Matt's Animation Blog

Pose-A-Day

2011-10-02T23:42:00.002+01:00

Day 13

Nearly two weeks in :) Yeah, I know this doesn't look right. Had a few problems with the proportions which meant I couldn't bend Bishop over as much, but isn't that part of this exercise? To try and overcome any problems with the rig and make a representation of the pose/gesture as opposed to replicating it exactly. I think the essence of the pose is there. Not too bad for 20 minutes work.

Pose-A-Day

2011-10-01T13:44:00.000+01:00

Day 12

Pretty crappy pose today.

Pose-A-Day

2011-09-30T13:33:00.004+01:00

Day 11

Thought I'd go for a loungin' type pose today. I've always had a hard time with sitting/lying poses, so thought it was about time I faced my demons.

Pose-A-Day

2011-09-29T15:27:00.002+01:00

Day 10

Not too happy with this one. The screen left arm isn't reading, and his neck is distorted. But gotta stick to the time limit :)

Pose-A-Day

2011-09-28T12:43:00.002+01:00

Day 9

I realised just as I was about to load this up that I'd made the switch back to Bishop! Oops! Aah well...nevermind. Bishop's a great rig to work with, and it's all good practice.

Pose-A-Day

2011-09-27T11:42:00.000+01:00

Day 8

Pose-A-Day

2011-09-26T12:49:00.002+01:00

Day 7

Pose-A-Day

2011-09-25T23:36:00.004+01:00

Day 6

So I figured I should try a new rig, and thought that this "pose a day" would be the perfect oppurtunity to get used to it before starting a new shot. There's a number of reasons why I thought I should use a new rig. Firstly I think it's just great experience for if I ever get a job in a studio. Secondly, my idea for my new shot is some intense body mechanics, and (as much as I love Bishop) I think the physicality of this new guy is much better suited. Thirdly...the rig looks freakin AWESOME!!!

Morpheus has kindly been made available by Josh Burton. There's some great videos he's made to help get started, which I need to watch as this pose was pretty tough going. There's a whole load of new controls to get used to. Anyhoo...here's todays work

You know...every time I look at these poses posted up here it becomes so apparant that I could still push them so much more. Something to work on :)

Pose-A-Day

2011-09-24T14:09:00.000+01:00

Day 5

Pose-A-Day

2011-09-24T00:23:00.001+01:00

Day 4

Pose-A-Day

2011-09-23T00:06:00.000+01:00

Day 3

Pose-A-Day

2011-09-21T12:23:00.003+01:00

So here's day 2's pose. I think this will succeed where my sketching project failed mainly due to my enjoyment of using Maya. This is a great exercise to try and capture the pose with the limitations of whatever rig you are using. So with Bishop the head size usually causes me problems. I had to also cheat the screen left leg so that the knee rests on the floor. But I'm pretty happy with the results.

Pose-A-Day

2011-09-21T00:33:00.002+01:00

I saw this idea on (Ryan Hayford's) a fellow AMer's website and I thought it was a great idea! The idea that we all have 10,000 bad drawings in us and that we just need to get them out has been brought up to the 21st century, and so for the next chunk of my life (10,000 days???) I'm gonna try and bust out a pose a day in Maya. Reading through Ryan's blog, there is a 15-20 minute time limit. Hopefully it'll speed up my blocking, and generally make me a better animator. So here's todays pose. Straight away some problems became apparant. Pinching in the rig, and something I've always had a problem with...the size of Bishop's head :) It's not quite there, but I think I've done a pretty decent job at capturing the grace and elegance of the pose(?)

I'm back!

2011-09-20T12:17:00.014+01:00

I think the majority of my posts here start with "It's been ages since I posted..." and this is no exception. It has been ages, and a ton of awesome stuff has happened.

I graduated Animation Mentor!! :D Went to San Francisco for an amazing graduation and met a TON of awesome people. I finished my reel, and got a brand spanking new website. So...where to start?

I am officially an AM alumni now :) Not only that, but I won an award for the most entertaining video reference!!I got to go on stage, shake hands with the awesome Travis Tohill...and I had to give a speech! The graduation was such a motivating, inspirational event. I'm so proud to have been a part of it. There was so much talent and creativity and love and respect in one room. It was great to meet and mingle with so many likeminded people, all with such a huge passion for the art. I wish all of you good luck with all of your future ventures. And to any current students that may stumble across this, I cannot recommend it anough. Go! You'll have a blast! San Francisco's a beautiful, diverse city, and a great backdrop for such an incredible course/group of people. It was a week of beer drinking, doughnut eating, hill walking, studio touring, sunburnt fun. I loved it!

So...after all that fun, it was back to work. I had to finish my reel, and I'd started a new shot as well. It's all done, and I'm pretty pleased with it. I think the last shot could do with some work, but for now I've put it to rest. I'm trying to get some ideas together for a new shot, so any ideas would be welcome. I'm thinking I'm gonna do another body mechanics shot, or maybe a pantomime, and then a new dialogue shot afterwards. Watch this space. It may be a while before I post again ;)

And finally...my new website!!! :D

Class 5:Week 1

2011-01-11T12:03:00.002Z

Guess what? I got Jay Davis again!!! :D Which is great cause he's such a cool guy, and he's got a great eye for animation. I feel like he's being punished though...having to see my shot for another 3 weeks :D

I know I know...2 days in to 2011 and I've given up on the whole "sketching everyday" thing. It just hit me, on the Monday I'd worked in my job for about 15 hours that day, and I was sat there for 2 hours trying to focus properly to continue sketching. It made me feel exhausted the next day so I figured it wasn't a great idea. It just wasn't feasible for me to do that every day. I'll continue drawing, but under a less regimented...um...regime :) Anyway...it's best for me right now to focus on AM. With that said...week 1 baby!!! Yeah. Lip sync. We had an awesome lecture by Jason Schleifer which opened my eyes up to things I'd never even considered before. I've only ever tried lip sync once before, years ago when I first bought Animation:Master and was working my way through their exercise book. I just watched it now and it's pretty embarressing, but I feel it's important to show it here next to my blocking for my current shot, because I think it highlights the amazing job that Animation Mentor do, how much they've taught me and how far I've come since those old days :) So here they are. Enjoy

Happy New Year!!! :D

2011-01-02T23:03:00.003Z

I know I'm one day late, buy Happy New Year everyone!!! I don't generally make new years resolutions, but I saw on my friend Leon Gittens' blog that he decided to sketch every day, and post the results up. I thought this was an awesome idea. I need the practice for sure...as you'll see ;) and I'm hoping it'll show some progress. Trying to get inspiration yesterday I came across this blog by Kendra Melton who was doing a gesture drawing class held by Mark McDonnell, who I mentioned in an earlier post. I just thought..."This is how I wanna draw!" I love the looseness and quality of the lines. The character of each person is totally caught, and the poses are excellent. I think it's awesome training for animation. In fact, if I'm thinking right, Mark McDonnell is an artist for Disney. Sweet! :) So here's my first sketches. I found it hard to find something I wanted to draw. Perhaps I shouldn't be so choosey :P Afterall, the point of me doing this isn't to produce a masterpiece every time. It's an attempt to improve my drawing skills and be able to improve my planning...and to have fun :)

Other exciting news is that I start back to AM tomorrow!!! Woot :D I can't wait to get stuck into animating the face and mouth of my last assignment. AND finding out who my mentor is and my classmates. Exciting times!!! :D It's funny...having just looked at the video of my shot, it's not as bad as I remember :) haha. It's amazing how a bit of time away from your shot can change your perception. There's still some work I wanna do. I need to up the ease-ins to some poses, and I'm thinking the arm needs to speed up as he's picking the glass up, but I'm glad to have had a bit of time away from it :D Here it is...

Dialogue Shot Blocking

2010-11-14T23:32:00.002Z

Who knew it would be so hard to find a 10 second piece of dialogue for this assignment?! But man...it was tough! I guess what made it harder is that it has to excite you, after all we'll be working on it for I think 10 weeks or something? Plus it helps if it contains subtext, interesting phrasing and the such. There were loads of fairly monotone, continuous babbles, and a bunch of other stuff that wasn't fun or suitable, but I settled on a piece by Chevy Chase from Caddyshack :) I made a point of not watching the clip it was taken from cause I didn't wanna get influenced by the acting at all. It's so cool because you can get to entirely create the character, the location and the situation he/she's in. Anyhoo...here's the blocking for it:

Bishop is here!!! :D

2010-11-02T15:35:00.005Z

Hey gang. Exciting news. I'm just starting week 6 of AM and we finally get to play with Bishop :)

On a side note, here's the progression of my pantomime shot. The renders not great for the final, so I may upload a better one :) As you can see, it's changed a LOT from blocking to final. Oh yeah...and it's a completely different idea from my initial one I posted up last time. That was pretty crappy!

Have a great week everyone :D

Class 4: Week 1

2010-10-06T00:54:00.005+01:00

Man alive...it's been ages (again!) since I posted anything here. So lets try and do a recap. Ijust finished class 3 with the legendary Keith Sintay. That guys so cool! Every Q&A was so much fun, and I learned a ton of stuff to boot. I'm pretty pleased with the work I did, especially the final assignment. I chose to do the animjam...which is 3 seperate shots that combine to make a scene. The first two I think are ok, but the third one I had so much fun doing. I've always wanted to do something super cartoony, and I was able to really exagerate things in that shot. I loved doing the staggered take and crazy run off to the cannon. And I just felt like everything just clicked. Like my workflow was workin :) So here it is

And now we're onto class 4: An Introduction to acting. My new mentor is Jay Davis. He worked for Disney for like 12 years, and then went on to work for Double Negative in London on Hellboy. He's done some pretty amazing stuff, and he's hilarious :) It's already been quite challenging. I found out pretty quickly that I suck at acting :) For that reason I'm not gonna post my video reference for this assignment :) But here's my planning

Have a great week everyone :D

Class 3...

2010-06-29T22:55:00.006+01:00

It seems like an absolute age since I was last at AM. It's been like a week, but it's gone so damn slow. It's great to be back. And to make things even better my mentor for this term has worked on a ton of my favourite movies. Check this...Keith Sintay has worked on *deep breath* Pocahontas, Mulan, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Tarzan, Spirit, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Sharktale, Open Season, Monster House, Surf's Up, Beowolf, I Am Legend, Open Season 2, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief and is currently working on TRON: Legacy. Phew. I can't wait to get started!!! :D

Heroes of Animation: Norm Ferguson

2010-06-26T00:13:00.003+01:00

It's coming up to the end of the week off between Spring term and Summer term at AM, and I thought I'd spend a bit of time learning new skills, or improving old ones. Nothing that I'd do during term time...thats gotta be 100% animation...but stuff that will hopefully add to my reel at the end. So basic modelling, delving into texturing, uv mapping and rendering. Stuff that my non technical mind still can't really get around :) The important thing though is that I've actually started reading The Illusion of Life again. I'm not much of a reader, and I've got a ton of animation books lying around almost hoping that by merely owning them they will somehow turn me into an animation superstar :)Not gonna happen. So I'm making sure I turn off the TV, sign out of facebook and get down to some serious reading. It really is a great book though. I've only just started up, so I'm not too far into it. But I thought I might share some thoughts.

Norm (Fergy) Ferguson. Not a name a recognised. I guess I never really saw much of the really early Disney stuff, but Fergy played such an important role in the future of Disney, and as a result, the world of animation. It's amazing to read how he started off as a cameraman, and one night when some drawings were missing, with no-one about to help out, Norm "had to fill in". One of his first pictures was Frolicking Fish. He animated three fish dancing at about 2 minutes in. Whats so awesome about this, as the book points out, is that for the first time the characters weren't hitting a hold and moving out of it. There was always a part of them moving which gave them real fluidity, a greater sense of weight, and made them actually feel alive rather than a bunch of pictures moving.

Next in my list is Chain Gang. This is such a funny little short with a load of great jokes in there. I love the pig who gets shot, jumps out of his trousers and the trousers are still running along with him chasing behind :) And when Mickey snaps the chain after carrying his ball and chain, only to pick the ball back up and carry it again. Loads of little gems. One of the reasons I love Disney. Whats hugely important about this short though is Fergy's treatment of the bloodhounds chasing Mickey. The intense sniffing along the ground. The little snorts. The facial expressions. Everything he did breathed life into them. The bloodhounds would later be reworked and introduced as Pluto. How cool is that?! :)

Well, it's getting pretty late and I've been waffling on. Time to hit the dusty trail. Hopefully I haven't bored anyone :) What I've written really hasn't done justice to all I've been reading. The Illusion of Life really is the animators bible :D

In my finest Gordon Ramsay voice "Class 2...done"

2010-06-15T23:19:00.005+01:00

End of class 2 already. For anyone reading this that isn't in AM feel free to leave me a note as to what's been going on in the world. I seemed to have missed it all over the last 12 weeks. It's crazy how quickly time goes, and how much of it I spend sat in front of my computer. Don't get me wrong though...I LOVE it! I actually get so excited to jump out of bed and get to work on my shots. So much so that I constantly forget I've even got this blog :D Anyhoo...here's my progress reel for Class 2: Psychology of Body Mechanics. As always there's some stuff I'd go back and change. Definitely, definitely, definitely gonna keep it simple for class 3 :D

Class 2 Week 1 - 4

2010-04-25T01:24:00.003+01:00

Whew...can you believe it's week 4 already?! It's gone so quick so far. Kinda frightening. I'm hoping that by around the ned of class 3 I'll be in a position to start applying for jobs in games studios...although the dream of course is to move to the States and work for one of the big studios. Man, just thinking about it gets me so excited!!! :D I kinda turn into this big kid with a huge dumb grin on my face :) Anyways...here's my final for this assignment. Not hugely satisfied with it, but maybe I'm being too hard on myself? It's one of those things. I'll be staring at it for hours and hours and I'll be thinking "there's something not right..." but I can't figure it out. Then I'll go away and come back later and be all like "actually...thats pretty good" :D I think thats a massive lesson to learn, to take a break and come back later. To see your work with fresh eyes. And also to post your work up for other AMers to take a peek at. They'll be noticing stuff I hadn't even thought of :) Such an awesome, supportive community. Man...I'm so priveleged to be a part of it :D

On a totally different note, I saw the funniest word on my friend Zada's blog...craptastic! :D It makes me chuckle every time I say it :) I urge you all to use it more often :) hehe...

I'm gonna leave you with a YouTube clip about Disney's new World of Color attraction. Just watching this leaves me speechless. If I ever got a chance to see this I'd be that big kid with a dumb grin on my face again :)

How To Train Your Dragon

2010-03-31T22:25:00.004+01:00

Ok, so this will come as no suprise now...but tonight I went and saw Dreamworks How To Train Your Dragon, and I was blown away!!! There's been a lot of hype, and justafiably so. This is without doubt Dreamworks finest movie, and...dare I say it...one of the best animated movies I've seen!!! They've really raised the bar. The animation was awesome, the character design was some of the best I've seen (everybody had a whole heap of appeal) and the environments were stunning. The story was soooooo good. I mean, some of it was kinda obvious (not that that's a bad thing) but there was one bit at the end (which I'm not gonna spoil) which literally had the cinema gasp almost in synchronisation! The action scenes were great too. My girlfriend actually shouted out "oh no!" at one point. She's gonna kill me if she sees this :) hehe. I can't say enough good things about this movie. Definitely one I'll be buying when it comes out on dvd. Hmm...maybe it's time to upgrade to blu-ray??? Ooh ooh...one of the best things was the fact that a load of AM alumni and mentors worked on it too :D It really gets me fired up. Hopefully one day I'll see my name up there in the credits too :D

Class 2!!! :D

2010-03-30T15:42:00.008+01:00

It's been nearly a week since I've done any animating, and I'm going crazy! Luckily...CLASS 2 IS HERE!!!! :D I'm unbelievably excited about it. This is where the really fun stuff begins. My mentor for Class 2: The Psychology of Body Mechanics is Dana Boadway. She's worked on a whole bunch of stuff, from Everyones Hero and The Wild, to Halo 3. What's most exciting is that I've just read that she's gonna create her own short film, which'll be awesome! Hmm...is that even a word "which'll"? It kinda sounds right but looks like I may have just made it up!? *ahem* anyway...I'm really stoked to have Dana as my mentor this term. As the lady herself says: "I try to get my students to try out cartoony styles of motion and also realistic stuff. I want them to learn how real body mechanics and physicality work so they can bend the rules later." Which is freakin AWESOME cos thats exactly what I wanna do too! :D

I can't wait to get started. I just gotta figure out which assignment I'm gonna choose from the pick list. There's quite a few options, but the one's that I'm looking at doing is either kicking a football, hopscotch or a 180 turn. One thing that I learnt from class 1 is to really have a solid idea of what I'm gonna do in my head...no scratch that...on paper! Plan plan and plan some more! I'm gonna shoot a whole load of reference and study the crap out of it :)

While I'm rattling on about planning, I came across this chap on YouTube. Mark MacDonnell. He's worked at a whole bunch of places in various roles, but currently he's workin at Disney teaching gesture drawing. Here's a link to his YouTube channel. There's some great videos which I can't wait to watch and get drawing :) Here's one to whet your appetite :)

Week 12

2010-03-24T19:45:00.005Z

So...class 1 is over. What a ride it's been already! I've met some awesome people, learnt a ton, worked my ass off, and had a blast doing it :) I'm really gonna try and post here more often for the next class. I'm gonna try and raise my game too. I really didn't value how important planning was until the last assignment...the character walk. It was a 2 week assignment and the first weeks work had to be scrapped because my planning sucked and the blocking sucked too! So I literally had to start from scratch and condense 2 weeks work into 1! So I'm pretty stoked with the result...even though it's not perfect. Without further ado...here's my class 1 progress reel:

Enjoy :)

Week 4-6

2010-03-09T19:07:00.004Z

Damn...it's been freakin ages since I posted on here. It's true what they say...AM takes over your life. But I wouldn't have it any other way. My whole way of thinking and observing is slowly changing. I find myself looking at things in more detail...almost like that dude from Prison Break who can look at stuff and in his head figure out how they work and log in all these crazy tiny details. Ok, maybe thats a bit of a stretch but hopefully you get the idea. Well, it's pretty obvious that I've been unbelievably busy for the past few weeks, but it's been so amazing. Who ever thought work could be so much fun?! Not me. Right...lets try and think back to what I've done. Oh yeah, week 4 was an introduction to timing and spacing. We had to animate two bouncing balls of different weight. Sounds easy huh? But how do you show a difference in weight? If you've got two balls the same size and drop them, no matter how much difference in weight there is. the air resistance is gonna be the same...meaning they'll fall at the same speed. Unless you're dropping them from a HUGE height. So there was a lot of playing around with timing and spacing. If I'm honest I don't think I fully understand it yet, but I think it's something we'll cover again.

Week 5 was all about anticipation and squash and stretch. These are some of the most important principles of animation, and really breathe life into something and give it fluidity. Without anticipation your characters look robotic and it doesn't give the audience a chance to register whats happened. The video lectures gave a load of examples of actions with and without anticipation, and it's totally true. It's like BAM...somethings happened but I don't know what or why. Even in small movements, like lifting a foot off the floor, you have to shift your body weight across your other foot or yo're gonna fall on your ass! With all this in mind we were given the ball assault course assignment. This gave me extra problems cause it was the first week our class dealt with the rotation of the ball.

The second part was to pose Stu to clearly read "Devastation!!!" Poor Stu ;)

Onto week 6 and overlapping action:

Oh crap...I gotta go. Time for my Q&A. Yeah baby!!! Gotta LOVE AM!!! Woot woot

Week 3

2010-01-30T10:48:00.003Z

I've been a bit late posting this week...by about a week! :) But anyway, week 3 was an introduction to planning and blocking methods. Our assignment was to animate a bouncing ball (with the weight of a basketball/soccer ball). As it was our first actual animation assignment it wasn't necessary to add rotation...phew! We also had to sketch different poses to communicate excitement. Not as easy as it sounds when you consider that probably post emotion is shown through the face, and our model was faceless :) But it's a great way to involve the whole body in the pose. I've read many great quotes about posing the whole body to communicate an emotion and this was a great way to get introduced to that. I think the hardest thing was to avoid the clichéd poses. I think as a result of trying to avoid this I've chosen a pose that wasn't quite as strong as some of the others. I think it's ok sometimes to submit a clichéd pose as we're still learning. Anyway...here's my work for this week :)

This is maybe what I should've submitted? :)

Week 2

2010-01-16T16:10:00.003Z

So we're just about to wrap up with week 2 and the assignment was to go out and quickly sketch people in various situations, capturing the pose. We've had a ton of snow recently...which as it turns out was great for me cos I was able to draw some guys playing Ice Hockey on a frozen lake. It was insanely hard to capture the pose even with a simple stick figure cos the action was thick and fast, so I had to turn to some photo's I took and use them as a reference. The next task was to take our most successful sketch and pose Stu like it in Maya. I've had a whole load of great feedback and suggestions from all the guys at AM, and I'm super chuffed with the result. So here it is...

It's here!!!

2010-01-06T00:10:00.005Z

Today's been such a blur. Ok...so yesterday was my first "official" day at Animation Mentor...but I did a 14 hour shift at work :( So today's my actual first day at AM, and man...was it a mix of emotions. Mostly excitement with a whole bunch of nerves thrown in for good measure. It's kinda like being on a rollercoaster...you know that bit where you're slowly going up and up and up, and you know that when you slow down and get to the top it's gonna be the best feeling in the world from there on in. That was today.

I had my class 1 Q&A and got to meet my mentor and classmates. There's a lot of talent in my class. A lot of previous experience. Some animation, some modeling and texturing and stuff, but I think I was one of the least experienced people in my class. I think it's a good thing though. It's gonna push me to do my best. It's almost like the realization that "you know what...this is gonna be hard." But man...I can't even put into words how much I want this. How excited I am. It's gonna be an awesome ride!

So my Class 1 mentor is Eric Lessard. He's a real nice guy, who's worked on such recent epics such as Antz, Shrek 1, 2 and 3, and Madagascar 1 and 2 amongst other things. I just know I'm gonna learn a whole load of stuff from him. Bring it on... :)

Prep and Landing

2009-12-13T23:18:00.007Z

Just finished watching Disney's Prep and Landing and man...I was blown away! These guys really are back on top form. It was such a great, heart-warming story which kinda reminded me of stuff I used to watch as a kid. Stuff like they don't do anymore. I'm such a kid, and I freakin' LOVE Disney AND Christmas, so this was perfect for me. Amazing animation, stunning visuals, great gags...just plain awesome! Seriously...check it out. The main character is Wayne, who after working for 227 years as part of the elite "Prep and Landing" crew for the big man himself, is sure he's up for promotion. Unfortunately it goes to his partner, and the guy he trained up, Robertson. Dismayed and given a new rookie partner, Lammy, who's not the brightest of fairy lights, Wayne heads out once again, this time with a little less spring in his step. Hilarity and action ensue as they team up to try and save Timmys Christmas. Hmm...reading this in my head I sound like one of those movie trailer voice-over guys! :) "Imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit!" :) Haha! Ok...I'm off to get some figgy pudding. Happy holidays everone...

The final countdown...

2009-12-02T23:13:00.003Z

Well...this is it. The final assignment for the Maya Springboard Program. I can't even begin to tell you how quickly these last few weeks have gone. It's crazy. I'm gonna miss it. Hmm...maybe not the Q&A's at 3.00 in the morning! :) It's been a great experience already, and it's just the begining. I can't wait until January 4th when I officially become an Animation Mentor student :D Big thanks to my mentor Carlos Fins for all his help, and the rest of the class :)

So here's the final assignment. I'm not 100% satisfied with it. The jumps ok...but I just couldn't nail the slip up at the end.

Finishing touches...

2009-11-27T22:56:00.003Z

Well I think I finally got finished up on the robot arm. Had a great Q&A which cleared up constraints and let us all put on the finishing touches to this assignment. This was really fun to do, and I'm glad I put a different spin on it by going for a more cartoony approach. Ok, so it's not perfect, and I'm sure I could spend a lot more hours tracking the arcs, looking out for spacing issues and a whole bunch of other things. But I'm gonna put this on the shelf for now and look forward to the next assignment.

Giving it more "snap"...

2009-11-24T14:35:00.003Z

While doing the robot arm assignment I really thought I needed to give it more "snap" and I remembered that in an earlier exercise I'd posted on the 11 Second Club forums I was recommended that I take a look at one of Keith Lango's tutorials on snappy cartoon motion. It gave me a great insight into offsetting keys to add extra snap, and that you can actually add more snap by lengthening the time of the movement. It gave 3 examples that I've posted here. There's a couple of problems with the arms getting twisted in FK mode that I don't know how to fix, but as a quick exercise I think it's kinda successful and I learnt a great lesson. The first video is literally 2 key frames at either extreme with the tangents set to linear:

In the second one I offsetted the keys to add overlap, also adding ease in and out of the move:

And in the last one I pushed the extremes and actually pulled the key for the lower arm to hit the extreme the same time as the upper arm, just dragging back the hand and fingers, but giving a greater build up to each move:

It's a simple little exercise, and I didn't have time to move the rest of the body at all. I just wanted to focus in the arm. I think it's pretty successful.

Do the robot...

2009-11-23T00:25:00.003Z

So this is the assignment I was looking forward to the most. I had a whole bunch of ideas going in to it, and I played around for a while and though I'd go for a more natural movement, nothing too robotty (I may have just made that word up!?) I ran into so many problems though. With every assignment I'm pushing myself to do better and there was points in this I was getting lost...to the point where I cut out a whole chunk and redid it. I think that was a valuable lesson. It just sucked though, I had that moment where I thought to myself..."perhaps I'm not cut out to be an animator?" I gotta remember though to take baby steps and nail the basics. Anyhoo...I've said too much! Here's the blocking for my robot arm. It's probably "blocked" a bit too much, but I've got this weird work flow at the moment. Gotta sort that out!

Maya Springboard

2009-11-14T12:56:00.005Z

Man, it's been ages since I last posted on here! Been kinda busy with the Maya Springboard program. It's going really well. Everyone's really cool. There's no competitive feel about any of the critiques people give you, just genuine suggestions or praise. I think everyone's getting real excited about starting AM in January. Just over 7 weeks away!!! :D My mentor for the Springboard is Carlos Fins. He's a really nice guy. Just down to earth you know. He's really good at explaining things and he's got a lot of patience! I'm pretty chuffed with my work so far, but there's some really great stuff ot there. Kinda feel like I'm gonna have to bring my A game when I start AM :) Here's a couple of bits and pieces I've done so far...

Back on track :)

2009-09-23T16:34:00.000+01:00

Following yesterdays bit of bad news, I've been in touch with AM and everything seems just peachy again. Victoria Tripp and Rosie Varela have been amazing and given me some great advice. Big thanks go to both of them! As the title says...everything seems to be back on track! :) Can't wait to get started already...

1 step forward...2, maybe 3 steps back!!!

2009-09-22T16:10:00.000+01:00

Today started really well. Woke up, went downstairs, got some breakfast and what was waiting for me on the side...all the Autodesk goodies I've been waiting for. Maya, 3DS Max, Mudbox...loads of stuff! Happy days! Unfortunately my bank decided now was the best time to tell me that I need to reapply for my Career Development Loan cause I'm now starting AM in Jan 2010. Thing is, I gotta wait until October to do it, which'll give me 7 weeks to get everything sorted out in time to make payment to the lovely guys at AM. It took them 6 weeks last time just to send me some more forms to fill out!!! I feel like a bit of an ass cause I've had a good old rant on the 11SC forum. I'm just hoping someone can give me some advice. Or just wish me luck :) Gotta get myself organised and keep pushing things in the right direction. Keep my chin up. Maya workshop starts on Monday!!!! Whoop whoop!!! :) I'll be sure to post up some progress...

And so it begins....

2009-09-12T01:09:00.001+01:00

Today has been such a great day!!! Got an e-mail from AM to set up my account and profile and stuff. It's that close to starting I can almost taste it :) Can't wait. I've seen a few blogs about people about to start AM, or read a few forum threads about it...and there's such a buzz! So much excitement! I really think this will be one of the best decisions I've ever made! Not only that, but winging its way to my door is my own copy of Maya 2010, 3DS Max, and a whole host of other Autodesk goodies, for a ridiculously low price, courtesy of those fine guys at Escape Studios. Happy days...

Weight Shift

2009-09-05T17:03:00.000+01:00

Just finished the last of Jason Ryans basic tutorials...the weight shift in Maya. Had a lot of fun doing this one, but there's loads to keep an eye on. Learnt a few nice little tricks as well, and not once did I go into the graph editor to sort those arcs out :) Here's both the Flipbook and Maya versions.

Walkin'

2009-09-02T00:51:00.000+01:00

Just finshed rating Augusts entries in the 11 Second Club. Man, there's so many awesome videos this month!!! That's gonna be hard to call! Onwards and (hopefully) upwards with my JR tuts. Here's the walk cycle. Had a lot of problems with the knees, and I'm not 100% satisfied. I think there's still a bit of popping going on. I love how in depth Jason is in his tutorials. Everytime I thought I was done he was picking up on small details to include. Looking forward to starting the weight shift in Maya.

Runnin'

2009-08-31T23:21:00.000+01:00

It's only 4 weeks til I start the Maya Springboard Workshop, which I can't wait for! Having done a few of Jason Ryans tutorials it's dawned on me how powerful Maya is, and how little I know about it. I actually emailed Jason last week cos I couldn't figure out how to bend the toes on the Boris rig!!! I literally spent about an hour trying to find those damn toe rotation boxes! He politely replied to expand the gui box just a bit more and hey presto...there they are at the bottom! I felt like a real chump! But I mean, what an awesome guy! He must be so busy and he's still got time for the likes of me with my embarrassing questions! :) Anyhow...here's my latest upload...my attempt at the run cycle:

My first time using Maya

2009-08-28T16:41:00.000+01:00

Finally got my hands on a copy of Maya, and as a way of getting used to it slightly before starting the Maya Springboard Workshop, I thought I'd give the cg parts of Jason Ryans tutorials a quick go. Had loads of great feedback from the guys at the 11 Second Club, and I'm pretty happy with the results so far...

My Birthday :)

2009-08-15T10:00:00.000+01:00

ARRGGGGGHHHHHHH......30 today!!!!!

My First Entry!!! :)

2009-08-06T14:14:00.000+01:00

Ok, to kick things off I've just put up a few clips of animation that I did a couple of weeks ago. Nothing too fancy yet :) I've mostly been working through Jason Ryans tutorials...which are amazing and I highly recommend. I've only covered the basic stuff so far, but I'm really chuffed with the result. See what you think...

Matt's Animation Blog

Pose-A-Day

Pose-A-Day

Pose-A-Day

Pose-A-Day

Pose-A-Day

Pose-A-Day

Pose-A-Day

Pose-A-Day

Pose-A-Day

Pose-A-Day

Pose-A-Day

Pose-A-Day

Pose-A-Day

I'm back!

Class 5:Week 1

Happy New Year!!! :D

Dialogue Shot Blocking

Bishop is here!!! :D

Class 4: Week 1

Class 3...

Heroes of Animation: Norm Ferguson

*In my finest Gordon Ramsay voice* "Class 2...done"

Class 2 Week 1 - 4

How To Train Your Dragon

Class 2!!! :D

Week 12

Week 4-6

Week 3

Week 2

It's here!!!

Prep and Landing

The final countdown...

Finishing touches...

Giving it more "snap"...

Do the robot...

Maya Springboard

Back on track :)

1 step forward...2, maybe 3 steps back!!!

And so it begins....

Weight Shift

Walkin'

Runnin'

My first time using Maya

My Birthday :)

My First Entry!!! :)

In my finest Gordon Ramsay voice "Class 2...done"