Sketch Blog-Final Battle

For this past week's theme we had to do something involving a final battle.  I decided to so something actually involving Spike (my schools mascot) seeing as how the sketch blog is called 'Spikes Sketch Squad'.  This is how I imagine Spike would do battle with the graph editor and the Dastardly Dr Spline who destroys all of your hard work during the blocking stage when you switch over to spline mode in Maya.  I wish that Spike would fight splines and unruly tangents for me...

Class 2 Progress Reel

So Class 2 is now finished and I learned so much!  Pete was an amazing mentor, and was never afraid to tell it like it is which I think helped me a lot and pushed my work further.  He also had hilarious Q&A's with much profanity and trying his best not to swear which kept me laughing all term.  I also have to thank all of my crazy awesome classmates for all of their support and helpful feedback on my assignments!  I definitely had my struggles this class but I have learned from them and overall I really enjoyed class 2!  Now here is my progress reel from the term!

Animation Mentor Class 2-week 7-11

For our final assignment of class 2 I picked the simple dance move option.  There were a bunch of different dance styles that I was thinking of doing, like Bollywood, 80's music video dancing, Michael Jackson, something from one of the Fred Astaire/Gene Kelly musicals or the Charleston.  I ended up looking at a bunch of 60's dances like the twist, fruging, the dance from Nancy Sinatra's 'These Boots Are Made For Walking' video (which closely resembles my mom's dance style) and then I remembered the dance from the beginning of the first Austin Powers movie.  It had just the right amount of fabulous 60's-ness that I was looking for as well as a fun audio track to go along with it.  Here's the clip that I used as reference.

The shot had to be 100-250 frames, so I had to pick the best parts of the dance and edit them together.

Here are my planning thumbnails for this shot.

And my first blocking pass.  This shot was already turning out much better than my drunken stumble...

The next week we did our blocking 'plus' pass.  Pete told me to push the up and down of the strut poses and the punching poses and to take out the last pose change because he felt like it was starting something up again right at the end.

Pete then told me to try taking out the pose at frame 170 because it was too similar to the ending pose and the ending pose was the stronger of the two.  He also wanted me to try to get the timing of the strut/punches to fit a little better with the music so I did another quick re-blocking pass before taking it to spline.

After I got Pete's notes for the re-block (he wanted me to add a 3rd punch and to bring the hand down into what I like to call the 'sassy position' but on the opposite side so that it would flow better into the next pose) I converted the stepped keys/breakdowns into spline mode.  I ran out of time at the end of the week and didn't get a chance to fix all of them before the deadline on Sunday.  This is what it looked like.

 

I was really unhappy with it so I worked on it for the rest of the day that Sunday and put it up in my public review area.  I knew that if I resubmitted it as my assignment I would be docked a full letter grade so I emailed Pete to ask his option on what I should do.  He had a look at both of them and said that it would definitely be worth resubmitting it regardless of the penalty because it was much farther along.  Here's what the re-submitted shot looked like.

The last week on this assignment was devoted to polishing our shots.  I was lucky enough to have Pete use my shot in a polishing demo during our Q&A so I got to see what kind of things he would to to make it beautiful.  He used a lot of hilarious Austin Powers type language while working on it which I really enjoyed.  The main things that he focused on in the polishing demo were knee pops, making sure that the body had enough oomph for certain accents and making sure that there was enough overlap on the head.  In fact I remember his exact words during the demo, "Don't be afraid to keyframe the living shit out of the head". Hahahahaha.

Here's how my polishing pass turned out

It still needs a bit of work, there are still some knee pops, certain parts could hit harder and the path of action on the head is a little crazy in parts, but overall I like how it turned out!  I'm really tired of hearing that music though, hahaha.

Animation Mentor Class 2-week 4-7

So I'm reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally far behind in posting my AM assignments so I'm going to try and get them all posted up by the end of this week!  I shall start with my second assignment of class 2, the Drunken Stumble.

The drunken stumble turned out to be way more difficult than I thought that it would be.  I did some video reference on myself pretending to stumble drunkenly around my backyard but my mentor Pete suggested that I find actual drunk reference so that my animation wouldn't feel fake or forced.  I won't post my video reference because no one really needs to see me pretending to be drunk, but here's the video that I ended up using for my actual reference.  Thank goodness for alcohol and hilarious relatives at weddings!

I then did some thumbnails of poses from the video reference (both mine and the other video combined).

The next week we had to block out our shot

My first pass of blocking was kind of all over the place so I tired to tone that down a little in my next pass.

We then had to move into the dreaded spline stage.  Where the evil spline creatures destroy any bit of timing that you may have had with your blocking.  It looked gross...

In the last week of the assignment we had to do a refining pass on it to make it look more like a drunken stumble and less like I was drunk while animating it.

 

It definitely turned out better, but I still need to work on the timing a LOT.  Right now it's still moving too fast. I do like the overlap in the head/upper part of body though.  It turned out better than I thought that it would.  This assignment was also done in the middle of my crazy radio contest so I probably didn't spend as much time on it as I probably should have...

Farewell my Cardboard Friends

So the Living with Rob and Shauna contest has come to a close. I was unfortunately not the winner so I shall have to continue slaving away at Dairy Queen to pay for my tuition instead of taking some time off of work.  The winner of the $2000 was Owen Woytowich who was the only contestant able to get a picture with Rob and Shauna at the Kid Rock concert in Regina (as well as a bunch of the other big point 'local celebrities').  I was able to get 91 of the 119 pictures on the list and (I think) received 13,300 points for them.  They unfortunately took down the part of the website that listed the contestants standing right before they announced the winner so I don't know what place I came in overall.  Even though I didn't win I still had a lot of fun taking the pictures and going on adventures.  I have to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who helped me out with the contest; my sister Paige for lending me her camera and taking  a bunch of the pictures, my other photographers Charli, Kirk, Kendall, and my mom and dad, Raysha and Lincoln for the use of their trampoline, bus and skateboard, and all of the local businesses who allowed us to take pictures in their establishments.  These wonderful people dedicated their spare time to helping me in another of my ridiculous adventures and I am super grateful for their help and support!


I do have to say that I was a little sad when I had to take Rob and Shauna back to the radio station.  We had become so close over the past 3 weeks.  We could even communicate without speaking to one another.  They were also really easy to get along with and never complained when I would shove them in the trunk of my car for picture taking outings or when my dogs would endlessly bark at them.  I wish them well in all of their future promotional endeavors and hope that maybe we will someday meet again.

Living with Rob and Shauna Part 5

And here is my last batch of pictures for the Living with Rob and Shauna contest.

At the Berry Barn which is full of deliciousness!

With a tandem bicycle

At an off leash dog park with Amigo.  He couldn't go off leash though because he's grumpy around other dogs...

With John Gormley from CKOM Newstalk radio!

Sitting in the back of a limo

We all dressed up to meet Mayor Don Atchison who has the distinction of being voted Canada's Craziest Mayor.  

At a very cold soccer game.

With the real Shauna!  

Which ones are real?!

With Rob and Shauna's boss Mike aka Cabbagehead.

Getting the 'T' in our 'GTL' at Spa Ahava

With Tim Stone (also from C95)

With Paul Merriman

At the very smelly landfill

Where they keep the herds of strawberries

Apparently Saskatoon is shiny?

In Boomtown at the Western Development Museum

Riding a bike on the Meewasin  Valley Trail

'Driving'  a luxury vehicle.  My dad wanted to sit in the car too.

With some rush hour traffic downtown

Backstage at Credit Union Center 

Inside of a police cell in Boomtown because the actual police wouldn't let us into an actual cell to take a picture.  It unfortunately didn't count though...  The worried look on my face is less about the cell and more about the terrifying mannequin sitting beside the cell...The WDM mannequins have always been exceptionally scary to me ever since I was little...

Playing on the beach

At cranberry flats where the mosquitoes feasted upon us.

Golfing at the Willows

In front of the Kinsmen showhome

On the ice at a hockey arena

Getting super excited about bowling

Getting super buff

Going for a swim

Becoming speed demons

At the driving range where more mosquitoes feasted upon me

Mini golfing at Putt and Bounce

In a spin class

'Suntanning' on the beach.  I didn't want them to burn...

Dancing the night away at Tequila nightclub

Volleyball!

Going down the waterslide! Weeeeeee!