Character Design

Character Design - Muzzle & Beak

This semester in Character Design we got back to animals! For our first assignment, we had to design a character with a muzzle, and a character with a beak (only real animals). These characters will be used in a later animation lip sync assignment. I chose to design a desert mouse and an ostrich. This was slightly influenced by the dialogue clip I intend to animate to, as I wanted the character designs to fit the voices. See the full assignment after the break.

Lip Sync

Animation - Lip Sync

 

 

 

The first animation assignment of this semester is a lip sync. Of the provided track selections, I chose this one from Dazed and Confused. I chose it because it was a pretty rapid-fire line of dialogue and I thought I could get a lot of dramatic mouth shapes out if it. In hindsight, I wish I'd chosen one with slower dialogue so the animation could look smoother (it's on 2's, to help us learn the 'approximation factor' of lip sync). I like how the individual frames turned out, in part because I cleaned it up with soft pitt oil pencils which I recently, finally, got ahold of and fell in love with.

Leica Reel

Not Again! - Leica Reel

The last step in the assignment was to choose a scratch track and sound effects, and time the storyboards out into a leica reel. This is the culmination of the assignment, and the last work from last semester. My leica was one of those chosen to run on the in-school televisions, so if you stare at them long enough, you'll see it eventually.

The next posts will be work from the current semester, and as it's just begun updates won't be regular, but rather as I complete assignments. I'll still try to keep updates on Sundays and Wednesdays though.

Colour Keys

Not Again! - Colour Keys

A related assignment in painting class was to take four storyboard panels (which approximately tell the full story) and paint them. I decided to take the opportunity to create colour keys for my still in-progress Leica Reel. After the break, see the original storyboards, digital colour keys, and final gouache colour keys.

Storyboards

Not Again! - Storyboards

The next step in the process was to actually create the storyboard. Simple! Except I had a bit too much fun with this one and it ended up a bit longer than expected. Then at the turnover session, suggestions actually lengthened it. So, see the full storyboard after the break.

Beat Boards

Not Again! - Beat Boards

Our final assignment from last semester's storyboarding class was a lengthy and cumulative one. It began with a class discussion to choose a topic, and our class came up with a theme of 'Not Again!' It was a loose launching point from which we all developed our own story ideas for a short animation. From there we developed our beat boards and character lineups, which went through one pitch and review before these final boards.

Character Line-Up

Animal Life Drawing

Animal Life Drawing - ROM Skeletons

One of our field trips last semester was to the Royal Ontario Museum, where we had a 'life' drawing assignment - drawing animal skeletons, and later superimposing (from research) the flesh contours and at least three muscles onto the skeleton. The original drawings were about an hour in length. See all three that I completed after the break.

Life Drawing

Life Drawing

I've always been hesitant to display my life drawing, as it's one of my weakest subjects. However I have seen some improvement over the last two years, since I started, so I collected a good representational sample of my current life drawing abilities to post here. There are well over 100 drawings after the break, ranging from 30 second gestures to 10 minute studies, ending with some ecorche muscle studies and other exercises. Note that all of these drawings, including the ecorche drawings, were done before my recent muscle studying. I hope to see an improvement in my future drawings because of it.

Expression Change

Expression Change - Sound

 

 

Our last animation assignment from the first semester was an expression change assignment. A character was required to begin with one emotion, encounter something which changes their expression, and ultimately end with a third expression. I was pressed for time when I originally made it, so it was pretty short and minimal. Later when I found I still had time to work on it before submission, I added a good deal to both the beginning and end. As I hadn't originally planned them, I'm not sure this animation fits together as a whole as well as I'd like. If I'd done it again, I may have cut it off sooner, but I figured I'd upload it in full because I like the actual animation regardless.

This, along with the walk cycles assignment, both made it onto the respective highlight reels for our year. I think the lessons learned from the Weight/Lift/Toss assignments really helped me out.

Expressions

Character Design - Expressions

 

 

 

Following the charicature portfolio, we were asked to take elements from the charactures we'd created to design a man and a woman, and to express specific emotions with those characters.

 



Layout Exercises

Layout Exercises - Chairs and Cars

 

 

For much of the last semester, each week we were assigned a number of 'practice sketches' of chairs or cars, with or without characters. I wish I had time to do more of them, because they did help. See more after the break.

 

Layout

Layout - Ballroom Interior

 

 

This assignment was to take one of the previous large/small interior layouts and produce long, medium, close up, and exterior shots using that layout. I chose to use my ballroom interior. See the new shots after the break.

 

Charicatures

Charicatures

 

 

One of our last Charicater Design assignment from last year was to create a portfolio of charicatures, drawn from life or video, with a selection of headshots and full body poses. See my full portfolio after the break.

 

Rec Room Fred

Maya - Rec Room Fred - Sound

 

 

Our last Maya assignment was with a character called Fred. Fred was placed in a rec room environment, and the assignment required us to have him walk down the stairs, walk over to and sit down in an armchair, and lip sync a line of dialogue. I tried to give mine a little extra action, and chose my own line of dialogue from the movie 'Wayne's World.' I really like how this one turned out.



Dog Walk Cycle

Walk Cycle - Dog

 

 

After the previous Maya walk cycle assignments, we were given a four-legged character model and tasked to create its walk cycle.  I had some spare time, so I stuck it on a background and added a little extra animation at the end.

Layout Painting

Layout Painting - Persian Street Scene

 

 

One of our final painting assignments for the first semester was to take one of our previous layout assignments and paint it, which was fun. I really like how the colours turned out in this one. See all the steps between layout and the final painting after the break.