Clouds.

First of all, the almost usual walk cycle:
This time I did a double bounce designed by Richard Williams. He says that you can create a nice double bounce by making your passing position a down position, as well as the contacts. The rest are ups, and that gives a funny jumping guy XD.

I think this one did not turned out as good as I expected. It has some flow issues, as well as timming issues.

I really think it needs more power on the extreme positions, like those two contacts. But I'll say the bad timming and posing has to do with my struggle on the planning. I tried to plan the walk beginning with the down positions (the down position method) which seems ok until you need to add the contacts. [if you look carefully, my contacts are not good, nor precisely mirrored].

I do like the arms animation, but they need a better timming. The arcs are fine I guess :P

Must keep working on a way to make movement flow nicely through the entire animation. 



And that's for the walk cycle.
CLOUDS - Or something coming through the clouds. Is a small animation proyect I'm working on to find out an easy way to build up a complete colored animation. It is mostly a research excersice for me to find out:

1. Ways to move backgrounds
2. Create a visual developement style that does not need of high and expensive technology
3. Integration of traditional hand drawn animation with some more digital methods, such as After Effects animation and Flash.
4. A small introduction on sstorytelling - This wont be a full story, it has to look like a scene that may form part of a bigger film. 

Here are my first thumbnails:

Here I explore the look of the clouds, the overall tone and atmosphere.

I want to create something simple, almost like a moving painting. Tiny accents like the birds will be there, leading the finishing animation of the aircraft appearing, which may be the most complicated thing. Still waiting for some designs of that ship. 

Here are some cloud animations I did yesterday.

They are done in photoshop.

This one was animated with AfterEffects, plane by plane. 

This one is too fast for my taste. Clouds are not a fluid; they do not reform so quickly. 

On upcoming updates I'll show some designs for the aircraft, some more animation studies, perhaps another stills, and whatever comes to my mind ^^.

<><><><><><><>

And for the Illustration part, I finally finished that Goat Kid portrait I've been working on for a while.

I'm quite happy with the result, specially the light and color it has. I'm the kind of guy that prefers dark pictures with few hues, but hey, colors are great too! :D (but not that easy to control hahaha)

And that's all for now!

Thanks for reading! :)

A small update - Digital Animation

Hey, I'm using a new layout here, I think it's better than the super complicated thing that was before. It loads faster and you can scroll till the bottom, checking many posts at once.

And for today: Digital Animation, but the frame by frame type, so what is digital is just the medium. That is, no weird, great, uber-hi-tech involved on it.

I'm talking about the animation I began working on Photoshop the other day. The goat guy just standing there, when suddenly he sees or is told something, and then he goes away.

reaction
change of pose - weights
The beginning of a walk! - Yes, I thought that putting a character into a walking position was going to be a huuge deal, and it was not so bad at all.
Animation looks not so fluid for the last frames, I know, it just needs some more inbetweens, but I guess movement is already solved and understandable. Don't you think??

And now the next proyect will be:

SOME KIND OF DIALOGUE!
>I'll try to make some mouth gestures with a generic face :P
>But first I'll finish another walk cycle, this time a "double bounce" suggested by Richard Williams.


<><><><><><><><><><>
As for sketching and drawing, I've been working mostly on concept art stuff, landscapes and such.

Couple of sketches just to remember how this guy looks. I think the one on the right is a little bit off the model, the left one is just perfect ^^. A young dude with an innocent look, yet somewhat cranky - doubtful. 

This are some of the things I've doing to improve my landscapes. The first one is a very quick sketch with color and light in mind. 

The second one is something far more elaborated. It was done with the Goat Guy's story in mind. I thought of the city where he may arrive, at mid-day, with the sun coming from the right. 

Image planes where really useful to give the illusion of depth. 

And adding those tiny figures at the bottom really creates magnitude on the scene! (something I've been trying to do for a long while, with no success at all)

Two new animations and a Portrait

The Goat Kid animation (that dude needs a name) is ready!! Here you have it:

I had a great time working with this one. And I learned a lot too, I had to re-think and re-draw his ears because they were moving too slow, I worked a little bit more with his jaw, even the animation is quite simple there. I also added that cloth on his neck, which adds a lot to the overall movement; its flow.



I tried to do some line cleanup by tracing each sketchy-frame on a new piece of paper. I usually do not do this, and even I do prefer to not do it at all. It does takes time and some effort, and its a process which does not has to do a lot with animation, at least that's what I noticed. The animation is already solved by the sketch stage, loose lines are good enough to show the viewer what the character does. The cleaning process is more an aesthethics thing, something more involved in finishing a product.

I guess it is quite useful for a production, but for a student, not quite. It does gives a nice look and an easy read, but again, I prefer to keep exploring and trying animation things, than tracing everything over and over again.

And here is another tiny animation I began working on the other day. It's done in photoshop and has yet to be finished. Just keyframes and another two frames are done, but I think the movement is clear enough.

I'm wishing to add a nice "idle" before the movement, as well as a settle down right after it. 

<><><><><><>

And some non-animated stuff now.

I did some sketches just to practice poses, when the idea came to me: Why not interacting with the character while you draw it[him/her]???  

It's quite fun, at least it adds something extra to the poses excersice, while you work with the character's personality and reactions. 

Fun thing to do ;)

And here it is something I've been working on regarding digital painting:

Its an animated gif that shows the progress until now. 

I was thinking on adding a background and some more light.

Thanks for reading!!! :D