Hello,
Since loosing all the data off my Digicel USB drive I have been trying to find some time to do the exerise again.
Here it is, this time however I have drawn the key frames while watching the tutorial, then I watched the tutorial again.
Finally I have drawn the in-betweens without refering back to the tutorial, pressing F3 and F4 to flip backwards and forwards to try and see the flow of motion.
It was quite hard to begin with to determine where I have come from and where I am going to so the animatin flows. I am determined to get good at this so I will keep at it.
Need to sort out the head animation as I would like it to gently move from side to side, I have just finished and wanted to update my blog. I will create a Maya version later in the week.
Let me know what you think so far.
Hey Andrew, this is looking really nice, well done! Good rhythm going.
ReplyDeleteHis right leg seems a tiny bit jerky - not as flowing as the left leg - but that's a fairly minor point. Nice one!
Hey there Andrew, thats some impressive work you got there. I'm at the very beginning of the learning path in that feild. This work of yours would seem to me way ahead of me since I'm still in the Primitive man video in the Maya core course.
ReplyDeleteI really hope I can join that field 'n change my career to being an animator and a cartoonist, it's always been my dream. I'm not a professional artist though. Didn't study art nor have I ever had a sketchbook for professional work but, I do have 10's of doodles of cartoon caracters crowding my Engineering books and copybooks so I believe I have it.
Did you learn art or were those animations just by simply following tutorials? what would you recommend for me during and after finishing the Maya core course if I wanna follow the animation path either to cartoons or computer graphics?
Hi Ahmed,
ReplyDeleteThanks, I appreciate your comments about my work. I too started at the Primitive Man, in no time you will find your able to create some great work without even thinking about it.
Your animation route depends alot on how much money you have really. You could do the classroom based Animation course at Escape for twelve weeks costing around 8k but it would mean quitting work and supporting yourself while you study, on the plus side after twelve weeks you will be an animator.
Personally I cannot afford that.
The next option or Animation is Animation Mentor, its an on-line animation school designed to feed the big studios like Pixar, Dreamworks etc with animators. Its an 18 Month course but you can do it at home over the internet so you can continue to work while you study, the cost is around 12k.
The alternative which I have gone for is Jason Ryan animation, that costs £500 and is a suite of tutorials that teach you how to animate by drawing a stick figure to get the timing and spacing, then take the still images you have drawn into Maya to use as reference to move the Boris character rig. Jason does a two hour live webinar each month which is an Animation master class, he is just starting a new series in August 09 that will teach cartoony animation. The link is www.jasonryananimation.com. If you contact him you should get a discount if you purchase his tutorials. Jason used to be an Animation Mentor mentor and currently works for Dreamworks Animation he is a great guy who will always answer your emails. They have a forum to post your work for crit or just ask a question to get advice. I highly recommend it to give you a taste of things to come, if you really like it them invest in Animation Mentor.
I didn't learn to draw, the drawn examples on my blog are from the Jason Ryan tutorials. You need to get a copy of digicel flipbook and preferably a wacom or tablet PC. I bought a cheap HP TC4200 for £250 off ebay, it is great for drawning direct on the screen and as its mobile I can draw in the garden and be more creative. I try to watch the tutorials and do the drawning on my own, they take alot longer as i have to work out where to draw each body part that is moving. Its a great place to start and its not that expensive either. So long as you have a broadband connection at home your good to go.
Anyway, thanks for writting me a message!
Good luck
And let me know what your blog is so I can check out your work.
rgds
Andrew
I don't have a blog yet but, as soon as I put my foot on the animation path I'd definitely make one so that wonderful people like you would visit and tell me what they think :)
ReplyDeleteThose days I'm thinking of quitting my job cause it's sucking the life outta me big time. I don't have time or energy to do anything else let alone practice what I've always wanted to do.
And Andrew, Thank you so much for your priceless advice and selfless yet continuous help (not just to me but to many people as I've read on the escape forums). You really overwhelm me with your kindness.
Respect..
Ahmed
Way to go Andrew- nice and snappy. Nice form. I have a question why is the head facing right? Is it like a guy marching and has been give the command "eyes right" anyway, nice job Stuart Learning through JRA
ReplyDeleteThanks Ahmed,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy helping people, I always see if I can answer questions in the Escape forum.
I don't think you should quit your job to learn animation, unless you have alot of money to do a twelve week course at escape.
My day job gets me down too and I would love say stick it to my boss and learn animation all day but I would still have to provide for my family and pay the bills.
So stick with it my friend, if you can earn while you learn you will get there in the end.
Please bear in mind you and I are up against students who have studied animation full time for four years not to mention all the freelancers out there, with the best will in the world quitting your job to learn at home is not going to get you the skills you need.
Let me know what you decide to do.
Hi Stusuzy,
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking a look at my walk cycle, your right he is marching along and is not supposed to look left. hahaha I do need to finish him off. When I shown Jason an earlier version I had him turning his head completely left and right but was told that was too much. I have found it quite hard to get the head to do suble turns has he walks. I don't want to keep trying as I will get bored and frustrated, really need to move it into maya now and do the head turn and polish there.
Did you catch the Series 2 JRA Webinar at the weekend? It was really cool, I have downloaded the Moom character rig and have started to have a play doing some animation to get used to it, I must admit I am getting bogged down with the number of key frames all over the place, without planning what I am doing it sure does get messy quite quickly. Actually I may use the Moom rig instead of boris to do my character walk as I used boris for the last two tutorials.
Let me know what your animation blog is so i can check out your work, I did have a look at your capentary blog but couldn't find any links to animation, it did look like a work site.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to look at my work and leave me a comment.
speak soon
Andrew :-)
coming out Great .. very fluid .. loved spacings..keep going ..!
ReplyDelete