Weeks 2 and 1

So to start with here's the blocking of my Ballie animation. I chose to have ballie take a step to the side.

This is what I ended with for my grade.

This is what I started the week with.

That just goes to show the power of the Public Review. Between watching other students' work and having other students criticize mine I added breakdowns between my keyposes and really pushed Ballie's performance.

In the first week I was hit by the "Belzer Bus" pretty hard gradewise. (The Belzer Bus is the nickname given to Mike because of his brutally honest and hard critiques and grading.) I got hit because my thumbnails for this assignment while being good at hitting the keyposes were lacking in the development of breakdowns poses between those glorious golden poses. What kind of a grade does missing breakdowns in thumbnails earn one when faced with the Belzer Bus: C- (OUCH!)

Painfully soothing. By the way the opening blocking scene earned me an A- for week two. As the Belzer taketh, he giveth.

Having more time to actually do the work is really helping. I knew that I understood all of the fundamentals from Class 1. I just wasn't getting enough time to exercise my knowledge.

Oh yeah I suppose that I almost forgot to mention what Class 2 is about. Class 2 is focused on body mechanics which is why we start with Ballie. So far Class 2 rocks.

Space holder...

This post is just to hold you over until put up some of the goods that I know you all want to see. There has been a lot more activity on here than what I expected. So I'll let you part time lookers in on what I plan on adding. Look forward to: a picture of Mike, a progress reel from my last term, my video reference, and assignments from this term. All to come probably later today.

WOOHOO! It's back and so am I...

Of course being that it's on the internet this blog never really left. I certainly stopped writing on it that's for sure. In part because I took a leave of absence from Animation Mentor following, and not necessarily because of, a disappointing go at the first semester. Now I'm back in the saddle for class two. Time is to tell whether it was a wise decision to move on to the next class. I also wasn't aware that I could choose to redo the first class but I'm ready for the challenge.

My mentor is Mike Belzer and it seems that I'll get my money's worth this term. Get ready for more posting and some sweet animation love.