Final Post- Week Five

There were several times where I considered what other genius projects I could be doing. There could have been something to do with music like song covers or song writing, or even something like perfecting a certain skill with my drawing. However, I really do believe forcing myself into this field really encouraged me to broaden my horizons.

Animation taught me that perfection isn't always key. Sometimes, it's just the fact that you managed to do something is satisfying enough. I feel that as long as I managed to finally do it, I improved even in the slightest bit.

If I were to continue on the route of animation, I would definitely have a thousand more test animations before I actually attempted a final cut, for those seem to be the most effective in helping me learn and grow as both an artist and an animator. I also believe that animating gives me a better sense of anatomy and structure, and will help me improve on making more realistic artwork.

Even though I don't think I'd put this into an actual career, it still reminds me of the old days when I wanted to be an animator. Maybe it might be a new passion brewing up, but for now, it's at least a nice reminder of the past. I'm happy I was able to take it on.

I feel that I was rather satisfied with my presentation for the genius hour, and put my full heart into it. However, I noticed that I often found myself shaking even though I wasn't too nervous. Weird, isn't it? It happens often with public speaking. I guess it's just nerves.

Anyway, I hope that my message got across to my audience and that they felt inspiration from my tale. It was an interesting journey, and I hope that other artists may consider taking part in animation for the future.

This was really an amazing journey to take part in, and the hard and long work was really worth it. Thank you all for reading.

Week 4- Watching the details, reading in between the lines

Hi guys!

Sorry I haven’t been able to share much as often as others have! I’ve been really busy lately!

Today I just finished my thirty second animation. Well, that’s the rough sketches, of course. I made sure that I had all the keyframes in place so that I have a general idea of what the animation will look like. However, I still need to use this whole week to my advantage in order to do the finished product. However, it’s looking rather nice so far!

While animating I tend to critique myself a lot as I’m  going, and I feel that it makes the process a lot longer than it should be. Of course, while that could be beneficial in some ways, it’s really bad for me too. When I’m on a tight schedule and I NEED to get something done, the eye placement in the storyboard shouldn’t matter. I need to make sure that everything that I do is on schedule and ready to go when I need it to be done, and I think that’s one of the most stressful parts of animating.

However, though I AM saying this, I definitely do think some critique needs to be in order when doing the final product. If one line is out of place, you instantly have a jerky frame. Even if it’s just for a millisecond, the eyes notice that. It’s insane, we catch things so fast, details are so important to us. However, I can definitely see myself improving with fluidity.

Something that I recognized that I need to study more in this case that I didn’t consider studying before is some anatomy. I need to study how the jaw changes when the head turns, or each and every moment that the eye begins to blink, open, partially open, closed, partially reopened, opened. I need to watch the way a wrist twists or the way a shoulder rotates forward when you put your arm up. It’s a lot of details that I just really wasn't prepared to think about.

Another thing is making sure that when animating a person, the movements are not robotic. However, I believe that it takes years and years of practice in order to accomplish this. As an artist, I know how difficult it is to bring life and emotion into a single image. Now imagine putting 900, 1800, MILLIONS of frames in a life-like state. It’s nearly impossible, or at least, that’s how it feels. I know I won’t make a perfect animation, but I really do believe that this taught me something about both my animation and my artwork. I need to sit down and take my time, be patient. If I don’t have it now? Perhaps I’ll get it tomorrow, perhaps I’m missing something. Sit down, read, watch a video, animate more. Really, though, it’s more the personal experience that we have to gain. It’s not simply something that can be taught through youtube or simple things like that.

Oddly enough, I respect that.

Video Blog- Week 3

What is hair. Also, links below:

Week 2- Animation Trial

Hi everyone!

So above was a recording/speedpaint or animation of a video that I was working on. It didn't take too long, thirty minutes, but looking at the length of the video (A little over one second) it really shows how much progress I will need to make when trying to make a thirty second animation. Considering the length of this one, I'll probably have to put in 900 minutes worth of animating to create a decent SKETCH for the animation. Now, this is a very sloppy sketch, but it was just so that I could test all that I've learned so far.

I drew this off of the top of my head, so one thing that I'm going to have to consider is that reference will really help. Had I had a loop of a water droplet falling, I would have been able to have something that was a lot more realistic. Another thing that I learned while doing this is that if I don't want it to look as choppy, I'm really going to need a lot more frames. However, that will be much more time consuming. Fluid animations obviously take much, much longer, even if they're simply thirty seconds long.

A technique you guys may have noticed is I did all of my images on one layer, lowered the opacity, and then continued on another layer over top of this. This is so that I can use my previous pictures as a guide for my work, so that the images are not all over the place while I'm drawing them.

It took about eleven layers to make eleven frames, eventually leading to one second of moderately choppy animation. My goal is that for a second, I try to reach at least double that amount of frames. I'll try to make my official animation with twenty frames opposed to 11 in order to ensure some type of fluidity in my artwork.

Wish me luck!