Sack Joy Jump

This is a simple pencil test of the flour sack jumping for joy! There's not much business going on other than the jump. One thing I'm going to be working on in the near future is to make these tests more emotional - to try and show some "thought" before an action. Also, this is only animated at 12 fps, I probably need to bump it up to 24 fps so I can get smoother action.

Sack Stretch

Very simple, very short sack pencil test. I'm trying to get comfortable with the shape of the sack and how it will stretch and squash.

Rotating Cube

This is a 'pencil test' of a cube rotating in space - a short exercise I created for myself. The main point was to freehand the drawings and try to keep the perspective correct as the cube rotates. The inbetweens were done from key poses and breakdowns to help me line up the angles correctly.

This was the first animation I've posted that was created in Toon Boom Studio. The rotating disc feature was invaluable!

Please click the '>' button to play the animation.

To help with my sense of timing and patience, I'm going to do a few more ball bounce exercises before moving onto some character animation exercises. As I wrote previously, my animation library has grown considerably. Two books that I'm working from that include good exercises and explanations are Mechanics Of Motion and Character Animation in 3D (this book actually has good 2D exercises, I'll be skipping the 3D stuff for now).

FAS Assignment 2

UPDATE 10/31:
Received the assignment 2 watercolors back from FAS last week. Overall, they were happy with my work. A comment regarding both painting is that I need to work on controlling my edges better. I thought they were going to slam the lighthouse blending but they didn't. I guess it didn't turn out too bad. The instructor did paint his own blending on a clear overlay. Very helpful but just reinforces my opinion that 'technique' instruction is done a lot more efficiently in person not through coorespondence. Corrected painting is below:



Last night I finished the second watercolor painting to turn into FAS for evaluation. This was done using white/grey/black gouache. I posted the transparent watercolor a while ago.



I probably learned more about myself (ie, my perfectionist, procrastinating tendencies) than I did about how to paint with gouache. I've slowly started to get a grip on controlling the paint, it's not as frustrating as it was when I started. But I have to say, this exercise would have been a lot easier if I had taken a class (which I eventually will - I like painting with gouache).

This is the last 'technique' lesson. Next lesson is learning about design.

Stumble

In this journal, I've meant to describe the path that I'm taking in learning to animate. I'd prefer that path to be, if not straight, at least always moving forward.

But that's not happening.

Since my last post I have:

1. Started to learn Toon Boom Studio.
2. Become enamored with the world of silent films.
3. Struggled with the part of my FAS course where I'm learning to paint with gouache.
4. Bought more books on animation than I care to admit.
5. Gotten depressed about how late to the game I am, angry at myself for wasting so much time and frustrated about how good I want to become but fear I never will be.

Since my last post I have not:

1. Animated.

Animation. I've thought about it. I've read about it. I've watched it. I've browsed the web looking for a lot of information about it. But I haven't done my work. Basically I'm spinning my wheels and procrastinating. Why? I think because this battle started inside my head with one side being "You need to learn principles if you're going to be any good" and the other side being "The whole point is to create something, so stop with the ball bounces, start creating a film".

The thing is, I think both thoughts are correct. So what to do?

Well, in my procrastinating-based web browsing, I did come across one site that I spent a lot of time reading: Mario Furmanczyk's Animated Buzz. Mario journals his years at CalArts as an animation student. I took a lot of great information away from what he wrote but most importantly, for me: deadlines. The students operate under the deadlines of end-of-year shows and portfolio reviews.

Deadlines. That's one thing I've been missing. And that's what I'm setting for myself. Maybe most people can create all good and well without them but, at least right now, I need the guardrails of deadlines to keep me on track.

So to balance the "learn principles" vs. "create something" aspects, I'm setting a deadline for myself to work on and learn animation principles and storytelling knowing that eventually I'll leave the training wheels behind and start on creating performance pieces and short films. March 21, 2007. The first day of spring.

I'm continuing the FAS course (I'll be turning in a crappy gouache painting) and I draw a little every day.

And I dream.