Everything happens for a reason right?

I joined my school's volleyball team and we have practice everyday until 6. The thing I am worried about though is that maybe I won't have enough time to animate things. But I need exercise and it is fun.

Hm.... I think it will be a good experience and I will meet more people and I will know how to animate those characters more because I know more characteristics of people and such. So I guess it won't be that bad.

I just feel bad if I don't animate to much.

I should start bringing around a notepad to draw stuff and right down notes... Hm.. I think a sketchpad will be better actually. I will start in the summer because I might be doing a lot in the summer. It depends if I get that intern at Mills James production or go help at a camp that I went to as a child.

Anyways... Lets see if I can talk about animation somewhere...

Oh ya right now I am animating a skate cycle of a rollerblader. I made a skip cycle too and it turned out decent. I think I did ok but I am not to pleased with it. It seems like the ball doesn't go down right when it is supposed to but I am working on it.

But one thing that I recognize when you animate you want to keep it like a beat. Well not always but for walk cycles or skip cycles etc. Because I was animating the skate cycle and it didn't seem right when looking at it. Then I tried it myself there is a steady beat because I rollerblade so I know what I am doing and the reference was steady too.

So then I looked at the skater. Then I realized that even though the steps are spaced evenly the timing of how the leg swings for one of the legs was going faster than the other! And now it looks pretty good.

Same with the skip cycle one leg was swinging to fast compared to the other leg. It doesn't have to be exactly the same ofcourse but it can't be completely different either in my opinion.

Also I have to watch out when to move the hips down so it won't look like the character is floating.

These are what I am getting through my experience and the rules I am making for myself. But like in animation "You make rules to break them" I know when to break the rules that I made up to! Which I am pretty proud about.

Like if a rollerblader wasn't that good and was kinda new. There steps won't be smooth and fluent. Maybe they will balance on one leg more than the other because they are going to fall down that way like to the left.

And for the skip having the skips evenly spaced. Just imagine him swinging one leg real small with a small arc and then when it comes back it makes the other foot swing reaaal far making a big arc to the side.

I am not sure what type of person will do this because it is just an idea.

Anyways thats enough babbling right now

Cye

Portfolio

Right now I am working on things to try to get an internship and mill james production.

I have a few rendered stuff but the thing I really want to get into is the character animation. Soo I am making some stuff with the leg rig like the one from AM.

Anyways I got a skip done... It is decent but can use some work. But the thing I am working on now is the rollerblade cycle... It is pretty hard for me a beginner, but with most stuff I work on if I work on it to much then things seem wrong even though they are right. So I need to take a break and think about it. It is just hard because it is like the treadmill cycle, so its kind of hard to visualize things.

But I figured out one problem. When your leg is passing the knee leads first and then the foot follows like a pendulum and I think that is overlapping action! Woohoo!

haha that took me a while to figure out.

Anyways I hope I can get that intern at Mills James Production because that would just be awesome.

Gonna take a quick break right now!

Cya!

No Circus

Well my family decided not to go to the circus today. Which I am kinda sad/glad about it. I'm glad that we didn't go because we already spent a lot of money this spring break. Like shopping, I got shoes for volleyball and watching Horton hears a who eating out etc.

But kinda sad that I can't observe the people. Ohwell.

So far today I dedicated myself on a skip cycle I was working on about for 2 days. I thought it was decent until... I went on youtube to watch some AM students work... This bummed me out more but inspired me to work harder.

But man I am so jealous of those students because they have such a wonderful community. They get help from everyone. The forums I find are mostly 3d animation haters (or it seems) or they are more interested in rendering/modeling etc.

I wish sooo badly that I can join the AM forums because I need that to get better. I don't know where to get advice from. But I am not letting that stop me. The nine old men didn't have anywhere to go! Just by trial and error. I'll just try what they do and hopefully it works!

I'm not quiting!

Circus

I think my family is going to the circus today!

The thing I am looking forward to is seeing the people there and studying them. Because I bet you there are a lot of interesting people going to the circus and I can pick up a lot of stuff.

I really have to get in the habit of studying instead of just seeing what is happening... And I always forget to ah!

But I am still learning and trying.

I'll type up everything that I notice and see if I did recognize anything!

Timing and Getting into the character

This is my first try at doing this. And after reading a ton of blogs about animation I'm gonna give it a try on how to do this. And I am a type of learner when I type it out I remember things better for myself so heeeereee it goes.

Timing.
I read a lot about timing in blogs and how important it was. I thought hm.. thats not a hard concept to understand. Why make it such a big deal? But then I realized it can change everything in a situation, just by how things are timed. I realized this while walking in my High school. I was walking to my computer class (late as always) trying to avoid my strict math teacher looking at me because I am tardy everyday. When I was walking down a hall there was these office helpers walked across the hall from me. When they were halfway between the hall in front of me they looked over at me and was still walking then kept on walking. For some reason there, I have no idea how, but it got me thinking about timing in animation.

For example, since they turned there head halfway not right away when they entered they didn't know I was there and probably caught me on the side of there eye. So they wanted to see who I was so they turned to look to see who was walking towards them. They didn't because they probably think that they don't know me because there friends would probably say "hey!" outloud.

While still walking to class I was thinking of different situations and messing around with the timing to see what different results I could get.

One thing that kind of freaked me out when if the person that was walking across the hall when I saw them had there head turned towards me the whole time. This would make me think they were expecting me there and they are going to plan something.

If the person looked at me once in the middle of the hallway then looked again they can be one checking me out (lol) or they recognize me and want to ask me a question or I know them.

I could go with so much more examples about this and come up with a certain situation.

Another thing that I realized that was kinda easy but not. Getting into the character.

I was watching 11 second club films and listening to the audio file. There was one that I liked "There is a moment, there is always a moment, I can do this, I can give into it... I don't know when your moment was, but I bet you there was one"

I enjoyed watching all the different types of ways people expressed this dialog's. But I still didn't understand about the character or anything.[

Then recently I watched the movie closer... And then BAM! I heard the line! I got sooo excited about this and watched it over and over again. This is because I know how the character is, I know what type of person the character is! I got soo excited! Then I realized, wow the 11 second club people have to put like sooo much effort to get into that expression and have that feeling because it took a lil bit in the movie to get into that line.

The next day I tried acting out the lines and tried different methods to express this feeling. There are sooo many possibilities. But in my opinion it is hard to find the exact one to get that feeling right. And I questioned everything I did. Once I grabbed my face to wipe about the tear. Then I thought to myself... Why did I do this? Would the character do this? I realized NO they wouldn't. Because she was mad when they were breaking up and she wouldn't recognize this, she will just talk.

Then I thought of putting the hand behind there head stretching but then I thought that is more of a manly thing to do in this situation.

I couldn't get the right expression for it but I am going to keep on searching because I remember the line, and this is the first time I can think in the character and I want to get a hang of this.

But I think the actor for that part did the perfect job for it. It feels natural, it feels like the character etc.

That also reminds me a lot about acting. Geez I need to learn a lot.

Sorry my english is bad.

But I hope you enjoyed reading!

Animation

I love it!

But I have no one to talk to about it :(

Thats why I can't wait to go to animation mentor! So many people connected and so many people to help!

But that isn't stopping me from practicing ;)