Fun Time in the Black Studio

I am currently in the black studio taking a bit of a break from animating. Shooting the last scene today and I have the first pass done. Now just to make my penguin fly and I'll be done animating! It is quite exciting. Although, I will miss this class. I learned so much about animation in general from this class; timing and weight especially. Doing stop motion has made me think about animation in a different way. Definitely been beneficial. Made me a better animator. Shell's been a great teacher. Super helpful.

Anyway, last night when I was in animating, I decided to take a few pictures of myself and my studio space.

Strata!

In the midst of working on our short stop motion films, Shell gave us an in class assignment to create a strata cut animation. I opted to just play around and see how it would turn out. No rhyme or reason to what I did. It was pretty fun though. We all got to sit around and work. Jenny said it was like a knitting party since she looked up and we were all talking and working away. It was so nice out that day so it was hard to stay put in the black studio. When Amber and I finished creating our strata cuts, we decided to go take a walk outside while we waited to shoot our strata cuts. I got to enjoy the day somewhat.

So here is my finish piece. I shot it and then decided to smoosh it all together and shoot it again to see what happened.

Penguins!

I've been meaning to take a picture of my completed stop motion set and penguins. I've already started animating, but I figure now is a better time than never! Plus, I won't be posting any of the animation until it is completely done. Things are going fairly well on the animation front. A few problems here and there, but nothing too bad. It's pretty fun once I get started. I tend to drag my feet to start, but after the initial push, I'm alright. I'm at a stand still at the moment since I need to talk to Shell about my support rig. Wasn't working how I want it to last night. I'll figure it out tomorrow and progress will commence! My goal is to finish animating by the end of the weekend so I miss the madness of people rushing to finish. Then I'll have a week to do all the post production.

The main set piece is a two in one piece: A slide and a cliff!



In other school news, I finally remembered to upload a photo of my complete featherless chicken for 3D Modeling! All the modeling is completed. Now I am working on the rigging. The process is alright.... ok, it is a bit frustrating. Stupid paint weights. And I'm just not in the mood for it right now as stop motion has taken first priority on my To Do list. So here's Cluckles. I think there's been some minor changes since this screen shot was taken though.

Bale Challenge

I didn't win the Bale Challenge, but I didn't expect to. It was fun just to do. I was able to get some feedback on my animation from Andrew Gordon, one of the Spline Doctors. He didn't have time to fully review, but he gave some good overall feedback which was much appreciated. I have too much twinning going on and the movements are a bit robotic. So I know what to work on! Hopefully I can get some more practice in while still at school, but the last 5 weeks will definitely be chaotic with my stop motion short.

I had the best intentions over spring break to get work done, but only started a few things. It was break so I suppose it isn't too bad, but I just have to work extra hard now! Oh well. I'll get things done.

Christian Bale Completed

Here is my finished animation for my Ideation project. I realize poses could've been pushed more and I could've totally went all out. Still struggle with that, but I am still happy with how it turned out. My critique for it went really well on Tuesday. Everyone enjoyed how I handled the contrast obstruction. Yay for yelling at teddy bears! I had to project it on some object in the student center which was interesting. I projected in on some blue couches to go with my blue monocromatic color choice. It was a challenge to work with the obstructions, but also fun. It was a beneficial assignment that got me thinking outside my comfort zone.

There may be a few small things I'll touch up before I send it in to the Spline Doctor's competition.

Set Building

I've spent the last couple weeks working on my set and getting things ready to start animating. I glued together pieces of pink form and then carved it into the shape that I want for my set piece. It's a duel set piece; half works for one part of my short and the other half for another. It was fun and also a pain to carve the foam. I had pink foam shavings every where. It especially liked to adhere to my clothes.... I was smart and where black..... I also got my armatures for my penguins set up; wood blocks at the base of the body and head connected by wire. I melted black and white clay to get a charcoal color for the penguins. I dipped the armatures in that so the clay will better adhere once I build up the penguins.















Tonight I primed my set base and the main set piece so I can add any other details to the snowy landscape. I'm going to attempt to get an icy feel to the slide portion. My goal is to get everything ready so I can start animating this coming week.

Blocking Stage

Here's my rough blocking of my Ideation project. This is proving to be a fun sound clip to animate to. I'll probably try to push some of the poses farther, but it's a start.