justin owens

Hello blogosphere, it’s been a while. Until recently, I had been quite busy with school and the bakery. I’m still at the bakery, but only two days a week for the time being. School is out for winter break, my finals are behind me. As usual, they aren’t as final as I had hoped they’d be, but I’m happy with their progress. I’m looking forward to working on them more over the break.

I’ve otherwise been resting up and planning out some personal projects. I’ve also had the time to do one of my favorite past times, discovering *new artists! Two such artists I came across the last few days are Jeffrey Turley and Sam Nielson. Check em out.

I’m also feeling like tackling some 1mr work. With school and all we hadn’t gotten around to any updates. I said I’d pitch in when I had some time. Well, time, I has it.

*new to me that is

I went into the lab yesterday to start on my pose test for my final project (Intro to Animation 2d). Two hours and 42 drawings later, I had something to show. I didn’t quite finish the pose test, I still need to draw out the last sequence in which the dog springs to life, frolics around and then runs off screen. There are also some sections where I skipped some drawings, such as elwyn entering screen right and sweeping as well as a few of the walk sections.

Some of that was due to time constraints. I wasn’t sure exactly how to approach those sections or exactly how I wanted him to walk. I’d jump to the next section so I could keep the action moving and then I’d approach the walks later.

The timing definitely still needs work, but I like the overall feel. There are some areas where I wanted to have a pause and I just didn’t space out the drawings enough for that to come through (such as when he first checks on the dog. His hand is supposed to hover above the dog for a moment and then he quickly taps it).

So far this is my favorite part of 2d animation, the really rough figuring things out stage. I only have 13 more days until this is due and I imagine I’ll only be in the lab for a handful of said days. Lots to do! I’m hoping to make it in on Sunday, Monday and maybe Tuesday as well. But of course I need to put time into my other projects as well. I’m looking forward to finishing up this semester and having time for my own projects, but I’m having fun.

 

 Stitched Together Pose Test: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I opened up my wushu animation for the first time since midterms. I had gotten it about 85% finished by the time it was due. As usual, once I had it turned it, I felt burnt out on the project and didn’t much have the energy to finish it. Our teacher has really been encouraging us to keep bringing him updates each week so he can help us refine and finish the animations.

Today I felt the excitement again and jumped on in. I have some sections I need to refine and polish, but overall I felt something needed to be done about the timing. Where I had left off, both jumps felt the same as far as the beats are concerned. There was variation in height and action, but I felt they didn’t have enough contrast. I started playing with the timing of the first jump to see how it would feel. I really slowed things down going into the jump and then went back to “real time” as he comes out of the apex of the jump.

I really think it’s an improvement. Now when I watch it, I think both jumps stand out. Slowing down the timing of the first jump is going to give me a nice opportunity to play up his expressions in that section (now that you can see them!).

To do:

• Work on the first pose and anticipation. Possibly a transition A to B pose of him getting ready to move (cracking knuckles, stretching sorta thing).
• Fix the intro/outro of the second jump. The timing feels off a bit.
• Work on the last “hop”. Doesn’t feel right yet.
• Refine expressions and hand poses.
• Offset keyframes after everything else is done!

Here’s where I left off:
wushu midterm

Adjusting the timing of the first jump:
wushu refinement 01

Hmm, a bit of funkyness with PodPress. I’ll have to get that sorted out.

 

 Podcast Video: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The workshop was partially successful tonight, I got two sketches out of it, but nothing quite as solid as last week. I didn’t have anything in particular I was drawing towards, and I think that really made a difference.

I’m in the computer lab at school putting the final touches on my wushu animation. I need to work on my timing a bit, touch up some of my key poses and add in the facial expressions. After that I think I’ll be ready to start offsetting my keyframes. I have a bit of a back log of animations (2d and 3d) that I haven’t posted, I’m going to try and get those online in the next few days.