Class 103 (Back on Schedule)

This week the assignment was to animate our first bouncing ball, with the weight of a basketball, and have Stu show excitement. While I haven’t figured out the best way to show the videos my ball bounced well Dana did point out that my end bounces, where the ball has lost it’s original energy, were to far apart from one another. On to Stu-he’s more exciting anyway. *note-I have thumbnails for my animation but they are confusing if you aren’t me so I think it’s just easier for you to imagine a ball bouncing and tag it as my work.

My reference: the guy on the left. Yes I do realize that as a Yankees fan it’s sacreligious to use the Red Sox for anything.

Sketches from the rest of my research

Finally Stu

Excitement is a very vague emotion and can be explored in many ways. The way that first comes to mind, and also happens to be what I saw when looking at other first semester AMers, is the jumping for joy. Very few people decided to go for the reserved excitement of a Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson after they’ve one their millionth tournament. I have to admit that I too fell victim to the “jump.” Since Stu is not anatomically built I reached a point where I knew I wouldn’t be able to pull it off. I also have a seated one that was way to awkward to even talk about. Oddly enough the jumping Stu I spent the most time on with the least success.

My classmates harped on tangencies in Stu’s pose. I see them but I don’t think the tangency argument is registering just yet when I am getting my cameras set, or posing for that matter. They also suggested that a different camera angle would be better. I beg to differ mostly because I took the suggestion from the previous week that I should pose for the camera and trust me from any other angle Stu looks a mess.

Dana on the other hand liked the angle and suggested as a way to make read more clearly, with less tangents to pull Stu’s right elbow back as well as his left foot, then also to show the left wrist by bringing it up a bit more. Everyone liked the pose and line of action. Those are the two things that I wanted to get the most. I do understand from a different angle the pose would be more open but this was my midway pose just open enough that it reads as if Stu is excited to see someone without being too much, yet.

Class 102 wrap-up *finally*

Here goes attempt number three million. My new approach as I’m learning that the Army doesn’t want us writing blogs and reading them on their computers, is to do this all in Word and then transfer to Blogger which should save me some time and not risk losing all that I do because of a bad connection. Let’s have at it then.

Stu pose from Class 102 and Dana’s critique. For starters she didn’t feel the second pose worked that well and once she began talking about unclearly it read and it’s awkwardness I understood. As for the initial pose itself here’s what she had to say.
The lower hand has, what became Dana’s phrase for the week, the “lobster claw” going. It also is creating a stress point with that other knee. Both hands also appear to be ‘twinning’ one another, looking to similar which means they both are sporting the “lobster claw,” something other AM students pointed out in their comments. Also Stu’s right knee, the one on the left, Dana felt could be turned out more so that it didn’t look so flat. While she didn’t feel that the pose let people no what Stu is doing, she did like the line of action and his clear silhouette.

There you have it. Far shorter than what my original rant was but done.

Camp Arifjan hates Blogger...

I wrote about my critique and even had a pretty long rant. Then the internets died and all disappeared. I will add all to the proper blog and talk about the past week's assignment. All with more work on top of the work of last week.

This was a looooonng week - week 3

I'm trying my hardest not to let my work gripes infect my AM blog but work has been brutal this past week. I'm at the point where I really don't care about my job. Not because I leaving but because of the endless excercises in futility.

So now to what you came for. Evidently more people than myself are actually reading this thing which is great, especially if you read the last post.

So I would be wrong to not say anything about what have become my two biggest resources and cartoon safe havens. The first has to be Mr. Stephen Worth and the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. Animation and so much more. This is a place I'd seriously like to visit when I'm back stateside. I've had the opportunity to talk online with Mr. Worth and he is definitely a man that is passionate about the past and the future of the animation industry.

The online site has so much information, theory, illustrations, notes and other things from the various studios I can only imagine what the physical Archive contains. Everything from Walt Disney and the nine old men, if you don't know their names you know their huge body of work, to Fleischer and Walter Lantz. The most valuable thing that the archive does, in my opinion, is to shed light on the true men of genius behind the cartoons and characters that made the animation famous. Carlo Vinci, Milt Kahl, Ward Kimball, Otto Messmer, Grim Natwick, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Robert McKimson I could go on and on. In the cases of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies the directors/animators are names that, people who gerw up watching these feats of drawing, are widely known. Add to all this great animation the amazing illustrations, most of which people my age have never seen, and Mr. Worth, and his team of volunteers, have probably the greatest collection of underappreciated American Art in the Country. I almost forgot the great instructional material which allow me to sweet segue to John K's blog.

John Kricfalusi is the creator of what was easily one of my favorite cartoons of the 90's, Rocko's Modern life was the other. Sure there was Captain Planet and a host of others whose title songs I recite from memory but Ren and Stimpy made Nickelodeon the channel to watch. With Ren and Stimpy off the air for a long time now, John preaches the gospel of cartooning and vents about the state of animated affairs on his blog, all kinds of stuff.

I personally have read every post on his site and have taken notes as well as saved the nuggets that I want to share with others. I wish I could have him as an animation theory teacher, and drawing, because his knowledge of old cartoons, the animation industry today and knwledge of what made old cartoons better than the new cartoons is amazing.

When I first started looking around at the blogs of chracter designers I noticed a common thread amongst the web of blog links of the artists. Those that went to CalArts all drew the same and it was the same style that I recognized from many of the cartoons I watched on Cartoon Network. When I stumbled upon John's site I was shown the influences behind this 'modern' style, Mary Blair and whole lot of Disney poorly imitated, and the reasons for it's existance. If more young artists read through what John has to say about animation, it's hard to think about the result. Not that hard since I desire to make it happen in the medium that John K isn't a fan of, go 3D! If watch Ren and Stimpy then read John's blog you can see how deeply infused his personality is into both, even moreso if you get the opportunity to see him talk about cartoons on one the Looney Tunes DVD collections.

With all that said my pool of influence and inspiration has been deepened courtesy of these two men and their dedication to a revival of the craft of animation, or in John's words putting the 'cartooniness' back into cartoons.

I promise I'll talk about AM later on. Especially about my first critique. I've had some long nights at the office and haven't prepared properly for a good AM post.

Who the heII drew this?

More to follow...

After Effects...

I wish someone would have clued me into all the potential of After Effects along time ago. Something else I need to learn!

No "T" poses please...

Well last night at the request of Teresa I figured out my problem of Stu mysteriously getting saved in the "T" pose. This is a problem because it caused all my hard posing work to be wasted.

Anyway, this is the pose as it should have been realized the first time. A certain Chinese girl helped find errors and solutions with "Dancing Stu," and hope the rest of you will join in the fun. I already think that his left arm is too high and that I stretched the right arm just a tad too long at least for the first camera angle.
I like the second camera angle a lot.
Did I mention this is the first homework assignment that I've ever been excited to do? Yeah, Animation Mentor rocks.

Stu's first time...

So I took my first stab at posing Stu from my sketches of people. The assginment was to sketch from life and then pose Stu. Some of my sketches came from the Gospel Service where I play trumpet. There was a new reverend that started and decided that I wanted to recreate this slow, MLK Jr-esque preacher at the point where he was at his firiest: When he was letting us know how to save our souls.

As you can see my first attempt with Stu doesn't look that fiery. In fact I wasn't really sold on the pose at all.

The cool thing about AM is the interactivity of the site. Before posting this pose for my assignment I subjected it to the Public Review to see if someone would be able help Stu help me. Within a few hours I had five responses from some folks that aren't even in my class. All of them focused on the pose.

It was Chris that took home the secret two cookie prize. His comment that Stu's pose was very "Fred Astaire like" let me know what the problem was. Stu needs to be leaning forwarding engaging the audience not leaning back and letting you come to him. He's not selling you something and he definitely should not be dancing-yet. He should be letting you know of the dire consequences ahead of those not living right.

The idea of what I was trying to do with Stu's pose was something that I'm noticing some people seem to missing, some people=the two or three whose work I've seen. But there's a lack of getting the model into a specific character as opposed just a pose. Granted Stu has no face but the pose that he's in should be able to tell what's going on every bit as well.

We'll see it's possible I've been reading way too much Kricfalusi, and by possible I mean I've read every entry that is in his blog and have the downloaded his entire 'book' from said entries.

Ok, for the record watching another mentor critique another AM student's work is...wow. I think thePublic Review and the Mentor Critique are easily worth, the sum of money I'd rather not talk about, what I paid for tuition. Twenty minutes on about 150 frames and it easily could've been longer. So yeah. These guys do a good job. Not to mention every student can view another student's Mentor Critique.

If only Animation Mentor had been around when I was looking for schools initially. Le sigh.

My little webcam takes little pictures...

Cheap little webcam it maybe but the world gets to see the stuff I call drawings.

I apologize in advance to Dana for my crappy drawing of her from my sketchbook from the first class meeting via webcam. And also before my desert wifi went kaput.

Dana Boadway looks far more human even over a webcam and the Leia danishes are her headphones.

But wait that's not the end...I was chatting to Guillermo about my great and wondrous ideas for animated shorts, they walk without legs, and decided to draw him from the one inch by one inch buddy icon on my meebo screen.

Guillermo in reality does not looking like a gay Adam Sandler whose needs reconstructive surgery to align his eyes. Damned floating facial features.

I have to admit, I like the Dana drawing.

Oh and here are some pandas.

Week One...Done!

I got a chance to meet my mentor Dana Boadway, that's boad- like boat, before being violently kicked from our WIFI. All seems well I'm not sure how I'll manage the additional work that was so graciously given to me by my myriad of bosses. In addition to the fact that when I leave this wonderful place of sand and sun I'll be out of the loop for about two weeks. Blub*. With my acquisition of my first Stu model/rig I already know that this character animation this is what I really want to do.

Now if only I can find away out of my desk job...We'll see what the cookies of fate have in store when they crumble. Until next time.



*Blub is my all purpose for anything at anytime. Get used to seeing it.