Block and Blocking

Again....second post of the day!

Tonight's subject according to my timetable is animation. This is the day where I set aside trying to improve my drawing technique and actually attempt the thing I'm supposedly learning to do.

First up is my still unfinished 2D animation of a guy climbing a box. I have moved on a little from the last version that I posted. I have added a bit more to the end of the animation and added some inbetweens in the earlier part.

Box Climb Test 3
Uploaded by andylatham82

I also wanted to get some 3D stuff done tonight, so I started a little animation using the freely available Package "Package Man" Maya rig. I'm just aiming to have him stand up from a sitting position. I don't want to do anything too tough yet as I am not used to using a full rig yet. As you can see I have only put in some key frames with no computer-added inbetweens, which I believe is termed "blocking" in the business.

Package Man Blocking
Uploaded by andylatham82

Back and Forth

I have seen a lot of questions on blogs and forums about Disney model sheets. All the questions are the same;

Where the hell are they?!

Some of you may have made good use in the past of "The Unofficial Disney Animation Archive", which had hundreds of great model sheets and production drawings from Disney movies and TV shows from over the years. Some time ago this site inexplicably changed to "The Unofficial Dreamworks Animation Archive", with the loss of all the stuff from the House of Mouse, replaced by a frankly pitiful collection from the history of Dreamworks animation.

So why did this happen? I'm guessing it's not the fault of those lovely people who ran/run the site, but more likely a copyright issue.

However if you didn't manage to download them all and want to get some, all is not lost. Our knight in shining armour comes in the form of the Internet Archive, a website through which you can travel into the past of the internet. If you go to the site, you will find the "Way Back Machine. Just type a web address into this and you can find what used to be at it's location.

So what happens if we put the "Dreamworks Animation Archive" address into it? Well we get a list of dates we can go back to visit. Luckily the days of the Disney model sheets fall into some of these dates. So let's click on March 20th 2006 to begin with. Hey presto, we get the Disney site! You can then (in theory) get to all the images that used to be on there, like this one:
I say in theory because not all the images are there. I tried this method of getting back to the artwork quite a few months ago, and I tried again yesterday. What I discovered is that fewer images seem to be there now than there were before. Therefore I figured I should share my knowledge with you all before they all disappear!

Days One and Two at the School of Andy

Well the first two days of my new study timetable are over and I have a collection of drawings that I loathe to put on here! I began yesterday with figure drawing. At work I did a couple of sketches that don't really come under my definition of figure drawing. They were somewhere between gestures and figure drawings. I did them, however, without reference. In the evening I attempted some drawings from photos. I tried both charcoal and pencil, both of which I have used before to produce fairly decent figures, but in every case yesterday, I produced nothing but rubbish! Here are three such examples:
Anyway, let's move on quickly....

Today was the rather more enjoyable cartooning day. This evening I spent about three hours (I know, I can't believe it took that much time!) studying a single image from this model sheet:
And without further ado, here is my first attempt:
As you can see from my notes in it, there are lots of mistakes. On the largest scale, I have basically straightened up the pose, making it lose the feeling that this is a sinister character. This was confirmed by overlaying my drawing on the original in Photoshop:
So, having spotted my errors, I tried again:
As I was drawing this, I felt like I was doing better. However I have still straightened him out.
I meant to mention in an earlier post that I found if I try to exaggerate the pose slightly, it ends up being closer to the original. Why this is I don't know, but I guess it's just because my brain hasn't learned what's right and wrong yet. In that post I am referring to the Sylvester drawing. My original attempt at it was too upright, so I tried to make it too skewed. However the result turned out pretty well.

Finally, I thought I'd try taking the head from this wolf and rotate it, drawing the same pose. I thought it was a good idea, but it ended up with an animal that is rather fullr in the face than he should be:

Times Square

Ok I know I only just added a post about an hour ago, but I thought my idea of an animation study timetable wasn't too bad. So here it is!
It feels like I'm a kid back at school! As you can see from the lack of times on it, it's not a strict schedule. It's just a guide to keep me going. Since I am forced to study around work hours, I will mostly be following my plan during the evenings (except for weekends, where I have more freedom).

I have put thought into which days would be best for which subject too. For instance on Saturdays it makes sense for me to do quick sketching because I'm usually out in public places like shopping centres, cafés or restaurants where I can people-watch. I opted for Friday evenings to be a time purely for actual animation, whether 2D or 3D as I find it the most relaxing of all evenings and I usually have a fairly clear mind. I have tried to split up similar subjects as well. For example, I have broken up gesture drawing and figure drawing (both involving serious study of the human figure) with the more light-hearted caricature on a Tuesday. Also, by Thursday's "cartooning" I mean simply drawing cartoon characters either of my own design, or the study of the likes of Donald and Daffy.

Finally, I have kept Sundays as somewhat of a day of rest. While I don't find drawing a trial, I don't want to unwittingly cause myself to burn out! I figured if I feel like drawing on a Sunday, I will. If I don't, I won't. I would like to be able to keep time for some of my non-animation related projects too.

So with a bit of luck and a strong will, this schedule will help me keep on track with my learning. If I have the time, I will also try to post something here each day. I might even go as far as to do a weekly review of my progress too. Let's not get ahead of ourselves yet though!

The Eleventh Day

With the eleventh day passing since my last entry, I'm really quite ashamed of my lack of posting! I took a week off work with the plan of really getting to grips with my drawing. However a little thing known as a Wii soon got in the way of that.

With each day that has passed without picking up a pencil, I can almost feel my ability leaking from me, making it harder and harder to get going again. Over the last couple of days I have forced myself to draw again. I even went as far as to attempt some gesture drawings, which I haven't tried for quite some time. As I'm sure you can guess, I was less than impressed with the results! I still haven't got round to finishing my little animation that I started working on ages ago. Poor.

As well as 2D animation, I really want to get to grips with 3D. I am quite proficient at making simple clips in Maya involving essentially moving objects around with a bit of squash and stretch, but I have yet to master proper character animation with a rig. I decided I would play around with a free rigs I downloaded from the net, including one called Package Man.
I didn't really get much further than placing him in different poses though. Although posing characters for key frames is fun, I get the feeling that the process of sorting out the computer's idiotic attempts at inbetween frames is going to be extremely frustrating to cope with. I think computer animation is odd in the sense that it is so much easier to pose characters than it is with a pencil, but it's sooooo hard to get the transitions between poses to flow correctly. At least that's my impression so far.

If I have said this once, I must have said it a thousand times: I wish that I could be part of a proper learning regime. I think that I'm a fast learner with most things. However I'm finding it really difficult to know what to concentrate on and when with animation. Maybe I should resort to devising a study timetable!

25 Today!

Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday to me,
Happy birthday dear me,
Happy Birthday to me!
Woo hoo!

Journey Out Of Imagination.

Some of you may have seen a fairly recent post on John K's blog about practicing cartoon construction using toys as a reference. While I'm not actively following John's lessons, I thought this would be a good thing to try.

So I set about looking around our shelves for a character to draw, and settled on a picture frame featuring Figment, the little dragon from the "Journey into Imagination" ride at Epcot.
Here's my attempt:
and here is the model of Figment from approximately the same position:
I found it quite an eye-opening experience in all. It really drew my attention to how the lines I was drawing related to a physical object rather than an abstract figment (pardon the pun) of my imagination.

For Pete's Sake!

Today I found a great blog which has somehow eluded me thus far in my animated travels. Upon reading it, I discovered that I have seen bits and bobs from it before, usually appearing on other art-related blogs or forums. The site I'm referring to is The Cartoon Cave and is written by Pete Emslie, a cartoonist and animation teacher.

Normally I give other sites a mention if they have something that interests me but I don't believe I have ever devoted an entire post to one until now. Most people reading this blog will know of John Kricfalusi's "All Kinds of Stuff" blog where he shares his opinions on animation as well as drawing lessons and bits of inspiration. Well in The Cartoon Cave, Pete does much the same thing, but in a much more appealing manner to me (that is to say it is more constructive than critical, and he doesn't seem to be too big for his boots).

He has just given a drawing demonstration:
and he gives lots of tips on character design:
He caricatures his influences:
and analyses his technique:
He gives his own spin on things you will see on John K's blog:
and posts about things that I for one had never even considered before:
So if you read this Pete, thank you so much for the inspiration....and damn you for stopping me from actually drawing by distracting me with so much fantastic stuff!

Expressing Myself

I'm a bit slow at getting this animation finished aren't I?! At the same time I am trying to rebuild my portfolio website in Flash so it looks a bit more...well...flashy.

In the meantime, here are some more drawings, this time with a touch of colour:
I was trying to put more strength into facial expressions with these and found myself contorting my own face to get a feeling of what moves where.

I recently decided that it would be a good idea for me to learn to draw caricatures of celebrities and people I know. I'm currently useless at them, but I believe that if I can improve, it will help a lot in drawing animations as well as still images. If I get any decent ones done, I'll post them.

Doodles

Well I haven't done any more of my animation yet, so I thought I'd post some general doodles. I guess they aren't really doodles as I wasn't just scribbling aimlessley. I quite liked my interpretation of Batman:
As well as drawing my own characters and making some poses, I studied a few Looney Tunes pictures too:
As you can see I repeated Elmer Fudd as the proportions were off.

Still Boxing

Well here is a little more of my box climb animation. I'm still working on the timing of the key drawings before I add all the inbetweens.

Box Climb Test 2
Uploaded by andylatham82

Getting On Top of Things

Well I'm finally starting to get back to a bit of animation. I am in the unfortunate situation of having run out of animation paper and I'm a bit strapped for cash at the moment and so can't afford the £50 or so for a new batch. However I decided that I should turn to a digital solution in the form of Flash in order to get some practice in.

After seeing my last animation my friend in Florida, Tao Nguyen, set me a challenge:

Hi Andy,

As for an animation assignment, how about trying this out:

Do a generic character running towards a very large box (taller than the character),
jump up and grab onto the edge,
pull himself up and climb on top of the box,
antic and jump down to the other side,
land and run off screen.

You decide the staging, field size, and simplicity of the scene.

I know it sounds quite ambitious for a beginner, but there are several reasons for doing this: 1) I want you to practice thumbnailing out an entire sequence, 2) don't limit yourself to just one action, and 3) just have fun doing it! That's what animation is all about!

Don't worry about mistakes. Try your best and plan things out.

He sent me that at the start of October and I haven't got round to working on it yet, but I started last night. Here's what I have done so far (all very rough of course):

Box Climb Test
Uploaded by andylatham82

I plan to have some more inbetweens to make the climb-up smoother, as well as a few more frames while he's hanging from the edge to show him scrambling, trying to get a grip with his feet. I also haven't quite got the timing right yet.

Of course I still have to animate what he does next, but I thought I'd post what I have done so far.