Run and turn - more blocking

Run and reverse direction - Blocking+ pass from Matt Long on Vimeo.

Not much to say, just making progress.

Double update!

Run and reverse direction - Blocking pass from Matt Long on Vimeo.

This is my latest animation, still in the blocking phase, with and without the extra stuff. The assignment was to have Stewie running, and reversing direction. So I set up this junkyard scene for it. The dog poses are just stand-ins to sell the idea, and the BG elements are going to be desaturated and slightly out of focus in the final render so it will be easier to read the action. The run spacing is temporary as well, the strides should be closer and faster but it didn't read well at-speed in blocking like that, a bit too Benny Hill looking, so I spread it out to help at this stage. It's also my first time animating to a moving camera, it's a welcome addition I think.

Walking in a heavy wind - splined from Matt Long on Vimeo.

This is the spline pass on my heavy wind walk. It's not really polished, more just cleaned up and somewhat presentable. Life took priority that weekend, I'm going to finish it off for the end-of-term progress reel though.

See ya next week.

Refining the blocking pass

Walking in a heavy wind - Refining Blocking Pass from Matt Long on Vimeo.

Here is the same animation, this time taken a step further with more breakdown poses. This week I'm finishing and polishing it up.

Class 2 Assignment 2 - Blocking

Walking in a heavy wind - Blocking pass from Matt Long on Vimeo.

Here's my blocking pass of my new assignment. I'm to have the no-armed Stewie walk in a heavy wind for 120-200 frames, that's all the assignment asks for. I approached it the same way Mike Nguyen taught me during my time at July Films, to try to feel the forces and where they originate and how they act on the body and unfold throughout the animation to make for good clear animation. I think it's pretty successful and reads fairly well.

Saw Inception this weekend. It was really good and I highly recommend it. Interesting story, great acting, and an intense 3rd act. What is it with Christopher Nollan always making Cillian Murphy wear a bag over his head in his films?

Polishing pass, and Comic Con

AM Class 2 - Big step Polished Pass from Matt Long on Vimeo.

Here is my polishing pass on my animation for Animation Mentor.

I went to Comic Con today. Overall it was a bit underwhelming. I think I've been to too many in a row that I'm running out of books to buy now. I only got 4 books this time. Peck 'n Paw, Florian Satzinger's "Duck," John Nevarez' and Chris Sanders' new sketchbooks. Even Stuart Ng offered nothing that I had to have, closest was the oversized Daan Jippes process book that shows his roughs and final art on non-reduced pages. The $200 price tag however turned me away.

So that's it for this update, see you next week with a new animation assignment.

Refining

AM Class 2 - Big step Refining Pass from Matt Long on Vimeo.

Here's my refinement pass on Ballie. Got a few minor notes from my mentor on it, so I'll fix those and then take it into spline mode to smooth it all out. This is mostly on 2's with some 3's and 4's in there. I have to finish it up soon, San Diego Comic Con is this weekend and I can't stay up all night Saturday working on it.

And they're off!

AM Class 2 - Big step Blocking from Matt Long on Vimeo.

Class 2 is in full swing, I'm at the start of week 3 now, and this was the blocking pass for this 4-week assignment.

My mentor for this term is Drew Adams, he worked on the late 90's Disney films as an in-betweener then got into 3D for Ken Duncan's studio and ReelFX, and is now working on Kung Fu Panda 2 at Dreamworks. I'm really enjoying his teaching style, much more of a lecture/classroom-type of style with video reference and he gives in-depth critiques with plenty of draw overs.

I got quite a few notes from Drew on this so I'll kind of be doing another blocking pass on it before getting into all the little details. I figure AM is supposed to be preparation for a studio environment, so I'm treating my mentor as a director and will try my best to address his notes and comments. I wanted to go with something more cartoony this time around and this was the result but there are some areas he felt could use a little clarification and believability.