Omar's Animation Blog

Workshop 4 - Assignment 1

2012-01-03T17:36:00.002-05:00

Well, my first post of the new year has arrived. Here is a shot I did for iAnimate when in WS4 - full body acting.

I was really happy with it, then I stopped being happy with it, then I was happy again, and now I'm unhappy with it. Now you know how odd I am.

Kyle Balda Walk Demo

2011-12-13T18:02:00.005-05:00

A lot of people (at least in the animation community, I can't imagine CNN putting this up) have been posting this walk demo from Kyle Balda. Kyle was an animator at Pixar for quite a while. I'm not entirely sure what he's doing now though. My knowledge base is from IMDB by the way, haha.

Anyway he does a great job in explaining why he does what he does, and at opening my eyes to a workflow thats quite common. The layering method. I mean I've heard of it before of course, yet I've never tried it. I like the comfort and safety of blocking in stepped mode.
To me, using splines immediately seems so risky and unpredictable, as opposed to the rock solid blue print you get with stepped keys.

Really I'm just ranting for the sake of actually having posts on my blog. Fear not! Soon I'll actually have some animation up.

And on another note, I just finished workshop 4 at iAnimate! I had the fantastic David Hubert as my instructor, and he taught me so much. The workshop is focused on full body acting with dialogue. It was really tough, haha. My first shot I think turned out quite well - I'll post it soon. The second shot - not so much. I have so much work to do on it.
Basically I've been trying to get way too many conflicting ideas into one shot, and then the added physicality of animating a drunk just made it a nightmare. Hopefully I'll get it right and show my devote followers!

Life is crazy

2011-11-20T02:06:00.005-05:00

I've been neglecting my blog quite a bit lately, and I'm going to try to update it more frequently if possible.

Anyway, here's a drawing I did, and then a really amazing friends interpretation.

Flipbook Straight Ahead Animation

2011-10-21T03:02:00.004-04:00

Just a quick straight ahead in flipbook I did. I really do want to do another hand drawn test soon, although this little test in flipbook reminded me of how tough drawn animation is.

After watching that, here's something that actually can entertain you:

Rune Bennicke straight ahead animation - incredible.

5th Place!!

2011-08-05T14:51:00.005-04:00

Now obviously 5th place isn't as good as getting the coveted top 3, however I'm still really happy!

The first time I entered I barely could move a character, let alone make one that someone could enjoy watching.

Anyway, here's my entry!!

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/july11/entry/OC3njm

From 112th, to 5th :)

Another Tease!

2011-07-28T17:11:00.003-04:00

I say the word tease lightly, you have to be interested to be teased.

Anyway, here's a render of the shot I just finished! It's not good - but it's better than the last one. I'll post the shot itself once I find out how I placed in the 11SecondClub.

Something I'm working on!

2011-07-20T12:46:00.004-04:00

It may or may not be a shot at redeeming myself after my last, poorly done 11 Second Club entry...

11 Second Club June 2011

2011-07-09T14:41:00.002-04:00

Here's my final (poorly) lit entry:

And for those interested, here's a progression video:

Overall I'm not pleased. I don't think that there are many hitches in the movements or anything looking too weird, but this piece made me realize I need to spend way more time planning. The acting is atrocious! It's so boring and bland and not nearly pushed enough.

I'm pretty sure I'll be entering this months contest though, and if I do I'm going to definitely try and push the performance.

Also, wound up in 52nd place.

So now my standings are:
112/160 ~ 3.31 stars
83/188 ~ 4.97 stars
52/191 ~ 5.26 stars

So at least I'm improving!

My First Short Film!

2011-06-18T13:54:00.003-04:00

This was meant to be a 2 minute film for my grade 12 Comm Tech class, however I grossly underestimated the amount of content we had - leading to the video being over double that.

Overall I'm fairly happy with it, there are several continuity errors, poor cuts, bad staging, atrocious acting and even more that's wrong with it - but as my very first film, I'm relatively pleased.

And that ugly Arab guy in the video is me by the way.

edit* Evidently there are a few upload bugs in the video

Law Class Caricature

2011-06-08T21:45:00.003-04:00

So when I'm not listening to my awesome law teacher explain the inner workings of the Canadian legal system, I put my head down and draw myself.

Bigger Update!

2011-04-24T16:52:00.002-04:00

First off! Here's some actual animation!
This is kinda my demo reel coming off iAnimate, minus one shot which I need to fix up due to a render mishap.

iA Reel from omar elhindi on Vimeo.

It's not terrible! I'm happy with it for the most part at least.

So actual update-wise, I was unfortunately rejected by Sheridan. Sucks.
Oh well, there's still a chance for me to get offered their art fundamentals program, and if I don't then I'm off to St Clair college, and maybe re enroll in iAnimate! I miss it there, it was a ton of fun and I learned a lot in a really short time.

Anyway, that's it for now! Hopefully my posts will be a bit more frequent :)

Update!

2011-02-23T21:59:00.004-05:00

Wow, I haven't posted in ages!
Here's some life drawings I did recently for my portfolio for Sheridan. Drop a comment and let me know which ones you guys think are best, I haven't decided which to put in yet.

More Animation!

2010-12-06T19:27:00.002-05:00

So here's the shot I'm working on for Assignment 3. It's super tough! I'm having the hardest time manipulating the characters and making sure their interactions feel real. That, and of course getting the feeling of weight in the white ninja. I want him heavy, but I don't want him to feel like a boulder! No risk there at least, he's far closer to weightlessness than he is a boulder.

Comments and criticism are more than welcome!

Assignment 1

2010-11-07T19:58:00.003-05:00

So here is my first (somewhat) finished assignment for iAnimate.
There's still a lot I want to fix, but I'll have to do that later, right now the current assignments are keeping me occupied.

More Attempts at Digital Painting

2010-10-02T15:15:00.002-04:00

It's me by the way.

Update

2010-09-25T17:25:00.002-04:00

It's tough to find time to blog with iAnimate, highschool and friends, but I'm trying!

Here's something I'm currently working on. I'll only upload iAnimate assignments if I don't use one of their rigs, and I also won't be giving any detail on the assignment.

Though I will say that I have Ted Ty as my first instructor!!

How Animation is Made

2010-09-17T23:13:00.000-04:00

Guilty

2010-09-11T00:27:00.004-04:00

Found this online.

Guilty of 4 of the above.
1, 3, 4, 5.

Because I Need To Post

2010-09-08T17:14:00.005-04:00

So iAnimate's going to start quite soon, and as much as I'd like to post pictures of characters and and eventually animation - I won't.

Jason Ryan has expressed his opinion on displaying any of the iAnimate resources online, it's not totally negative, but he would prefer if they stayed private longer. So I respect that and I'll listen to him.

I will post some iAnimate things eventually I'm sure, but for now I won't.

So I'm going to start doing more tests and drawings so I have something to put up.
Here are two tests I did really quick for practice.

Rando-sketch

2010-08-27T20:08:00.001-04:00

Posted via Blogaway for android.

Man vs Machine Update

2010-08-23T17:58:00.005-04:00

So far this has been my most ambitious piece of animation, and probably the toughest, that I've done. It's been a lot of fun and a lot of stress.
The shot looks fine (to me) blocked out, but It seems like SUCH a mess when I put it to linear/spline/clamped. I know it's something that needs to be done and it's supposed to be tough, but that doesn't mean it's not discouraging.

I'm at a point where I'm not sure if my time would be better spent working on this and trying to finish it or something new.
I REALLY want to finish this one though! I feel if I really get into it it could be my best work yet.
Also considering Steve Meyer was beyond gracious in helping me out with it. I can't describe how great he's been to me.

Anyway, here it is.

I think my main problem is how much information I put without any idea of what the computer would do with it. I think I'm going to try some new workflow idea's.
Either way I'll probably finish it, I'm strangely dying to get back into my shot.

"The best animators I've known start digging in at the point when most animators think they're done."
- Clay Kaytis

Ninja Fun

2010-08-23T17:17:00.001-04:00

Here's a quick test of a Ninja landing ever so gracefully.

Note the equipment only appearing at the end. I plan on doing a straight ahead pass at it soon.

Rock On

2010-08-15T23:14:00.001-04:00

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.1

Peace and Love

2010-07-31T22:46:00.002-04:00

Jason Schleifer Advice On Stepped to Spline

2010-07-30T19:25:00.003-04:00

Here's an email I sent to Jason Schleifer, Dreamworks supervising animator and great guy.

That definitely is a reoccurring critique. I guess I need to think about my character more.
Also, I was wondering if you would be able to answer a question I have - although it might be a little to substantial for an email.
Why is switching to spline/linear so odd? I usually like my blocking, but when I make the transition it's almost like I'm working on something completely different! Maybe it's just me though.

Anyway, thanks again!

And his response.

Heya!

The main problem people seem to have when switching from stepped to spline is that they didn't define their breakdowns enough before the switch to really define what's going to happen. Usually people will put in their stepped poses at say 1, 10, 20, etc.. and those are their extremes. Then they'll put in breakdowns at 5, 15, etc as the inbetweens. When they watch it in stepped mode, it makes sense.. but that's because they're not seeing that interpolation between 1 and 5.. they're just seing 1---5. Know what I mean?

So what I like to do is put a stepped key on 1, then another on 4 which is just slighly different than 1.. about 5% towards my breakdown. Then I'll put my breakdown on 6, then another pose at 8 that's about 5% of the way to 10.

does that make sense? The more breakdowns you do that really definte the action, the overlapping action, the contrasting motion, etc.. the closer your blocking will look to your splined animation.

hope that helps!

Followed by another question of mine.

OK, I kinda think I get what your saying,
my only thing with that is this:
if you keep favoring the previous key/bd like that, wouldn't that cause a start stop thing?
I just don't see how that would work if you keep favoring the previous..

And his response.

You just favor what you need to get cleanly between the poses.. the whole thing is to keep it clean and simple. Add breakdowns where you need them, make sure you have keys that help define how you get into and out of your poses, and don't let the computer do it for you. Does that make sense?

Keith Lango Advice

2010-07-30T15:54:00.003-04:00

A while back I sent out an email to Keith Lango, now an animator at Valve.
He was kind enough to get back to me with this advice.

For a younger student I would always suggest they work on their mechanics- getting the motion to look right. You can work on acting along the way, but at this point I'd put it second. Animation, like any form of artistic expression, is a two sided coin. There's the art side- what do you want to say and how do you want to say it? Then there's the craft side- the technical skill needed to express the art in a manner that is clear and understandable. Acting is the art side, mechanics are the craft side. You can have the greatest idea in the world but if your mechanics and craft are not well developed you will have a difficult time finding success in expressing that great idea in a way that the audience can connect with. I hope that made sense. :>
Any collge or university you go to will usually have a much broader program of instruction than just character animation. Sheridan is a fine school and has some really good teachers and faculty. You will be exposed to more than just animation. You'll get color, design, composition, lighting, 2d animation, life drawing skills- all stuff that I think is important to learn. I never went to college for animation, so those are all things I have had to learn on my own over the years. If I had a chance to go back and do it all over again I'd try and get into an animation/art/film school first. There's so much to be learned there. AM is just animation, so if you're absolutely certain that's all you want to do then AM makes sense financially. But I actually think Andrew makes a lot of sense when he suggests a traditional art school and then AM. In the end I am always a believer that the broader your range of understanding and experience the better you'll be as an animator. Too tight a focus leads to a shallow view of film and art. There are so many things I've been able to experience in my career that were beyond just animating and each one was cool in it's own.

As for getting to the big studios, just keep practicing and making animation. Eventually if that's your goal you will get there.

I have a few emails like this which I'll definitely start to post.

Some Awesome News

2010-07-29T21:29:00.002-04:00

So thanks to my awesome parents, I'll be starting at ianimate in September.

For those who care enough to think, "but wait, you're still in highschool in Sepember" I thank you. Even though I'll be in highschool I've decided that I can handle the workload.
The tough part will be when this program carries into my first year at Sheridan. But hopefully it'll all work out.

The school is run by Jason Ryan, a long time animator currently working on Dreamworks 'Megamind' as a supervising animator.

“I’ve been an animator at Disney and DreamWorks for over 15 years and the Instructors that I have hand picked for you are the best in the industry. Animation is a major passion of mine, there is no better feeling than seeing our characters come to life on the big screen and audiences of all ages being entertained by your hard work. While doing my Tutorials and JRAWebinars, I’ve met many students that have been studying animation in Colleges and Universities around the world and paying through the nose. The worse part is that the teachers don’t have a clue about feature quality animation. I want to help students everywhere learn the techniques that have made us the Animators that we are today."

I'm beyond excited to begin the course, I have no doubt I'll improve drastically.

Cop Walk Final

2010-07-29T19:28:00.002-04:00

Here's the completed version of the walk I posted last.

Nothing spectacular, just something to keep me busy.

Edit* My 40th piece of animation is done before I'm even a legal adult!!!

Something I'm working on

2010-07-28T21:28:00.001-04:00

Here's another walk cycle. This time of a cop I designed.
Lotta problems in this first pass that I need to work out.

Random Character

2010-07-20T02:47:00.001-04:00

I gotta start practising my character design for my portfolio for college.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.7

My First Hand Drawn Lip Sync

2010-07-19T19:05:00.002-04:00

Well here's my very first hand drawn animation to dialog. I know it's incredibly short, but I gotta get the basics down.

I don't know what it is... but there's something I don't like..

RIP Pres Romanillos

2010-07-19T01:25:00.004-04:00

The man who brought you the Hun leader, Shan Yu of Mulan and many other memorable characters has passed away after a long struggle with Leukemia at 47. RIP Pres Romanillos.

Ball Jump Final (I think)

2010-07-18T02:57:00.003-04:00

OK here's the latest and most likely last ball jump test I'll be posting.
I think it's as good as I can make it.

Thanks Mr. Hartline!
I actually showed my brother the earlier version, to which he responded, "That's horrible. It's just crap".
Thankfully he approved of the new one.

Drawing Inspiration

2010-07-17T13:47:00.002-04:00

Here's a video I found over on the Character Design blog about Pascal Campion.

Inspirational Artists: Pascal Campion from Onyx Cinema, Inc. on Vimeo.

Quick Animation Test

2010-07-16T23:18:00.003-04:00

Here's a little piece of animation I did in no more than 15 minutes.
I was a bit bored and animation always seems to entertain me.

And that awesome shark rig helped too.

One thing a lot of my earlier stuff lacked was good settles which really make your work seem alive. I definitely try to hone in on that more with my more recent animation. Hopefully I'm not starting to add too much settles.

Blogger App Chosen

2010-07-15T02:03:00.001-04:00

Ok I've chosen my blogger app.

The winner is..... Blogaway!

It came down to being able to see my uploaded images in the right rotation.

The only negative of Blogaway is that I can only upload one picture per post (same in all other blogger apps im aware of) and the compressed look of my posted images. Upside is that once you click the image it goes back to its proper dimensions.

Posted via Blogaway for android.

Finally a Drawing

2010-07-15T01:23:00.001-04:00

Well here's my chance to use my droid for some blogging. Sadly this particular blogger app only allows me to put one image per post.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.7

Ball Jump Revisited

2010-07-12T16:52:00.009-04:00

After sending my ball jump test to Aaron Hartline of Pixar animation, I was once again put in my place.
Frankly, I love it.

He kindly responded and gave me his thoughts on my "simple" test.

Looks good.

It took me a few times to understand what was going on exactly. Instead try having the ball come bouncing in and
without stopping, bounce up high to get over the block. Instead he doesnt get to the top, but rather bounces off the top part of the block.

Upset, he looks at it for a beat - backs up then does the bounce up to the top, and falls off. Then showing the anger and frustration, backs up really far - add that shake for the anticipation (like the rubberband example i give in the lecture) and have him it it a full force. Much Much harder then you have now and traveling more across the screen to hit it.

Once the block slowly starts to fall, then comes crashing down - then have his attitude change to being happy, joyful. Celebrating by jumping up and down - lightly! - then bouncing off screen.

You have alot of the beats - but im not feeling the emotion of the ball yet. Really play with your timing. How can you make this ball have feeling?

I'm going to go back through the shot and address the points Mr. Hartline mentioned.
The one re-occurring critique I get is always that my shot isn't clear. No one but myself understands what's going on.
That's something I really need to hone in on.

Ball Jump

2010-07-10T08:36:00.003-04:00

Well here's my more basic animation of a ball with character.

And if your interested, here's a progress video as I go through the shot.

Overall I'm fairly happy. I always end up liking it more during the blocking stage then final though.
The only major complaint I can think of is that back track it does. It just seems off to me. I think it has to do with the jumps occurring over such a small a time frame.

Minor update

2010-07-10T02:17:00.003-04:00

My "Man vs Machine" shot will be on a minor hiatus.
Awesome Dreamworks animator Steve Meyer has ever so graciously decided to critique it for me when he gets the opportunity.

In the mean time I've been working on the basics once again. I always seem to try something complex - fail - then move to something basic. Rinse and repeat.

So yeah, I'm at the basic part of the two step cycle.
Update on both shots soon!

Larger update - no one reads my blog!

Progress

2010-07-06T00:56:00.002-04:00

Here's where I'm at with the shot I'm working on.
So far I'm not hating it. Although I know I will once I get to the Splining phase.

Random Model Sheet

2010-07-04T21:51:00.003-04:00

Some inconsistencies, but who cares.

Flash Ninja

2010-07-02T23:39:00.003-04:00

I wanted to try and get back into Flash, so I churned out this happy Ninja walk.

Happy Fathers Day!!

2010-06-20T10:36:00.002-04:00

Happy Fathers Day dad!
And in honor of this special day, I'll post something I've been working on.

Here's the flipbook pass.

Hopefully the finished version will be up soon.

Anime Test

2010-06-10T23:04:00.004-04:00

I remember seeing someone do this on another blog, although I forget which.

The concept is to have a held frame, anticipation, 1 or 2 frame smear, actions on 4's, 1 or 2 frame smear and land.
It's fairly Anime like timing.
Pretty fun to try.

Tangled Trailer

2010-06-10T21:40:00.000-04:00

Here's the first real trailer for Disney's film Rapunzel. Excuse me, Tangled. I'm still a little bitter that they changed the name.
Although truthfully, this trailer suits the title 'Tangled' a lot more than 'Rapunzel'.

The trailer seems a bit Shrek-like to me, but then again Disney's trying to fix what apparently went wrong with TPATF. They blame the name and the audience it aimed at. Come on, look at The Little Mermaid! No one tried to market that with 'edge' and pop culture references. It was a hit!
Oh well.

Hopefully with Glen at the head of this it'll be something Disney can actually be proud of.

And come on, Pink? Really? That's the choice of song for a trailer to Disney's first CG MUSICAL?

One thing I do really like is the animation. I really feel a hand drawn vibe in the poses and timing. That and the look of the film.

Nerd Character Walk Completed

2010-05-30T20:20:00.007-04:00

It is now done.
On one's now...

And then we have a new progression which includes the latest version of the walk.

17th Birthday!

2010-05-28T18:37:00.006-04:00

Here's a Birthday sketch dump for you.
These were all quick gesture sketches ranging from 1-3 minutes.

These were done with pen and watercolor, although the water color faded quite a bit in the scan.

Spungella Guilt Contest

2010-05-26T16:55:00.004-04:00

"...create a shot or sequence based on a specific topic using only 100 frames within one week..."
The word that was given was "Guilt"

I tied for 5th with like 4 other people based on the votes emailed to Jean-Denis Haas (ILM Animator and creator of the website, Spungella).
I don't brag often, but I was pretty pleased when I read this on his site, "...My runner up for 4th place would have been #4. His expression after he drives over the guy cracked me up...".
That was referring to me :)

Anyway, here it is in all it's crudely rendered, poorly animated glory.

I'm still waiting on a computer animated piece that I can be as happy with as a hand drawn one.
At this rate I think it'll be a while.

And on a side note, this is the 30th bit animation I've put on my blog since last May when I started.

Nerd Character Walk

2010-05-25T18:26:00.004-04:00

Well here's my submission to the Spline Doctors walk animation contest.

I'm fairly happy with it, although I have to point out one thing I wish I didn't do and will probably fix. During an arm swing I attempted to place a smear frame and it simply looks horrible. Just thought I'd draw attention to it.

And here's a progression for those interested.

UPDATE* Final version is now posted.

Sid The Pirate

2010-05-23T14:58:00.001-04:00

Here is Sid, he happens to be a pirate.

Shogun knocks out Machida!

2010-05-09T01:26:00.002-04:00

Here's a quick digital sketch of Machida after getting pounded by Shogun.

50th Post!

2010-05-03T21:34:00.002-04:00

For my 50th post, I thought it would be only fitting to post a tiny ninja.

Bunny Story

2010-05-02T20:16:00.000-04:00

Another attempt at storyboarding, did this over a week.

Quick Digital Sketches

2010-05-02T19:33:00.004-04:00

Here's a few quick digital paintings I did, not where I want to be just yet.

Always Learning

2010-05-01T18:33:00.004-04:00

Rad Sechrist, Dreamworks Story Artist, was kind enough to show me how to fix my drawings.
This only proves that I need to keep on drawing and learning as I go.

Thanks again Rad!

Digital Painting

2010-04-24T01:07:00.005-04:00

I'm really loving painting on the computer.
Especially how I can work in layers, it makes things so much easier.

Here's my process of designing a character as of now (I'm sure it'll change soon).

I really like starting my design in silhouette because it makes you ignore all the unnecessary details and focus on the character as a whole.
This method was adopted from Florian Satzinger.

Also there's a reason as to why I designed this nerd, the Spline Doctors are having an animation contest. A walk cycle of one of four choices has to be animated by May 14th, and I chose the one involving a child on his way to or from school.

Updates soon!

My Mural

2010-04-19T21:55:00.004-04:00

I'm going to be painting this in the Drama room at my school.
A lot of pressure but it should be fun.

Oh yeah, I'm the one in the orange.

Digital Painting

2010-04-18T15:39:00.004-04:00

I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of digital painting!
Here's my caricature of me, much better in structure, composition, color, and resemblance than my first one.
I think it's safe to say I've been improving!

It's actually pretty fun now!

Running

2010-04-16T15:51:00.002-04:00

Another non-character exercise.

I don't really like this one.. It just doesn't feel right to me.
I'm thinking it's because I have to much action (tall character) in too short a time, but single inbetweens (giving more time) would probably make it too slow.
Who knows, maybe I'll try it.

Lifedrawing

2010-04-10T21:06:00.003-04:00

I'm actually really happy about the first one. Although I know I need to improve a lot.
Especially with hands..

More Basic's pt 2

2010-04-05T16:29:00.002-04:00

Here's that same vanilla walk but with single inbetweens putting it on 1's.

EDIT* Just for those who don't understand how difficult animation is, here are all the drawings laid on top of each other.

And that's just for a 32 frame walk.

More Basic's

2010-03-30T15:54:00.000-04:00

Another relatively basic exercise.

Vanilla Walk on 2's.

Back To Basics

2010-03-27T11:19:00.000-04:00

Scared of the Dark

2010-03-26T17:37:00.002-04:00

Well, it took longer than I expected, and turned out worse than I expected. But it's done.
I decided to post it from start (blocking) to finish (final render).

Above is the blocking of my keys.

Above is my blocking with extremes and some breakdowns.

Above is my final animation.

At least I think I've improved. A tiny bit.

School Project

2010-02-23T22:58:00.002-05:00

For my history class, we had to create a video on the discovery and use of fire during the time of homo erectus (Early man). We needed to put together a storyboard and so i took on that role for my group.
All boards were drawn by me, with idea help by my friend. It's definitely not some Joe Ranft masterpiece but it was my first try.

Also, the animated shot im working on should be up by then end of the month, hopefully.

Because I Still Need To Post

2010-02-06T17:01:00.004-05:00

I never wanted this blog to have my drawings on it, I was planning on it being solely an animation blog. Oh well, drawing is a large part of both CG and Hand drawn animation.

So here's some new life drawings (Sadly based from more image's instead of an actual figure drawing session with a live model) where i'm definitely out of my element. The first drawing is me attempting to stylize the model, and the bottom two are in charcoal and are my attempt's at realism.

4 min

15 min

15 min

Stay tuned, i'm working on a new piece of animation goodness.

Because I Need To Post

2010-01-21T20:57:00.003-05:00

Here are a few drawing's I've done in the past month or so.

3 - 5 min

5 min

2 min

3 - 5 min

5 min

Chair Test - Final

2010-01-01T02:34:00.004-05:00

Hopefully with the darker lines, (Slightly) cleaned up figure, and full animation you can understand what's happening.

I'm happy with how it turned out, but I think it does get a bit swimmy.

Back To 2D

2009-12-30T02:11:00.006-05:00

Here's a 2D piece i'm working on, needless to say I'm not doing an 11 second club for this month. The computer can really piss you off sometimes.
Either way it brought me back to doing some hand drawn stuff, this test is actually my first acting shot in 2D.

If you can't tell whats happening due to the light line quality or my failure to bring out the emotion of the character, I'll tell you.
A bored guy is sitting down, rolls his eyes, pauses, see's something, he now see's it's something he likes, in his joy he jumps up and out towards it.

This is my second pass (Click here for detail on process) and I've pretty much nailed down my timing.
I'm going to start cleaning it up and either put a more complex character in, or just animate it fully as the "glorified stick man".

Jump Shot

2009-12-16T18:40:00.003-05:00

Here's what came out of a bit of random animating in flipbook.
I guess the idea of a jump shot just slowly climbed into my head and voila... a jump shot. Albeit I think i should have treated it more like an actual test instead of just a quick bit of fun.
Theirs so many pops and lack of proper physicality, not to mention all the jitter's due to lack of proper attention.

Oh well, it was fun and only took me a little over an hour.

11 Second Club - December

2009-12-14T22:12:00.006-05:00

I'm pretty sure that i'll be submitting a final entry to the December competition.
This audio clip was something I couldn't pass up.

OK Here's my flipbook pass.
Now this is a new approach i'm testing out, it involves doing a rough pass of animation in flipbook. The key is to not get attached to any drawing, this is done by only using rough drawings. I'm not gonna be hesitant to delete a 6 second stick man.
So instead of getting beautiful drawings, your focusing on your characters acting and performance.

This approach was one i took from Dreamworks Supervising Animator, Jason Ryan.

Anyway here's my rough.

Overall, i'm pretty satisfied with the performance. I think that I really avoided cliche's and went with originality in my acting. But that's just me, you could think it sucks worse than anything you've ever seen.

Lip Sync Number Two

2009-12-05T21:03:00.002-05:00

So I really liked the audio for this month's 11 Second Club contest.

I decided that I would animate the lip sync first because i need the practice.
Normally in animation you would animate the body movements and then add the lip sync to make what should already be good, better.

This way I get my lip sync practice, and already have the lip sync plotted out for me if I decide to enter the contest.

Overall I'm pretty happy with this.. the older man's sync seems to be off at times, but I'm sure in time I'll get better.

So I Lied...

2009-11-25T18:53:00.002-05:00

Well my dad bought the Jason Ryan Webinar set for me.
He's been an animator for a while and has worked for Disney, Bluth, and currently Dreamworks on Shrek 4.

The Webinars are basically 2 hour long tutorial's that come in purchases of 12.
Ive been going through them and saw that their was a really interesting one on Lip Sync, which I clearly have an issue with.
So I guess hand drawn will have to wait for a bit.

Above is the Flipbook version. I can quickly put in mouth shapes and see how it works together in motion.

And here is the 3D version. I import all the stills of the previous test into my 3D application and use it as a guideline.

Jason Ryan's really helped I think. Even with this single test I can tell I'm improving, just look back at my August competition entry.

Last Flipbook Test!

2009-11-04T17:57:00.004-05:00

I'm posting what I hope will be my last digital 2d peice. I'm missing pencil and paper.

I'm actually pretty happy with this, no big complaints really.
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My Very First Quadruped...

2009-10-26T15:16:00.003-04:00

Here's my first attempt at a horse's walk..

Definately needs aloooott of work.
I wanted to try this due to a short story idea thats been floating around my head, needless to say, it involves horses.

I'm actually starting to fall into a flipbook trap almost haha. It's so much easier and i can see how it looks in motion without taking a picture of each drawing and importing them... but i need to get back to legitamate hand drawn stuff..

For Lack Of Something Better...

2009-10-04T15:49:00.003-04:00

I don't really have anything interesting to post, so I just thought I'd put up another quick Flipbook Test.

I Love My New Tablet

2009-09-24T21:43:00.008-04:00

My aunt bought be this awesome "Bamboo Tablet" from Wacom and as I said it's awesome.. Heres something I whipped up in Digicel Flipbook Lite in about 15 minutes (Need to buy it to get rid of that stupid watermark)

Edit*
Wow I diddnt even notice this, although I said I would pay attention to it!
Clay Kaytis (Disney Animator of 15 years and Supervising Animator of Rhino the Hamster from Bolt) left a comment on my test of the Genie, and one of his main points was Volume control. The guy is smaller at the top of his jump and larger at the bottom... ugh, i gotta think more.

Genie Test Number 2

2009-09-20T18:15:00.003-04:00

Wow two tests in two days, very fun but very time consuming,
I also thought I would show how I progressed through the shot.

And yup, it's the genie again, I really just love the character and the design, Eric Goldberg did a fantastic job as well as all the other animators including my cousin Joe.
Below is my first pass, after thumbnailing out my action I sketch out loosely the main poses. Then I shoot them and roughly time them.

Below Is my second pass, I added breakdowns (positions between two main poses) and secondary breakdowns to determine how the shot will look, then I shoot them again and fine tune the timing.

And Finally my final. Once I have my timing I add in all the nescessary inbetweens to slow down or smooth out actions.

Overall I'm very happy with the result, and he is much more on model on this test.

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Quick Genie Test

2009-09-19T10:29:00.009-04:00

Here's my first test using the genie, I've been trying to nail down the construction of him so I could do some work with him. He's very much off model and for my next test I think I'll have it right. Only a few things bother me, one is the head's bobbing, 2nd is how only the head goes up on the passing pos and not the whole body, and lastly the arm darts back a tad too fast.

I also thought I would show what the difference between 1's and 2's are.

Above is on 1's -> 24 frames per second

Above is the same as the last one but with every other drawing removed (17-8) and going at 12 frames a second

Above is the exact same as the first one, but is run at 12 frames per second with no frames removed.
My favorite is probably the last one, it's very leisurely and doesn't draw to much attention to any errors.

Arab

2009-09-13T21:40:00.003-04:00

Found this drawing in one of my sketchbooks, this is what I draw when I'm bored.

11 Second Club August

2009-09-05T22:36:00.011-04:00

Well this month's entry was a humbler, ha ha,after my last post I went and spent a lot of time working on my 11 Second Club piece, although seeing them side by side makes me realize I should have spent far more time. Anyway I was actually feeling very confident.. a bit too confident, I didd'nt really take any steps to look at it objectively, ie: Watching it in a mirror. Well I learned from my mistakes and thats what matters.

Here it is for you to judge,

This Month: 83/188, beat about 60% of competition.
Last Month: 112/ 163, got beat by more than 70% of competition
I'd say that's a good improvement.

On the up side I learned a lot and I think I really improved from my April piece.
I think I'm gonna come back to this soon, theirs a lot that needs to be fixed, especially the settles.. It seems that too many moves just come to a stop unnaturally.

And on a side note, a whopping 25 people (Sarcasm) voted on my poll and it seems that people still like Lion King, and second to that, my personal favorite Tarzan.
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A Slight Slump...

2009-08-23T23:07:00.004-04:00

So I've hit point in my contest entry where I know it's looking crappy.... BUT I don't quite know HOW to fix it...
Sadly I'm at a point where I've all but given up on my animation and have just spent time on making the scene look pretty.

Hopefully some inspiration will pop up.
Here's where I'm at right now..

To some surprise, their IS lipsync going on
maybe i should push it more...

Sketches

2009-08-19T20:18:00.003-04:00

Heres some drawings i did while watching the documentary "Planet Earth"
Each gesture is a 30 second at most, can't do much longer without freeze framing.

Work In Progress - 11 Second Club

2009-08-18T18:26:00.004-04:00

Here is my near final blocking of my 11 Second Club Entry,
(Blocking: Poses run together without computer inbetweens, so images "jump" from pose to pose)
For me, blocking is done when it "looks" splined.
(Spline: Basically the computer putting inbetweens inbetween your poses so you will have 24 frames of images a second)
At the moment I have the standing guy nearly finished, but i have nothing but the main poses for the guy sitting, I chose to work on him last because his emotions are all reactions.
So how can i have him react with out the actions he's reacting to.

*Note that lipsync is generally the last step in the animation process.

And blogger has crappy video quality.

Some Competition

2009-08-09T21:08:00.006-04:00

Well to keep this blog updated I thought I would mention that I am going to do another 11 Second Club entry for the month of August.

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New Look

2009-07-22T01:25:00.005-04:00

So I did some slight changes to my blog,
I think I like it better.

Oh ya, and here's the new face of my blog, sketched it out and then had to wrestle Photoshop for 5 hours until I got something half decent. Weeell I think it was worth the time, I'm happy with my little self caricature as you could probably guess with the new banner.

Another Bouncing Ball

2009-07-20T19:27:00.007-04:00

Here's another bouncing ball, this time in 2D.
I'm relatively happy with this, it's the first time I've ever mixed 1's and 2's together in animation and I think it turned out fairly decent.

Hmmm, it seems blogger cut off the last bounce, oh well, it's pretty obvious nothing special happens.

Sheridan Head Turn Final

2009-07-07T15:59:00.009-04:00

Yesterday I put up my work on the head turn assignment that Sheridan does, I finished it up and so here it is.
For more info check my last post.

Sheridan Head Turn

2009-07-06T12:56:00.008-04:00

A thing I like to do a lot is look at students work and try to do it myself, of course, I don't have the teachers helping me along the way but I think that may make me a little more independant in the long run.

As far as I know, this one of the earlier projects Sheridan College students must complete.
It's a head turn of an existing character, then an expression change, then lip sync to the word meow. For now I think i'm just going to stick with a head turn only, it seems I have a lot of work to do.

See for yourself,
At the moment I have half the work done, 21 drawings out of a total of 42.

My main issue with it is the hair and the line continuity. The hair constantly changes shape above his forehead, and his eyes and nose jitter too much. I guess i need to put more time into my inbeetween's (Drawings between the main drawings - Keys).

Also if you couldn't tell, the character is Zeus of the movie "Hercules" by Disney.

Thats Better

2009-07-02T17:18:00.006-04:00

The Gramma Test i did a about a month back was pissing me off everytime i saw it, so i went back to it, altered a few things and fixed up the render.
Its definately better than before, not very good but better.

The Princess and the Frog

2009-06-26T10:47:00.011-04:00

Check this out!

http://www.awntv.com/videos/the-princess-and-the-frog-featurette

A Disney Featurette about their upcoming hand drawn movie,

so far it looks great!

School's Out!

2009-06-22T19:19:00.007-04:00

Well grade 10 is finally complete.
now im gonna have 2 months of freedom, fantastic!

And on a side note Montreal was great, i learned a ton.

Aaaaand heres something amazing that was done by the talented animator Keith lango (http://keithlango.blogspot.com/)
This is some inspirational stuff, really groundbreaking. He threw in 2's and even 3's into CG animation which is generally unheard of. I think im going to give that a try soon.

I cant mention enough how great this is

Pixar Masterclass in Montreal!

2009-06-01T21:02:00.005-04:00

Nice!
A masterclass by pixar! and its in canada!
only 8 hours away too!... well i suppose thats a bit of a drive and the class costed me 450... plus theirs hotel costs.... wow it better be worth it lol!

The event is being done by Animator Andrew Gordon and Story artist Matt Luhn on the 13 and 14 of june.

I cant wait!!

Pixar's UP

2009-05-30T11:16:00.007-04:00

I saw up last night!

it was absolutely fantastic, it had the whole package.

For the person who accidentaly stumbles on this blog, i think you should see it.

My 16th

2009-05-28T18:17:00.002-04:00

Nice, as the title says, im now 16 years old

Last Animation While Being 15!

2009-05-27T21:56:00.006-04:00

Heres an animation i started a little over a week ago,

i decided a couple of days ago that i would have all my work that i started this year done by tomorrow, i met my deadline!

Im not too happy with the lip sync and the render is a bit bright.

The sound clip is from the movie "Transformers"

The Bouncing Balls

2009-05-25T20:39:00.012-04:00

Here are my attempts at the Animation Mentor Bouncing ball assignments

Here's the regular bouncing ball,

Here's the Comparing weights Ball test, (which i hate more than anything)

And Here's the obstacle course,

Here's A Walk Cycle I Did

2009-05-25T20:07:00.009-04:00

Although this is my first walk cycle i was getting really annoyed with all my posts starting with
"My First"

I did this one about 2 weeks ago

First CG Animation

2009-05-25T19:46:00.009-04:00

This was my first crack at CG Animation i did after coming across a fantastic site called the,
"11 Second Club", it's a character animation contest,
of course i didnt do so great lol, 112/160.

here's my entry for their April Contest

I decided to pass on the may competetition to practise my fundamentals some more,
maybe i'll try again in the june competetion!