Finishing up component 1 and shooting reference for the 2nd

As the previous post mentioned I have now uploaded the new versions of the tasks in component 1.
(I mentioned most of the changes in a post added November 14th)
But I did a quite a bit more on the ball-animation and I think it looks better now. It's weird how you suddenly find several problems with a piece just by not looking at the animation for a couple of weeks.
I chose to use the days before the reference-shoot to plan what I wanted to shoot, but since I want as much time as possible for this last component I also worked hard to manage to finish up all the tasks in component 1. I had all of the feedback written down so I managed to do most of the changes that were suggested.
On the walk I changed the camera so that it's more of a 3/4 perspective view, this was suggested to me so that the audience got to see more of the animation. I also got rid of a lot of keys and re-timed it so that he's reaction became quicker. Also worked a lot on the overall hand and head movements.

(And as mentioned earlier; all the tasks can be found on the "Finished work" page.)

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So, reference shoot..
As always it was a couple of hours of pure fun. I'm really starting to enjoy these sessions!
It's social, interesting and sometimes completely bonkers. (I mean that in a good way.. Hehe.)
It can be a bit tense in the beginning, but that usually goes away after the first two takes. ALl in good fun!
I got some really nice reference-shots for my animation, and I have chosen to go with an edited version which is put together by three separate shots to match my original idea.
The reason for doing this is that the shot where we acted it out according to my idea on paper, the walk and overall acting was too slow and stiff.
The last two shots we did where much better, seemed more real and playful than the first ones. -
- But the positioning and acting where a bit off according to my plan, so I edited in those from the first takes and blended them all together.

(I have to versions of the reference-video, and I think I will be using both of them.)

So, here is my main source of reference:





And here is the other version:



(As you can see, the action happens behind the box, and I want the dog to sneak up on the character, but there is still a lot of things to implement in my animation from this one as well..)

And last, but not least a video just to show how much fun we have shooting these videos;



Good times!