I don't know if I'd called this "final", but I'm happy to say that at least some of the ideas are coming together and this is starting to look decent.
Animation (like art) is not finished, merely abandonned. And I think I'm happy to abandon this where it is.
Great stuff planned for next week. Stay tuned.
Got some great feedback from fellow students and my mentor who suggested some massive changes - most of which required re-blocking and big acting changes.
Fortunately the physical stuff, like the hips and spine are probably okay - but the biggest problems with this piece are the ideas.
Clearly I need to spend more time planning, before getting into the animation.
The idea with this assignment is to experiment with a full torso.
I was drawing on my experience in my recent trip to Tasmania and climbing Cradle Mountain here.
I really want to convey the exhaustion of almost being at the summit - but still being so far away.
With each new character and aspect we get to work with makes me so glad I didn't just jump in the deep end and start animating dialog tests with full character rigs with eyes, mouth, fingers etc.
It would have been a nightmare.
After many hours, here it is. The final rendered shot.
Spent most of the last few hours tweaking the jump timing, and smoothing out all the arcs and getting some overlap in the feet.
Didn't get time to animate a smashing Ming Dynasty vase - but at least the simple ball prop doesn't draw too much attention to itself and away from the animation.
