We have a few different options when choosing assignments, and for the first assignment I chose a 180° turn. The main focus of these assignments is to try to understand the way the body shifts its weight and also to keep it in balance throughout the shot. Animation Mentor has two classes focusing on body mechanics, because this is so effing important in creating believable movement.
We had four weeks to complete the first assignment. The first week was shooting video reference and sketching thumbnails of our key poses. Week two we blocked out our shot, which means we take our sketches of the poses and recreate them using our character. After getting our critique at the beginning of each week we do another blocking pass of the shot, and in the final week polish the shot. Each week I receive an eCritique from my mentor Drew.
Meet Drew Adams. He's my mentor for this term and works at Dreamworks where he is currently an animator on the sequel to Kung Fu Panda. He's such a cool dude and a GREAT teacher. I love our Q&A sessions and his eCritiques are really great.
(this is Drew critiquing my first assignment)
This is my first assignment. It goes from my final version to the very first blocking stage:
Today I turned in my first blocking pass for the second assignment. I chose "jump on and off a box". Below is the video reference I shot followed by my blocking. This week I'll be going through the blocking plus pass of the shot. See you next week!
