Planning

More lip sync planning ("Respect")

Monday 4th March 2013

For the song performance I decided Aretha Franklin's "Respect" would be the most fun of all the choices -- it allowed for humour and exaggeration because of the style of the song. So before I could draw my thumbnails I had to figure out what kind of moves a person would naturally do when performing this song...

So my moves weren't all animation-worthy, but they gave me some ideas that I then refined, made stronger and drew up as thumbnails.

A couple of things still got changed when I did my animation, but these drawings made a good guide to start from.

Caitlin :)

Lip sync planning

Monday 11th February 2013

I'm already underway with my the first of my two lip syncing tasks, but here is the planning work I did before I started.

 This is the dialogue for the clip I've chosen, with lines drawn above

to show the emphasis and intonation of the words. As well as these

lines representing the tone of voice, they can also be good

indicators of when the facial expression should change.

Having done this, I then recorded myself saying the line over and over in different ways. The character I finally settled on is as below -- some petty person who doesn't want to give up their precious ice cream (the audio is quiet but it's for the expressions and movements anyway):

I then drew thumbnails for the main actions to animate throughout the clip:

So the character starts off quite pleasant and amiable, genuinely offering something, but upon remembering they are holding in plain view something as important as ice cream, they quickly turn sour and defensive. In my reference my head was always inclined in the same direction, but I chose for the animation to have the head go to opposite way once angry to emphasise the difference in mood. They also begin to invade the personal space of whom they are talking to, as if trying to make them back off. This character is very much just a jealous child!

Caitlin :)

Character posing drawings

Wednesday 14th November 2012

In order to create good work we have to plan, plan, plan! So before touching the Maya character rigs I took some photos of myself in some different poses, then used those photos as reference for drawings... and THEN I could use the drawings as reference for my 3D character.

I like the top-left pose, but it's perhaps too relaxed, so I think the top-right

pose is more effective and in-your-face

Penny found the middle-right drawing here the most dynamic and unusual,

so that's the one I'll pursue in 3D (the prop is a phone)

I couldn't think of as many for 'what's under there?', but the top-left

is the most obvious in communicating the phrase

It was interesting to see what poses I naturally took myself for each of these phrases, as even though it was me, they were still things I wouldn't have thought to draw just from my head. I will probably have to use a female character for all of them, though, haha!

And just to embarrass myself -- and to be a proper acting animator -- here are the reference photos of the poses I want to do in 3D.

Caitlin :)


Ball animation storyboard

Friday 19th October 2012

So here are my sketchbook pages for our ball animation exercise, in which we have to make a ten(ish)-second that gives a ball/balls character and purpose.

The first page is some initial ideas, while the second, underneath, is the final storyboarded idea. 

Initial ideas

Final storyboard, in which an energetic bouncy ball dives happily off a box,

followed by a large, heavy ball who rolls cumbersomely off the box.

He's a bit lonely. He doesn't really fit in. :(

Some more exciting camera angles will most likely be added in as I animate once I decide what will keep the action of the balls obvious and readable. I have already started work on animating this in Maya, so shortly I will upload a playblast of my work in progress -- maybe today, since I seem to be on a blog-and-portfolio-spree.

Caitlin :)