De nuevo a flote. y otras notas

Bueno, ya terminé la escuela y tengo un poco de tiempo libre en mis manos de nuevo. Así que escribiré.

En primer lugar (y notarán que ahora está en español el blog... ya buscaré como traducir sin perder mucho tiempo, cualquier idea es bienvenida) me pondré por meta conectarme mucho más con el medio de la animación y el arte digital. Espero encontrar blogs de interés y links que valgan la pena compartir y los colocaré aquí, comenzando por estos:

DEADLINE SURVIVOR blog

Este blog habla de algunas cositas de animación referentes al mercado, el medio, algunas recomendaciones (como la última que me parece muy buena[Cómo tratar con colegas] ) y temas varios. Muy vigente para todos nosotros que estamos comenzando en este negocio.
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Tim Rudder's Animation Mentor Progress Blog

Si buscan algo de inspiración para empezar a entrenar animación en 3D desde lo más básico, con un clásico muñeco descargado de internet, aquí es donde hay que buscar.
Tim se ha puesto a la tarea de colocar su progreso en este blog donde se pueden ver sus ideas, las instrucciones que se le asignan, y sus soluciones y correcciones.
Es algo así como mirar sobre el hombro de un buen estudiante de animación, y pues claro, tener la oportunidad de seguir sus pasos.







Y en cuanto a mis proyectos personales, quisiera poner algunas cosas, ya que tiene rato que no actualizo.

ESTORNUDO

Este fue otro ejercicio de escuela. Tenía varios temas juntos a tratar, como overlapping, buen timming, vibración y follow through.

Creo que en éste me tomé demasiado tiempo diseñando al personaje y dibujándolo como loco que realmente trabajando en su timming, por eso es que al final hay errores y cosas bastante raras.

No estoy diciendo que esté totalmente mal el ejercicio, hay cosas que sí me gustaron, como la absorción de aire, pero la trompa del final podría haber quedado muchísimo mejor. ¿Ustedes qué opinan?


DIÁLOGO
Síi! mi primer trabajo de animación de diálogo. Tomado de uno de los ejercicios de 11 seconds club, éste diálogo es parte de alguna película de por ahí. La intención no es copiar la escena sino representar la forma en la que los diálogos se van diciendo. [ESCUCHAR CON AUDIO]

 Como podrán notar faltan muchos inbetweens, animar más el final, la explosión, etc. Pero el poco tiempo no daba para más...
aun así creo que se logró dar el acento a las partes del diálogo que valían la pena, y en lo personal, me gusta mucho como quedó el diálogo del tipo del final :P

BAILOTEO DE UN CONEJO
Este es otro de los ejercicios escolares, esta vez tratando algo de movimientos repetidos, ritmo, etc.

Debo admitir que me ha resultado mucho más difícil de lo que parece animar un baile, sobre todo porque hay tantas cosas que se pueden hacer, pero obviamente hay que elegir entre una de ellas, y eso, precisamente eso, descartar movimientos, me cuesta trabajo...Por lo que termino con una animación llena de cosas que es todo menos clara...

En fín, aquí el resultado, con cambios en el terminado, así que AUNQUE LA CANCIÓN SE LOOPEE. HAY COSAS DIFERENTES EN CADA LOOP, COMO LA LÍNEA, EL COLOR, COLOR CAMBIANDO DE RITMO, ETC. Así que chéquenlo hasta el final que esta animación es de las primeras que coloreo :P

Por el momento es todo! Muchas gracias por leer, y recuerden, todos los comentarios son bienvenidos!! :D 

Traditional Animations Update (from school)

School and some proyects have taken my time away from writting on my blogg, but here I am again, trying to keep it up to date.

The next excercises are all part of the school course designed to teach a little bit of traditional animation, using Richard Williams' Animator's Survival Kit as a guide.

SIMPLE CAT DOING A SIMPLE WALK 

Checking simple walks again, this time was required as an assignment. I think it came up better than the last ones I've done, considering that this time I solved entirely by myself, without books or references.

It is kind of fast and exaggerated, but hey, it is a cartoon after all =P



A FAT BEAR 

Aaah this bear walking, I really enjoyed working on this one.
I wanted to work with weights, counteractions and some overlaps too, and a fat bear had all it was needed to do so.

I went through a lot of planning for this one, i had to:
>think about how his tiny legs would open to avoid tripping with his belly

>Show a good weight not just with size but with timming

I made these charts to figure out the poses and the extremes on the belly (curve). The curve shows how the weight shifts from left to right. Since the curve is not entirely symmetrical, the belly goes slowly to the side, then returns quickly to the center, and then goes again.

>Understand how mass remains static until something acts upon it (the leg pushes the belly forward and to the side)

>Have balanced poses through the walk cycle. 

Here is the finished animation, the first gif has only key poses.

A HAPPY WALK

Not much can be said here. The enterity of the movement and poses were taken from the book...And yet is too fast for my taste.

GOAT KID DOING A SNEAK

Awww yeah! I really loved working on this one too! But maan it was hell of a ride...

It is a slow movement, so I needed lots of frames... this one runs at 33 per step, making a huge total of 65 frames.

The excercise was asked to be worked on 12fps(twos), but I thought "hey, perhaps the goat kid deserves a little bit more effort, I'll go for 24(ones)"  Hahaha, what a crazy idea! I drew tons of tiny goat kids this past week!
Certainly it was really hard to do the entire animation, and what is more, cleaning it up.

I worked on the pencil test at first, fixed some head and arm issues, and the went to the cleanup phase, in which the clothes and face were added.

As you can see, the clothes are not perfectly done, but I like them ^^. In fact, I really like this animation, even if it's not perfect. First, I like it because it as one of my characters, and actually makes me think he is there moving!! :D

Second, it took me a huge effort to finish it on time(almost). And third, it has to be my first nice cleanup :P.

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And for the non-animated stuff, here are some pastel pictures I did:

thanks for reading!! :D

Walk and Fall - A traditional animation

Some more school excercises, this time a guy that walks, gets distracted and falls.


DISTRACTION while walking

gif:

This one was planned with these things in mind:
-A walk (any walk)
-The character turns around
-Something obstructing his path
-Character hits object
-Character falls

But let's see the planning here :D

PLANNING

The first ideas came up with a simple character who looks like a cat because of the funny horns I drew on his head. But those are just to figure out the head rotation :P

I began sketching something on the paper (left), exploring some funny poses and important sequences that told the simple story (narrative - what's going on)

I also doodled the way I wanted the walk to be a crazy walk with some spaghetti movements.

Here I laid down some preliminary poses. Designing the movement is important and fun to do. Is spend a lot of time during this phase, writting down ideas that will affect movement, thinking about particular aspects of the walk cycle, etc.

Since the character had to turn around, I began to thing when he was going to do it (top of the page), and also doodled how and with what he crashes.

At the bottom of the page I created the way he was going to begin walking. I noticed I've never designed such a thing before. My characters just came walking through the page, but never began walking  XD. In any case, it was a good opportunity to think about it.
I added a quick anticipation to the moment he begins with the step, just to let the audience know something is about to happen. 

In this piece of paper I drew the walk cycle I was going to use. The important poses (contacts, downs, passings and ups) are designed here.
There is nothing too crazy here, but I wanted to begin exploring something fun with the arms at least.

And, if you remember from my past works, this time I decided to do a simpler set of legs, with a simpler, more cartoony set of joints :P


LAYOUTS

For the drawings I call "layouts" I drew the poses and extremes which I considered the most important ones.
Some spacing can be seen here,

Beginning of the step - Here I draw the anticipation and how he begins moving his left leg

Here the overall walkcycle is laid down. In this case I wanted him to approach to the viewer with some perspective, which made the cycle expand while going forward. That was knew since all my walks were from side to side or frontal view.

In this one, the contact pose, I just drew the turning (I studied that in more depth later on). In this sheet I also wrote down my time charts for the steps, figuring out when he was going to hit the post.

The last layout, when he falls down, rests a little, and then goes to the floor. I added the path his arms were going to follow when falling (blue)

TIMMING

Timming suffered some changes from the one I build in the beginning.
At first, I was thinking of a huuuge walk cycle, but then noticed the character had to be turning around a little bit more time before hitting the post.

The bar below shows the new timming, where the impact is changed, and there is more hold time for the character to understand what happened to him :P


THE TURN

The turning of the character was something new to me, as well as fun to work with.
I decided he was going to turn his head and upper torso around while his legs would keep walking.

Since the turning happens during the walk, it was important to make the movement natural. Without a good care, the turn could look away from the character's intentions, more like a robot. to avoid that, I mixed the walk with the turn, using the arms' motion to give the eye something to follow, and then turning the entire head quickly.
I added a small blink to it, just to keep it natural ^^

The Animator - a run cycle and others

Today's update includes a run cycle I'm designing, some updates on the clouds animation project, finished pictures and some studies.

THE RUN CYCLE
Here you have!
The first one has alot of moving stuff. I decided to make the beak move that much to keep the viewer distracted from the huge movement the entire head has.

The second one has a more controled movement.
The good-
His hands make a better arc.
The stride is smaller.
Has a tiny follow through body-head.
The bad- 
eyes are all over the place.
Beak is not yet as smooth as it should
CUSHION-IN needed when his body bends. Right now it goes too fast.

THE CLOUDS ANIMATION PROJECT

I decided to work with a vibrant color palette, with white clouds and a sky that fades to the night.

Right now I'm working with the tiny birds that will appear just before the big aircraft comes in.
Here are some tests.

I prefer the one on the right. Although it is not that smooth on its animation, it does work better than the other one, pushing it's body up with every wing flap. The one on the left is just too mechanical. 

And here are some shots on how I'm composing those birds in the entire scene. 

The first picture shows a simple path I'm following for the bird's movement (black arrows). 

The white path shows how a single bird goes up and down while moving forward.

This other picture shows how some birds will look. They are going to be really small, just to add a good sense of scale.

I've just animated one single bird and duplicated it. I was thinking on duplicating the same bird to create the bunch of birds I'm looking for, but something weird happens.

If I duplicate the same bird and just change its position, it obviously looks bad. To avoid that, I made some birds begin late and others early. Everything looks fine at the beginning, but suddenly a flickering effect shows. 

I guess it has to do with the movement repeating itself. In any case, I'll animate some other birds and work with those, something like 5 will do the trick. 

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SOME MOUTH DYNAMICS

Yeah, I said I was about to begin working with that. And I am! I've been testing out some ways of making characters talk. Right now I just have a cat making some "ahhm" or "miau" expression.

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And time for some drawing! 

The illustration I was working on for the past weeks is finished!

Yes, I decided to end it up just before I began to smooth out the brush strokes, which, I believe, add a lot to the entire picture.

I'm quite happy with this one because of tons of reasons! 

I'm finally beginning to understand how a picture can create a story, revolve around some characters, and make people imagine something.  It's really fascinating how with a single frame you can  say so much ^^. I'm eager to work on some more illustrations, with better stories, different places, techniques, etc. 

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THE ANIMATOR.

Browsing some art sites, animation articles, and blogs, I found the animator. It is quite easy to just think of an animator as the guy that makes funny characters move, but there is much more to it, and if I want to be one, I'de better understand it. 

Artists, as people with the possibilities to create new ideas from almost anything, have to make decisions. An animatior might be an artist, that is, it has to make decisions, art decisions, but also, animation decisions. To be an animator then involves someone to act and think as both, an artist and an animator. But, how is it different one from another?

Well, the artist would make decisions on how colors may be used, how figures represent ideas, how composition may help tell a story, etc. 

An animator decides how stuff moves, why, and how that movement adds to the character [pathos] of a certain being. 

That said, I just noticed I haven't done much of any.

I've drawn, yes, and I've animated, yes, but have not yet made my brain think as an animator. 

Studies, just like the ones artists make to find the perfect color combination(palettes), the best way of portraying someone, or the ones animators make to invent a new walk, are the fundamental element on such a career. The lack of it may be the reason there are frustrated guys that want to animate, bad animations, mediocre studioes, etc. 

That's why I decided to begin my journey on a much more concrete and practical way of studying. Here are some of starters:

Boring blue parrot. It seems pastels look better if not smudged, at least on grainy papers.

A weird steampunk car. Made on a smoother paper, pastels were smudged here. 

These two are some quick pastel studies with two main purposes:

1.- find out how to use pastels

2.- create some color studies, only choosing among just 36 colors. (I will use this on digital pics too)

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This sketches were some design studies of  NEOFELIS NEBULOSA | CLOUDED LEOPARD.
I was looking for a way of simplifying the animal's figure into an appealing design.
I also tried to make some designs following china and aztec cultures.

And that's all for today! 

Thanks for reading ^^ 

ANIMATION. Tea Drinking

It's finished!!
I know it's not clean or colored, but the animation is finished.

This was an excercise to understand how to use a simple background. Make a character do something else than walking, learn to study a certain pose or movement, and an overall scene construction.

I really like how it turned out.

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and a sketch I did at school.

Tiny update this time, I know, but I must scan other two finished animations, I'll upload them in the next days :D

thanks for reading!

Bitácora del Capitán

I created a tumblr days ago :   http://arturoarias.tumblr.com/

Thinking about this blog I decided to use it more as an animation journal [animalog], I think is more fun and useful in the long run.

Here I found another way of solving the hand movement. I was making just too much for such a tiny intention (getting a cup) I guess it looks more comfortable now.

Those are some of the planning pages I did for the animation below(still in progress). With those I figure out, before animating, what is going to happen, why and how. It usually takes me more than expected, arond 2 hours... haha, but I can tell you it's worth it. Doing a non planned animation is not that easy, and the results are often weird, and if you do get something good, you have no idea how you did it... That's why is nice to keep things organized.

Also, I have to admit I just love to draw poses and study them, you learn things from it: you research how stuff works, you put it in practice, and test it during the animation - if it works, good, if not, then do it again. That adds up a lot to your skill :P

Things spotted:
-I like how he turns his head
-It doesn't look so smooth - still running on twos (12fps)
-remember to add an overlap on those ears
-I do like the finishing movement of his left hand, not so much the beginning of it

That's it for this one. I should check the initial part of the hand and continue animating:
-when he touches the cup
-when he takes the cup to his mouth
-drinking

Seems to be a lot to be done! And its taking long, but I'm learning a lot of stuff in the process, and enjoying it too! :)

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Also, I did this other walk cycle. Really simple, treadmill movement.
I must say I do not like to animate walk cycles "on a treadmill" - I can't figure out the correct way the body moves and reacts to the step. It's weird to go the other way around like feet>legs>thighs>torso instead of the usual way, letting the torso fall to the ground because of gravity and use the legs to keep it from falling, all of that while the body actually goes forward. That's why I think doing the entire movement forward is better, but that's me.
You can do quite good and easy .gifs with the treadmill though XD

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Regarding the guy with the spilling milk and all, I'm done with that. But my scanner went crazy, went to buy a new one, and now all the frames must be scanned... and they are a lot, so I'm taking it slow, but it will be ready for the next post ;).

But here, have a simple pencil test for the guys movement. That's the final timing and acting.

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Aaaand Some art stuff and sketches that have nothing to do with animation, at least directly (but it makes you a cool artist yey!!! haha).

Wild dog references

Wild dog character

Those are some characters I did, used a different method this time, trying to keep the flow of ideas despite correct anatomy or any kind of technicality involved. I must say it worked!

Observation practice - Oils

I wanted to practice some light and shadows with just a grayscale palette. I never did such a study, at least with oils, I was too scared, but It's not that hard, at least with just two colors XD I'll add a third one on the next study and see what happens :P


Aaaand that's all for now!
Go watch The Croods, quite nice art and good story, I liked it ^^

Thanks for reading!! :D