Life drawing

this is my first life drawing one where we has a 2 minutes on each and then she would change position, i shot these ones in 4s and on 12 frames a second. as i didnt know we would be doing this i did them on newsprint and the have no wholes on them so its hard to keep them in position.

This is the second time we did this in life drawing and this time i was prepared with paper and a peg bar ! I shot these in threes and on 25 frames a second which i think works better than the 12 frames a second 

third line test

Ok i cant really see what else is not quite right so im going to move on to the next bit and wait for Andys feedback as im sure he will be able to direct me into what im missing

Line test 2

i corrected the arm at the beginning but noticed the arm at the end is missing a frame and doesn't look right, also the first lift of the back leg at the beginning snaps as the knee bends.

i decided to shoot the one on doubles to see if i could slow it down so that i could see better whats going wrong

First character line test!

Here is my story board for what i think should happen on his lovely walk

This is the first part of him walking with a happy confidence as things are going good! shot as singles, there are some obivious flaws like right at the beginning the arm jumps and the shape of the head. I think he needs to bob down on his decline more maybe, at the end his shoulder snaps or snags abit

New Character desgins

These are just my little brain storms for new character for the walk cycle, im trying to keep them simple but effective.

I found a character that i was happy with and decided to play around with his appearance to see what i felt looked better

I know its not the greatest idea to stick with your first design but i just think he looks best this way so this is my character that i will be animating 

Here are the obstructions i was thinking of using for his walk, I have narrowed it down to just the kite, puddle and boulder now as the box doesnt give me any great ideas.

old character designs

As soon as i knew we were to develop a character for the new walk cycle i started thinking of characters to animate. Its only after our first lesson with Ansy that i realised that simple would be so much better and easier to do, frankly i had put in way too much detail into the ones i had created.

Here are just some body shapes of different poses my my characters but on reflection these's are a little to hard for me to do right now !

So its back to the drawing board for me !

My Daily Comic Strip

My first one done straight after life drawing

Monday 7/11/11

Tuesday 8/11/11

Wednesday

9/11/11

Thursday

10/11/11

Friday

11/11/11

Saturday

12/11/11

Sunday

13/11/11

Monday 

14/11/11

Tuesday

15/11/11

Wednesday

16/11/11

Thursday

17/11/11

Friday

18/11/11

Saturday

19/11/11

Sunday

20/11/11

Monday

21/11/11

And with that i am done with my 2 week comic strip!

third try at lip sink

have a little feedback from andy yesterday so i decided to try and improve this as much as i could before having to go into the next thing. I am aware its no where near perfect and i would have liked to work on it more but the lack of time is a real factor so maybe in the break i will go back to it and try to smooth it out a bit more but for now im happy !

The things i changed on this movie was the eyes at the end when he is shouting the words and the arm movements towards the end to give it more of a emotional and powerful movement.

2nd lip sync alter

 I tried to work out the kinks from the last video, the think the middle body move has a swish to it now rather than a jolt. I would like to finish this best I can this week so I can concentrate on the new project fully ! Andy brought to my attention to build tention and suspense as he is saying the second section of no more pajamas, that i should start to squint the eyes to show him becoming more irrate. The arm movement at the end could be more exagerated and have more of a snap with and jutter at the end to show force of the movement.

So that is what im going to work on next.... so stay tuned !

Second attempt at lip sync

After some feedback from Andy and a little word from Ron, I decided to go back and redo my lip sync but this time only using a 3 quater view of the body. I do realise now that there was no relation between the body and the emotion in the voice, the arms were just moving spradiclally and did not reflect the emotion or the works that the character was saying.

I also decided that he wouldnt be so angry as the last time, and try to keep the facial expressions more constant and reconisable. I decided to cut down on doing so much with the arms as it was distracting and time consuming, especially when it doesnt serve a purpose for this exercise. As it wasnt portraying the acting of emotion.

I tried to think back to the acting class to see what i would be doing and moving if i were to say these words. Hopefully the facial expressions are easier to understand this time around.

Analyising this video there are some obvious flaws, half way through the body kind of jolts, shoulders need more transistion. So before i worry about anything else i will try to sort out these problems first. I was worried that the body would be too still and rigid but it still has some movement which im pleased about. 

The reason i decided to cut down on the movement was because i found it was too much and wasnt effective so i didnt need to, i just found while animating that after a few frames i thought it might be boring so the urge to contiue to move the character got the better of me but this time i resisted the urge and it turned out much better.

5TH walk cycle

Here I tried to correct the remaining problems, like the back arm did a jutter and the hand movements from both wrists. It looks better than before but I will analysis it more to see if there is anything that I have missed.

try try again !

i dont know whats going on at the beginning the arm lines look doubled and i havent drawn it that way so i dont know why its doing that. I even tried shooting it again and it still did it ! I tried to move the position of the paper to get rid of the gap but yeah that didnt work too well either.

Hmmm curiouser and curiouser ?

First Lip Sync with SOUND !

Thank God for lovely people ! Today I finally managed to have a look though my lip sync with the sound attached, and for a first attempt I was pleasantly surprised. The mouth moves is in roughly the right places although I think the beginning needs some work, some of the sounds and movements don't match up.

I'll give it to Andy he wasn't lying about the dope sheet helping out, I doubt i would have done half as well if i hadn't have used one! I did find it hard to scrub though the sound to find out when the words start and what mouth movements to use for the sound of the word, not the letters of the word. I have noticed that on the last AH of pajamas the snap at the end should be quicker !

This is my lip sync without sound. I do realise that they way I shot it was bad and there is a gap between paper and background. There is a reason I ran out of paper so I was using other peoples but they had there holes in different places so the paper kind of moves around. I thought of zooming in on the face and cutting out the problem that way, but I like the effect I get with the whole body. Plus I spent a lot of time on the body and would be a shame to waste it just yet. In future I might just zoom in on the face. I just wanted to show that i had thought about the whole body of the character and its movements.

full body

For my Lip sync I decided to get the body down before moving the face. I did this for 2 reasons, 1 I heard Ron say it was a good idea and 2 because the body would take the most time and if that worked the mouth would follow and go in smoothly !

I did realise I caught the shade of my had in while doing some of the frames but luckily this is just a test run ! On the whole Im happy with the body there are things I need to iron out like the hands at the end, but I think the actions will make more sense once I have the sound and facial expressions in. Here's for hoping! I still haven't been able to match the sound and pictures together, but I've been asking around and some people are gonna try and help me which is good.

My Word Sheet

I wasnt clear on what type of mouth I should use, with teeth and tongue or not. I also wanted to know what my characters mouth would look like saying each sound, its also a good reference to have so that I dont have to keep looking on the internet or in different books.

No teeth or tongue

Teeth and tongue

Just tongue

 These are just some rough to give me the basic idea of each mouth movement, and they have helped me out !

The Body for Lip Sync

I decided to draw the body first to see if it looked alright and then add the facial expressions.

I wanted the arms of the body to flow and look flexible. For it to have the feeling of being made of rubber, or with it having no bones inside. But I think the arms are way too over the top so Im gonna go back and make them less exsagerated. Then from there I can add the lip and sound. The sound is still a problem premiere does not like me one little bit ! So Im still finding it hard to match them up lucky I havent got the mouth movements yet so its not that crucial. But its getting to be a real problem!

Key frames of animation

I did all the main mouth movements for the dialoge and put it into dragon, but i havent found a way to edit the sound in yet ... i know there are ways but as i havent uses these programs before im finding it difficult.

I know its too fast and that frames need to be added but until i get the sound in i dont know exactly how to change them. 

finalising characters

In the end i decided to find my own sound trace as i found it hard to think of anything but i duck to draw for the voice they gave use of daffy duck. I when on youtube and picked up a quote from one for my favorite shows adventure time.

In the end i ended up deciding that i would use one of these characters for my animation. But i still wasnt sure which one to use so i went a head with doing some facial expressions.

Even though i could do more realistic expressions with the mouse face to me it seems like i should go with long arm guy. His face was simpler and could pull more expressions, and as it is a very short animation i wouldn't be able to do fit in all the detail i wanted and have it show.

Creating a character

For the last week we have been doing lip syncing, and for that we had to design a character to do the voice. I found it hard to get the ideas flowing at first as i wanted to keep it simple so that it would be easier when it comes to animating.

Here are a few sketches i have done in my book.

4th walk cycle

I sorted out the problem with the leg .. i think well it me it looks smoother, but at the end its a bit juttery connecting the last frame to the 1st frame, so i properly need to go back and alter it some more and i still need to deal with the wrist and elbow motion.

walk 3

There was a problem with the back arm it just did flow right so I went back and changed the frames that were wrong. I had a quick talk with Ron and he said now the back leg looks off so the next think Im going to focus on is the back leg and the movement on the hand and wrists. I have to write this down or I might forget that the hand gets its movement from the wrist and follows its direction of movement.

walk 2

This was my second attempt to do the walk cycle, on the first one the body was growing and shrinking so I had to try to make sure that the body stayed the same size. I think the reason why I did that in the first place is because I wanted to make the body move up and down while walking, and in the process the body shape got altered. I had the same problem with the head as i wanted the head to bob while walking. On this one I think I have corrected the first mistake but Andy there are other areas that need work but Im getting there.

Second Walk cycle with snow

The Walk Cycle

On Tuesday we started working on the walk cycle, a 24 frame. And i can fully understand why even third years find this difficult.

Underneath are the key frames that have to be there in order for the rest of the animation to work. after the key frames were drawn i had to go back and fill in the inbetweens so thats the movement was longer and more fluid.

Shaded Ball Bounce

 

I wanted to see what the effect would be if I slightly shaded the ball in the animation. I also wanted to see what it would look like without drawing the floor every time. I think it has more impact to only see the floor on contact and prefer it to the other one I have done. Some one mentioned to me that i might be doing too many needless frames so the next one I do I intend to really concider the movement and not product so many frames on the balls decline to the floor.

First Animation Re-done

 

There was a few frames missing from my first one so this is the second attempt at making the ball look more fluid in motion. I added an additional 5 frames and lowered the 3rd bounce so it wasnt so high to make it constant with the level of energy the ball had. I think I improved from the last one and it looks fairly fluid, im still not happy about the way the 3rd bounce looks but its an improvement on the orginal.

My First Ball Animation

This is my first attempt of doing a hand drawn animation. It consists of roughly 50 frames. I was trying to make the ball very flexible like it contained water so I made it act like a balloon. Its basic but I wanted to learn the technique and try to understand the underlying factor for timing, weight and gravity. I think experienmenting with a real ball would better help me understand the balls trajectory.