CSANIM 150

So I finally finished my first Animation class. Here are some of the pictures of what I did. It was only 7 weeks with one class period per week. Most of the learning happened on the fly. I don't think either of the images are finished completely but at lease it shows what I've done with my time.

Above is the software running. Those are my legos when I finished the models with some default coloring that I would eventually change so that it looked better and more complete. Below is the finished Render.

After I finished my Lego people I began to work on an insect. The black I chose was a mistake so lots of the detail that I put into the legs was completely lost... I plan on going and painting him again to see if I can't get a better image. Plus I want to pose him so that he's not just perfectly standing but his legs won't be mirrored.

Head Angles

I have been working on making the same character multiple times. I think its called persistence of image or something along those lines. I'm not sure... Anyways, without further ado, here is the project.

Phase 1: (Building the sketch

Phase 2: (Shading)

Computer Science is boring

This is about the only way I can stay awake during computer science. Its 2 hours long and its just watching our teacher program while he explains why he's programming to us. Here is just a small doodle.

Also just because I can. Here's a balloon animal I made at work. Its Darth Vader's Helmit!

ACCEPTED

So Yesterday I received the email I have been nervous about receiving for about 5 years. The BYU Animation department wins the College emmies pretty much every year and get personal visits from Pixar, Dreamworks, and Blue Sky every year. That's the good news, the bad news is that only about 30 students are admitted into the program and... well... more than that apply. 20 are accepted into the art side and 9 into the computer side. I thought my competition's odds were unfair if I had 20 opportunities to be accepted so I chose to apply for the smaller half.

Well anyways, I was doing my Spanish homework in the library when my phone vibrated telling me that I had a new email with the subject name "Pick up your Animation Emphasis Decision." Nervously I opened the email, it read:

Hi all,

The faculty have made decisions for the Animation Emphasis. Please come to the CS Department 3361 TMCB to pick up your decision letter.

Best,
Kim (who must be someone important to know)

Needless to say I abandoned my Spanish homework and began what felt like a trek across the entire Oregon trail to get to the TMCB (The Talmage Building). When I got there I hiked up the stairs and turned the corner to see another applicant opening his letter then bursting out into a huge celebration. Really, he was shouting and jumping and fist pumping and dancing down the hallway. All I could think was, "8 spots left..." Well I got my letter and (acting super chill and collected) shakily walked to the stairwell where I opened my letter. I won't deny a certain amount of fist pumping but I did not dance or scream. Inwardly though I felt like I had just won the Olympics!

Well here is some stuff from my application that I haven't shown yet. They all come from a project that I did in High School. It took a really long time! I built ever piece on the computer, designed the coaster, an found a way to get it working! After designing the coaster I built the actual coaster using real K'nex that the school district was nice enough to buy me! Well here they are. This got me an A in Senior Projects at Grandview. Without further ado:

Ps. I TOTES GOT IN!

Bear sketch

So in a last minute cramming session, I am going to be filling my sketch book up with as many sketches as possible in the next few weeks. Not all of them will be amazing, but I like my style of drawing since I have been home from the mission significantly more than I liked my sketches before the mission. Here is a sketch of  a little girl and a bear that I did yesterday. I like the bear pretty well... I just need to learn to draw little kids better. Maybe I should just draw bigger? I think that's what the biggest problem is with little kids... Or characters in general. But that's what practice is for right? I'm going to focus on drawing people at 3/4 view and I need to work on my clothing folds. I like how the hoodie looks with the simple drape folds but the sleeves need some folds to look more lifelike. Or at least less boring!

Its going to be hard to focus on drawing folds when all i really want to draw are bears now! I think I will just do a bunch of bear sketches and I will work on the folds and faces later. Bears are cool. Just so long as they don't get into your kitchen. Then bears are annoying...

Weekend sketches

These are a few of the drawings that I was working on during the weekend. They are kinda cool. This one I am proud of because I have never drawn a woman that doesn't just look like a man with long hair! So I was looking at a few profiles of women's faces. The differences are subtle but make all the difference. I need to work on hair still... but for now I am happy with it.

This is one I found in my sketch book. I liked it so I decided to work on it a little bit and just shade it differently and rework it. I may have posted it a while back... I don't even know. Its kinda a boring character but I posted it anyways.

Hipster Russian Model

This sunday Doug and I drew a pretty simple drawing of a man's face (we named him the Hipster Russian model). He drew the eye, ear, and hair, while I did everything else. This left me excited with the idea of lines. How do lines effect the composition. I had a lot of fun drawing heavily outlined characters with varying widths of lines. I have always liked outlines. Realism is cool up until the outlines completely disappear. Then I only appreciate it but I don't like to draw it. After working on these two drawings, I aspire to do non-outlined characters even less. It is fitting that on Tuesday we studying UPA animation which focused on escaping from the Disney style and brought outlines back where as Disney was always trying to escape the cartoony.

This one took me a little more time and I didn't draw it during church (which... makes it less embarrassing). I also put a little more effort and time into it so it looks a little more polished. I put an army beret on... just... because I wanted to. My goal for the semester is to learn how to draw hair, so I am going to bug Doug (my roommate) to show me since his hair always comes out amazing.

Finally I have mentioned my project and not shown the progress. Unfortunately that is because the progress has been very slow. Especially because I have had finals. Hopefully I can get back into the lab this weekend and continue to work on it now that my crazy weekends of unbelievable amount of work are over. Here is a quick picture of the basic frames I have been working on for the first animation (a misty 540).

History of Animation

So I have been taking a History of Animation class this semester. I just got to Disney in the 30's and 40's after watching other animators like Charles Mintz (Krazy Kat), Fleisher Brothers (Betty Boop, Popeye, Superman), Winsor Mckay (Gertie the friendly Dinosaur) and Otto Messmer (Felix the Cat, Flip the Frog). Important as they were there is a serious jump by Disney. I AM A FAN! Say what you will about him, I repeat, I am a fan. It is incredible what he has done for the art form, even if he probably was a little hard to work with. Which he was. The class is awesome. For about an hour we talk about history (everything from all over the world from 1880-2013) and then for 3 hours we just watch films. This week we finally arrived to Disney. If you want to see what kind of difference there was between the Disney and Fleisher studios (probably the number 2) look at Disney's "The Band Concert" (1935) and "A Song of the Birds" (1935). Yeah... There's a difference. But Fleisher's Superman series is much more impressive, but they would never be able to catch up. Too little too late, as we say...

Anyways, and on a completely different note, I had a very good idea of a new project that I am going to start working on. I have thought about making videos that explain how to do tricks on trampolines but animated by hand. I've already grabbed the video, which will end up being the references for my animations. They are going to take some time! But I am super excited! I hope that they are impressive. I just wanted something to help me stick out. I have a 4.0 in the pre-req classes and about a 3.6 total gpa so my academic resume should be perfectly fine. I just know that they only accept about 9 people each semester so I needed something that helped me be different from the other applications. I'm going to spend my Saturday mornings in front of a light table. First I am going to go to the library but I want to see if I can use the actual 2D animation labs too. I'm going to go in and talk to a teacher soon. Today I bought my 500 sheets of printer paper and hole punched the first 100 so no I just need to limit the videos down to the ones that I am actually going to use. Super excited to animate myself flipping around on trampolines and jumping into foam pits! I am going to mess with the timing a little bit I think to see how it looks. One cool thing that I have learned about the history of animation is that the world you create is so manipulative, I can do whatever I want! Plus I might add some extra layers to make it more fun. I'm hoping to have them done by April but I will post each one as I finish them.

For today, I offer some pictures of some noses that I was sketching just to get better at them. Noses are a pain for me so I just did a bunch of them last week. Here they are:

Old Disney Character sketches

A long time ago before I came to BYU I asked a friend to teach me how to draw characters. She gave me the challenge of drawing a lot of Disney characters. So I worked on that for a while and drew many of them mixed with my own drawings... Although in quality it is obvious which are professional and which my high school self drew.

 Above is Pumba from The Lion King, and Krunk from The Emperor's New Groove

Below is Genie from Aladin, Tarzan from Tarzan, Zipporah from The Prince of Egypt, and the chick fox from Fox and the Hound.

 Here I was practicing Grumpy's walk cycle. Grumpy is from Snow White.

Finally I worked on coloring one of the many sketches I did of Genie and added my own simple sketch of a goldfish

These are really old sketches and not particularly impressive, but I wanted to save them nonetheless.
PS. Totally just got a D on my New Testament test... Don't tell anyone.