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Performance & Charcter - Run, Climb, Jump, Pickup and Throw

Chased



First week back and we've already been tasked with a challenging animation, which consists of a run into the character climbing a wall, then jumping down, and after the character lands they then pick up an item and throw it.
Joe and Johnny spent the majority of the class talking about acting and performance which is obvious considering the title of the course. Johnny was advertising his favourite author Desmond Morris, which he recommend for my context essay last year which I obviously didn’t read but johnny previewed chapters on gesture and posing which really caught my interest. What I did read was the book by Ed Hooks, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading that.We don’t have to have the animation finished for this week but I think it would be best to get a head of the work instead of letting it pile up. The work we do have to have done for this week is creating the biography of the character, bar sheets and story board. Joe was very clear in his explanation of the planning emphasising its importance.  
After Johnny left, we watched a 13 minute animation on Tchaikovsky by Barry J C Purves who is an old friend of Joe’s. The animation itself I thought was aesthetically really strong, using a nior style lighting to show Tchaikovsky’s turmoil composing his pieces which as an artist I could really relate to. The strongest aspect of the animation was the theatrically of the performance.



Character Bio


Name: Alexia

Age: 26

Height: 5'5

Weight: 115 lb

Background: Comes from a poor up-bringing 

Personality: Brash and bold, very blunt and honest

Hobby: Drinking 

Occupation: Lawyer

Pets: N/A no time

Friends & Family: Struggles to make and keep friends, close with her family but has a turbulent relationship with them

Where is it set: New York 

What is happening: Alexia is running and looking for somewhere to hide

Who's there: Alexia, a car with the thug inside

Why is it happening: After prosecuting a a thug, hes come looking for payback. 










I was quite optimistic doing the sliding and locking down the extremes of the steps, but i thought it was too many steps to begin with so i started a new piece with a video reference.






This is what i produced after a few days of frustration, its obviously very flawed but it was all i had for the review session. Genuinely the thing i hate most is presenting or showing work i don't like, and during the presentation i was so ashamed of the work i basically hid behind the desk. Johnny suggested that perhaps my pipeline was flawed and should review it. Joe pointed out the fact that if shes hiding from someone why would she throw something at them, i thought it would portray the characters recklessness and being too bold, however I am aware it doesn't make sense and should revise the idea. Afterwards, Johnny and James thought it would be best for me to work in stepped mode where the computer interpretation isn't automatically done and instead the keys frames are blocked out. This information really changed the way i worked with Maya however i got this information after i had scrapped this Maya attempt and moved on to a 2-D attempt

Moving on to 2-D

I find drawing to be my strongest skill so i thought it would be best to utilise it and see how much progress i could make.




To fimialirsie myself with the software i watched this tutorial or making a run cycle and used it to create a rough mock up of my animation .


The symbol method has its uses but i feel like it was cheating and wouldn't help me progress as an animator if i keep trying to cut corners. Generally it could be worse but there is much space for improvement. 



A vast improvement and I'm quite happy with how it looks, i asked Joe for his critique and he suggested more holds to give the character as well as the audience more thinking time to process the scene. As you can see i used the images from the first run attempt because i was being lazy.  I also had a talk with Annabeth about the problems in my scene, as i had moved from a thug to a zombie situation but i couldn't think what or why she would throw something, so she suggested that the arm falls off and that what is thrown. I really like this idea as i think it ties the scene together and adds a light comedic element. 



I applied the holds as Joe suggested but i hadn't got round to animating the zombie and its arm falling off but i do want to finish this scene adding volume and a design to the character. In conclusion the Maya was a failure but i made a big leap in learning to animate in 2-D and i found that it came more natural to me. 
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