Blocking, video-reference shoot, AP1-results and some research.

Started off the day with picking up the block for "song & dance" where I left of last night, it's really a struggle this one.. At least compared to the previous tasks. The issues so far is pushing the poses. I want as much emotion and energy in the story-telling poses as possible (keeping the personality and mood in mind) so at the same time I want to show that the character is controlled and calm while he performs. And as Keith Lango among others tell us; walking away from the screen and coming back after a couple of minutes helps you spot what's wrong in the pose.
This helped me a lot on the most exaggerated poses, and where the character for instance steps back, the weigh shifts, etc.

I also re-watched Keith Lango's tutorials on "creating good poses" & "more on creating good poses".

All found on one page in this great blog:

http://animationhelper.blogspot.com/2010/02/creating-good-poses-keith-lango.html

And while I'm at it I would also recommend this post from the same blog:

http://animationhelper.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-09-23T20:45:00-07:00&max-results=1

It's mainly the same as we have gone through in the lectures with Penny, but I had a quick read-through anyway, it can't hurt.


I also began working on my video-reference for the presenter task today, haven't had time to look through it all yet, but i did about 40 minutes of it so I hope I have some good reference in there. (I found it useful to this now before I leave for the UK, since I got a it more space and "props" to work with here). Will take a more thorough look at it later on.

I was also made aware of an article by Kevan Shorey (one of the animators I follow on Twitter that currently is working for Dreamworks).
He wrote a interesting article on twinning.

The article can be found here:

http://www.animationtipsandtricks.com/2008/12/what-is-twinning-when-should-you-use.html

Twinning/symmetry is either:

"1. A symmetrical shape made by a character when posed, or,

2. The timing of the motion used to get into a pose. It can also be both of these at the same time." - Kevan Shorey

Examples could be for instance gestures where both hands are doing exactly the same.
As this article tells us it is possible to avoid this by delaying one arm when it moves into the pose, or pushing one of the shoulders slightly higher on one side to break the symmetry in the pose.

I like the fact that he made up a character and a situation to explain twinning, made it both more enjoyable and easier to understand.

There are also exceptions to this "problem" though. As Richard Williams wrote in "The Animator's Survival Kit":

-"Just watch any politician, preacher or leader of whatever, or expert on television. When they're laying down the law their arms and hands will twin symmetrically."

So it has it's purpose in animation as well, you just have to be sure when to use it and not.


Oh, and by the way; I apologize that you have to copy the url's to view the pages,
but I can' get the links to work properly on the blog.. Sorry about that.

We also got our results from Animation Practice 1 today and I passed!
Really happy about that!

- Well, I think that's it for tonight.