working on a side volunteer project that required a ton of time (will post that in a little bit). Anyway, 5 weeks to storyboard a story idea that will fit in 12 secs, create an animatic, do lots of video reference, make a walk cycle specific to the personality of the character, and then do the actual animation finally (which required a lot of time because I think I was changing key poses after each critique all the way up until the last day, and really struggling to polish).

Getting timing down, hitting the right beats, and fitting everything into the frames allotted was difficult. It was a crazy 5 weeks! I can't imagine how quick professional animators have to be in the industry. So much in awe of them! Animation is something that really requires a lot of time and practice to do well, and then you're still learning new things for a lifetime I'd think to become a better animator. Then of course, there are naturally talented people who can get it right away and instantly know how to portray the personalities of the characters so clearly. <--jealous.

After pitching our story with a storyboard, we created an animatic (or I guess it's called a moving storyboard) really quickly. Here's mine. I had the guy with food in his teeth, but I changed it in my actual animation to having tissue bits on his face from shaving nicks.

Then we did video refs and tried to cut it down to the 12 secs max. Hahahha. I have a version with the girl with food bits in his teeth so I put chunks of seaweed on my teeth to film. Then I faced a mirror during recording where I can actually look at myself in a mirror behind the camera to try to make it more genuine. Then I changed it to lipstick so I really smeared it on. I looked quite like a monster for all my video reference. But NO SHAME NO SHAME! Animating gives you an opportunity to be animated and uninhibited I think. Anyway, I had a volunteer help me out with the boy part, so I don't want to embarrass him and post it on here.

Here's my walk for the girl. (For our animations, we used the Morpheus Rig, which is really fun and excellent! Thank you Josh Burton! I'm sure lots of aspiring animators are very grateful to him.) My girl character is girly and confident, so I gave her lots of hip action, a forward chest, and muted down arm swing (after I looked at some model walks).

Here's a stepped earlier version of my animation. I ran out of frames for cushions and overshoot, so I had to cut a lot out later. I liked the part where she looked to the side and back, but it wasn't necessary for the story, so OUT IT WENT.

Final version (or at least what I had to turn in by the deadline). STILL needs SO MUCH WORK.