Winter Break Take 2

I decided to do another side-step animation all together. I shot more reference footage of myself and took more time to block in the key poses. Converting to spline wasn't too painful. I got sucked into after holiday sales today during my lunch break.

WINTER BREAK

This break, I'm trying to improve my gesture drawing skills as well as work on the shifting of weight of a character in a side-step. Click image for a very rough splinned version of the side step. I need to fix the popping knees (a given)) but I'd also like to make it feel a little less swimmy. Critiques very welcomed! :)

My Final Assignment for Session 1.

Wow, this has really been an amazing experience... I made it through the first session of AnimationMentor. I'm sad to see it go, but I'm glad I still have 5 more sessions left! I'm looking forward to the challenges that lie in the next session: Body Mechanics. Word on the street is that this is a really difficult class. This week we were asked to add hips to the walk. I added this shifting of weight to my personality walk: Romper Stomper.

Today I was watching the "Special Features: Behind the Scenes" Finding Nemo when I caught a glimpse of our own Bobby Beck. (Is Cameron Miyasaki hidden in the mix as well? The guy on the couch playing the game is in many of our lectures, but BLAST! I can't remember his name at this exact moment.) This group of animators are all jumping and shouting around a video game. aka "working." ;) (Just jokin' here, the animators work extremely hard!) Either way, this behind the scenes was a little heavy on the cheese, but I got a chuckle out of it.

Balanced Pose

Along with this weeks assignment to add or correct hip motion in one of our walk cycles (either vanilla or personality) we must create a pose of Stu "in balance." I've come up with these as my first and second tries.

The BretP Bunch!

(Photo credits to Sean Dicken, Thank you Sean!)

Last night was our last Q and A with our current classmates and Bret Parker. I'm woman enough to admit I got a little misty-eyed during the "goodbyes." After all,, it was a great class, and Bret was a fantastic mentor. In fact, she was this month's featured mentor on the AM newsletter!

The awesome photo compilation above was created by Sean Dicken (bottom right square.) This current version is just the prototype as Sean is still is going to add Paul Metcalf who unfortunately was unable to attend the farewell q and a.

In order of appearance left to right, top to bottom:
Mario Pochat, BRET PARKER, Paul Kooi, John Slowsky, Brian Wyser, Lauren Wells (ahem), Eduardo Flores, Buddy, the possessed ventriloquist dummy, Fredy Burgos, Jace Bandalin, Ashley Wilson, Leo Santos, Chad Moore, John Stoll and his "Phat" hat, and el artiste, Sean Dicken!

During last night's final q and a, Bret went through each student, giving final, personalized words of wisdom to all. She suggested that my stronger area was a good sense of physics, so, hey, I'll take it.

To the sketchbook!

The Stomp of the Romper

Oh, hey, welcome. You're just in time for the debut of ------->

"The MINT" San Francisco student gathering.

WOW! This week was so awesome mere words cannot describe. We had a student gathering at this fun karaoke bar called "The Mint." There is nothing like the feeling of finally meeting the people that you only know through type and avatars. It was a pretty good turn out. MY MENTOR came! It was awesome to talk to Bret...she's such a sweet, fun person on top of being a top animator!
Above: Me, Bret Parker (AM mentor for session 1) and Ashley Wilson, my awesome classmate.Above, is myself, my friend Casey, Ashley (Bret mentee), Sean Dicken (Bret mentee), Bryan Wyser (Bret mentee) and Taylor Mahony (AM staff and student)! Fun times.

A little later in the evening... From left to right: the nose, mouth and left eyebrow of Ashley Wilson, myself, Bryan Wyser, Carlos Baena, Casey (non-AM lizard-girl.)

For a more comprehensive view of the evening you can look at my photobucket pics at http://photobucket.com/albums/d97/santalaurita/?start=all
or for actual video footage of the wonderful karaoke voices of the AMers you can look at Taylor's link: http://taylor.mahony.org/photos/AM_mint