3AM

Words cannot express my excitement for this class. This was the class where all of my childhood dreams got a taste of realization, as dramatic as that sounds. The most difficult part of this for me was utilizing the graph editor, which I still need work with, but I'm getting the hang of it.

The classic bouncing ball. I actually had a much easier time grasping the operation of rigs and keys than I thought, and I feel I got a quicker handle on 3D animation than 2D. This will forever remind me of the importance of the squash and stretch, as well as slow-ins and slow-outs.

In the project titled "Super Smash Ball" we had to give the ball some character, and tell a story with it and the little star. There's always room for improvement, for example, I wish I would've held the arc of the final jump a little longer, but the nuances of the blocks and bounces help me love this.

Blocking for the walk. When I was doing this all I could think "wow, so easy" but the final week had a big surprise for me. I like this block and I think it conveys the action very well. I made many, MANY slight changes in the following week, but I can't complain. That's animation for you.

What had originally been just a walk turned into a snap, which had, in the end, turned into a gun. Yes, a finger snap into a gun. I wasn't happy with the timing of the snap so I added the finger gun after. I wish I would've added a little bit of trigger pulling and shooting towards the end but I ran out of time. I really enjoyed this, and the difference in flow from the blocking to this is phenomenal. Now that I compare the two, I'm amazed at my progress.

 Unfortunately, this class had to come to an end. My excitement with the career path though has only reaffirmed my belief in my choices, and hopefully I'll be able to keep up with this blog as the months go by! This next class is another portfolio class where animation is the key. I think what I'll do is post my playblasts to this, that will help.

2DA

The first animation class of my time at Full Sail. This class covered the traditional style of animating. Well, for me, anyway. My tablet decided to stop working half way through the first week. I proceeded to do all of my homework on paper, and scanned everything in page by page. Patience, that it what you need to be animator. But lets get to the work.

First graded animation of week 1. I was thinking of Disney's Bambi when I made this, and I like how it turned out. My only change would be to hold the droplet a little more before it falls off the leaf.

The pendulum for week 2. I decided to take it a step further and give it some character. I've always wanted one of these clocks, so I drew one.

The sit to stand. I edited this one a bit, which was very tedious because of the redrawing, rescanning, re-editing process I had to do to get it where I wanted it to be. But whatever it takes, right?

I can't help but laugh every time I see this now. He's doing such a whimsical, loose, unnatural walk. Like he's strolling through down town on his way to the theater when something catches his eye. Anyhow, maybe I should give this another go in the future.

With 2D in the bag, and my tablet still out and being fixed, this class was great fun to be a part of. I enjoyed every minute of it although tedious. I think that's the rub with traditional art: it's much more time consuming and tedious to complete and fix, and that's why this class has given me even more respect for the older ways, and has also underscored to me their importance.