Last post of the quarter

Okay. So it's done. This is the last class. Here was my process:

A lot of confusion. I couldn't pick a story that I actually wanted to animate. So that was a problem. When week 8 came, I just chose and thought of a simple way to animate it. I blame my rush on my senior project. Anyway, I animated a lot of symbols and used a lot of cut-outs, which I can say that I am very proud to have made. It was not-so-sweet and simple.

The end.

final

not too happy with this, but at least it's done.

model sheets

yeah so i never posted these. but i did them. and they're done.

Schedule

My schedule is to have this done by the weekend. But I'll try to move things around so I can have it done before next Wednesday.

So my basic plan is to work on this until it is done.

Storyboard

yeah they're done as of 4:00 this morning.

Script (the Real One)

PIRATE V. NINJA

EST SHOT: haven't decided

Face-off between ninja and pirate.

Ninja jumps into the air,

Pirate opens fire from her pistol.

Ninja throws some sweet throwing-stars (probably have a better name for them, but whatevs.)

One slices pirate across the face. She turns away and grabs her wound in pain.

Once her back is turned, the ninja lands behind her and runs her through with her katana.

Pirate is shocked, but turns around with a smile to the ninja.

Pirate raises her pistol and shoots the ninja point-blank in the head.

BOTH DIE.

the end.

Premise (the Real One)

I am doing the always cliched Pirate verse Ninja. BUT in mine, they both will die. Probably because I don't have a favorite between the two, and I don't want people to think that whoever I let win is my favorite. So they will both die. Suckas.

RESTART

I am restarting. So forget everything you've read before this.

I also need to finish this project by this weekend. I haven't slept for the past three days.

Wa Wa We Wa.

Schedule

This weekend - I am finishing backgrounds and getting all my characters set up and symbols made for them

WEEK 8 - Animate

WEEK 9 - Animate

WEEK 10 - Sync to music.

DONE.

p.s. - it's week seven, and I just put up a profile photo. HA.

monday morning - sike its wednesday

Well today I have a big test to study for, which I really don't want to AT ALL. It is such a dumb class that the thought of being tested on this information makes me disgusted with the education system.

BLAH. It has NOT been a good week for me.

Anywho, I am doing backgrounds today, hopefully I can get all three done. Photoshop or Illustrator? I don't know yet.

hello stranger

I am finally making some progress on this, which feels good. I'm actually excited to start working on this. Hooray. AND I also got my sweet plaid shirt that I've been dying to get since forever. I'm wearing it right now. I look good. I mean really good.

Today in class I want to finish one more character sheets for my main character. She's very rough in the storyboards (which are rough to begin with) so I'll be able to start once she's nailed down. I'm not doing model sheets for the band because they'll be staying in the same position the whole time. And I am lazy. Ha.

SCRIPT

EXT. THE SKYLINE OF A CITY (0:00 - 0:10) - Cupid is flying in the sky, firing arrows below. He zooms offscreen down to street level

EXT. STREET (0:10 - 0:17)

Bunches of couples are in love, all of them struck with arrows. Cupid is flying (right to left) down the sidewalk, clearly satisfied with his work. He flies past the band (Golden Capo) who is singing in the background.

As he flies offscreen, a girl alone walks on screen. Cupid notices, poking his head back on screen.

MED SHOT (0:18 - 0:26) - One of the band members offers the girl a flower but the girl refuses and keeps walking. The song holds the word "you," and the band members watch her walk by.

CLOSE UP (0:27 - 0:29) - Cupid puzzled as to why he has overlooked the girl.

EXT. STREET (0:31 - 0:37) The music picks up, the camera panning right following the girl walking past all the couples. Cupid flies up behind the girl, readying his shot towards her.

CLOSE UP (0:38 - 0:43) The girl looks down, noticing her shoe untied. Cupid's arrow flies over her as she ducks down.

EXT. STREET (0:44 - 0:55) The girl ties her shoe stands back up and continues walking; Cupid is clearly frustrated (0:44 - 0:48). He readies another shot (0:49 - 0:55). 

He fires (0:56)

The girl turns the corner as Cupid's arrow flies past her. (0:57 - 0:58)

Cupid gets angry (0:59 - 1:02). How dare anyone evade love's arrow?

EXT. AROUND THE CORNER

The girl continues as Cupid catches up to her with another arrow ready. (1:03 - 1:07)

MED SHOT (1:08 - 1:12) - Cupid pulls the arrow back.

MED SHOT (1:12 - 1:16) - From the perspective of the tip of the arrow, we see the girl's back enter into the line of fire.

CLOSE UP (1:17 - 1:20) - Cupid's face is determined, and he releases the arrow.

MED SHOT (1:21 - 1:24) - Camera follows the arrow through the air

CLOSE UP (1:25 - 1:26) - Girl gets struck in the back with arrow as symbols crash.

MED SHOT (1:26 - 1:29) - The girl is knocked down onto her knees by the arrow. A hand reaches into the frame, offering to help her up. She looks up.

WORM'S EYE SHOT (1:30 - 1:31) A boy with his hand outstretched smiling.

OTS SHOT (1:32 - 1:35) Cupid watches the boy and girl walk off, and turns to camera. He winks on the final beat, before flying off screen.

(1:36 - 1:39) - The screen fills with black, except for a heart shaped pinhole of the couple walking off in the distance. It holds for a moment, and then fills completely.

THE END.

Brand New Premise

So I have a new premise... inspired by Valentine's and a song by Golden Capo, which is a band made up of a couple kids in high school. I heard the song and thought of a little animation to go with it. It's only 1:40, so it's not too long.

The premise is that there is one girl who's not in a couple on Valentine's. Cupid takes notice of her, and wondering why he has looked over her, decided to remedy this. He keeps trying to shoot arrows at her, but keeps missing, until finally he hits her and she finds a boy to fall in love with. THE END.

I also figured I'd put the band in there as a street band playing, just as a shout out to Golden Capo, because I didn't really ask them permission to use the song yet. So... yeah. They'll probably just be in passing as the girl is walking by.

I am having difficulties actually starting this project.

Another manic monday...

As usual, I contemplated missing today's class. But I didn't. I hope I get some brownie points for coming in today because I have a lot of work to be doing.

My storyboards are being worked on. I have a lot to do for my senior II class tomorrow, so I've been trying to kick butt on them, but that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking of this class! My storyboards are slowly coming together in my head, shot by shot, and when I get the chance I will put them down on paper and scan them in. I realize the longer I take to do this the less time I will have to actually animate this thing, so the simpler I can make this the better.

PS - saw Coraline this weekend. Effing amazing. Inspired me to do my senior project, ha.

whoooo hoooo

whew. finished the last tutorial. have to say, this one gives me a good laugh.

boo ya

walk cycle = done.

and its the second half...

We're in the second half of the quarter. I am behind in every class. I am also deathly ill. I cannot wait for this weekend to sleep forever.

I don't really know what to update, except that I hope to finish at least one more tutorial by the end of class. I wanted to finish both, but my cold is really taking it out of me, and all this medicine I'm on is making me soooooooo tired. I barely made it to class this morning, and I don't have anything new to show for my senior II class tomorrow. Awesome.

Whatevs. I'm gonna get to work.

hello roto

I finished the Rotoscoping. Hated every second of it.

First one: Very jumpy. I'm blaming the original movie.



Second One: It's of my cat, Gary. The video was really dark, so at first I couldn't make out his form enough to keep the lines from wobbling, but as I watched it, I kinda liked the style. It looked pretty sweet, so I went ahead and did the rest real loose so it stayed wobbly. I like it. It's Gary jumping on my counters as he follows the sounds of me shaking the bag of treats (which is why the camera is so shaky).




I am deathly ill, so I might not be able to get to the other two tutorials, but I will try. But first and foremost, I must finish my senior II work!!

Personal Test

I wanted to try and name the 12 Principles of Animation. So here it goes (no cheating):

1. Anticipation
2. Squash and Stretch
3. Appeal
4. Overlapping Action and Follow Through
5. Secondary Action
6. Solid Drawing
7. Slow-in and Slow-out
8. Timing
9. Arcs
10. Exaggeration
11.
12.

Okay. I forgot two. Dammit.

They were "straight-ahead and pose to pose animation" and "staging." Whatevs. I think I remember those when I'm animating, but now I'll make sure.

Happy Groundhog's Day!

Happy Groundhog's Day everyone. If you didn't know, the groundhog saw his shadow, so six more weeks of winter. Booooo.

Either way, we are halfway through the quarter. I don't have any storyboards done. I don't even have much of a script. I am very behind. I will try to finish all the tutorials today, so I can get those out of the way. I also have a checkpoint in Senior II on Thursday, so I will have to do my scenes for that before I can nail out some storyboards.

I'm definitely nailed down on a premise, though. I think it will be some guy in an office trying to get candy from a candy machine. Of course, it will get stuck. There will be some kind of rush, maybe, that he has to get his candy, or maybe he will just get really angry at the machine and destroy it somehow. All of this will be decided by next Monday.

I am getting sick again. I thought I was done with sickness a while ago, but apparently not. My throat is so sore, and I can barely keep my eyes open because I am on a lot of medication. Hooray.

Jump, puppet, jump!

Hello again. I've finished the second tutorial. I am definitely behind.

This is the first one. Pretty happy with it, although it is very wobbly, but it has a spring for a leg, so I think it's okay.


This is the second one. It's a real simple character because I couldn't think of anything else. I'm pretty sure there is something wrong with this jump, but I can't put my finger on it. It might be that it stays in the air too long. If anyone can spot it, please let me know.




Also, I've been thinking about my premise. So I'm thinking it'll be about how candy gets stuck in vending machines, or how soda machines won't ever take the only dollar you have. I'll get some character sketches and maybe some storyboards up asap. This weekend I have a lot of senior project to catch up on, so we'll see when I can get them done.

It's Monday again!

So... nothing new to report. My puppet still isn't jumping the way I want it to. I will keep working and hopefully have it by the end of today or at least by Wednesday. Then I have to start on the rotoscoping. Lots to do before midterm.

Concept: A 00000001000000001000000100001000000000010000000100000000000001 It's about robots. Actually, I'm still not sure. Whatevs, I'll figure it out later.

Update

Ew. People should stop turning other's computers off.

I have no heat in my house. It was 44 degrees in my house when I left this morning. Electrician guy is coming today, so I have to go back home immediately after class. Woo-hoo.

I've been trying to work on my senior project for the past five days, but I have run out of animation paper. Ex Libris and Primary are both completely out of stock. This is so frustrating because I can't really do much of anything until I can get more paper to finish my inbetweening. I hope my teacher understands, because I am kind of stuck at this point. How do they run out of paper???? Ugh.

Also, I've been trying to think about what I can do for this class. Maybe I will dig up an old idea and redo it, because I have a couple of old 2D projects with a good concept and not so good animation. This would be a nice opportunity to fix one up into a finished piece. I've completed the bouncing ball, but I have not yet started on the jumping puppet. Apparently, we have to scan in our own drawing for one animation, which I have also yet to do. I am going to be doing so much work this weekend.

And I'm getting a cold. Awesome.

Bouncing Balls

I just finished my bouncing ball assignment so I'm putting up the AVIs on my awesome blog. Enjoy.



This one was made using the Ease In and Out slider in the properties box on the bottom. I liked using this method better than the other one, it seemed simpler to me.



This one was made using the Custom Easy In and Out graph editor. I thought this was harder, but with the help of my fellow classmates (Gabe Vega) I managed to produce a decent ball bounce.

Illustration

I've just been searching google, which I could do pretty much all day. Here's what I found:


- Lisa Henderling
- Derek Art
-Pascal Blanchet

I don't really look at illustration much, but these are what caught my eye. Enjoy.

Animation Inspiration!

Well, I've been thinking a lot about what kind of digital cartoons that I like, and I've discovered that I like a whole bunch of 'em.

My personal favorite show is Family Guy. I think that's a digital cel animation, but I could be wrong. I'll put a clip in anyway.

One cartoon that I know for a fact is digital cel is Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. I enjoyed this show, but more than that, I fell in love with the style. I especially loved the opening title, but I couldn't find a decent clip of it. The only thing I could find was this short episode, so here you go.

Here's another show, Chowder, whose style I think is pretty sweet. I like how the patterns aren't really drawn on there. It's hard to describe, but it's like there's a texture where a solid color would be. I couldn't find any short clip, so here's a full episode. Watch the patterns on the clothes.

Day One

It's the first day of class! It's raining and my hair is completely ruined in this humidity.

I wanted to learn Flash real bad, but I guess SCAD no longer teaches it. Hopefully, no matter what program we learn, I can get a nice complete piece for my reel.

Hopefully.