Ballie Kicking

First assignment... just a simple and plain kick... jajajaja... AM decided to modify the curriculum so we students absorb better the concepts of this class. Thank god, is going to be fun but very difficult, because there's a bunch of thing to have in mind while moving and adjusting all the poses, and this is just the beginning.

Body Mechanics

We already have started with class 2; my mentor in this course is Anthony Wong. He is working right now at Pixar in the upcoming film Cars. Previously he animate at Disney and work in movies like Lion King and Mulan. So he basically is a 2D guy converted =D
Until now, classes with him has been great. He is very open to talk about the different themes that us students have doubts. We also had review some movies to see all the cool tricks guys like him use in the daily work.

Drawing Practice

I decided to practice more activily my drawing skills and explore the character designing world. Here's my first try.

Future ninja animator

I used this vacations to improve my drawing skills. I have learn a lot from all the great artist that study at AM. From people like Alec McGibben, Dan Segarra, Megan Hobby... to name a few, is incredible how somebody can improve by just being near with people of such excellent skills.

By years, I tried to draw better the human form, I bought some books and took figure drawing classes, but my technique didn't change very much... maybe because I'm a bad student =p

But since september, I felt a giant leap in my drawings. I bought since the beginning of 2005 a sketchbook to practice and since AM started my drawings skills I feel had improved a lot.

For the first time, I have to admit that drawing stickman style people to create quick thumbnails helped me a lot. Matthew, gave me some advices on my thumbnails and with the help of some books, one day everything started to make sense... an organic feeling started to come up in my drawings, a more natural pose and a more understanding of how the body is creating a pose.

I decided to study how my AM fellows draw to compare that to my findings; then put these things into practice by drawing at least 2 times by week. One huge help came from a conference that I somebody at AM posted, the speaker was a lead animator from Disney, that talk about character design. At the beginning, I just draw following the advices of this speaker without understanding why. But by the end of my AM Semester, somebody talk about the force in a drawing and the line of action... that's when all the points of the conference made sense.

So after finishing AM, I decided to practice and practice my drawing skills, because there's a lot of that I still don't get... but I think I'm on the right way. =)

3D

Working in 2D or side view, was a great way of learning all the basic stuff. Because, now that we move to the perspective view... there is a lot of things that an animator has to pay attention. For this assignment, we have be sure that the hips were moving in a real and natural way.

This was my last assignment of this first class. I really enjoy learning and I'm eager to start the second class... body mechanics... and for what I been hearing, it seems to be very challenging and something that one class can't cover. Because of all the possibilities of the human body.

Mariachi loco quiere bailar

If trying to make Ballie walk was difficult... making a personality walk, was a real challenge. Beginning with what kind of personality should I put on my assignment was very difficult. I had around 5 ideas from a sneak, sad, happy, baby, fat... bla.. bla.. .bla... In the end with the help of my friend Marcos Oliveira, I decided to make a "mexican" version of my Ballie. So I started making a reference video of the way people dance with mariachi music. After that my decision was that Ballie should be a fat and more or less older guy.

The blocking stuff was really not a problem, but once the refinement phase started... what can I say... the phantom of the knee popping appeared and make my life very difficult. With the help of my friends of AM forums I refine and refine my work until I was happy with it.

After that just some fun, I added a mariachi hat to Ballie and some music to complete my personality walk.

I can't believe.... It really walks!!!!

This is what I been waiting for... After almost 10 weeks of seeing a ball bouncing, finally we started making a simple cycle walk.
Almost all week I was so hook in the process of making my first walk cycle with Ballie, that I even dream of it like 2 or 3 times. Because there's a lot of movement in that ball with legs. The rotation of the hips, legs, feet, toes... and don't forget the animator's nightmare... KNEE POPPING!!!!
I made my animation like 4 times trying to get rid of that knee popping, but finally i think i made it.
So here's my animation for a simple vanilla walk....

Jumping and jumping

For my next assignment i spent a whole week trying to make this guy jump in a real manner. I started with a amazing 20km long and 40km height jump. After some comments... I decided to back off and make a normal... real jump.
I really loved making this assignment. First of all, because i never before made an animation of a jump and also because after polishing my arcs and paths of action my animation took a different dimension. It look nice!!!!... well at least for me =)

1 Leg jump

First 6 weeks

After struggling with a simple ball.... I finally had some time to update my blog. What a huge, huge area is the animation world... whow!!! I think the big difference between another jobs an animation is that you can't replicate or re-use what you made before. Every new animation is a new challenge, different from the last one. Even if you made something equal like a bounce, the next one should be re-animate with slightly changes so it feels REAL....

Bouncing a ball... has been quiet a challenge, mostly because I see the world slower than everybody... so I arrived at the conclusion that what I see fast is slow for everyone =D
Like Matthew says, practice and more practice will make your work improve.

So after practice and practice... here's my first decent animation....

First animation