Animation Mentor - That's a Wrap!

Well, officially made it to the end of Animation Mentor.  It's been an adventurous 21 months.  Now, it's time to move onto my next great adventure...being a daddy.  Cheers!

Class 6 Week 12: The End

 

DEMO REEL

PROGRESS REEL

This is it - the last week of Animation Mentor!  Whew, it's been a crazy ride.  It's been worth it, and I'm loving the chance to animate all day long at DreamWorks - but that was a LONG 21 months though :)

I appreciate all the friends, family and co-workers who listened to my stories of no-sleep weekends and ditching all social activities for the last 2 years.  Most of all I appreciate my wife, who helped me keep the crazy in check, and was amazingly supportive and giving the entire time (even when I broke my leg).

Thanks everyone!

Class 6 Week 11: Revisiting Old Shots

This week went back to some old shots to touch them up.  I tossed in some actual characters, rather than just ol' Stewie and his button eyes.  Still have some touching up to do on them, but nice to see them come together again.

Hit a few last notes on Po too.  Hopefully when I put my full Reel up for the last week, I'll get a version of Po actually moving on this blog :)

Class 6 Week 10: Po Polish

On last pass on Po.

Class 6 Week 9: Refining Po

Spent this week really trying to nail down the face.  Reworked a lot of the lipsync and found some new expressions.  Also timing of a few beats around.  I was a bit too "on the nose" with a few of the actions/timing.  Also some some great feedback this week from Drew Adams at work - who besides being an Animation Mentor mentor, also worked with Po on Kung Fu Panda 2.  So, lots of notes to address between him and Sean.  I think it's really coming together, it just needs some passes adding in the details.

Class 6 Week 8: Face and Hands on Po

This weekend I was able to add the hands and face animation onto Po.  Also took him out of stepped mode - this is where the extensive (and tedious) new blocking method REALLY paid off.  I just cleaned up the curves a bit and the animation was fully functional - I didn't "lose" much like you often do transferring from stepped to spline.

The biggest change I made was to Po's arms.  I had them to turned out before, he looked like he was always posturing strangely, and didn't fit with the mood of the shot at all.  Referencing some Po stuff at work I was able to get a better idea of keeping the arms "on model" during this shot.

Class 6 Week 7: Po Blocking Begins

So, my first full blocking pass with Po.  Only got to the first half this week - and that was a long Saturday up at work!  My mentor suggested his workflow - which consists of keying every 2 frames to match the reference.  It's time consuming as hell, but I think it has great results and also makes sure that when you switch to spline mode everything gets preserved.  Just have to keep going on this one and get the second half done ASAP.

Class 6 Week 6: Halfway Point

Well, it was a crazy week wrapping up a bunch of snail cycles on Turbo.  This left me only Saturday to go in and work on Po...so I decide to polish up the lipsync before moving on to full blocking.  It's really coming together, can't wait to finally get the rest of Po moving!

Also did one more pass on the Vampire shot.  Had some notes on a few little things that really end up making a big difference to the feel of the shot.  Funny how some of those things you're not aware of, but you miss it if it's not there.  Hopefully this is the last pass on the Vampire, and I'll move to another reel shot to polish this coming week.

Class 6 Week 5: Vampire Polish

Snail cycles at work were demanding my attention - so no time for Po this week I'm afraid.  However, that meant I was able to take one more polishing pass on my Vampire shot.  Literally went back to my original vidref and redid the core body movements.  Then started loosening up the animation and keeping it alive.  I had lots of joints that I had animated on just one axis, most noticeably on the head.  Still a few things I want to iron out on this, but I feel it was a good step forward this week

Class 6 Week 4: Po LipSync

My next (and possibly last) shot here at AM is going to be unique.  My mentor, being a supervising animator at DreamWorks, encouraged me to try using one of the DW rigs this time round.  So, this week I started building the lipsync for Po.

It's a method our mentor suggested, to lay in the lipsync prior to animating all the big body/acting movements.  So far I'm a fan.  Unfortunately, I ran into some pipeline tech issues over the weekend and will have to iron those out before I take my 2nd pass on this shot.

Also thought I'd share the video clip I'm pulling this line from.  It's "Year One" - not a great movie, but great for Jack Black lines.  I needed something that had him overacting a decent bit (while not overdoing it Tenacious-D style).  I actually had about 8 great clips from this movie to choose from, and some that got throne out for being R-rated, but would have been hilarious.

Class 6 Week 3: Vampires and Reference

So, went back and started working on another project, needed some time off from the 2 char shot.  My wife had a great idea on how to spin this shot and give it some personality.  So he's now a vampire.  It was really fun to give this guy some specifics to his character/personality.  I also like that it's a little inside joke on the line, since a vampire puppet is a story point in the movie the line is from - Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Did spend a little time on the 2 char shot.  What you'll see is a new char design for the businessman.  Also some tighter camera work and framing.  Also starting to play around with a new idea for the last shot - something that feels a little less over-animated.

We also had to come up with dialog and reference for our next project this week.  Below are the audio clips and video reference for my ideas.  I'm going to be animating these to Po at work, so I'm really excited about that chance to play with a really really fun character.

Class 6 Week 2: Redo's

I felt like my approach on the big project last class just wasn't working.  A lot was trying to cram it it to fit the 3-shot/360-frames requirement.  With the sky the limit, I took a new pass on this with a new establishing shot and basically re-cutting and re-framing the entire piece.

I even went back and redid vid-ref for this project.  Hard to imagine I was putting on that coat to film about 2 months ago...I used this as a test to see how it would play breaking up my shots.

Class 6 Week 1: Polishing & Portfolio - Last Class!

So, this is it.  The final class at AM.  Should be a great time - I have a great mentor from DreamWorks, Sean Sexton, who looks like he's not going to pull any punches.  After having a week or two off, I'm excited to get back to my old shots and polish them up.

We now have to also complete at least one new project during this class.  Sean had some ideas on how we can take a unique pass at that...should be exciting :)

Figure Drawing

I've been lucky to be able to do lunchtime figure drawing during lunch at work.  We're also lucky to have Karl Gnass instructing the classes.  It's great to get back to physically drawing on paper, and I've learned a lot from Karl so far.  Here's a post with a few of the drawings over the past year.