This week's assignment: Hypnotize yourself.

As a little treat, AnimationMentor provided us with a little pendulum to animate in order to hypnotize yourself in the later hours of animation. It's not part of our assignment to animate the pendulum, however, it helps us understand the principle of "overlapping action" as well as "Successive breaking of Joints." (which it's too late and I'm too tired to explain at this point. On a side note, when I was watching this week's lecture on my lunch break at work over a microwaved veggie burrito and salsa, Darcita (name changed to protect identity), the office snorter, whom I love, looked over my shoulder to snoop. She read "Successive Breaking of Joints" in bold letters on my screen. She looked at me, started snorting, and said that she was sorry for snooping, and she didn't need to know. I tried to explain this fundamental principle of animation to her, but she just put her hands up to stop me, and snorted off, shaking her head the entire way around the corner. Come to think of it, as she sauntered off, her flappy hair exemplified the concepts of "overlapping action" as well as "follow through" and "wave action." OK, back to important matters, like my animating the pendulum. I'm feeling quite sardonic tonight, but I'll push on and post the pendi's. There's 3.
Now showing in reverse order of flexibility: Have I mentioned that this is the most awesome school I've ever been a part of? The pros outweigh the cons of not getting to sit in the same room with your classmates. (Which sometimes can also be a con, so there ya go.)

Of course this course with an obstacle course was an obstacle!

That said, I came up with a couple versions of this obstacle course. I didn't think that the first version was working physically. I think that I forced the ball to go where I wanted it too, making it look unnatural, like a deranged rabbit. So my second try is a little better, but I still see areas where I need to improve. (what's new?!) The other part of this assignment was to create a devastated Stu pose. I came up with a couple of him's too. :) Just a side note, this week has definitely been the busiest yet. Unfortunately I didn't even have time to revise my heavy and light ball assignment. Bret really liked my light ball (I'm beaming with pride) but basically she alluded to the fact that the heavy ball needed some work, and gave me some great suggestions. Buuuut, this school is like the ol' mill on the river. Keeps going, and you can't stop to dabble, you've go to PUSH ON! Although I've never actually seen a real river mill, it is certainly on my to-do list after graduation.

My first try at the obstacle course: My second try:

Devastated Stu's. No, he doesn't have a migrane, nor a toothache. He is Devastated, people! With a capital "D." When people are devastated they often may look as if they have a large cavity eating away at their molar or a throbbing headache...right?

My favorite animal.

Pinky. 'Nuff said.

Obstacle Course

Now things are starting to get interesting. We were provided with an obstacle course and a ball that has a "Squash and Stretch" tool on it. Squash and Stretch is one of the most basic and important concepts in animation. It happens everywhere, only it's usually too fast for the naked eye. Bobby Beck said in the last video assignment I watched, that "Squash and Stretch should be felt but not seen. Oooooo! Woooooaah!" But for this assignment, it is OK to see it, since we're just getting a feel for how to use it.
Click on the image of the obstacle course to see my first -very rough- "blocking pass." A blocking pass is when you only see the frame in which the key is set, and there is no information filled in between keyed-frames. (I am not used to this AT all.)

To Bounce or to Plop

This weeks assignment was to animate 2 balls of differing weights. It was quite fun, but quite time consuming. One thing that I really need to work on is planning. Planning is pretty much the most important part of animating, but definitely my weakest area.

In case you were wondering, it is raining outside, and I'm stuck inside at my desk! I wish I could get out to enjoy the weather! Hopefully there will be some thunderstorms tonight.

To take a peek at my 2 animations go to

#1 #2

Bounce, Ball, Bounce!!!

Let's see, let's see. The assignment this week was to revise the first week's pose
(ie the water polo pose) based on Bret's comments. As I attempted to do this, I realized that it was quite harder than I thought, so I'm not entirely sure the revision I created is better than the original.

The other major assignment due for week 3 was to animate a bouncing ball with the weight of a basketball/soccer ball. Easy-squeezy you say? No. It is neither easy, nor squeezy to accomplish this task successfully. But try I did. And luckily we'll still get a shot at revision.

Take a gander at my FIRST BOUNCING BALL.

I'm excited! Now pose it.

Hooray! The couple of Stu's above just won the company soft-ball championships, Yeah!

Oh, what's that Stu? You're just so excited about saving money on your car insurance that you could just skip? Why is this whole thing underlined!!!

Huge work load this week: Revise the water polo pose (still anxiously awaiting mentor's critique), create a new pose that portray's excitement, and animate a bouncing ball in a side view. Which excitement pose to turn in......?

Final Pose: Water Polo!

I tweaked the polo pose a bit in attempt to give it a stronger "line of action" and more drama. Here's how it looks now, but after my mentor, Bret, critiques it, I'll have the chance to revise it again. Any suggestions?