Sunday, July 20, 2008

Gestures and Body Language

Hello Everyone and welcome to week 3 ..This week was all about the gesture and with the new week comes a new guest speaker.. This time it was Andrew Gordon from Pixar Animation. And from watching the lecture you can see that Andrew was definitely a gesture kind of a guy, always using his hands while he talks. These are important things to look for when coming up with a personality for your character. He explains in the lecture, what a gesture is and how to look for them, which can be key for making a great animation rather than an ok one. And of course to stay away from cliche.

After watching this awesome lecture I got some feedback from my mentor about my shot.He gave me awesome pointers that would help sell my subtle animation a little better. So I took the critique from him and fellow AMers and put them into a second round of blocking. Then I took all my time for the week to concentrate on the first 125 frames of the animation rather than the whole thing. I wanted to polish the first part before moving onto the second half because I'll be easier for me to fix little things in sections rather than in a huge piece. This way works great for me, but there are so many ways to approach blocking, it all depends on the animator. I know several people who go through the whole thing and spline it rather than doing what I do and break it down into sections. And some people actually do a creative mix between the two where they have most of it in a blocking look and then do the transitions from one pose into the next in a spline form. Its very interesting and worth trying to see if it fits your personal style.

Here is the progress from the end of the week.. The first half is splined while the back half is still in blocking..


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A few little tips that I learned about animation is to go out there,, Have fun and observe. Do research. The more time you spend figuring out your shot in the beginning the better your shot will come out and you'll probably be spending a lot less time re-working everything out. Shoot lots of reference butdont be a slave to it. Reference is there to help and inspire you. And look for unique ways to do things. Have fun and happy animating!

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