This semester has been much different so far.  They’re gearing us up for third year, when we’ll be making our own short films, and so this term has fewer but larger assignments including a mini film done in groups (more on that later).  The first few weeks were devoted to a single animation, for which we were given audio and had to animate to match it.

It was a lot longer than most of our other projects, but I had fun the whole way through and came out with something I’m quite proud of.  It’s without a doubt my favorite piece of animation so far.

The final animation assignment for year 2, semester 1 was this dialogue between two characters (although it was less lip-sync oriented than the previous one).  Some challenges here included finding good poses for the key drawings, the very slow follow-thru on the toilet paper, and being able to include the whole “gotta go really bad” dance at the start (which was my own addition, not part of the assignment).

And here we have the biggest assignment of the semester by far.  It was really more like what should have been the final, because of the length of time it took and all the different parts involved.  It was the first ever animation I had to submit with multiple scenes (i.e. camera shots), and there were a lot of aspects that made it more technically challenging than anything else I’ve had to do up until now (for example, slowing out of a pan, treadmill walk cycle on 1′s, slowing back into a run cycle…).  It was actually fairly brutal.

In the end, my line test was one of the most fully completed ones, but I still sadly didn’t manage to finish it completely.  I was actually advised to finish it when I have the time, which I just might do at some point because it really did turn out well.  The movement is there, it’s just facial and clothing details that need to be added and cleaned up in certain parts.

Now that 2nd year 1st semester is nearly over, it’s high time I posted some actual animation from my year so far.  Here are two assignments we had to do in a very short time back in October, using the now familiar character Wendy.  Personally I was very happy with how these turned out, especially the head turn, which I think is one of the best pieces of animation I’ve done so far.

Our first animated walk.  Not technically a walk cycle, because the character walks across the screen in front of a still camera, as opposed to walking in place with the camera tracking him.

This assignment was shorter than it looks, because there are only four main keys to a character walk, and for all the other steps it’s possible to basically trace the same drawings, or at least the same silhouette.  Still fun as always!

This little clip was my contribution to the class anijam, which means that this clip would be stitched together with everyone else’s who all have the same start and end frame.  The result is that the ball keeps on changing, and it’s kind of like an “exquisite corpse” for animation.

Not really a major assignment, mostly just for fun

Well the school year is over for me, so it’s time to post a few semester highlights.  After the getting up assignment, we moved on the the side step, using Bugs Bunny.

The purpose of this assignment was to start getting into some detailed character animation, as well as getting across the feeling of shifting weight.  Overall one of my best looking assignments in my opinion.

Just got the mark for this back today (it was good so I figured it was time to post it up.  It was our second animation assignment this term.  Different principles to think about as always, but still fun.

My first animation assignment of the year!  We jumped from circles with faces right into human character animation, which is really saying something.  Keeping things on model and maintaining volumes is now a much greater challenge, as well as making the action look natural.

This is it! My final animation for first semester!  And believe me, it wasn’t as easy at the time as it may look.  Not nearly.  I was working all day and night, almost giving up a couple of times and nearly deciding to hand it in only partly done, but I pushed myself to get it as close as humanly possible to my own standards of acceptableness.  I’m not sorry I did.

Since this assignment was so full of personality, I think it mostly speaks for itself.  I don’t need to state the obvious that it combined all the basic principles we’d leaned up to this point.  All I’ll say is that it’s over now, and I’m very, very thankful for Christmas vacation.  Looking forward to more all-nighters and pepto bismol next semester!

This was our last animation before the final, and it’s was a big one.  For the first time we had something resembling a character with personality, and there were several principles involved, including anticipation, an exaggerated overshoot pose, and a slow settle with follow-through on the ears (which in my case required a separate layer and a moving hold).  I’m proud of the fact that I managed to avoid “twinning” on the ears – they finish settling at slightly different moments so as not to look unnatural.

I laughed when I got my teacher’s feedback with my grade, because he told me to give him less of a “Jay Leno chin” next time

Further exploration of the wave principle.  I don’t feel as attached to this assignment as the others, and if I could redo it I would probably add a bit more wind.  Part of the reason is because it’s such a mechanical, cyclical action on a completely inanimate object I suppose.  It’s always more fun when you’re animating something to which you can give a little personality!

On the other hand, this was a really great mark on this one, so it’ll always have a place in my heart!

This early animation was our introduction to the wave principle, in combination with the bouncing ball which we already knew.  I still think it’s one of the cutest animations we made first term.  It has a definite “small, jumpy rodent” quality about it

Just got back from the lab, where I spent the entire day working on my assignment which is due in the morning.  In honour of this occasion, here’s the final line test for my previous assignment, the simple, classic “bouncing ball” that probably every animator in history started out doing.  The only slightly original twist is that it bounces vertically off of a fence and switches direction.

Don’t be fooled by how simple this may look… this is countless hours of hard work with multiple revisions, going back and changing specific frames where the drawing was off by literally a hair, then re-shooting, repeated ad nauseam until I felt like I never wanted to draw a circle again as long as I live.  Now just wait until you see my current assignment: a bouncing ball on top of another bouncing ball!

By the way, I’m only kidding.  I actually think circles are pretty cool.