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.