Devastation pose

Here's the devastated pose I came up with.

The model has such a massive head, that I had to rotate the camera around to this angle, because his outstretched arm was not being seen.

Sketches for a devastated pose

I've been working on a pose that portays "devastation".

Here is some of the sketches I made. There are a few I like - but I think number 7 is my favourite.

Two balls of different weight

The assignment for this week was to animate two balls with different weights.

Communicating weight is sometimes about how fast the ball is falling (even though this doesn't really hold true in real world physics). But it's also about the number of bounces and the height of the bounces when it impacts.

One thing I'm definitely learning is that you can't just plug in the physics equations and expect it to look good. You have to "sell" the effect by slightly exaggerating the actions.

It's taken me a while to realise that animation is not the recreation of life - any more than painting is just duplicating a scene. It's about conveying information that is larger than life - but that still makes people go "oh yeah - I've seen that before".

Tricky stuff.

Bouncing Ball Revision

I'm trying to not post every single bouncing ball exercise I do, but here is one after the critique from fellow students and my mentor.

The big thing he picked up was the rotations and the weight of the ball towards the end - which hopefully I've fixed.

AM103 - Excitement Pose

This week's assignment was to convey excitement in a pose.

I think this one reads just fine - although it's pretty cliched.

I'd love to do a slightly more subtle one, where he is just leaning forward (maybe watching a sporting event) and just really getting into it.

AM103 Sketches

Just some sketches in preparation for this week's Stu pose.

This week we're conveying excitement - so I think I'll go for number 13.

Improvements to AM102 assignment

After some very helpful comments from my felow classmates - I made this modification to the pose for the assignment.

For me - it's definitely less stiff and has more appeal.

Thanks to all that commented.

AM Class102 - Stu Pose

This is pose 6 from the sketchbook - but posed using our Animation Mentor character called "Stu".

The funny part is he actually looks like my mate Stu. Well - at least their hair is the same. Non-existent!

AM Class102 - sketching in real life

All I can say is: thank heavens for having done at least some life drawing in my deep dark past.

Otherwise this week's assignment of sketching people live (not from television or magazines) would have been a true nightmare.

As it is - it still takes a lot of courage to overcome the fear of being observed drawing in public.

My tip #1 - do it while drinking coffee and reading a newspaper. That way if people come sniffing and snooping around - you can cover up!