character test #3

Another tester for the lip sync exercise, just experimenting with movement in the face (hence why these characters have more head than body).

Acting Workshop #1 24/10/2011

Okay, so today was our first acting workshop with the charming Rob, to begin with, as an ice breaker we stood in a circle and threw balls at eachother (literally). To make this sound less inappropiate, the aim "of the game" was to throw a ball at a person (not next to you) whilst saying their name. We did this quite well, until Rob decided that 16 balls was more of a challenge- he was right.

After this we were asked to walk around the room whilst told what we were walking on e.g rocks, ice, sand. I think this was challengnig, mainly because we had to vision ourselves at these places, but ofcourse being animators, imagining things comes naturally to us.

The main part of the day that i found entertaining and yet challenging was the "Human Puppet" task, where 3-4 people are in control of the chosen "puppet's" limbs. Overall, i was excited to do this day and look forward to next weeks!

character test #2 (colour)

The same character, just adding colour to help me see what works, this short sequence is also to determine what movements (mouth/body) work well with the figure.

Character tests for Lip Sync

This small anarchic character has been created for our Lip Sync exercise. I have added big eyes to help express what the character is feeling whilst going "wild". The voice i will be putting to him is one that was already chosen for us, a short sequence from Looney Tunes "Shoot the Duck" sketch, starring Daffy Duck. Having Daffy's voice helps me to visualize how my "creation" will speak and move and hopefully become an individual character.

Walk Cycle

After the Ball Bounce and my numerous little seperate pieces, we now arrive at the Walk Cycle. I mainly found keeping the arms moving direct to the legs, whilst not stretching the neck joint too much. I will be attempting another walk cycle, now that i have an idea of what key frames should be used and etc. My only main problem with this sequence is theres a gap from frame 1 to frame 12, where it should link beautifully and should seem timeless, i have had no such luck. My character unfortunately has a small imaginary ditch it walks down so the ending doesn't coinside with the beginning.

Dog

This experiment was to see if i could retain a character's shape, only because in the Sneeze sequence, i lost size and shape of the figure completely.

Sneeze

This was purely an experiment on the technique of "Squash and Stretch", how a character can change shape and size but yet retain it's characteristics. This sequence i am proud to post as it is an early example of character movement. There has been characters before in previous sequence but this one is a main example of the technique.

One more bounce

This be a bounce sequence, purely concentrating on the bounce. I have never done a bounce sequence before so was nervous, yet after all it's only a ball, how hard can it be to move? Quite hard.
After mapping out how to move the ball, using key frames to mark the main points of the ball's journey across the screen, i then captured it on Dragon. As i was capturing the frames, i noticed the camera was having trouble picking up the images i had drawn, so it became blurry, I wrestled with the camera until i thought i could use this blurriness to it's full potential. As you will see, hopefully, is that the blurred frames coinside with the normal frames and together give the sequence a softer look, especially when  the ball hits the ground and bounces back up.

Ball bounce.... again

Once again, i am bouncing balls, but am thrilled to be doing it. In this short sequence we see a ball bouncing into shot, and is quite quickly destroyed by a passing UFO. With this particular sequence i wanted to show depth and tone so i added shading on the ball and a little on the UFO. Originally, when completed on Dragon, i thought it was too quick, the audience doesn't get to see the full effect of the Squash and Stretch motion from the ball nor do they see the UFO and all its 'spacey' glory. But then, i realised that it was shot at 24 fps (frames per second), when it should be in 12, so i quickly changed it and here you are.

Bouncing ball

So, this is a finished ball bounce sequence i did, using Dragon on the lovely Macs. I originally had this sequence completed at 28-29 frames but cut down purely because i thought it didn't need the added frames. The small character you see on screen is, if you pardon the pun "getting the ball rolling" as very quickly he is removed and his eyes demostrate a more comic ball bounce, but i felt they are the best ball bounces i have created so far. 

Bouncing ball

Ok, so my name is Nick Ives and i am trying not make a mess of my blog. Above is the rough outline of the "Bouncing Ball" sequence where, quite easy to understand, we had to bounce a ball. Automatically i was fearing the worse, as any amateur animator would but kept my nerve and carried on. We were shown the famous "Luxo Jr" Pixar film, where the genius that is John Lassater created a character out of an everyday object. So this got me thinking, yes it is a bouncing ball, yes it would be effected by gravity and yes would have to seem fluent. But out of all this, a character could be created.


Due to a problem with a file error, completely my fault as i am still learning how to use Macs- my bouncing ball sequence is not loading up, but will have it shortly.