Week 8: Blocking Plus

Late again! I know, I know. I will be better! I got distracted by the Oscars on Sunday and then spent a full three days thinking about the sheer perfection that was Jennifer Lawrence and Adele and Michelle Obama. But I'm back! Let's get down to business.

So for Week 8 we are into blocking plus, which means we are out of stepped, which means this is the scariest and most stressful part of my workflow. It's gotten significantly less scary since I started AM but it's still unsettling to see your work splined for the first time and worry that all the good things you put into your blocking have been lost to Maya's unfortunate inbetweens. And while this week was a bit rougher than the past few, I think I've got the bones of what I want in there now and can start cleaning up and polishing. See for yourself:

Mike gave me Blocking Plus approval and had a few notes on what to focus on as I begin polishing, namely some spacing issues with Stewie's limbs as he swings around. But all in all, I feel as though I am in a good place and am moving forward, which is always nice. Now I really need to get down into the detail of each shot and start polishing all the little things. Come back next week and see how I did!

Week 10! We're closing in!

Oh hey so I only have two weeks of school left WHAT?! I know I keep asking this but WHERE DOES THE TIME GO? Really. It's freaking me out. It's Decemeber! How?!

Admist all this freaking out, I did finally take my shot out of stepped, which was scary. But I think that I finally got out of that middle "I've forgotten how to do everything" phase now, and the shot is ripe to be fully polished next week. So I'm thankfully back on schedule! See for yourself:

Marlon asked me to change the ending so that Stewie stays in frame, and to do whatever I could to make the gag as funny as possible. After some invaluable feedback from Marlon and my peers, I decided on this ending, where he lands on his bum, because landing on your bum is always funny, duh. I'm pretty happy with it at this point, especially after kind of losing my way on this shot last week. I still have quite a bit of polish to do next week so come back soon to see what I do with it! Cheers!

Week 6 (Half-Way!) and a Lady Animators Update

Where does the time go? I'm already half done with Class Two! How did that happen? I guess we'll NEVER KNOW. So, this week was significantly less busy than the last one, since I do not go to Vegas. BUT I did parade around in a Wonder Woman costume on Wednesday night, which was lots of fun.

And of course, I worked on my shot. This week moved in Blocking Plus, which is always scary and exciting. Things are really moving! But they look kind of bad! Make it look better! Ah! Keeping those four exclamatory sentences constantly in mind, this is what I came up with this week:

To be honest, this week was a bit of a struggle. I got a bit overwhelmed with cleaning up the graph editor, which was a tall order since I set so many keys when blocking. The is by and far the hardest shot I've ever done terms of physicality and I'm still seeing a million things I want to fix. And while it was hard, I'm proud of where I got though I think I've got a lot of polishing to do next week.

In other news, I've put up two more interviews over on Lady Animators! I spoke to Rachel Hanson and Julie Nelson, who both work at DreamWorks and are both fantastic, talented people. Click on over there to learn about how sad Rachel gets when the only "J" available at work for a PB&J is the orange marmalade flavor and read about allll the velociraptors Julie has animated. 

Well that's all this week, loves. Come back next week for another double-header: my polished shot AND planning/reference for my next one. Whoo! See you then!

Third Week Means Blocking Pluuuus!

Haaaaallo! You are looking mighty fine this week, readers. Is it because of all the crazy baseball that's been happening? I've had four separate heart attacks during these playoffs so far, just FYI. But you aren't here for Giants talk! You're here for animation funtimes. And you are going to get it, friends! Though, if you want to talk baseball in the comments, I'm totally open to that. 

This week our assignment was to continue working on our shot and do a "blocking plus" pass. Now, this pass means something different for every animator, it appears. My mentor said this pass usually only takes him a day to a day and a half, so it's slightly odd that AM gives us an entire week to do it. He also said it can go one of two ways: 

1) Your blocking pass is in good shape, so for blocking plus, take it into spline and start finessing. Go into it with a "finaling" mindset, sort of like you're polishing up your blocking pass . Add in things like overlap, drag, follow through. 

2) Your blocking needs to be heavily reworked, parts may need to be redone completely. In this case, stay in stepped and address your notes, re-blocking what needs to be re-blocked. 

Fortunately, I was in category one for this week, so I splined up my blocking pass and dove in. But before I splined I addressed Marlon's notes, which were generally positive. He just asked me to bring down Ballie's foot a little on the second step and fix a few of the weird ankle poses I had going on. And not to forget to attach my video reference next week. Oops. 

I'm quite happy with how this one came out. Turns out planning really does help you work faster. Who would have thought, right?

Marlon also urged us to not feel put down if we had to re-block. He said it happens to him all the time at Disney. Very rarely, in fact, does a director give him the go ahead on his first blocking attempt. Notes are meant to help and as I'm finding out, they nearly always do!

Okay lovelies, I have to go rest up for all the San Francisco sports games tomorrow. See you next week!