Character Animation Bootcamp - Day 12 - Tween Run & Walk Cycle

Now with more migraines!

Character Animation Bootcamp - Day Nine - Run & Walk poses

The timing of the run seems off, but I think I will be able to see it better once tweening begins. This is an aspect of animating that is fuzzy & unclear in my head is proper timing.

I learned my lesson from the previous assignments and have decided to use FK on the arms from now on, unless a shot specifically requires something else.

I have screen captured the process and will be posting those soon!

Happy Back to the Future Day!

I do not understand how it is 2015.

Character Animation Bootcamp - Day Six - Tweening a Jump

Character tweened and fully animated.
The IK of the arms was a bit more difficult to work with than I had anticipated, but this is a decent jump in my opinion. :) I also documented the process and posted it to Youtubes!
Part One & Part Two

Character Animation Bootcamp - Day Four - Keying a Jump

My first week of Character Animation Bootcamp is complete. I feel very comfortable with the material, program, and rig so far and it's been fun to have some structured assignments again. The instruction is a bit more elementary than I was anticipating, but being able to go through everything at my own pace is really nice. Unfortunately, facebook is where the "communication" is supposed to happen and it is not a very good solution for communicating with virtual strangers and acquaintances. Especially since the group is so large.
It is interesting to see what my skill level is. I don't think it's as bad as I thought it was!

Character Animation Bootcamp - Day One - Strike a Pose

This first real assignment was very straightforward. Transpose the orange characters poses to the Blue character and then come up with a few of your own. I found the rig a little bit too rigid - especially on the main body as it lacks any spine deformations or bend controllers, so I slightly modified it to use the CC Bender effect to add a bit more flow to his torso.
It is very interesting how much the proportions affect the posing of each character. I never thought that the wideness of hips mattered - outside of fitting into a roller coaster or giving birth.

I have always tended to be a straight ahead animator as I never have a VO or temp track to base key poses from, but I am really looking forward to the future lessons exploring the importance of pose-to-pose and getting some more elaborate AE puppet animations under my belt.

Character Animation Bootcamp - Day Zero - Orientation Evaluation

The first assignment was an intro to one of their character rigs. The task was to move the character from out of the way of the falling squash. I decided to create a dodge roll for now - which of course ended up being much more complicated than originally expected because all the rotating controllers needed to add their value to the rotating body. Not a bad rig, but I would say it isn't quite as good as I had hoped to work with.

Character Animation Bootcamp - Day Zero - Orientation

I decided to sign up for School of Motions Character Animation Bootcamp to practice up on my animation skills. I have been doing motion graphics for years and haven't had the opportunity to work with any complex characters on projects so I figured this structured assignment style would be a great opportunity to polish some rusty skills.

I will do my best to post images & videos to chronicle my progress through the course. Looking forward to sharing what we create!